Axis & Allies Global 1942(An alternative to Larry Harris's Global 1942)

With a J1DOW and Japan taking Calcutta meaning to swing back and take Hawaii as well ~J8, the allies can follow 1 of 2 basic strategies in Europe:

USA invests heavily in Europe, opening a second front in Germany’s backyard. This forces the UK to go heavy into the ME with 2 ICs in Egypt/Iraq/Persia (3 ICs is perhaps no unnecessary luxury in this scenario). This is because Calcutta needs to be taken back once Japan grabs Hawaii. A little bit from what comes out of those ICs can maybe get into Moscow as well to aid Russia in keeping it. The UK will have only minor bits of IPCs left to assist the USA in Western Europe (~10/turn, TRS as best buy).

USA invests only mildly in Europe, opening a second front in Germany’s backyard with massive UK aid (not such heavy UK presence in the ME as above). Typically USA serves only as a can-opening threat for UK-follow up. Example: USA takes Norway + Denmark, UK takes Berlin (If Germany ignores the allies and keeps throwing everything at Russia).

Whatever strategy is followed, the Wallies must somehow make sure their threat is in place G5, so that Germany will loose either WG, Rome or Berlin if it builds all aircraft for a G6 assault on Moscow (depending how many investments the USA made and thus, how many the UK was able to assist).

Typical forces USA can expect in Europe with heavy investments: 2DD, 2CV, 5FTR, 1TAC, ~4STR and 2TRS per turn (fully loaded). Early TRS can ofc be filled with Brazilians and other starting units. Once Normany and SF are taken (and/or WG), USA also produces from those factories. US6 should see 27US and 8UK land units and 9 USAF in or approaching Western Europe. A bit too much for Germany/Italy if they focused everything on Russia all the way into G5 and only start building troops against the wallies G6 (10 in Berling and WG each can be overrun -one of them if not both), so if this doesn’t arrest German flow of reinforcements into Russia I don’t know what does…

Investing ‘mildly’ still sees the USA with 2DD, 2CV, 3FTR, 1TAC, 3STR, 6TRS fully loaded.
Because the USA should be able to keep Japan out of Hawaii/Sydney with the extra IPCs put into the Pacific, the UK can put more effort in Western Europe at the cost of the ME, starting a war of attrition with Germany. The few troops the USA has should not be ‘kamikazed’ but used as a can-opening threat (Berlin, see above) and to capture areas Germany cannot recapture (Norway, for example).

On a sidenote: a couple of RAF-FTR really enhances Russian defenses in Moscow. The more ships/early bombers Germany builds, the less RAF the UK needs to send. With Max German land production (i.e. no ships/early bombers at all), Moscow may need 10-12 Spitfires/Mosquito’s to withstand the assault.

These are only the basics of what I know the allies can do. They must be adjusted whenever the Axis adjust… If, for example, the USA invests heavily into Europe and Japan does not look likely to swing back at Sydney/Hawaii but rather continues to invest heavily in Mainland Asia/Russia, the UK may ease their spending in the ME a bit and assist the USA a while in spending much more for western Europe for a couple of turns…

Those are some good ideas. I think to make this game balanced, I do need to make some adjustments. Just giving Italy the Axis NOs and ANZAC the Allied NOs doesn’t quite work. It seemed to be working for a while, but once ANZAC got the upper hand, it just gradually got worse and worse for Italy. I know that happens even in some games of regular A&A, but I don’t think there was any hope of Italy turning things around once ANZAC started getting ahead.
We just finished this game tonight. It took 15 rounds before Italy surrendered. For the first three rounds, Italy really grew and just about closed the gap between them. Rounds 4-8 were somewhat even between the two. If Italy did well on one front, ANZAC was doing well on another front. From Round 9 on, Italy was more and more defensive. ANZAC managed to take Japan and pretty much ruled all the Pacific and Asia within the next 2 rounds. Once all other Italian presence was eliminated, all ANZAC had to do is keep pounding on Europe until something gave way. Between amphibious landings every turn in Western Europe and a flood of tanks, mechs and planes rolling in from Russia, Italy was finding it harder and harder to maintain any kind of border.
For a while, whenever ANZAC would land somewhere in W Europe, Italy had enough to take it back. There were a few sparks of good for Italy, like when they sacrificed most of their European air force to kill the ANZAC fleet outside of England, including a stack of transports. That delayed ANZAC for a couple of rounds, but soon they were making landings again and Italy couldn’t afford a whole new air force to risk against the navy.
While playing the game this way makes each round go somewhat faster, it is pretty hard keeping track of all the different fronts. You literally have attacks going on in every point of the map on some turns. It’s a little easier when Germany is dealing with England and Russia, Italy is dealing with the Med and Japan is dealing with China and the Pacific. Still, it is kind of cool to be able to carry out ALL your ideas in the same turn.

