Who Wins

To hit on a few battleships who shrug them off. Battleships have been lowered in price, but not in effectiveness. Subs have stayed the same price from Global, but are much more anemic.

It doesn’t really matter why one thinks it’s a good idea to buy subs, it matters how effective they are. The weakness of the submerge, the lack of the first strike, and the nigh pointlessness in economic warfare make them not worth the investment.

It depends on how many battleships you brought with you, may roll instead of submerge.  10 subs will cause approx 3 hits, but you also have to take the damaged battleship back to port.

I assume your comments are based on game play and you didn’t even touch on their most effective use.

Texas hmm… I don’t think Prussia can afford to deploy such navy.

They can as long as you aren’t sacrificing your troops at the gates of Paris.  For some reason, a lot of people seem to think the CPs have to capture Paris as fast as they can to win.  They don’t and using that strat doesn’t work anyway.

And can you defend your rerritories from france and russia?
What is AH doing? You cant really attack Itaky with Franxe full support?

You have plenty to defend, if France and Russia are attacking, it’s a good thing.

France typically falls back to defend.  It’s kind of hard to describe something this complex and fluid in a sentence or two.  Way too many variables.  AH can also disrupt the Med.

@Texas:

You have plenty to defend, if France and Russia are attacking, it’s a good thing.

France typically falls back to defend.  It’s kind of hard to describe something this complex and fluid in a sentence or two.  Way too many variables.  AH can also disrupt the Med.

When Germany is buying as heavily naval as you describe, if France is still falling back, it is their error and decidedly not the merits of the CP strategy that determine such an unnecessary retreat, unless of course Russia is just being ignored until they get next to Berlin or Vienna.

France and Russia are attacking Germany, Germany is buying Naval units which means they have less to defend with and, more importantly, less to attack with (they need to capture capitals eventually), and that is a good thing? I think what we really need from your tests are evaluations of the Allied play, not general CP strats that seem to be using much more resources than the CP have.

At what point in this Naval strat do the CP actually start advancing on land?

What does the income situation look like when Germany buys all these ships and barely attacks?

@vonLettowVorbeck1914:

@Texas:

You have plenty to defend, if France and Russia are attacking, it’s a good thing.

France typically falls back to defend.�  It’s kind of hard to describe something this complex and fluid in a sentence or two.�  Way too many variables.�  AH can also disrupt the Med.

When Germany is buying as heavily naval as you describe, if France is still falling back, it is their error and decidedly not the merits of the CP strategy that determine such an unnecessary retreat, unless of course Russia is just being ignored until they get next to Berlin or Vienna.

France and Russia are attacking Germany, Germany is buying Naval units which means they have less to defend with and, more importantly, less to attack with (they need to capture capitals eventually), and that is a good thing? I think what we really need from your tests are evaluations of the Allied play, not general CP strats that seem to be using much more resources than the CP have.

At what point in this Naval strat do the CP actually start advancing on land?

What does the income situation look like when Germany buys all these ships and barely attacks?

Well, for starters, at what point does France or Russia decide to attack.  No one provides any answer to that.  I had asked once before and I was met with response that France won’t attack and expecting them to is an error in the CP strat. CPs advance on land beginning turn 1.  It is a limited advance rather than doing nothing (don’t attack the big stacks).  Take what they give you.  On G1, Germany takes Poland, Belgium, Holland, and African territories.  I am not saying to buy all naval, but if you aren’t as aggressive on the offensive, you aren’t losing as much either.  Income situation is dependent on what the Allies do, but Germany is pushing 50 by turn 3.

In every one of our games, if Germany buys Navy the UK can easily match whatever Germany buys and still has plenty left over to buy in India.

Meanwhile, because Germany is buying navy, France can easily match Germany’s ground forces because they have absolutely no need to buy navy with the UK footing that bill. The UK isn’t in danger of ever losing London so they can pretty much focus on neutralizing the CP navy.

If AH buys navy as well then France might have to start throwing out a BB or CA from Marseilles before the US arrives, but then Italy and Russia are outproducing ground troops.

@Texas:

Well, for starters, at what point does France or Russia decide to attack.  No one provides any answer to that.

Of course not. You were the one present at your games in which the CP are doing this mysteriously effective strat, not me.

@Texas:

I had asked once before and I was met with response that France won’t attack and expecting them to is an error in the CP strat.

That’s a pretty huge misinterpretation. You were describing a specific situation where Germany was adjacent to Paris and the French and German armies were equal there. How the fact that France attacking in that situation is a terrible idea became interpreted into being a statement where France should never attack in any situation is beyond me.

@vonLettowVorbeck1914:

@Texas:

I had asked once before and I was met with response that France won’t attack and expecting them to is an error in the CP strat.

That’s a pretty huge misinterpretation. You were describing a specific situation where Germany was adjacent to Paris and the French and German armies were equal there. How the fact that France attacking in that situation is a terrible idea became interpreted into being a statement where France should never attack in any situation is beyond me.

That is the situation in question.  What did I misinterpret?  Germany is pushing towards Paris, when would France attack rather retreat?

Texas you did say that you would ‘bait’ the french into attacking lol

what does one do do achieve this in an axis and allies game? dangle bacon over the board?

@Uncrustable:

Texas you did say that you would ‘bait’ the french into attacking lol

what does one do do achieve this in an axis and allies game? dangle bacon over the board?

Heck, I’d sign an armistice if bacon was involved!

@Uncrustable:

Texas you did say that you would ‘bait’ the french into attacking lol

what does one do do achieve this in an axis and allies game? dangle bacon over the board?

