Just What Was Bunnies Thinking? Russian Roulette (Triple) Game Ccmmentary


  • J1 (Japan’s first turn): (actual move)

    Japan purchased 2 destroyers 2 transports.

    Sub/cruiser/fighter/bomber vs US Hawaiian fleet of sub, carrier, fighter.
    Battleship/carrier vs UK cruiser and transport at Borneo
    Fighter vs UK transport at New Guinea
    2 Manchuria infantry, 3 Kwangtung infantry, French Indochina fighter, Manchuria fighter, East Indies fighter, Tokyo fighter vs US 2 infantry and 1 fighter at China
    Battleship and carrier vs UK carrier at Kwangtung

    Instead of targeting the vulnerable UK bomber, Japan decided to whack out the Borneo/New Guinea threat, leaving 2 UK infantry stranded on New Guinea.  The additional fighters were used to increase the odds on the China battle, which would leave Japan with a powerful force to hit into Sinkiang (5 infantry 4 fighters is a LOT more deadly than 4 infantry 2 fighters that I proposed).  Otherwise, Japan had taken care of almost all the potential threats I mentioned earlier, although its defense for the sea zone east of Japan would be rather weak, depending only on 2 destroyers.  (As it turned out, Japan ended up placing its build WEST, not east of Japan.  After Russia took Manchuria leaving UK with a legal landing zone, it would have been 1 UK bomber vs 2 Japan destroyers with a prize of 2 Japanese transports as a bonus if the UK bomber survived.  This is a pretty poor odds battle, and is almost certainly what the Axis player planned when purchasing the 2 Japanese destroyers in the first place.

    Combat Results:

    Japan used 1 submarine 1 cruiser 1 fighter 1 bomber to hit the US fleet of sub/carrier/fighter at Hawaiian Islands.  At this point, I knew the Japan build, and was salivating over a chance at hitting the sea zone east of Japan with sub/fighter and following up with a UK bomber to annihilate 2 Japanese transports.  But I wouldn’t get to do that unless I submerged my US sub, so I submerged it.

    Unless Japan attacks with almost nothing, it’s usually best for US to submerge at Hawaii.  Sub/cruiser/fighter/bomber is probably enough to wipe out the US fleet if they stand and fight, while taking perhaps at most two to three casualties in return, given really great dice from US.  If Japan attacked with 1 sub and 1 fighter, I think I would perhaps stand and fight, though.

    Japan hit with the sub, killing the US carrier before it could fight back.  Japan got two more hits between the rest of its attack force.  The US fighter missed.  So this was lucky for Japan, but it was not particularly important.  If the Japanese sub and cruiser both die, that hardly inconveniences Japan’s progress in Asia, where the income is.  Even losing an air unit doesn’t slow Japan a lot.

    That is, Allies had fantastic luck at the important battles and Axis had lousy luck at the important battles so far.  Getting great luck at a relatively unimportant battle was not even close to decent compensation.  But it’s what we had to work with.

    Japan used 1 battleship 1 carrier to attack at Borneo, probably using the carrier as fodder in case of extreme UK luck.  Both carrier and battleship hit, and the UK cruiser gave up without doing anything in return.  (Even if it had hit, it wouldn’t have mattered in the slightest).

    Japan wiped out the UK transport at New Guinea automatically.

    Japan attacked China with 5 infantry 4 fighters against 2 infantry 1 fighter.  China got three hits on the first round, killing all defenders.  US missed everything.  China had a stack of 5 infantry on China, which usually ends up being a Serious Problem.  Going after the UK bomber as I proposed with 2 Jap fighters would probably have ended in Japan perhaps taking China with 1-2 infantry, not nearly as much of a problem for Russia to deal with.

    Japan sent a battleship and carrier to hit the UK carrier off Kwangtung too.  They got one hit on the first round, and the carrier sank without inflicting a hit.

    On noncombat, Japan moved a Tokyo tank and a Phillipines island infantry to Kwangtung.  The surviving fighter from the Hawaiian Islands battle landed on Wake (this is why you usually don’t pick up the Wake Islands infantry, so US doesn’t have an easy shot on a Japan fighter with its battleship/transport from Western US)

    At the end of the turn, after placement, Japan had 2 destroyers 2 transports west of Japan, 4 infantry 1 artillery 1 bomber 1 AA gun on Japan, China with 5 infantry, 2 infantry 4 fighters on French Indochina, infantry and tank at Kwangtung (threatening 2 infantry 1 tank and mass air to India next turn).  There were a sub and cruiser at Hawaii, a battleship, carrier, fighter, and transport off Kwangtung, a battleship and empty carrier off Borneo.  Manchuria was open, ready for Russia to walk into.

    With two destroyers built, Japan was ready to fend off Allied sub harassment, and with 5 ground on Tokyo and 1 on Phillipines, Japan was ready to use the Kwangtung transport to pick up a Phillipines Islands infantry and move to the sea zone east of Japan on J2 to take Buryatia, using the four ground on Tokyo and 2 transports east of Japan either to drop to Buryatia, Manchuria, Soviet Far East, Kwangtung, of French Indochina as appropriate.  That is, Japan was all set with a plan to fill up all its transports to capacity.

