An Opinion

The reason I think this is a good time to add one destroyer is because Germany will know that their window of opportunity to attack with the sub fodder will be closing quickly. So they may choose to attack at even less favorable odds instead of allowing Allies with that extra destroyer to split off and take out those subs the next turn, or if destroyer already in range why not do that now and have the replacement destroyer take its place?

Germanys options with those subs are very limited if US fleet is in sea zone 8.

Either way you are likely reducing Germanys odds to successfully airstrike the fleet.

I am guessing the counterpoint to this is that the Allied player WANTs Germany to attack their fleet to kill aircraft and if they build an additional escorts maybe Germany won’t do that.

To me this would be fine if they don’t. Its still likely wasted IPC for the sub buy that does not end up doing anything then.

The extra escort puts Allies ahead in the number count (which is close if they have 50% odds) should Germany decide to answer with additional air buy or the extra destroyer after dealing with the German subs can split off to help support another fleet in another sea zone.

Based on the Allied players comment they were already conceding some tempo by not bringing transports forward.

Then final comments of concern about not being able to land in Finland after losing their fleet.

Ships are expensive and take time to rebuild securely and so landings are now further being delayed at a pivotal point of the game. Pressure is off Germany in the meantime. They have a window now to focus ground forces east again.

Allied player says they had follow up, however based on what I see they only have follow up to sea zone 13 not sea zone 3 which their transports are in position to move to but now cannot do so safely.

To me this is following a decision tree too rigidly. The 50% attack offer rather than adjusting that pattern to the board state.

Attacking Pearl is not terrible. In my experience about half of the Axis players attack Pearl Harbor. Maybe more than half of them. However some top level players do not do this attack. I for one prefer to not do it for many reasons I wont completely cover here. You have already mentioned many of them. The risk of having to expose a Japanese carrier in that sea zone is the main thing I don’t want to happen.

I want all of my initial attacks with Japan to be as efficient as possible. I am trying to prevent Japan losing any ground units to hit backs. So while only attacking the 2 groups of US infantry may not seem like high value compared to other targets, doing so with decisive attacks that are somewhat overkill is what I want to do.

Often there are UK ships in range somewhere around here to consider attacking as well. I prioritize killing UK ships with Japan over US ships because of the turn order.

The main goal is for Japan to finish round one with zero casualties or as close to that as possible.

The other set up I did not mention is 1 infantry 2 fighters in Kwangtung. Many reasons for this as well such as being able to land in Ukraine or West Russia if German can take them round 2 or even Caucus sometimes and then have the fighters land to help them hold that position. If you can safely place a carrier in sea zone 48 (instead of sea zone 60 to protect vs bomber in India) then the fighters in Kwangtung can still reach sea zone 45 from there because of the carriers position.

This is up to you and your goals with Germany round 2. But it is a good place to be. It also denies US or Russia from a quick 2 IPC boost from trading Kwangtung.

You might want these fighters to be in Manchuria for the potential counter attack if Russia does use its fighters to attack Buryatia. This is up to you. Killing those Russian fighters if they did do this I think is well worth it. But you need to consider if anything else might be able to reinforce Yakut with those fighters as well? Is there still an infantry in Okrug that could?

Pearl Harbor attack does help somewhat if you think the opponent is going to do KGF. Its fewer escorts that US gets to start with. I will sometimes do that attack for this purpose. It does stop the sea zone 45 move pre-emptively as well. There are just so many things that can go wrong with this attack.

If you do it I recommend 1 sub 1 cruiser 2 fighters 1 bomber attack. Sometimes referred to as Pearl light as you are not bringing the carrier into the battle as well. When you do this take the first hit on the fighter that does not have enough fuel so that your carrier does not have to catch it. This is part of the long list of things I don’t like about doing the attack. Automatically losing a fighter.

As far as building factories round one with Japan? I never do that. Japan has enough build capacity and expensive things it wants to build in the first few rounds that it does not need another factory until round 3. I prefer that first factory to be India. I go for j3 timing attack on India. I think most if not all players know this attack pretty well by now. But if you don’t I could explain that in further detail.

As far as building a factory with Japan I prefer to build it in East Indies. If there are no UK ships in Indian ocean to threaten it you can even build it round one and still go for India round 3 but you will be 2 attackers short of what you could have if you dont build it. Having it built does give you follow up attack options and many other options to use production there for taking Australia and Africa after you take India though. It is nice to have. I just dont really recommend it round one until you see what the Allies are actually up to.

Although I think you already understand this, it should be said that what I like about these set ups are their versitilty to make attacks on Germany or Japan from these positions depending on the opportunity presented by Axis set ups and where they are needed most.

