We need an allied playbook.

@simon33 ok good argument. So you would search the fight with Germany and sandbagging Egypt against italy.

@argothair @crockett36 @simon33

For years we have been switching between KGF and KJF as Allies. Building on East or West as US side gives away your initial plans off course.
Building in S-Francisco is giving Japan a heads up to start preparing for a naval clash with US.

This is a brainfart:

As US you built for three turns 100% on the East coast (carriers, DD, tpt,…) as if you were preparing for a KGF, forcing italy and Ger to prepare and makingJapan believe they free reign. The Pacific fleet shucks troops to Hawaii as normal. On US3 you send everything (Eur and Pac) to Samoa. It can be reached from New York, Hawaii and S-Fr. UK Pacific builts a Naval base there UK3 (they need to save their income).

From there you are one turn away from Queensland and thus the money islands are in reach. All reinforcements can come via a built on the East via Samoa to Queensland coast so your supply lines are safe from SZ6. And you can switch to a KGF easily.

Did it once and it surprised the Axis player like hell. Unfortunately systematic bad dice shred allied play so no matter the strategy, it was a lost game so no valid after action review possible.

@cornwallis couldn’t you do the same with a naval base in Panama? Built by the rich Americans, not the poor ukp!? Not at a map rn, but I seem to remember that.

@crockett36 Think it was the Line Islands

@barnee @crockett36
No Line is not within 3 spaces of the East Coast.
What do you think of the general idea? Surprising the axis and still being able to switch to europe

@cornwallis said in We need an allied playbook.:

@barnee @crockett36
No Line is not within 3 spaces of the East Coast.
What do you think of the general idea? Surprising the axis and still being able to switch to europe

Yea I like it. That 15 bucks for UKP pretty spendy though

@cornwallis Samoa is a clever place to build a naval base; I did not see that it connects to both New York and Queensland. That’s really interesting that you are able to redirect forces that quickly. For me, though, the question is whether the tactical surprise is really worth the investment. On the one hand you’ve got the $15 for the naval base in Samoa, which is expensive. On the other hand, by committing to travel through Samoa, you take pressure off of many of the potential Japanese targets.

As you move boats from San Francisco to Hawaii to Queensland, you are incidentally threatening Tokyo, Korea, Iwo Jima, Wake, Midway, and the Caroline Islands.

As you move boats from New York to Samoa to Queensland, you do not threaten any of those targets – so unless you want to slow down your attack on Japanese hot spots by a full turn, you are kind of broadcasting to Japan exactly where you are going to attack.

Meanwhile, unless Japan panics and commits an unforced error, it’s usually not that hard for Japan to reorient from a land-based strategy to a naval strategy. They start with a massive air force that can be used on land in China, Burma, Siberia, etc., and then that same air force can be flown away and placed on newly built carriers to defend the Pacific islands. Even in a worst-case scenario, where Japan built 3 minor factories on the mainland, they can still pivot to building something like like 3 carriers, 1 destroyer, 5 infantry, and 1 artillery for $75. The carriers accommodate the existing Japanese air force, and the infantry/artillery continue the fight in mainland Asia. The US has to build its own planes, and defender has the advantage anyway, so matching that defending Japanese force would require something like 3 carriers, 2 subs, 3 fighters, 3 tacs for $123. Throw in a couple of loaded transports for $30 so that you can actually retake some of the money islands, and the total bill is $153…basically two full turns of American income just to match one turn of Japanese spending, even when Japan is caught totally by surprise.

Similarly, the European Axis might think that they have to do a lot of defense against an incoming American invasion of Italy or whatever, but as long as they planned that defense intelligently, without panicking, they can still take Moscow on schedule. Right, like so you have a couple extra Italian infantry in Rome instead of a tank, or you have a couple of German subs in the Baltic and it turns out you don’t need them because the whole Allied fleet sailed through the Panama Canal. OK, no big deal. The infantry in Italy can eventually go by transport to Morocco or Syria or wherever they can be useful for harassing the British; the extra subs can go to the Irish Sea for convoy damage. Meanwhile, hopefully the Germans mostly did their defense by buying air power, which can both threaten to shoot down Allied ships, or, if those ships never show up, can fly to the eastern front and support an attack on Moscow.

