Race to Moscow

@ckladman Yes, the game tends to favor the allies without objectives, and the axis with. To balance, you could trying giving a bid (additional starting units) to the side that is at a disadvantage, or play with objectives but reduce the payout. (3 ipcs vs 5.)

@Sherman

Just to nail this part down, I went ahead and pulled the exact stats for Egypt actually being captured by the Germans with an extra British infantry added in and its 35%:

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You have to convert one tank to a fighter and select “Retreat when only air left”. This will ensure the calculator leaves one of the tanks alive along with the bomber resulting in an Egypt capture.

And if it helps, I have lost as the Allies even after holding Egypt on G1 (I’ve also won games after losing it on G1 but in that case, I feel experience won the day). And after reading your second post, I will say that when I make balance recommendations in the videos, they are very conservative relative to what I feel is the true game state. In other words, I’d rather the game remain imbalanced than go too far with too much for the weaker side. I might also make that more clear in a future video. Anyway, I hope that helps try to convince your group to adopt that second infantry into either Yunnan or Egypt - or even both for a total of three… or an additional bid of some kind.

with Russia invested in China (IC in Szechwan and raised territory value to 3) and getting the IPCs, pluss the turn order allowing to consolidate, made a KJF more viable. My friend tried it one game but made a couple mistakes with positioning

@the-spaceman Seems like a good start. A few thoughts to throw into the mix:

I would say UK’s naval priorities should be first the Baltic fleet, then any stray transports, then any stray subs. The subs don’t do any convoy damage or anything like that, so they’re really just targets of opportunity; it’s not like you can safely leave British transports unattended anyway because of the German bomber, so the subs aren’t doing that much more harm. The Baltic fleet is top priority because it allows Germans to cheaply conquer Norway/Finland/Karelia, and because it’s too expensive for Germany to sanely replace.

The Australian transport can flee across Argentina to the Atlantic, but I would leave the destroyer behind to block a J2 attack on Australia – I think it does more good slowing down Japan and keeping some of the UK income than it does to get a destroyer added to your Atlantic fleet, like, 3 turns later. For similar reasons, I usually won’t move the starting US Pacific fleet to the Atlantic. If the Allies took unusually heavy naval losses, then maybe it’s worthwhile, but the Pacific fleet is earning you nothing the whole time it’s in transit through the Panama Canal. Having a few starting boats in the Pacific – even just CV, ftr, DD, tran – means that if you ever do need to upgrade the Pacific fleet into a formidable force because Japan is grabbing Alaska and Hawaii or whatever, then you can do so with one turn of purchases. If you can’t quickly reinforce the US Pacific fleet to the point where it can drive away the Japanese navy, then you might be forced to buy 10 infantry for the Western US instead or something similarly expensive and wasteful.

It doesn’t always make sense to build a huge Atlantic fleet at all as the Allies – sometimes you can sink the Italian fleet using primarily air power and subs, and/or build a pair of factories in Egypt, South Africa, India, or Australia. Some games you won’t have enough good safe factory sites, and some games you’ll need a big fleet because, e.g., Germany is heavy on air power (so you need protection for your transports) but short on infantry (so invading France is really attractive). On the other hand, if Germany trades its entire air force to wipe out your boats on G1, builds a factory in France on G1, and then drops 6 infantry there on G2, maybe just let the Atlantic navy go for several turns and rely on factories instead, or have the British build factories and let the Americans reinforce with a fleet into Morocco after they build up.

@Argothair said in Reliable 1941 Axis Strategy:

@cheezhead1252 You’re welcome!

No, I think it is counterproductive to worry about attacking Egypt on G1 – especially with NOs off, it is just not that important, and you need every plane in the German air force to win 2 naval battles + 3 land battles on turn 1 at reasonable odds.

If you want to go heavy in the Med, you can get excellent odds on taking Egypt turn 2 by instead using the German med transport to shuffle another inf + tank to Libya on G1, where it will be protected by the Italian navy for a turn. Italy will do the same, shuffling another 2 units to Libya on I1. If you pre-position another 2 units in Italy / the Balkans on G1, then on G2 you can ferry them to Egypt with your transport, allowing you to attack with ~8 land units, plus the German bomber, which can now be spared from anti-British-navy duties, plus also a German fighter that should have landed in Morocco. This is far more than anything the Allies can bring to the region, and if you somehow roll poorly, the Italians are there to follow up with an equally hard punch (~7 units, 1 plane, and 2 naval bombards).

Italy can build any land units it wants for the eastern front; it’s just a style preference. Tanks allow you to threaten a ‘can opener’ for Germany in a larger number of territories, but they tend to be a one-and-done attack, since Italy doesn’t have enough cash to build many tanks; sooner or later Russia will call your bluff and force you to either attack with the Italian tanks into a stack of 2-3 Russian infantry, or else retreat. If you send in the tanks and Germany can’t take Moscow that turn or stack up with the survivors, then you’ll lose the surviving tanks next turn to a Russian counterattack, and you won’t be able to replace them anytime soon. But, if you build all infantry, then it takes longer to become relevant, and Russia can clearly see where it’s headed. There are pros and cons. I usually build a mix.

Good luck against your old man!

I took the advice from your first post and applied to a game of triple A hard AI before you posted this response. I ended up coming to the same conclusions as above, so it is good to confirm I’m on the right track haha.

I agree that the juice in Egypt isn’t really worth the squeeze. I strafed them in G1 to kill some units. And they end up running to Persia once you pressure India anyways. So the French tank and an Inf got shipped to the Eastern front via Med transport and I did the same with Italian units too.

Also, the tip for transports to pressure India was money, getting it a round earlier than I had been was huge. Was able to rush in some planes to help defend Germany on J2 or maybe it was J3.

Was the first time I beat the AI without No’s, it felt great crushing Russia, not going to lie hehe. It’s a slog on the eastern front and you have to be extremely careful and concentrate your forces at the right spot at the right time or you’re fooked.

Thanks again for the great advice and I look forward to kicking some allied booty, cheers!

@argothair It depends on which battles failed.

Typically, if any battle is going to go sideways, it’s the SZ12 one (DD/CR off of Gibraltar). I don’t mind losing/drawing this one too much, as all does is gives UK an opportunity to either go all-in against the Italian fleet or consolidate their Atlantic Fleet (which Germany really has no means of stopping even if you kill everything).

In the extremely unlikely event that SZ2 or SZ6 (where the actual transports are) go badly, you’re probably in really horrible shape. Only real recourse at that point is to turtle up, by tons of INF, and pray for better luck on Japan’s side of the board.

They the key is having both sides of the map going at same time. This is no way any knock towards any guys games and such.
I know some have time limits to play a country but if you have battle boards on each end of map plus cut back on strategy talking when both players are discussing 1 country which is fine to a certain point then say Germany plays while Japan plays and other side is defending same time.

We also have a different House rule that has proven to be very interesting:

We use the Chinese Setup from 1942 but instead of Suiyuan having 2 Inf, we add an additional Inf in Yunnan (thous having 3 Inf 1 Fig)…

The Japanese player can still opt to got for it with 3 Inf 2 Fig, but it is an evenly and very costly battle.

Having more boots in China also makes the abundance of Japanese transports in 1941 less of a problem since the Japanese player has to send a bit more Infantry to China to counter them.

We found this setup to be way more interesting and also historically accurate because China was a pain in the ass for Japan and it shouldn’t be that easy for Japan to defeat them.