Yeah, it took me a while to figure out as well. Before I had TripleA I was super frustrated not being able to read those files.
Allied Strategy?
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i always play the allies and i play against one other person on a very regular basis the only different rules we play with is that there are no Victory Cities win conditions and the victory conditions are complete annihilation or surrender. and was wondering the strategy’s for each allied power turn 1.
We like to play total annihilation sometimes, depends on what you want out of the game. Playing w/VCs has its pro’s and cons. I don’t like when the axis do some BS and one power completely sells out its side of the map to help get a VC win on the other. However the VC conditions also keep the allies from loading up on just one side because if they do the axis will win on the other .
UK- Taranto and buy 1 destroyer at Quebec and 2 mech and 1 tank in south Africa to knock Italy out of Africa.
As pointed out your first priority for UK is to secure your capitals. I would look to secure London on the first turn, 6 inf+ftr is a pretty standard buy for London. If you buy units for your other ICs, or build an IC for Egypt UK1 you may be looking at a Sea lion attempt. Yea you might know your opponent, and maybe he is new to the game as you seem to be, but at some point he’s going to try sea lion if you keep leaving yourself open to it. I like to Taranto the Italian fleet on UK1 to cripple them. It will cost you the Med fleet, but you can rebuild much easier.
France- Take Ls. what do you with fighter in London? fortify Russia?
Start moving your French inf and dd (sz 71 Madagascar) towards Egypt for defense. The French ftr can stay in London to scramble if/when the UK/US has a fleet off England. It could also be placed on a UK or US carrier if you want, or fly to Europe when the Allies get a foot hold. Moscow is also a good place for it to go once London is secured. Allied ftrs can get to Russian land if they leave from Scotland.
Russia- Buy 1 mech 1 tank 1 Aircraft carrier and rest INF. Should i pressure Japan to fortify northern china? or just put my resources to use for the German front.
Russia should never ever buy a carrier (or any ships really) unless maybe the Germans f’d up a sea lion attempt, then it could be fun to have a Russian fleet lol. You will need lots of inf to defend Moscow, and a few art/tanks at your foreword bases until you have to retreat them. I also like to buy a ftr or tac (gives me 4 planes) so I can use my planes in pairs w/1-2 inf or mech to attack small German or Italian secondary positions. I will generally leave 4-6 inf +1 AA gun at the Siberian front, and bring the rest home. Sometimes the inf you bring back will end-up defending your back door from the Japanese pushing through China. You can also send a small Russian force to China to prop them up, but it is risky and you’ll probably need all hands on deck when the Germans close in on Moscow.
USA- i usually buy 2 subs each turn to send Germany’s way to make their navy less of a nuisance to UK economy and to also make them waste more on navy so they don’t have as much for Barbarossa.
The US will need navies on both maps to be effective, and be sure to make good use of your allies in each theater. I think you need to pick a side and concentrate most of your income (75-80%) there for 2-3 maybe 4 turns so you can dominate. Then you can switch gears and build more for the other side after that. The worst thing that the US can do IMO is to split their income evenly each turn, because you will just be weak on both sides. The US navy has a head start on the Pac side, but you’ll need to add another carrier or 2 (w/ftr/tac), more dd’s and some subs to stand toe to toe with the Imperial Navy (watch out for Japans land based ftrs). On the Pac side the US is more of a hammer (take out all the support ships and damage those capital ships), and the Anz would play clean-up (ATTACK THOSE DAMAGED CAPITAL SHIPS) and take some islands (transports). UK (London) can build support ships (maybe a carrier) to help defend your invasion fleet. They can also fortify any European landings by bringing in troops/AA guns (transports) and ftrs to territories the US takes. The US will need a couple loaded carriers to start, maybe a bb for Europe plus many dds and transports.
China- Slowdown Japan as much as possible is there anyway better to do this other than dropping inf in Chinese territories and getting help from Russia and uk?
The Chinese are really just a speed bump for the Japanese to get to Russia’s back door. The Chinese purpose is to try to counter attack and retake Yunnan when possible (6 IPC bonus). Chew up as many Japanese ground troops as you can with both China and UK. The Russian and India can send in some help, but both have their own problems to deal with.
Anzac- ?