    Not what I would have done, but definitely not bad, and very possibly superior (except possibly the Russian walk in to Manchuria which I am unsure about).  Japan had a strong force in China ready to make a serious threat into Russia very quickly, and had shut down the New Guinea UK transport threat.  (If Japan had just parked at Borneo, UK could have still used the New Guinea transport to reinforce India or attack French Indochina; if Japan had killed the transport at New Guinea with a battleship, UK could have hit with sub/cruiser/bomber to try to kill some valuable Japanese ships).  Maybe if I were pursuing a similar strategy, I would have parked a battleship/carrier/1-2 fighters at New Guinea , but leaving the UK cruiser and transport alone would just have meant Japan would have to hunt them down later (or at least that Germany might have to deal with them, particularly with UK controlling the Suez canal.)

    Japan collected 31 IPCs, ending its turn.

    In our next exciting installment!  Bunnies thoughts as he plans the US/Russian turns!  More hare-brained exploits await!


  • US1:  A March Hare (a pun on the March Hare from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, as well as of a bunny marching to war, and tied in to the closing “hare-brained” reference from the last post.  Ain’t I cute.)

    The Story So Far:  Russia went Norway/West Russia/Ukraine and lucked out like mad.  Germany could have had a fairly vicious counter, but got lousy dice, and also failed Anglo-Egypt miserably due to more awful dice.  UK blew up the German battleship and transport.  Japan could have moved to grant Germany continued access to Africa IPCs but didn’t, instead choosing to make a powerful early push towards Moscow.

    As US, I had to plan ahead both for both US and Russia; as they go right after one another, so there’s nothing the Axis can do to stop a planned US and Russian move.  (As opposed to, say, Germany depending on Japanese moves, which could be disrupted by UK, or UK depending on Russia moves, which could be disrupted by Germany.

    Also, I had to make a few plans as far as what the likely German, UK, and Japanese moves would be.  I’d have to look at the board to see what US and Russia could do, what positions they could set up, the risks involved in doing so, and what immediate positions I could take advantage of with either US or Russia.  Then, I’d have to plan a long range strategy based on existing board position, and build appropriately.

    First, I looked at Japan.  Did the US want to go KJF (Kill Japan First)?  The key here was to look at Japanese battleships, carriers, fighters, and bombers, as well as other Japanese fleet.  Japan’s navy and air is what can push US off.  If Japan’s navy was or could be horribly weakened somehow, US could consider an attack on the Pacific.

    Looking at the situation, though, none of US, Russia, or UK could really do anything of importance.  There was 1 Japanese fighter on Wake that could potentially be destroyed, but at poor odds considering it was protected by an infantry.  The Japanese cruiser at Hawaiian Islands could be destroyed, but at a decent chance of losing the US sub in return, and thus the ability to harass Japan.

    So really, at best, Japan would have a force of 2 battleships 2 carriers, 2 destroyers, 1 sub, 6 fighters, and 1 bomber, without building a thing.  US had at the moment 1 battleship and 1 sub in the area, plus up to three fighters and a bomber.  Counting battleships as 2 hits, that would be a Japanese force of 16 hits against a US force of 7 hits.  I mean, seriously now.  At an income of 40 IPC (US starts with 42, but with Sinkiang and China lost pretty quickly, it hovers around 40), that would perhaps be enough for a carrier, 2 destroyers and another fighter, bringing the US to 11 hits.  Sadly Japan still would overwhelm the US 17 to 11.

    Building 7 subs with US would bring its hits up faster, to `4 hits against 17 hits, but most of Japan’s hits would be of higher quality (3s and 4s), plus it had destroyers to fend off subs, plus subs are lousy defenders that additionally can’t hit air.  If US grouped its subs together, a single Japanese destroyer with mass air could kill lots of them, trading a single Japanese destroyer for four or five US subs at a time.  If US spread its subs out, Japan could still snipe them out with destroyers, and US would not be able to concentrate its forces to threaten multiple sea zones.  (If you spread US subs out, then you could focus on surrounding a single sea zone, but then Japan could just run away from the attacked sea zone to a sea zone that most of the subs couldn’t hit.)

    Finally, building subs wouldn’t help protect US transports, and it’s taking Japan’s island income away, killing its navy, pushing it out of Asia, and restricting Japan to the island of Japan itself that really define a KJF.

    Given that Japan could build cheap subs to keep the US fleet away, while maintaining a flow of units into Asia, I decided not to go KJF.  Instead, I would try to push on Europe, along with UK and Russia.

