Battleship wound allocation

@all-encompassing-goose said in Ways to make the game better?:

@cernel I do have a bad track record for accidentally making posts in the wrong topic but I got Spring 1942 from Ebay. Unless the seller makes a mistake and gives me the 2nd edition, I know I’m receiving Spring 1942. Also, you cannot get 2nd edition anywhere in new condition for less than $60 which I state in the post I ordered SE for $30 (with all the shipping added)

Definitely worth the money (assuming it’s like new), but your decision to pick the 1st edition does not make a whole lot of sense to me. If you wanted a game that could take less than the 1940 games and still have the Axis&Allies experience, I would think the 2nd edition of 1942 is the most obvious choice (unless you are still playing the first edition of the 1940 games).

This said, one thing that Spring 1942 has going for itself is balance: the game is fairly balanced (being only very slightly unbalanced in favour of the Axis) and can be reasonably played with no bid (and no optional rules picking) at any skill levels, which is rare or even unique for any Axis&Allies world games.

My suggestion, however, is to alter the starting set-up by relocating the American destroyer into the sea zone next to the Eastern United States territory: it near-to-perfectly balances the game (by giving a very small advantage to the Allies) and avoid the very dicey attack by the German sub in than zone on round 1 (being either a +26 or a -6 swing value for the Axis).

@krieghund Thanks krieghund…

@Du-Bist-Toten said in General Questions:

FURTHERMORE, the rules introduce another VERY interesting concept. They actually say that a sub can be held hostage in a zone, unable to go anywhere unless 1) the enemy destroyer above it leaves or 2) the sub fights its way out. In other words, a sub, when under an enemy destroyer, must either fight or “be frozen”. So it’s kinda trapped! Just move your destroyer to the same zone as a sub and then choose not to fight it; then the sub will be frozen until you move! The sub won’t attack you on the sub’s “turn” (even though the option is there) if the firepower of your fleet above it is too powerful! This “freezing of the sub” occurs because the rules say “If a submarine enters a sea zone containing an enemy destroyer, it MUST end its movement there.”

I’m afraid you’ve got this wrong. The rule you quoted means that a sub must stop if it encounters an enemy destroyer after it starts moving. If it begins its movement in such a zone, it may leave, as it did not enter the zone during its movement. Moving into a zone with an enemy destroyer merely stops a sub’s current movement - it does not pin the sub indefinitely.

So my question here is as follows: If a sub decides to fight it’s way out, and after one round of combat an enemy destroyer is still above it, can the sub just “chill out” and “just be frozen under the water” again AFTER the enemy retaliates for that round? OR does the sub have to fight to the death?

In this situation, if a sub were to attack rather than move away, it would have to fight to the death, as it could not submerge and would have no legal way to retreat. However, as I mentioned above, it may leave the zone, so it could move to an adjacent friendly zone and come back in combat movement before attacking, thus establishing a retreat route.

BUT, if NO DESTROYER is present, can the sub attack the fleet above for just one round, and then move two spaces away during non-combat movement IF the counter fire didn’t kill the sub? If a destroyer IS present above and the sub DOES kill it, can the sub move two spaces away during non-combat movement?

Neither of these is legal. Any land or sea unit that either made a combat movement or participated in combat may not move in noncombat movement.

I hope this helps.

If Russia is aggressive in its first move, all things considered, it’s game over for the Axis. It’s why I favor a house rule that forces the USA to spend a certain amount of money in the Pacific Theater-and units purchased can only be used in that theater of operations…

@cernel said in Playing in 2017 still, General Strategy/Discussion:

That submarine is making a battle with an average +10 value swing there (140% the value of the attacking force!), which is more than sending it to kill the lone British transport

Actually, sending the German submarine which is in the North Atlantic to kill the transport next to Eastern Canada (average +7) instead of taking the shot against the 1 cruiser and 2 transports next to Eastern United States (average +10) is some less than a -3 difference since, if using it to kill the British transport, then nothing can kill the submarine on the same round, whereas the 50% chance of the submarine surviving next to Eastern United States implies the ability for the Americans to make a battle with 1 destroyer, 1 fighter and 1 bomber (or even more units) against 1 submarine, which is an about +4.4 value swing, to be reduced to +2.2 on the account that the submarine will be there only 50% of the times. So that covers at least most (2.2/3) of the difference between the two options the submarine has if you actually think that having that submarine alive next to Eastern Canada at the start of the second German turn is actually worth its value or more. Opinions?

In any case, the battle next to Eastern United States is certainly a good option which your opponent may take and, in this case, it will be a 50/50 on either:

Germany having 1 less submarine for nothing. America having 1 less cruiser, 2 less transports and having to invest units to kill 1 German submarine, with slightly more than a 1/6 chance also to lose 1 destroyer in the process.

It’s quite worth it. My favorite version of the game.

I don’t really try to keep up with the US’s navy, I usually have the two AC’s and two BS’s that  Istart with post in the pacific, ready to pick off any new additional US naval units.  If they start building a fleet, I buy more fighter and bombers to hit them at range.

In short I use the Japanese to clear Asia and assist in Germany’s destruction of the Soviet Union.

A huge navy is great if you plan a landing, however there have been numerious games where I have an enormous navy and still to manage to lose massive numbers of land squares.

Occupy his time in the Atlantic, force the US to aid the UK.

Well both games were played with a time limit of 5 minutes per turn, with 2 minutes for movement. I had never played Axis and Allies with an automatic limit, and I was also playing with a different interface than I’m used to. So I made a lot of ignorant mistakes.

On the first game I simply got diced playing with Russia. Germany went for a round 1 8 armor buy and stacked Karelia. Then it moved the stack to Archangel. I lost the attack on Archangel despite having 70% odds…

The second one was simply crazy. Made a lot of mistakes with Japan on round 1 and half my fleet was at the bottom of the ocean by J2 while the US were going full Pacific. Meanwhile Russia sunk the German Med fleet (missed the 3rd fighter buy) and stacked Ukraine on R2 due to some other German messed up G1.
Well, what happened afterwards was that Japan immediately switched production to only infantry, fighters and bombers and started sending it all towards Russia until the US eventually caught up with the remaining Japanese fleet off Africa and sunk it. But meanwhile Japan was able to send 1 big infantry stack through Yakut while taking India and overrunning most of Africa. And the airforce started landing on Karelia to protect the German stack that moved there that was preventing the UK from landing and joining a very big Russian stack on West Russia.
Since the UK was blocked from major landings on Europe (Germany, W. Europe and Karelia were all defended) it bought 1 IC for South Africa, and later 1 IC for India, after the Americans liberated it. And that also build 2 ICs on Phillipines and Borneo. The UK meanwhile had also gotten East Indies.
Meanwhile, the UK started worrying about the 8 fighters, 3 bombers and 1 Japanese sub within range of its fleet, so it decided to pull back from SZ5 to SZ6 and add a 2nd carrier and destroyer, giving it a total of 3 carriers, 1 battleship, 4 destroyers, 1 sub and 6 fighters. Enough to stop the Japanese. Alas, not enough to stop a kamikaze Japanese attack followed by Germany’s 5 fighters, 2 bombers and 1 sub. Just that battle was worth losing the game.
Germany then managed to build up 20 inf and 30 arm and send them to West Russia, forcing the Russians to pull back from Caucasus, which felt on the next turn. The UK and the US meanwhile had ICs all over Asia to try to help the Russians. Japan was fortified against the US but out of the game. But after conquering Caucasus I was thinking of sending that army to liberate Asia (all the ICs… yummy). However, Allies managed to liberate Karelia and take Rome. Game over, they got the 9 victory cities.