Bidding

@mobius1:

You know, maybe you’re right. My countering Japan strategy is mostly a throwback to the old version. But now it may be a better choice to have Russia go all out against Germany, since I think I have a good chance of pulling it off.

There have been many times that I could have secured Poland if I had enough tanks…

Put some allied (UK/USA) fighters with that stack of forward Russian troops and you should be able to safely get to/hold Eastern Poland.  That territory is a key piece in the theatre of war.  Whoever controls that (Germany/allies) can effectively dead zone 6 territories that it borders.  Also, those allied fighters are not out of play based in EPL.  In conjunction with the a/c strategy that Argothair posted for an allied navy, the ftrs can even hit france.

In my experience, KGF is not surefire in 1941 setup.

If you have a meticulous player for Japan and a player with a good strategy for Germany, The Allies focusing entirely on Germany Leaves Japan free to roll over Asia.

Fast forward to 1944/45 And the Allies circling in on Germany.  Yes, Germany will likely fall, but if Japan has meticulously managed her troops up to this point, Russia will have fallen or be about to fall to hoards of Japanese tanks.

My experience is that in any 1941 game with strong players, something has to be done to slow down Japan before she becomes a juggernaught, and this take away from the KGF.

Of course, this is my opinion only and my group of players is 6 strong leading to a heavy bias due to the low sample number.

@DarthMaximus:

But I don’t know if that battle is all that relevant.  The bom placement may be overrated.  So what if you slow down Japan.  Sub bid of six kills 1 J trn and there is no risk of not hitting and you could still place 2 inf elsewhere.
Germany is the main early threat.  Assuming no Russian ground units bid.  Ger takes the 3 Russian territories on G1.  G2 have a shot at holding Kar.  Even if they only trade, they can still stack Bel on G3.  Russia now has to defend Mos.  G4 you move to Euk.  Now Cauc and Mos have to be defended.  G5 you take cauc.
Obviously this is a bit simplistic but I don’t think the loss of 2 trns and a J dd is that big of a deal if the Russian front is collapsing.

I don’t know Darth. Slowing Japan’s expansion to a crawl and allowing Russia to focus entirely on Germany for the first 5 rounds or so goes a long way.

I’m assuming an aggressive G1.  Taking out Sz 2 and Sz 9.  If we are playing the odds game, the odds for these G1 attacks will go further in deciding the game then the 56% odds the Russian bom has.

I don’t know about that either. taking out 2 TP’s and a DD before Japan even gets a chance to use them is pretty crippling. Even sinking just the sz62 TP limits japan a bit.

I’d much rather have 4 units on the Russian front, then the bom.

That’s a matter of personal preference, though. The bomber bid gives Russia multiple options while the infantry bid only has 1 option(defending against Germany). The bomber is essentially an opportunistic unit. It can provide support for Allied interdiction of Japan’s navy as well as supporting it’s ground troops in the area if you see an opening to be aggressive on the ground. And the bomber will start saving Russia units in trades against Germany once it returns from the Pacific.

@CdnRanger:

Russia would have to send a couple of Inf (needed desperately at the front without a Russian ground unit bid) by Rus2 to India to protect it, and perhaps Uk lands the Egypt Fighter there (if it has survived the attack from Germany)

The US can also provide air support to India on US2 if they landed aircraft in Australia on US1.

The India crush by Japan is nasty but it gives China an extra round or two of survival, as Japan needs to go light on Phi, and the 3 Inf in Fic that took Burma are needed to attack and hold India turn 2.

The India crush also draws away a lot of Japan’s navy which the US and Russia can sometimes exploit in the North(threatening sz62 with air and navy, Russian ground attacks into China from Bury, etc)

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 ?

players have experienced with a allied inf bid in asia

Bid is +9 IPC of which it is exactly 3 infantry units which may be placed on any one territory or any combination of territories east of the Arc, Mos, Kaz, Per line which already has at least 1 land unit on it, or any Chinese territory including Chinese territories which are empty (of course Russian units on Russian territories, Chinese units on Chinese territories, and so on)  So you could place 3 UK infantry in India if you wish, 3 Chinese infantry in Yunnan, or even 3 infantry in Hawaii or something like that.

This makes for a fun game

OK, voting is over, China inf bids won but by a very small margin. I’ll move the discussion over to the League discussion forum and we’ll see what people think there! Join in and we can influence how the game will be played!  :-)

@Chi:

So again the question is asked, the standard/default game, 1941 with no optional rules and therefore without National Objectives does the default game favor the Allies?  I’m curious what you all think?

Most players here agree that w/o optional rules allies have advantage in -41, and with NOs 41 is favored to axis.

I think you can win against me if you play axis and I’m allies in 41 w/o optional rules. I lost a couple of games with this setting.

With NOs on, I don’t think you will win against me anymore than you will win against me or other decent players if you are axis in Revised playing w/o bids.

@chunksoul:

subs turn 1 for america to kill italian fleet turn 4

even building more fleet every turn it can’t survive

then bring american fleet underneath

Just wondering, how exactly do you get the fleet of subs close enough?  If I see 6 subs off EUS on A1, I’m going to take the Italian fleet back to SZ14 and build 2-3 DDs per turn.  You see, the problem is that you can’t get the subs close enough, because if they go to SZ12, I’m just going to move my fleet there and make them defend.  If you scatter, then I’m just going to block with 1 DD, or take out the front sub with DD+FIG.  There’s nothing you can do to get close enough to the Italian fleet, I can just stall the subs forever and keep building more DD.  If the point is just to lure me out to SZ12 so you can hit the fleet with a plane strike, well, ok, you’ll probably kill the fleet, but at the cost of a bunch of subs and planes.  I’ll take this trade at turn 4+, the fleet has done its job and now it’s all up to Japan.  I still think a surface fleet is the only real way to get the job done on the Italian navy in any sort of cost-efficient manner.