A balanced bid?

@taamvan Can you say a bit more about what Japan is doing in your games? It’s true that with a well-executed KGF Germany will be contained to the core territories of France, NW Europe, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania – but that’s still worth $30 a turn and it takes the Allies a very long time to build and load enough transports to crack it.

Meanwhile, a pure KGF usually leaves Japan free to take India, then the Caucasuses, then Moscow – the Allies can certainly rush a few fighters to Moscow, but sending even one ruins the only practical Russian national objective, and if you build too many then you never get enough Allied ground troops to crack the German turtle – fighters in Moscow can’t reach to support an attack on France.

In my experience, without a bid and with NOs on, the Japanese attack on Moscow is much faster than the American attack on Paris, let alone Berlin. How does the Pacific play out in your games?

@mobius1:

You know, maybe you’re right. My countering Japan strategy is mostly a throwback to the old version. But now it may be a better choice to have Russia go all out against Germany, since I think I have a good chance of pulling it off.

There have been many times that I could have secured Poland if I had enough tanks…

Put some allied (UK/USA) fighters with that stack of forward Russian troops and you should be able to safely get to/hold Eastern Poland.  That territory is a key piece in the theatre of war.  Whoever controls that (Germany/allies) can effectively dead zone 6 territories that it borders.  Also, those allied fighters are not out of play based in EPL.  In conjunction with the a/c strategy that Argothair posted for an allied navy, the ftrs can even hit france.

They can be, goof2658, but Japan has the option of moving two of its carriers over to Tokyo Bay on J1, and up to four fighters can land there after the Pearl Harbor / San Diego J1 attacks. That’s plenty of protection against one bomber.

So, if you want to maximize your attack on Asia, rather than your attack on the US Pacific navy, you can kind of stack up near Tokyo instead of stacking in the Caroline Islands. Depending on how many of your fighters survived, this is often a good idea anyway, because your stack may not be safe in the Carolines.

As this topic has fallen asleep, I want to discuss the allied bidding strategies in aa50-41, no tech, low-luck, bid: 13 IPC

I - Russian fighter

a) fighter on the western front, maybe on Caucasus to eventually kill the German transport in the med or to Karelia to make a German assault to expensive (high losing risk and forgoing too many other targets) and eventually killing the lone German transport (if the cruiser attacked the UK destroyer)

The 3 IPC left can be used for any allied country, e.g. an infantry in Egypt

b) fighter on the eastern front to Buryatia to kill the transport in SZ 62

b1) With 3 IPC go to the US and buy an infantry on the Philippines, land the fighter there. 3 Inf + 1 Fighter is hard for Japan lacking one transport and having no shore bombardment
b2) With the 3 IPC go to UK, e.g. Egypt, land in Yakut und go to the western front against Germany
b3) With an infantry bid in Burma or India: land in Yunnan. Yes, this is a sacrifice, but 3 Inf + 2 Fighters just allow the Japanese to clear the country, but probably not conquer it. This will slow the Japanese very much in moving against India.

II Anti-Manchuria

Bid: 1 Inf to Buryatia and 1 tank to Soviet far east and one to Stanovoj C.

attack Manchuria with 4 Inf + 2 Tanks - 2,5 units left is the expected result in low luck, means 2 tanks or 2 tank + 1 inf
a hard punch against Japan but no bid for Africa/Europe

III-UK fleet

IIIa destroyer in SZ2

While SZ 2 is still attractive, only 2 subs + fighter + bomber is a safe deal.
Which means Germany has to sacrifice one fighter in SZ 12 for at least one battle round to secure the Italian fleet.

IIIb destroyer in SZ12

in SZ 12 the italien fleet is endangered severely so Germany must attack here.
both attacks, SZ 2 with 1 sub+fighter+bomber and at the same time SZ12 with sub+2 fighter make both somewhat risky, probably losing a fighter for Germany too.

the 5 IPC remaining will probably be a UK tank in Egypt or a Russian tank on the front against Germany

IIIc a sub in SZ12 and a sub in SZ 35

the one in SZ 12 is to threaten Italy, while the one in SZ 35 wants to harrass Japanese ships or lone transports

Buying both at the same time is one option, the other is buy only of of those subs and some ground units

IV - pro Russia

buy any units for Russia for 13 IPC placing them on the front with Germany

V pro UK

buy any units for 13 IPC for UK, maybe to strengthen either India oder Egypt/Africa

Have I missed some good allied bids ?

@rockrobinoff:

@axis_roll:

One downfall to this sytem is that usually when a scenario is proposed, the player proposing it has THOUGHT about the scenario a bit.  In other words, they have a plan (for either side), while the opponent probably has not.  I don’t think this is a great disadvantage, in fact, I like it when my friend does this sort of thing to me, as I like playing the underdog sometimes, or being able to prove his plan was not good enough to beat me.

I pointed this out in my original post no?

yep, I guess I missed it.    :oops:

My mistake

@Subotai:

It is not possible to be prepared against tech rolls, or any dice rolls regardless of regular dice or LL. The only way to be prepared, as such, is to look into the future, and we humans are not able to predict the future.

True.  True.

That’s why I said, “…trying to be prepared…”

Peace.

Assuming 1941 setup and using NO’s, here are a few minor, simple, yet helpful setup changes to the board.

1.  Exchange the sz4 Russian sub for a Russian destroyer.  In Revised, Russia had an 8 IPC, 2 attack, 2 defense unit which could block ships, so give it back to them.  This both helps Russia and Germany, because if Germany wants to, it can hit it.

2. Exchange the sz56 US transport for a US cruiser.  This seems to make Japan’s opening moves a little more clear and it means that the US cannot immediately take a Pacific island on its first turn which helps Japan, but having a capital ship, helps the US as well.

3. Add 1 Chinese infantry to Yunan.  I know that many people want more than this, but I think that this would force Japan to be more careful with its first turn moves, but I think that Japan could still do just about everything that it wants to.

These changes actually give the Allies 10 IPCs worth of unit/unit upgrades, and with all of the talk about the Axis having the slight advantage, maybe these changes would help.

@JWW:

Now here we are, 25 or so years later, no beers or J’s and discussing this online. Crazy

Speak for thyself…  :)