Protecting Africa?

@Luftwaffles41 Assuming Germany wipes the SZ12 UK Fleet (the one with the Cruiser/Destroyer off of Gibraltar) on G1 and/or takes Trans-Jordan to deny you the option of relocating the India fleet to SZ15, you basically have no chance.

That being said, if you make sinking the Italian Navy a priority with the US/UK, you can probably cut off the flow of Axis reinforcements to Africa by round 2 or so, which should make cleaning up Africa relatively easy as long as you’re willing to commit 2-3 Fully-Loaded US Transports to do it. The only issue with this is that you’re playing around in Africa while the Soviets are getting killed by all three Axis Powers combined, so it’s a bit of a balancing act.

EDIT: Just wanted to add another point. If you’re super-concerned about holding Africa you can always try a South Africa IC + retreating from Egypt in the early stages of the game to preserve your force. Anglo-Egypt Sudan can serve as a better defensive location for the first few rounds than Egypt can because Anglo-Egypt Sudan can’t be bombarded right away, which makes Italy less likely to commit to a fight there (if you’re lucky the Axis might just ignore Sub-Saharan Africa altogether and just march on into the Middle East towards Caucasus/India, which opens possibilities for getting some mileage out of your units that are still in Africa).

@Luftwaffles41 I agree with you that UK has it rough in AA50. Although I would point out that even without Africa Germany alone (never mind Italy and the can-opener opportunities they can provide) has a massive income advantage over the Soviets assuming you’re playing with NOs turned on.

Have you tried playing with NOs turned off?

@Luftwaffles41 While playing with NOs certainly makes the game harder for the Allies (and if you’re beating your playgroup consistently as Allies with them on, it’s probably for the better that you leave them on), I disagree with your conclusion that Germany’s NOs being reliant on USSR is a weakness per-se. Let’s run the numbers (I’m not even going to bother with the 42 scenario here, since this thread is about the 41 scenario and is on the 41 sub-board):

Germany:

• Base - 31

• Objective 1: Control Germany/Northwest Europe/France/Czechoslovakia/Poland - 5. This is effectively 5 IPC/turn for existing. If the Allies are holding any of these territories and Germany/Italy can’t get them back, the game is already over.

• Objective 2: Control 3 of Baltic States/East Poland/Ukraine/East Ukraine/Belorussia - 5. Because you only have to control 3 of these, coupled with the fact that Baltic States/East Poland/Ukraine are directly adjacent to German territory, this objective is also effectively free, and will be acquired G1 and every turn afterwards for the rest of the game (or until Germany has been effectively defeated).

• Objective 3: Control either Karelia or Caucasus - 5. Karelia is effectively indefensible for the Allies, and will fall on G2. G1 Germany will sink the UK Atlantic Navy, cutting off that route of reinforcement to Karelia, while also stacking Baltic States for a punch at Karelia G2. Once Karelia goes down, it’s extremely unlikely that the Soviets will be able to get it back, which means that UK/US will have to try to land there (and in Scandinavia) at some point in the game.

So, after G1 (assuming you gain Baltic States/East Poland/Ukraine), Germany’s actual income will be:
31 (base) + 4 (IPC value of Baltic States/East Poland/Ukraine) + 10 (2/3 NOs completed) = 45 IPC.

Then, on G2 (assuming you gain Karelia and hold/recapture all the territories you had at the end of G1), you’ll have:
31 (base) + 4 (IPC value of Baltic States/East Poland/Ukraine) + 2 (Karelia) + 15 (3/3 NOs completed) = 52 IPC.

USSR:

• Base - 30

• Objective 1: Control Archangel and have no UK/US units in Soviet-owned territories - 5. This is easy enough to accomplish, but the second half of the objective is complete garbage game design. If you play to complete this objective, you can’t use UK/US air units to help USSR stack defensive positions, you can’t use UK/US air units to strafe small German/Italian land-stacks, and you can’t use UK/US transports to land in Karelia to break Germany’s NO #3 (see above). But, for the sake of argument, we’ll assume USSR can hold this objective each turn.

• Objective 2: Control 3 of Norway/Finland/Poland/Bulgaria/Czechoslovakia/Balkans - 10. Norway/Finland are easy enough (Germany has no way of realistically defending them from the UK once they get the ball rolling), but good luck on any of the last 4 on that list. This objective is completely irrelevant for the opening/mid-game, and only exists to ensure that the Axis, should they be losing, cannot drag the game out indefinitely by stacking in Germany/France/Italy while praying for Japan to win in the Pacific like they can in Classic/Revised.

