Ukraine bid

@axis_roll:

@Frood:

Again, units are much more valuable than territories - that’s my view anyway.

why attack then anyways?

Seriously, if piece perservation is that important to you, you probably rarely (or never) should attack with your units.

What makes an attack ‘worth it’ to you then?  Does it differ if your the axis versus the allies?

I attack when I can kill more of the enemies units than I will lose myself in the attack and to any counterattack.

I’ll still trade territories with 1 Inf 2 Ftrs attacking etc. just to maintain the front and keep from dwindling, which you have to do to maintain territory, but apart from that I will usually only attack with overwhelming force. Eg. I only advance my main forces when it’s for keeps.

In some games I have almost no major battles until the end, when my massive force becomes unstoppable and finally advances and completely crushes everything before it.

@newpaintbrush:

Romulus:  Do you attack Belorussia with 3 infantry 2 fighters and send the rest to West Russia, when you do the Belorussia attack?

When I attack Belorussia, I send there 3 inf and 2 fig as you said.
Then in West Russia I use 6 inf, 2 art and 4 tanks (leaving the three inf in Caucasus there)

If I attack Ukraine I sent there 3 inf, 1 art and 2 tanks and 2 fig.
In West Russia go: 9 inf, 1 art and 2 tanks.

But this attack should be ok, or at least be acceptable.
What I was speaking was the fact that in the past I usually attacked only WR in R1. But in that case Germany counterattacked (using infantry from Belorussia and Ukraine) Caucasus or WR (depending were I have less units).

From then I have changed the Russia opening move, choosing from the two I described; WR and Belorussia or WR and Ukraine. And I am convinced that attacking another territory other Werst Russia is very important.

Frood, I have only a doub about your strategy. If you are Axis the one with the bigger stack that push in the enemy capitals may be the allied player.
How do you address a situation, with axis, in wich you are at economical disdvantage?

I’ve been using the Wrus attack only for at least 6 months now and have yet to see real problems with it.  I’m not saying there aren’t draw backs but I have seen anything that is fatal to the Allies.

You CAN hold both Cauc and Wrus with the Wrus attack only.

I’ll attack with 9 inf, 2 rt, 2 arm, 2 ftrs.  This essentially kills Wrus in 1 rd and you’ll lose 2 inf at most.
If I lose 2 inf, I’ll move the last inf from Kar for the extra defense.  With 1 hit, I’ll leave the blocker in Kar.

So I’ll have:
Wrus:  8-9 inf, 2 rt, 2 arm, aa
Cauc:  7 inf, 3 arm, 2 ftrs, aa
Rus:  4 inf, 2 arm

Germany has to commit too much and does too much damage too themselves if they attack/strafe either target.  Even if they take one they get slaughtered on the counter.

Oh yeah, this is with no units bid to Europe.

This, may not be the best setup and I don’t know the odds of the German attacks, but I do know no one has yet to test those German attacks.

Worst case for Russia (3 hits in Wrus), you can stack everything in Wrus and deadzone Cauc.

As Frood pointed out the one turn of 4 IPC is not that big of a deal.  You can even leave 2-3 inf in Cauc and see if Ger commits a tank, otherwise you get to kill probably 2 inf, 1 rt and maintain a heavy stack in Wrus and Cauc on Rd 2.  Since Ger can’t attack Cauc on Rd 2 (well they can send 2 units from a trn and maybe a couple planes, but that won’t be enough)

DM,

I am wondering if it might be worth it to Germany to kill those Russians on Round 1?  You effectively half their standing army and you do have 40 IPC income to their 24 (26 with W. Russia added.)

Just wondering, not advocating at this point.

Frood:

Normally I end up attacking with 2 Inf, 1 Fig vs 1 Inf if I want to possess the territory.  Not 1 Inf, 2 Fig.  A)  Defenders do have a 33% chance to hit.  B) Fighters can’t take land.  C) How often can Russia devote both fighters to a trade territory instead of one each to two trade territories?

@Jennifer:

DM,

I am wondering if it might be worth it to Germany to kill those Russians on Round 1?  You effectively half their standing army and you do have 40 IPC income to their 24 (26 with W. Russia added.)

Just wondering, not advocating at this point.

Frood:

Normally I end up attacking with 2 Inf, 1 Fig vs 1 Inf if I want to possess the territory.  Not 1 Inf, 2 Fig.  A)  Defenders do have a 33% chance to hit.  B) Fighters can’t take land.  C) How often can Russia devote both fighters to a trade territory instead of one each to two trade territories?

i ve tried it, dont know how this game will end though, but early German attack on Russian forces at least brings a lot of fun in the game :wink:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=10105.0

@Jennifer:

DM,
I am wondering if it might be worth it to Germany to kill those Russians on Round 1?  You effectively half their standing army and you do have 40 IPC income to their 24 (26 with W. Russia added.)

