Map for 1941 axis strategy

@thedesertfox I don’t think you’ll get people to agree on a bid, which is why you should have an auction if you’re running a tournament – let one player say "I’ll take the Allies for 10 ipcs (or whatever), and then the other player can either say “Ok, take them” or bid lower and say “I’ll take the Allies for 9 ipcs.” This continues until someone says ok.

There are just so few games in a typical a&a tournament that you can’t afford to have anyone feeling like they lost a coin toss. E.g. if you have 3 rounds and someone plays allies twice and they don’t agree with your fixed bid, that’s a real feel-bad moment.

As this topic has fallen asleep, I want to discuss the allied bidding strategies in aa50-41, no tech, low-luck, bid: 13 IPC

I - Russian fighter

a) fighter on the western front, maybe on Caucasus to eventually kill the German transport in the med or to Karelia to make a German assault to expensive (high losing risk and forgoing too many other targets) and eventually killing the lone German transport (if the cruiser attacked the UK destroyer)

The 3 IPC left can be used for any allied country, e.g. an infantry in Egypt

b) fighter on the eastern front to Buryatia to kill the transport in SZ 62

b1) With 3 IPC go to the US and buy an infantry on the Philippines, land the fighter there. 3 Inf + 1 Fighter is hard for Japan lacking one transport and having no shore bombardment
b2) With the 3 IPC go to UK, e.g. Egypt, land in Yakut und go to the western front against Germany
b3) With an infantry bid in Burma or India: land in Yunnan. Yes, this is a sacrifice, but 3 Inf + 2 Fighters just allow the Japanese to clear the country, but probably not conquer it. This will slow the Japanese very much in moving against India.

II Anti-Manchuria

Bid: 1 Inf to Buryatia and 1 tank to Soviet far east and one to Stanovoj C.

attack Manchuria with 4 Inf + 2 Tanks - 2,5 units left is the expected result in low luck, means 2 tanks or 2 tank + 1 inf
a hard punch against Japan but no bid for Africa/Europe

III-UK fleet

IIIa destroyer in SZ2

While SZ 2 is still attractive, only 2 subs + fighter + bomber is a safe deal.
Which means Germany has to sacrifice one fighter in SZ 12 for at least one battle round to secure the Italian fleet.

IIIb destroyer in SZ12

in SZ 12 the italien fleet is endangered severely so Germany must attack here.
both attacks, SZ 2 with 1 sub+fighter+bomber and at the same time SZ12 with sub+2 fighter make both somewhat risky, probably losing a fighter for Germany too.

the 5 IPC remaining will probably be a UK tank in Egypt or a Russian tank on the front against Germany

IIIc a sub in SZ12 and a sub in SZ 35

the one in SZ 12 is to threaten Italy, while the one in SZ 35 wants to harrass Japanese ships or lone transports

Buying both at the same time is one option, the other is buy only of of those subs and some ground units

IV - pro Russia

buy any units for Russia for 13 IPC placing them on the front with Germany

V pro UK

buy any units for 13 IPC for UK, maybe to strengthen either India oder Egypt/Africa

Have I missed some good allied bids ?

Hi, all!

Thanks to BigDog for great thinking outside of the box.

I had what was propably the best game so far yesterday. I wanted to apply this strategy, and did so with the US. Unfortunately, my co-player (UK & Russia) wanted to go a little more extreme into India, buying a factory and later 2 Battleships and 1Carrier. Ferrying the 2Fighters from London via Moscow to land on the Carrier. The Japanese player did not se this coming… He did manage the usual and occupy the entire Pacific, but being too spread out caught between the UK and US fleet he had  to retreat towards the mainland for naval reinforcements. Japan did not contribute towards capturing Moscow. The UK fleet was destroyed, with India being captured. But this allowed the US to retake all of the Islands and capture all Jap islands as well. Japan mainland was taken, and the fleet utterly destroyed when racing back to liberate Japan. The best naval battle ever!!  :mrgreen:
Unfortunately this led to Italy and Germany sharing Africa and the Russian territories after Italy had an income of 44 on its peak (34+2 nat obj) and Germany scoring around 60 - objectives included.
This led to a combined effort on London, I believe we held out 4 assaults before Germany finally succeded in occupying London.

So in retrospect i believe that this was a bit too much of an “all out” in the Pacific. Containing Japan led to Italy reaching new heights, and I believe that it is much better for the Allies to secure Africa and contain Italy. Also leaving a strong fleet in the Atlantic to be able to support Russia if need be. Either directly on Russian soil, or maintaining a possibillity to invade France/Italy. The US was not able to liberate Australia, Borneo and East Indies before Africa was totally occupied, leaving UK with a few rounds of very little income. Holding Africa with the intent of liberating India later on seems to me like a stronger option.

Finding the right moment to strike at Japan still eludes me, and I am very much looking forward to the next game where I will certainly try something else than a KGF.

@Flying:

Doing this leaves Africa to the Allies doesn’t it? Can a lower income Italy do this? What do you do, stack up tanks and infantry for 4 rounds then attack Russian territories? I can definately see this working though seems like a more risky strategy than going for africa/middle east.

When I say using Germany to let Italy have a crack at Russia I mean the Caucus not the Russian capital.

You can do both.  You don’t need many italian tanks to open a hole in a wall of inf that is only 1 or 2 inf.

and, yes Germany can can opener the Caucasus for italy, but we find it’s better to have Germany (or even Japan) to take the caucasus over Italy.  They could make better use of the IC with 4 unit capability.

@Subotai:

I would like to play against this strat in TripleA low luck game, but sadly AA50 is not finished yet for release in the stable version.

If I think a strat is vastly inferior, then I could possibly be interested in playing reg dice, eventually good dice rolls can only bring you so far.

There’s un anstable version, but it works perfect.

http://triplea.sourceforge.net/mywiki/Forum

The only thing I noticed so far are some error messages in History. But you can ignore them, and still look at it.
For the rest, it seems to work great.

That’s one epic game.

@bugoo:

‘The problem is this sets up a deadly dance.’

:-o

apperently, i’m the only not-risky guy :-)
i prefer killing british destroyer east of england with sub and cruiser
2 subs, 1 fighter and 1 bomber to sz 12
take out all 3 eastern europe countries
hold france

doubting wether attack egypt or not.
if you do, sz 12 is more risky without bomber, but perhaps still acceptable?