Posts made by eumaies

here’s question on your strat, though – planes as uk are very useful, but all things being equal why not build 2 transports immediately on turn 1?  Then when you can spare the cash you can build planes, but the sooner you get your transport capability rolling, the better, it seems to me.

looks pretty solid.  i think getting down a good system for us convoying is pretty essential to making the most of the us.

my own play style as axis is a response to the ultimate problems with having allies convoying so much in the atlantic.  I either push really hard on russia (which makes that algeria drop-off a bit of a luxury if russia’s really struggling), or preferably i do an early baltic fleet buildup with preparation for fleet unification, which i’ve posted below.  A unified fleet can disrupt and slow a lean convoy-ing machine, and allow japan to come through and win the game for the axis.

Fleet strat:

1. Battleship + sub + transport + 3-4 planes take out gibalter battleship and land 1 infantry on gibralter. You want overwhelming force here.
2. Build 4 tanks or 2 tanks, 2 inf, 1 art (to keep russia honest), and 1 destroyer and 1 transport in baltic (the fleet stays there).
3. attack russia in an appropriately threatening manner (I like to transport and mass troops in karelia, for example.
4. leave norway empty (if uk is silly he will take it, exposing his ships to attack).
5. Mass all african troops in libya ready for next turn
6. mass all fighters and the bomber in western europe with about 3 ground forces. send the rest to the front.

This is a costly move. You spend $20 and you don’t take egypt and you don’t kill the british fighter in egypt. However, you get lots in return too:

1. you threaten england potentially with 3 transports and 1 battleship and 6-7 planes, so he has to react. They can block the southern fleet, but it then makes them leave ships out vulnerable to your planes. He can’t block the northern fleet except by sacrificing his fleet, so he has to build ground forces or risk US transports to land more in england.
2. You make your baltic fleet totally invulnerable on turn 1. 6 ships is nothing to mess with, so while it cost you $20, you save all the money you might have lost when that fleet eventually got pounded in an unfair fight.
3. Your over-the-top fleet battle at gibralter should kill the uk battleship without losing you your sub, so you save an $8 ship that way.
4. your taking gibralter and building up in the baltic leaves the UK planes nothing to attack on turn 1, which is convenient.
5. You threaten to be able to combine your fleets into 1 super fleet (9 ships will last a LONG time with air support and keep your coast safe) and to stop you they have to throw ships in your way to die. If this is ever possible, do it.
6. You can now, with your strong navy, afford to leave fewer troops on your west coast and keep the opponents at bay much longer in the atlantic if you proceed carefully. This leaves you a free hand to beat on russia.
7. You can threaten algerian fleets, or brazil with the southern navy, or return focus to africa just 1 turn delayed.

Of course, this leaves the UK able to move in to the mediterranean. But in most cases this is not a bad thing. The easier time japan has, the faster they’ll come to the rescue. And your atlantic navy should keep you safe for a few extra turns which is all you really need. All for $20.

I don’t like the options leaving ukraine gives germany.  They have six fighters for the whole game which is very flexible, and/or they can mass forces in ways that russia can’t attack, and they can land fighters in ukraine if and when they’re ready.  Killing belorussia is a valid alternative, though, which mitigates some of that.

yeah, you can certainly go harder against japan.  but for my money, i like a less risky balanced russian front.

2 fighters in kazakh is good for round 1, but then if you don’t use them in asia and you want to use them in europe anywhere other than ukraine, then for round 2 russia can’t land either fighter in kazakh.  So i’m playing for the long run russian options on both fronts.

tanks i would love to bring, but then i can’t gurantee the win in ukraine, and so bringing 1 into yakut makes for a better japan kill, but reduces odds of winning the game due to potential for loss against germany.

nix, with regards to the other stuff, trn in sz 59 demands more than just a destoyer, IMO.  16% of the time you die without killing it and then you’ve practically lost the game with that opening.  and the indo-china attack is only 50/50 successful.  Obviously you don’t have to win it, but i find if it goes badly it can go badly without you causing any damage.  And anyway making risky moves on turn 1 implies i think i need to take risks cuz i’m behind, in my mind.

