What if I dont want to do it larrys way?

@xzorn:

The boats should have some escort, so Germ has to choose between using the airpower on the transports or on crushing the hell out of France.

Heh, France can only build infantry, right?  You KO the brit transports and France isn’t getting any reinforcements anyway.

Soviet counterattack?  With what?  I’m guessing game will start with Russia having units like in AA50-41… pretty damn sparse.  Russia is probably going to go after Germany’s turn, so Germany should get at least one turn to build a defense in the capital.

Hell, if the Baltic SZ is only 1-2 SZs across anyway, building a bunch of transports for Sealion may be the best option for moving troops around back from France > Britain > Germany in a single turn.  Otherwise, looks like the troops in France may just be stuck mopping up and the new builds in Germany will be the offensive force against Russia.

Hell, with a Baltic full of German transports, you could invade Karelia on G2-3 and avoid walking through 4-5 of the territories on the way to Moscow.  Reinforcing them would still be a mess, and Britain could always start dropping troops in Archangel, if not blow up the fleet in the Baltic and counter from there.  But it would definitely be a viable alternative, as Baltic navy builds in other AA games have shown.

@SgtBlitz:

Hell, with a Baltic full of German transports, you could invade Karelia on G2-3 and avoid walking through 4-5 of the territories on the way to Moscow.  Reinforcing them would still be a mess, and Britain could always start dropping troops in Archangel, if not blow up the fleet in the Baltic and counter from there.  But it would definitely be a viable alternative, as Baltic navy builds in other AA games have shown.

And how do you plan on defending these German transports from the RAF?

And how do you plan on defending these German transports from the RAF?

Extra SZs.

Meh, more like a few carriers with planes from the mainland; otherwise RAF gonna be all over those transports like a spider-monkey.

Although, we have scrambling rules now– can planes in Denmark or Germany scramble to defend the SZ if there is an aircraft based attack?  Or can they join the naval battle if there are ships present?  It would be nice if building the carriers for defense is unnecessary (little bit more historically accurate).  If this is unbalanced I’m sure there’s opportunities for Britain to do the same with its fleet off England.

Also, how many SZs are we talking about?  It is at least 3 SZs to reach Germany from Britain?  So there is at least some downtime between Baltic SZ shucks or time for a counterattack?

Seriously though, are there any plans for making naval unit entry into (or exit from) the Baltic SZ impassable if either Axis or Allies control both norway and denmark (northwestern europe)?  The Baltic straits are only like 20 km at their widest point and there are tons of bottlenecks, couldn’t we make them like the Suez and the Panama Canal, where control of the nearby territories gives access?  It would make more sense because in real life Germany wasn’t hampered by 50 British Dieppe raids through the Baltic, which occur in 95% of our games, (sometimes really early in the game too).  Hell, the Allies didn’t even have a major port in Northern Europe until 1945, since the harbors were mined too well.  Germany wouldn’t be forced to keep a large part of its army back to defend from ahistorical British/US raids into Berlin.  The Allies would have to come through France (or Norway) for a reason.

In the same manner, could control of Gibraltar and French Morocco be necessary to send naval units through the straits of Gibraltar?  They’re only like 9 miles across at their widest point, it would be hard to sneak a battleship through that without some warning being sent to the enemy navy/airforce to pick it off.  Would force a little historical accuracy and make invading Spain or Gibraltar a necessity to get units from Italy into the Atlantic.  Same goes for Allies getting into the Med.  A force in Spain retaking Gibraltar every turn could make the Med impassable.

For obvious reasons, submarines would not be beholden to such impassable SZ rules, though a canal with water locks would still stop them in their tracks.

UK planes can land in Karelia after sinking the German fleet.

If Germany is going to use the Baltic as a RATS between the fronts (rather than, for example, it’s excellent rail network), then it needs a carrier or two there, and can Germany really afford this sort of luxury before it’s eaten up half of Russia?

@Flashman:

UK planes can land in Karelia after sinking the German fleet.

If Germany is going to use the Baltic as a RATS between the fronts (rather than, for example, it’s excellent rail network), then it needs a carrier or two there, and can Germany really afford this sort of luxury before it’s eaten up half of Russia?