The Anz is the little brother to the USA. They can add ships (maybe even a carrier) to defend the US fleet. They also start with a few ftrs, so utilize the air bases again to defend the US fleet. Like I said the US will do the heavy lifting in attacks, but the Anz need to be ready to pounce on any damaged Japanese capital ships with subs and planes. If the US is really strong in the Pacific you might consider building an Anz minor IC for Queensland (has AB and NB) to get your ships/planes into the battle quicker.
Uk Pacific- ?
I generally send the transport and other ships over to the Med to quickly rebuild after Taranto. Maybe activate Persia, or attack Italians in Ethiopia. Try to hold on to Calcutta, but if the Japanese want it they probably get it (consider an evacuation to the Mid East/Southern Russia?). I like to build a mech/tank on the first turn so I can get to China if I want w/o having to make a pit-stop at Burma (don’t like to be on the coast). If the Japanese are slow boating and didn’t attack on J2, I would think about attacking UK2 if I can kill a bunch of Japanese ground units making China a quagmire. Yep it would probably keep the US out of the war until the 4th turn, but it could be worth it in the right situation. Both UK Pac and Anz would also get their NO’s.
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@WILD:
Russia should never ever buy a carrier (or any ships really) unless maybe the Germans f’d up a sea lion attempt, then it could be fun to have a Russian fleet lol. You will need lots of inf to defend Moscow, and a few art/tanks at your foreword bases until you have to retreat them. I also like to buy a ftr or tac (gives me 4 planes) so I can use my planes in pairs w/1-2 inf or mech to attack small German or Italian secondary positions. I will generally leave 4-6 inf +1 AA gun at the Siberian front, and bring the rest home. Sometimes the inf you bring back will end-up defending your back door from the Japanese pushing through China. You can also send a small Russian force to China to prop them up, but it is risky and you’ll probably need all hands on deck when the Germans close in on Moscow.
I feel compelled to say the above quote is “Words of Wisdom” worthy : )
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I am not going to break down exact numbers and units but over all I feel like the best thing to do with the allies is to use the minors to reinforce the majors against Axis attacks.
US will have to decided based on which Axis nation is working the allies and focus on that. I usually have US pacific match Japanese navy 1:1 while getting the other side ready to either land in France or destroy Italy.
UK is one of the hardest nations due to serving on three fronts. Buff London to stop Sea Lion, stop Italy in Africa by destroying their fleet and taking their colonies, I try to leave them for USSR if possible. India is the one of the hardest sectors due to sitting there and watching Japan, if Japan goes passive, go for Dutch islands, if aggressive, try to defend China.
USSR is purely a victim and you have to turtle the hell out of the enemy.
France is also a victim and I say to reinforce the other allies as needed unless it survives which I never experienced as the Allies so I really have no idea what to do with this.
ANZAC should use its navy to reinforce US pacific fleet as much as possible to boost numbers. Army is a little harder to do mostly because you don’t have the naval power to move your army around but you should defend Sydney because it will be a Japanese target at some point.
China is straight forward, survive. I have gone offensive with China usually when Japan doesn’t care to bring an army into China. Keep the Tigers alive for as long as you can.
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The key with the Allies is (in rough order of play):
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Don’t needlessly lose London (easy to achieve with a standard buy). It’s okay to lose London, but the Axis player has to pay a steep price for it.
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Trade units in battles. That means that you should potentially scramble in 110/111 if the attacks are weak and if you can exchange close to 1 for 1 (anything that can hurt German air is extremely important). That also means you should do Taranto. If feasible have Russia counter-attack stacks / create situations where stacks will be traded.
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Look at the whole picture: Multi-national defense, reinforcing your carriers with other nations’ fighters (fighters are a very important unit for the Allies). Don’t overlook offensive opportunities with multiple nations. Create situations where Axis can crush a stack (a bait) but by doing so they can’t accomplish other objectives (this is powerful against Japan and sometimes Germany). Give your opponents too many targets to hit. If they hit a subset hard, you must be able to afford it. If they risk it and attack everything, chances are good that you will trade about evenly (trading units from minor nations evenly is even better) which is fantastic.
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Slow down Japan: There isn’t much in the game that can be done to hold Bryansk against the Germans (I don’t think an Atlantic push can do it). Then if Russia is strong enough, the Germans head south and can make 75 IPC at that point. If Japan is above 65 in the Pacific at the same time, this is big trouble. This means fighting Japan aggressively, blocking the DEI, killing ground troops and transports wherever possible. If India falls and the Axis player is competent/patient, it’s very hard for the Allies to win. Russia always ends up being cornered, China will fall and the Axis can link up in the middle East / Siberia. If India can hold, it reduces Japan’s potential and provides the British a much better chance to contest / hold the Middle East and keep some fight going in China. To slow down Japan, Russia / bids can have a role.