Just have fun. These games can be very long… Which is why I like to go wild in live games.

prepare to invade london with germany, remember to buy a carrier and 2 transports for the first round or carrier destroyer sub. Second round if you have not purchased a destroyer on the first, buy one and the rest transports. prepare to invade!

Have italy kill the french naval or ram into the stuff by gibraltar, because you don’t want that defending london.

Sea lion is real fast, you get london on germany round 3 or you don’t. Russia pushes in europe and you kick him out or you don’t. Simple as that.

As far as Japan goes, that is up to you.  The simplest strategy is to draw an imaginary line from Japan to calcutta… and take everything along the way and the dutch islands.

I Can’t wait minor they are excellent.

@Keredrex:

the 11x17 IPC Log Sheet for the Global game…

ALPHA 2 Country Turn Order

When printing Layout should be set to Long Edge Binding

Dude, those look really nice man !!!

@gsh34:

Guys,

Thanks for trying this out.  Calvin, did you also have Japan shuttling troops across northern China so that a constant supply of Japanese troops would be arriving at J5?  Would six to eight Japanese troops a turn even matter against Russia in this scenario?  Did you see any thing that showed promise about this strategy?  Do you think this could be something possible to do after a successful Sealion so the transports are utilized?

I wish I knew how to view your map download.  Can you explain that please?

I think the map is pretty self-explanatory. How are you planning on streaming in that many Japanese troops when your planes aren’t available for dealing with China and UK? With no pressure on Russia’s western front, I don’t think they have to worry about the Japanese much.

I have created a sheet for entering in battle results such as:

Land Defence
Land Attack
Naval Attack
Naval Def

It will tell you the overall percentage of your results and of your team and the 3 different neutrals.

I also hope to add an IPC loss and Gain based on units that were lost in battle so for example:

I lost 3 inf and 1 arm
you lost 5 inf and 1 fig

I lose 15 IPC worth of units you lost 25 so my battle gain is +10 ipc worth of units your loss is 10 ipc worth of units
Battlesheet.xls

@Wakrob:

As per my play with A&A1940 Europe, I feel Axis has it very rough in the Global version.

Our game-
G3 takes London after obliterating Brit navel presence in the first two turns.  I hadnt realized how many planes could get there.
Japan chooses not to go to war with anyone but Russia until J3.
Italians rolled bad in almost every engagement.

I think slow rolling Japan might have been a bad idea.  The money it prevented US from getting seemed more than offset by the easy Dutch/ANZAC National Obj bonus’ the allis got.  And Italians never had much luck, Cairo never fell.
But you’d think taking 35 IPC’s from London and pretty much locking UK out of the game on the western hemisphere should be an easy win.
Germany staled out in Russia after taking Leningrad.  US eventually staged 7 full transports, 2 full Carriers and a Battleship off Gibralter.  Germans 4 Fighters and 4 Tact Fighers guarding London decided to strike first at the fleet and failed.  US takes back London next turn easily.  Axis player concedes at 1:30am in the morning after about 7 turns.
German had held London for about 4 turns.

My opinion stands that Axis have it very hard in this A&A version.

Wak

ARGH!!!  You had the game man, you had it!  If Germany can knock England out of the war it is very difficult for the Allies to come back from it.  Attacking the US navy from England is difficult if not impossible since they can build twice the amount of IPCs you’re making every turn in the Atlantic.  You had 8 planes in England, all you had to do was shuck enough infantry there to defend it and you’re golden.  Let the Americans be the ones sinking tons of money into transports to retake England while you’re already sitting pretty with your own transports and tons of inf from W. Germany to reinforce.  With 8 planes as defense those 7 loaded transports would have had no chance if you’d had a stack of 10+ infantry present.

I’m guessing sorry-bitch-ass Italy was in danger so you felt you had to attack in the Atlantic to save them.  It was easier to me to defend against the US Gibraltar threat by reinforcing Italy with my own inf/tanks from W. Germany fora few turns until they get enough infantry made to hold the capital.