    The first thing I looked for was a safe US landing zone at Archangel.  Bringing the US bomber to Archangel is usually very handy.  With that, I will take a break from comments from THIS game and introduce a Bunny Reference Guide!  (On hunting the Germans out of Africa, specifically trying to target the German battleship/transport early)

    Why depart from the game commentary, but mention this German battleship/transport hunt plan?  Because you will have to worry about the German battleship/transport in most games.  Usually, UK does not luck out like mad at Anglo-Egypt.

    (next up – Bunnies lays aside comments on actually planning the US1 turn for speculation on what US1 might have had to plan to do!)  Think of it as one of those episodes in which the protagonist visits alternate realities of What Might Have Been.)

    US1 (speculation on what MIGHT have happened, but totally did NOT happen this game)

    If you’re going KGF (Kill Germany First), you want to keep UK’s income high so it can build transports and escorts.  After that, you will still want UK’s income high so it can produce artillery and tanks to hit Germany with.  But more importantly, you want to restrict Germany’s income.  Every IPC Germany has is a bit more it can build infantry with, and Germany taking in income from Africa is extremely difficult to stop, with it pumping mad amounts of infantry from Berlin and Rome.

    So one of the high priority targets for early game is the German battleship and transport.

    How can you whack it, and how fast?

    R1 build of sub/fighter threatens Germans landing at Anglo-Egypt.  Doing so saps Russia of ground units, leaving it potentially vulnerable to a heavy tank build.  Caucasus must be held with Russian fighters on it to threaten sea zones up to Southern Europe, in case the German battleship stays south of Southern Europe/north of Libya.  Even if Russia attacks and destroys the German battleship, its ability to trade territory in Europe will suffer as Russia is potentially forced to commit valuable tanks to trade territory.

    UK1 can destroy the Germans landing at Anglo-Egypt with UK fighter from Indian Ocean and UK bomber from London, followed up by a Russian fighter from Caucasus (or as from Moscow if willing to land in TransJordan, probably only best if Russia sent infantry to Persia on R1 and/or has tanks on Caucasus, to prevent Germany from hitting that pile with mass air.  But the UK fighter/bomber attack could easily fail, leaving UK two valuable air units down with the German battleship left intact.  With the German battleship left intact, the Russians would almost certainly find a one or even two fighter attack on the German battleship/transport to be bad news.  Again, Russian fighters are valuable, but building more can leave Russia vulnerable to a heavy German tank build.

    UK2 can destroy the German battleship by using a slightly elaborate plan of flying 1-2 UK fighters to West Russia (depending on how its attack on the German destroyer goes), and bomber to points within Russia.  The Indian Ocean fighter can be used to help retake Anglo-Egypt, and land on the Indian Ocean carrier southeast of Africa, to the east of Kenya.  If the Germans drop to Anglo-Egypt/TransJordan on G2, UK2 can destroy the German battleship with 2-3 fighters and a bomber, a fairly safe battle that will probably only lose 1 UK fighter, 2 UK fighters at the worst.  But this is only if Germany drops to Anglo-Egypt/TransJordan on G2.  (Hobbes used this cuteness on me, after which I was ever wary for it.)

    US2 can destroy the German battleship by sending a US bomber to Archangel, and flying 2 fighters to a UK carrier northwest or southwest of London.  (one US fighter from Eastern US, one US fighter from Western US).  On UK2, the UK carrier can move to Algeria, leaving US fighters able to hit much of the Mediterranean, as well as the US bomber from Archangel, which can land in Caucasus.

    Between the UK2 and US2 plans, the German battleship can be destroyed before G3 rolls around unless Germany does something clever.  If the Germans hit Anglo-Egypt / Trans-Jordan on G2, 2-3 UK fighters and a bomber can hit, with UK fighters landing on the car rier.  If the Germans do not hit Anglo-Egypt/Trans-Jordan on G2 and stay at Southern Europe, US fighters and the US bomber can threaten 2 fighters 1 US bomber, with additional US fighters flying in on noncombat to the UK carrier if need be to protect the Allied fleet.

    Wouldn’t leaving the UK carrier northwest or southwest of London mean giving up a UK1 attack into Europe?  (Assuming the UK player doesn’t want to sacrifice transports, and wants to keep its fleet together).  The answer is no.  UK will probably not be able to attack or reinforce Europe anyways.

    Typically you’ll see Germany hitting the UK battleship with sub/fighter/bomber and destroying the UK cruiser at Gibraltar with air, leaving UK with no defensive fleet to work with.  The Russian sub may still be alive.  But with German subs from the Baltic coming west of France, Germany will usually have something like 1 fighter 1 bomber on Norway, 2 fighters on France, and 1 fighter on Libya (in Africa), plus of course the subs.

    If UK decides to invade Norway, the defense will at best be 1 sub 2 destroyers 1 carrier 2 fighters, for 6 hits.  Germany, though, will have 2 subs, 3 fighters, and 1 bomber to attack with, possibly even 2 subs 4 fighters 1 bomber.

