1941 troop setup at the begining of the game?

@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!

@thedesertfox I don’t think you’ll get people to agree on a bid, which is why you should have an auction if you’re running a tournament – let one player say "I’ll take the Allies for 10 ipcs (or whatever), and then the other player can either say “Ok, take them” or bid lower and say “I’ll take the Allies for 9 ipcs.” This continues until someone says ok.

There are just so few games in a typical a&a tournament that you can’t afford to have anyone feeling like they lost a coin toss. E.g. if you have 3 rounds and someone plays allies twice and they don’t agree with your fixed bid, that’s a real feel-bad moment.

Strategies to win with the Allies: Kill Germany First (KGF).
Bomb the Germans with USA, UK invasion force (with some USA support)
Russia holds, expands as western allies open new front.

Japan can help Germany hold on by back door pressure on Africa (take UK money) Japanese ftrs landing in Europe to help defend key territories.

Summarizing… if playing to win, games will go mostly along these lines. Of course, the allies can always TRY to get cute and go after Japan, but that is VERY HARD, especially against a good Jap player, mainly because there is no true monetary reward for USA when confronting the IJN.

With my friends, we play with Dardanelles closed and I gotta say that this limit Italy alot and gives Russia the opportunity to counter attack without fearing the Italian troops. Yes, the Italians can still clear a path, but it’s much harder with their ground troops (Italy have little tanks, and little infantry)

With Dardanelles closed, the Allies certainly see their chance of winning increase.

That said, with or without the Dardanelles closed, I believe this game to be fair for both side. I’ll give a slight advantage to the Axis simply because of their strong start.

Right now, we just discovered 42. We feel it is more balanced than 41 (for some reason, and maybe it is really more balanced).
Personally, I’d say this : If you want to balance (if it isn’t) 41, just remove some Japanese transports (I don’t believe in the “add some Chinese units”). 42 shows how Japan is weaker in the first few turns because it lacks transports. Like force them to take 1-2 more turn in order to take the free 8 ipcs in East Indies/Borne or something, or prevent them from sending that many ground forces in their first turn. From there, you will see how it limits Japan’s capabilities.

Robert

I have played both the 41 and 42 set-ups and found that the 42 is a little more balanced and the Allies usually win, but the Axis can win if well played.
The 41 set-up does favor the Axis but we have won as the Allies in a long and hard battle that takes a long time but eventually turned around. In that game UK bought a factory on India T1 and diverted resources that way to slow down Japan, and USA and Russia (a little) went after Japan right away aiding UK as best they can. Germany, Italy and Japan were making way too much money by T3, but smart decisions allowed the Allies to slowly climb back and turn things around by T7, so it can be done. China was no help at all so they are week. Victory cities is the key. Do not worry about crushing the Axis completely just getting the VC you need.
I agree that China does not start with enough and/or is not getting enough men per turn. That part alone would slow Japan down enough to make it that much more balanced. :-)
We play with the rules as is. :-D

A big thing in this game as allies as well is to keep German and Italy with as low of an income as possible.  I know that sounds obvious, but it is harder said than done.  Do NOT abandon Karelia!  That is a terrible idea.  UK1 can land 2 figs there along with 2 extra russian inf being built giving you 11 inf, 1 art, 1 arm, 2 fig, 1 AA gun.  Following on UK2 they should begin landing atleast, but with luck more, 4 ground units a turn there.  Yes G can take it, but that stack will be destroyed the following turn by the UK.  US should be in africa at the end of turn 2 in force.  Do not let Italy get both of her NOs for more than 2 rounds, do not let Germany get 3 for free.  If you SBR, do it to Italy first.  Germany can only build 10 units a turn (unless they buy an IC) and rely on Italy to stack france with INF.  Be sure to threaten atleast 2, with luck 3, imporantent territories with drops (usually france, italy, and berlin).  And try to get russia her 2nd NO by turn 4 or 5 so they can afford to hold off the Japan monster.

One purchase that works well for me on R1 is 6 art 2 inf.  Place the inf in Kar, art in moscow.  On R2 buy mostly/all tanks, move all moscow and karelia forces into Belorussia and put a good stack of units into Eastern Ukraine.  Typically you will have on Belo: 13 inf, 8 art, 1 arm, on Ukraine 4 ish inf.  Plus your 6 arm in back may force the Germans to pull back (doesn’t always work depends on G’s purchases, but that is alot of Russian punch has odds vs 15 inf 10 arm or 5 inf 18 arm), and if you get the Germans out of East Poland that is always a very good thing.

@Subotai:

It’s an interesting concept. Other alliances would be tempting to play in revised, if not AA50 was released.

We did that in classic, I don’t remember if Germany + Russia worked for a good game, but Germany + US was pretty even, almost like the original teams.

US and Japan in AA50 is much too weak.
Also, NOs can’t be used when changing alliances, b/c the NOs are specifically built around the original alliances, while any territory with an ipc value can be captured, NOs are different.
I’ve already been thinking about other setups in AA50, I haven’t tried any other than the original teams yet, but Germany and Italy + Russia would probably work fine. I don’t think any other teams can work, except if Italy is an enemy of Germany, Germany will then capture Italy rnd1, this will slow down Germany, but Germany will then be stronger from rnd2 than if Italy is on the same team as Germany.
Maybe Germany and US could work in AA50, also original teams could work with the exception of Italy is teamed up with allies.
A team change that is interesting to try out is: Germany owns all of Italy and Italian units, not only to play different setups, but also to determine if it is an advantage for axis to “split” Germany, I think axis are stronger if Germany got the possessions of Italy including the Italian units. I also think if we just removed all of Italy and Germany had to capture Italy and eventually build in the Mediterranean, Germany would be stronger than in the original AA50.

I have been tempted to experiment to see if Italy is advantageous as its own seperate entity.  I am inclined to agree with you that an “uber Germany” is probably preferable for the Axis.  The only reason why I have any doubt though, is the nasty nasty potential for a double hit on Russia (and sometimes even a triple hit).  It really does seem that if Italy has a decent presence in the Russian theater, Russia can only defend against two fronts after about t2 and can no longer leave a 1 man inf defense.  That alone can tip the favour to the Axis.

Typically the longer the game goes on, the better off the axis are as they can bring pressure to Russia much easier than the allies can bring reinforcements to Russia.