All the Russian openings: For Begginers

Ps. Couple thoughts on the Polar Express concept as an endgame play rather than an opener…

A version of this strat can be made to work in the final rounds, provided that Japan is no longer needed at the center, and has sufficiently outpaced the Americans on income. It’s also helpful if the Allied player is a good sport, or just wants to play out a few more rounds before calling it a night.  :-D

An example might be, if Germany is poised to take Moscow alone, such that Japan has a free hand to redirect early against North America, instead of Africa. Or if it seems like the Allies might be able to trade Moscow for Berlin in the same round, and Japan wants to keep going.

It requires that you have a large number ground units at the ready preferably in Yakut and Munchuria. The basic idea is to spam transports at the last minute before the planned invasion. So say you have 5 or 6 transports with 12 or more units ready to transport out of sz 60 to Alaska, and several more ground units in Yakut or Manchuria, that can move to Bury at the same time so that they can be shucked the following round. Then you spam 5 more transports to set up the double shuck, from Japan and Manchuria to Buryatia with one transport group, and from Buryatia  to Alaska with the other transport group.

To pull this off, you have to be able to match US production a full round ahead of their ability to equal your forces from their production centers, and this with already existing Japanese units, which is why you need the Yakut stack at the ready. If you can rapidly amass a large stack of ground in Alaska by using existing Japanese units, it may be possible to walk them to Western Canada without fear of a crushing counter attack from the US, and then you can use your transports to threaten W. US on amphibious, while you attempt to can open Central or Eastern Canada with German bombers for a blitz on DC. Although not a particularly likely deep endgame, it can sometimes be a more direct route to the ultimate Axis smackdown, than taking London.

Again, I don’t think its something that you can really plan for from the outset, but more of a redirect at the last possible second, where you make as if to threaten Moscow from Yakut, but then rapidly double back for the Alaskan crossing. It’s also pretty simple for the US to cover against this play, if they see it coming, so you really have to catch them with their guard down.

I think there are only two times I’ve seen it work. Once was in a KGF game, where the Russian player made a strategic withdrawal from Moscow in an attempt to triple team G. And another game where Germany got lucky on their tank drive and smoked Moscow earlier than anyone expected. In both instances the Allies were playing a masochist’s game, fighting on rather than conceding haha

1. im sorta ok with transports not defending themselves. Gone are the days of stacks of transports defeating battleships and destroyers. Transports do have light armament, but not enough to sink a battleship. I do have a house rule that you can only destroy the amount of transports as the number of attacking units, to avoid the unrealistic destroying of infinite trasnports.

2. The reason for this is to prevent germany from collapsing too quickly. Think about it, at most germany is going to have to survive a 123 punch by the allies. Of course, thats in theory, as allied help only really takes place turn 4. If you can keep russia alive until then, the allies have a good chane of winning.

3. And thats exactly the reason it was reduced to 3. 6 tanks a turn? theres no chane for germany to win under those circumstances.

4. I partially agree. It takes too much pressure of of germany to go KJF, and its pretty much up to russia to hold out bar a little fighter support and withstand the onslaught of germany. So basically its easier for russia to fall, but if it can hold, or they can take tokyo fast enough, the allies can win (Russia seams like the only country that has to hold in this game  :|)

5. its not that UK is poor, it actually has a pretty average income. Its just they have a million things to do like take the money islands, make sure germany doesnt get africa, help russia, prop up india, etc. They can drop a navy, you just can’t let africa go until something like G3.

I was looking at 1914 and it is certainly different as a departure (though on a good note) of the old A&A formula. The only prob i have is austria hungary being absurdley more powerful than russia. But other than that, i seem to like it (1942.2 is better simply due to the fact that the map is big enough, and russia actually has units.)

Sincerely, Hitler

Yeah its a good point. The only advantage for a Trans play is if you want to give Germany a headache with the destroyer in 17 (they can still send the bomber after it, regardless), or if you want to move ships into the Med immediately. Otherwise you can nix the battleship with air. There aren’t any places other than 14 to park the German battleship and have it be safe. Even then if UK buys a bomber in the first round and holds Egypt to land, they can cover every zone in the Med. Unless G wants to build ships. I think sz16 open or closed might weigh on my decision.

I haven’t played Germany much but it seems to me buying a Aircraft Carrier at the 1st turn is also a good idea.  This way I can land my fighters there and generate a threat to British or Africa (depending on where you place)

@empulliam:

New on the forum, just curious as to what you all think about an opening move I use with UK pretty often. On the first turn, build a factory in India. I consider the UK pacific fleet pretty much useless against Japan, I say let US deal with it since they have the money, so i abandon it in favor of a land based strategy. I’ve seen people try building a factory in India where they move the one inf over from persia and pull the plane in from the carrier and try and defend it. The problem with that strategy is that if Japan wants India bad enough on the first turn, the math says they can take it. (They will lose some fighters, but having a factory on the mainland seems like a worthwhile trade). Here are my moves (only on the Pacific side) for turn one.

1. send the carrier in India to get the unprotected transport by Kwangtung.
2. Send the Australian sub to get the Japanese sub
3. Put 2 inf from Australia onto a transport and attack New Guinea (Not a huge part of the plan, but technically the math is in my favor)
4. Move inf from Persia into India
5. (here’s where things get dicey) send everything in India, plus the fighter from the carrier, into southeast Asia. Unless the Japan player catches on to what I’m doing, the first two units he allows to be killed will be the infantry there. I don’t really care so much about getting the plane, so unless i’m doing really well I just retreat after I destroy the ground units. This way, Japan has no ground units in range to capture the factory, and next turn I can reinforce it with 3 tanks, and from there just send ground units up the coast until Japan is kicked out of mainland Asia. Then I would use the factory to reinforce Russia from the East.

On the 1st Edition of 1942 this is almost suicidal because the Japanese player should focus everything on preparing to attack India from J2 onwards and he’ll be able to do so unless you commit the Soviets to defend the IC. Which is almost suicidal as well because Germany should also be pushing hard into Russia and it will usually mean that the Soviets will lose Caucasus.
You’re also leaving Africa to Germany if you follow this.

I will put one out in a month.  I have lots of work to attend to. I am going to put more pictures.

Does anyone know why boldfresh whines so much?

That’s how I always beat Germany, getting grunts on the the ground secure karelia acouple turns have to get immediate navy to bring grunts to karelia then u can defend with tons of grunts,  fighters are money " because they defend at 4 …. with Uk, Usa, n Russia all them 4 's add up big time when the big rolls go down …then you have good attack capability don’t waste your tanks…good luck on your 2’s…(rolling defends).

@Cromwell_Dude:

@Hobbes:

So why would anyone want to attack Finland with Germany Russia on G1?

;)