    If Germany does decide to attack, Germany has a fair number of fodder subs that it can lose.  Germany will have an advantage in attack, with both superior numbers and higher dice on the attack, as well as sub strikes in case the UK destroyers are lost soon.  True, Germany may lose some very valuable air on the attack, and Germany doesn’t have much to gain with only a single UK transport at stake.  But if Germany gets lucky, it may destroy a few Allied air units, and destroy the destroyers and carrier before retreating.  UK would then have to build another destroyer (for air fodder against the still powerful German air) and carrier (to hold fighters), meaning more delay in building transports, taking pressure off Germany.

    Moving the UK fleet northwest or southwest of London, though, will leave the UK fleet out of range of either the German fighters on Norway or the German fighters on Western Europe.  This reduces the danger of the German attack on the fleet.  Even though UK may not be able to drop to Europe early, it preserves its power to potentially land much harder on UK2, especially since the German subs will have to run from the Atlantic or be destroyed by UK destroyers and air (after which UK can build new destroyers to protect its fleet, supposing a UK2 drop to Norway).

    In case Germany builds a few bombers and has good luck in the Atlantic and with its German air, UK may be better off building no navy at all, saving IPCs for a gigantic fleet drop on UK2.  This can be joined by the US1 fleet build for a formidable navy that can then move together to threaten targets.  Although the Allies are slower to get to Europe in that case, Germany can’t threaten a take and hold as easily against Russia (although the bombers allow Germany to trade territories very efficiently)

    Once the German battleship and transport are destroyed, the Allies will want to destroy the German forces in Africa.  After the Allies have landed at Algeria, US (better US than UK, as US needs lots of transports anyways; UK moving to Africa is seriously inconvenient as it removes UK transports from the picture that could otherwise be moving units every turn to Europe.  Each single UK transport can move two ground to Europe each turn.  Two US transports are needed for the same job, one moving two ground from Eastern Canada to London each turn, another moving two ground from London to Europe each turn.)

    But even for US, moving units to the south of Africa is very inconvenient.  Transports sent there are not able to threaten Western or Southern Europe, and take a full two turns to get to a position from which they can be used to transport units from Eastern Canada to Africa (or from London to Western Europe).  Still, if Germany is in Africa, and the Axis aren’t pressuring Russia enough to force the Allies to run to Europe early, it is best to try to restrict Axis income from Africa, particularly in a KGF (Kill Germany First) plan.  Every IPC the Germans have is more infantry they can build, which makes it much more difficult for the Allies to make real progress.

    How can Germany counter all this?

    Germany could capture Gibraltar on G1.  Or, Germany could build a carrier and possibly a transport in the Mediterranean.  There are disadvantages and advantages to both.  The advantages, of course, being that Germany keeps its battleship alive.  The disadvantage being giving up African income as Germany runs to Gibraltar and allowing the UK Anglo-Egypt units to live (very inconvenient), or buying an expensive carrier and possibly transport.

    Even with a Mediterranean carrier build on G1, Germany can only dump a maximum of four units to Africa a turn.  US can easily dump eight to ten units.  Meanwhile, Germany will have a harder time pressuring Europe, with so many IPCs spent on fleet instead of ground units.  The lack of pressure may allow the US to transport units to the south of Africa.

    But even then, with two German transports, Germany can control the Suez very quickly and easily, allowing a Japanese battleship and carrier to move through the Suez to further protect the German fleet.  In the event that Japan moves a lot of fleet into the Mediterranean, US could make a lot of trouble with a few subs built at Western US.  (A Japanese destroyer close to Western US, plus two fighters on a Japanese carrier threaten newly built US subs, but Japan may not be easily able to keep fighters on a carrier east of Japan when the battles in Asia move into the interior near Moscow.

    At the same time, though, a lot of Japanese fleet could severely disrupt Allied landings at Algeria, particularly with Japanese air in the area.  But the Allies could just switch to Europe drops instead.

    What’s the verdict?  I’d say a Mediterranean AC build is a defensive build for Germany aimed at maintaining African income, although it could be useful for trading Balkans and Caucasus later.  I haven’t analyzed it to the point that I consider it a bad risk (like I do a Russian Norway/West Russia/Ukraine attack in dice).

    So ends the speculation for what MIGHT have been.  Back to what Bunnies ACTUALLY thought, in our next exciting installment!


  • US1 (Back to What Bunnies Actually Thought, rather than What Bunnies Might Have Thought Had The Game Gone Rather Differently)

    How Does Bunnies Find The Time To Write All This?

    Ninety plus words a minute typing speed, and very little editing.  Were I to make this a professional presentation, it would probably be shorter and funnier, with an accompanying technical manual with extensive index.  That sort of editing would require going back and thinking about things, and being more thorough, and editing for clarity and conciseness.  Although I like to think I’m decent at organization, and decent at writing, somehow combining the two into one time-efficient package evades me.  So welcome to my stream of consciousness writing.  Bunnies P Wrath . . . stream of consciousness . . . hm . . .

    What about the time?  Got a laptop, and I ride instead of driving myself around.  So . . . bwa ha!