It could for the Germans, I think some type of tank dash could work, but UK can always directly unload to Arch/Kar in that scenerio.

Since navy protection won’t be an issue.

But as Amol says, it’ll probably be a fun game.

@Jennifer:

Frood:

Normally I end up attacking with 2 Inf, 1 Fig vs 1 Inf if I want to possess the territory.  Not 1 Inf, 2 Fig.  A)  Defenders do have a 33% chance to hit.  B) Fighters can’t take land.  C) How often can Russia devote both fighters to a trade territory instead of one each to two trade territories?

The key part of your sentence is “if I want to possess the territory”. My interest is in killing the other side’s unit(s). So attacking 1 Inf with 1 Inf 2 Ftrs odds are you’ll kill that unit, and the defender has only a 1/3 chance of killing your unit and preventing you from taking the territory.

As attacker, you want to minimize the length of a battle, not allowing the defenders to fire back more than once if possible, to minimize your losses. That’s what the 2 Ftrs do.

Attacking with 2 Inf 1 Ftr may increase your odds of taking the territory (you have about 93% chance to take the territory, vs. a 62% chance with my attack)
So that’s an additional 30% chance of taking the territory. For a 3 IPC territory that chance is worth about 1 IPC, statistically, but less a if trading a 1 or 2 IPC territory.
+1/3 IPC to + 1 IPC
However, to gain that 1 IPC avg. benefit you commit an extra 3 IPC unit which will be killed.

• 3 IPC
  On the other hand, that extra Inf has a 1/3 chance of killing a counter-attacking unit, which will prolly also be an inf, so 1/3 of 3 IPCs = 1 IPC.

• 1 IPC

So in my view the 2 Inf 1 Ftr attack on average nets the attacking player minus 1 to minus 1 and 2/3 IPCs. If you have 30 such attacks in a game, that’s a loss of 30 to 50 IPCs

I also have to note that the extra avg. 1 IPC from the 3 IPC territory is worth less than an IPC that’s already active at the front line.

@Romulus:

Frood, I have only a doub about your strategy. If you are Axis the one with the bigger stack that push in the enemy capitals may be the allied player.
How do you address a situation, with axis, in wich you are at economical disdvantage?

My view is that the Axis’ economic disadvantage is somewhat of a myth. Yes, they have less production to start with. But consider:

• The axis forces are more concentrated, being divided only between two players. This allows greater strategic flexibility. As an extreme example, imagine if the Allies were divided into 30 countries, each with 3 IPCs per turn. Each of those countries would be useless offensively.

• But the main reason is that while the Allies have more production, they have to commit, at least early on, a sizeable portion of that production to building transports and escort vessels. If you look at how many ground units the Axis produce in the first 2 rounds vs. the Allies, you would think that the Axis had an economic advantage.

Thus the key thing for the Axis is to gain territory early on, while the Allies are still weak on the ground. But those early territory gains have to be solid, which is why you have to preserve your units so that your gains will hold once the Allied onslaught begins.

Once the Allies have built their fleets and are diverting their production solely to land forces, the Axis will be in big trouble if the Allies still have greater production.

And if you are in that situation, you just build lots of units with high defensive value (Infantry) and hope that your enemy makes some mistakes.

@Amon:

i ve tried it, dont know how this game will end though, but early German attack on Russian forces at least brings a lot of fun in the game :wink:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=10105.0

It was actually rattling me pretty good until you left those 8 ARM out to dry on G4…

And the other disadvantage is that you have allowed the other Allies to have increased income during the entire game to date (Allies ahve held Western, Southern and Eastern at various times), even with the Japan advances in Asia.

Not over yet, but Germany’s offensive forces are broken for the time being, and Japan is far too thin in Asia to compensate for those German losses.

The Bear is on the verge of breaking out of their cage, the Yanks are flowing through North Africa, and the Brits can pretty much land at will in Northern Europe.