Ignoring any possible movement in China Vs. Japan (let’s just assume, for simplicity’s sake, that USSR/Japan had a stack-off in Buryatia/Manchuria that went nowhere), after R1, the Soviets’ actual income will be:
30 (base) - 4 (IPC value of territories Germany took G1) + 2 (assuming USSR took Ukraine back) + 5 (NO #1 completed) = 33 IPC.

This seems fine enough, but let’s check out R2. Assuming once again that there’s been no change in the east, you have:
30 (base) - 6 (IPC value of territories Germany took G1/G2) + 4 (let’s be generous and assume the Soviets can trade Karelia and Ukraine, even if it’s a bit unrealistic) + 5 (NO #1 completed) = 33 IPC.

So Germany is pumping out 52 IPC/turn while USSR is still on 33, assuming literally everything went right for them and 0 help from UK/US. In a normal A&A game, this would be comparable to the 32 (Classic)/40 (Revised)/41 (42SE) Vs. 24 bases that Germany Vs. USSR have in older games (which settles to 29 (Classic)/40 (Revised)/ 41 (42SE) Vs. 29 (Classic/Revised)/28 (42SE) incomes after turn 1/2), but the gap is a bit bigger:

• Gap (Germany’s income - USSR’s income) in Classic - 8 at start, 0 after G1/R1, -2 (assuming Germany loses Norway-Finland) after G2/R2

• Gap in Revised - 16 at start, 13 after G1/R1 (assuming Germany takes Egypt and retakes Ukraine + takes Karelia), 11 after G2/R2 (assuming Germany loses Norway but takes one Africa territory off UK and takes Karelia/Ukraine again)

• Gap in 42SE - 17 at start, 13 after G1/R1 (assuming Germany retakes Ukraine + takes Karelia), 15 after G2/R2 (assuming Germany takes Egypt, loses Norway, holds Karelia and trades Ukraine).

• Gap in AA50-41 Scenario - 1 at start, 12 after G1/R1, 19 after G2/R2.

So what you see here is a relatively even start, but Germany’s income outright eclipsing USSR’s after turn 2. Still, assuming the Western Allies do their job right and put adequate pressure on Germany, this should be surmountable…

HOWEVER AA50 has the additional factor of Italy being a participant in the war, and having its own income to throw at the Soviets (or the Western Allies if you want to spend it reinforcing the initial Italian Navy, which is not necessarily recommended). Let’s break down Italy’s income over the first 2 rounds and see how they factor into this:

• Base - 10

• Objective 1: Control 3 of Egypt/France/Trans-Jordan/Gibraltar - 5. France should basically always be Axis-owned, which just leaves France/Trans-Jordan/Gibraltar. If Germany rams everything it can into Egypt, and Japan does enough in the Pacific to keep the UK units there tied down, Italy should be able to take Egypt I1 (which was the initial topic discussed in this thread, amusingly enough). That, and Gibraltar is basically free real-estate I1, with Trans-Jordan taking its place I2. Easy objective to meet and hold, although for the sake of argument let’s say it’s not obtainable I1 (we’ll just say something went horribly wrong and Italy was only able to get Egypt).

• Objective 2: Control Italy/Balkans/Morocco/Libya and no enemy non-submarine-ships in the
  Mediterranean (SZ13/14/15) - 5. Italy will hold this I1 for sure, but they’ll definitely lose this by round 2 if the Allies are consciously playing to stop it.

So, Italy’s actual income I1 looks like this:
10 (base) + 2 (Egypt) + 5 (1/2 NOs complete) = 17 IPC

and after I2 it becomes:
10 (base) + 2 (Egypt) + 1 (Trans-Jordan) + 5 (1/2 NOs complete, as Morocco will probably go down A2/B2) = 18 IPC

So that’s 17-18 IPC per round (at least for the first 3-4 rounds or so,after that 100% of Italy’s income is probably going to be used defending Italy from a potential US/UK landing, and their income will drop off like a rock after they lose all their NOs) that Italy can throw towards the Soviets, which is enough to put up a fight in the Ukraine/East Ukraine/Caucasus area and/or serve as a can-opener for Germany to push into Moscow/Caucasus for the proverbial “checkmate” against the Allies.

