Posts made by aaFiendish

Well, the hasbro version sucks :)

Use triplea.sourceforge.net - or at least I would.

@ncscswitch:

Well, here is a strategy that I have used to success when the Allies concentrate on Germany:  ignore UK and USA.

Yep, you heard that right.  Let UK have it’s navy, let the US fly in all the forces they want to.  Russia will be gone before they matter.

What round does this usually happen for you? I am curious if you are saying that is is round 2, or round 5. Since you say after three combined attacks, I would assume that it would have to be at the earliest round 6, assuming a complete pullback to moscow by russia, the quickest you could really reach moscow would be round 3. I think the sentiment of ignoring the UK and the USA is a good one, especially in plain 2nd edition.

As the axis I have tried to ignore the UK and the USA, but there is one problem. For some stupid reason, the allies always, and I mean always, want to roll for the infantry they have placed in karelia. Since I have been ignoring them the whole time, it is usually quite a sizable force. I swear, if just once they would let me ignore the UK and USA forces stacked with the russians I could probably pull it off.

Out of curiosity, is this with just plain old 2nd edition a&a, or is there any sort of power africa (or any) bid in play?

Yeah, RR games always annoyed me, I hate being an even less useful russia. The problem is that every inf and arm you don’t use against karelia is quite a few percentage points in the wrong direction. Simply not using 2 infantry on the attack lowered the chances of a take from 48% to 26.5%, which is very drastic.

Mainly I am just trying to argue against the eastern europe attack to nullify germany’s tank advantage. I’ll let germany bring it on if they want. I certainly find it more appealing than letting my tanks rot in eastern europe.

The manchuria attack has to my knowledge been debated approximately 43,242 times (not that the indian i.c. hasn’t either). The point I was making was that if you wanted a strong I.C., you would want to attack manchuria. Stacking those troops makes them negligible if japan is going for the I.C., as japan will just skirt around them that way and they will have to retreat at some point. Using the troops directly against japan creates a very tangible result and significantly strengthens the southeast against japan.

Certainly, I do not think the fact that the manchuria attack aids an Indian I.C. can be questioned, though it does provide the very normal agressive argument to the manchuria attack in general. Lets try not to talk about that frequently followed argument and instead focus on what the manchuria attack does for the indian I.C.

If that 2nd fighter in china would aid in it being held, IF an Indian I.C. has been placed and Japan is following your idea of attacking the Indian I.C. China can certainly be taken, but can india as well? Assuming you DID attack manchuria (and won) and DID place an Indian I.C., Japan’s attack against India becomes at most 4 inf + 1ftr + 1bmb. If you decided to do that, then you’d have 2inf + 1ftr (jp) vs. 2inf + 2ftr (ru). That’s a 2% win with japan, 20% if there is 1 fighter. Of course, japan will probably realize that they cannot do both, which is the whole point. Instead they may attempt to take china. They can bring to bear 4inf + 2ftr + bmb. Most likely they will take china with 1 inf, maybe 2. With only one fighter there, it will be 2 inf, maybe 3 and they will take with 99.8% probability instead of 95%. Is that worth losing a russian fighter for? Probably not, so that aspect of the move may be questioned. I usually use it if I am going to kwangtung with britain too, which I wouldn’t do during an I.C. Of course, the truly ballsy move would be to hit manchuria with infantry and fighter only, which is only a 63% take vs 90% with the armor. But if you did win that battle, you could move the armor in noncom to china. That brings the most likely results of the china battle to japan only taking with 1 or 2 planes.That would put a large stall on japanese advancement.

All of my mumbling aside, going for manchuria and eliminating that fighter means that the india i.c. will face at most 4inf + 1ftr + 1 bmb, which reduces the chances of a take from 90% to 60% and more importantly makes the chances of it being taken with ground forces less. On top of this, even though you state that china will be taken by a good japanese player, they will not have the best chance to take it even IF they used the bomber from japan.

Theduke has it right on, I have seen beginners hit western europe repeatedly. I would also invite them to hit southern europe for the same reason, except southern europe is even more out of position for them.

