Axis & Allies 1941 First Preview

@Nowhere-Man said in Game Balance & Capturing Capitols:

@Midnight_Reaper:

Lack of cash hurts both ways, though - it takes a while to build a navy at 12 IPCs, whether it’s the UK or Germany rebuilding their fleet from the first turn battles.

Lack of cash hurts both ways, but what I was getting at, building a fleet from nothing (for Germany) is very expensive and easy to spot coming, while defending England from a Sea Lion doesn’t require a fleet, it only requires far cheaper ground units (a bunch of English soldiers is a lot cheaper than trying to build a big German fleet)… it’s far easier for England to build infantry than for Germany to build a fleet with capital ships transports AND the ground troops to fill the transports, when all England has to do is build ground troops to defend against Sea Lion… yes, Britain will need to rebuild their fleet at some point from initial losses, but if Germany is trying to go Sea Lion before Moscow in 1941 (which was the initial question I believe), the money situation far favors the UK over Germany… unless the UK player is just daft and doesn’t defend England while Germany builds a fleet. As zooma pointed out, the more realistic method for the Axis to win would be to eliminate Russia first, then, using the funds from a dead Russia, build a fleet to attack the western allies.

I’ve played this game a few more times and I’ve come to the conclusion that - contrary to what I expected - the Axis player’s best bet to win the short game is to invade North America, starting in Alaska, and march to Washington. Japan needs to grab some cash and some factories, either from Asia (India and Siberia) and / or the Pacific (Australia, et al) and then start up the invasion fleet. If the US has focused on Germany for the first part of the game, they may have their hands full beating back “Dai Nippon Teikoku”…

-Midnight_Reaper

@l8MikeBl8:

I’m very new to the game axis and allies. Just bought it and want to play it. There is alot to the game and i have no friends that know nothing about this game, So i have no choice but to turn to the internet.

I was told this game is like risk on massive crack. So in risk you can attack anyone and negotiate secretly with people to win the game.

So can I for example, play as the Americans and attack the British, after a certain amount of time? and negotiate with the Germans?

How do you win? is it complete domination or do the allied or axis powers have to win together by taking axis land? Is their a choice to play global domination?

Thank you in advance.

Reading the rules will help you immensely!

Oh my, there’s some Necromancy going on here… this is a very old post… any issues I brought up here were resolved over a year ago.

Yes - those extra infantry certainly do help  :-)

I’ve been reading these posts with great interest. I wanted to share the results of my first solitaire game. Hopefully, I can find a couple people at the local game store who want to play this simpler version.

I played w/ USA at 15 ipc. I just made Hawaii and Alaska worth zero. I figured there was a mistake somewhere, but I hadn’t read the official changes announced by Krieg before I played. But, I did immediately include artillery in this game. It seemed glaringly apparent that Russia, at least, needed that option. It helped, because Germany had to march their artillery from Berlin. I played hundreds of games on GTO and used many of the opening moves for A/A Revised in my solitaire game. Here were the opening moves:

R1 - Attacked W. Russia w/ 5 inf and the fighter. 1 inf from Kar, 2 from Arch, 2 from Moscow. Russia did pretty good, wiped out the Germans, and ended up w/ 3 inf occupying W. Russia. If Germany had rolled well, I would’ve retreated to Moscow. I then abandoned Caucasus, because there was no way to hold it without losing all of Russia’s tanks and the plane to a German attack. Attacking UKR on R1 just seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. I also moved all 3 inf from Siberia west to help counterattack Cauc, or to go where needed. Letting Japan wipe out those 3 guys on J1 just seemed like a waste.

G1 - Sunk the USA trans w/ sub. Sunk UK carrier and fighter with 1 fighter, dd, and sub. DD and sub sunk. Sunk UK BB and sub w/ BB, sub, and 1 fighter. BB and plane survived. Amphib’d Egypt w/ 2 inf, tank from N. Africa, 1 fig, 1 bomber. Ended up w/ tank in Egypt. Landed planes in N. Africa. Took Cauc w/ 1 inf. Hit W. Russia w/ 6 inf and 4 tanks. Taking Egypt was huge. Killing that UK tank helped Japan. Holding W. Russia strong kept Russia from retaking Cauc.

UK1 - Retook Egypt w/ India fighter, bomber from London, 1 inf from Australia, 1 inf from India. DD and sub went with the 2 trans to Egypt. 1 inf from India fell back to Middle East. India was abandoned.

J1 - Amphib’d Szechwan w/ 3 inf, 1 tank, 4 figs, and bomber. Used BB bombardment, but didn’t know that isn’t part of this game. No losses. Took India w/ 1 inf. Took NW China w/ 2 inf from Manch, since Russia retreated. Took E. Indies w/ 1 inf, trans, and carrier. DD and trans attacked UK fleet off Egypt. Lost both ships. Moved carrier to E. Indies w/ 1 fig. (My mistake. Should have left the trans to its fate.) UK destroyed them on UK2 (Desperate attack, due to situation, UK lost both ships too).

