Gaming materials for enhanced gameplay (video)

@shadowhawk

Yeah, I definitely didn’t think of things that way. Mostly the AAA just stays in the US the whole time. I’ll give it a try.

@waxenhen4 said in Allies getting destroyed every game?:

@Contango thanks for the pictures

So is the most optimal counter for an all in Russia attack really abandoning EVERY thing except Moscow? I suppose this would deny the VC but give Germany almost all of Russia’s ipc value for free.

the UK advice seems pretty strong but what do you think makes a better permanent main landing for the allies: Normandy, north/south Italy, or south France? (assume your not playing a mod that appears to have made southern France neutral)

For Russia it might be a bit strong to say to abandon absolutely everything. I think you can justify deviating from a full on retreat under certain circumstances:

You can make a case that your deviation stands a good chance of actually helping your Moscow odds.

Examples:

Trading units to re-take Novgorod, Ukraine and Volgograd -> not only kills German units but also denies factory usage Sending some mechanized units to kill small groups of German tanks/mechs trying to do a Northern run-by to gobble up income If Germany moves ahead too quickly, or splits up and leaves you an opportunity to strafe his army and still be safe afterwards, (a strafe is where you make an attack with intentions of retreating on purpose) or otherwise leaves you a lucrative unit trade Germany has allocated resources away from Russia, so Russia can now flip to offense.

Examples:

German production switches heavily to the Atlantic Germany decides to do a mid-game Sea Lion Germany goes hard with mechanized units into the middle east leaving you outnumbering his slower army

As for my thoughts on an Allied permanent landing:

Normandy is probably the best:

Free factory Opportunity for UK ground troops to use US transports easily UK Air cover (watch the Italians taking out your airbase before Germany’s turn) UK production of extra naval units if things get lively and it’s necessary Furthest from Moscow, meaning German planes have to pick one or the other German infantry/artillery have to move off of defending West Germany to get there Can quickly switch to the Med if you see opportunity Threat of sniping Berlin (US takes Denmark, UK follows up with transports to Berlin)

I find Norway is good, but kind of situational. You can sometimes really annoy Germany with a small investment of suicided transports and not taking your entire fleet out of position and away from air cover.

If they J1, then I would suggest buying an extra carrier and having these guys hang out with the USA, making the main fleet much less vulnerable to a pre-emptive attack. With a sub or two, and a tac, the ANZAC forces can usually mop up the Japanese fleet if it survives an initial attack by the US.

If they dont, then your planes can land on java, usually, they find a good way to cross, and at least as far as the Japanese TTs are concerned, you can screen those out (even if they have an NB)

The idea of sending the 6 planes to moscow, however, denies you alot of other milestones in the game; without the grey and tan planes in theatre, Bombay is easy to take, and if not, Sydney will be. Players who are not cautious about building reserves with ANZAC can easily find both capitals under threat, esp. once Japan can use Malaya’s base. Whichever one you defend, they attack the other (now that you can’t cross back). If you dont defend either, they can take both.

Another fine plan is to marry the UK air force from India with the one from the Med, assuming that one survives. That roving force can do alot to wreck the Axis, or it can defend the factories in the core area (persia, Iraq–the axis mundi of the board. pun intended).

No matter what you do, its still more than one turn from India to Moscow, and this is very intentional on the part of the game designers. At that juncture in the game, the areas around Moscow are under threat, so you can’t land planes alone anywhere but moscow.

Sending all your auxiliary planes from the minor allies to rescue Moscow will probably save it, but you’ll lose the game when the Japanese dominate that board, or the Italians/Germans take Africa and the 2$ Russian zones. For all these reasons, I prefer to leave most of those planes nearer to where they start, using them to tear Japan apart, rather than sending them on a long range adventure that prevents them from attacking and expressing threat. If Japan is threatened by the USA, there are plenty of times that they have to weaken their westward push, and at that point, UK planes can join whatever Russian stacks are still fighting, once you see the outcome (save Bombay, we hope).

I agree with a post that Mashmallow posted earlier, there is no guarantee that you are going to get that NO for a clear med, you should not even rely on that one. The Italians have so many uses, on the ground, with actual IPC earning territory’s that those planes can be used for, you need to weigh out their impact in the med versus potentially taking Egypt, steam rolling Greece, building an actually strong can-opener force in Russia, and even Protecting Rome.

The last few games that I have played, when I am the Axis, I get my Italian partner to seriously evaluate the Taranto raid force. If it is the max force possible, and the UK is totally on point, I say scrap the scramble, focus on more attainable objectives. As a German player, I sure as hell don’t want to burn the Luftwaffe on an air vs naval clean up battle G2, where I can lose guaranteed safe hits against Russian ground troops once Barbarossa commences. On the other hand, If the UK doesn’t bring the max force down, or they don’t make a move to middle east with SA and India navies / units, and Italy looks like they might have some time to maneuver for a few rounds, then scramble all the way. I have seen games were Italy won the Taranto raid, and from then on became unstoppable in the Med, which in turn leads to Germany being able to achieve their full potential, and results in an Axis victory.