yeah, it’s easy to get into a rut in this game and focus only on a few potential approaches and lose the knack for the others :)

no, it’s not a full fledged KJF.  that would require boats, and i wouldn’t commit to that unless i was dominating.  but it can neuter japan pretty well.

you misread about yakut.  I have 0 tanks there. just 2 infantry.  Russia is not over-committing to this strat.

africa can be dealt with in some games (via n. africa flt merge & dropoff), or in others can be ignored initially.  German economy is no joke but neither is japanese getting on a role, so it’s a tradeoff.  But back to the japan front…

as for the counter, that is a very expensive kill of buryatia and i wouldn’t mind if you did it (not that it’s a bad move).  Not expensive in troops lost (~4 japanese ground forces on average) but in opportunity cost.  Follow-up is likely us build IC in sinkiang, russia takes china.  More importantly, massive british and american fleet is in the pacific with two carriers and 3 fighters, potentially massed in a single location.  Specify ship movements and I’ll specify in return…

Hey folks,

I’ve been winning an inordinate amount of games using this opening on the asian front, so curious to debate best counters to it (in case I face it :).  Assume no bid for the japanese (thus either no bidding in the game, or a small bid to germany - basically unrelated to the discussion).

Russia ensures 3 tanks in caucausus at end of round 1 and 1 fighter landed in kazakh, 1 in caucausus.  Russia moves 6 infantry to buryatia and 2 infantry behind them in whatever that territory is called north of buryatia.

UK does whatever seems best in the atlantic, but ends up with:

1. bomber in kazakh, if possible 1 surviving fighter from atlantic landed in w. russia or similar.
2. 1 fighter in buryatia with the 6 russian infantry (after helping in sz59)
3. 1 carrier and destroyer in SZ 59 (after helping fighter to minimize chance of loss there)
4. 1 transport adjacent to french indo china burma (blocking the battleship from SZ59)
5. 1 transport on bottom right of australia (unmoved, but having transported 1 inf from n. zealand to make 4 in australia)
6. 4 infantry and an ipc in india, 1 infantry in persia, 1 infantry in whatever’s north of s. africa.  (germany retains egypt)
7. russia moves 3 infantry into sinkiang
8. other uk builds situational.

What would the ideal detailed japanese response be and why?  I realize the simplest response might be “this is why japan/germany need bidding,” but let’s at least assume a small ipc bid on japan’s side at best.

yeah, well in jen’s defense aabigdog initially referenced jen’s previous arguments for general high-bomber use and SBR, before posting his own specific strat that axis and i were responding to.  so she might have jumped to the conclusion that we were critiquing all uses of axis bombers for bombing.

funny story, i played a way-too-long game of axis last night that relates to all this discussion of planes.  My Russia had a terrible round 1 opening, losing 1 plane and all other troops in this ukraine attack (3tanks, 3 inf, 1 art, 2 fighters vs german 3 inf, 1art, 1 tank, 1 fighter) while the german won with 1 fighter, 1 tank, and a artillery alive. I note that only to justify why the game took so long to win :)

Anyway my opponent was very good and played well with both axis.  As germany, he went heavy on bombers (built 2 through the course of the first 2-3 turns, and another later when 1 was destroyed) and mostly infantry.  He didn’t put the squeeze on russia right away with these builds, but they set up a great long term push with very efficient land swaps.  As Japan, he responded to my KJF moves with a 3 transport build, and by dominating china and the british navy but leaving the us intact, while also guarding his fleet.

Anyway, the game lasted a long time, and involved early IPC in india for me, and then later one in sinkiang (and then later, china) when the opportunities were ripe.  Russia committed the initial 8 infantry against japan and eventually a tank and occasional fighter support, but not much else.  The game took so long because the us and britain maintained  a really precarious balance against japan in asia, while countering but not stopping germany for an equally long time.  The japanese counter-moves were among the best and most careful I have played against.

