Japan's super economy -the end of the world?

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.

:-D You don’t have to send all of the IJN down there but I think it is a strong move to at least plan for the worst:

Protect the TRS at least against a UK BB, CA, DD, a possible CV (very uncertain but it happens sometimes), and indeed 4-6 aircraft. Maybe more air if SA produced a couple of STR.

Hey Cow,
why not challenge one of the top league players, like Gamerman01, or Allweneedislove? Seeing how many Allied (and axis) wins they got, they will sure do a much better job at proving or busting your point if you want to depend your conceding on that 1 or 2 games played. Truth is, I don’t like playing TripleA that much.

I have in fact grown a little weary of playing A&AG40 in the first place and so I need to plan my games carefully these days. Especially how often to play, how long can I expect the game to last… etc.

As much as I like your challenge, Planning another TripleA game is out of the question for me for now.
Except with the people I already play tripleA games with, like MagicQ who is also active in the league. That way I can play the game at much a lower frequency and hopefully keep my A&AG40 weariness in check to play the game for a little more years to come. If you are interested in why/where the weariness comes from, read on below!

I do share at least a part of your assertions about the allies in this game. Not that they can’t win the game, apart from maybe KJF, but I am weary and annoyed of how the allies need to be played to be able to win:
When the game progresses and the stacks in some crucial areas grow bigger and bigger, I need to calculate a lot to win. Maybe it is a personal thing, but given so many complaints about the allied strength in the game I think there is a truth in this. Attacking the wrong stack or the wrong location with the wrong number of forces will easily loose the allied game (against a strong and seasoned axis player). And from turn 3/4/5, strike back with the allied empire somewhere, you must (Yoda says).
So pick your target and calculate. And calculate ahead (what is the effect after 3/4 turns). Not good? Pick another target and repeat. And so on and so on. The allies must also react adequately to each and every axis threat and not overdo it (which leaves them too weak elsewhere), which also requires calculations.

And this goes on all the way to turn 12 or so. After that the situation becomes much clearer again but to me, the damage has already been done: weariness and annoyance set in about the game dragging and dragging. Often I must resist the urge to do some very high risk attacks with a chance for the allies to win the game right there but also a pretty good chance that things/dice go wrong and that this 1 or 2 extra FTR losses will win the Axis the game instead…

@Cow:

I would need to play more games before gamerman01 would accept a challenge, he would lose too much if he lost to my record. I lost one game won the rest…. my other games are going great… I am the axis in those games.

I see… So you need more games on your record to challenge the big guy eh ;-). So you know what to do!
Looking at your record now and I think you need to win more games as axis versus higher ranking players anyway (to prove your statement about the allies, at least). Right now it looks to me you are a strong axis player who defeated lower leveled players as allies (as in, ~20 levels below your own). Not enough ground for saying the allies are weak. You still may have a point but it’s not proven yet.

@Cow:

(…) Especially since the axis usually do not surrender until something drastic happen and I do not want to play a game past 15 rounds… I lose interest.

I like to see you and I actually share more feelings about the allies than I thought :-). Although I loose interest a bit sooner lately. I could sit still for this game all into turn 20 in the early days but nowadays… turn 9 and still no clear winner I already feel annoyed and want to end the game…

@Cow:

I find that if you play too conservatively you just end up giving too much to the axis. You know they catch up in income starting round 3 or 4 right? You keep giving and giving, things do not really work out.

The allies is a desperate struggle, but that is part of the fun. Kind of like playing the axis in revised or classic without bids.

~

In classic the game was won or lost in Karelia sometimes Africa. Here the allies can lose the game in so many locations, you may as well go crazy. Scrambling 110 and 111 cuts into germany’s air preventing him from doing africa stuff so that prevents you from losing elsewhere, but if you do not cut into the german air… london becomes a real easy take. See how you have to gamble to prevent the axis from doing other things?

You sure have to make a stand with the allies and economy is a very good indication of when. While ‘retreating’ I am Always on the lookout for the economic situation. Do the axis make more than the allies? If yes, for how long already? How long do I think this will last and where can I go to stabilize?
If the allies can stabilize their economic collapse during the opening turns, while not loosing too much of their military, I think they are doing good. The Allied TUV minus the Axis TUV being >500 for the whole duration of turn 4-12 is also a good indication of how well the allies are doing (as long as they do not give Hawaii/Sydney away lol).

Last game I played allies I lost Moscow GE6 due to a calculation error (!). I needed 2 more UK FTR to win the Moscow assault done as per your playbook (I had 10 RAF in Moscow already) and the Axis conrolled every former Russian/Asian area. They also controlled Madagscar and the ME except for Iraq (Huge UK stack complemented with 20 Russian Siberians) and everything west of that. The allies still made more IPCs per turn, because Germany had no choice but to place 10 units per turn into Berlin (or loose it), which was raided every turn, flushing down the toilet 20 IPCs per turn for repairs.
Then the allies took Rome UK11. 18 IPCs per turn were lost for the axis cause (not to mention the Uk gained 18IPCs loot) increasing the economic shortfall of the Axis and my ‘fascist’ opponent waved the white flag (so even with Russia gone).
Juicy detail: Rome fell even after it had had a production of ~23IPCs per turn for a long time and with an extra 10 Japanese + 8 German aicraft in it (the latter 2 facts being the reason why it took me so long to crack that nut).

Tell you what.
We may be able to play a couple of TripleA game someday in the future. Just not right now. 2015 somewhere so I can (hopefully) recharge my ‘A&A-batteries’.

No offense, Cow. I can only look at the league spreadsheet from Gamerman01.

Both seasons you did great, nothing to say about that. I just don’t see any proof in the gamedata that justifies labeling the allies ‘weak’. Not enough gamedate so to say. You need to win more games as axis versus the top 5 league players for that and as I see it you are getting there. Someday Gamerman will have to accept your challenge :-). Once again, I can only look at this spreadsheet for current and 2013 standings.

I am not looking into every game in detail, ofc… But If I see guys like Gamerman01 win pretty everything no matter what he plays (axis and allies alike) I wonder how much of that is bid-related. I think he is just a VERY strategically gifted player.
I see Allweneed & Gamerman play with bids in between 6 and 12 just like everybody else and honestly, guys that win almost every A&AG40 game, Axis or Allies alike, I don’t see why they need to play allies with bids anyway. If you win almost everything with +6/+12 as allies you will still do so with no bid (EDIT: It will take more turns but still). Or maybe you start loosing some games, but my point is, I think it is more because they are simply superstrong players than bidrelated.

If you and Cyanight start a game on the forum (or you and Gamerman ;-)) I will be very interested to follow that one!
Maybe that would even get me over my current A&A weariness/annoyance…

Hey Cyanight, the spreadsheet can be found by following the link in this post: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=32389.0

Also, from this page http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?board=54.0, you can find all the rules/standings etc. for league games (all the top bold sticky topics).

@cyanight:

League or not I’m always up for a game.

Believe me Cyan, if I would be playing more TripleA games you surely would be on my favorite list. I like the way you communicate and such things I find very important. But I am already in the process of cutting down the number of games I play and TripleA is the first to fall. Maybe next year ;-).

EDIT: Gamerman beat me to it, so sorry for the duplicate link, but nvm ^^.