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Take chances: The allies will need to take offensively or offer defensively close battles. For as long as you trade units evenly and/or gain time in doing so, then your initial income advantage is more likely to hold and over time the TUV differential widens. In one game I recall giving a 85%-90% battle for Germany to take down my main Russian stack, making a stand in Bryansk. The average TUV swing was slightly against Russia. However, I had decent odds with the counter-attack (including from a Rostov stack that the opponent would forfeit attacking if going all in against Bryansk) and the German player was missing an opportunity to take out an American fleet. The least painful decision was to retreat but I knew I would get boxed into Moscow if I retreated (let’s put it this way, if I were the opponent I would rather see my opponent pull back so I’m not forced to risk this battle). Worst case (like 15% worst case), he would probably take Moscow next turn but still with heavy losses which wasn’t all that terrible (and remember that was a 15% worst case). Median scenario my counterattack would have a 50/50% shot against his ground stack, which was good enough given the positive TUV, the income the Germans were forfeiting and the reinforcements in Moscow. In the end, he did attack Bryansk (I didn’t think it was worth it and my defense did well (top 10% in my favor). He had to retreat and Bryansk held while the Western allies made strong gains everywhere else, including crushing Japan. Many would find the move reckless but it was a calculated risk considering the position of all allies as a whole, the benefit of trading units and implications on the larger board.
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If you want to understand how the allies win this game, check out this video: :-D
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One more thing, with these allied fleets in 91, 110 and so on, don’t be afraid to put them in range of the Luftwaffe, but make sure that the price / risk is heavy if they go after it. Most of the time, the Axis player will rightfully ignore them. If you invest in additional carriers / destroyers instead, you reduce the pipeline of fighters and bombers which are by far more flexible (or transport and men).
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UK- Taranto and buy 1 destroyer at Quebec and 2 mech and 1 tank in south Africa to knock Italy out of Africa.
Others have alluded to it, but this buy is crazy and invites a sea lion. You need some infantry and probably a plane for London.
Only exception would be a G1 Dow situation, but even that I’m convinced of.
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UK- Taranto and buy 1 destroyer at Quebec and 2 mech and 1 tank in south Africa to knock Italy out of Africa.
Others have alluded to it, but this buy is crazy and invites a sea lion. You need some infantry and probably a plane for London.
Only exception would be a G1 Dow situation, but even that I’m convinced of.
It depends on the G1 buy anyways. Navy, infantry, or transport buy is a huge hint of Sea Lion but some classic buy like artillery and infantry is usually a no Sea Lion buy.
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^ It matters not.
Without reinforcing London UK1, a 2inf 6art buy can be turned to Sea Lion easily.
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^ It matters not.
Without reinforcing London UK1, a 2inf 6art buy can be turned to Sea Lion easily.
I disagree, because lets say you toss your first buy away like putting a minor in Egypt. Germany ain’t going to try and invade UK with one transport so the next move would have to be transports and UK can then build infantry and that should be enough to stop Sea Lion.
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@Caesar:
^ It matters not.
Without reinforcing London UK1, a 2inf 6art buy can be turned to Sea Lion easily.
I disagree, because lets say you toss your first buy away like putting a minor in Egypt. Germany ain’t going to try and invade UK with one transport so the next move would have to be transports and UK can then build infantry and that should be enough to stop Sea Lion.
Successful strategic bombing run can make a difference here, or if UK fighters can’t get back to London on time.
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UK can only build 10 infantry UK2 which isn’t enough to defend against a 10 transport attack on G3.
Look at this game where a bid allowed a UK1 purchase of 3 fighters into London and Sea Lion was not stopped G3: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=41199.45
Now it could have gone down differently but no infantry is a bad idea. ABH showed me that in one of my first league games.
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Sometimes Germany takes London on G3 yet Allies are in a better position than they would be in a comparable Barbarossa game. Whether a G3 take was an overall success depends on how much material Germany lost.
