Africa and Siberia more important than they look?

I see a lot of discussion on this board about both sides’ strategies for how to control Africa – build an IC in Brasil, ferry troops from London to Morocco, build an IC in South Africa, build two Japanese transport fleets so you can set up a chain to east Africa, etc.

Same thing for Siberia – I see talk about how to funnel Japanese troops along three channels at once (Siberia, China, and Burma/India), or how to stack Manchuria to delay a march on Evenki, etc.

That all strikes me as pretty odd, because almost every territory in Africa and Siberia is worth 1 IPC, there aren’t any victory cities there at all, they aren’t especially close to any capitals, and they’re kind of out-of-the-way from any other strategic goals the players might have. I mean, Egypt at least makes some sense; you want access to the Suez Canal and it’s worth 2 IPCs and counts toward a couple of NOs. But why are people fighting over Yakut or the Congo? If your opponent’s foolish enough to send more than a token force into Africa or Siberia, wouldn’t it be wiser to just evacuate your troops from the region and use them somewhere more important?

I’m looking at Norway/Finland/Karelia, and with the NO it’s worth more than all of Africa put together. I’m looking at the Caucasus, and with the NO it’s worth more than all of Siberia put together, including the Urals and Novosibirsk. How come people’s strategies don’t reflect that? What am I missing?

Thanks! That makes a lot of sense. I still think Africa and Siberia are slightly overrated, but I have a much better idea of what everyone else is thinking now.

I think the “$2 territory means a $4 swing” idea is balanced by the fact that even if you lose an entire continent, you don’t lose it all at once. In other words, let’s say Britain “loses” Africa. Does that mean that on Italy’s first turn, Italy literally sweeps down through Egypt into French West Africa and South Africa? Of course not.

Suppose Britain sends zero reinforcements to Africa, and America temporarily drops off one infantry and one artillery to Morocco on turn 2, which you can do at zero cost with your starting transport, kind of leaving them there to rest on your way to France or Italy or whereever. Suppose Italy unloads two transports (one into Transjordan, then one into Egypt), and Germany unloads one transport (to Egypt). Japan snaps up Madagascar on turn 3 but otherwise minds its own business.

Let’s say the Axis win all their battles effortlessly and steamroll through Africa at maximum speed, leaving a modest garrison in Libya. Here’s how the income might look.

Turn 1 – $5 for Axis (Morocco, Libya, Egypt, TJ), and $10 for Allies (TJ, Sudan, Ethiopia, Congo, FEA, FWA, Rhodesia, Madagascar, South Africa)
Turn 2 – $8 for Axis (Morocco, Libya, Egypt, TJ, Sudan, Ethiopia, FEA) and $9 for Allies (Morocco, Ethiopia, FEA, FWA, Congo, Rhodesia, Madagascar, South Africa)
Turn 3 – $11 for Axis (Libya, Egypt, TJ, Sudan, Ethiopia, FEA, FWA, Congo, Rhodesia, Madagascar) and $4 for Allies (Morocco, Rhodesia, South Africa
Turn 4 – $13 for Axis (Libya, Egypt, TJ, Sudan, Ethiopia, FEA, FWA, Congo, Rhodesia, Madagascar, South Africa) and $3 for Allies (South Africa, Morocco)
Turn 5 – $13 for Axis, $1 for Allies (Morocco)

Total income over five turns is $50 for Axis, $27 for Allies.

Now let’s flip the scenario around – suppose the Axis send the same three transports’ worth of forces to Africa, but this time the Allies bid one infantry in Egypt, build factories in South Africa and Brazil, send the entire British air force to Africa, have the Americans launch Operation Torch on turn 1 – basically the Allies just make Africa their absolute top priority. Assume both sides get average dice rolls. Japanese come on turn 3 to snipe Madagascar again.

Turn 1 – $5 for Axis (Morocco, Libya, Egypt, TJ), and $11 for Allies (Morocco, TJ, Sudan, Ethiopia, Congo, FEA, FWA, Rhodesia, Madagascar, South Africa)
Turn 2 – $5 for Axis (Libya, Egypt, TJ, Sudan), and $11 for Allies (Morocco, Libya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Congo, FEA, FWA, Rhodesia, Madagascar, South Africa)
Turn 3 – $7 for Axis (Egypt, TJ, Sudan, FEA, Ethiopia, Madagascar), and $10 for Allies (Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Congo, FWA, Rhodesia, South Africa)
Turn 4 – $4 for Axis (TJ, FEA, Ethiopia, Madagascar), and $11 for Allies (Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Congo, FWA, FEA, Rhodesia, South Africa)
Turn 5 – $2 for Axis (Ethiopia, Madagascar) and $12 for Allies (Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, FWA, FEA, Ethiopia, Congo, Rhodesia, South Africa)

Totals this time are $23 for Axis, $55 for Allies.

