We need an allied playbook.

@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?

@mainah Another good question; I have two answers.

First, you don’t have to follow the opening plan quite so rigidly as to create a “formula.” If you like battleships, substitute battleships for some or all of your American carriers. If you like tanks, substitute tanks for some of your American artillery. If you like bombers, then load your initial American transports with 100% infantry, and plan to support them with bombers that you buy on later turns.

You also have some choices about theater and exact stacking location, even among the orthodox openings – you can go 80% Atlantic - 20% Pacific, or 70% Atlantic - 30% Pacific, or 60% Atlantic - 40% Pacific. You can stack your Atlantic fleet west of Gibraltar, or east of Gibraltar, or in the English Channel, or in the North Sea. You can concentrate the British economy in factories in Persia/Iraq, or build land units in South Africa and support them with fighters flown in from London -> West Africa -> East Africa, or just build a British Atlantic fleet to liberate France, or mostly send fighters to guard Moscow. All of these are valid options, and together they give you enough of an ability to vary your gameplay that your opponent won’t have a perfectly ‘canned’ response available and will have to calculate fresh how to defend each game.

The second answer is that you wait to do something bold and dramatic until the dice or your opponent do something weird. The best response to a standard Axis opening is a standard Allied opening; that’s why they’re standard, is that nobody has any reliably better ideas. But sooner or later, either your opponent will try some kind of gambit (and you can punish them for it, often by doing something weird yourself), or the dice will come up unusually strong or weak in a particular area of the map, which gives you an opportunity to exploit that with a weird strategy. Even weak dice can give you the excuse to abandon a region, which can free up cash to try a gambit somewhere else.

So the game does get complex and unique and replayable, but it mostly does that around turn 5 or 6, after players have had a chance to build their usual starting units and send those units into battle and see the results.

@Argothair

I was specifically thinking about turns 5 and up. Not the openers with basic buying patterns.

Point of reference on my experience - I played 1 in person game of G40, and then 2 games here on play boardgames, and then jumped in to the league with both feet. It has been a steep learning curve as a result.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that for allies there are no half measures…

At least playing against equal or stronger opponents

In any case, Japan must be crushed (above all) as well as Italy.

If you aim for a KGF and let Japan rage in the Pacific there is always the risk that with a coup they will be able to take the 6 VC and the game is over… even if the Allies are close to taking Rome or Berlin

Of course if you only tighten up on the Pacific perhaps also using the Russians (right @MrRoboto? :))… you have to be very organized in Europe to avoid Hitler arriving in Cairo (or London)…

Very expert players are able to do this of course… but in my opinion there is always a percentage of risk that the game predicts (like all clashes on A&A) but which you can try to avoid.

And above all the Allies should fight in a more aggressive way (which I have not yet learned to do) but not recklessly… aggressive in the sense of making the Axis risk more than necessary in certain battles (land and naval) because otherwise the the outcome is almost always for the Central Powers of the board.