First game of this ever and the CPs win


  • India can’t fall… you know the Brits have unlimited production there, right?


  • @Frontovik:

    India can’t fall… you know the Brits have unlimited production there, right?

    Using that logic, no capital can fall either, since they have unlimited production.

    With regards to the OP, I think tanks from the start made the difference.  My opinion thus far is if anyone attacks aggressively early in the game without tanks will end up losing the game.  This is why folks are having trouble winning with the CPs since most play them aggressive early.


  • @Fee:

    I attribute this to the fact that I always made sure to buy a mix of all the different unit types.  The Allies tended to have a lot more buys that were all infantry or just infantry and artillery.  I tended to have fewer units, but win more battles.  Incidentally, we forgot that we weren’t supposed to buy tanks until turn 4 - I wonder if that made a difference.

    This seems quite backwards to me; buying more expensive units, especially when you’re the attacker, can really bite you in the rear soon as although your units are higher quality you are losing more IPC worth of units over time, since the opponent is spending only 3 IPC to defend at 3.

    From your description, it seemed like the defending nations had a bunch of small stacks that your powerful units could trample. If they had focused more on massing as much as they could, I am guessing you would have run out of units fast.

    Did they opponent even try to contest air superiority?

  • Customizer

    Make sure that if Russia falls, the British are in a position to take it back; or at least fully engage the CPs in the east.

    You should have a transport fleet of 4, able to shuck units into Karelia at 8 a time, then ship 8 more into Picardy/Belgium alternately.

    You should also have a large army in Persia/Mesopotamia to drive north into Sevastopol.

    Don’t give up as the Allies! The Americans can turn the tide even when it looks like the enemy is too strong.


  • Skill level matters.

    When I play games against my friends or family I always win. Not because of rolls or because I’m really good. Just because I know more about strategy.

    Ex. I buy 11 infantry and 1 tank with 40 ipcs as russia to defend with a little bit of offense. Then my opponent is Germany and he has 40 ipcs and just buys 8 tanks.
    They then attack me and lose and blame the dice…

    This isn’t for any specific board however shows you how some people don’t realize infantry are the best defense and great cannon fodder. I try to teach my friends that if they bought more infantry to protect other expensive units they may win games.


  • @Fee:

    Incidentally, we forgot that we weren’t supposed to buy tanks until turn 4 - I wonder if that made a difference.

    Wow that is a massively huge mistake. Austria starts with an army that can overwhelm Italy. Without tanks however, an all-out attack on Rome from turn one fizzles out around turn 4-5 if you aren’t careful because Italy starts with enough units to hold out but doesn’t make enough to fight back Austria’s reinforcements. Turn one you could buy five tanks and wreck Italy’s world since they can only realistically produce 4-5 units a turn. Congratulations, your first round buy just negated the defensive purchasing power of Italy for every turn in the game.

    The same with the Ottoman empire. They may only start the game with 16 IPCs, but if you give them Bulgaria and Romania they hold a remarkable advantage over the UK early.

    The Ottoman empire starts the game with many more units than India, so Britain is well behind in units and has to catch up. The only problem with that is during rounds 1-4 the UK has to recover from having their navy being blown up so spending in India is very limited unless you want Germany to have an unchecked naval advantage.

    You could buy 2 tanks on round 1 as the Ottomans and another couple as backup on your second turn. Pull back from Mesopotamia and hold the line and go absolutely crazy all over Africa. Having that early of an advantage would  completely throw off the economy of the Allies as Africa is worth around 15-20 IPCs depending on which direction and how deep you get into it.

    The struggle between the UK and the Ottoman Empire is that the Ottomans start with more units in that part of the world and the UK cannot really start cranking out the India machine until around turn 4-5 because Germany is still eating up IPCs in Africa and the German navy is a legitimate threat. With a few tanks rolling over what handful of units you do have there really wouldn’t be enough IPCs to go around to defend against that sort of threat.


  • @vonLettowVorbeck1914:

    @Fee:

    I attribute this to the fact that I always made sure to buy a mix of all the different unit types.�  The Allies tended to have a lot more buys that were all infantry or just infantry and artillery.�  I tended to have fewer units, but win more battles.�  Incidentally, we forgot that we weren’t supposed to buy tanks until turn 4 - I wonder if that made a difference.

    This seems quite backwards to me; buying more expensive units, especially when you’re the attacker, can really bite you in the rear soon as although your units are higher quality you are losing more IPC worth of units over time, since the opponent is spending only 3 IPC to defend at 3.

    Actually, they tended to favor large stacks of infantry with maybe a plane or artillery.  I felt like the attacker needs to rely on more expensive units than the defender - the attacker relies on the special abilities of the more expensive units in a way the defender doesn’t.

    Wow that is a massively huge mistake. Austria starts with an army that can overwhelm Italy. Without tanks however, an all-out attack on Rome from turn one fizzles out around turn 4-5 if you aren’t careful because Italy starts with enough units to hold out but doesn’t make enough to fight back Austria’s reinforcements.

    …but that’s not what happened.  I actually bought relatively few tanks with Austria and used very few of them against Italy.  It was probably the Ottomans for whom it made a big difference against the UK - I wouldn’t have taken India otherwise.  I think Italy ended up losing because they spent a lot of time and resources trying to shore up Albania.  Of course, they could have purchased tanks too.

    Congratulations, your first round buy just negated the defensive purchasing power of Italy for every turn in the game.

    Wow that is a massively huge mistake

    Um, sorry?  Yes, we did  screw up one rule, but I didn’t realize that would make people who weren’t even playing the game this angry.


  • Not sure if he was angry, but to put it simply, your entire game is essentially invalid and of no use for making statements about the game because the cumulative effect of the early tanks was immense.


  • Yeah I wasn’t angry, but I wanted to stress that beginning with tanks is a pretty major game-changer.

    The argument that “UK could buy them” doesn’t really work, because if Germany is doing their job and putting pressure on the UK, most of the UK’s money is going toward boats, helping France, helping Russia, or a combination of all three. A UK2 all-naval buy is very common. I prefer 2 BB and then 2 Inf for India but a lot of people do 2BB/1SS or 2BB/1TT.

    For rounds 1-4, the UK needs to attain stability; they cannot focus on offense in the middle east. They have to secure sea dominance and gobble up African IPCs. At most you might see 2 or 3 units being put in India for defense unless the Ottomans ramp up the offensive. Since the UK will most likely only be defending Mesopotamia and holding the line around Trans-Jordan, tanks would be a very poor buy given their defense value.

    The turning point of the game is around rounds 5-6 when France is successfully holding the line against Germany due to massive IPC gains elsewhere and Russia has already fallen. The UK will have likely eliminated the Germans from Africa and is now up to 33-40 IPC/turn depending on how UK/France split up Africa. They are then free to start up the Indian war machine.

    If I could buy tanks as the Ottomans from turn 1 I would let the Turks take Bulgaria (of course!) and Romania/Serbia and just hit India hard. As Germany I would do Russia as normal and try to stalemate France while building up enough navy that the UK couldn’t possibly split their 30 IPCs between both parts of the world that early in the game. It would be too early for the US to really do anything to help and you could even send any excess Austrians down from Russia to help out.


  • @Frontovik:

    India can’t fall… you know the Brits have unlimited production there, right?

    You’re right.

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