Germany Strategy concept…

That’s why under Caspian Sub and tripleA ladder rules you can’t attack an enemy capital with ground troops in your first turn.

Like you mentioned, it turns a wonderful game into a coin flip and spoils the fun.

This article can teach you a lot on playing Germany especially. http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=14466.0

For the Axis to win, they need to break the Allied economic advantage. Japan should be snatching the easy territories in the Pacific and Africa and taking potshots with her battleships but the primary focus should always be Russia. For the Allies to win, they need to control Axis expansion and if they do that, they will eventually overwhelm the Axis.

My best advice is don’t make mistakes. Great strategy can be beaten with a silly oversight. Make smart purchases. Germany needs infantry early and Japan needs transports early. Look at what the Allies can do at least one round out every turn so that you won’t leave an opening for them. Use the turn order to anticipate their next move and to determine which units are already committed. Be aware of canopeners. US clears Novo/Kazakh and Russian tanks get Japan’s fighters in Sinkiang. UK liberates Karelia and US tanks from Norway support an amphibious assault on Eastern Europe.

@Bunnies:

@Cmdr:

Protecting the S. African complex is a synch, really.

The problem is defending South Africa AND Moscow.

Easier to do then not having units producing in S. Africa.

1)  Instead of driving units to Algeria to reclaim Africa, you can start off the bat dumping units into Arkhangelsk on UK 1.  That means at least 3 rounds more unit drops in Russia then otherwise.

2)  With America going through Africa, America has already saved 40 IPC on Transports AND saved on warships. (2 Destroyers, Battleship, 5 Transports is a pretty good deterant in and of itself, against the Luftwaffe.  The Kriegsmarine should be made short order of with the US Air Corps (3 Fighters, Bomber + I like to have two more bombers out of the saved 40 IPC, netting me 10 IPC.))

3)  2 Transports, Carrier, Destroyer, Submarine in SZ 28 (British) + 2 Infantry/Artillery/Armor in S. Africa per round is plenty to stop Germany from even getting the land in the first place, saving cash for England.  And once you get 24-30 IPC in equipment in place down in Africa (I like Egypt, close enough to run south if Japan comes close, far enough to run to Caucasus in a hurry if needed) for England and Africa’s yours forever.  (Don’t forget, America’s landing 10 Ground Units a round into North Africa as well, it’s not JUST the 24-30 IPC worth of British units there.)

@OLver:

Thanks for the input guys. My oponent should really have landed in Africa with UK on the first turn.

I also thought that sending a Russian fighter in Anglo Egypt was a big mistake made by my oponent, so was it to not leave Leningrad completly empty.

My bad I said 1 inf and one art from Africa but of course it was 1 tank and 1 inf. I also forgot to say that my two subs in the baltic were moved in  seazone 7. I knew my navy was going to be destroyed, but it forced my oponent to split his airforce, and I saved a sub and killed one fighter with my transport/dest fleet.

There are two approaches to a non-Baltic fleet buy that I’ve seen and use.

1.  Stay put.  If the UK attacks with its air, the Germans kill UK air.  The Germans lose a lot of navy which they weren’t using a lot (they would have used the Baltic transport), and the UK loses its valuable and hard-to-replace air.

2.  Split into four groups.  If the UK splits its air up, German subs can surrender and German destroyer and/or transport have a better chance of bringing down some UK air.  If the UK doesn’t split its air up, then at least three German units survive.  Note that the US bomber will probably knock out another German naval unit.

I guess my oponent did not play really well  with Russia because even thought I had few land units on the Russian front, my fighters always allowed me to trade territories and to keep UK and US navy at bay for a while.

Yes, trading territories is - after a fashion - a strength of the German fighter buy, but REALLY, you should have been bled dry, especially with having to transport units to Africa.

Now I have to explain what were, in my opinion the advantages of such a move. UK and USA had to buy much more navy to protect their transports, so even thought my russian front was some kind of weak, Germany was almost never threatened, and the Allies coult not build any fleet in the Pacific. On UK1, my oponent send his Indian SZ Fighter to destroy my tank in Anglo-Egypt along with the Transjordan inf. He succeded, but my lonely Japan transport stayed alive, so I only had to buy one on J1 and could already build a factory in Mandchuria. On J1 I took China and Buryatia. Two turn later a factory was build in French Indochina, and another one in India a turn later.

