Super Stack or Stupid Stack?

Russia is meant to fall. Just like Calcutta is meant to fall.  Sure if it holds that is GG.

Of course sometimes people risk losing UK and then germany goes for that. Taking london is a good move if you got 50% or better odds, as long as japan is being aggressive and smart in his pacific campaign. When you do sea lion yes russia does not fall in those games. Just like when japan takes new south wales… calcutta is greatly delayed.

How do you suggest attacking Germany then? Leaving single inf or inf and AA out to force him into attacking you and then counter attack?

Much of the time Germany use a stupid stack (or 2) themselves so you need to do something to split it.

yeah i pretty much “stupa” stack shove to nov then belarus than bryansk with germany. I just think of it as pushing to russia and not really caring about the little things.

@Gargantua:

Its just hard to imagine how russia can counter attack a large german stack that has like 15+ in tanks, over 20 some inf, 8 rtl and 10+ mech.

I’m not talking about hitting stacks that size.

I’m talking about people who sit in their capitals, surrounded by 1 infantry on all sides, and don’t attack outward - for free of -spreading out-.

It’s ridiculous, and people do it all the time.

I hate it too, and its alot less fun, but, if germany can just walk into moscow that is alot less defended cause you are soreading your units around in minor counter attacks, it does not really help in the long run.

Oh I will attack 1 infantry with 1 infantry and a fighter or two… sure I will do that, but the battles are limited to 1-3 a round.

What I hope you learn to understand, is for every unit you give up to take a territory back, the germans have to give one up too.  And it’s better to trade those dinky little territories, at a 1 to 1 ratio, fighting the big fight at the end, on a much smaller scale,  then it is to fight none of the small battles, and face a German army with an even higher -edge of advantage-.

Understand that, for each unit Germany has more than you, his chances increase exponentially.  So by keeping the stack sizes as low as reasonable,on both sides, (by bleeding units from your stack, forcing the enemy to bleed units from theirs) you increase your chances for victory.

You also make more economically too… which in turn, produces more units.  It’s a catch-22 that if someone doesn’t understand, cripples thier ability to play a defensive game.

I’m not saying go after ever little infantry out, but the more battles you make the Germans fight, over the same territories, again and again, the more chance you have of winning.

I agree, but you make it sound very complicated.

Trade units with germany whenever possible, idealy with UK!

And have allied air (anzac can reach, r1 java, r2 India, r3 russia) and mec to help you hold bryansk. (US bombers are great mobile defence)
Then you might actually win, you can also send units away from russia (china-middeleast mobile) as long as their back turn 5-6.

I think the confusion here is that in an expert scenario Germany isn’t going to leave Russia many counterattacks anyway.  Russia simply won’t have the chance to counter and will have to fall to Moscow if Germany is playing it smart.  It’s the taking Moscow itself that’s difficult for Germany.  So overall if an expert Germany is in a committed Barbarossa I’m pretty much buying inf and falling to Moscow.

Russia wants to make 1-2 small scale attacks per turn, if possible.  They want to use counterattacks to prevent Germany from building in Leningrad and Ukraine for as long as possible.   But they don’t want to overextend themselves and take overly risky trading battles.  By overly risky, i mean something like 2 inf 1 fig vrs. 2 inf.  As Russia, I’d rather have 2 inf art fig or 2 inf 2 fig vrs. 2 inf….  By committing my inf to a counter I’m already sacrificing these men, so I want to be sure I win the battle and the sacrifice isn’t in vain.  Since I’ve only got 3 fighters, I’ve got to pick my battles and not be too ambitious.

^^^^^^^^^

@Gargantua:

What I hope you learn to understand, is for every unit you give up to take a territory back, the germans have to give one up too.  And it’s better to trade those dinky little territories, at a 1 to 1 ratio, fighting the big fight at the end, on a much smaller scale,  then it is to fight none of the small battles, and face a German army with an even higher -edge of advantage-.

Understand that, for each unit Germany has more than you, his chances increase exponentially.  So by keeping the stack sizes as low as reasonable,on both sides, (by bleeding units from your stack, forcing the enemy to bleed units from theirs) you increase your chances for victory.

