Super Stack or Stupid Stack?

@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.
~

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.
~
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.
~
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.
~

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.
~
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.

@soulfein:

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)

I know this old basis strategies, but when I hear someone talking about that he is talking Moscow in G5 or G7, I am thinking what the hell… I seems that the russian player don’t know what to do. The same thing I can say about the rest of the allies. they need to help each other, and when the axis powers attack they get streacth out, and then it is time for the allies to press on…

There is nothing a russian player can do to save itself but pray.

none of the allies are in a position where they can save them self, they need to work together as a team… Axis and Allies is a team playergame. If one of the major allies is killed, the rest will surrender, a fez rounds after

@Der:

That’s when you really need an atomic bomb in this game.  :-)

I remember many Comand and Conquer Red Alert games ending this way!

@Gargantua:

I’m going to back up Cool Runner here…

Thanks Gergantua

It is also a team game for the axis powers. The Allies first priorty is to stop the axis advance with saying you come to this point, but not further. After that they have to switch between the pacific and the europe map. This takes serveral rounds, and you need patience. If you fokus to much on one side the other side will be to powerful. If you have two equal teams you have a game that take 24+ hours…

The allies must always look for the weakest point in the axis advance, and attack there. But it demands pactience…

Maybe you have a huge pressure on russia, but then western europe is almost un defended, with few units or no units at all… It is all about where you put your fokus… Ofcourse you can take russia, no problem, but the cost can be so high that you loose the game. The same can happen with Sidney.

Nope, you are wrong coolrunner. Axis are meant to take russia or win in the pacific. Usually allies will try to stop the pacific to a point where further investment is not required to keep japan from winning and then defend london/egypt. It’s supposed to be a race. If the axis aren’t racing then they are bad.

And that by the time us gets a strong transport fleet in the atlantic, germany is building alot of of france and wger.  This is usually by round 5 or 6 and new german units made in germany wont reach moscow in any reasonable time.

I don’t buy it. Show me you can stop japan from winning without investing in the pacific hard. I got enough pacific wins under my belt being japan to know that usa can’t just spend 30-40 a round to stop japan. Japan starts banking hard fast.

All I am saying is, if usa has a large amount of naval in the atlantic, and japan is not poised to strike for the pacific victory, then japan is not doing his job.

Don’t knock someone for trying to have a decisive victory, ie a VC win, it is what the axis are supposed to try and achieve. The only time allies win is when axis surrender because they don’t stand at ever mounting a comeback. If you lost russia when japan is down to 6 ipc… then all you got to do is hold egypt / london and germany has to go for it, he is outproduced at that point.  That is one of the tactics people do. Some people like to take italy. If you defend italy, russia holds. allies are fine with that. As axis I would gladly trade italy for russia and then kick out allies after while I try to blow up in europe.

France only makes 3 units a turn you know.  germany and west germany produce 10 each and with russia’s income, surge it and done.

Fighting a two front war is bad. Basic strategy of germany was always to fight a one front war. Clear west europe, then all in for russia, that is what germany should do. Takes time for allies to recover, meanwhile they still have to deal with italy while you push for russia. The axis have the initiative, you won’t get russia on time if you waste it.