@Caesar:
Yeah which is why FIC is key but adding any more minors in China seems pointless with a transport fleet.
The Japanese fleet has enough to do without shielding transports ferrying troops to the Chinese mainland. To save 12IPCs?
Japan's super economy -the end of the world?
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This is why bids tend to be around the 12-14 range to get an extra inf or two in africa along with a sub in sz 98.
A light bid is really pushing it.
~No matter what Italy has 12 units attacking (4 air 2 transported 6 tobruk). 3 from ethiopia you got to send something to attack round 1 or round 2.
So I do not know how you have this super iron clad defense that always holds up when you only start with 10 ground units including anzac. It can get bumped to 12 with malta. Then your air is only 3 planes. But then you have to send something to ethiopia or sudan….
It is a pretty close fight without bids. Then germany can clean house after Italy, after that it pretty much goes to the axis.
~
Like if the axis want the middle east they are going to get it. All Germany has to do is buy strait bombers round 2. Some Germany players like southern france, what they do is buy carrier transport 1 inf, armor from france comes down (their round 2 buy). rest of the buy is bombers.
Then you really cannot hold Egypt. This is more or less a G7 or G8 Russia attack. You just take command of the middle east and bomb out of the game.
This is a really good strategy in general. Because if you get pressure from the atlantic you can just bomb russia for 20 every time he buys units.
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Didn’t know we were talking without bids. Anyone crazy enough to take allies without a bid would would make for a really short game.
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@Cow:
No matter what Italy has 12 units attacking (4 air 2 transported 6 tobruk). 3 from ethiopia you got to send something to attack round 1 or round 2.
UK1:
Purchase 6 Inf, 1 Ftr - Place London.Combat:
CR SZ91 - SZ96
FTR Gib - SZ96
vs 1 DD, 1 TT
95% odds, 1.5 Units survive. 2/3 of the time the UK CR survives.CV, SS, DD, CR, 1 TAC SZ98 - SZ97
FTR Malta - SZ97
BMB London - SZ97 (Land Malta)
vs 1 BB, 1 CR potential for 2 FTR scramble, 3 if Germany sends FTR from Hungary.
Odds w/out German help: Scramble: 95%, 3.9 units survive. No scramble: 100%, 6.4 units survive
Odds with German help (scramble): 2.4 Units survive.
So worst case scenario for Italy is no scramble w/out German help. Leaves all but the SS still in SZ97. Best case scenario Germans help with a Ftr and UK ends up with either 1 Ftr/Tac or all 3 aircraft landing on Malta. (This still isn’t good).NCM:
TT SZ98 1 ART (Alex), 1 INF (Egypt) - SZ80 - Persia. UK has 3 INF, 1 Art on Persia
DD, CR SZ39 - SZ80
DD SZ71 - SZ80
ARM Alex - Sudan
ART, MECH Egypt - Sudan
INF Alex - Egypt
INF W.India - E.Persia (UK2 is picked up by TT from SZ80, enables CR bombard on Iraq)
2 INF S.Africa - RhodesiaSo now you have Cairo with 4 Inf on it. Two are UK, two are ANZAC.
Persia has been activated and can still return to Cairo with those units depending on what Italy does.
Sudan is a hard nut for Italy to crack with just 2 Inf and 1 Art. Italy can send her bomber there if she’s determined to try to get next to Cairo, but thats a 50-50 battle there. Maybe Italy triumphs with 1 Art remaining? That bomber has to land in Ethopia and get defended by the INF from Somalia. Btw that can still get hit by that TT sitting in SZ80 with 1 Inf, 1 Art. Personally, those units are trapped or have to march south to gain 1 IPC for a round or two.
Italy has a single TT at this point, meaning at best you’re seeing 1 Inf, 1 Arm show up on Alex on I1. And that is entirely dependent if the UK has ships remaining in SZ97 and SZ96. Benefit of the doubt you CAN get the units there.
So I1 comes and you stack up Alex with Tobruk units and reinforce with 1 INF, 1 ARM.
