Southern France

No, anyone in our local area playing the Axis would have conceded long before that happened.

Marsh

There’s two basic allied responses to holding France G1.

In case (2), I say surrender, even though it may cost the allies the entire RAF. In case (1), you may be able to keep playing. I’ve got a game going now where Paris did fail, I think I should have deferred the DOW on USSR until G4 and played Japan as normal. This does allow a few allied actions like USA reaching the med or Norway. However, it is better than letting the Soviets push back all over the shop and get communism objectives for Scandinavia etc. I suppose this is a bigger deal in balanced mod because as soon as you DOW, you release the increased NOs for USSR. Also, all the money from being at war allowed the Soviets to buy enough planes to stop me from being able to effectively strat bomb Moscow.

@Argothair:

You’re correct, and I apologize for the error, but my basic question stands: Britain starts with two Atlantic transports. Is there a way to reliably kill them both, take Normandy, take France, kill at least one of Britain’s two main fleets, and not lose 8+ German planes in the attempt, all on G1?

No, is the short answer, or at least you shouldn’t try.

Letting the SZ110 fleet escape might allow you to accomplish that but you’d rather sink that than tie up 4+ planes on sinking two ships.

Thanks.

If you try it out, you’ll see that the U.K. can’t sufficiently reinforce France, even with the additional 6 French troops, from having Germany crush it on round 2.  Even if every available plane is landed there, and the strafe leaves 2 tanks plus the fighter, it’s impossible to hold.  So all that landing planes accomplishes is wiping out the British airforce (and keeping France from falling to Italy).  The payoff isn’t worth it.

The biggest downsides I can imagine are that (1) it is much more difficult to hold off serious landings at Normandy by the US and/or UK.  Italy then has to protect Western Europe and the Med–although with Germany taking S France, they can dump ships in the Med as well if it comes to that (subs backed up by planes would be cheap).  And (2) delaying the war on the Pacific side until round 3 (which would make this work much better at times, depending on the US builds) means that UK Pacific can shuttle some troops over.

The really nice thing about this strategy is that it’s more efficient to have Italy be the 1 force in the Med, and not have to worry about building enough ships off the S France factory right away to protect them from UK planes.

I think it’s going to be the standard opening in our play group for the foreseeable future.

The counter someone mentioned above about making sure to buy troops in S Africa–either mechs, or infantry/artillery to go with transports, in combination with some shuttling from India, is probably the safe response.

Grover and I just started another game, with me being the Axis, and I’ve got to say I’m enjoying the big Italian boost.

No, I don’t like the idea of allowing the Allies to have 3 complexes in W. Europe.  Especially ones they don’t have to build.  A very common tactic for me is to abandon France to the Allies.  Let them have it and lose all their control in Africa and French Indo China, lose their complexes and then move back in.

@Sid:

France offered to hold their action so that Germany could go immediately, thus allowing Italy and Germany to coordinate more fluidly, instead of interrupting to state they were doing nothing and causing a multiple day delay between Italy and Germany.

If the players agreed to the change in order, the agreement should stand.  Why should the Axis assume France would not make the attack if the order has been changed.  Have the online moves been being submitted as if France was going in it’s original order?

It was not an agreement that the turn order was different.  That would have constituted a house rule and why would France give up the right to screw up the Axis plan forevermore in perpetuity?  No, it was a contingent offer that if Italy did nothing to instigate an attack by France, then Germany could be allowed to move so as not to slow down the game.

So far I think patience is the key.  From G2 for several turns, I try to maximize production with Germany.  With Germany, West Germany, and France, you can produce 16 units per turn.  That’s 48 IPC’s if you bought straight infantry, so sometimes I’m buying mostly infantry.  It takes several turns to get them to the front lines, but once there, you can start sending waves of artillery, then mech, and buy air to support them.  I still think a G1 buy of a destroyer, sub, and carrier is important.  It’s enough to keep the West away for a long time.  The carrier is not just to “protect a transport” as someone put it, it is to greatly increase the air attack options on the North Atlantic, to keep the UK from getting anything started anytime soon.

I’m just speaking in general, of course.  I have never purchased a complex in Romania, not even a minor, because it’s not forward from West Germany and Germany enough, I don’t think.  If you can’t even fill your 16 production slots, I am hesitant to buy another factory except to enable building directly into the Med, which Romania does not offer.  Just build more units, and patiently move them forward.

To defeat Russia, you mainly have to beat her forces in the field.  Too many players focus on IPC values of territories, when the real success comes not from maximizing your income from turn to turn, but moreso from maximizing your trades.  Even if you don’t trade Russia quite on a 1:1 basis, if you can headbutt Russia’s main force, Germany can normally recover much more quickly, and win from there.  Japan should be taking down Russia’s income somewhat, as well.

This is just what I’ve found so far.  It takes so long to play global, it will be at least a year until I feel I’m somewhat experienced at this version.  At least.

I agree that having at least a little bit of Italian forces is important.  Even more important than can openers, is the ability of the Italians to take a territory so that the Germans can move into that territory and LAND AIRPLANES there.  This is often more important than allowing the Germans to break through with mech infantry and armor to take a little territory, an NO for one turn, or whatnot only to be destroyed.  Also, the use of Italian AA guns can be useful this way, if the Italians take an infantry block territory, and move in with her AA gun, and then G can land planes along with the ground unit stack.

So far I’ve mostly played the Axis, but I stick with my initial assessment from before I ever played this game, that it looks like the Allies are unstoppable if you just have enough patience.  This game’s only been out for 2 months, and I’ve only played 25-30 total game rounds (many of them team, so I was only playing 1/2) so far, so it’s early.  Too early for anyone to say with any certainty what works.  What DOESN’T work, now that should be easier to come up with.  :lol:  One example - not buying defense for London on UK1, but buying with South Africa and Canada too early.  If you buy less than 5 units on London on UK1, in most cases you are begging for a sealion on G2 or G3.