    When Our Hero had last left off, he was looking at the board and thinking about what US and Russia would do together, as well as the general shape the game would take.  Allies were going to try to KGF (Kill Germany First), Germany had lousy dice in the opening and the Allies were in position to severely limit Germany’s income in Africa.  The question was how to make it all work.

    Looking at the board –

    Fortifying Sinkiang in Asia probably wouldn’t work what with all the Japanese fighters around to lend those 5 infantry in China hitting power.  Even with a stack of Russian tanks it still wouldn’t look good.

    I wanted to fly a bomber to Archangel, because it’s useful to trade territory along with the 2 US infantry that would be retreating from Sinkiang.  If the Japs sent a lot of infantry to Sinkiang, 2 infantry 1 bomber couldn’t do much to stop it, but maybe the Russians could destroy the whole stack.  If the Japs just sent 1 infantry in, I could use 1 infantry 1 bomber for a high probability recapture of Sinkiang, gaining income and denying the Japanese the opportunity to use the Japanese infantry on Sinkiang to attack into Kazakh or Novosibirsk next turn.

    If Russia had not fortified Buryatia on its turn, Japan would have far less to worry about.  But also, Russia would have had 2 infantry on Novosibirsk and 3-4 on Yakut at the end of R1.  That would mean on R2 we might see as many as 5 Russian infantry there, ready to trade a stack of infantry with Japan.  This is why Russia may often choose to run from the Asian coast; the infantry that run are ready to fight against Japan in Sinkiang later, and besides, a stack of infantry on the Asian coast can’t do much on R2.  (As it was, I didn’t run; I stacked Buryatia.)

    I knew Russia would have to think about that fat stack of Japanese infantry pretty quick, and that Buryatia stack wasn’t going to be in a position to do much.  Furthermore, if I wanted to counter quickly, I’d have to think about it immediately.  Moving cheap infantry to Novosibirsk would have to be done immediately on R2, so if on J2 Japan moved in force to Sinkiang, I could counter with the cheap infantry, perhaps some tanks, and fighters.

    As it was, I decided to ignore Japan’s progress in Asia for the moment to focus on Germany.  So even before I made the purchases on the US turn, I knew that Russia was going to build mostly tanks to pressure Germany.

    That decided, was it feasible to land a US fighter on Archangel?  Leaving Karelia in German hands would mean that Germany could hit Archangel with air and tanks and perhaps a couple Karelia infantry.  But I figured I had 4 infantry on Moscow.  If things went very poorly at Karelia, I could move up 4 infantry and an AA gun and hope for the best, as Germany sent its expensive air and tanks to Archangel.  Doing that would risk Germany instead going for West Russia, and preventing Russian access to Belorussia IPCs on the next turn.  (Again, it’s only 2 IPCs there, but every little bit really makes a big difference.)  Still, I would be able to get a bomber to Europe, making the 2 US infantry a threat, that much sooner.  I decided to go ahead and fly a US bomber to Archangel, to try to hit Karelia, Belorussia, and Ukraine, and hope for a lot of luck.

    Japan did not have two fighters on a carrier at Hawaiian Islands.  So US could run its battleship and transport towards Panama without needing to join the US destroyer there.  I moved the US infantry from Western US to Panama on the US transport. (If Japan did have two fighters on a carrier, US might want to either risk the 2 Japanese fighters, or leave the US destroyer at Panama there to help protect the US battleship.  Japan might risk the fighters were the US battleship and transport left unprotected; that would be a lot less pressure for Germany to deal with, would strand 2 US infantry on Panama, and would also kill a US transport that US would have to buy.  (It isn’t an “extra” transport; I usually want around 8 transports with US very quickly, so it’s a transport that I didn’t want to have to buy).

    Why move infantry to Panama?  Because that frees them to move to Brazil on US2, via the sea zone northeast of Brazil.  Why move them to Brazil on US2?  Unless Germany had a couple bombers on Western Europe or a Mediterranean carrier, a US2 battleship north of Brazil would be pretty safe.  From there, it could drop units to the south of Africa on US3 without having to worry about any light Japanese or German threats, or it could move to Western Europe on US3 to threaten a bigger drop there.  In contrast, moving the battleship/transport to Eastern US at the end of US2 would only allow the US3 battleship/transport to hit Algeria.  Much slower and less efficient.

    With the US destroyer freed, I could send it to Eastern US immediately for a threatened US2 landing on Algeria.  The planned US fleet was 1 destroyer 1 cruiser 1 carrier 2 fighters.  This was very light, but again, I was playing extremely aggressively and taking a lot of chances, just because I felt like doing so.  Considering this might have to stand up to 2 subs 4 fighters 1 bomber, for 7 attack dice, and considering that were the German sub northeast of Canada to move to the sea zone west of Algeria and get a hit, I might be down to 1 destroyer 1 carrier 2 fighters; 4 defense dice against 7 attack dice!  Even with the addition of a Russian sub, the odds would still be wretched, with a stack of US transports as the prize.  UK was NOT in a position to reinforce US at the sea zone west of Algeria.  If Germany stacked Western Europe, US would be on its own.