I think I’ll stop here. We can factor in UK’s income/NOs, but then we’d have to account for Japan’s presence in the game (as they interfere with UK’s NOs and potentially their income, since UK has the option to try making an India IC work), which means we’d also have to factor in the Americans, and this post is long enough as-is. My point in typing this huge wall of text is that, in the 1941 Scenario, the Axis already start with a massive advantage in starting units, which is supposed to be balanced out by the Allies’ massive advantage in starting income (101, I’m not counting China as IPCs for the Allies, since they behave entirely differently than a normal power Vs. 58). However, this income advantage lasts a whopping 1 turn before it’s basically negated by the Axis’ opening move and NOs, and the Axis gain economic superiority round 2 due to NOs. Playing without NOs means that the Allies get one more precious turn of economic edge to get an army/navy stood up to match the Axis, and the Axis don’t gain an economic edge over the Allies unless they truly earn it (by taking Africa or making serious progress in Russia/China).

Anyway, sorry for going on a massive tirade about AA50, but I do love the crap out of this game so I figured I’d explain my position in playing without NOs in-detail.

Follow-up/tl;dr to the previous post:

Germany’s NOs are:

• hold base territories (0 reliance on USSR territories)

• hold the three USSR territories that are directly adjacent to Germany’s starting forces (I’d hardly call this a “reliance” since you should be taking these territories even if you’re doing a Sealion strategy).

• hold either Karelia or Caucasus (this one I’d agree with you on, since you have to actually try to hold Karelia is the USSR is being aggressive).

However, due to Germany’s massive income advantage over the Soviets, combined with the fact that the Axis have Italy around to cover the southern half of the Russian front defensively (for the first 3-4 rounds, anyway), Germany should have basically no trouble in achieving all 3 of their NOs.

USSR, on the other hand, has 2 NOs:

• Basically be about-to-win the game (irrelevant, as the Axis player will probably surrender by that point).
• Not have the Allies in USSR (which is suicidal and outright poor play).

@Luftwaffles41 I’m going to reply to you point-by-point on this, at least on the points that I want to address your concerns on (because as you said, we could go on about some of this stuff indefinitely):

@Luftwaffles41 said in Protecting Africa?:

I see where you’re coming from but don’t misunderstand me. Ukraine is literally one of the only territories that stands in between one of the major Russian factories and core German territory. East Poland is likely the one territory you’re guaranteed to keep if you’re reinforcing the Eastern Front properly. And as for the Baltic states well that’s going to be you’re gateway into Leningrad. Think about this. You counted it up, and said it yourself. 14 of Germany’s IPC gains are coming just from the Soviet Union. 16 if you count Karelia SSR. Only 5 is coming from your own originally controlled territories which is enough for a meager 1 tank over the Soviets. It doesn’t matter how much money the Germans inevitably get if they don’t play the Eastern Front properly the Soviets will continue to hold on. And the moment you least expect it they are pushing you back all the way to Easter Poland, but that’s besides and irrelevant to the point here.

The points about USSR being able to retake Ukraine/Baltic States are sound, but Germany gains the NOs from holding the territories at the end of their turn, not from holding them through the Soviet Turn. Perhaps a House Rule to force NO calculation to be the first phase of a turn (before purchasing units) rather than the last would help here, which is something I haven’t thought of before. It certainly gives all players in a game an incentive to be more aggressive.

As for Italy, they are pretty much a burden to the German Reich in this game. Because all Germany can really afford to let them have is the Middle East which only contains 2 ipcs unless Germany is stupid enough to let them take all of Africa for themselves. I hardly doubt a smart Italian player would send their entire military to the Eastern Front with an American presence in northern Africa as early as turn 1 as well as the likely American fleet that will be present. Rest assured my friend Italy won’t be focusing on their fleet at this point in the game when Egypt is under siege. And since their militarizes are from different nations all you can really afford to to is help the Germans defend their occupied Russian territory which the Soviet Union likely won’t attack anyway.

As I said, you have about 3-4 turns of reinforcing the Eastern Front with Italy before you have to commit to stacking. I’m basing this off of Germany sinking most of the UK Fleet G1 + accounting for the large size of the Italian Navy compared to the American Navy in the 41 Scenario (1 BB/2 CR Vs. 1 DD). USA/UK can land troops in Morocco on turn 1 but they’d just get their ships blown up by German Air Power G2 and the territory retaken by Italy I2, all for 1 IPC gain and no interruption to Italy’s NOs (although forcing Italy to turn around and recapture Morocco would slow down their momentum in Africa a bit).