Eventually, german pressure forced the allies to shift back focus to europe, and after a long drawn out fight germany fell 2 turns ahead of when japan might have been able to take moscow.

Anyway, having spared you most of the details, I noticed in this example a couple things related to this discussion:

1. German bombers certainly are worthwhile, with a wide variety of uses, both threatening and fighting.  I would certainly agree (and always have) they can be worthwhile builds.  On the other hand, I still only had to build 1 UK carrier (along with the starting 1 UK battleship and 2 US destroyers in the area) to effectively defend my initially north-focused us and british transports.  The german player can’t actually afford to waste his 3 bombers attacking 4 trannies and a destroyer adjacent to england (back side).    The big air force does force the allies to be very careful around africa, but only so long as the german fighters can all afford to stay in western europe (a long time, but not without cost as then they can only be used against karelia effectively in land fights).  Any fighters landed in carriers are also not wasted, as the can assist in attacks.

2. A good KJF set of moves is really challenging for the japanese player to counter in any rapid way, and in this example the opponent used transport builds followed by troops builds to hold his own to the best extent he could and eventually win through after at least 7 turns (though the game was over before india could fall).  So bomber builds obviously wouldn’t have been the right option for him in this case, which supports my sense that keeping japan “honest” and unable to invest in bombers and land them safely in asia is another way to negate any bomber-driven threat.

I’ll post another thread with my KJF opening moves and would be interested to hear opinions on best counters.

jen, thanks for posting the games.

you’re continuing to compare apples to oranges regarding the whole aa gun things.  I completely agree you shouldn’t build 2 bombers on turn 1 for japan, but then you can’t go around and cite this debate when you don’t do that.

I mean no offense to aabigdog’s posted strategy – it’s aggressive and interesting, but different from what you did.

The original aa-gun idea was a response to aabigdog’s strategy, which was pretty extreme on one end, and so buying 1-2 aa guns was a pretty extreme, interesting, and useful response.

In your game, japan played a more conservative game and actually put alot more pressure on asia because of it, which would’ve made aa guns in novo, etc a bad move to make.

so please don’t put strategies in our mouths :)

On the flip side, i have no bones with judicious use of bombers.  you played a balanced strategy, it worked against that opponent, so kudos for you!

… but when you start tossing around “the only way to counter this” kind of language, I of course am going to disagree with you.  It’s not even clear what you’re defining “this” as!  (but if you want to suggest a specific move, build order and approach that is more balanced, plz do so in another thread and I’d be happy to debate countermoves).

cool, thanks for the tips, folks.

worst part is probably those little details that require back and forth interaction, like establishing the axis bid bonus… but i’ll give it a try sometime.

Rolls: 1@6; Total Hits: 11@6: (6)

neat (if this works)

at some time when i have time i’ll probably give this a try.

you see, there we go.  now we agree perfectly when considering a KJF strategy.  all a big misunderstanding.

so aabigdog, i might get on one of these days.  let me review some technical detail questions with you:

1. i have to learn how to use the battlemap graphics so i can change maps and send them (doesn’t seem too hard)
2. i have to be able to use some kind of die rolling web tool, right?  or is it manual?  plz let me know what the link is.  (also, this is an honor system, right?)
3. and then i just have to type in each of the moves i made (and the results of each combat round?) on the forum back and forth.

how long do games usually take this way?

i think aabigdog and jen you both just have different experiences, or “data sets” in terms of what occurs on the asian front than others in this discussion do.  It’s probably a function of opponents and play style, but in my games japan gets squeezed very hard for a significant amount of time, rather than the all out KGF that is closer to normal in the games and examples you’re citing.  Examples include jen’s expectation of a retreat from buryatia and india, as compared to my expectation of pushing hard on those fronts.  The bomber strat no doubt works better in the former case.  Part of this might also be the bid of a transport for japan, which i do think is a bit much (certainly more than i’d ever expect) and probably colors the experience.

Axis has already addressed the first of these two expectation differences but I’ll make them again:

1. the aa’s positioned in asia covering the east asia front presuppose there’s no back and forth conflict there for several turns.  In our games, there typically isn’t.

