ANZAC Minor IC in Persia

In my opinion, it’s much better to expand your income however you can with Anzac (while making it very costly for the Japanese to take your capital) and make use of the manufacturing capacity that you do have at the beginning. If you consistently earn 20 IPC or so, add to your 3 starting fighters (1 or two fighters a turn, + whatever is needed at the time). They can be a real pain for the Japanese as they can do many things during the game:

1. Defend Australia
2. Counter-attack a landing, along with mechanized units
3. Reinforce US fleet by landing on carrier, or Islands that have an air base
4. Take small battles with the Japanese Navy, preserving strength of US navy (Anzac submarines are great also)
5. Ensure that the Japanese have to lose a transport when they retake Island (regardless of where the US fleet is and blockers that they employ). That is, because of the strike ability of that air force, the Japanese don’t have enough force to defend the transports without getting too much of their fleet out of position.
6. Reinforce an island, making it very costly for Japanese to retake it
7. Defend India/Shan State, Burma, etc.
   8 ) Strafe Japanese land units in China, Russia, etc.

These planes can also eventually help defend Moscow, the Middle East or Egypt.

Keeping a couple Anzac fighters in Egypt can clear Italian blockers in the med as well.

Anzac fighters (as with UK fighters and US Bombers) are key units in the game.

I just don’t see the need for ANZAC to capture Persia when UK and the USSR are at the best position to do it and UK can already do it right from the get go. ANZAC needs what it has to protect its own homeland.

It sounds good because it sounds different.  ANZAC has no combined arms, just men and fighters.  The parts of the world described only sound safe in a vacuum.  The real layout is an unnerfed Italy will massacre the near and middle east.  If Italy gets clipped, its because the UK is using its bid to confine them.  Its certainly not because of anything ANZAC is doing; it gets 3 infantry to work with.

ANZAC, even under the abs best circumstances (G41; 20 income every turn, no ships lost, totally ignored by japan) still cannot bring together an independent, mobile force either by sea or by land that makes Japan hesitate.    The UK and ANZAC units that can make it into china seem pretty useful, but because they go (turn order) after the other units, its rare that they can take over any territory that some other power cannot.  UK and ANZAC pieces are running after the Chinese, not ahead of them, so their role is defensive.  ANZAC doesn’t get anything but 1 move men that go last.

If Japan decides to challenge you in Asia, no amount of UK or ANZAC ground power will change that
If they decide not to challenge you, then no amount or composition of UK or ANZAC stuff hastens the fall of mainland asia very much because you lack suff. tanks/mechs

It sounds awesome to lay out all sorts of “if everything goes right” plans that begin to develop around turn 4-5 but the reality of the game is that if you are waiting that long as the Allies to blow your wad (or exploit your bid), you’ve waited too long and now the Axis are unstoppable.  There are several much clearer strategies that exploit ANZAC and neutral-taking starting on Z1.

There are some games where I get stuck playing the minor powers (and Russia or the US) where I have all sorts of flights of fantasy about what I can accomplish with 11IPCs in income and the answer always turns out that I can have 1 Cruiser, 1 Destroyer and a couple of transports hiding for 4 turns that may be able to sulk around the edges of the Japanese empire and then only if their ambitions are focused elsewhere and my allies plans coincide with mine.  Without at least 1 carrier and 1 battleship you don’t have a grand fleet and you don’t have power projection (it would still take 4-5 turns to muster 1 such fleet and at the edge of the gameboard).

There are some game-changing things you can do with ANZAC but as far as I have seen they all rely on 1) putting your fighters wherever it deters Japanese ambitions 2) mopping up/hanging about at the edges/hiding under the real Allies.

about the best thing that could happen to ANZAC is that YG or I find a way to assign its income to some other region/power in our house games

I just played G40 online with Triple A and I have concluded ANZAC on Persia is F**CKING worthless. Lets take their best case, you would have to spend three turns to get ANZAC infantry there, the fourth turn to factory it, and the 5th turn to produce units. Which means in order to take advantage of having two factories producing a total net worth of six units, you will need to capture the Dutch Islands. This entire plan will hinge of Japan outright ignoring you. And by the time you get Persian forces under ANZAC banner moving, Japan will either have China or India on its knees or already conducting an invasion on ANZAC. Who ever thought this up, has no idea what they are doing.

Caesar, I think that the strategy might be more applicable for a G40 Balanced Mod game where the Allies get significantly more income, China is much tougher to take down, and the downfall of Moscow doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the game for the Allies.  Check out this G40 BM League game by some of the top players.  It is Round 15 and the game seems to be very much in the balance despite Moscow following with barely any fight.  The ANZAC factory in Iraq has been critical for keeping the Germans from blitzing down into Egypt.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=39227.75

I tried this strategy during a regular game with bid of 11 on TripleA and my initial thoughts are that it would be better utilized on BM games.  During standard games I make a concentrated effort to clear Iraq with UK air so USSR can take Iraq for the easy money.  Coupling this with Anzac taking Persia and UK now does not have the ability to place a minor factory in the ME except in Egypt.

I do believe this idea has potential in balanced mod though.  The incentive to save Iraq for USSR is gone which leaves it for UK. If Vichy is implemented Anzac could use one inf to activate Persia the other to take old french territories.  Anzac can also activate Brazil by round 2 for the extra income.  Even if Anzac does not get the french territories in africa Persia and Brazil would bring their income to 14 with out NO’s.  This can easily be upped to 17 with 1 NO and 20 with 2 NO’s if US is going primarily KIJ (which it should if you are trying this).  Assuming you can get the fighters to Asia this gives plenty of income to build a strike force to attack Italian can openers in Southern Russia.

I think of this strategy and see the possibility of Anzac preventing Germany from stacking Bryansk and blitzing mechs and tanks into Stalingrad and the Caucasus for the crushing blow to the Eastern front.  Obviously Germany can still take these if they want but with out the Italian can opener they will have to bleed for them much more and risk putting them selves out of position.

@Arthur:

Caesar, I think that the strategy might be more applicable for a G40 Balanced Mod game where the Allies get significantly more income, China is much tougher to take down, and the downfall of Moscow doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the game for the Allies.   Check out this G40 BM League game by some of the top players.  It is Round 15 and the game seems to be very much in the balance despite Moscow following with barely any fight.  The ANZAC factory in Iraq has been critical for keeping the Germans from blitzing down into Egypt.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=39227.75

Curious move by Adam514 basically surrenderring Moscow. Iraq was claimed just by walking troops starting in Egypt into an undefended Italian owned territory. A bit different to the idea of claiming Persia I would say.

Which ANZAC won’t as UK has the only amount of freedom the middle east.

Simon, I am also baffled by what happened in Russia since we are missing the critical first few rounds in that BM game.  Adam is one of the top players, if not the top player, in the world and I am sure that he didn’t make mistakes.  Unfortunately the thread missed out on the initial setup and openings so I can’t explain how Moscow was so easily captured.  Regardless, the Allies are still very much alive and the combined factories in Egypt and Iraq are making it very tough for the Axis to push further south.  I am sure that Adam will fly over a bunch of planes when it is critical to make a stand in the oilfields.