@The_Good_Captain said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
As a side note: the NATO “at start” nuke is very impactful in the ways that are considered secondary. Removing 5 Russian infantry might be a letdown, but when you do this to the SFE industrial complex on the turn you land in Kamchatka, you ensure the Russian counterattack is less likely to succeed because they’re down five infantry and can’t move their fighters due to EMP. Finally, on the Russian turn, because the IPC value has been reduced, the Russians can only add two Russian infantries instead of four.
This typically forces the Russian player into a horrific choice. Abandon the territory leaving the fighters to be destroyed because they couldn’t move. Or fight a losing battle in SFE and die with the fighters albeit at higher NATO cost. If NATO is using the nuke in some other way, imo - it’s being used inefficiently. Full stop. The NATO nuke is for the critical territory of SFE timed when landing in Kamchatka.
As a matter of tactics, I wonder if there’s a scenario in which the Soviets can afford to abandon Eastern Siberia, and rely on counter-attacking? I know in my early days of playing, China seemed extremely fickle, and always seemed to turn away from the USSR, leaving North Korea exposed and with the Soviets unable to hide in their territory.
Really I think in order to hold off the Americans, they actually need to have a big enough force in both Eastern Siberia and Kamchatka, and at to least control South Korea (even if they can’t hold off the US from landing there) while having the Chinese in, defending the North. Most US players are hesitant to attack North Korea militarily, because if the Soviets can retake it, the Chinese just move right back in at the end of their turn. That means still needing to have a strong counter-attacking force either in Eastern Siberia or Manchuria… but maybe that makes it slightly more workable?
That all being said, I don’t know where these hypothetical Soviet reinforcements would be coming from, in time for rd3. As tempting as it is to not place a ton in the east for the first round or so, (while the US navy is all tangled up) I’m getting the sense that the Soviets kind of have to.
I do enjoy discussing strategy and tactics, but I’ll try to keep my posts shorter going forward. I don’t write huge walls of text to drown anyone else out, I just actually enjoy writing :)
