G2 Karelia Smash

@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.)

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.

@xlome_00 Sea Lion is one of those attacks where the threat is mightier than the execution. If you buy a carrier for the Baltic Fleet on G1, that’s a reasonable purchase anyway to protect your supply lines to Norway/Finland/Leningrad/Baltics. If you move the German Med transport to the central Med, it is protected by the Italian fleet and can reinforce Libya, which is a reasonable move anyway. If you then bring the Italian fleet to take Gibraltar and retake Morocco, that helps score your NOs, so that’s a normal attack. So all of these preparatory moves can be done with minimal cost to the standard Axis war effort.

But then the American bomber cannot sink the German transport without landing in either Egypt (where it will die on a G2 Egypt attack) or Caucasus (where it spoils the Russian NO.)

If they leave your Med transport alive, you move it to Western Med on G2 where Italian fleet protects it again, build a second transport in Baltic on G2 plus an extra plane, and now you are threatening UK with 3 inf, 3 tank, 1 CA, 4 ftr, 1 bmr on a hypothetical G3 sea lion.

UK can of course defend against this, but they will have to build a fat infantry stack in London instead of factories, ships, or air power. This could cost them the Atlantic fleet or at least force them to retreat it back to Canada; if they built a factory in Africa / India, they might lose it because they cannot afford to build units there on a critical turn. Meanwhile those infantry in London will just sit there inefficiently for several turns because there are not enough transports to ship them anywhere, and not enough warships to protect the Atlantic fleet in a forward position.

Your second Baltic transport is reasonably useful for shipping inf/art to Leningrad, and the extra fighter can of course be used for trading on the eastern front, defending France, etc. as usual.

So you never actually attack London in an AA50 game – you just quietly threaten to attack it, thereby forcing the Allies to waste much more money on defense than you spent on creating the threat.

@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.

Now having played these two games for several more rounds there do appear to be some disadvantages.

Sacrificing german planes to take CAU, or Italian troops on a first-round assault to help the Germans take it, combined with placing fewer troops in Africa - can make it so that the Axis has less of a fighting force, and might also be making less money than otherwise possible.

Italy is likely to lose its NO(s) in Africa faster.  Germany gets the CAU NO, but if it is possible to get this by trading KAR, then that might be a lot easier.

Germany loses a lot of flexibility by being tied into sending armor to CAU (either to reinforce it, or to take MOS). Also fighters can get tied up too, making atlantic Allied convoys easier and facilitating the US going for Japan.

Plusses: if you can get Italy to fight your Russian territory border skirmishes and to build infantry to defend ITA, FRA, and GER against the Allies amphibious assaults - then Germany can build up much faster than Russia and ultimately take Moscow with a stack of armor (possibly reinforced by a buy of all bombers, the turn before the assault - as they can fly from GER to MOS is one turn).

Having Italy use its infantry for cannon fodder is much better than having Italy attack MOS to soften up the defenses before the German attack, as Italy will typically lose all its units on the first round of fighting (thus it costs 10 IPC to kill a single defending Russian infantry - by buying 2 arm, or 10.5 with inf/art).  Italy can also intentionally escalate in border countries (stack an empty country with 2 inf, instead of 1) to bleed off more Russian units.

I agree as Russia i’d prefer the axis to take the ‘northern’ path so to speak as there are fewer IPCs there for me to loose, it is further from Moscow, and most importantly, UK can liberate it for me.  The only bad thing is it keeps me from taking Finland.

Moscow is the goal, and Karelia is a distraction.  I’d rather counter Ukraine on R1 honestly.

There’s an easy solution, move the RAF fighters onto Karelia.  Problem solved.

It’s one turn of 5 less production for Russia… well, 3 really, since losing Karelia is 2.  It’s not a big deal.  That 5 bonus is for when Russia’s strong enough, which they aren’t at the beginning as everyone has shown.

Remember Germany also gets 7 (2 for the territory and 5 bonus) production from Karelia, and can start producing armies there.  That’s a huge negative, because without that factory the German line gets stretched out and weak on infantry.  The negatives from losing it are steep, very steep.