US1 - Moved fleet to Alaska along w/ 1 inf and 1 tank. Built dd and trans in Atlantic. (Lost DD on G2, but got the sub.)

The game then ground out. I turtled Moscow. Russia dead zoned W. Russia w/ Germany, which worked well w/ the artillery. But Russia was slowly worn down. At one point, 3 UK figs and 2 USA figs were in Moscow, but had to use US figs in naval battle outside Tokyo on US3, because US sacrificed trans on US2 to take Manchuria w/ inf and tank. Japan wiped out US troops in Manch on J3. USA and Japan wrecked each others fleets on US3, but USA BB survived. It took several turns for UK and US to get troops on the ground in Europe. German airforce stayed in Cauc for several turns, until they had to fly west. Japan’s army slowly got ground down fighting UK in Asia and a USA amphib in Central China, because all money was spent trying to rebuild fleet to sink US BB. Germany took India to stomp out the UK. Eventually, German BB sunk US BB outside Tokyo. Desperate 1 BB on 1 Axis attack that sealed the Allies’ fate. Moscow fell to Germany the same turn from a massive attack on Moscow.

In the end, I saw that the Axis would win, but it would take a few more turns to build up for Sea Lion. I think the Allies had a decent chance of winning after Japan’s navy was gone, but German BB put an end to that dream. It was fun. I’ll update on game #2, as I incorporate the new setup revisions and give the USA 17 ipcs. The last comment I wish to make is this: artillery, artillery, artillery. Hopefully, the designers will include this in the game. It’s not that complicated to use them.

Well, it’s not hard - then again buying enough navy to get enough troops over (without BB bombardment etc.) can take a LONG time…

@DarthShizNit:

Pfft what? If Russia is always falling on turn 3 you might just need to rework your strategy (don’t let the AI play as Russia). I’ve had games where Russia not only survived by thrived, pushing Germany back to the gates or Berlin. It’s all about knowing the ground, the battles to fight and those not to fight. Also, send more fighters from UK :D

yeah invade Norway with your 3 infantry in Karelia and then land your spitfires from England there lol. But i do find that i have to abandon Caucus, i’ve found a good strat is too attack the Ukraine and west Russia, then Germany has to send more troops to the eastern Front. And you should be planning an invasion of Europe to thin the Germans. Also if you have a few fighters and a bomber in Finland/Norway then you can directly bomb Germany.

@Frontovik:

@DarthShizNit:

@djensen:

All three games I played, there was trouble with the US going into the Pacific by the whomever was playing US just gave up and went to Europe.

If Japan goes all in on the Hawaii sea zone, the boats on the coast of W. USA are hosed the next turn. Even with an an aircraft carrier and fighter, they can’t win. Not only that, the US fleet can’t even run away! What the US does depends on how Japan plays and Japan can decide to keep the US out of the Pacific for 2 turns which in an eternity in this game.

Yeah, they could go blockade the states, but from where I’m sitting, as long as the US player plays it right then it’s the death of Japan. On US1, with a Japanese fleet of pressumably 1 BB, 1 CV with at least 1 fighter left and a transport in Hawaii (I think moving the british sub up to Hawaii on their turn is a good idea, maybe get a pot shot off and sink the BB or something with their ability, which even further reduces this fleet) you can hit that with 3 fighters, a bomber and a sub (if you really want you could try to retake the island and thus stop japan from bringing in that bomber on J2, but that seems to risky). Even if you fail to win, that attack has probably crippled the Fleet there, and when Japan comes a knocking with the rest of their fleet…so what? They take some more casualites and the entire pacific is wide open to a British navy with the ability to plop down a constant stream of units in two seperate locations close to home, and America will eventually sink that fleet sitting in San franciso Harbor.

Japan has to rely on some super lucky die rolls in those high stake naval battles, and maybe taking India or Australia early. But most likely, like their Russian enemy, they are in fact just screwed, ment to balance out the Russians being screwed…and I will have a blast leading every Banzai charge :). Man, I really need to get my hands on this game.

who would send entire ��� fleet to hawaii? it can get trashed there… i think 2 figs and bomber are better option. then you can use transport to save whatver you can from mainland (southeast asia, china, manchuria, whatever got attacked or needs attacking).

Oh yes I agree. The Japan player would be much better of simply stalling the allies with fighters in the Pacific, and using it’s naval edge to take out India and Australia as soon as possible. Being me I will of course invade Alaska, but that’s only just for fun.