German fighters have nothing to do with a fleet in the Pacific.  Nothing you have yet described prevents the Allies from building a fleet in Atlantic OR Pacific.  (Of course, if they build in the Atlantic, they’ll have to overcome that German air force, but I digress)

The UK can still send their carrier and destroyer against the Japanese transport at Kwangtung - and they should, too, in view of the fact they used the Indian fighter against Anglo-Egypt.  More weak play.  :wink:

I think you spent way too many IPCs on industrial complexes.  If you purchase 16 IPC of transports, you can move up to four units from Japan to the mainland, and vary between anywhere from Soviet Far East to French Indochina; furthermore, those transports can be used as naval fodder and to pick up Japanese infantry from isolated islands where they are doing no good.  Compare with a 15 IPC industrial complex that produces three units, cannot switch where units are placed, cannot be used as naval fodder, and do not solve the problem of wasted Japanese infantry resources sitting on isolated islands.  I know Caspian Sub states 2 transports 1 industrial complex is good, but I think I would prefer 3 transports 1 tank on J1 regardless of bid - if I can claim India and put an IC there with Japan, the positional advantage is huge.

–

In practice, those German fighters have limited range, exactly as I previously mentioned; you will probably end up having to split the German fighters between eastern territories and Western Europe.  This isn’t too bad in practice.  What you will probably see is the Allies building up a fleet off Eastern Canada; when the Allies feel like it, they will unite newly built naval units from Eastern US with the existing fleet off Eastern Canada and land at Algeria, where with no surviving Baltic fleet elements and your German Mediterranean fleet probably not in a position to counter, and insufficient German fighters at Western Europe (considering that you have to split between Western Europe and eastern territories), you can do nothing THAT TURN.

On the next turn, though, you can land 10 fighter 1 bomber (possibly 9 fighter 1 bomber) at Western Europe.  If the Allied navy stay off Algeria, you beat them up, if the Allied navy retreats from Algeria, you may have a problem.  Why a problem?  Because even a pretty tame Allied fleet will land 6 US and 4 UK ground units (2 starting UK transports and 2 starting US transports plus 1 US transport bought on US1); you may easily have to deal with a lot more.  And although you have air at Western Europe that can hit Algeria, you need cheap German ground units to act as fodder; you can get 2 German infantry in with the Mediterranean transport, but otherwise - well, you can see that you might have a problem to deal with.

So let us say that is what happens.  On the German turn, you fly all your fighters to Western Europe, and the Allies respond by pulling their navy back to Eastern Canada and buying another US carrier at Eastern US (I assume they bought one already on US1 after seeing the German fighter build).  Germany does nothing about the Allied forces in Algeria.

Germany’s next turn, you can only trade off Karelia and one other territory easily (that other territory being the one your German bomber can hit).  BUT now what?  If you fly away from Western Europe, the Allies will land MORE units at Algeria.  And if you do NOT fly away from Western Europe, the Allies STILL land at Algeria, with probable 6 transports (up to 7 or 8 easily), 2 destroyers, 2 carriers, 4 fighters, 1 battleship.  EVEN with that mighty air force, there is nothing you can do.  So let us say you GIVE UP Algeria and start harassing Russia with your mighty air force.  The Allies have sunk 32 IPC in carriers, and are just making their landing at Africa; they are out of position to help Russia.

So as you can see, what have you gained at best?  Nothing but TIME.  Time for Japan to push on Russia.  Time for the Germans to keep the IPCs they gained in Africa.  And that is EXACTLY why I recommend using African bid units instead of Ukraine.  You need to control Africa early while you still can; you WILL lose Africa eventually.

–

And remember these things too:

1.  The Allies can still go KJF (if they do, Germany has to try to control and keep control of Africa.)

2.  By buying so many fighters early, you lock yourself into a certain line of German play.  You may do better to stagger your fighter buys out (say 1 German fighter a turn or even 2 German fighters on G1) so you can have some early infantry to trade with Russia sooner.

In short - yes, if the Allies go KGF, German fighters are useful - however, I do not think that 4 fighters RIGHT AWAY is necessary or proper; I think 2 fighters is the most that the Germans can afford on G1.

@newpaintbrush:

@DarthMaximus:

@newpaintbrush:

@DarthMaximus:

I think a well rounded strat will allow you to do both relatively seemlessly while if you venture too much into a “reactive” strat it may not allow you to take adv of mistakes as quickly.

Don’t you mean “OVERreactive” strat?

If you make unsound purchases based on what you think your opponent’s going to do, that is overreacting.

If your opponent sees your mistake, and acts in the best possible manner to exploit your weakness, that is reacting.

Yes.

But also:
Did that persons previous moves put you in a position to make a mistake, or did you just flat out miss something and make a mistake on your own?
Maybe I’m nitpicking. :-)

You can think proactively (2-3 turns down the road) and force your opponent into difficult decisions or mistakes.

