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:
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
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.
@WILD:
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.
With big countries Like Germany and Japan it works great. They have a large starting force, and so can afford to wait, somewhat. See I already know that he’s not going to hit mainland UK, and that Russia is going to catch full hell. Since he dosnt have to worry about Russia until turn 4 any way, he can bide his time building up for the attak, and since he’s only fighting againts China as Japan, he can also afford to wait a few turns as well. When he dose buy though, its gunna be a huge lot of something, be it a whole new surface fleet, or an ungodly stakc of Tac bombers, and/or maybe several fancy new IC’s, but its near impossible to counter
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.
If he wants to trade expensive fighters for cheap infantry, then you should try to exploit this.
It sounds like a great Idea, but could you be more specific?
I mean the flaw seems obvious when I comes to a little country like Italy, but I dont think its that simple when is the bigger Axis nations
@Clyde85 said in Strange Italian Strategy:
With big countries Like Germany and Japan it works great. They have a large starting force, and so can afford to wait, somewhat.
I know it’s 9 years later, but… that simply isn’t true. Neither Germany or Japan affords to wait. I agree with what has been said that if they give up their precious initiative, they’re toast.
Waiting to DOW on Russia until G4 is like inviting a big, up-bolstered Russia to simply just scare the German invasion to a halt by the front. And Japan running out of ground units on the mainland or lacking transports to shuffle around troops among the islands is going nowhere as is their income.
@Clyde85 said in Strange Italian Strategy:
It sounds like a great Idea, but could you be more specific?
Assault with enough land units to be able to take them as losses and make sure the fight odds are sufficient for not risking your own airforce. Or if it’s a strict sea battle, bring in some soaking units like battleship and destroyers.
Fighters miss 1/3, so they’re hardly auto-hitting you. And they’re expensive losses.
Seems likely. But hey, who knows, maybe this’ll drag him back to the pits? 😉
WHO SUMMONS ME FROM MY SLUMBER!!! :laughing:
but seriously, who’s resurrecting long dead threads?
I don’t think I’ve played a proper game of this in… well about 9 years sadly, and it really is such a shame because it was one of my most favorite.
I do appreciate the response but do try to understand that I think the way the game was when it first came out was very different for it’s current incarnation. I’m pretty we were still playing OOB when this thread was made. I’ve never played second edition to be honest and I have heard that they’ve made some considerable changes to help balance, though I never had much issue playing OOB back in the day.
Thank you for the response all the same, and dragging me back to “the pit” :wink:
@Clyde85 hi,
Thank you for showing up and respond directly.
Would really be nice to see you more often here arround.
Best regards
AetV
@Clyde85 said in Strange Italian Strategy:
WHO SUMMONS ME FROM MY SLUMBER!!!
I’m impressed. Happy you showed up. Then I’ve done atleast something of positive significance around here. ;)
@Clyde85 said in Strange Italian Strategy:
but seriously, who’s resurrecting long dead threads?
Just some wanna-be-Jesus believing in resurrection.
Saving money can be wise but for Italy, I don’t buy it since Italy is forced into a reaction based plan rather than true offensive since you have to see what UK does to the Italian navy before anything comes into play.
Italy always ends up doing one of three things: 1. Get aggressive and go after Egypt. 2. Can open for Germany. 3. Play defense exclusively to buy time for Germany to get to Moscow.
Anything else I’ve seen usually ends up with Rome going to US.