Assuming UK is attacking 97 all in, it’s hard for UK to feel fully safe even after an all-ground G1 buy. Even if UK buys 9 inf, it could still be vulnerable if Germany buys 8-10 trn G2. 6 inf 1 fig is what I’ve traditionally gone with. But depending on G1 outcomes and moves, there could be a good case for 2 fig 2 inf. In some cases UK can even get away with 1 AB 4 inf, but that’s because Japan declared J1 and USA can help out.
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Sea Lion isn’t a serious contender to me anymore because Axis London also allows USSR to declare war right then and there and I believe US is also free to join and Germany isn’t going to hold London without reinforcing it which weakens the border against USSR so when it look at it like this, it might be favorable for UK to be ironically be captured in the long run.
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Sea lion has become situational. If I’m Germany and the UK didn’t build anything for London UK1 I would probably buy the 9-10 transports, and SBR London on G2. Even if I was thinking Barbarossa, and bought ground units for Berlin, I would still have to consider Sea lion. With that said, normally my G1 buy would include either 1 surface ship (maybe just a dd) and/or bmr to keep all options on the table. If the UK doesn’t do the responsible thing and add some defense to London, I think you have to make them pay. Especially in a face to face game with people you play with a lot. You can’t always cry wolf, sometimes you have to call your own bluff to keep them wondering for future games. Yea, Sea lion may or may not end in an Axis victory, but you can’t become predictable IMO. In order for a Sea lion faint to work, you have to follow through every now and again. Plus if Japan can also take India, then you have removed a major player from the table. Say the UK built an IC for Egypt UK1, take London on G3 and they can’t build in Africa (if just for a few turns).
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I feel like if Sea Lion is going to be done by Germany, you should also work with Japan by having them taking India.
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Just throwing my two cents into the ring on what I take to be the original post’s question on how each Allied power should approach the Global '40 game. The answers above have been great, but I like the question, and I wanted to participate!
USSR: You generally have enough spare resources for one projection of power away from Moscow. You can either build tanks to delay the German advance into eastern Europe, or invade Norway/Finland, or hold your ground in Siberia, or reinforce China, or send troops to the Middle East to pick up the Spread of Communism national objective. You probably can’t afford to do two of those things, and you definitely can’t afford to do three of them or build a carrier. About 90% of Russia’s resources should go toward building infantry to hold Moscow – not much more, and not much less.
USA: As other commenters have noted, you’ll need to focus on one side of the board or the other for the first few turns in order to have a meaningful impact. One option is to build just enough of an Atlantic fleet to liberate North Africa, and then put the rest of your cash into the Pacific. Another option is to build just enough of a Pacific fleet to protect a 2 infantry-per-turn delivery to Honolulu, and put the rest of your cash into the Atlantic. Submarines can be a useful part of an anti-Japanese strategy because Japan has so many convoy zones and can’t quite afford to build enough destroyers to protect them all, but you can’t rely entirely on submarines – you have to also build loaded transports and carrier groups in order to protect Sydney and Calcutta.
UK: You start the game with only 2 transports in the Suez / India region, and 5 worthy goals to accomplish: attack Tobruk, attack Ethiopia, activate Persia, reinforce Greece, and claim Java from the neutral Dutch. This is a tough choice, but my current opinion is that the 2 most urgent goals are activating Persia and claiming Java, because those are the goals that help the UK Pacific the most, and the UK Pacific is fragile – once Japan eats Malaya, the UK Pacific can easily go down to single-digit income, so having a factory in Persia cranking out mech. infantry to support Calcutta, or even just having the extra 4 income per turn to spend on infantry in Calcutta can definitely turn the tide. Tobruk, Ethiopia, and Greece can all be dealt with a little later in the game. Another point to keep in mind is that rebuilding the UK Atlantic fleet is optional, and that it’s an all-or-nothing kind of activity – if you sink 100% of your income in South Africa and the Middle East, that’s fine. If you build a carrier group and a couple of loaded transports and start seriously threatening France, Norway, and Western Germany, that’s fine. But if you build transports only to have them be sunk by the Luftwaffe, or if you build a small fleet that can’t force Germany to re-assign significant assets to the Western Front, then you’re wasting the cash that you would need in order to fully succeed in the Middle East without actually accomplishing any goals that are worth the trade-off.
France: Not that relevant in a typical game. Your destroyer near Madagascar should patrol the Indian Ocean in a Balanced Mod game to help UK-Pacific protect its national objective for not having any Axis subs in the Western Indian Ocean.