I’m of the school that assumes that their opponents will be worthy, hence that mistakes will not be made; hence that losses will be from bad luck or the aggregate result of suboptimal plays, rather than from a blatantly wrong move.

To clarify, you can NEVER “maneuver” your opponent into making a mistake.  Either your opponent blunders, and makes a mistake on his/her own, or you force your opponent to make a difficult decision.

–

In other words, say I know you like alcohol, and that you don’t really care too much about money.  So I bring free drinks to our poker game, you get drunk, and I win lots of money.  Did you make a MISTAKE, or a CHOICE?  I think you made a CHOICE.

Now, if you were holding a straight, in five card draw no wilds, and you folded, you probably made a MISTAKE.  But that was your choice.

If you were drunk when you folded, I would say that you made a CHOICE to enter into a situation in which you would more readily make MISTAKES.  But still, folding on that straight would be YOUR MISTAKE.  Nobody forced you into folding.

I think we’re agreeing with each other.

(your mistake or not) Your betting pattern, poker face, demear at the table all provide the other player with information into the decision about their hand.
You come out betting strong, with a stone cold dead face, I read that as hell I can’t beat him I fold.  I made the choice, but you willfully provided informaton that helped me make a decision.  All be it a wrong decision but at the time I assed all available info and came to a conclusion, which in this case was wrong and a mistake.

The whole theory behind deadzoning is manuevering to get your opponent to (help them if you will) make a mistake (or bad choice).  Yes your opponent makes the choice to move in his whole army, but you set up the board.

I also play assuming your opponent is “worthy” and makes no mistakes, but that doesn’t mean I won’t set “traps” to test them.  B/c as we both know, no one is flawless and I’ve seen plenty of good players overlook the smallest things from time to time (including myself).

I think we are agreeing with each other here.
I think these statement are equivalent:

ME:

Did that persons previous moves put you in a position to make a mistake, or did you just flat out miss something and make a mistake on your own?

YOU:

Either your opponent blunders, and makes a mistake on his/her own, or you force your opponent to make a difficult decision.

Perharps I shouldn’t have used the word “mistake” in the first sentence, but they basically say the same thing.  Force a person into a “lesser of two evils” decision.

Actually it is 2 FIGs that can make it without the Kaze rule… Western and Norway.  And of course the BOM can reach.

Before you push for a removal of the Kaze rule, try taking the Allies next game and do the FIG transfer from Russia and drop their odds to 1 in 16 of succeeding in their strike on London.

THAT may make them more willing to change the rules…

Here’s some thoughts and experiences I’ve had with Japan recently:

If you’re a pretty confident Japanese player, I would suggest completely skipping Pearl Harbor. It is a waste of your time because the fleet there poses no real threat in either the Pacific nor Atlantic theaters. Any units you lose there (especially aircraft) is a detriment to your war effort, and any fighters you have left positioned there are way out of reach to be useful in the next round.

Now, why do I say that the Pearl Harbor fleet poses no real threat?

In the Pacific theater, it is simply a waste of time for the US to pursue attacking Japan head-on, provided the Japanese player is skilled. Japan will outdistance the US in IPCs soon enough, and starts with a tremendously stronger navy that’s even stronger on defense. If Pearl Harbor survives and the US says “gee, I’ll go after Japan”, then you have won a victory right there already. This means Germany will have an easy time in Africa, as well as have a fairly easy time keeping the UK from landing anywhere and force him to buy lots of defensive navy. The US really has to pour their entire income into navy to screw with the Japanese; while it can possibly be effective when islanding hopping using solomon islands, this lets a whole lot of steam off of Germany which is deadly.

The Japanese navy really shouldn’t fall provided you expand at even a moderate pace. You start with 2 carriers and 6 fighters, and if you need to you can put another carrier in the water to create a ridiculously strong defensive force, as well as add subs periodically, all the while dumping troops into Buryatia and walking them through Russian territories. The only way that Japan will have trouble is if all 3 Allies come at him from the start, and that will certainly end in swift defeat as Germany runs roughshod over Africa and the Russians.

Now in the Atlantic, what threat does the Pearl Harbor fleet pose? Except for that one extra fighter, nothing at all. The carrier and sub take something on the order of 4+ rounds to get into a position to defend the transport system. By round 4 you shouldn’t be needing protection unless something went horribly wrong. By round 4 the Baltic fleet should be scrap or very nearly scrapped, and you should already have sufficient defense from the first couple rounds of purchases.