2. for the allied fleets in the atlantic, i think your expectations (and aabigdog’s opponents) are simply mistaken.  allied fleets need to be capable of killing expensive german bombers and fighters, not of keeping all their transports safe no matter what.  1 destroyer & 2 transports is FINE against 2 bombers.  1 destroyer and 4 transports is FINE against 3 bombers.  It seems crazy, but the defender wins more often then not and germany (which can least afford it) loses at least as much value as the US.  What has essentially happened is the us builds a high volume of useful transports, and if they get attacked it’s not the end of the world and a few ground forces get delayed, and if they don’t, you use them.   Finally, as axis pointed out, where you land the bombers makes all the difference in whether they can threaten the US or prep for effective SBR runs.

anyway, while it’s only one of multiple reasonable responses to the SBR strategy, i’m certain building 2 aa’s is not a game breaker build for russia on turn 3.

also, jen, while i’m not banking on any aa guns from eastern us, it actually makes perfect sense to move the us aa gun to eastern canada on turn 1 in every game.  it’s no use at home and you never know when you might want to or have extra space to ship it over.

finally, on the disagreement about probablities – rounding is probably not something you want to do until you get your final answer… at the end 8.7 or 10.2 is not a whole $ value, so then you round to 9 or 10.  But I gurantee if you bomb with 3 bombers 100 times in various games, you will on average cause 9 damage, not 10.  (as a simple example, consider 2 bombers – one rolling a 3 and the other a 4, = 7, /2 = 3.5… and suddenly the average damage was 3.5.  Go figure!  Fractions happen in real life).

p.s.  i just can’t bring myself to learn how to work the aabattlemap system withposting on the forum and separate die rolling and all that, but if either of you guys ever wants to try this on gametable.com, i’d be open to it. While I can’t give you the extra transport in the environment, I could simulate a reasonable bid bonus for the axis by walling off $3-5 away from russia that i would hold but never spend, or something like that.  The idea would not be for me to test a rigid strategy like always building 2 aa guns (i might or might not depending on situation), but I’m pretty sure I could demonstrate the asian experience japan should be contending with given those builds.

for the record, i’m completely on axis’ side in this skuffle.   IMO you were really rude and condescending in this paticular discussion, jen.

clumsy way of saying it on my part – i meant the bid amount allowed to the axis in return for you getting to play allies.

I used two separate calculations to show two different probability problems, and my “average damage” was a probabilistic expected value.

In any case, Frood’s numbers are the same as mine (42% of someone getting shot) and you and I are almost in agreement with your final expected value calculation.  Except for expected value you should not be rounding damage, and if you substitute 3.5 for all those 4’s in your final calculation, you get…

10.5 0.5757
7 0.348
3.5 0.0724
8.73425

Using frood’s numbers.  Hence my analysis of ~9 damage on average for 3 bombers.

I gotta agree with Yoshi on this one.

Responding to your earlier post, Jen:

1. Russia sometimes has more because it takes manchuria and/or doesn’t lose buryatia, particularly in a strat like this.  Please let’s not debate the details of an effective allied asian campaign, though.  It’s a whole separate topic and I don’t really care if russia’s making 31 or 29 or 27.

2. with regards to average damage for bombers, you do have to account for 0’s, it’s called probability and i suspect you know better than that.  Here is a simple excel chart of the probabilities and the real way to calculate expected damage on a given turn (sumproduct in excel):

Damage Probability
0.00 0.17
1 0.14
2.00 0.14
3.00 0.14
4.00 0.14
5.00 0.14
6.00 0.14
1.00
Expected Damage Value: 2.916666667

You said:
“I agree that in some cases, 2 bombers for Japan on Round 1 is sub-optimal.  England pulling everything except 1 infantry out of India with Russia pulling everything but 1 infantry out of Buryatia and England doing the Pacific shuffle with the fleet is not a case where 2 bombers is sub-optimal.”