Yeah, at some point your fleet is going to be put at risk and require a carrier for protection.  If there’s some way to have fighters scramble from land zones nearby when its moved within the Baltic, that’d be cool but probably not enough at some point in the game.  Baltic fleet at any point is a gamble that you’re going to get more out of it reinforcing Norway and Finland, and threatening and invading Britain and Russia, than the Allies will get destroying it or taking advantage of your weakened land forces.

Its an expensive proposition, and usually gets destroyed by combined British and US attacks, but if it buys Germany 2-3 more turns it can give plenty of time for Japan to finish things off in Russia.  It usually does a good job focusing the Allies on Europe since it can threaten many fronts, but the downside to any big fleet is that Russia is going to get huge in the short term.  If Russia gets reduced income like the US before war is allowed or has severely reduced units at game start then that may not be a problem.

If Germany spends too much on its navy, then Russia will crush them.

This may all depend (in the long term) on the matter of UK/US units being allowed on Soviet soil.  If yes, as soon as Russia IS at war then the old Karelia strategy will be the obvious Allied approach, and it’ll just become a superstack race.  Why have idle units stacked in England waiting to risk a D-Day crossing when you can constantly feed them into Karelia/Poland and have them fighting Germans every turn as well as reinforcing the Soviets and setting up a 3 vs 1 (or maybe 3 vs 2) push on Berlin?

If no, then the WA will need to protect those 3 vital convoy routes into Russia to keep Stalin afloat.  Personally I much prefer this rule, especially if there is a sensible restriction on Japanese routes to Moscow, removing the need for the WA to push maximum units into Russia in order to balance the JTDTM.

In other words the restriction on Japanese progress through Siberia is balanced by the fact that the WA are restricted to a (limited) cash aid program for Russia and can concentrate their military focus on more historical objectives in WE and the Med.

Yeah, I know, Britain + Russia superstack in the north isn’t very fun for the Axis.  Karelia is a nice NO to have but its just too vulnerable with Britain dropping off troops + bombard shots every turn.  It does do a great job of focusing the Brits attention up north rather than sending troops to Africa, however, so Italy might get some short term benefit out of it.  There’s a very good reason the Germans went through the Causcasus to attack Russia, you don’t have to worry about England dropping troops on your head.  But giving up Norway and Finland so early in the game kinda sucks for the Axis.

If you DO build a fleet, you’re going to have to sacrifice it to kill the British naval stack or cut it off from Britain for a few turns, but nobody said naval supremacy was easy.  A lot of people just build a bomber or a fighter or two a turn and bide their time until the Allies finally split their fleet out of overconfidence or necessity and send Britain’s naval stack to the bottom.  You do this at the right time, you have a decent shot at winning the game.  Playing defensively as the Axis with infantry from the get-go gives the Allies too much initiative.  Make them fight for it.

@i:

wont germany get a ton of naval troops in e40 because the normal baltic fleet plus the bismark and some crusiers??

Yeah hopefully the Baltic fleet will be better represented this time around.  I liked the battleship inclusion of Bismark in Pact Of Steel games, let you actually run the fleet out off France without it being totally suicidal.  (Though most games it was).

@i:

whats pact of steel??

Bitchin game included with TripleA, had Revised third edition ruleset (I think) with Italy as a major power (but no NOs as in AA50).  Was hella fun before AA50 came out, Germany and Italy doubleteam was a lot of fun in preventing D Days and can opening Russian blitzkreigs.  POS was probably the precursor to AA50, and was pretty balanced, though some people say adding italy was overpowered for Axis.

Any navy UK or German is vulnerable to air attacks in the Baltic.

That will be good. I know on my first German turn I completely cripple the UK fleet.

why is that have you seen the board??

I’m dying to know…is the map roughly Europe shaped?

I think he wanted to know if the map was geographically accurate of the Europe map :D

I think Europe should be slightly enlarged since that is where all the action is.

It will apparently be of same size. That said, they could cut some water to make ground bigger. But I think its good enough. Notice how much water there were in Pacific. Now, remove that water and turn them into ground. I think AA40e will be good

@Omega:

It will apparently be of same size. That said, they could cut some water to make ground bigger. But I think its good enough. Notice how much water there were in Pacific. Now, remove that water and turn them into ground. I think AA40e will be good

I am hoping it is going to be great, but Europe definitley needs to be enlarged to hold all the pieces that will be placed there.