In any event, as an add on to theduke’s suggestion, I usually pull my AA gun from southern to eastern, then my AA gun from western to southern. In this way you have an aagun on your bulkhead which may be weak at the beginning, and an aa gun on each of your IC’s. Leaving western lightly defended will invite an attack, and since you removed the AA gun you can counter with some infantry and your planes. I prefer this approach because if you counter with infantry and armor, there is the potential that you are hit next round and lose some armor if you don’t hit hard enough. I know there are others who prefer to just move the bulk of their armor back and forth between western and eastern, in force enough so that it repels assaults in western. It’s a fine enough strategy, but personally I just like having those armor in a position where the russians have to think that I might actually attack karelia. When they are in western then the allies can fool around a bit since there will be no legitimate threat against karelia.

I wouldn’t be overly worried about germany attacking. Sure they look frightening on the board, but on paper they are pussycats. I’ll usually hit ukraine, retreat to karelia, and dare the germans to attack. There is always the chance that they will get very lucky, but I’d rather have that happen on the first turn. Assuming they don’t get extremely++ lucky, even if they take karelia you should be able to overtake them briefly.

Lets assume the scenario that russia does nothing but stack karelia with what they have and builds 8 inf there with one speedbump in the caucaus. If I’ve done the numbers right, that is at most:

11 inf + 7 arm + 5 ftr + 1 bmb vs. 19 inf + 3 arm + 2 ftr

That’s about a 48% chance at a take for germany, and guess who loses the more expensive units? That’s not even mentioning that taking out the transport in the baltic is childsplay especially when using two fighters. Getting rid of those 2 inf alone brings germany’s chances to 26.5%.

So in short, why bother attacking eastern?

Not only do I agree with the transport purchase instead of the factory purchase, but I would also advocate that you buy infantry until you really need speed. Since you will be speedbumped the whole way to russia, having infantry is just as useful as tanks until you face a large stack, because you have a lot of air power to attack with.

Sorry, I think you are stuck. You will have to be inventive in how poorly you play, rather than in how to make the opponent better.

Artifical intelligence is not easy stuff, and axis and allies is a pretty open ended game so I don’t fault them too much. I’d reccomend you find some opponents to play using triplea.

@Briar:

One of my regular gaming buddies cant roll to save his life. If we play A&A it’s all 5’s and 6’s. Let us play something like Warhammer where you need high numbers and he becomes the king on 1’s and 2’s. And yet he still manages to win every so often. I swear if the man could maintain avarage dice rolls like everyone else on the planet he would be scary!

You should entertain him once and play lowluck.

While the above suggestions are good and I would agree with most of them, I think your best solution is just to lose :)

After a few games of the allies beating the snot out of the axis, the axis will be provided with an advantage. I’d prefer the bidding strategy, but anything but plain jane 2nd edition is a good start.

I have had to convince a few people that the allies were vastly superior. I look at it as a 20 hour debate (4 games) I know I’m going to win. Not all that much fun, but still satisfying, and I feel like a god.

@Cecrowca:

b) forcing a sack of Japan air power as casualties to keep more infantry may make the UK IC play worth it in itself].

Indeed. I recently played a 3rd edition game where we put down an India I.C. Japan, much to our surprise, clobbered it the first round saccing an ungodly number of fighters, all but one that could reach I believe. While having wasted IPCs and an IC for the brits, I think the end result was fairly favorable.

In 2nd edition though, I am not so sure that forcing japan to sack air power would be worth it. I would say this simply because there is not that much air power to sac. Even if they lost two fighters they have a few more to spare, and being able to build a tank or two on the mainland will supply the offense that the fighters usually provide.

I do not think that an Indian I.C. is sustainable or generally worth the resources if playing a KGF strategy. It does provide extra time for Russia on the east. However, Russia (assuming bid) will have ample cause to worry about Germany in the first few rounds if it is trying to help out the UK, and the UK is not helping it. Even without a bid I suspect Germany would look fairly frightening to karelia, though probably not enough to take karelia solidly.

Cecrowca, have you considered the russian attack on manchuria? For your strategy I think it would be most beneficial. If you send your infantry, armor, and fighter against Manchuria you will probably win, and can then land your fighter in china. This first off eliminates the fighter in manchuria, strengthening your hold in india. Secondly, you can land your fighter in china afterwards. As you said, Japan will want to take china. Placing the russian fighter there may be quite beneficial in keeping the US fighter alive, making your attack against india much stronger. It will also force more casualties and force diverted to china if japan wants to take it, causing more casualties that would later be used against india and also distracting from force that can be brought against india.