I agree. That’s not what I would do as the allies.  Earlier in this post I noted that it’s important to fight japan, and in any case my standard opening involves neither of those moves, but instead a heavy mobilization against japan.  (For someone who doesn’t do this, the german bomber is hint enough that the brit can afford to do a more anti-japan strategy.)  I’m sure many players’ allied moves are different and involve folding to japan on every front, but i’m not answerable to that.

I do stand corrected on the german 2 bombers.  They can be ready to raid on german round 3, and i’m not going to do anything to stop them because alone they aren’t overwhelming.

You said this:
"For the record, odds of shooting down 1 bomber out of 3:

(1/6)(5/6)(5/6) = 12%.  Not exactly the best odds out there.
(Success)(Fail)(Fail)"

That math is not appropriate to the question.  The combined propability that 1 or more bombers of 3 are shot down by a single aa gun = 1-[(5/6)(5/6)(5/6)] = 42%.  A player gets away scot free just 58% of the time.  Your math may be coloring your conclusions, but don’t be surprised when your bombers get shot down more than 12% of the time :)  Keep in mind that 1/6 is 17%. – that’s for just a single bomber run.

As for your latest post, did i or did i not say that the key to beating this strategy was to pound on japan with britain and other allied forces?  Your megolamania in that post is astounding, and for the record I’m pretty sure everyone who has posted to this discussion disagrees that you have “proven” anything.  But please, don’t keep trying to convince us!

ok i gotta be brief cuz i’m studying for an exam, but to your questions to me:

1. re: bombers don’t cost anything = they are inneficient builds for japan, is my contention.

2. russia may well have more than 27 by round 3 given your builds, and germany’s average damage is <3 per bomber, factoring in that you only hit 5/6 of the time and  cause 0 damage 1/6 of the time.  Nor can germany’s newly built bombers reliably hit moscow at this point and land safely.  Most allied moves would force a bombing of caucusus with new bombers in the first 2 rounds, which causes even less damage.

3. Japan does not have a bomber in Yakut or India.  end of round two japan didn’t take india in round 1 to make that a safe landing zone.  in fact, if you’re playing me and you built two bombers in round 1, japan doesn’t even take india in round 2, certainly not with the move into china.  Japan also hasn’t safely taken Yakut on turn 1 for landing on round 2 ready to strike on round 3.  Instead, russia forces have not been well-countered because japan didn’t buy enough transports.  Again, this is my experience of how people would fare against me.  Obviously we have different “data sets” from our own experiences.

4. per axis’ suggestion, i could’ve moved the aa gun from india in time for round 3 and built just one russia AA.  But since i like to hold india i probably wouldn’t do this.  In any case, russia turn 3 is a safe enough time to burn a little money when germany has burnt 30 in things that won’t quickly pressure the russian front.

5. For reasons above, i don’t have to strain to block bombers from multiple angles on round 3.  And in future rounds i’m content to block >1/2 of the bombers effectively.  But in truth, again from my own experience, I could pwn japan with builds like that and japan’s not going to have choice places to bomb from.  Regardless, if after all this investment the bombing campaign has a limited impact, I think the allies have got a leg up.

well we’ve already hashed out most of these differences, i’ll just correct a few misunderstandings from your last post:

1. In the posted strategy from aabigdo, japan builds a 3rd bomber on round 2.  This made sense for his strategy and test runs, as the point is to try an all out, sustained SBR campaign even in the face of losses.

2. In my suggestion russia doesn’t need to buy the two aa guns until russia round 3 (after jap bombers built in turn 1 land closer to russia and additional jap bomber is built on turn 2).  Of course russia can afford $10 on round 3 of a game where the axis are spending so heavily on aircraft.

but let’s agree to disagree.  I don’t think you’ve understood the counterpoints I’ve raised and the straw man you insist on beating up has no relation to any moves i would feel pressured to take (e.g. no more than 2 aa’s, no need to cover both eastern and western fronts, no need to excessively defend transports, no need to worry about SBR on UK or USA, etc…)

yup, i’m not opposed to bidding, just thinking about the pros and cons of different methods.

re: the tourney, if ALL axis players won, maybe people were bidding too much to play allies, no?