    Could I prevent Germany from stacking Western Europe?  Typically Germany can be discouraged by a threatened UK landing to Germany.  But UK had only one transport.  Just a few infantry and a stack of fighters could have kept the US away.

    Still, I went with a minimal fleet.  With the German units in Africa probably dead very soon, a quick US landing was not, I thought, essential, especially since there was a good chanced that were Germany to move into Anglo-Egypt, I could use the UK Trans-Jordan infantry along with assorted UK air to try to whack them before they caused any damage.  Besides, I could probably in the worst case move the US fleet to the sea zone northeast of East Canada on US2.  The German subs probably wouldn’t be in range after having been chased away or destroyed by the Allied destroyers, and a lone German bomber on Western Europe wouldn’t be a problem.  (since Germany hadn’t built any bombers on G1, it wouldn’t be able to have any but its starting bomber on Western Europe on G2).

    The rest of the US income went towards transports and units to put on the transports.

    US built 1 carrier, 2 transports, 2 tanks, and 1 infantry.  Usually I build a lot of infantry and/or artillery, setting up a situation in which US has more than its transports can move around.  The extra ground units move to Eastern Canada, then the US transports start offloading from Eastern Canada to Algeria every turn, or moving from Eastern Canada to London, as the case may be.  But in this game, I was pushing the envelope.  I wanted a lot of tanks in case Japan decided to get cute in Africa, and tanks were something that I could use to aggressively push around Europe, and I was all about the rabid attacks this game.

    At the end of the turn after placement, my units looked like this:

    Infantry on Midway and Hawaiian Islands.  Too much bother to retrieve.  US sub at Hawaiian islands.  I “attacked the Japanese sub and cruiser there, but submerged immediately.  I could have destroyed some Japanese hardware, especially using the Hawaiian Islands fighter, but taking a hit would mean losing the US ability to harass Japanese shipping, or losing a valuable US fighter, and I wasn’t going to do either.  Nor was I going to move closer to Japan, considering its destroyers west of Japan; sneaking closer would just get the US sub blown up by Japanese destroyer, sub, and cruiser.  I used the US sub to exert pressure from the east, and the UK sub to exert pressure from the south.  Neither were anything to worry about, but they were inconveniences that would force Japan to stay aware.

    Just losing the US and UK subs quickly means Japan can send its fleet through the Suez Canal, from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean.  Lone Japanese transports can go to Caroline Islands and Solomon Islands to pick up infantry.  They could also start screwing around with Australia, New Guinea (which UK had captured), New Zealand, French Madagascar – basically, the Allied subs couldn’t kill anything if Japan stayed defensive, but doing so locked up Japan’s fleet.  Using a 6 IPC sub to affect the movement of a 20 IPC battleship is good news.  Making Japan want to build 8 IPC destroyers is good too.

    Infantry from Alaska and fighter from Hawaiian Islands in Western Canada.  An infantry in Alaska doesn’t do much; if Japan tries to land on Alaska, it will bring at least 2 ground units and kill a lone infantry anyways.  From Western Canada, though, it could move to Eastern Canada, which is where most US transports would be trying to pick up and drop off from.  The Hawaii fighter couldn’t get to any more useful places; from Western Canada, it could at least reach London next turn if need be, or various sea zones, including the sea zone west of Algeria.  Western USA had 1 AA gun on it (for no reason, usually I move the AA gun up towards Western Canada).

    Battleship, transport, and 2 infantry at Panama.

    2 US infantry at Kazakh.  1 US bomber at Archangel (unprotected at the moment).  The infantry wouldn’t survive if left at Sinkiang, and would inflict almost no casualties in return to the Japanese.  Kazakh is closer to Persia and Caucasus, where the US infantry might be of some use.  Novosibirsk is pretty useless.  Usually if Japan lands in east Asia, they have power to spare; a couple US infantry probably couldn’t do much of anything.  Japan usually can’t take Persia with a lot very early, and at Caucasus, US could watch for an opportunity to hit Germany.

    At Eastern US, 4 infantry, 2 artillery, 3 tanks, 1 AA gun, 4 transports, 1 cruiser, 1 destroyer, 1 carrier, 1 fighter.

    On UK carrier northeast of London, 1 US fighter.  Before the US fighter landed, Germany could try for a lucky shot on the UK fleet.  After the US fighter landed, Germany would need a LOT of luck to whack the UK fleet.  They probably wouldn’t even try.

    America collected 40 IPCs and ended its turn.

    In our next thrilling episode!  Bunnies charges in with Russia again and gets suspiciously lucky dice results again!  As ROUND TWO starts, Russian tanks ROAR INTO ACTION!  (rahhrr!)


  • I reckon I will let this go a while though eh.  Lotta reading.

    Maybe I’ll write a nice short focused series for beginning players.

