UK and techs

@Krieghund Understood. Great discussion, and thanks for the background information! I think it speaks to the greatness of the Global 1940 game that, ~10 years after publication, we can still have these types of philosophical debates about it.

Now, we can move on to addressing the flawed rules for AAA units… :grin:

@WILD:

@weddingsinger:

I usually play as Axis, but in the past the worst problem for me is if the U.S. can gather its starting assets together, maybe a US1 buy, too, all of Japan’s starting isn’t enough to fend it off, so you either have to abandon SZ6, or overspend to keep up, which leaves the money islands vulnerable.

Its why, as Japan, I now prefer J1 and taking out Hawaii and Philippines.  At most you lose a sub, putting the U.S. behind for a change while your other assets shield your transports from the weak Anzac fleet.

I agree, but as discussed I generally do a hit and run on the Hawaiian fleet, and end up at Wake with about 1/2 the IJN. I typically lose a sub and dd in the sz26 battle, and also my dd blocker left in sz26 in the US counter attack for a total of 3 ships (1ss, and 2 dds). I still think it is well worth doing though. Hitting both sz26, and sz35 will kill off 47 IPCs worth of US navy, plus the Phil ftr making it 57 IPCs in navy/air. That is more then the spending allowance of the US in the first turn (52 IPCs). These are units that would get away in a J2 or later attack in most cases. Then add the Brit BB and territorial gains and yea it is a pretty damn strong opening move.

Sucker punching the US in the face causes some issues for them, and they will be torn on what side to build on. If they go Pac they are way behind so can’t challenge the Japanese for several turns. They would need to spend most of their income in the Pac for 2-3 turns just to get to even par w/Japan (and the Germans will love it). Yea they can probably send the home fleet up to Hawaii on the first turn as long as the Anz backs them up, but they really can’t do anything once they get there. Maybe move to the safety of Queensland and wait for their supply chain to catch up. The Japanese can just hop scotch to Caroline’s then probably to Philippines where they set up a defensive posture (maybe merging some more of the Imperial navy/air force).

I don’t see the US sending the home fleet over to Europe (something they do on occasion), because then there is no chance in the Pac. So if they want to go Europe they pretty much have to start from scratch because they only have a cruiser and transport. So going Europe means the Japanese don’t have to worry for a long time.

Oh BTW if you really want to F with the US have the Germans hit the US 101 mini fleet G1 with a sub (when you know there will be a J1 attack). If you get lucky the cruiser may not even get to fire, and the transport sinks too.

Very nice idea, will try it out as Axis this year

We have also revised the event and espionage section from what is posted after we playtested a few times. There was some imbalance and it was revised to reflect that. The events and espionage sections could be omitted if only tech section was desired.

Regarding SZ 110, I got hosed one time on a UK scramble. Usually as Germany, I send 3 fighters, 3 Stukas, 1 bombers and sometimes 1 sub to SZ 110. Our UK player had gotten in the habit of not scrambling in order to save the RAF for future action.
Well, this one game I made the mistake of just assuming UK would not scramble. I sent 2 fighters, 2 Stukas and 1 bomber to SZ 110. The other fighter and Stuka I sent to kill the French fleet in SZ 93. Well, UK taught me a lesson. They scrambled and wiped out my planes. I didn’t even kill all the ships in the channel.
Never made that mistake again.

3-5 bombers flying to london can be the difference between sea lion success and sea lion fail. It changes the odds drastically. Because Germany has to roll 3 more hits to win… which means more 2s to roll for the defender which means more 4s to roll as the battle drags on.

So yes sometimes Japan postpones war because of bomber purchases by USA.

the idea is not to defend every landarea, only the vital ones (italy, germany), then have meches + tanks + planes in range so that you can counterattack anything else.

it is not trivial for US to land in north italy if you defend it with 3-5 units, and are able to counterattack with 15-20 german planes + 20+ german landunits.

german mechs in w germany are able to counterattack most terretories in europe, if the german planes try to stay in range, then it is difficult to land.

the only two terrs that are not “covered” by this strat is norway and s italy. in s italy you need how much you need anyways, and for norway, if your fleet is alive, you can have 5-8 inf in finland, keep your planes within range and then be able to attack with about 25-30 units (depending on how many planes you have).

It is expensive to defend against an enemy that can land everywhere, so rather, counterattack than defend, if you are able to kill one load of americans, then the transports need 3 turns before they are back and able to threathen again.

As the Germans another fun little trick is use the transports you start with to land in lenningrad and take it very easily on G2 and maybe even G1.

That answers my questions.
Thanks!