That isn’t what I said I would do.  The question I had asked in that post is what would France do in that situation.

@Texas:

what happens if the Germans don’t attack Paris with a 50 vs 50 stack and hold just outside and wait for reinforcements or bait the French into attacking?  The Germans are gong to lose half their units on an attack like that and I agree, the Germans have no chance of winning it.  What is France’s income at about that time?  I think that basic plan is impossible to win as you would be losing more troops than you are reinforcing with.  I think a mistake people are making with the CPs are they are being too aggressive.  What do the Russians typically do in your games after the Germans take Poland, but they aren’t going full force towards Russia (and Austria isn’t going to attack a 40-man stack either)?  Couldn’t the Germans walk up the coast while the Russians hunker down.  At some point they will have to spread out a bit to prevent the loss of all their territory.  I agree with the learning curve though.  The way it is set up makes it look like you have to play it the same way you play WWII and be ultra aggressive with the CPs when you have to use a restrained aggressiveness.

You also say the CP must be patient, but with a large income gap they cannot afford to be patient lol
They have to take tt and hold it fast else they are doomed to at best losing a war of attrition

Anyhow Larry’s strategic movement idea would greatly improve balance and give the CPs a real fighting chance!

@Uncrustable:

@Texas:

what happens if the Germans don’t attack Paris with a 50 vs 50 stack and hold just outside and wait for reinforcements or bait the French into attacking?  The Germans are gong to lose half their units on an attack like that and I agree, the Germans have no chance of winning it.  What is France’s income at about that time?  I think that basic plan is impossible to win as you would be losing more troops than you are reinforcing with.  I think a mistake people are making with the CPs are they are being too aggressive.  What do the Russians typically do in your games after the Germans take Poland, but they aren’t going full force towards Russia (and Austria isn’t going to attack a 40-man stack either)?  Couldn’t the Germans walk up the coast while the Russians hunker down.  At some point they will have to spread out a bit to prevent the loss of all their territory.  I agree with the learning curve though.  The way it is set up makes it look like you have to play it the same way you play WWII and be ultra aggressive with the CPs when you have to use a restrained aggressiveness.

You also say the CP must be patient, but with a large income gap they cannot afford to be patient lol
They have to take tt and hold it fast else they are doomed to at best losing a war of attrition

Anyhow Larry’s strategic movement idea would greatly improve balance and give the CPs a real fighting chance!

Notice the question mark following what you highlighted?  I was asking Wild Bill a question of what he has seen in that situation if Germany doesn’t attack the French stack in Paris.  No where in any of my posts do I say that baiting the French is part of my master plan.  The CPs are losing the economic battle if they allow the UK and US to freely land troops in mainland Europe, hence my argument for a CP navy.  The CPs have the material and economic advantage on the mainland and can maintain that even if they divert some to naval purchases. I will post the numbers for all of this later as I don’t have them in front of me at the moment.

Without landing troops in Europe the allies will win the economic game as well. All of Africa will go to them (and Germany loses that) etc.
I haven’t seen any argument in favor of the CP’s winning this game that I think is realistic or viable against a proper opponent. For every one of them I can think about at least three things that counter it.

Tex there are multiple issues. One was what France would do if they were in Paris and an equal-sized German Army was adjacent. In that situation I pointed out that it would be absurd to expect France to attack that German Army.

There was also discussion of a more general strategy, where Germany and even Austria go significantly or even heavily naval with their buys, while they play defensively on land.

With the naval buys you describe, you insist that the CP can hold their own defensively while Austria disrupts the Med. and Germany disrupts the Atlantic, while Germany’s income is pushing 50. This is a far cry from anything I have seen anyone else report. You made a lot of bold claims, and to be frank I am not convinced the Allies were playing remotely well in the game(s) you saw this CP strat work.

And so my latest attempt as the CP…

In general, the strategy could be described as play conservatively, hold onto and build up the CP forces, build up the German and AH fleets, and then hit the allies with combined forces to diminish the risk of allied counters (e.g., Germany hits a Russian territory, then AH reinforces before Russia can counter.)  The strategy involved a lot of early CP bluffing, threatening large invasions on all fronts to force the allies to fall back, but then just skirmishing/trading the peripheral territories instead of moving in force deep into France/Russia/Italy.  Both the Germans and AH were able to achieve stand-off with their respective fleets - the Allies were collectively stronger in both the Med and North Atlantic, but the “attack-alone” problem combined with mines meant neither side was in a position to attack.  The CP did much better with this strategy than in my other recent games, and eventually, the CP were able to force Russia into revolution which they accepted, to (more-or-less) close off that side of the board.

And it still didn’t matter.  The Ottomans fell to sustained British assault, the Italians were never seriously threatened, and the western front began to collapse with the allies enjoying a significant economic advantage.  AH managed to essentially check the British advance up through the Turkey, but the British were a monster and dropping steadily into Picardy and then Belgium.  France was as strong as AH, and the Americans and Italians managed to put together decent little forces to harass the CP and reinforce the British and French troops as necessary.

My CP play still wasn’t ideal – the major strategic mistake I made was not pushing harder into Italy – but it’s starting to get a lot closer to ideal.   I can’t blame the dice, in the fact CP on the whole enjoyed better than average dice, particularly in the North Atlantic and against Russia.
All of which is a way of saying I’ve gotten frustrated with this game.  Maybe the new “risk” movement rule will help.  Maybe a bid to play the CP.  But, OOB, with competent play on both sides, and non-absurd dice, I don’t think the CP can win.