Tobruk can be very effective for shutting down any concerted axis africa plays, just make sure u leave enough on egypt that Italy cant land on it on I1….4 ground 3 bombards and a bmr is not nothing…

as far as dealing w sealion i find the 92 stack to be the most effective deterant. It brings more air in range of london than any other play, and the threat of a brit fleet coming north is a big monkey wrench for a G player looking to go sealion cheaply and effectively.

Its seems counter-intuitive, but skipping 97 hit on UK1 often makes Italy weaker in the long run.  Sure he keeps more boats, but so do you, especially the carrier, and the chances of him matching your fleet are slim to none, especially since most times the Indian UK fleet is going to come back towards the med.

As fylle noted, it is very hard to give definitive plans for J onward, and sometimes UK, because of how much variance there can be in prior powers’ turns.

As to your question about Russia and Germany, I can give some tried and true plays that are extremely well accepted by some of the best players I am aware of on the Net.

Russia:
basically two options, with some flavor to one of them.

Either A) use the above Ukraine hit with the 3 inf 3 tank buy (I go into ukr w only 2 tanks usually, but your risk tolerance will decide that for you).  This is my preferred play for getting Germany hacked down early, but it is a mutual small stack trading type of play.

Or B) buy 5 inf 1 art 1 tank, hit belo with 3 inf 2 ftrs and put everything else in WR.  Place the 4 inf in Cauc with nothing else but the AA gun.  This makes Cauc takeable but rather inefficient for G to capture, and very easy for Russia to take back.

As to the Eastern (Japan) front, I am a big believer in using all ten inf to put up a slow retreating wall against J, with 6 in bury and 4 in sink.  Also land 1 R Fig in kaz, this creates a strong opportunity to counter China, which is a big play for slowing the J wave.  If J hits bury, so be it that plus China means he has likely skipped sz 52, if he does not slowly retreat the bury inf deadzoning as you pull back.

As to Germany plays:

DO NOT BUY A CARRIER. EVER NEVER EVER NEVER NEVER.

G fleet buys are plays that only work against weak players, and they serve to only slow down your advance on Russia.  A good Allied player will simply combine UK and USA fleets, build up their air, and crush your puny combined fleet somewhere around turn 4-6, with minimal losses, and minimal gains on your part.

I cannot stress enough how bad the carrier play is for Germany.  Revised is a game of “he who buys the most inf wins”  The German BS and Tranny NEED to go to Egypt, and hold it as long as is viable

My G fleet move consists of 1 sub up to sz 3 to block a UK1 Arch counter, the other 3 boats to sz 7, with the tranny bringing the norway inf down to Paris.  This forces UK to hit the boats right away, either w big risk to the RAF, or with his battleship, forcing an out of position AC buy on UK1, which is not a preferred play as compared to allies going to sz 12 together and pushing Egypt hard right away.

As to UK1, not only is an India IC skip Viable, but India IC UK1 is a HORRIBLE play unless you are going full KJF with all 3 powers.  An India IC with USA going Atlantic is 15 bucks spent to build Japan a factory.  You cannot hold it without comprising your entire Russian trading deadzones in Europe.

ONLY USE THIS IC PLAY if USA is coming full Pacific.

My preferred UK1 play is to buy 2 inf art 2 ftr, and go to sz 12 with 2 loaded trannies and BS, to be joined by the USA boats.  This early africa ground goes a long way to reclaiming Egypt against a strong G player who is committed to hold it with significant J assistance (You do not get Egypt back against me until I let you, even if UK can counter Egypt on UK1, I will often get to 30-50 units holding it in a long slow game)

These basic opening plays (and more importantly the type of thinking about the game they represent) will go a long way to improving your win rate in Revised.

In terms of Low luck, the presence of a dd on defense makes all the difference.

Without a DD, sub hits and air hits must b rolled separately, and so it can mess up the LL rolls.

In LL the scram against 110 is really strong, as u can choose to take hits against the UK boats but G cannot take air hits against subs.

It could be Cyan, however the bid take the chance away from the matter, and yes freeing up that tranny is huge, opens up Iraq on R3, which is monster, as it also means ethiopia on R5 and Somali on R6, which is just sooo much money, replacing the ipcs Germany is taking away in Russia proper, and it also effectively counters anything Italy might try to do in lower Africa.

We found for a long time that nobody could beat our best axis play, Japan in particular has gotten really sharp, Pac wins have been quite common lately…I feel our Allied game is starting to catch up but it is so hard to find the right balance between Moscow defense needs, British Europe play, and USA asset allocation to stop Japan from getting out of control in the Pac, while supporting UK with the right amount of bodies to bleed Germany effectively.

I have to give Pherman some credit for the tobruk bid play.  He didnt invent it or anything, but he’s been using it so massively effectively in games recently, its almost demoralizing the shutdown effect it has on the axis in africa.  Im pretty solidly a believer in it now.