I think these are fairly extreme scenarios – in most games, making a big investment in Africa would swing Africa a little more slowly or a little less completely.  But even in this extreme scenario, the total swing over 5 turns is 45 IPCs. It’s possible my math is wrong, but I’m pretty confident that you shouldn’t double that figure – that 45-IPC budget already includes the gains you can make as the Allies and the losses you can inflict on the Axis by investing in Africa.

But it really doesn’t take that much to spend 45 IPCs – if you build one factory in South Africa on turn 1 and fill it with 2 tanks on turns 2, 3, and 4, and 5, that’s 15 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 45. If you send any fighters or lose any men during Operation Torch or land any additional transports (let alone start going crazy with a Brazilian IC or a dedicated African shuck-shuck), you’re now over-budget.

I expect people will argue that (1) national objectives help increase the budget, and (2) you can make up any shortfalls in the budget by continuing to hold Africa after turn 5. Here’s my counter-arguments:

Italy’s NOs require it to hold Morocco and Gibraltar. The Anglos can and should rapidly take those territories just as a side effect of establishing Atlantic naval supremacy – you don’t need to be running any particular African campaign to be able and willing to retake those territories. Similarly, Britain’s NOs require it to hold Egypt and Australia and South Africa all at once – if you’re fighting hard in north Africa and also working on some kind of naval buildup in the Atlantic, then you’re going to lose Australia to Japan before you can retake Egypt – if you try to hold Egypt and South Africa and Australia in the opening, you’re going to run out of IPCs for the European campaign, and Germany will turn into a monster.

Income after turn 5 can be useful as a kind of ‘tiebreaker’ to see who would win the game hours and hours down the road if you’re in a tight stalemate, but it’s not going to help you seize a capital. Let’s say Britain is trying to reinforce Moscow with income collected from Africa on turn 6. If you collect it on turn 6, you can build fighters in London on turn 7, move them to Scandinavia on turn 8, and move them to Moscow on turn 9 – after Germany and Japan have already made their turn 9 attacks. So the income you collect on turn 6 is useful to stop a turn-10 German attack on Moscow. 90% of the time, a capital has already fallen before turn 10, and your reinforcements will be too late.

There are obviously exceptions – if Germany holds Africa and the Allies are laying siege to Berlin, then Germany’s African IPCs can help drop infantry right into Berlin. But I think these are pretty rare cases – usually one nation on a team gets rich and another nation on that team has to worry about defending its capital, if for no other reason than that smart players will make a point of focusing on the poorest (and therefore weakest) capital to attack.

Sure, Axis_Roll, you’re right about the NOs. I could have phrased that better by saying: “If the Allies hold Gibraltar and Morocco, then the Italians will not collect any of their NOs, even if the Axis own the rest of Africa and the rest of the Med.” In other words, if your goal is to cancel the Italian NOs, you don’t actually need to get any deeper into Africa than Gibraltar and Morocco.

So, if the Axis can gain $45 in Africa without committing too many additional units, that is another 15 inf or 9 tanks in Europe.  Pretty solid return.  This necessitates SOME sort of allied response…

I’m not convinced it is a solid return. Look at what the Axis are investing to get control of Africa: you’re tying up the Italian transport and battleship for three turns or so, after which they’ll probably be killed. Let’s be generous and cost that out as only half the price of a transport and battleship: ($7 + $20) / 2 = $13. You’ll probably send about two fighters (one German, one Italian) south to fight and die; that’s another $20. Instead of using the transport to evacuate a Italian inf and tank from Africa (to, e.g., Ukraine) on turn 1, you’ll use it to send a new Italian inf and tank from Europe to Africa; that’s a swing of 2 inf, 2 tnk = $16. So a fairly ordinary African campaign already costs the Axis $49 – more than the $45 they can expect to earn from a decisive African victory.