So while I do like the Samoa naval base for the sheer amusement value and for the chance to break a psychologically weak opponent, I think it’s probably not a valid element of top-tier competitive play. I’m stumped to see how you could recover enough value from the naval base to justify the cost.

One idea I have been playing around with recently is a naval base in Wake Island. It probably only works in Balanced Mod or Path to Victory, because without the extra national objectives for the smaller islands the extra range just isn’t very important, but it’s always bothered me that ships are only moving 2 spaces from San Francisco to Hawaii – it seems inefficient. If you move them 3 spaces from San Francisco to Wake, then another 3 spaces can threaten the widest possible range of Japanese targets, as well as making it harder for Japan to protect Tokyo by interposing a single blocking destroyer.

@argothair said in We need an allied playbook.:

for the sheer amusement value

LOL :joy: :joy: :joy:

@marshmallowofwar If you don’t do Taranto, how do you stop Italy from taking Egypt? Not saying it can’t be done, but you do have to do something, and I’m curious what that is. Especially with a factory placed in Egypt on UK1, it starts to get tempting for Germany to send a large air force toward Tobruk/Alexandria to try to do an all-air attack against some of the British units and weaken them enough that Italy can seize the factory.

Also, are you doing Gibastion? If not, where are you stacking the British Med fleet, and how do you stop the Luftwaffe from killing it?

One thing I tried the other day, albeit in a path to victory game is putting 3 units into Sudan UK1. This way, the Ethiopians don’t have very good odds to attack without sacrificing the bomber. Although if the DD had hit off Malta and there hadn’t been the scramble from CVs to land, this strategy would be a bit marginal.

@argothair thanks for the considerations. It is indeed not a game winning move but keeps the fun in it.

Funny you Mention Wake bc that was my starting point from which i came to Samoa.
I´ve done that a few times.
US1 you can gather your entire pacific fleet and fighters (incl the ones in Philip) and the Anzac cruiser (no anzac fighters allowed).
The big problem is yes you can get to Sz6 easily but Sz6 is often a trap bc Japan can throw everything to attack you there.
It can idd be a start for an island hopping strategy towards the mainland (killen Jap factories).

@argothair attack Fleet around Malta with cruiser and fighter and put DD around Greece so the italian fleet can´’t reach egypt. Send UK fihters of Londen via West Afrika to Egypt (UK2 you can have 5 fighters there).

@argothair Yeah, I have a video on a Wake Island naval base on my youtube channel.

@cornwallis said in We need an allied playbook.:

@argothair thanks for the considerations. It is indeed not a game winning move but keeps the fun in it.

Funny you Mention Wake bc that was my starting point from which i came to Samoa.
I´ve done that a few times.
US1 you can gather your entire pacific fleet and fighters (incl the ones in Philip) and the Anzac cruiser (no anzac fighters allowed).
The big problem is yes you can get to Sz6 easily but Sz6 is often a trap bc Japan can throw everything to attack you there.
It can idd be a start for an island hopping strategy towards the mainland (killen Jap factories).

Wake Island might not be a move for island hopping or even pulling the trigger on sz6, but it does 1. project power. from which you can gather more power. 2. make the Japanese hesitate on going into the Indian ocean. 3. pin some forces to sz 6.

Sorry to take up this topic again after a long time…

After playing dozens and dozens of games as an Ally, even affecting personal rankings in the League, I have come to my own personal conclusion that there can be no such thing as an Allied playbook.

At least that is as far as the first five or six rounds are concerned, which then always direct the entire game.

The Allies’ only game plan cannot disregard two aspects: pressure on Italy and Japan until they become inoffensive (even to the detriment of Moscow) and the fact that the Allies must always concede something in terms of risk.

I had discussed this with @Gamerman01 who agreed that the Allies must risk and induce the Axis to attack armies or fleets even with percentages above 50 percent perhaps even 60 percent (as the case may be) in order to gain strategic advantages in other parts of the map.

Having watched many games won by experienced players (both Axis and Allied) I have ascertained that it is almost impossible for the Allies to win the game if Japan has not been cornered.
And the same can be said of Italy (with a few exceptions).