Side-Note: Egypt will fall I1 if you play the Axis correctly and don’t get diced, there’s not much of a “siege” to be had.

Another thing that’s gone completely ignored is the Atlantic Ocean. What has Germany attacked there?

Personally, I go for:

• SUB+DD from SZ 5 -> SZ6 (1 DD): 93% chance to win
• 1 SUB (SZ7) + 1 FTR (Norway) + 1 BOMB (Germany) -> SZ2 (1 BB): 95% chance to win
• 1 SUB (SZ7) + 1 FTR (NW Europe) + 1 FTR (Germany) -> SZ12 (1 DD + 1 CR): 86% chance to win

This basically completely wipes out the UK Fleet.

What have they not?

After these attacks, UK/US will have the following left in the Atlantic:

• SZ10: 1 DD/1 TT (USA)
• SZ9: 1 DD/1 TT (UK)

Conveniently, this is out of range of Norway, which is where the German Bomber will be landing. INF will be kept behind in Norway to prevent an attempt at a strafe by the UK. UK’s opener will be spent on a new fleet (which is useful for Japan, since they probably won’t have the bandwidth to build an India IC unless they want to delay any landings in Europe until like B4), while US will (probably) want to spend A1 bulking up their presence in the Atlantic before hitting Morocco A2.

Did their navy survive, did it all die?

Estimated loss for Germany is losing all three Subs. UK will probably kill the Cruiser + the Baltic (SZ5) Transport on B1 by using their air force. It’s pointless for Germany to try to build navy in this scenario anyway, since all of their NOs revolve around taking Russian land.

Because what the British fleet has left in the Atlantic will likely single handedly dictate where the majority of the German money is spent.

Most if not all of Germany’s IPCs can go straight at USSR until about G3/G4, depending on how much UK/US devoted themselves to a 100% KGF strategy.

My point is that even if Germany is being this conservative with their IPC’s the latter will inevitably catch up to them. And frankly I think we can both agree on the fact that Germany does not have a big enough navy or airforce to kill the entirety of the British fleet meaning the British will indefinitely have something to build off of instead of building it from scratch.

Not really. 1 DD isn’t a whole lot to build off of, even with 43 IPC.

And I could you not with the 43 ipcs they start with really won’t make it difficult to slap a battleship and aircraft carrier in the atlantic and plop 2 fighters on it and support it with maybe a couple destroyers and a cruiser and snap crackle pop the U.K has a navy more powerful then what the Germans could ever build and they won’t be destroying this navy any time soon either. In other words this navy will have unlimited possibilities to seize control of the Med and kill the Italian fleet early on

Your estimate is slightly off (best I could manage to build with 43 IPCs was 1 AC/2 DD/1 SUB/1 TT. I guess you could build 1 AC/1 BB/1 TT too but that’s not as cost-effective), but your point is mostly solid. If UK goes 100% KGF Germany has no way of sinking the UK fleet a second time. However, if you actually intend to use this new UK fleet to hunt down the Italian Navy it will take you at least 3 turn (1 turn to build the navy, 1 turn to move it into SZ13, and 1 turn to kill the now-cornered Italian Navy (unless they did something stupid and fled to the Pacific, either way the Italian Navy is out-of-the-game at this point). That’s still 3 rounds of German/Italian troops punching the Soviets more-or-less uninterrupted.

That being said, I was probably too generous to Germany when calculating the gap between their income and the USSR’s. I forgot to account for the extremely likely scenario where UK lands in Norway B2 (after building a new fleet B1) and takes Finland B3. Doesn’t change a ton due to no NOs in that area of the board, but it’s still 3-5 less IPCs/turn the Germans will be getting.

or advance into the Baltic Sea for a liberation of Karelia (if taken) and Norway and Finland. Speaking of which that’s 2 of the 3 territories needed for that Soviet 10 ipcs national objective.

I mentioned the Norway/Finland thing in my last post. It’s irrelevant overall because the Soviets aren’t getting that 3rd territory (Poland/Bulgaria/Czechoslovakia/Balkans) unless the game is basically won for the Allies already. Additionally, I don’t think UK is grabbing Karelia B2 unless they have extremely good luck or the Germans have extremely bad luck. Too many German land units are going to be in Karelia G2 for 2 TTs-worth of land units to have any chance taking it.

