Offhand I'd say I'd just try to knock out the Russian navy straight away with your BB + tran + 4 fighters + bomber. Clearing those Russian fighters, combined with no Russian land purchase, puts Russia in defense mode on the following turns. Of course you are giving up Africa very quickly and the UK will have an extra BB to play with in the med and stuff, which makes a German naval purchase hard to justify, but you've shocked the Russians out of their key units to trade territories.

I think 6 is the absolute lowest bid I will go with. I'm debating where it should be, and the whole 50% bid placement thing has thrown me off because that's never the way I used to play with. I have to say it's really damn hard to determine what the exact bid  is because you'd probably have to play 100 games or so at each bid level; individual games tend have some weird dice at weird times which makes it extremely difficult to determine the influence of the bid itself. Considering how long a real game takes to play, I'd venture that very few if any of us have enough information to make a good judgment call, so personally I'd rely more on consensus than individual experience.

I'm sure that for instance if you don't play with a bid that the Axis can win maybe 30% of the time or so, and if you happen to be lucky a few times in a row you'd be convinced that no bid was needed. But from experience and playing against experienced players I currently cannot say you can go below 6 with the Axis and have something resembling a 50% win ratio. My initial feeling is that 6 is probably still a little bit too low, especially with the 50% placement restriction, but there are some annoying German navy strategies I'm still trying to muddle through that makes it harder for the Allies.

What does annoy me a bit lately is how I tend to see A&A as more of a dice game than a strategy game when your bid is about right; since it's so even, some screwy dice early on easily decides the game for you. Once you're put into a hole you can't really get back on track without taking unadviseable risks. Especially battles involving navy are impossible to recover from if you get fracked one way or the other since it's so expensive to rebuild.

Huh? Subs can go right through the Russian sub, for starters to get to the UK fleet to act as fodder for the Luftwaffe. Secondly, I hope the UK didn't land anywhere otherwise it will just about troopless and can be boarded through SZ8 from the gibraltar fleet as well as through SZ6. A carrier + transport leaves you with 2 infantry leftover to purchase, so hopefully you didn't land in W. Europe with many forces otherwise it's very bare with like a bomber and 2 inf.

I don't think it's a terrible idea to build defense with the UK fleet, but you have to be very careful about it, and you'd better hope the US rocks at logistics since it'll be acting as a major landing force instead of UK with the  UK's cash going into defense.

I always just run Karelia over with 3 inf from Norway. To me they have absolutely nothing else to do, so I'm hardly stretched for units. I use the tran to bring 2 inf from W. Europe over to E. Europe; I consider it a waste of resources to defend W. Europe on G1 when the UK has no feasible way to take it without risking their navy. Those 3 inf in Norway will never have anything to do if you're the type that runs the Baltic navy away anyways, since there won't be a tran to help them out.

I think that works out to -2 for Russia, not -4.  (+1-3=-2)

No, you see, anything positive for Germany is negative for Russia. So +1 for Germany is the same as -1 for Russia, so -1 and -3 together is -4. What you're doing is if Russia had +1 then -3, that would come out to -2.

I'm going to do some more studying with a couple transports in the Med, but I remember from experience that it ends up costing a lot of units down south, certainly a lot of units when uk/us dump a truckload in Africa. The Japanese could be the key though to holding Africa. Sorta like I was suggesting with the Japanese AF going to Egypt, you could focus along the south to reinforce Germany's gains there. There is always the problem of focusing too much on Africa and not enough in Europe though; being up most of Africa isn't going to help much when you've lost Southern and everything east of Berlin because you're just out of position if you try to push anywhere with your capital always being threatened.

Recently I like to apply Allied principles to the Axis; that's partly why I like this idea, Switch. The Allies are strongest when working together with their forces piled up with each other, so why not try it a bit with Japan and Germany through Egypt?

I like U-505's version of the Baltic escape, meeting the SZ8 sub with the Baltic fleet in SZ7. That gives you about 50% to wipe out the entire UK airforce should it decide to come alone. I think a carrier buy + naval link is the nastiest shock you can give the Allies and I'd like to try it against someone sometime (which may never happen at the rate I keep playing the Allies  ), but U-505's Baltic escape is the slickest you can get without buying a navy in the north.

This of course does not consider any positional advantage that may or may not result to Germany based on Russian force diversion to Archangel in R2 (which I still think can be a major factor).

And this doesn't consider the positional advantage that definitely results from Germany being down a tank. Like Darth says I don't see anything wrong with sending 1 inf + 4 tanks to Archangel on R2 to take out that German tank. Those tanks have nothing to do anyways, and they're in position for any German advance.

I really fail to see how some units in Archangel throws the Southern line to the Germans. It's like you always forget that Caucasus immediatley borders Ukraine, which means the Russians have +units able to deal with them there, and it's never like the Germans push south early even if they see some units in Archangel unless the Russians got dice fracked.

Without a blocker, and with the proposed "light" strike on Archangel, the odds of a dice frack increase, the odds of losing an INF AND an ARM is 2.6% with an Archangel counter of 1 INF/3 ARM. AND, a 0.1% chance of mutual destruction is introduced!

Forget light strike, think 1 inf + 4 arm. If the Germans take 4 arm in Archangel to mean they can advance, they're stupid!

Net Shift:  Even (Germany +2 IPC, Russia -3 IPC INF, Germany -1 IPC INF)

Your math is wrong too. Germany +2 then -1 = +1, then Russia is -3, so the net difference is -4 IPCs Russia.

Net shift: Russia - 0.5 IPC  (Germany +4 IPC, Russia -1.5 IPC INF, Germany -5 IPC ARM)

Your math is right there. Would you rather be -4 or -0.5?