You also make more economically too… which in turn, produces more units.  It’s a catch-22 that if someone doesn’t understand, cripples thier ability to play a defensive game.

I’m not saying go after ever little infantry out, but the more battles you make the Germans fight, over the same territories, again and again, the more chance you have of winning.

When playing KGF in 42/revised/aa50 I’m an advocate of aggression and trading on the part of Russia.  That was part of an overall strategy of breaking down Germany.

But there are other factors at work in Global.

The superiority of Germany’s air force has already been mentioned.  This impacts on who gains the most economically from trades.

Another factor is when the Italians have a presence on the Eastern front, then they can gobble up the units remaining from Russian counters.  By doing this, they strengthen Germany’s position vis a vis Russia.

In addition, Germany’s force is a lot more mobile.  For example if Russia is countering Novgorod and retreating from Belorussia at the same time, then Germany can send only 1 inf and the rest mech units to take Novgorod, and at the same time move their main force into Belorussia.  So when it comes to trading, the best value for Russia is in trading territories that are and will be adjacent to the main Russian stack.

Finally, infantry might be slightly more valuable to Russia than they are to Germany if the endgame is an attack on Moscow.  If the trading is resulting in a 1:1 inf exchange, then Germany’s attack odds might be better because they will have bled out their inf which are poor on the attack, but they’ll have plenty of mech/tanks coming in for reinforcement.

I just think that germany does nto have to counter the little battles, and just go straight for moscow

@Cow:

Russia is meant to fall. Just like Calcutta is meant to fall.  Sure if it holds that is GG.

Of course sometimes people risk losing UK and then germany goes for that. Taking london is a good move if you got 50% or better odds, as long as japan is being aggressive and smart in his pacific campaign. When you do sea lion yes russia does not fall in those games. Just like when japan takes new south wales… calcutta is greatly delayed.

You said that russia is meant to fall, what units are you buying for Russia, and how are you placing them, when germany attack… I had play serveal Global game, and Germany had never managed to capture moscow. If the US goes for a 100% pacific I belive it is easy to take moscow… even with there super stacks… but if that happened you have bad allied players, or a wrong strategy with the americans… Russia must be played with patiences, and it take over 10 rounds before they are able to move out of moscow, but the need help…

Germany is the main engine
Japan is the auxiliary engine
Italy is a minor auxiliary engine for germany, and a pain for america and UK…

Half of my axis wins were in the pacific with japan.

If I am play japan to win in the pacific and only doing pacific play, then on G7 or G8 russia is dead. Germany just goes strait to moscow. I don’t do much medit play with germany. I do the sea lion feign, I stack up for nov G2, I will take and hold nov g3.

Taking russia is easy. You just count the spaces it takes for infantry/artillery to get to russia, you stop buying them when they don’t make it to russia on G7 or G8. The rest should be mech/armor/bombers.

Global unlike previous versions of axis and allies forces usa to do heavy pacific play. If usa is doing 10 man drops on europe and japan is not winning in the pacific, then something is wrong with your japan player.

Russia can die on G5/G6. it is really easy for japan to buy bombers and bomb japan for germany starting round 3. Russia with 20 IC damage and usa not a war and cannot make it in time to be in russia… good luck have fun holding that. If the game was won or lost on russia, everyone and their mom would use japan to bomb russia.
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You say bad allies players lose russia. I say good axis players win in the pacific if you save it.

round 1 you have to buy 6 inf 1 fig or 9 inf for london. round 2  if sea lion passes by, usually egypt minor.

I tend to not care if russia falls and don’t reinforce that. I aggressively hold medit at all costs and push pacific with uk/usa/anzac.

Really depends what japan is doing. Like obviously if he looks like he is skipping calcutta / not dow till J3 … I’ll have a stronger atlantic presence with usa. try to rush italy out of the game.  because it takes time for uk pac to get to egypt to stop the europe win right. gotta hold italy for some time or take back or hold egypt.

I try to solve the pacific half of the map first unless I am doing some mega atlantic drop. I only do this if japan is conservative. the megadrop has a double threat against germany and italy, once the payload drops the double threat ends.
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really depends on my mood and what I feel like doing. It is very rare that I go, “you know I should just fly 10 fighters into russia.”

