Allied Strategy of Kill Turkey First

Pellulo

Is there a 3 player game AH could win, of course there is, AH empire, versus, Italy & USA. It would take three turns for USA forces to get to Italy, just to drop off 2 troopers & 2 guns. Venice would be taken, &, Tuscany(maybe Rome, skipping Piedmont) ready to fall, still it might save Rome for a while with the US forces arriving, but, all AH has to do is spend its funds on mostly naval forces. The AH navy would buy time for the land forces to take Rome.

Skipping AH empire, would USA & Italy have a chance versus Germany. It helps that GE. does not touch Italy, so it would be mostly a naval game. Where would GE. strike the USA or Italy?, once a capital is contested the war is over, especially if GE. gets naval dominance and keeps the transports coming. True Italy could take out GE. colonies, both Allies could try to combine their fleets, but, still GE. is a force to recon with(on the flip side the Allies will probably never land any forces in GE.).

Round One: Germany builds transport, sub., C & BB. Moves subs. from Sea Zones 5&7 to 3(to link up with surface fleet leaving Sea Zone 10). Eventually the fleet will sail to Sea Zone 14(equidistant from Rome & D.C.).

Italy builds transport & sub., BB & transport goes to East Africa with 2 troopers(who boarded from Rome), on Italian mainland an adjustment of guns and troopers(goal of 4 troopers & gun) for each province. A reserve to be built in Rome, and, to garrison the home islands in the future with a trooper & gun(Sicily & Sardinia).

USA builds fighter, transport and submarine.

Round Two: Germany builds 2 transports, 2 subs., &, a BB. Now is moving fleet to Sea Zone 14(equidistant from Rome & DC, hard for Allies to link up).

Italy builds fighter, gun, &, 2 troopers. Arrives off GE. E. Africa transport & BB, drops off gun & trooper(BB shelling wipes defending trooper), colony falls.

USA builds BB, 2 troopers & gun. Has 2 troopers boarding transport.

Round Three: GE. builds 2 transports, sub. & BB. More ships arrive Sea Zone #14, leaving home waters BB & 2 subs. & 2 transports(2 troopers & gun & fighter).
Sea Zone #14 does not let US Fleet link up with Italians, or, go through Med. Sea or down west coast of Africa.

Italy builds 2 subs. & a trooper. Moves from Rome via transport of trooper & gun to Sicily. Two troopers board transport off GE. East Africa, sail to Kamerun, where defending trooper is destroyed by BB shelling, and, troopers from transport have landed, the colony has fallen. Italy knows GE. transports are due to land at Rome/D.C. soon.

USA builds 2 subs., gun & 2 troopers.

Round Four: Germany builds tank, transport, &, 4 submarines. Fleets moving to Sea Zone 14.

Italy builds gun, trooper, &, tank. Moves from Venice garrison trooper & gun to Rome via transport. Combat off S.W. Africa 2 troopers land from transport, and, BB shells. Defending troopers destroyed by shelling, the colony falls.

USA builds trooper, tank, &, moves troops back to shore from transport, in case GE. fleet attacks next round.

ROUND FIVE: GE. builds 3 transports and a BB. Decides to move from Sea Zone 14 to East Coast America! Also moves from 8 to 2(sea zones) of BB, sub., &, 2 transports. Along with from 10 to 8(sea zone) moves 4 subs.

Combat 3BB, 3C, 7subs., &, 3 loaded transports, versus, USN 2 BB, C, transport, 5 subs., and, fighter. Losses to mines damaged BB & 3 submarines, also rest of GE. fleet with 2 transports lost, &, all U.S.A. fleet lost sans transport (including fighter that had scored a hit is lost). Lone GE. transport tries to land trooper & gun, but, destroyed by defending guns. All that remains of both fleets are a transport.

For rest of Rd. 5 played Italy will take Togoland and try to send Med. fleet to East Coast, while USA rebuilds its fleet.

Political lost for both sides, USA is no pushover for GE., but, Italy gives back GE. colonies to end war(GE. still has a surface and submarine fleets coming down to Med. Sea).

Now if GE. had instead attacked Italy first. Moves ships from Sea Zone 8 to 14, Sea Zone 10 to 8, part of fleet already in Sea Zone 14 to 17. Off Italy mines damage BB & sinks submarine. Battle 3 BB , 2 submarines, &, 3 transport, versus, Italian C, 3 submarines, fighter, and, transport. Losses only 2 damaged BB remains, 3 transports, &, fighter for Italy. BBS shell & defending guns fire, each side losses 2 troopers.

Transports land 1 trooper, 2 guns, &, fighter (Italian fighter lost in air duel), versus, 3 troopers, 3 guns, and, tank(which absorbs a hit). Losses GE. gun and fighter. Rome is contested!

Italy builds 3 submarines, reinforcement trooper from Naples & Tuscany enter Rome, moves BB & transport to Togoland(shelling takes out defending trooper & landed troops take over colony).

Combat Roman garrison counterattacks 5 foot and 3 guns, &, tank, versus GE. trooper & gun, losses Allies 2 troopers & Axis all.

USA builds BB, transport, &, trooper. Moves fleet from East Coast to Sea Zone 14 of 2 BB, C, 5 subs., &, transport(heads for S. Africa), versus, GE. fleet of BB, 3C, 5 subs., &, 2 transports. Losses all but GE. 2 Transports.

