I do agree that beginners should stick to the London factory. It does require skill pulling off the india IC. But It just depends on how you and your allies play the game. If each of you are gonna do your own thing, the game will certainly be over quicker than usual. Thats the key…… Teamwork and persistance. Control the game by limiting the enemy of options. Do this and you’ll win no matter who you are.
What's a Canadian Shield??
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Oddly enough, this question is very relevant. I was talking with my dad about, you know, oil, and he mentioned a geographic formation called the Canadian Shield. I just Wiki’d it, and it’s for real. A big plateau (or shield I guess is the term) in central and eastern Canada.
So: Is this where the strategy got it’s name from? I always assumed that Canada came from the basing in WCan and ECan (obviously) and the Shield part was just some cool noun. Plus, it’s kinda like a big shield coming down from Canada and smushing WUS or EUS. That’s the most sense of I could make of it, so I’m wondering if this geographic formation is the true inspiration.
Anybody know? Any subbers wanna chime in?
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Wow. Yes, the Canadian Shield was a term I thought no one would pick up on. I have spent a lot of time on the Niagara Escarpment and I picked up the term in reading about the geology of the area. It’s also a sarcastic pun since the ‘Canadian Shield’ move involves blasting through Canada ;)
There’s also a bit of geology/geography in the appendix in the original paper (Paper #13) that discusses the Detroit River and the “straits”. Several of the core CSub guys are Detroiters, and we think of Canada as that land down south. Like Ohio.
(Check the map if you don’t get it)
Peace
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And they say you can’t learn something new everyday. ^_^
Anyway, I always thought it was because Germany shields Japan’s invasion. Didn’t know it had anything to do with Canadian oil!
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:-o
This is scary, I’ll have to try it soon. :roll: -
@Crazy:
:-o
This is scary, I’ll have to try it soon. :roll:Canadians are hot, eh.
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Although this strategy is interesting and obviously game changing if successful, there are so many things that can go wrong with it as I discovered just the other night. I used this strategy in a game against two other decent, but not superhuman players, and it was thwarted.
For one, as soon as you buy three transports in the Baltic, the Allies instantly realize and understand the German player has now committed to an amphibious operation against the Western powers somewhere. The Allies’ first assumption is that you are going after Britain, as America still appears too far away. If you spook the British enough, they will attack with their air force which, depending on how the dice rolls go, will hurt your assault on America a little or a lot but, either way, your invasion force will be reduced. If they keep their air force and buy defensive land forces or naval forces, when you move your fleet to SZ 7 in RD 2, it is wide open for assault by all British naval and air forces and in the case of my game, a follow up attack by American naval and air power which by this time is positioned in UK or Algeria or both.
This problem can be solved a couple of ways I suppose. The first, moving the Med BB along with the transport (which is part of the overall strategy) to link up with your fleet in SZ 7 increases your odds of success. However, if your dice rolls go bad and you aren’t able to destroy an Allied navy position outside of Algeria that fleet is blocked and you are beat. A more logical conclusion, which was not written in the original strategy, is to forego the 2 inf and 2 arm purchase Rd 1 in favor of a carrier. That way, in the best of cases, you have 5 trns, 2 subs, 1 BB, 1 AC, and 2 ftrs positioned in SZ 7 and the chances that the Allies will attack you continue to go down.
There is, of course, the constant possibility the Allies will, by pure chance or plan, block your assault by placing naval units in both SZ 8 and SZ 12 which is not entirely insane. As someone else said, this strategy is one you only use once and only if you’re willing to get gray hair by constantly praying the Allies won’t attack you or place ships in places that are bad for you. If the strategy fails, the game is basically over because it will take Germany so long to bounce back against the Russians.
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Sometimes just the threat is enough…
If the Allied player screws up their T1 and T2 moves enough so that the Germans can unite their fleet without Russia making massive gains in Central Europe, just the THREAT of landings in UK, ECan and EUS can be enough to tilt the game in the Axis favor…
Nice thing about united bulked up German naval forces in SZ12… they can hammer Caucuses in 2 turns, or block the Brits at SZ6 in 1 turn… IF they don’t get the freebie landings in the Americas…
Again note that I prefaced this with IF the Allies screw up their T1 and T2 turn moves enough (as my opponent seems to have done in my final DAAK Tournament qualifier)
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Really the key aspect to this move is that you don’t have to land the sucker punch to make the move have a good effect.
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If you buy the transports and the Allies thwart you, you then have your suicide fleet ready to take down the Allies for a couple rounds.
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If you stage with Japan, you can mess up the US transport plans for a round.
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The move is primarily designed for FTF games that will only last 7 rounds at the most. In a domination game, the move is likely not as effective unless you do land the full punch. But in a FTF game if you take out 1/5th-1/7th of the Allies actions, the effect is devastating.
