Do people see Italy as an Axis minor? I don’t, I know it’s the poorest major power in the game but it’s still a major power. My two cents on this debate is you either take Italy and have it support Germany when it invades USSR or you use Italy as a naval power to keep India and UK from linking up or you can take a more questionable route and try to do both.
Italian Weakness
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The game attached below is one example how Italy can play a role. It was a G5/J4 game against Anchovy, a very strong opponent…
I was able to lock up the med for the whole game.
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When I’m playing Italy, I take control over Gibraltar, Southern France, and Egypt earning 5IPC and then crushing the British and french fleet in mediterranean and get 5IPC more.
Then taking Northern Africa and later Cairo and become even greater than Germany.If you take over Egypt, you’ve already got Cairo… ?
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When I’m playing Italy, I take control over Gibraltar, Southern France, and Egypt earning 5IPC and then crushing the British and french fleet in mediterranean and get 5IPC more.
Then taking Northern Africa and later Cairo and become even greater than Germany.If you take over Egypt, you’ve already got Cairo… ?
how do you do that with italy when right out of the gate, the UK sinks 2 of thier 3 starting transports? even if you build a transport I1 you will only have enough IPC to build 1 so if u r lucky u have 2 transports to use on I2. not enough in my games to take egypt on I2.
what am i missing?
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how do you do that with italy when right out of the gate, the UK sinks 2 of thier 3 starting transports? even if you build a transport I1 you will only have enough IPC to build 1 so if u r lucky u have 2 transports to use on I2. not enough in my games to take egypt on I2.
what am i missing?
It depends a lot on what the UK does. If they turtle up in Egypt, then you move up into Alexandria and Sudan and land men in Alexandria or Jordan (if you can get Jordan, then that traps any UK ships in the Indian Ocean from helping the Med UK2 or even 3). If you built a Transport I1, then all these men plus the Italian air force + 2 more units from Italy usually have good odds to take out Egypt I2.
For this reason I’m starting to favor being less powerful as the UK in SZ97 attacks, since if you are too strong, then Italy doesn’t scramble and you miss the chance to kill their Fighters. In the worst case with an overwhelming hit in SZ97, the UK could be landing plenty of air units in Malta that will then be covering Egypt I2, so it probably behooves the German player to encourage RAF scrambles in the UK during G1 so this doesn’t happen (and also hit the French fleet, so Italy doesn’t have to worry about it).
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@Eggman:
so it probably behooves the German player to encourage RAF scrambles in the UK during G1 so this doesn’t happen (and also hit the French fleet, so Italy doesn’t have to worry about it).
thisis what i do with my germans, i try to entice the UK into a scramble situation on G1 hoping they take the bait and loose fighters so they dont have what it takes to kill italy UK1, but MAYBE 1 out of 10 someone takes the bait. most UK players want to kill italy ships in the med more than they want to kill off german air G1. they prefer to cripple itally. only a G1 sea lion build/threat ever helps to save italy’s sz97 fleet in my games.
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When I’m playing Italy, I take control over Gibraltar, Southern France, and Egypt earning 5IPC and then crushing the British and french fleet in mediterranean and get 5IPC more.
Then taking Northern Africa and later Cairo and become even greater than Germany.If you take over Egypt, you’ve already got Cairo… ?
Oops I mean South Africa :-P
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Italy can actually be a great help to the Axis. If Germany successfully pulls a Sealion, UK is pretty much out of the game and Italy will be able to finish off what UK units are left while grabbing Africa and the Middle East, leaving Germany to fully deal with Russia.
If Sealion doesn’t happen, then (at least in our games) the UK player ends up spending most of their resources keeping Italy down and again Germany is able to deal with Russia.
The thing that throws a wrench in their plans is if the US makes a substantial presence in Europe. Of course, this is hard for the Allies because you don’t want to just let Japan free to rampage though the Pacific.
It’s hard to decide as the US player just how much to split your economy to keep the Axis from winning on one board or the other. Usually, if Sealion doesn’t happen and UK stays in the game, as the US I put almost 100% in the Pacific to try and neutralize Japan as quickly as possible, hoping that Russia can hold out long enough and the UK can keep Italy down while perhaps causing the Germans enough problems to at least slow their drive toward Moscow.
However, if Sealion does happen, the US has to put more in the Atlantic. At least enough to keep Italy in check. Still, that may give Japan just enough to gain the advantage. -
@Eggman:
It’s tough to say since you need a holistic approach that incorporates all the Axis powers. Clearly there is nothing really Italy can do by itself against the US and UK if it is sitting with 10 - 20 IPCs a turn. Generally I’ve seen a few approaches:
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Have Germany take Southern France so that it can trickle in some ships.
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Have Germany take Yugoslavia so that it can build an Air Base there. Combined with Italian-based air power this gives you a 6 unit scramble which should help a lot to protect SZ97. If Germany also drops a Naval Base into the territory, it can also contribute ships that way instead of using France.
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Have Germany use its Air Force to clean out all Allied ships that make an appearance.
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Any combination of the above, obviously…
The biggest thing to remember, is that if the US is making enough of a problem on the Europe board that Italy can’t handle it even with German help, then Japan is clearly not doing enough on the other board to attract the Allies’ attention. The Pacific board is grossly weighted to an Axis victory. If you skip the early DoW, at the end of J3 you should be able to have just about every Chinese territory in hand plus most of Siberia, or, if you went with the early attack, you should be parked off Malaya with the fleet and hold the DEI. In either case, the US will be forced to ease up on assisting in the Med or risk losing on the Pacific map.
EDIT: I should mention that I’ve lost a couple of league games as the Allies even with having Italy down to collecting around 7 IPC a turn, because I couldn’t do that and keep Japan down enough to prevent them from turning the tide to the Axis` favor.
When you say “If Germany drops a Naval base into the territory, it can contribute ships” Doesn’t Germany also have to have an IC there before it can place ships in the SZ during ‘Mobilize units’ phase? Or am I totally missing where the ships Germany is contributing are coming from?
Same thing w/ S.France statement???
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When you say “If Germany drops a Naval base into the territory, it can contribute ships” Doesn’t Germany also have to have an IC there before it can place ships in the SZ during ‘Mobilize units’ phase?
Yes, that is a misstatement. I should have written
drops an IC into the territory. You don’t need a Naval Base in Yugoslavia since you can make use of the ones in Italy proper from the same SZ. -
@Eggman:
When you say “If Germany drops a Naval base into the territory, it can contribute ships” Doesn’t Germany also have to have an IC there before it can place ships in the SZ during ‘Mobilize units’ phase?
Yes, that is a misstatement. I should have written
drops an IC into the territory. You don’t need a Naval Base in Yugoslavia since you can make use of the ones in Italy proper from the same SZ.Ok thanx, that clarifies & now makes sense.
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