Hi all,
I’ve played this version a few times now. I was wondering if there were any strategies that involve attacking true neutrals or would that benefit the other side too much? I could maybe see how the axis could benefit from taking Turkey or the allies benefit from taking Spain. Thoughts?
You’ll find that discussed in the forums as"Neutral crush" strategy.I’m reluctant to try it b/c giving my opponent free stacks of infantry and key positions is not in my dna.
Hi!
There are strategies that involve attacking a strict neutral. The Allies (US/UK) can take Spain to make the US supply line towards Europe shorter. The Allies can also build an IC there and can fight its way liberating France to reach Rome and Berlin. You can only do this if the UK controls the Middle East and Africa. Otherwise Germany or Italy can take Turkey and take control over the Middle East (lots of NO’s for Germany/Italy).
The Axis can also attack strict neutrals (for extra money or an easy corridor towards the Middle East. If they do so, the US can take Chili, Argentinia, Venezuela (2 IPC’s each) so if the Axis decide to do so, make sure you attack as of the struct neutals you can, at least Sweden, Turkey and Spain. This way you prevent the Allies trom taking a bunch of free infantry and IPC’s. Also: make sure you attack it with force so you’ll have enough to take and hold it.
Most games i would not recomend you to attack a strict neutral, but you can use it as a suprise strike when your opponent doesn’t expect you to do so
good luck!
One idea you could use is Neutral Blocks. You put the strict neutrals into geographic blocks so when one of the neutrals is attacked, only the other neutrals in that block are affected. The other neutrals around the world stay strict neutral. Here are what we came up with:
Mongolia = all the territories within Mongolia
Middle Eastern Block = Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan
African Block = All strict neutrals in the continent of Africa.
South American Block = All strict neutrals in the continent of South America.
European Block = Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Sweden.
Our reasoning behind this was that why would Chile care if Sweden was attacked. However, Switzerland or Spain might take more notice.
It’s an interesting way to play but we did think that it made it too easy to attack neutrals.
Here’s a thread with a few pages of people talking about this very thing, and then also a lot of blah blah blah about various house rules:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=36131.0
And here, specifically, was my take on the matter:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=36131.msg1425375#msg1425375
But yes, doing a “netural crush” definitely has its place in the game for both sides.
