How to win as axis

@Caesar:

@oysteilo:

That was a lot of questions!

for point 4. Why Yunnan, because it is the most important chinese territory. If China holds Yunnan at the start of their turn they can build artillary. If China does not need to fight Yunnan they will fight you everywhere else, such as up north and press towards the coastline. Yunnan is in fact one of the key allied “strongholds” comparable to sz 110, bryansk and later in the game, the middle east. It means the Axis should meet significant resistance here

I disagree with this. While it is important to keep it Chinese for the Burma Road, Japan can easily by pass it if it’s end goal is India. It is tactical but it doesn’t break the Axis.

Ignoring China can definitely break Japan!  Even if you take India early you will still have to invest in ground forces to get back the VC’s you lost to China and now you have no infrastructure to do it effectivley.  Its better to tame China early set up a supply line and get factories going on the mainland.  Its hard enough to maintain island dominace and you can’t afford to lose your income core as well ,China is that core especially the coast line.  Japan is a ripe fruit but if you let it rot from the inside out you are doomed.  I have seen it happen too many times and its what I try to do as the allies against Japan.  Having a big navy for Japan and controlling the DEI as well as getting calcutta are all good things for Japan but ignoring China can negate those advances.  Just my two cents from extensive game play face to face and league play.

@Maddog77:

After looking at the game table (board) I can understand why this idea is intriguing. But after thinking a bit, Russia & GB can very easily keep any the black sea ship free with their air force. At least if I was Russia, I would sink anything built there. Also would love Germany to spend that kind of $$ ion an IC & navy instead of tanks, art & inf……still, it might be fun to give it a go sometime.

I once built an airbase in Romania in a Tech game where I had rockets and paratroopers. If you had that, I guess you could protect a TT with scrambled fighters and hit Caucusus from the Ukraine.

You can push for Egypt after taking Russia. It can be difficult.

@Cow:

The egypt minor is for convoying sz 97 in the long run and taking italy out of the game.

That can change when Germany (if) takes Moscow and turns towards Egypt.  In my most recent game, Germany ended up taking Moscow and redirected the prior round’s purchase of Armor towards Egypt along with a Ukr Arm purchase Germany had something like 9 tanks sitting in Ukraine ready to blitz ahead of whatever survived Moscow.

UK went on the defensive at this point, but Italy was already convoyed to death with minimal effort.  It really goes to show how important sinking the Italian fleet is if Germany is going to Moscow first when Italy is stuck from round 6-7 on being able to only put 1 or 2 Inf out a round at best.

in some cases, there aren’t those “extra” destroyers to spare… Like going from a naval base you build in Hainan, to Calcutta…

Gargantua,

This tactic does sound like it can hurt the Russians.  I have been able to sack Moscow as Germany in the games I played but it is very hard and I don’t always succeed.  There have been other games where I died in the Russian Winter.

I don’t think I could use the Italian aircraft against the opponent I play because he is usually pretty adamnent about reducing Italy to next to nothing before he strikes anything else.  On UK1 he sinks half of my Italian fleet.  Which hurts a lot but the main problem is the US fleet he pulls out of the Pacific and sends into the Med along with some subs and transports to end Italy’s war efforts in Africa.  Meanwhile he flys fighters to Hawaii and transports Infantry there.  It would still be possible to take out Hawaii as Japan but would take a lot of resources for very little economic gain.

I have countered by trying to win the game as Japan and I have killed India J3 with the purchase of the Hainan Naval base.  Yet even then by the time I set my sights on the last victory city Italy has been stomped to irrelevant and the US is back in the Pacific.

Yeah too many rules too many games we keep catching ourselves saying " is that this game? oh no It’s the other one"

@strategic:

I like the strategy but what are the logistics?

Try this and see how it goes:

G1:  Build five subs.  Use two subs to take out  the British destroyer by Canada.  Use three subs to take out the destroyer by the UK.  Ignore the battleship and cruiser by Scotland.  Use your airforce to take out the rest of the British fleet that you can reach.  The point is to sacrifice your airforce to keep your navy alive.  You may even use your bomber with the three subs and take it as a hit if the destroyer hits you back.  Then noncombat your battleship and cruiser into SZ 109 with your three subs.  Place your new subs in SZ 112.  This gives you 10 subs (if both of them by Canada survived), 1 battleship and 1 cruiser.  The UK can most likely destroy any one  of your fleets but there is no way they can destroy the other two.  SZ 109 is more important to them since they got to take out that fleet in order to prevent you from convoy raiding 8 IPCs.  The side benefit of them taking out your fleet in SZ 109 is that the Italian navy will not be destroyed and they can then quickly secure the med and earn their national objective.  If UK attacks the Italians anyway then no problem since you now are convoy raiding them for 11 IPCs (assuming that both of your subs off Canada survived).

J1:  Do not make any attacks that would get the USA involved in the war.  Since the USA gets to declare war on you at the end of turn 3 and get their income bonus on that turn, you will be attacking the UK/ANZAC/USA on turn 3.  Of course, you can still attack the Soviets with your infantry and massive airforce.  Just make sure that airforce is in position by turn 3 to take out the DEI, Malaya, Hong Kong, the Phillipines and the British fleet (if they are still in the area) on turn 3.

I1:  Either secure the med on turn 1 if your fleet survived or start rebuilding if it didn’t.  You may have to save your money for one turn in order to build more naval units on turn 2.  Also, take out as many friendly neutrals that you can as well as Southern France and Greece.  Once all enemy destroyers are gone then you can build subs without fear of being attacked.

G2:  Build 10 subs.  By the end of turn 3, you want to have around 25 subs.

Remember, you goal isn’t so much to take out territories right away but to deny UK /ANZAC/USA IPCs by convoy raiding them.  After the first 4 or 5 turns, you have to spend some money buying infantry to protect yourself from the Soviets.

I haven’t tried this, but it seems like it would be possible for Germany to take out the West Indies on turn 3 while Japan takes out Brazil, also on turn 3.  All three of the Axis would have to coordinate this to pull it off.  Then, on turn 4, Germany builds an airbase while some of the Japanese airforce lands on West Indies, allowing them to scramble if the USA attacks back.  Perhaps Japan should also build a minor IC on Brazil to help dominate the Atlantic