Again political sour grapes for all, 2 transports will not take out Rome, still GE. has fleets, but, with USA in the flank, hard to just concentrate on Rome alone. Also Italy can get GE. out of the Med. for good, give back the colonies.

Now starting Round Five again, with GE. attacking both Allies at the same time. Splitting the GE. fleet, would not probably lead to any landings on the East Coast(if the fleet is not wiped out), probably landings in Italy, but, without BBs(back on East Coast) to help with shelling.

Losses IPCs when USA attacked first:Land Axis 15 & Allies none, Air both sides 6, Sea Axis 111 & Allies 63.
Last edited by pellulo on Tue Jun 24, 2014 9:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Pellulo

@Krieghund

Good to know.

@Dovenik-Hyseni

To respond to your points:

To be fair, I prefer stacking Galacia over hitting Poland AH1. I only brought up the possibility of hitting Poland as a hypothetical.

I don’t particularly care about winning in Serbia round 1. I only even attack Serbia at all because the rules of the game force you to. The rules of 1914 allow you to choose whether or not to press combat each turn, so you can simply have the Austrians not attack the Serbians each turn, which allows you to potentially roll 3s with your stack there instead of 2s (assuming the Entente presses combat).

That being said, I think I was a bit off in assuming the Serbia guys would be capable of hitting Romania round 2. You’d probably need to split the Galacia mega-stack to hit both Romania and Ukraine, depending on what Russia does.

You can most definitely contest Romania and Ukraine AH2 if you’re committing 100% of Germany’s buys towards Russia. Yes the battles won’t go in your favor initially (and you may have to spend some turns not pressing combat in Ukraine), but your objective in a Kill-Russia-First style of strategy should be to hit Russia on multiple fronts and force them to lose more troops each turn than they can feasibly replace. Starting fights in Poland (with Germany), Ukraine and Romania should be enough to accomplish this goal.

Side-Note: Your 10 INF/4 ART swings for 36 (8@3 + 6@2) and has a 60% chance to wipe the Romania stack in one round of combat. Those are pretty good odds, but it’s not exactly consistent, especially considering that a big chunk of your strategy hinges on having the Romania stack available to march on into Ukraine AH2.

On the topic of fighting/holding off Italy, I prefer killing Italy first as Austria over killing Russia first, but that’s beyond the scope of this conversation. However, because Italy goes after Austria, you can send some of your turn 1 buy into Trieste Round 2 to slow down Italy if you’d rather send 100% of the Vienna guys East.

I don’t have much more to add, really. If I were Russia playing against this I would just shuffle all of my units into Ukraine R1 and hope that France/Italy/UK can do something productive in other theaters.

Axis and Allies 1914 - British Strategy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW9pE6IcRdw

From a simple math min/max perspective which some are intersested in, a naval strat is extremly unwise. Simple plus/minus math will tell you you need to add appr. 81 IPC worth of naval as CP in total accross the board (using the starting naval as ref) to even break even which means if you wanna “controll” something you will need to add more than the competition.
As CP you cant ever get into a building race with the allies as your starting income is so much less, but rather you need to as fast as possible close the incomecap.

Consider sz17. (I will assume the ottoman and russian navy cancel each out). Allies can after turn1 have 2 BS (France+Italy)+3Cruisers(UK+Italy+France which means AH wont be able to break even, even if the go all out navy. After turn2 the allies will have additional 1BS+Crusie (UK) in the zone and again AH wont be able to break even, even if they spent all during 2 turns. After this france plus Italy can with great ease together spend equal to AH for each turn.
So I have to ask how in hell are AH suppose to get controll over sz17?=)

I suppose you can counter and say “the allies dont counter my moves in my games” but then what is the point of argue the value of strats. I can  ask what do you think about my “attack-AH-first-as-Italy strat”, assuming AH dont defend their borders?=)

If the Ottomans can manage to take India then the CP will be in a prime position. The problem is getting there. Without unit placement restrictions in India, the British should be able to hold out indefinitely. The CP have the problem of threats on multiple fronts. If Russia could be pushed back then the Ottomans could make a push for India, but at that point they should be out produced, France could be reinforced, and the US is on the way. On that note, if the CP hasn’t made any substantial moves by the time the US is landing, its game over. I think the Ottomans should move into the Balkans and also apply subtle pressure onto Russia, but their main task should be to pressure India, trying to divert British money but not lead to a full fledged British assault towards Istanbul. Cause trouble in Egypt and Persia to help the other CP nations in any economical way that you can.

It gets pretty chaotic, Russian bear gets real, Ottos are in a stalemate, AH is backed up to his capital, I like to take Italy at the same time… USA can liberate Italy and that makes me a sad panda sometimes. AH is where things get wonky. It is primarily Germany that had to leave what is east of germany, east of germany and everything west of germany west of germany machine gunning their way  to france. It is kind of cray. The starting stuff east of Germany is generally enough to keep Russian bear enough spaces away from you long enough for you to deal with it later.

What do you think about possibly pulling the two German subs back to SZ 4?  First, they wouldn’t have to dodge 2 mine rolls (and Germany has enough to kill Britain’s home fleet anyway). Second, you’re set up to make a joint attack on SZ 8 turn two if Britain should try to drop a fleet. A G1 build of a BB in SZ would help (a battleship could likely survive 2a mine rolls on its way to SZ 8).

I haven’t tried this yet, but it might help a Paris or Bust strategy (preventing British reinforcements to France).