It’s good to have options.

The part I am struggling with and trying to find an alternative to is when Japan is removing the US options to add to this by attacking Pearl Harbor.

Which may be the correct thing for Japan to do here although I consider the Pearl Harbor attack to not be ideal, because it does disrupt the US part of the chain.

So the upshot is, Allies can dump a huge chunk on Paris, but then Germany can smash with Berlin infantry / Baltic tanks. US double-dropped its transports so can’t counter next turn at all. UK can drop 8+, and Germany needs to survive that, but without the US followthrough it’s a lot more survivable. It’s very very bad for the Axis still; even with the Allies having fought a losing mid-stack battle, Germany’s bled pretty dry; even with German tanks surviving, Germany doesn’t really have the unit count to maintain. But though even a FAVORABLE Axis mid-stack battle still LOSES strategically against Allies in Europe in the short term, the Axis do get that much more time for Japan to develop their threat against Moscow, which should be decisive. Well, in theory.

If you’re asking yourself, well, Karelia’s precarious in the first place, so how can Germany possibly put all those tanks on Baltic? Exactly. Germany is digging through the couch for loose change the entire game. So maybe the Karelia position collapses and Germany has a huge Baltic States and/or Belorussia stack, if the difference isn’t too great, Germany can maybe get something out of it.

Worst Case for Germany

Worst case is, Allies are building at Finland/Norway, if Germany doesn’t threaten to block off Allied pressure at Karelia, UK/US get a huge stack of cheap ground units reinforcing Moscow, and that’s just really bad. So let’s say Allies break through at Karelia (theoretically) and also trade France lightly, it’s win-win for Allies . . . .sort of.

But then, Germany only trades lightly at France; it’s definitely “losing” for Germany, but it was losing to begin with, so what more could Axis really get out of that position?

And if Germany retreated from Karelia, then Germany should probably have something at Belorussia and/or Baltic States. Imagine G8 retreats from Karelia, UK8/US8/USSR9 reinforces. Then? Belorussia infantry and Baltic States tanks push Ukraine and trade West Russia. Allies shift their combined stack to West Russia and double-drop to France. But both USSR and US may be out of position to counter Japan push to Caucasus, that’s the problem with the USSR9 (or whatever) reinforcement to Karelia. So that’s Japan’s way to maybe capture and hold Caucasus in the KGF, which solves a lot of Japan’s logistics issues.

And if Axis were losing everywhere to begin with? Well then they were losing, you know?

But you can see if the Allies go all-in, Axis have lines that can play out reasonably; if Allies don’t go all-in, Axis have lines that can play out reasonably, so long as Axis weren’t pretty much losing on all fronts to begin with.

But anyways remember. Stack building and bleeding, okay, tactically seems to me you have a pretty good grip on it, but strategically remember production limits. Germany simply cannot afford to trade on any sort of ongoing basis on western / European coastal fronts with UK/US in the KGF; even fairly advantaged trades can still be a losing proposition. Germany has to be very careful about planning for certain fronts to collapse so others can be maintained/strengthened, that’s the reasonable expectation.

Or let’s say Russia wants to attack the Ukraine stack on Round 2. They are looking at 16% chance to capture. 21% with sacrificing fighters.

But if Germany does not drop the extra infantry and AA gun via Med transport then its odds are 43%

I will let you think about if there is a better course of action here.

8 infantry build round one with Russia? 4 infantry 3 Artillery? UK does not drop fleet and sends fighters? US sends its fighters to West Russia?

These things could reduce Germanys odds on West Russia enough perhaps that Germany does not attack, but I do not think they can be reduced enough for Russia to capture Karelia without giving too strong of odds on West Russia.

The 3 tank build is a contingency against Russia Karelia stack somewhat.

I have seen players stack Karelia and Belarus thus blocking the tanks in Ukraine from counter attack, but 7 tanks from Poland and Berlin makes such a move risky as well, although Germany will lose higher TUV in this battle due to not much infantry shield. Usually 2 infantry from Finland and one from Baltic is all that is available for that counter, and maybe this is the way for Russia.

But such a move then opens up G2 Caucus stack with Japans fighters landing on.

I’ve already got a pretty good idea on how I want to approach the issue of potential cheating in similar games. But you’ve got a Master in Statistics, right? I’d imagine you have some ideas too, if you’d like to share?

@TheDude-0 Thanks for excellent reply. Noted and agreed on all points.

This has been handled via a PM on this forum, but for the record, support migrated to https://support.aspyr.com/hc/en-us, please don’t use support.beamdog.com.