Amazing Axis, you again fail to read through the post. I said if you DONT trade the territories with the AA Guns, then the axis just walks them out of they way. Now you don’t have the territory AND you don’t have the AA Guns. So you bought them for what? They didn’t do anything, well, they did, but it was to make your opponent stronger, not you stronger.
At least he concedes that I have “great” points in my assertion that trading AA Guns (or buying them for that matter) is a losing proposition for Russia!
Yoshi,
The bombers cost nothing because they can be used as bombers each round.
For instance, the bombers are used passively as a deterrent to allied naval shipping in the Atlantic forcing them to consolidate their fleets and buy more units to defend American transports from attack. The best part is, they pretty much have to do this even if you never intend to attack their fleets because they don’t know your intentions!
They are used aggressively in a myriad of ways:
1) They can attack Russia’s or England’s Industrial Complexes. Russia can try to counter with AA Guns, but I’ve pretty much shredded anyone’s hopes and dreams that would ever be cost effective for Russia. England does not have that option being on an island.
2) They have massive range allowing Germans to trade territories much farther away without having to move their fighters, this allows them to defend western territories with less men and in turn allows them to bring more cannon-fodder to bear on Russia. (Because the fighters can stay in Western and 1 fighter can replace - in my opinion - 3 to 4 infantry on defense. That means those guys can move to the front lines.)
3) They CAN go attack America’s transports if you chose to send them there.
Because of these 4 reasons, a bomber has either no cost, or a negative cost to Germany. Do note, however, I did assign a cost to Japan’s extra bombers due to their lack of utility. They either go SBR Russia or they go SBR America, they really serve no other purpose at all and they cannot shift from one to the other like Germany can without downtime in between.
Now, I’ve demonstrated that Russia building AA Guns has a cost far in excess than they can afford. (Both in building the actual unit and in units lost defending it. And yes, you have to defend it or you basically gave 5 IPC to your opponent for nothing, so I’ll assume the better players in the field are defending them while the best players are just not building them to begin with.)
How about America though? Well, to defend those 4 transports (32 IPC) they need to get units from North America to Europe/Africa/Asia they will need something. They COULD strip naval assets from their fleet, but that would almost require them to keep their fleet with England stripping them of the flexibility of striking at Germany’s soft underbelly and liberating Africa or stripping them of their ability to reinforce Russia. Neither option is exceptionally good in my opinion.
So what else can they do? Well, +2 Destroyers would serve the purpose of taking the 2 starting destroyers out of the fleet, right? So you can invest 24 IPC in destroyers to defend those transports and now break the two fleets apart allowing the allies to engage as they otherwise would all along the northern, western and southern borders of Europe and liberating Africa. But alas, those 24 IPC are locked away from the battle and may never be engaged, thus, they cost 24 IPC since they add nothing to your ability to win the game, but are used solely to restore the status quo.
In summation:
German bombers: No to negative cost. (Like infantry and tanks have almost no cost to negative cost for just about every nation at any point during the game.)
Japanese bombers: Moderate cost. They can still be used, but a fighter would do the job just as easily and Japan has plenty of those to start with. Not to mention, the two viable SBR targets are sufficiently far enough apart that Japan cannot pick a central location to hit either target, so they have to chose one and move to get in range. Still, this is not horrible and it can be beneficial, even if all you do is hit Caucasus and bring extra firepower to bear in your other battles.
Russian AA Guns: Potentially the worst move possible by the allies. These have an insanely high cost, even buying just one of these too early in the game or too late in the game could tip the scales of power giving the Axis an upper hand before the allies can recover. They’re a liability. They’re cumbersome. In order to negate the potential negative affects of them, you have to stack them with another AA Gun which completely defeats the purpose of building extras! To be perfectly honest, I think building a Russian Battleship in SZ 16 is a wiser move than building a single AA Gun with Russia except in the most extreme situations - even then, think twice and phone a friend before making the purchase!
I do have a viable solution, but no one likes it. It’s almost my normal allied strategy to begin with. England vs Japan, America vs Germans in Africa and Russia vs Germany, allowing Russia to focus it’s power on taking German territories while England/America liberate making Russia stronger over the course of the game, not weaker.
Parting Shot:
Always endeavor to build units that add to your ability to win the game. As soon as you build units to restore the status quo, you have lost. You cannot win Axis and Allies through defense and reaction alone.
The reason none of the solutions presented are good enough to win (and they have ALL been tried and defeated, which is how I know how to defeat them) is because they are all yielding the initiative to the Axis.