I figured out the tricks to being aggressive with the allies a long time ago.
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garg wtf you have not post your g1 turn yet?

Anyway once you figure out what strategy / type of player your opponent is, then the game gets easy from there.

I prefer being axis, because I like being Japan in global.

Now when 1941 comes out, I’ll enjoy every country but America, which is the way it usually was.

@Cow:

Half of my axis wins were in the pacific with japan.

If I am play japan to win in the pacific and only doing pacific play, then on G7 or G8 russia is dead. Germany just goes strait to moscow. I don’t do much medit play with germany. I do the sea lion feign, I stack up for nov G2, I will take and hold nov g3.

Taking russia is easy. You just count the spaces it takes for infantry/artillery to get to russia, you stop buying them when they don’t make it to russia on G7 or G8. The rest should be mech/armor/bombers.

Global unlike previous versions of axis and allies forces usa to do heavy pacific play. If usa is doing 10 man drops on europe and japan is not winning in the pacific, then something is wrong with your japan player.

Russia can die on G5/G6. it is really easy for japan to buy bombers and bomb japan for germany starting round 3. Russia with 20 IC damage and usa not a war and cannot make it in time to be in russia… good luck have fun holding that. If the game was won or lost on russia, everyone and their mom would use japan to bomb russia.
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You say bad allies players lose russia. I say good axis players win in the pacific if you save it.

If you say it is very easy to win in the pacific as the axis-power, what do the americans and british do. what are they buying. I agree that calcutta is the easist capital to capture, but then you still need one city more to win. Sidney hawaii or San francisco. the british can have around 30 infanteri in calcutta at J3… and this number will still increase if the british player buys correct… ANZAC is easy to defend. it is a long distance between sidney and japan. Tell me what do you opponents buy, anf how do the move around, then it is easier to say something about your strategy. It is the same with avoiding a sealion. The british just buy 10 infanteri every turn. Then they pull back they expensive units in africa. because London must nok fall… Each time Germany buy transports the british buy infanteri, and waiting for the americans to get into the war…

the same question again for russia. what do russia buy, and do they evacuate Leningrad when Germany attack, to protect they 20 infanteri standig there… IF not I understand why russia is falling i every game you play…

coolrunner pls have faith in searching and look at some older threads, basic strategies has been discussed too much. I personally recommend to check the advices of following plyrs (written in alphabetical order): cow, erwinrommel, gargantua, and soulfein (yep that s me in case u did not notice :p)

coolrunner don’t worry, I am sure I will get to be japan next time I have to play axis in garg’s tournament.

I will do the J1 DOW and play a serious game. I am more or less hyper aggressive.

What I do with japan is discussed in the japan strategy guide thread. I pretty much just do my J1 DOW strategy. It is something people try and they have lots of fun but lose the first couple times around. I lost 8/10 of those games (I actually won in europe for half of those, but I am trying to win in the pacific so that doesn’t count). So yeah, takes some tinkering around to get the tricky rounds down.

I liked playing soulfein, really helped me work some stuff out.
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Anyway if america is going 50% pacific and 50% atlantic… and you are not pushing for the pacific victory then something is wrong.

Just checking in on this thread - Garg is right with his premise.

Russia must have teeth… Russia must fight back!

Here is the underlying secret of all A&A versions, without exception:

Once you’ve lost the initiative, you lose!

To maintain Allied initiative, Russia has to scrape and claw for every IPC (within reasonable odds of success), deny the use of Minor ICs for as long as possible, and kill German infantry whenever they get the chance. Taking out Italian forces are critical too… when I see dwindling Italians for potential can-openers, I’m a happy fella.

Purchases make all the difference as well… aircraft - nope. Mobile units and artillery, placed in key positions at the right time… yup! It goes without saying that large amounts of infantry is important, but too few units that add punch equals a slow Russian death.

Teeth, teeth, teeth! The Russian Bear needs teeth. If I play someone turtling with Russia, and not buying enough artillery and armor, I already know I’ll win.

I just buy infantry do the super stack and turtle up. I only buy artillery if germany is being silly.