And what the Germans won’t be doing is they won’t be bomb rushing it all the way for Moscow if they are smart. If they try and attempt to do that then that leaves the Soviets to attack from all sides and destroy the one army the Germans had as influence to pressure the Soviet Union. And frankly as long as there are no allied units in Soviet territory that’s fine because the longer the Soviets get that national objective the better.

It’s not really a “bomb rush”, exactly. More of a slow burn and acquirement of economic superiority. The typical game of AA50-41 (Eastern Front only) goes something like:

• G1: Take East Poland/Baltic States (main stack)/Ukraine
• R1: Counterattack Ukraine + stack East Ukraine or Belorussia
• G2: Counterattack Ukraine + take Karelia
• R2: Counterattack Ukraine
• G3: Counterattack Ukraine + take Archangel/Belorussia or East Ukraine (wherever Soviets aren’t stacking)
• R3: Counterattack Ukraine/Archangel/Belorussia or East Ukraine
• G4: Attack East Ukraine (main stack) with everything.
• R4: Stack Moscow
• G5: Attack Caucasus (main stack) with everything.
• R5: Stack Moscow

At this point, a stalemate ensues while Germany uses most of its IPCs to fend off the UK/US and holding its NOs/defending Italy while slowing building up Caucasus until they can take Moscow reliably. If the USSR tries a large-scale attack against the main Germany stack at any point during this sequence to break out of it, unless they have good dice rolls, the two stacks will destroy each other and Germany will roll over what’s left of the Soviets with their better economy. If the USSR tries to sneak around the German stack and head for the Balkans Germany can just walk their main stack into Belorussia and take Moscow (as the main Soviet stack will be out-of-position to make it back to Moscow in time to help).

Side-Note: The reason I say that it’s poor play for the US/UK to not be allowed to enter Soviet Territory for the the Soviet NO #1 to trigger is that it actively discourages perfectly sound moves (which could potentially break the above 5-turn-cycle) like:

• Having UK/US land in Karelia with a large force.
• Having the UK/US send FTRs to the Russian stack in Belorussia/East Ukraine/Moscow/wherever via the UK Aircraft Carrier(s) in SZ6
• Sending a UK stack from India to defend Caucasus to cover the Soviet’s southern flank against a potential German/Japanese/Italian attack in the mid-game.

playing with National objectives can be a bit much for the allies, but playing without it just makes the game a little too straight forward of by some infantry put them on the board, buy some more infantry and put them on the board.

I disagree. NOs force you to play the game a specific way (Germany must invade the Soviets, USSR must refuse any and all help from the Western Allies, Japan must pursue a mixed Pacific Islands/India Crush strategy, UK must attempt to fight Japan (“control an originally-Japanese territory”) and take France, Italy must focus on the Mediterranean and USA must play for both the minor Pacific Islands and take France). You can pursue other gameplay options (and there are several of them, for each country), but as long as you’re playing with NOs turned on those other options will always be sub-optimal.

I guess another way of looking at the situation would be to add more NOs to encourage alternative play styles for each country, but that’d just open entirely new cans on worms with regards to both game balance and “how many NOs is too many NOs?”

EDIT: Fixed bad formatting.

NOTE: I didn’t bother addressing your concerns about Japan/the Pacific because, as you said, we’d just be getting ourselves bogged down into an endless discussion on the entirety of AA50, which is way outside the original scope of this thread, which was defending Egypt as UK in the 41 Scenario (I already kind of dragged us out of it by harping on NOs, so sorry about that).

@domanmacgee I just came here to say that 93% * 95% * 83% = 75%, meaning that one game in four as Germany if you play this opening you’re going to lose a naval battle and Britain will keep at least one of its fleets and you’ll be down some planes. How do you bounce back from that? What’s the recovery plan for Germany?

@argothair It depends on which battles failed.

Typically, if any battle is going to go sideways, it’s the SZ12 one (DD/CR off of Gibraltar). I don’t mind losing/drawing this one too much, as all does is gives UK an opportunity to either go all-in against the Italian fleet or consolidate their Atlantic Fleet (which Germany really has no means of stopping even if you kill everything).

In the extremely unlikely event that SZ2 or SZ6 (where the actual transports are) go badly, you’re probably in really horrible shape. Only real recourse at that point is to turtle up, by tons of INF, and pray for better luck on Japan’s side of the board.