Since “we” are having an India I.C. conversation, I figured the South Africa I.C. conversation would be a good one. Cecrowca points out on the other thread that he would regroup into south africa if india were not an option. I assume that that is if one wants to play with an I.C., which is often fun to do. One of the more amusing options if you wish to keep your sanity playing the allies in 2nd edition with no bid.

Anyhow, I have never really seen the point of an african I.C. Sure if germany is sitting around in africa this will pretty much allow you to take it back. However, taking africa back should not be that hard. Even with a power africa bid, it will probably be taken back eventually.

Honestly I haven’t given it much thought, as I have always discarded it as an effective idea. Maybe others can enlighten me on the prospect of it. When I look at the board, I just can’t convince myself that there aren’t much more effective ways to accomplish whatever it is a SA IC is supposed to do.

If you are going to hit karelia do not bother attacking the UK fleet, unless for some reason Karelia is left with two infantry or something similar. I have seen beginning russian players play defensively (and foolishly) like that before, so it does happen.

I tend to agree with guderian that taking territory in africa is important, while hitting the UK. Russia is usually not an option. However, I typically need the infantry I have in europe just to stay afloat, so in a no-bid game I usually will not transport to africa. Of course, in a no bid game it doesn’t matter too much what I do. Africa, and germany, will probably fall.

In normal combat yes, in a bombing raid no.

I agree that having new strategies is good. However, I must be frank and quite insulting here. Most of these faq are akin to someone stopping in on a blackjack forum and saying that holding at X where X is less than 12 is the only way to win. Not only is it vague, but it is regardless of how it is followed bad instruction. I think the only reason that there is not more argument on this is that the pulp of the strategies is so far fetched that no one even bothers. It’s nice to fill up the boards since they have been wiped, but they used to contain much more useful information.

I have seen hawaii taken in the first turn. It is sort of a pain for the US because hawaii is close enough to the coast to be used as a staging ground. However, I don’t think it is worth it for japan. You have to expend extra effort to hit pearl hard, and then extra planes to make sure you take hawaii. On top of that, you are not using a transport for asia, which you really need.

While the thought of having a navy in the atlantic would be great and all, it will not last very long and as you said would have to have incredible luck.

I think you are crazy gerard. A standard 2nd edition game? Okay, maybe berlin isn’t down by the 7th round, but the game should at least be over about then. Berlin should definitely be gone by round 10.

You definitely need bids. Germany cannot stake a claim in africa without it. The best they can do is transport troops into africa until their transport dies (which should be quick). Even transporting troops though you still have a weak claim, and you are draining troops that are very much needed in europe. The two hit BS rule definitely lets you playout syria though, which is quite nice but I never have the balls to do under normal rules. I typically don’t mind the battleship in western med surviving, and would never kill the battleship over the UK seas. The battleship cannot do anything the first round if you kill the transports, but the transports can do a lot without the battleship. Also, generally I do not let just a battleship deter me from attacking uk seas on UK2. They will want a carrier if they are going to build transports.

2. I usually don’t see the point in taking gibraltar. To me it is a wasted move. Since your transport will probably die, they’ll be stranded and worthless.

3. I think you need your inf in europe with no-bid, hence bidding existing. I typically aim to destroy all of the UK navy, and not waste time keeping my navy alive. It’s a losing battle. The suicide run into algeria is fine, you can worry about it when it comes. Not that you can do much about it in no-bid.

4. Yeah, that’s stupid.

@darkangel:

if you want to go with the united states know what role you want to do. first you must buy transport. buy nothing but transport first turn. second turn buy nothing but inft. then after that invade africa. third turn buy nothing but fighters. then buy a few more transports, and then buy nothing but inft, and fighters.

If you buy nothing but transports the first turn then you have wasted IPCs sitting around the second turn, as there are not enough units to transport to use all of them. Using this buy you would have wasted IPC’s sitting around not doing anything. Using DM’s method, you have the potential to do something the second round instead of having them sit around. That doesn’t mean you NEED to do anything with them, but buying mixed transports and infantry the first and second round is much more useful than buying solely one or the other. I do agree that at some point you should simply stop buying transports, but I would usually advocate buying the bombers instead of fighters unless you really need them on defense for some reason. If you are buying nothing but infantry and X, you shouldn’t need X to be defensive.