1941 troop setup at the begining of the game?

@thehersh I think this strategy works against the AI mostly because the AI is very poor at attacking the Pacific with the USA. If the US puts even a medium sized fleet in the Pacific the Japan can’t afford to build maximum tanks every turn, let alone swing the entire Japanese fleet toward Egypt.

Also, don’t you find that your opening battles against the British navy are a little risky? Hitting all 3 fleets on turn 1 means that you could easily lose at least 1 of those battles. What do you do then? Do you have a recovery plan?

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.

I got the game last month and am playing my first game slowly with my GF. We are really enjoying the battle between Germany and Russia. I landed jet power on my first turn with Germany and so I have abandoned building any navy and have focused on using fighters to stop and naval presence in the Atlantic. Forcing the US or UK to have carriers or lots of warships to escort transports across. Also I have found the game to be quite balanced….our match is really up in the air right now. I had my first Barbarossa push and Russia was able to hold me off because I tried to push too far too fast, and they now pushed me out and I’m having to rebuild my eastern European front to push again. Japan is having a field day but my GF built an Indian factory and is churning out three UK tanks/infantry every turn which is slowing me down.

I really feel that the game is 50/50 at this point, because Japan is almost able to start pushing into Russia from the East, Germany is now having to deal with UK/US incursions from the West and Italy is still trying to push the UK out of Africa and take that money from them.

Really exciting for us both right now!

But to answer your questions, the dynamics do feel slanted to a KGF, it only takes a turn to transport units from US to Africa, while it is at least two turns to get troops into the fight from the US on the pacific coast. Plus Germany is a total of 13 spaces from all three allies capitals while Japan is wayyyy farther. It is just less time consuming to take Germany first…which allows less time for buildup for defense by the Germans.

The point is that randomness is assumed here… I am just as often allies as I am axis and it makes no difference.

that being said I think the game sides are equal. The stats show that.

Any decent A&A player wont care what side he plays.

If you ate truelly concerned about the skill issue, just review the tournies from R3 to the finish.  every player from that point knows how to play the game.

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.

We play with NO’s and tech rolls, and my normal partner and I spend most of the money in the Atlantic. We move the SZ44 off the west coast and build three subs there turn one. Then we usually put one into each of SZ58, SZ52, and SZ46. On the second turn we buy a couple subs. Japan will have to avoid moving unescorted carriers in range of the subs, and will need to use a lot of forces to kill the subs.  If they attack any of the subs, the counter would be 3-4 subs, a carrier, a destroyer, 3-4 fighters and a bomber.

In Atlantic, our plans often change. We either buy mostly transports and link up with the British navy after they take France while helping hold France or we attack the Italian navy.

@Funcioneta:

There is no chance India can resist after J3 agains a decent axis player, even killing China J1. Any axis players should attack Egypt with 6 units

Doing so requires using the Bomber, which means that you will either have to let the Battleship/Transport pair live, or let the Cruiser/Destroyer pair live.  The first will allow them to launch an early D-Day and build a fleet quickly.  The second will allow them to probably wipe out the Italian Fleet nice and early.

@Funcioneta:

at least clearing it in most of cases, probably taking it with some tank, so all UK has to defend India is:

2 inf from trj 3 inf, art, aa gun form ind inf from bur 3 guys built round 2

My units available to defend India for J3 could be as many as 9 Infantry, 1 Artillery, 1 Fighter, 4 Bombers, and an AA, with a Battleship and a Carrier Group in the waters, plus the Burma Infantry and the Egypt Tank if they survived turn 1.  So total is more like 15 units, plus a nasty fleet off the coast that you need to use those Fighters on.  Oh, and keep in mind, anything sent to attack the India Sea Zone is going to be in range of the US air force and possibly navy.

@Funcioneta:

Japan starts with 5 trannies and it’s pretty probable they can send at least 4 loaded to India round 3 (8 units) plus a swarm of starting figs. Let’s say about 15-16 units and any bombardment shots they can join. India lost (and the IC if UK were so fool of building it). The only chance are soviet units, but they are too busy against western axis. I can wait another turn to more jap units arrive (units saved because you killed the chineses round 1) if I manage soviets send some european units to Japan instead Germany

If you wait another turn, I will have taken French Indochina, Manchuria, Kiangsu, Philipines, East Indies, Borneo, and the Caroline Islands.  Taking an IC in India, were it even possible, would no longer be of limited utility, given that you are being overrun.

Just had an 8 hour game with the 1941 setup. We played with NOs and techs enabled and I was Allies.
G starts by buying 7 inf and 2 researchers. It then attacks the CA and DD, the single DD and the 3 russian territories. G attacks Egypt with the BMR but it fails.
Russia counterattacks and retakes Baltic and Ukr. It moves 4 inf into China and masses all the inf on Bur.
J attacks EE, Borneo, Philippines, US BB and DD/TRN plus 3 chinese territories. It leaves the DD/TRN off India alone.
UK buys 1 IC for India and builds a carrier. The BB land units on Algeria.
Italy buys 1 DD and counterattacks on Algeria.
US starts building a fleet on the Pacific and gets 2 researchers.

From that moment on, the game went like this:

G and R were trading territories. G managed to conquer Karelia once but couldn’t keep it. Besides fighting G, R managed to sent some 9 tanks to help in China. J tried to attack India on J3 but failed due to the AA shooting 3 planes out of 5. Meanwhile it built some ships to counter the US buildup and had to deal with the Chinese and the Russians on China. After defending China, the UK moved to Burma and kept attack FIC. This, and conquering both Norway and Finland, securing Africa and liberating EE and Borneo (the Indian TRN went back to Australia and a US TRN moved from the Solomon) gave the UK a massive income (+50). Italy tried to attack the UK fleet off Algeria and lost big time. The US fleet eventually grew to 3 ACs, 1 CA, 2 DDs, 4 SUB. When we decided to end the game it had attacked and sunk the J fleet off Japan with the help of 8 jet fighters and 1 BMR (against 2 AC, 1 BB, 2 DD, 2 SUB and 4 FTR).

The game wasn’t really decided at the end, we stopped because of getting really tired but it was really interesting, although the Axis made some bad mistakes.