Sure, Italy feels strong with its boats, and it gonna get paid for a turn or two, but it just isnt going to accomplish anything significant other than its own doomed presence for a few rounds.  It will take greece, maybe go get gib once before USA arrives, and thats it.

There is so much UK pressure on itfrom boats and the huge RAF on its way to moscow, that unless G is willing to invest in a yugo airbase, the Italians will be dead by UK4, or earlier, no matter what choices they make.

The comment made above about freeing up the fleet is a large part of my reasoning behind starting with an IC 2 tran buy, and typically another IC placed in FIC on j3 or J4, depending on declare round.

I will spend a tranny or two sweeping up the islands, but most of the time, I like to protect the trannies i am grabbing up the islands with.

My thought is this, a first turn IC on shangtung that cranks mechs all game, and a 3rd turn IC doing the same, is a 100 percent guarantee that India will fall quickly and efficiently, with no need for my boats to get involved, unless UK abandons its Egypt defense to reinforce India.  Usually it is between UK5 and UK7 that UK pac is backing out of india and handing it over to me.

At the same time, my boats generally have no problem stacking up an island sea zone (mostly Java, for two-way options) preventing the allied fleets from suiciding trannies at my islands and preventing my bonus, or forcing me the spend my own to get it.

One of my nastier moves when things are going well in the pac is to stack up a NG SZ and put down a seabase, this creates all kinds of headaches, but it isnt always viable if USA is coming after u strong in the pac.

Net result is that I keep all the money islands, often also deny the Anzac NG objective, AND force India capitulation all at the same time.  I dont believe this is possible without the commitment to ground and pound units from the 2 early ICs.

I also find that IC plus transports off the mainland are the best way to handle russia pushing its ground in on me.

Wild Bill’s moves are fairly standard, except that as you play more and more you will find that the 97 hit isnt always the optimal move on UK1.

It seems like killing those boats would be the best you can do, but stacking 92, or with bid units killing tobruk actually does more to stop further Italy moves than the 97 hit.  The issue is that the cost involved (losing the Brit med fleet) can actually make it easier for Italy to rebuild a fleet relatively safely, and continue to have a strong effect on Africa, potentially even growing enough to threaten Egypt.

Generally, if you stack 92, no matter what the combined 95 and 97 fleets do, they are doomed.  They arent big enough to hit the brit boats plus airbase defense, and they also cant get away from overwhelming brit attack dice with all the air UK can put in the theatre.

Similarly, a Tobruk wipe just completely shuts down any Africa moves that Italy might try and pull off, as it puts Egypt so far ahead in bodies that it will never fall.

Just watch out for the surprise Sealion if you send too much stuff forward to 98 (meaning air)

I noticed a detail that may have something to do with USA not being effective.

You mentioned having to wait to declare with USA til end turn 3, but on your J2 description you mention Japan attacking islands. This may be a misunderstanding of your post on my part, but if Japan attacks islands it has to declare on the Western Allies, which means USA is in the war on turn 2.

Am i misreading your post?  If not, you guys may have been playing the political rules slightly incorrectly.

on a G3 declare, Germany can stack Bess with roughly 35-40 units.  Fast purchased on G2 will be in position to join for a W ukr stack on G4, but not a ukr stack.  It is not uncommon for Russia to be able to stack bryansk with enough units that G cannot stack and hold Ukr, forcing a W ukr stack instead, but it is also common for G to be able to have enough to do ukr, and gain the factory for g5 purchases, it depends on where russia has set its priority.

Russia got into Romania? on a non-sealion?? That seems….counterproductive.

I never have trouble taking Leningrad…I simply push 40 units at ukr, which is nothing but the starting stacks and the fast that comes back from the Paris crush.

Russia cannot stop it, and must fall back or I will crush his stacks.  If he attempts to defend Nov, I get Moscow, so typically a smart player gives away Nov, and I march in with nothing but the finland inf.

I just dont see why anyone would be trading in these circumstances, other than just a few inf as essentially blitz blockers…it seems like trying to fight for ground just for the sake of fighting…what does it gain?

My goals as Germany are pretty simple, threaten moscow heavy, if i cant take it early (g6), then I take and hold Cauc and volgo for the massive bonuses…I just dont get why you would mess around letting russia hit your units.

Getting back to the OP, Pherman’s 30 turn monster was just a crazy fun game to watch develop.

The back and forth between theatre focus and advantage between the two players was so riveting.  Early on J was threatening to get out of control, since USA had gone heavily against Italy…this forced a heavy pac commit from all over the place, even UK trannies taking units from Italy to the middle east, eventually resulting in Japan being forced to back out of India after having forced UK to back out earlier…

It was just nuts