Italy attacking Caucasus

@leebear I would suggest that if the extra British ships aren’t making a difference then the British player isn’t using them well. If you send the German bomber to Egypt then Britain either keeps both Atlantic transports, or Britain keeps the destroyer and cruiser near Gibraltar.

With two transports, it is nearly impossible for Germany to protect France; Britain can attack turn 1 with 2 inf, 1 art, 1 tank, 2 ftr, 1 bmr, and 1 BB bombard. To protect against that you would have to leave almost the entire German starting army in France, meaning that your front against Russia is in danger of collapse from a Russian counterattack; you can lose your tanks or lose control of the NO for Baltics, East Poland, and Ukraine. If you don’t protect against it, then Britain gets $6 for France plus $5 for the NO, plus the US gets $5, and you can’t land planes there on G2. This sets up a cycle where Brian has enough cash to keep retaking France each turn, which is at least as valuable as the Italian NOs. You can somewhat prevent these problems by having Italy retake France, but that means keeping the Italian forces back from the eastern front, and buying mostly army rather than navy for Italy, which kind of defeats the point of having a strong Italy – you can still lose the Italian fleet in the middlegame.

On the other hand, if you leave Britain with the destroyer and cruiser off Gibraltar and the Egyptian fighter survives, then Brian can attack the Italian fleet immediately on turn 1 with 1 destroyer, 1 cruiser, 1 fighter, and 1 bomber; before Italy has a chance to build a carrier. Britain is mildly favored to win that battle. If you play with any kind of bid, Britain can add a sub to that fleet and become strongly favored to win that battle.

None of this is to say that you shouldn’t attack Egypt on G1…it’s fine if that’s where you like to focus the Axis energy. It’s just that you’re not getting a free lunch, because leaving more than the bare minimum of British ships alive ought to give the Allies plenty of counterbalancing advantages.

You’ll find that the best approach to the Allies is a slow burn. The Axis start off with way more stuff than you, and the 41 scenario just takes that divide to the extreme. It’s best to stay back and slowly accumulate advantage before making your big push. In most cases, defense is stronger than offense in A&A (i.e. INF attack at 1, but defend at 2, and FTRs attack at 3, but defend at 4), so try to use that to your advantage when possible.

One more note for USA. Rather than go straight for Japan’s jugular, try parking the fleet in the SZ that contains the “Solomon Islands” Territory. It’s a nice territory to camp out in with your fleet, as it:

Puts you within 2-moves of Australia, New Guinea, Borneo, Dutch East Indies, and Philippines, the Pacific territories that are either worth a lot of money, are part of NOs, or both.

Keeps you within 2-moves of West US, your spawn point for new units, so new reinforcements will always be on the way and you always have a safe point to retreat to if Japan is too strong for you.

Keeps you more than 2-moves away from SZ63 (Japan’s spawn point for new units), so Japan will never be able to send a large amount of units your way without first spending a turn moving their units towards you (and thus, giving you a hint that Japan is planning on attacking you).

Just food for thought. Of course, Japan has ways to play around you basing your fleet in the Solomon Islands, but that mini-game of fleet positioning is part of the fun of A&A’s Pacific Theater.

Please stay on topic or don’t post in this thread.  Thanks.

The best thing I have found that keeps Japan in check is having the US Build a factory in Alaska and place navy armada in seazone 64.
This does a couple of things:
    Bombers placed in Alaska can strategic bomb Japan.

The US can threaten to invade Japan during the next turn.

The US can land units in Russia and threaten Japans Asia control.

Most importantly it forces Japan to keep buying a navy instead of ground units in order   
    to protect Japan.

@Violent.copper:

To add on to Cmdr Jennifer, You are also leaving the Brittish Navy to Invade the Norway Round 1 or then Sz 5 R2 or R3 overall doing more harm than good to Germany I never want the Allies in SZ5 Personally.

You know, hitting Norway may not be the worst thing to happen to Germany…if you go Fleet Heavy like Functionetta and Emperor Mollari (and many others I am sure) on Germany 1.  Now their ships are in range of yours (you have to hit it from SZ 3).  Realistically speaking, you may have 2 destroyers, cruiser, submarine, carrier, 4 or 5 fighters and a bomber in range of SZ 3 at this time…depending what you did, what happened to you and how you are positioned at the end of G1.

Germany because, espacally if they hit Russia hard, Russia is stuffed aginst a full blown Germany.
But 1 bombing round aginst Italy can really catch them off balance and make it hard for them.

Egypt has 2 inf, 1 art, 1 arm, and 1 fig.  5 extra units that could be in persia, while, G keeps 2 inf, 1 art, 2 arm in libya that could be used to counter allied algeria landings with air support from france/berlin.  I’d say that favors the axis as far as time is concerned, and time is on the axis side in my experience.