    Someday . . .  :roll:

  • '12

    Impressive, in particular as it was done sans editing.  With your US builds you mention “US built 1 carrier, 2 transports, 2 tanks, and 1 infantry”, of course you meant artillery, gotta hate it even with 90 wpm your fingers lag your mind as you were thinking about what you usually build.

    It almost a pity that this scenario started out in a generally atypical state after R1.  If you were to do a tutorial then perhaps laying out a typical, perhaps a poor choice of words, an idealized game with more statistically average dice rolls.  Of course when the first dice are rolled all planning often goes out the window and one should never lock into a plan.  There would be a combinatorical explosion if too much attention was given to statistically less likely scenarios so what to do?

    I’m having troubles getting TripleAA to work so as to review spring 42 games there and worse, the older games played here are gone.  Our local group is having a tough time against the ‘Fortress Europe’ strategy Hobbes outlined here.

    I feel bad for my Allied opponent, last night in game 1 of 2, the typical R1 2 attack into Wru and Urk 2 tanks each, the russians cleared Ukr with only 1 Ftr remaining the rest of the rolls were slight axis favoured up until the end of G1.  Game 2, Ukr was hit with 3 tanks in the usual R1 2-attack mode, great, he won with 3 tanks, inf and art.  Then next was Wru….in with 9 of 11 possible units, captured with 1 of 9 attacking pieces left.  I open with a 5 Inf 5 Tank build for G1 usually and generally follow Fortress Europe and while I am not in the top 25% I don’t make too many mistakes playing the Axis.  But I also don’t play the allies that well nor do my friends we don’t know what to do to beat how we play the Axis.

    I need to get over the learning curve of TripleA I guess and see what occurs there, but then so would all my friends in our local group, not going to happen too easily I am afraid. It was hard enough to get them to start visiting here, imagine that!

    Perhaps an emulation of how the games play out here including maps but keeping ‘dice rolls’ outside the statically unlikely range.


  • @MrMalachiCrunch:

    Our local group is having a tough time against the ‘Fortress Europe’ strategy Hobbes outlined here.

    I’ve seen ways of countering it…

  • '12

    Well I have yet to see people talking about requiring a bid for the allies so there is obviously something we are missing.

    I seem to be missing some map files or something for the tripleA software.  The files you guys have provided I can load, but then…… I try play and get a screen full of errors:

    I can load the file “HobbesMay0611.tsvg”

    The UI for TripleA says Game name World War II v4, game version 2.6, filename HobbesMay0611.tsvg

    The play command button is not active but quit is.  So…I can press Start Local Game and I see a list of 5 players and all Human so…I can now press Play and a text window pops up displaying:

    "ava.lang.IllegalStateException: Could not find file for map:World War II v4
    at games.strategy.triplea.ResourceLoader.getPaths(ResourceLoader.java:67)
    at games.strategy.triplea.ResourceLoader.getMapresourceLoader(ResourceLoader.java:33)
    at games.strategy.triplea.ui.UIContext.internalSetMapDir(UIContext.java:189)
    at games.strategy.triplea.ui.UIContext.setDefaltMapDir(UIContext.java:162)

    blah blah blah

    So, I am missing a map somebody said…tried googling for maps and ugh… tried a few and gave up without success.

    So what am I doing wrong?


  • @MrMalachiCrunch:

    Well I have yet to see people talking about requiring a bid for the allies so there is obviously something we are missing.

    Well if you guys want some pointers I can give them but it should be more fun to discover them for yourselves :)

    I seem to be missing some map files or something for the tripleA software.  The files you guys have provided I can load, but then…… I try play and get a screen full of errors:

    I can load the file “HobbesMay0611.tsvg”

    The UI for TripleA says Game name World War II v4, game version 2.6, filename HobbesMay0611.tsvg

    The play command button is not active but quit is.  So…I can press Start Local Game and I see a list of 5 players and all Human so…I can now press Play and a text window pops up displaying:

    "ava.lang.IllegalStateException: Could not find file for map:World War II v4
    at games.strategy.triplea.ResourceLoader.getPaths(ResourceLoader.java:67)
    at games.strategy.triplea.ResourceLoader.getMapresourceLoader(ResourceLoader.java:33)
    at games.strategy.triplea.ui.UIContext.internalSetMapDir(UIContext.java:189)
    at games.strategy.triplea.ui.UIContext.setDefaltMapDir(UIContext.java:162)

    blah blah blah

    So, I am missing a map somebody said…tried googling for maps and ugh… tried a few and gave up without success.

    So what am I doing wrong?

    When you start TripleA one of the options on the menu is: ‘Download Maps’. Click on it and then copy/paste the following url on the window and click List Games:
    http://sites.google.com/site/tripleaerniebommel/home/mods/TripleA_Quality_Mods_EB.xml

    When the map list appears, you’ll want World War II v4

    PS - You’ll need version 1.2.5.5 to open the saved game. However that version has just been discontinued and replaced with 1.3.1.0 but you may still download it.