So Alex has 4 INF, 1 ART, 1 MECH 2 ARM staring down 4 INF. Odds are in Italy’s favor, until you factor in a Ftr and Tac flying in from Malta, and Persia ferrying in 2 Inf and the UK units in Sudan stepping back to Cairo.All told Cairo holds after UK2:
7 INF, 1 ART, 1 MECH, 1 ARM, 1 TAC, 1 FTR
vs 4 INF, 1 ART, 1 MECH, 2 ARM, 1 Bomber
2% odds for Italy to win that battle on I2.
On I3, perhaps you bought a Ftr on I1, which landed on Alex on I2. You also are now adding 1 Inf, 1 Art that started in Libya.
45% odds to win.And what does Italy have to show for all this? Egypt with a couple units left on it, and units coming in from South Africa, and a second ferry of units from Persia.
At best, you’ve played to a draw. Good for Germany, but this is round 3. Germany needs Cairo 3-4 rounds after this.
Point I’m making is there is no way you’re brining 10 Inf to Cairo by I3. Possibly I4 if UK turtles, at which time the UK has been buying a TT, Inf and Art every round, placing it in South Africa and shuttled three sets by the time you strike, plus the Persian units.
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Didn’t know we were talking without bids. Anyone crazy enough to take allies without a bid would would make for a really short game.
Don’t know. I wasn’t talking about bids. With bids you never know what a player will place where, so I prefer to talk bids excluded… But that’s just a personal preference.
+1 to what Spendo02 said. Very Good breakdown. I learned a thing or two from that ;-). Thanks! In addition to that:
(So without bids) 18 units total can reach Egypt with the air from Calcutta, 15 units without them. Malta ground units stay where they are, TRS will pick up 2INF from Persia. Any losses the UK sustains during UK1 (Taranto or whatever) may not be aircraft, have to be ships. With these numbers, UK will win with 11 units surviving. French move in, 12 units versus max 12 German air. And Italy has just lost everything to achieve this…If need be, UK can build an IC in Egypt UK2 as well. UK can reinforce Egypt with another 5 FTR from London UK3 and 2 FTR from SA. Egypt will then produce 3INF on top of that. Africa = One of the main reasons why UK should never scramble UK1 unless it can hurt Germany really badly (i.e. German attacks on SZ110&111 are underpowered).
Also a viable alternative, UK can pull out, attacking everything into Sudan UK2. From there (and SA) it will then have 18 attackers UK2, 23 UK3 and 25+ attackers UK4. German air can’t be there forever or Germany will be whacked in Russia. Everything Italy takes in the region will be very short term if Uk gives up Egypt like this. This is the kind of short term Italian Presence in Africa that the allies can handle. Meanwhile, the allies are building up in Gibraltar and will have a combined ~30 land units and ~8 aircraft ready to strike every coastal area including Rome and Berlin US4. Less 2 air and 4 land units US3. Given, not everywhere with the same power but still. Way beyond Italian power to defend that. Especially since they sent the few units they bought (FTR) into Africa.
On a sidenote:
Yes, I’d weaken Calcutta in favor of Africa if need be. UKP is dead anyway (the VC, not the army mind you) and loosing it is therefore by far not as critical as allowing Italy a free walk into Africa/ME. Still, with or without the Indian RAF, a J3 on Clacutta requires a very specific Japanese ‘all in’ that I do not particularly fear as allies as long as the UKP keeps its army around. Like I said, Calcutta is dead meat anyway and everything the allies do to prevent the fall of this VC will only help Japan (unless the USA is gearing up for that KJF strategy)… -
Ethiopia’s attack on Sudan, should score a hit.
I2 attack is fine. Nothing wrong with it, attack for one round. Then Germany attacks and has more than enough hits to clear it out in one round of combat.
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Also leaving egypt with only 4 units is really risky for you. If your cruiser is not alive on malta (dd hit on a 2) then 1 inf 1 armor 1 bomber can attack egypt.
That is 35% on egypt.
Some people take those odds, because the risk is pretty minimal, risk a transport that is going to die someday 1 inf 1 armor, the bomber can retreat, it could die that is possible.
