@Cmdr:

I’ve toyed with the idea of 100% navy in Round 1 and Round 2 for Germany.  Subs and carrier in SZ 5 and subs and carrier in SZ 14.  Means you’ll be really weak against Russia militarily, but the allies will be having kittens trying to figure out ways to land in Africa and Europe for a long time.

The fighter strat sounds decent, but this one sounds bad IMO. Britain would probably just build a massive fleet of fighters and then eventually decimate your navy with minimal losses. Meanwhile, building 0 ground units the first 2 turns would be giving away a lot of territory to Russia, making it an economically significant force. Heavy US/UK airforce would lock both your fleets in their respective seas, unable to unify…then the baltic fleet would fall, as it’s within two spaces of the UK, and the Med. fleet would be mostly useless ( as if it ever moved to a location where it actually threatened anything, it would be within range of the air force).

You delay help to Russia, but Russia no longer needs help!

@Cmdr:

Tell ya what, Bigdog.  I’ll play the axis with 3 IPC bid, only naval purchases for Germany in rounds 1 and 2 and I promise not to attack Egypt on round 1 with Germany, just to see how well your fighter strat works out with England/Russia.

Okay?

Well, to be fair, he was proposing what to do against just a CV purchase (or possibly a CV+SS), and now you’re proposing $70+ worth of extra navy.

Although two turns of pure navy building sounds like an invitation to get Russia walking right over you.

Anyway after further thought on the subject I think the appropriate response is to build navy with the US, and build purely fighters with the UK. Unite what you’ve got navally in SZ 8, on US1. When Germany unites their fleet on G2, you probably need to retreat yours so SZ 1 or 2, because you won’t have enough fighters yet to bring it down. Germany would then probably need to move the fleet to the Mediterranean to outrange the fighters, and a German fleet in the Mediterranean doesn’t really provide much of a threat, but your fighters will still be great for assisting future land invasions.

@Cmdr:

The attack on Norway is very risky.  Even if the Submarine in SZ 8 isn’t used to kill the second British Battleship in SZ 2 because the Russian’s killed the fighter in Norway, the risk of losing the Russian fighter is pretty high and most Russian’s, because of it, won’t make the attack.

With a second Submarine in SZ 8 you still kill Egypt, Battleship in SZ 13 as well as Battleship, Transport in SZ 2.

And even if you DONT kill the Egyptians and the British come into the Med.  You can always put the Battleship/Transport back in SZ 14 and put a carrier (fighters from land) and 3 Submarines in SZ 14 with them and bulk up in Libya instead of attacking Egypt in Round 1.

Trust me, I’d gladly take a submarine in SZ 8 over just about any other bid in realistic circumstances.

Put the battleship back in SZ 14? Then you’re probably not killing the british BB in 13…or you’re sacrificing a plane or two  (or three!) to do it. And if you’re not killing the british BB…well, I thought killing both BBs was the whole point of this submarine bid.
And you suggest spending your entire budget on navy? 3 submarines? Meanwhile you build no ground troops and Russia rolls right over you? Honestly this sounds like one of the worst strategies you could come up with.

You use fighters to trade territories, and you start with enough to do that on the opening board. The only nation that might not have enough is Russia, and Russia is precisely the nation that can’t afford their price tag very well.

I’ll continue to laugh at the claim that fighters are “the best investment in the game”. Infantry have that title. The only time I find myself buying fighters is to counter a naval threat, so that after I eliminate the threat at least I’m left with units that will be useful instead of floating there doing nothing for the rest of the game, or the turn before I plan to invade a capital because they’re the only unit that can make it from the production zone to the target in one turn.

So you give up taking over Egypt just to eliminate the second battleship?

And can’t Russia just see it coming and modify their opening play to take Norway instead of Ukraine? Then you can’t land your bomber, your fighter is dead, and you can no longer kill that 2nd battleship, and now your bid seems like a bit of a waste.

I guess I’m not convinced that that’s such a stellar strategy. I guess it seems pretty great economically because you get to kill 24 IPCs worth of stuff, but the opportunity cost to you is significant. and the battleships actual real world value is significantly less than 24.

what makes a sub in SZ 8 so great?

Fighters both attack and defend worse than infantry, so if you had 12 fighters in Eastern Europe I’d be happily consoling myself that at least it’s not 40 infantry instead!

The only thing fighters have going for them is their mobility/flexibility. They are good as a threat, but pretty weak as actually units for fighting. It just doesn’t make much sense, if this forum is to be trusted you have a decent W/L record but your strategies always sound absolutely awful.

Anyway I want to get back to the original question which is responding to this opening. I think I’'ve changed my mind, I’d block the Baltic fleet with the sub, because now I realize the british fleet needs to build up in SZ 7 to block instead of SZ 8, and if Germany just countered with all their fighters and the baltic fleet it would get wiped out. (that is what fighters are good for, they threaten the whole theater of war, not just one zone)

So by my logic, you’d want to build up in SZ 7, probably build a sub/destroyer/fighter, which would be sufficient to wipe out the baltic fleet on UK2.

I’m left feeling that it’s not a particularly useful opener. The whole point was to unite the fleets and it seems in the end with the correct moves from the allies that is not actually feasible.

@Lucifer:

If Germany link their fleets G2, then UK+US will see this, and buy more ftrs (+ other stuff) than usually. Germany cannot outbuild both US and UK in Atlantic ocean, then Russia can walk to Berlin  :-P

The purpose of it isn’t to try to continue to go through a naval battle. You buy the carrier in order to make the navy dollars the game forces you to have wasted, so to speak, before the game has even started. With the two fleets separated, the allies can easily outnumber them and take them out for very little cost. With the two fleets together with a carrier, the allies need to spend a lot to take them out, and significantly delay their ground support for russia while they deal with naval BS. Germany would build the carrier, unite the fleets, and then just focus on ground troops. Germany starts with $84 worth of crap in the seas…but without uniting it and providing it with the extra support of a carrier, it turns into $84 of scrap metal pretty quickly without really doing anything much. The point is to try to salvage the investment you were stuck with.

I’m not sure it’s a great plan, but it seemed decent on the surface.

If you normally buy a boatload of fighters, Jennifer, I’d probably be thankful that you were spending your massive budget on weak units and not stuff that can actually take over my territories :/

british can place their fleet in the meetup spot then.

@ncscswitch:

The Russian Sub cannot prevent it.

how do you figure? You move it from SZ 2 to SZ 6 or 12 and it will make one of the two sets of German ships unable to reach SZ 7. I’d prefer SZ 12 to protect brazil/southern africa from the transport.

At best they could try it on turn 3 after sinking the sub, but if they leave their fleets in range to meet up, your fleet can preemptively attack one of them before they get a chance on UK2.