I’m thinking a hit of 50% of Russia’s forces, give or take a few points, for 20% of Germany’s might be a good trade on G1.  At this point, England isn’t doing much other then trying to mobilize.  America’s sitting there like a baby with its thumb in it’s mouth asking why it was attacked at Pearl again and why it has no combat forces within 3 turns of Germany or Japan, and Russia now has half what it normally has to defend itself.  Seems to me, if you play your cards right, you could keep the allies off balance just long enough to get Russia.  Though, honestly, you might have to take some risks (yes, Switch, that means you’d have to actually engage with less then 90% odds of winning. :P  )

@ncscswitch:

@Amon:

i ve tried it, dont know how this game will end though, but early German attack on Russian forces at least brings a lot of fun in the game :wink:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=10105.0

It was actually rattling me pretty good until you left those 8 ARM out to dry on G4…

And the other disadvantage is that you have allowed the other Allies to have increased income during the entire game to date (Allies ahve held Western, Southern and Eastern at various times), even with the Japan advances in Asia.

yes, those tanks- my panzer divisions :cry:

but as i said there you re in advantage but i am still in the game
if i somehow get Moscow  :-o

Ok Frood, I understand now. It is similar to the strategies I usually use. Also for me the more important asset in A&A is mine units and the main objective are the enemy units.

There is a logistical and technical problem that I was not able to solve until now.
When I advance German main army from EE to Ukr I usually face this problem: my army will get no reinforcements the turn I advance while the Russian Army in Caucasus and in West Russia get reinforcements as normal.
This is a bad thing because my army may be strafed in the russian turn by the enemy that will receive reinforcement in the NCM.
I should say that in our games, strafing attack are always attempted even if the odds are slightly positive for defenders, we fear too much the high stack of infantry. We have the “infantry-phobia”.  :-D

Is viable a strategy in which I build only tanks the turn before to advance my army in Ukr? Or German must continue to play defense, build a lot of infantry, and wait that Japan is at the gate of Moscow prior to move the main army in UKR?

This thing, that seems out of topic, in my opinion is related to the first turn Russian move. When my friends, playing as Russia, did not attack Ukraine but only West Russia, sometime I had tried to strafe forces in West Russia then retreating in Belorussia, where the German army could get reinforcements.
Is it a strategy that may work or it is better attacking Caucasus first turn and then try to trade it every turn with Russia?

In each case, my opinion is that Russia attack in Ukraine in R1 avoid this problems for Russia, and even if it cost many units to Russia, keeps German guns a territory more far from the heart of Mother Russia.

So move your stack to W. Russia instead of Ukraine with enough force that he cannot both hold Russia and Caucasus.  This will result in the Russians pulling back to Russia and leaving you to walk into Caucasus.

Now you are both getting reinforcements on the front line.  And, more likely then not, you are both getting 4 units per round. :P

Without passing from Ukraina then?
Maybe using Belorussia to go in West Russia?

BTW, if you stack Ukraine and use Balkans to traverse to Ukraine you can allow the allies to take E. Europe.  They’ll never stack it hard because you can attack with Germany, Balkans and Ukraine and it allows you to keep more in W. Europe if needed.

Just a thought.

IMO letting the allies keep Eastern Europe is very dangerous, because then Germany is threatened not only with whatever units can come by transport, but a growing stack in EE. That pretty much puts Germany on the defensive.

I don’t mind letting them take it if I can kill what they land there every round though… I guess that’s what you’re saying really anyway.

@Romulus:

Is viable a strategy in which I build only tanks the turn before to advance my army in Ukr? Or German must continue to play defense, build a lot of infantry, and wait that Japan is at the gate of Moscow prior to move the main army in UKR?

I think that’s a good strategy, as long as you have enough Infantry at home that you protect the coast from landings as well.

Sometimes I even build air units the turn before a battle that is 3 spaces away, so that on the next turn 3 waves arrive at once: main stack, Armor and Fighters.

That stack of tanks will sit there in a defensive role until it is time to move out, and then you can build a bunch of Infantry again to take their place.

Exactly what I am saying.  Let them take E. Europe and then reclaim it instead of letting them have W. Europe.  At least until you are ready to push hard on Moscow.

Most Allied players won’t land more then 1 or 2 Infantry in E.Europe if Germany has 30 Infantry, 20 Armor and an assortment of fighters and bombers scattered between Berlin and Kiev anyway. (Germany and Ukraine.)  That’s because most allied players don’t have the 20 transports needed to land and hold E. Europe against the world of hurt Germany will unleash upon them if they do!

Thanks to both of you Jennifer and Frood!
:-)

For the record, letting the allies keep W. Europe is worse then E. Europe but both should be avoided at all costs.

=)

Oh yea, and never let America take Norway.  Better to let England have it.  Odds of them affording an IC and putting out 3 armor a round there is much smaller. =)