Even the sudan battle can be worth one round of risky business.
~You cannot tell me you always hold Africa/middle east.
Plus Germany can bring around 17 air units to attack egypt. All Italy has to do is cut it down to about 8 units, retreat, and let germany got to town.
~
Point is moot because most people G6 russia, sure you bring 10 or 12 fighters in to russia and Germany smokes that.
Round 1-3 all mech/armor round 4-5 mech/armor on novgorod rest air units. round 6 Germany attack, Russia dead. Italy starts with enough units to guard europe, plus germany can take back everything lost after Russia is dead.
You are not getting Germany or Italy. Everything else is a possibility. I have seen USA reclaim France when I did this and I lost west germany for a round. With 80+ ipcs I bought a major factory for greater southern germany infantry and armor on germany, next round 20 units. I won in the Pacific at this point, because after calcutta there is only one thing left for Japan to do, which is to just win.
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Just follow my playbook and you will rarely lose games.
Shoot, I even buy naval round 1, sub dd, carrier, because I am always like this game is the game I sea lion. Then I change my mind.
I still smoke Russia. Imagine if I just bought 1 sub all mech/armor. OMG I could deal with 20 allied fighters coming to Russia and G6 that.
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Russia only starts with 41 ground units and air.
Germany 12 air. Germany starts with 12 air and 48 units - yugoslavia hits and whatever air unit losses germany incurs that can make it to a G6 attack on Russia.
At the start of the game you short 19 units. Germany round 2 buy is ridiculous. Round 3 he matches you. round 4-5 he gets air.
So basically you have round 4 and 5 to get on equal footing with Germany. You started the game short 19 units, say you produce 10 units in round 4 and 5. Then the allies have to help you by matching germany’s round 4 - 5 air purchases (round 5 has 3 armor from ukraine). So the allies need to send about 13 fighters.
So now that you have the same number of units as germany…. it is too bad Germany is rolling tanks and has the same number of 4 rolls as the allies.
~
Some people super min/max the G6 attack by buying some mech round 1. They buy 1 sub to stop the russia NO rest mech/armor or 4 mech 1 destroyer. This is super min max.
It is sad because you know it is coming, but getting 18 air units to Russia before round 6 is easier said than done. Getting Germany to buy units to defend Europe is easier said than done.
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Just trust me. The next time you play the axis just go balls out with Germany Round 2-3 mech/armor . 4-5 all air units.
After you kill Russia with 15 tanks left and 12 air units… then we can have a conservation about how useless going atlantic early is for the allies.
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If the allies bring in 10 planes it would look like this.
Germany playing perfectly and getting nice rolls would have 19 tanks, 21 mechs, 32 infantry, 11 arty, 5 fighters, 5 tacs, and 7-9 bombers depending on AA.
Russia would have roughly 75 infantry, 3 arty, 2 mech, 2 tank, 4 aa guns, 2 russian figs, 1 russian tac, 7 UK figs, 2 UK tacs, 1 UK bomber.
With 9 bombers battle calc puts you at 16 units left after battle…
I might even just wait another round if I were Germany and saw UK put all of her planes in there. Russia would only be making a couple units because of bombing and you are bringing at least 9 more to the battle that you build in Stalingrad, Novgorod, and Ukraine.
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The only way I could have artillery would be if I bought transports round 1. I do not do this usually. I need a sub to stop the Russia NO.
But yeah if you do 2 trans 1 carrier you can generally get a drop in. I just do not like it usually.
Still the end result the same. Germany does take Russia. You tested it out in a solo game, those numbers are about right, give or take depending on Russia player and Germany player. Still 80% odds Germany takes Russia even with 10 allied fighters coming.
You can get lots of air units into Russia, but do not act like Italy is doing nothing all game. Everything comes at a cost.
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@ Cow:
I perfectly know what you are talking about. I know that german drill in and out. The German breakdown from ROCMonster looks about right. If Germany never lost a land unit anywhere…On the Russian side I miss 12 units somehow. UK should have 13air if you add the STR, so ROC you need to add 3FTR and also 8 more ART and 1 INF for the allies in the calculator. These are the exact maximum numbers. Subtract 2 INF for 2 more ARM and it is 100% complete. Maybe you forgot to take into account Russia takes Iraq (and Ethiopia and Somaliland, but those won’t add to Russian production since they are added RU5 & RU6).