Italy unfortunately has to play the game, or at least start the game, being completely on board to support the Germans in whichever direction they plan to strike. A strong Afrika campaign with Italian air power can lead to Italy generating sufficient IPCs to gain a bit more control over their destiny. A successful Italian campaign in the middle East, or as a can-opener can have the same impact. Italy with zero navy, and zero air force, means they might as well stockpile Rome and prepare to defend Europe, there will be no expeditionary force.

@Argothair:

My play group is very considerate about trying to (a) identify when the game isn’t much worth playing anymore, and then (2) accurately describe the likely outcome of the game.

Right, like there are no hard-and-fast rules about “oh, you lost your capital, or you lost Cairo, or you’re making 30 IPCs less per turn, so it’s game over.” Instead we look at the board and try to see if there are battles or campaigns coming up that are likely (>10%?) to make a dramatic impact on the state of the game, especially campaigns where the underdog is going on the offensive, or where the apparent favorite is in danger of being pushed back if they lose a key attack. E.g. it matters a lot whether Germany has one stack next door to Moscow, with nothing to reinforce it if that stack is destroyed, vs. a steady stream of reinforcements and a huge stack next to Moscow. In the former case, Moscow could recover if it fends off a German battle with 80% odds to take Moscow. In the latter case, even if Moscow pulls out that 20% from the dice, they will still have 80% odds to die one turn later, so it’s not a big deal. The former position is interesting and worth playing on if we can manage to find time for a second session; the latter position is not interesting and the game should be called.

When we call a game, we don’t insist on unconditional surrender. Instead, we try to agree on what the game looks like. For example, “the Allies are way ahead, but the Axis still have a slight chance.” Or, “It’s hard to say for sure who’s winning, but it looks like the Axis have a slight edge.” Sometimes we don’t always precisely agree – one side might claim the Allies are ahead by “a little” while the other side might claim the Allies have “a significant lead,” but so far we have always at least agreed on which side has the edge, even if not by how much.

Hey!  I am in your play group and what you are saying is…. basically right.  Although have we played global together?  Don’t recall honestly

Done.

What if they bypass your Armada by sailing North around Scotland and hit London from from Sz 109. What do you have in London at this point…. 2 Brits and a Frenchman.

So essentially, just two combat units  :wink:  Haha, sorry, but I just couldn’t resist taking advantage of such an obvious opportunity to take a stab at the French  :-D

A long time ago, back when we just had the Classic MB version of A&A, I started working on an idea to break all territories into smaller sections so it wouldn’t just be one battle and you get the whole territory.  For example, the Eastern US territory would be broken down into all the different states so if an Axis attacked it, they would have to fight state to state in order to win that territory, and maybe some of the larger states could be split into two or three sections.  I thought this seemed more realistic than just one battle and you win the entire Eastern half of the United States.
However, many problems became apparent fairly quickly.  First of all, I couldn’t always find more detailed maps of some of the territories like those in central and eastern Russia, territories in Africa, Southeast Asia, etc. 
Also, going from the World map to a single territory map you would have to change all the units.  For example;  you have 10 infantry, 2 armor and 2 fighters defending Eastern USA.  If you shrink this down to just that territory broken up into many territories,  it would have to be something like 100 infantry, 20 armors and 20 fighters spread out amongst all those territories.  Plus you would have to figure out where to put them and it wouldn’t necessarily be an even amount.  You wouldn’t have the same amount of units defending Washington or New York as you would some empty space.  The same would hold true for the attackers.  How many units would you have attacking each territory?  Plus, I didn’t have a clue as to how to break it down like this for Naval warfare.  How many actual ships does 1 battleship on the World Map represent on the smaller maps?
Finally, it occurred to me that this would make just one game of A&A take literally MONTHS to complete.  Attacking a territory would be like opening up a whole new game.  Granted, there are a number of unoccupied territories that you could simply “blitz” and not have to refer to the smaller maps, but any substantial combat would take hours to complete as your forces move to take a territory a piece at a time.  Also, this would possibly mess up some attacks and leave a territory in a “contested” state for some time.  For example;  Germany invades Eastern US.  Germany has 20 Inf, 8 tanks, 2 fighters and 2 bombers.  The US has 10 inf, 2 tanks and 2 fighters plus the AA gun.  Now, depending on how the forces get laid out on the small scale map, and also depending on luck of the dice rolls, there are any number of outcomes.  On the World Map, it would be one big battle and over, likely with Germany winning .  However, on the small  map, it’s possible that say the Germans did well in the north.  However, in the south the US forces defeated the invader and still have good forces intact.  Also, on this scale, there will likely be more US forces farther inland as reserves.  So now the territory of Eastern USA is basically half German controlled and half US controlled.  This would drag this one battle out even longer.  Now, it’s possible that the triumphant German forces in the North could possibly get whittled down to nothing as they try to work their way south.
Anyway, my point is that doing a game like this would make it take way too long and I would imagine most people would lose intereste after a while.  It’s an interesting concept but if you get too detailed the game loses its fun.