So what do I do with my forces when I skip Pearl Harbor? For one, I’ll use the extra aircraft to increase the chances of the China fight going down in one round. Usually the bomber/fighter in Japan are used against Harbor, but now they can be used against China, which gives you great chance to knock out all that equipment in one go, thereby decreasing chances of you losing infantry which you need early on to keep your gains.

With the Philippines fleet, I will sink that UK transport that’s off of Egypt, instead of sinking the destroyer in Kwangtung. This heavily decreases the attack force that the UK can bring on his next turn; usually with that transport alive he can bring 2 infantry (1 from rhodesia, 1 from persia) and along with the infantry from Trans-Jordan to attack Egypt again (there’s nothing you can do to prevent the first time UK attacks Egypt, but you can mess with his second turn chances).

The destroyer in Kwangtung poses no real threat in any case, especially since I retreat all navy to defend SZ60 instead of using them against Harbor. There is some variability here such as where the carrier/fighter went, but it shouldn’t matter. If there’s a carrier + fighter defending the transport, then I’ll still sink it and be glad. If the carrier went with the destroyer to ensure the kwangtung’s transport’s death, then I don’t care as it poses no offensive threat. Fighters from the Philippines fleet can land in Libya if the dice went bad and you had to lose your Japanese carrier.

I will use that fighter from the Carolines to sink the British sub or transport if they’re around because it has nothing better to do, then it goes to SZ60 with the rest of the fleet to defend the newly built transports.

And recently I’ve been messing around with the idea of starting with a 2 complex buy. It does sound crazy, but hear me out: this ramps up the pressure against Russia much faster than transport builds because of tank’s movement vs infantry. You give up fast island hopping, but you gain Russian territories faster as you can have a nice constant stream of tanks that are mostly in range of each other to counterattack if the Russians decide to push back. With infantry swapping in Bury/Indochina and their slow movement, it’s hard for them to adjust and support each other, as well as push quickly.

You can still island hop with your initial transport. It will be slower, but on the other hand, you do not have to worry about letting up land pressure. If you rely on transports mostly then you’d have to replace the transports or build a complex to keep the land pressure going if you island hopped. With the double complex buy, that’s the end of having to buy more infrastructure right there. Island-hopping slowly isn’t so bad anyways, since it’s not worth a ton of IPCs and you can use free troops from islands and battleship shots. IPCs you miss out on the islands earlier on is very much offset by the territories you can take earlier on the Russian front.

Now, definitely with a 3 tran “normal” buy, you have more flexibility. You can screw with the US and keep him somewhat honest; with a 2 complex buy he can go with a 4x4 fleet but if you have transports potentially invading Alaska/West Canada, he’ll have to run a 3x3 or risk getting snared up easily later on. You can do some pretty fast island hopping, and the transports will help a lot if you’re getting KJF’ed. Of course if you’re getting KJF’ed you should see it coming and definitely in that case go with transports, but if not, then I would definitely recommend trying 2 complexes some time.

And on a parallel note, there is a nasty/tricky move you can do to upset the Allies a bit. It starts with the concept of swapping, where you alternate dropping between Buryatia and Indochina every turn, which is a solid basic strategy since it secures more avenues of attack and lets you drop all troops you build in Japan every turn due to SZ60 bordering Buryatia. Now the tricky move is to actually drop 4 tran of stuff into Africa after you drop troops into Indochina, instead of going back and dumping in Buryatia. 1 tran can go take Madagascar while the other 3 take Egypt, Trans-Jordan, and Italian East Africa.

Now I don’t suggest counting on this or doing this all the time for a couple of reasons: 1) it disrupts your flow of troops against Russia. 2) sometimes the Allies already have a large force in Africa and can deal with you handily.

But if you want to risk it, it can throw a wrench into the Allies’ plans. If they have already shut Germany out of Africa and don’t have significant troops there, suddenly they’re going to have to do a big drop there which is going to mean less troops in Europe this turn. They will be forced to deal with it very soon or else your tanks will blitz up most of Africa next turn and eat up a very significant chunk of UK IPCs.

88 knows that I agree with him;

“#1 The most fun you’ll have is by trial and error. There is no perfect strategy.”

The one tidbit that I will add in any thread or discussion in any of the posts,

“What are the victory conditions you have set for the game?”

If you are after a minor victory (8 cities) then Germany can focus on a land war, navy be damned.
However, a major victory (10 cities) or total victory (12 cities) is going to require an Axis navy to reach the 10th/12th city.

IMO, I have a German Navy at the start of the game that is easier to add to and maintain in order to play a role in the 10/12 city VC (Victory Condition).