102 Axis units (not bought a single ship and lost nothing at all) @ 222Power versus 111 Allied units @ 244 Power. Allies win with 20 units.
Surely Germany will loose a couple of INF and, sadly enough, raiding Moscow will loose Russia also just a couple of INF. Calculate it. It is right. Dealing 10 damage will have Russia produce 7 units in stead of 10, dealing 20 damage will have Russia build 5units instead of 10.
But here is the deal: Bombing Russia, with 12FTR there cannot be done safely. Only turn 4 can this be done (IF no FTR are there yet), by Japan/Italy. As soon as Germany starts bombing it gets interesting: Germany will loose enough aircraft to keep the odds in favor of the allies. All this bombing is pretty high risk for the axis as they cannot afford to loose 1 too many bomber to AAA-fire (particularly Germany) as this will worsen the final odds during the assault. I just redid the calculations from long time ago: with a successful bombing campaign over Moscow, the allies still win with 7 units surviving (instead of the previous mentioned 20). But if the campaign is not so successfull, and the AAA-guns hit 1 or two bombers too many… That’s what I do in A&A: hope for the best, but plan for the worst.Even if Germany takes Moscow, the ‘win’ will be Pyrrhic style. Germany will loose too much units. So now Germany has to wait, GE7 or even GE8. Russia is still not dead, it can still produce and kill German STR that come in. On top of that, 23 Siberians + Mongolians are returning and are now in Moscow. One of the reasons those units must retreat. Allies must make painful choices at gamestart.
So in short, Moscow can stand through a GE6 all in and Germany will be VERY weak against the Western allies at this point. I have been there done that. Many times. Wallies will have permanently liberated Paris, West Germany, Northern Italy, Denmark, Holland and Norway and also bomb Berlin so no, Germany does not have the money anymore to spend on both theatres. Next city to fall is Rome.
Germany must make painful choices too. Be that to foolishly continue its all in against Moscow (loosing Berlin), or to finally start defending against the Wallies (Germany being the weaker side because their prologed focus on Moscow), relieving the pressure on Russia tremendously. -
Russia has 5 rounds of buy roughly 50 inf. You can have more units.
The Germany numbers seem light on tanks to me. It depends on if any skirmishes happen. Bombing runs. All that.
The german drill is strong. G7 is a more conservative approach because you get the finland/norway units in by that time another round of mech/armor. Allies can disrupt you a little, but it only means 1-2 less bombers to get infantry on Germany.
Do the G7 drill against a balanced buy from the allies. If the allies go Atlantic hard, you may as well go for the Pacific win. You get Calcutta round 4 100% every game, you just have to set up for it. Then it is just a matter of taking new south wales or Hawaii neither is hard to do.
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At the same time if the allies game plan is just fly fighters into Russia you may as well play an income game and take territories like volgograd and caucasus 14 ipc right there, go further down for more money.
If Russia has his Africa NOs then you have to keep up with 10 units a round, if not he only makes 7 or 8 units a round… that is not so bad.
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Russia starts off with 41 ground units that can reach Moscow for a T6. Add to that 47 units that they can build the first four turns. Depending on how much Germany bombed you for you will be able to make 3-7 units on turn 5. We will say you got really lucky and built 7 on T5. You now have 41+47+7=95. You say that UK can get 13 units there then that is 108.
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@ROCmonster:
Yes, you are right. I said 102 vs 111 maximum, minus German losses from the opening turns, the unpredictable bombing damage, AAA-fire, escort- and interceptor losses. If things go the good way for Germany, allies will still win with 7units. Hell, if things go so stinking Lucky for Germany, they can even take Moscow! But it will be a worthless Pyrrhic victory. On the other hand, talking about stinking luck, the allies may still win with 20 units left! And the truth is, there can still be 5 more UK FTR in Moscow. I just never needed them there and don’t think they should also go to Moscow. But apparently there is room for adjustments on the allied side if need be.
