• I just witnessed something I’ve never seen before by the italian player.  On turn one, he decided to save all of his money!?  He attacked southern france with 2 inf, 2 art, 1 ftr from northern italy, invaded syria with the tank from northern italy and 1 inf from southern italy, activated bulgaria with 1 inf from albania. On the UK turn, they killed the italian SZ 95 fleet and activated Greece with one infantry from egypt.  So the italian player killed the transport in SZ 99 with a ftr from southern italy.  All ftr’s landed in Albania.  He said he saved his money to bolster his mediterranean fleet with his 27 IPC’s next.  I was very surprised because i’ve never seen a player skip the purchase units phase and wanted a more experienced player’s input.  Do you think this was a good idea and could it be used for other powers or is it a better idea to spend your money.


  • I’ve read on here so many times before, people stating that you have to spend every last IPC possible each turn.  I never understood why they would say that it is the only choice you should do.  I never questioned or responded back but I’ve always played that if it’s in a players best intrest to hold off spending til the next turn, I do.  Example; as a poor country like ANZAC I can hold my money til the next turn to purchase an airbase on one of my island before the Japanese come calling.  I’m not speaking as an expert, however, I’ve been playing since the beginning in the 80s’.  Got alot of years behind me.  And maybe this is not the best way but I’ve always done it and always will.


  • Well you have much more experience than me seeing that I started Nov last year (maybe 10 games total).  It does make sense I guess for a country that doesn’t make much money to save it for powerfull purchases.


  • I’ve seen players hold back a large portion of their income for the next turn (especially when buying fleet). In Italy’s case I could see saving the whole thing if you wanted to move the fleet away from their home base to get to Gib, or Egypt. If you drop just one unprotected ship off the boot, it could get picked off. Next turn you may be planning on returning to base, or can afford a carrier for existing planes (there is safety in numbers). Same would go for any power that is trying to reestablish fleet in a hostel situation.


  • I have seen players save money many times in Axis and Allies. It was always done to build a navy in a later turn.

    I have never seen people hold money for air or land units. Small navies can be destroyed easily while a larger one may survive.


  • I don’t remember I have ever seen a total saving of IPC’s. And I have been playing since the eighties. But I did see a lot of partial savings. In previous versions as the UK I often saved halve of my income to buy a large fleet the next round. I would only buy planes to land on the next AC I’d buy.

    In the new versions I do save quite some money as ANZAC (eg only buy one sub and save the rest), as Italy or UK. Never as Germany of Japan.

  • '10

    Saving money could be good or worse.

    Normaly we spend all our money in producion, only 1 - 2 IPCs remain.

    Problem is…

    Your opponent realizes your savings (for airbase, fleet, something like that) and prepares to hit you rigth there. He  realizes  the personal value of this production and hit you right there no matter if it’s a good srategy at the moment or not.


  • It depends upon what you are doing. Are you preparing for something? Are you trying to get somewhere fast?

    Obviously, the later you spend your IPCs, the more appropriate the build will be later down the track. Unless you specifically need to buy something on a turn to achieve a strategic goal, there is certainly no problem saving for a more appropriate and informed purchase.


  • The very fact that your opponents react on the fact that you are saving money is worth it. Everything that distracts them from their own plans is good. If Germany places all its airplanes at the coast and subs closeby to attack a fleet that you could build is good. Then the Russians have more chance of holding. Then you can always build your units at Canada or South Africa and no harm done. Or build a massive airforce and the turn after that only CA’s.


  • My best firend, who is really the only challange for me, always saves his first turn income. He can never think on what to buy next so he just skips it until he feels threatened or something horrible befalls one ofhis armies or fleets. We played AApac40 and he didnt buy anything with Japan for the first 3 turns!! Its made the us jumping in with the 50ipc boost far less impacting because Japan had damn near 90ipcs to spend.

    He is currently doing this in our global game. Right now, we are waiting to play turn 2, where Germany will have over 100ipcs to spend! Italy is at like 20 something and Japan is at 50+. I spend everything I have as soon as I get it, mainly because I play as the allies and have to react to the axis moves. I also have fairly well thought out stratgies for each nation. In the pacific theater of our Global game, I saved the UK Indian income for a turn, now I have 40ipcs to spend in turn 2 which is gunna be great, cause thats an AC for my fleet and about 4 tank,. So the idea has its merrits.

    However, I dont know if its the best idea for Italy, as they are the weaker of the axis, and need to reenforce themselves, pretty much everywhere. My friend did something similar with Italy as you describe, he also sent two Arty over to Gibraltar, which I had left unoccupied, and hit tunsia, and syria, and pushed into alexandria. Now hes spread himself out, and with no reenforcements comming for turn 2, all the Brits need to do is kick in the door, so to speak  :evil:


  • That’s the first thing that came up to me. Follow-ups. Germany needs a lot of inf and art at the Russian border. They are not getting there if you only build them on G3, or something. Then they will only be effective on G5, or something.

    Same for Japan. You just need trannies and cargo to land on the mainland.