  • '12

    Thanks for the help Hobbes.  This is not moving along easily.  So, I loaded the file, selected the map as per instructions.  Had to restart TripleA as per its instructions, now when it loads but before I touch the user interface I get another text box listing a few pages of errors:

    "Could not parse:jar:file:/C:/Users/Randy-Tv/triplea/maps/World%20War%20II%20v4.zip!/games/WW2v4%20Six%20Army%20Free%20For%20All%20v2.xml
    games.strategy.engine.data.GameParseException: No setter for attachment option. Setter:isAirTransportable Class:games.strategy.triplea.attatchments.UnitAttachment
    at games.strategy.engine.data.GameParser.setValues(GameParser.java:1181)
    at games.strategy.engine.data.GameParser.parseAttachments(GameParser.java:1101)
    at games.strategy.engine.data.GameParser.parse(GameParser.java:125)
    at games.strategy.engine.framework.ui.NewGameChooserEntry.<init>(NewGameChooserEntry.java:27)
    at games.strategy.engine.framework.ui.NewGameChooserModel.createEntry(NewGameChooserModel.java:163)
    "

    I am running version 1.3.5, is that incompatible with:
    http://sites.google.com/site/tripleaerniebommel/home/mods/TripleA_Quality_Mods_EB.xml

    I see I need 1.2.5.5  to open saved games, but what about tripleA all by itself?

    We should probably fork this thread off……</init>


  • @MrMalachiCrunch:

    I am running version 1.3.5, is that incompatible with:
    http://sites.google.com/site/tripleaerniebommel/home/mods/TripleA_Quality_Mods_EB.xml

    I can’t find any version with that numbering. Can you confirm it?

    You actually should try to get 1.3.1.0 first. Their lobby isn’t working at the moment but the lobby for 1.2.5.5 has been closed today.

    You might be running a older game version that is conflicting with one of the new v4 scenarios for 1.3.1.0. Looks that way from the error message. Are you sure you were running 1.3.1.0 when you tried to load it?

  • '12

    I just recently installed the software, about 1 week ago. I start triplea via start menu and right away the error message list is displayed, the user interface shows Game Version 1.3.5.  I wonder if this is a newer version based on version numbers, perhaps a beta?

    Ah, the properties for triplea show it as 1_2_5_5, I wonder what the discrepancy is about?

    I see, the game version was for the version of the map the 1.2.5.5 software was running,  by default the triplea software is using World War II Revised version 1.3.5 game to run, I can select one of 5 games under Choose Games

    World War II v4 is not an option, unless I goto download maps, select that site you mentioned and press list games and re-Install World War II v4, it says I have version 2.7 installed and to replace it with the same, so I press Yes.  It starts to download and…its stuck downloading for the last 5 minutes…OK, successfully installed, restart tripleA before playing so…OK,  Quit, Restart and list of errors along with the tripleA software running with the same 5 default games available to play…Ugh

    I used to write software that ran/runs on fortune 500 computers, I’m not the same since an accident but I should be able to get this to run.


  • Game Version 1.3.5. refers to the version of the scenario currently loaded

  • '12

    Thanks for pointing that out to me :-)  So the newer version of the software works fine, didn’t have to download maps to get the V4 map but of course it won’t run those saved games.  The older version continues to have issues so I will uninstall it and reinstall it.

  • '12

    Well, I un-installed both versions of the software, deleted the folders, reinstalled 1.2.5.5 and it works fine.  I then followed the listed instructions, downloaded maps, used:
    http://sites.google.com/site/tripleaerniebommel/home/mods/TripleA_Quality_Mods_EB.xml

    Selected World War II v4, it downloaded, installed fine, instructed me to restart the software and I did, and now I get the same errors again since I downloaded that map.  I guess i will have to ask in the forum at http://triplea.sourceforge.net/mywiki.


  • @MrMalachiCrunch:

    Well, I un-installed both versions of the software, deleted the folders, reinstalled 1.2.5.5 and it works fine.  I then followed the listed instructions, downloaded maps, used:
    http://sites.google.com/site/tripleaerniebommel/home/mods/TripleA_Quality_Mods_EB.xml

    OK, I think I figured it out. You need to remove 1.2.5.5 and install TripleA game engine 1.3.1.0 - the World War II v4 scenario available for download has already been updated to version 2.7, which is not compatible with game engine version 1.2.5.5

  • '12

    Thanks for clearing that up Hobbes, greatly appreciated.  But a pity, so all the sample .tsvg files here can never be viewed by me as I can’t get 1.2.5.5 map files to work with them and those files cannot be read by 1.3.1.0  I guess there isn’t much call for conversion software to upgrade the .tsvg files to newer engines.

    So I guess I must wait for new games to be played on tripleA then view them?  I haven’t tried doing this yes but I understand this is possible?


  • I’ll save my next game, as soon as the server is back online. :)

    I can host a game if anyone is interested

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