I have seen the Allies win with Moscow and even Calcutta in Axis hands but with the Mediterranean and the Pacific (other than China) firmly in the hands of the Allied player.

The fall of the two capitals, therefore, is not always fatal and does not condemn the Allies to defeat if they have exerted much pressure on other areas of the map.

However, the capital of the United States and also that of the British must never fall into the hands of the Axis, so as to continue to press Japan and Italy and then deal with Germany; these are the only exceptions where you cannot take risks.

I hesitate to post because I don’t want to cover yours up.

I would only add that London can definitely fall in certain situations and the Allies be fine, or it could even be a good thing for the Allies. Assuming it doesn’t take many rounds for the allies to get London back.

If Germany loses too much in taking London, too many ground, too many ships, and/or too many air, Russia can usually become an unstoppable monster.

A quadruple heart to your post if it allowed me!

I love your comments and agree with them, but I would say that you’ve rolled out a bit of a playbook.

As I have recently picked back up this wonderful addiction, I come back to this thread often - more so than the germany and Japan playbooks.

Something that has been rolling around quietly in the back of my head came to the fore due to a recent game of mine.

The allies have a longer lead time to get units in action. US has 2, 3, sometimes 4 turns, the UK 1, 2, sometimes 3, even Anzac and russia can have 1-2 turns of commute to the battlefield. And this means your purchases telegraph more to your opponent than vice versa. The axis have internal lines of communication, and pre-ordained objectives. Even when they are communicating their intentions, most of the time it is pretty obvious anyways the general thrust of where they are going.

Not so with the Allies. Odd purchases stand out more. And tell your opponent more. And they have 1 to 3 or even 4 turns to prep for it.

I am not that good of a player, not bad, but not great. And I have a real limited experience pool to draw from. But even in those limited games, when I am the Axis, I watch those purchases and can often glean some accurate info from them. And the few times I am the allies, I fear what I might be telling without telling.

I would like to hear the thoughts of the more experienced players in regard to allied play and telegraphing information via purchases.

@mainah That’s a fair observation. I would say that this is part of why you mostly have to stick to the fundamentals as the Allies – a sufficiently weird buy, especially as America, is going to tip off an alert Axis player far enough in advance that they can build the appropriate defenses and counter your attack. Thus, for the most part, it’s best to build units for the attacks that work well even when your opponent knows they’re coming. If you know that America is coming for you with a mix of destroyers, carriers, fighters, transports, infantry, and artillery, there’s really nothing special you can do to prepare for that; you either leave so many infantry back on the western front that Russia survives, or you yield some ground in the west, or you get wrecked. There’s no ‘magic bullet’ against a well-rounded force like that, so it’s OK that the Axis can see the well-rounded force coming.

One partial exception is territories that let you fork many targets at once – an Allied fleet west of Gibraltar is threatening Norway, West Germany, Normandy, Southern France, Northern Italy, and Southern Italy, and the Axis don’t get any advance warning at all about exactly where that fleet is going to hit. Similarly, an Allied fleet in the Caroline Islands or the Philippines can hit approximately everything the Japanese own, with no advance warning. So I see Allied ‘surprise’ as less about making weird purchases that support weird attacks, and more about threatening so many different normal attacks that your opponent is likely to miscalculate somewhere and leave one of the target areas under-defended.

@Argothair
I understand the value of gib, Caroline’s, etc. but they are 1 and 2 turns from a factory. Which brings me to my question.

The game that I had that brought it to the fore had a large allied fleet off gib, with tt’s and an army, but the US buy was a little odd, only a little, but it caught my eye and when I stepped back and looked, I was able to ascertain with confidence where they were planning on going from gib when said units got into position.

And in that case, I let them, even to my slight detriment in other theatres, purposefully changing my plans to not spook them, not block them fully, while carefully setting up a left uppercut. Which is much easier to do as the axis as the purchases are centrally placed to begin with.

I hear your point in generic purchases, but wouldn’t that lead to the same destination - an axis player knowing you are following a formula, and this have limited formulaic options/plans?