German buys turn one

@Imperious:

then how does the german player counter the hole in the baltic?

Land troops > Navy 
Capitals can’t be taken with ships.  :-)

Most likely UK (with a UK 1 attack) lost 2 ftrs.  I’ll trade my Baltic fleet for that, and if I pick off their bomber as well, woo hoo!

German Air power can still keep the Brits out of the Baltic for several turns, plus they still have to go to Afr.

With no naval purchases for Germany, UK still can’t crack WE, GER, EE until rd 5 or so, buy that time you’ve had 5 rds of land buys and can deadzone WE (and EE if need be) as you move to Ukr, then Cauc or Wrus.  In the meantime rd 5-6 should be just about the time Japan is fully rolling and preparing to seriously assualt Moscow.  It is all about timing.
Called the “lurch” in Classic, it still works in Revised.  Leverage your rd 1-4 gains in Afr for a rd 5-8 assualt on the Russian East and Wester boarders.

Control the center of the board, once you do that, then go back and deal with loose ends, if you don’t quite have enough to end the game.

I’m getting attracted to the idea of building an AC on G1 (and landing AF in WE) in order to support fleet unification in G2. Then you can choose to go into the Med or the Baltic with a decent sized fleet that’s capable of more than being a speedbump.

I like being in the Med because having TRNs there a) gives you rapid movement of Inf to Caucasus / Africa b) enables you to control the Suez for Japanese naval reinforcements and c) keeps the allies away from Algeria / Spain seazone.

I don’t mind leaving the Baltic open because if the Allies move in there, they can’t land in Archangel which is the fastest way to reinforce Russia. With the Med fleet securing some decent African Income, Germany can keep the Allies at bay until they give up facing a stack of 52 Inf (what happened in my Tournament game) at which point Germany can get to Russia before too many Allied units do. So personally I love it when UK spends 2 Ftrs just to lead their fleet into the baltic hole.

Also with a huge force in Germany (and maybe EE) EE/Karelia become nice little dead zones.

I think I’ll try the AC, together with a bid placement in Lib. But other than that, I would say you can’t go wrong with 10 Inf 2 Arm, but the Ftr has its attractions too.

I like to sometimes put a nice fat Industrial Complex down in Western Europe on G1, plus an Aircraft Carrier in the Baltic and a few ground units back home.

Gotta stock WEU with troops to defend the IC, but you should be doing that anyway.  Now you’ve got a way to pop up 6 defensive units there in no time, plus that single factory gives you naval placement options (4 seazones, including one in the Med) exceeded only by the UK (5 SZs) and matched only by Australia.  All of a sudden you can throw down all sorts of blockade ships to hamper Allied sea movement.  Or coordinate more-surprising naval expeditions that your opponent won’t see two coming from two rounds away.

Give 'er a try sometime, it really opens up the Atlantic for Germany.

~Josh

As I understand it, the point of the Carrier on G1 is not for fleet unification, it’s to make the Baltic fleet hard to sink and force England and America to hold off landings until Germany 4 or 5.

@Jennifer:

As I understand it, the point of the Carrier on G1 is not for fleet unification, it’s to make the Baltic fleet hard to sink and force England and America to hold off landings until Germany 4 or 5.

“the point” - whose point? Sometimes a unit has more than one point.

If it adds defensive value in the Baltic, it adds it in SZ 7 too. Plus if you join the Med BB, Sub (assuming it survives killing the UK BB) and TRN you now have 2 TRN 3 Sub 1 DD 1 BB 1 AC 2 Ftrs - takes 11 hits to kill and can absorb 3-6 hits without losing much strength - there’s a good bit of fodder to back up the DD/AC (2@3) BB, 2 Ftrs (3@4)

Well I think I’ll try it anyway.

Normaly I don’t buy navy with Germany.  I think you can avoid a few Air attacks with submerge and buy units to pressure Russia more effectively.  I might try dropping a couple DDs over the course of the fist couple turns just to see if it diswades the brits, but only if I start getting bored.

When the game first came out I used a tank only strat with Germany quite successfully.  I would only buy tanks for 3 rounds and charge Russia with everything I had via the northern route.  However Russian strats have developed now and it doesn’t work.

@Imperious:

This idea of a carrier build does not allow for a channel dash because the channel dash has its only hope as an option on G1. It can be used to defend the baltic fleet or it can be used to ‘attack’ the british fleet, but many think buying subs is the way to go if the intention is to attack the brits. A carrier build primarily is used as a defensive platform because your typically only bringing fighters to defend if the UK player looks like hes gonna go and attack the Baltic fleet. Hence the “point” is the carrier is mainly protection to either defend baltic passively or directly by also bring in fighters.