In the cases of partial Shields, you don’t have to pull the trigger on the main move to get value from the setup. You are leveraging your potential move into a counter on the part of your adversary. That option costs you little-to-nothing if you buy 2tra with Germany in any case or shuck units to BUR with Japan.
One other thing to keep in mind is that the concept was generated from FTF tournament venues where initially EVERY player except the CSub guys were playing KJF. That meant an underpowered UK and a West-shifted US focus with an emphasis on ships, not ground. If the US moved to the Solomons early or staged off of Mexico due to a threatening Japan, the move is devastating. And it did knock out a former Origins champion in one game and two Masters winners in another game.
After a few papers and tournaments, KJF has diminished dramatically. Partly due to Landbridge, Canadian Shield, and debates about the IIC (India IC).
Peace
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Mazer Rackham
Is all that based on classic or revised?
LT
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Revised.
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@Mazer:
One other thing to keep in mind is that the concept was generated from FTF tournament venues where initially EVERY player except the CSub guys were playing KJF.
KJF was big in FTF tournaments? You gotta be joshing me. Was it ever big in online play or tourneys? I’ve only played maybe 30 games of AAR (and most of those recently on TripleA) and I’ve only ever seen KJF once or twice. And that one time it was the US buying all air or something – so that was more of a KAF.
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@Mazer:
One other thing to keep in mind is that the concept was generated from FTF tournament venues where initially EVERY player except the CSub guys were playing KJF.
KJF was big in FTF tournaments? You gotta be joshing me. Was it ever big in online play or tourneys? I’ve only played maybe 30 games of AAR (and most of those recently on TripleA) and I’ve only ever seen KJF once or twice. And that one time it was the US buying all air or something – so that was more of a KAF.
The GenCon and World Boardgaming Championship tournaments both feature altered victory conditions if I remember right. Again - if I remember right, which I may not, I think they’re both different. Anyways, I think both had incentives for Pacific play, like additional victory cities, plus you had to consider the time before the game ended. It takes a while to get an Atlantic chain going, and Pacific progress is faster.
Anyways - you get a lotta different levels and kinds of competition with different playgroups.
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KJF was big in FTF tournaments?
It’s interesting how a few subtle differences in the rules can have a major impact on strategy. GenCon/Origins used the original VCs with an IPC bonus for owning them at the end of the game, and for a couple of years KJF was the ONLY way the game was played. It took a while before that was broken.
I still maintain that the biggest problem with FTF tournaments is the lack of either a “shot clock” or a set round count (each game WILL be 5rnds, or 8rnds, etc.). There is a world of difference between an 8rnd game and a 5rnd game in terms of bid and strategy. The shift can even be as major as going from KGF to KJF.
Peace
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Canada Shield
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Shortly after Captain America wasn’t there a Captain Canook that faught the Russians during the cold war?
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Yeah, but I heard he mostly drank alot of beer watched hockey and said stuff like “what’s up eh?” So he got fired.
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KJF is still my favorite method in AAR. Almost no one remembers how to thwart it, and even if they do, they almost have to get perfect dice to succeed. (By perfect I mean they win with the forces they expected to win with, not that they get all hits and the defender all misses.)
Naval battles, if not properly set up (and no sim I have used has been accurate in how they will turn out even Frood) can turn a game in the pacific dramatically. I think the problem with the sims is taking into account submarines and altered orders of loss, etc. Anyway, Japan really cannot afford a battle against the English navy, the American navy and marines and a few Russians at the same time. The trick is not letting Germany go insane and get into the 50 IPC range - something England and Russia can easily handle with conservative moves and normal dice results.
Back on topic, however, I like to set up the Canadian Shield because it does NOT negatively impact my original goals of Kill Russia First AND it puts the Allies in the position of trying to defend both North America and England. That’s the big thing. Your German Navy, Airforce and Armies are in position to invade England just as they are E. Canada! Likewise, the Japanese transports can easily land troops in Buryatia and send the 5th one out to collect from islands without any negative impact on your plans.
And to me, that’s always the best strategy. You force your allies to react to you while not being committed to any specific attack.
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So we know that Canadian Shield is an Axis strategy to take the US.
The term Sea Lion has been adopted as the term to use when the Axis (Germany) plans to take the UK.
Is there a term for the traditional Axis strategy of going for Russia?
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@LT04:
So we know that Canadian Shield is an Axis strategy to take the US.
Having read the Canadian Shield Caspian Sub paper, I would say that Canadian Shield is NOT just an Axis strategy to take the US.
The term Sea Lion has been adopted as the term to use when the Axis (Germany) plans to take the UK.
Is there a term for the traditional Axis strategy of going for Russia?
Not really. There’s “Tank Dash”, there’s “Infantry Push”, but generally a strategy of going for Russia is so common, it doesn’t have its own name.
You can make up your own name. Like “Adolf and Tojo visit Eastern Europe”
bom chick a wow wow
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Lets go with Axis Vodka run. :mrgreen:
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