G6, G7, G8, the economic game, Japan going for the VC win in the Pac, those are all valid and very strong axis drills.
But we are running around in circles, as to the last comments I can only reply like I did at square one already:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=33833.msg1299395#msg1299395
Including Volgo/Cauca, Germany won’t be spending more than ~35IPCs per turn (because of raids/convoying), Wallies are producing 16 units/turn in WEurope and that’s without any investments from the USA even (considering both Japan and the USA are now spending 100% into Pacific for control of Hawaii/Sydney), so after adding 10 INF in Berlin, Germany has max 5 IPCs left to spend on outproducing Russia… Russia will not have less than 18IPCs to spend unless also being bombed every turn in which case Russia will still produce 2INF per turn (with a maxed out IC) and this will continue to cost Germany more air than the allies (who can even add more FTR at this point)…But like I said, we are starting to run around in circles, neither one convincing the other.
You firmly believe the axis can never loose if played by your playbook. Except, maybe if the allies go KJF. I, on the other hand, believe that the allies have more options than that and also that there is no guaranteed axis win if the allies go for a 'K’G/IF. If this option is permantly busted for the allies with convincing arguments, I would be done with A&A because of too narrow strategic options for the allies (I’m not interested in bids to ‘correct’ this as long as it isn’t official). But luckily I haven’t seen/heard any such convincing argument yet.So let’s leave it at that and agree to disagree. I don’t like to run around in circles with arguments.
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Wow, I think we went full circle, lol
Back to the topic “Japan’s super economy -the end of the world?”… Japan cannot take Calcutta on turn 3 if you use UK Pacific fleet, French DD to block. ANZAC and USA just use their ships to block Australia. You can see that from my previous post. Now… What if Japan just heads to Africa or Persia! Japan will be at SZ38 on the beginning of turn 4 and UK and France will be out of ships to use as blockers unless UK-PAC bought any ships. To prevent this Italy or Germany will need to have a bomber or two to within range of SZ39. That Italian Bomber at Ethiopia would work perfect. Of course Japan could also just switch gears and wipe out Calcutta if they buy a DD round 3. If Japan builds a NB in Shan State on round 3 they can take Persia on round 4 followed buy Egypt on round 5 but I would wait until round 6 to get all your transports there. That’s the same round Russia should fall. Whether or not they can hold it is another question. Call it the “Axis Pincer” move, :)
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Japan takes Calcutta round 4-6 usually. Depends on the Japan player and what he wants to do. Sometimes when you take it you leave Korea/Japan SZ wide open for USA to setup shop. Othertimes you choose to wait on i t for a bit and play more defensive, do this if Europe is going your way.
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I play lots of games and it has been nearly a year since I have experienced a loss with the axis. Even when things go really bad for me early, it always works out. I also did different things with Japan, lately my Japan is a bit more toned down, because I been waiting for Germany to take Russia before going all out.
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Nice thinking, Cyanight 8-)!
Are you familiar with this idea or did you just pose it as an idea to discuss?
I don’t have any experience with this ‘skip Calcutta’ move, but it looks like an interesting challenge for both sides!
I think the biggest concern for Japan is that this requires a lot of resources that will not be active in the pacific: Japanese will need a large naval escort for their TRS and a lot of land units are removed from the pacific early (China + Calcutta + taking Russian areas).The USA should be able to make a move into the DEI because of the IJN escorts moving west and the ability of the UK to easily have ~30 units active in Africa UK6 should not be underestimated. That is not including the large numbers of Uk aircraft that are also active in that region before they (the majority) need to go and defend Moscow. So once again: Japan will need to go in heavy, not half-hearted because Southern Africa looks empty. 3 Turns (from NB placement to getting in range) can change a lot to that.
UK can move away from possible landing sites and with ~30 british units + some leftover air that did not need to go into Moscow, Japan will won’t have trouble getting ashore with their 12 invaders but they will have trouble staying there.
So far my brainstorm.
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