Insisting that an Allied response is “necessary” begs the question of whether a cost-effective Allied response is possible. Suppose a thief is going to break into your house next week while you’re asleep and steal your $50 television. You might say that the television is worth $50, and that’s too much to just write off as a loss, so some kind of intruder defense system is “necessary.” So what? If the cheapest alarm system costs $80, and you buy the alarm system anyway, then you might be defending your honor or whatever, but you’re not choosing the most effective economic strategy.

I’d argue that the situation in Africa is set up so that neither side can stop the other from making gains without investing more resources than they’ll get back out of a regional victory. Africa is a strange game…the only way to win is not to play.

Gain 5 IPCs if the Axis powers control at least three of the following territories:
Egypt, Trans-Jordan, France, and/or Gibraltar.

You’re right, again. I apologize for the mistake. OK, so even if you control Gibraltar and Morocco, Italy could conceivably collect one of its NOs. That’s important, because it means that if you’re not at least trading France with the UK, then taking Egypt back from Italy is a 9-IPC swing. I would say that in roughly half of your games, you’re going to have an opportunity to retake Egypt a turn or two before you can wisely/safely start trading France, so that’s an important rule that makes fighting for Africa more attractive than I had originally realized.

Surely you can further attack Russia underneath (sz16).  That can wait until round 2 or so, once a few units have eliminated the UK forces in north Africa.

I don’t fully understand what you’re trying to say here. If you’re saying that Italy can use its Med fleet partly to ferry troops to Africa and partly to attack Russia, well, sure – but then your attack on Africa will be less effective. A full attack on Africa requires the use of at least one transport for at least three turns, so that you can ferry to Egypt, then ferry to Ethiopia, then ferry to South Africa. If you don’t have the transport available, your attack will be slower, and you’ll earn less income from your attack.

I propose that NO German or Italian planes will be lost in Africa if a proper retreat is made.

I mean, possibly, if you are both skillful and lucky about your retreat. You could always get diced defending against an attack that shouldn’t ought to have cost you one of your planes, or you can get diced making an attack supported by planes and then be forced to land your planes (sans supporting infantry) in a territory that’s no longer safe for them. If you try to play it totally safe, you’ll probably be forced to withdraw a turn earlier than you otherwise would, and then you’ll earn less income from your attack on Africa. But, sure, being a wise steward of your planes can reduce the risk of losing them. Perhaps it’s unfair to cost out the planes at the full $20, and something like $15 would be more appropriate.

It is interesting to see you try to put an exact cost on everything.  There are the ‘costs’ of free/original units that are not costing a country anything further versus newly purchased/added units.

I certainly find it interesting! I acknowledge that all costs are only crude estimates, but I find that the effort of at least trying to put a numerical price on my tactics helps clarify my thinking. Thank you for helping me do that! As far as original units not ‘costing’ anything, I think that’s a more convincing argument when it comes to underpowered units like cruisers, or ill-placed units like the Australian destroyer. Sometimes a unit is comparatively useless, so any use you manage to put it to is ‘free’ relative to your (near-zero) opportunity cost of leaving it in place. However, the infantry, tanks, and planes that start in Europe (or could easily be evacuated to Europe from north Africa) are nowhere near useless – they’re perfectly useful for the Barbarossa (eastern Europe) campaign, and if you divert them away from Barbarossa campaign, you will feel the burn.

What are the allies going to be doing with their forces if they do not go into Africa?  A defensive Germany can delay any effective D-Day for a few rounds.

Well, that’s a fair point, but even if you don’t literally invade France, having extra infantry/transports available with which to threaten an early D-Day still forces Germany to garrison France (and NW Europe, and Italy, and the Baltic States, etc.), and that pulls troops from the eastern front, which allows Russia to make some favorable trades. One set of troops and transports that are focused and stockpiled in London can force Germany to defend four or five territories, which is very efficient for the Allies. Those same troops and transports committed to Africa and spread out across the African territories don’t require any particular German defense other than a token roadblock of 1 inf in Libya followed by 1 inf in Egypt.

My take is that a minimal investment by the axis can return much, especially early.  It is THEN that these units can be brought back out of Africa if the allies have decided to not any units to this theatre.

That may be. The strategy of “send a small mission to Africa so that you can exploit any opportunities that arise there, but be ready to retreat at a moment’s notice, and keep an eye on the cost-benefit ratio” strikes me as way more useful than “send a steady stream of units to Africa because you can’t afford to lose it no matter what.” On the forums, I think I see people recommending the “win Africa at all costs” strategy, but maybe I’m just not picking up on the full context.

Thanks for having this debate with me! I am / have been really enjoying it. :-)