I too thought that leaving Archangel bare was totally inconceivable when I first started the game, but I think it doesn't serve the Germans well to lose their tank for minimal gains.

I see that as a net increase of about 6-9 IPC's to Germany, even after figuring in the loss of the ARM.  And that does not count the battle results shift of those 2-3 units that are not participating in T2 and T3 combat elsewhere...

The only case in which you'd see this net increase is if Germany pushes hard immediately into either Belo or Ukraine so the Russian forces in Archangel are useless when needed most. Otherwise, if Germany does normal deadzone trading, there is no net increase along the south at all. I don't think Germany pushes hard early on, otherwise core tanks are being exposed. And even if there is a net increase along the South, the Russians always get a net increase along the north when the Germans ignore it.

And again, Caucasus deploys adjacently to Ukraine. The Russians have a good cushion to deflect a Germany that is focused on the South.

OK... you need to think 2 turns out...

That's exactly what I'm doing. In 2 turns Germany should still be fooling around with Karelia, unless it has build no navy at all so the UK is allowed to go unhibited from the north. If you're still trading Karelia, those forces you spend in Archangel will be put to the same use as they would have were they instead to have gone straight to West Russia.

It does mean they're locked, but wouldn't you see yourself as locked anyways if you were sure you were going to trade Karelia? If the Germans stop messing with Karelia and go south, then celebrate, that means you don't have to trade Karelia anymore, instead meeting the Germans where you are clearly your strongest with Caucasus forces deploying immediately adjacent to Ukraine. And the Germans are going south for sure with one less tank instead of 1/3 time with one less inf.

Allowing that ARM to Archangel means that Russia HAS to send forces to Archangel in R2... unless they want to leave an ARM on Moscow's doorstep and surrender 2 IPC's to Germany...  That means forces devoted to Archangel instead of to Belo, Karelia or Ukraine.

Incorrect. Archangel can be countered directly from Moscow. You do not need to divert forces from the W. Russia stack. Think of it instead of moving troops from Moscow to W. Russia, you move some to Archangel instead. And those forces will be used to counter Karelia the next turn, so the W. Russia stack is free to go ahead with Belo/Ukraine.

Making Russia split their forces 3 ways instead of 2 seriously weakens Russia and allows Germany to take out units with minimal losses.

The UK comes from the north, making it 2 ways instead of 3. The Germans would be the foolish ones to go with 3 ways with the UK descending from the north.

Germany loses 1 tank but gets 4 extra IPC's.

2 extra IPCs. You always get Karelia, so Archangel is the only extra that you're looking at.

and with the economic shift being 4 better for Russia

The economic shift is only 2 when Germany takes Archangel, because the Russians do not technically lose Archangel. They collect on it when they counter it, so the only net effect is that Germany has gained on it for one turn which is 2 IPCs. Germany is up 2 IPCs more than normal and does about 1.5 more on the way out, but loses a tank to do so (Germany spend 5 IPCs to get 3.5 IPCs). Would you rather that or have a 1/3 chance to take out 1 infantry (Russia spends 3 IPCs to take out 1 IPC). The blitz blocker removes the chance that the Germany player will (foolishly?) use a tank to go to Archangel.

I'm a little confused by what you have to say. On one hand you say Germany will stack in Karelia, and on the other hand you say that Germany will threaten Caucasus. Those are incompattble.

I also completely fail to see how 1 tank in Archangel shifts the balance in favor of Germany. They have lost a tank to a Russian inf. Troops that Russia uses in Archangel can be used against Karelia next turn, so just count that as the forces you would have used from West Russia instead. The Germans can try to conest Karelia/Archangel, but you're forgetting that the UK would love that. Having the UK drop 4 inf 4 tank along the north screws Germany up a lot.

And even if the Germans can draw a large force in Karelia, if they go to Archangel they're meeting up with builds directly from Moscow which will quickly overpower them. The best the Germans can do is match the W. Russia stack, but I don't see how this is adantageous to do it in Karelia when Ukraine is worth more and invulnerable to UK naval assaults.

4. The German player is required to bring either 3 infantry or 2 infantry/1 fighter when a single Russian infantry is present to assure a reasonable chance at taking Karelia. This accomplishes two things for the price of 1 infantry- prevents a larger stack in E Europe, and/or forces a fighter to be used, meaning one less fighter in one of these places- Egypt/Belo/SZ 15/SZ 13/or the Ukraine. A German walk in of Karelia allows 2 German infantry to board the transport and land safely in E Europe, meaning a larger presence on G2.

The quintessential problem with this assertion is that Germany will always have 3 inf ready to take Karelia - the Norway troops, which have nowhere else to go. The blitz blocker isn't going to help much when you're getting stormed by 3-5 inf (2 from xport) there.

Normally of course you would like to throw 1 inf into a territory to force the enemy to throw more than 1 inf to take it, but I believe R1 to be the grayest case of this. I think it's great to bait the tank into blitzing Archangel, because a trade of 1 Russian inf for 1 German tank is awesome. I also think it's futile to leave the 1 inf there when you know for certain that those Norway troops are going to go barreling out to Karelia anyways, which isn't a great trade of resources; your 1 infantry will deal an average of 1 IPC to Germany while it takes you 3 infantry to rebuild it.

The point of barely holding deadzones is to force the enemy to divert their forces to retake it, but in the case of Karelia in Round 1, you are not forcing the Germans to come out to Karelia; they have forces right next door that already have nowhere to go, so there is no diversion.

LHTR makes it clear that you only trigger the treaty if you fight in an originally red or orange territory. Japanese/Russian forces can fight in places like Sinkiang without activating the treaty, but once the fighting goes to something like buryatia or manchuria, then it's triggered.

[Rolling 3 6-sided dice:]

Testing

Rolling 3 6-sided dice:
1, 1, 2