The benifits of a channel dash are obvious but all those “IF’s” kinda damper its appeal. If you try that on G1 most likely you will lose the fleet and be in worse position than if you had just left it alone in baltic and done nothing.

Of course its possible to wait and build stuff and then send it out but as you grow so does the enemy.

I dont think you would recommend the channel dash as a standard idea given normal turn results up until G1.

I’ve done the channel dash twice now - the first time meant total obliteration of my fleet, the second time I was able to bring one sub around the Cape and into the Med by G8 - yeah I’d say it wasn’t worth it. But both times I believe the dash would still have been an option on G2 given the Allied fleet position.

So, you can build the AC for defence, and if opportunity presents itself have a very attractive fleet unification play in G2. Maybe all your better Allied players could play to thwart this (although I keep hearing reference to German fleet unification being unstoppable, which seems inconsistent now with saying that the channel dash is suicidal, so I assume that fleet unification would be a G2 or later play.)

There is a really interesting article on the fleet unification option over at caspian sub.  Recommended reading for anyone interested in this.

I think of “channel dash” where G1 forces, buying no fleet, move from the baltic on G1.

A different strategy is to unite them in SZ7 on G2, but staying in the Baltic G1. That is “not” my idea of a channel dash.

An an AC is as offensive/defensive as you make it so. It depends on what you buy, what you do with it, what else is bought, what your opponents do, etc.

Which is why I told IL not to try this paper in the first place.

Saying an AC is “merely defensive” is wrong. A fleet can be a great offensive weapon if you know what you are doing.

@Imperious:

Considering that the Soviets attack/conquer west russia and belorussia as part of their standard opening i have been tinkering with the solution to solve what would be the best thing for germany on turn one.

IL, I don’t see any single best choice move for Germany. Â

Germany is who will define the tone of the game for >90% of the games played.  The other 10% will be KJF games and even then Germany turn one moves will determine the success of that.

I do like the idea of identifying a seriese of moves ranging from a conservative 12 INF 1 ART ground units in Russia approach to a Med CV + 2 FTR build.  These would really fall into build options for different strategies with build variations to support each strategy.

@Imperious:

Many people buy that carrier and 8 infantry on G1, but i am thinking about other choices.

1. A battleship would cost 24 IPC which takes 2 hits and can use its attack for shore bombardment against western E, Finland, and Leningrad. This can pay for the extra cost in a few turns. The planes would be freed up to help defend more vital areas. In the long run its probably not a good idea to use planes to defend the fleet. Also if the allies attacked this fleet and things went bad you can take the battleship as a loss and save another piece that would otherwise be sunk.

2. buy two destroyers which give you two threes and keep your fighters used for land defence and out of harms way.

3. ignore the baltic fleet and wait and see buying only land units unless UK moves her ships in for the kill.

4. try to leave the baltic and join the fleet in the medd–- “The channel dash”

which if these plans do you favor and why. My intention is to make a strategy guide with all the standard plays for each player.

If I had the time to do this for each player, I would start with USSR.  They actually start with an absolute ground truth situation and are allied with two other players so they have the most deterministic approach to turns 1 and 2.  Beyond that, even the USSR is difficult to predict.

From the USSR strategy options, I would develop the Germany strategies with the ability to specifiy preconditions about USSR moves.

For example, as Germany, I like the “Eastern Front Screen Pass”.  This depends on an overly agressive USSR who does not send a FTR to AE.  If instead I get a USSR move that signals KJF, I need to rethink what I am going to do with an eye toward putting lots of pressure on Moscow and London.

Each of the German moves will tend to force some degree of counter from the Allies and they will still be pushing their own strategies.  I suspect that the US “play book” will be pretty vague.

I’ll nail down the “screen pass” option here after some more play testing and give a write up on it.

@rjclayton:

@Cobert:

try the channel dash, which rarely works since the american player can be an a****** and send a transport to algeria to block the unification.  Like frimmel said, its hoping for the best.

If US uses a transport blocker to algeria, can’t Germany just take it out in combat with your fighters and still get your med fleet to SZ7 in non-combat?

Ive made the embarassing mistake before of landing most of my planes in norway and having only one in weu to face a transport and a destroyer.Â

I dont know who said it, but I agree with whoever said they like having control of the mediterannean.

8. Build an Industrial Complex in Western Europe and shake up Atlantic UK/US pre-calculations.

You haven’t really lived until you’ve blockaded an Allied navy into the Baltic!  :evil:

~Josh

And leave Russia to beat you up from the east?

Yeah I know… it’s obviously not the best or most conservative strategy, but it sure is fun and it opens up a nice range of interesting new possibilities for Germany.  I’m not even serious about IL including it on his list, unless he reeeally wants to.  Russia can still be handled (I’ve managed it once or twice) but it will certainly be more difficult as you are down 3-5 land-units.

~Josh