  • Thats what I thought, but Japan in Pac40 is a special case, Japan has such a staggering abundance of planes that it really only needs the bare minimum of troops.

    The case here in global I think is gunna come back and bite him in the ass this time. He is very obviously going for a G4 attack on the soviets, so waiting until turn 3 to build the infantry wont really effect the game that much. Also he can completely rebuild a German surface fleet, which i sunk on UK1. He took all of metroplitan France on G1, and sunk a good portion of the UK fleet, so he didnt really need the reenforcments, there is nothing I can do to threaten him as Germany with the UK on my next turn.

    Italy, on the other hand, I can mess with. His fleet is spread out, he’s down one fighter, has a transport sat unprotected on the otherside of Gibraltar, has a tank  pretty much stranded and surrounded out in Syria, and he has split his forces in tobruk sending roughly half against Egypt and the other half against tunisa. I’ve got a strike force on the other side of Gib, I have enough offensive strenght to take down Ethopia after I redeployed my tank, fighter, and the inf and arty from Egypt to Sudan which he did nothing with, and im building a second strike force to hit Egypt on turn 3 from south africa. Now with his forces spread out and no reenforcments comming, Italy wont be able to recover for the turn 3 beating its going to take. Sure, he maybe able to rebuild the forces lost, including his fleet, but that will only save him for one round, cause once that money is gone, he’s back down to 10ipc


  • With the new suggested set up (7 planes less) you do need some more inf. And the times I relied upon mere airpower I was never able to kill of China effectively. At some point most of your airforce will fight off western powers and then the fact that you don’t have enough inf/art will give you headaches. Britain comes into China and China itself will come back from the initial poundings.


  • @Tavenier:

    With the new suggested set up (7 planes less) you do need some more inf. And the times I relied upon mere airpower I was never able to kill of China effectively. At some point most of your airforce will fight off western powers and then the fact that you don’t have enough inf/art will give you headaches. Britain comes into China and China itself will come back from the initial poundings.

    We dont bother with the alternate setup, and with the way we play, China takes a second priority over stomping the UK, and he can get plenty of support down there to do just that. Any losses in planes he takes, he can replace on turn 4 with his massive 90+ saved ipc, he can pick off the DEI at his leasiure and send all his fleets and airforces against the US, I called that game on turn 4


  • If I was Britain and Japan saved all its cash then I would seriously consider attacking Japan. That would depend mostly on where Japan moves its ships, of course.

    But without the new set up it is much easier to win as Japan, so I don’t know what I would do with the UK in that case.


  • I’ve done something similar in holding back my money to save for a future purchase.  I was Italy at the time but the reason why I saved my cash was that I was being strategically bombed and I needed to repair my factory.  Basically saved for one turn, then repaired my factory and purchased some units on that same turn.


  • Speed is essential both in real wars and in wargames.

    Speed, speed and more speed is vital if you want to grab the initiativ and win the game.

    Your friend do the opposite, he save money to build a fat sittin duck.

    To me that kind of strategy might seem derogatory…just a bit.


  • You’d think thats what would happen, but his philosophy is that units are for dying. It dosnt matter what it is, its sole purpose is to take something and die, all the units on the board are already dead as far as he is concerned, all you need to do is buy to replace what die with more stuff that dies. Its a very unnerving gaming experiance because he goes all out in all directions, doing things that most would think suicidal, but it throws a monkey wrench into any possible stratgey you could come up with. If his unist achieve what he needs them to do, great, if not, buy more and try again. He’s the type of player that will leave a stack of fighters to guard a tt form counter attack, because the defend on 4’s, and you will take heavy casualties if and when you attack. Its really annoying.


  • I play with a guy that takes a lot of risks. He will do battles as you have talked about, just to reduce both sides (send them to “The Box”). I like to have the odds on my side when I set up attacks, and try to minimize loses from counter attacks. As we all know that just isn’t possible all the time. The thing is that sometimes his quirky risky plays work well for him. He relies heavily on luck, and it is a dice game. I find myself not doing certain things because of the “well he might just try that”. It does make for an interesting game.


  • IPCs in the bank don’t win the game; units on the board do.  Every turn you wait to purchase a unit that you can afford is one less turn that unit will be on the board, one more turn it will take to get it where you want it to go, and one less turn it can spend taking territories to get you more IPCs.  It’s like the time value of money, a dollar today is worth more than the promise of a dollar tomorrow.  A piece of armor this turn is worth more than that same piece of armor next turn.

    Every time you save IPCs, you’re sacrificing valuable initiative.  More time in the bank means less time on the board.  If you’re going to sacrifice that initiative, I can only think of two good reasons to do so:

    1. You are saving up for something that costs more than the IPCs you have on hand, and whatever you intend to buy with those IPCs is worth the cost in initiative; or

    2. The value of keeping your opponent guessing what you’re going to buy is so great that it outweighs the sacrifice in initiative.  This is likely to work best if your industrial complexes are close to the front - the farther your industry is from the front, the worse this strategy becomes, since you’re essentially making getting your units into action take longer.

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