China: Accept that you’re going to be eliminated, and just try to cause as much trouble as possible for as long as possible while you bleed out. Sometimes the threat is mightier than the execution – if you attack a Japanese stack in Yunnan and win, but then you have no more infantry and Japan can ignore you for the rest of the game, it’s probably not worth it. Better to force Japan to commit aircraft to the Chinese front for 5+ turns, even if Japan is constantly advancing.
ANZAC: I recommend against building a factory in Queensland. It does very little to accelerate your naval deployments, because on the turn when you spend 12 IPCs to build a factory there, you could have instead built a cruiser in New South Wales, and that cruiser could have moved to Queensland on the turn that it otherwise would have been built at the Queensland factory. The factory buys you a bit of flexibility (you can choose your exact mix of ships on the turn you want them, instead of having to plan a turn ahead), but it doesn’t really help you deliver ships to the front line any faster. A Queensland factory lets you build more than 3 infantry per turn, so that you can defend against a serious Japanese invasion…but it also puts one of your factories that much closer to Japan’s fleet, gives you another space that you have to defend, and is unlikely to pay for itself in the time available. Let’s say you have 16 IPCs per turn, on average. If on turn 1 you build 1 infantry and 1 minor factory, then on turns 2, 3, and 4 you can build 5 infantry each, for a total of 16 defensive infantry (16 HP, 32 punch). Alternatively, on turns 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, you can build 2 infantry and a fighter, for a total of 10 infantry and 5 fighters (15 HP, 40 punch). The second option is more flexible, requires Japan to come further out of its way to come get you, and gives America more time to help defend you.
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What’s the response if Sea Lion succeeds and the German has tons of units left? The opponent strafed Scotland G2 and then invaded it G3. So on G4 he hit me with about 48 units plus 4 bombers and a fighter. I’d done 6 inf + 1 ftr UK1 but had lost all my fighters except that one in scrambling in sea zones (actually why his Luftwaffe was so small) and otherwise just 100% infantry. My dice didn’t seem to do well so he still has like 20+ units in London. My American bombers and fleet have about a 50/50 shot of taking out his transports.
Is this a sort of normal situation? I don’t know how this or Calcutta Crush can be stopped. I’m desperately hoping the US can stop Japan in Australia and that USSR can steamroll Europe but it’s not looking good.
Also what’s a good fleet build for US at 74 IPCs?
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Did you reinforce London UK2 and in this case UK3? 20 units in London is an awful lot. Unless USSR can push back to Germany significantly, it might be all over. USSR should have been building up offensive units such as artillery when the transports dropped G2.
I’d still take a 50/50 to sink his transports. Then you can indeed build up a US fleet which can liberate it.
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I moved the Quebec troops to London and the Ontario troops to Scotland. Otherwise I lost the starting fighters but added 6 inf + Fighter UK1, 10 infantry UK2, and 9 infantry UK3. He had 4 bombers, 9 tanks, 1 fighter, 10 arty, 5 mech, and 24 infantry with bombards from cruiser and BB (IIRC we were playing FtF and he didn’t have time to send me a Triple A save before he went on vacation). It’s probably more than 20 units actually since I barely made a dent in the infantry.
He also managed a Calcutta Crush in the Pacific. He figures it’ll take him 4 turns to get Sydney. I put out some blockers in the central Pacific to keep his fleet off of mine which just took the Carolines but he’s working on a way to sweep them aside so he can do an air raid to wipe my fleet and non-combat move his carriers so they can land. I still have a small group of ships in Pearl and 4 fighters on Gilbert Islands so he’s worried about counter attacks. But he has clear shot at controlling money islands and just that Carolines fleet between him and Sydney.
For my part I’ve got Africa and ME. French fleet survived along with a couple of UK ships in Med so I’m convoying Italy. I’ve landed a UK tank in Southern France and I have some US troops ready to land as well.
Russia I’d been pretty aggressive with since there was no doubt about Sea Lion. I actually built a couple of transports and tons of tanks, mech, and arty. I took Finland, Norway, and Denmark as well as Poland, Slovakia/Hungary, and Romania. He used Italian blockers to stop me from blitzing further. The Balkans have like 1 or 2 Italian tanks left, and Italy only has a small stack of infantry (like 6) left on Rome. He’s got pretty big stacks on Germany and Western Germany but that’s about it. So if I can manage to take out his transports I can pretty much save Europe but not likely to get London back anytime soon.
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