Putting it all together. Improving Allied Play


  • @andrewaagamer said in Putting it all together. Improving Allied Play:

    @domanmacgee said in Putting it all together. Improving Allied Play:

    @andrewaagamer I don’t mean to question the skill level of your group, but how is USSR single-handedly pushing Germany/Italy back if you aren’t landing any USA/UK Ground forces in USSR (so you can keep their objective alive)? Moreover, how is USSR surviving 10 rounds against a combined Germany/Italy push into Russia? That seems unreasonable to me as, without at least a USA/UK fighter stack on Moscow, Germany should be able to take it by round 5/6 in most games.

    Just because there are no Allied troops on Russian territories does not mean the Allies are ignoring Germany. In fact, as I mentioned, most Players use a KGF strategy. Obviously, Norway and Finland are prime targets for UK with additional landings in NW Europe to force trades with Germany otherwise they lose their NO. US hits Morocco, pushes into Egypt and sinks the Italian fleet. The next big thing is getting the UK fleet into the Baltic. This allows trades of Poland too and makes German reinforcement towards the Eastern Front very difficult. It also exposes Karelia if the Germans still hold it. Then a combined UK/US assault on France either to trade or hold if possible.

    This forces the Germans to spend so much money fighting UK and US that the Russians push them back to their own borders.

    The entire setup you’re talking about for UK/USA (building a fleet capable of not dying immediately to the German Air Force, seizing Scandinavia, taking Africa, making harassment landings in Europe) takes at least 3-4 rounds of play, by which point Germany and Italy should already have basically killed off Russia by sending 95% or so of everything they have towards Moscow, especially if you’re playing with NOs on and letting Germany/Italy’s income be in the 50s/high-teens respectively.

  • 2024 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18

    @andrewaagamer said in Putting it all together. Improving Allied Play:

    @domanmacgee said in Putting it all together. Improving Allied Play:

    @andrewaagamer After re-reading your post, I think I understand why we view the NOs differently. Your play group is not actively playing for them, just naturally acquiring them over the course of the game by playing normally (ex. you ignore Australia, which is basically a free pick-up for Japan, and don’t bother with the minor islands in the Pacific). The ease of which the Axis can explicitly deny the Allies access to their NOs is the entire reason that they have a massive economic advantage in the early game, so if you’re not doing that then you’re forfeiting that advantage, plain and simple.

    Not sure we agree here. As I just stated in the previous reply post to you we certainly play for the NO for Russia. The difference being we do not send troops through Russian territory to fight the Germans via the Norway-Finland causeway. We use transports to make direct landings on German held territory.

    As for Australia that is more a logistics choice. Unless the UK Player evacuates an infantry and Artillery, and some people do, Australia is not a freebie. Four ground units and an AA gun is a tough nut to crack and requires at least 2 fully loaded transports, 2 fighters, 2 battleships and a cruiser to take out. With an expected loss of 2 infantry and possibly a plane this could end up not being cheap. Since Egypt is probably already under Axis control till Turn 5-6 there is no loss to UK except the $2 for the territory plus of course $2 more for Japan. Now eventually when Egypt is retaken by the Allies that UK NO will come back. That is probably another $20 in the Allied pocket by Turn 10.

    This has to be weighed against the loss of time for Japan. It is one full Turn to get to Australia and at least one full Turn to get back. More like two Turns to get back so those transports are usable again ferrying units from Japan to the Mainland. Even being conservative that is two transports for two Turns so 8 ground troops less hitting China and Russia plus the loss of 2 units so 10 fewer units hitting the mainland by Turn 4. Due to this most of the Players in our group ignore Australia.

    This is off to me. Not all of Japan’s starting Transports are meant to just sit home and ferry troops from Japan to the mainland. Some of them should be an active force patrolling the Pacific to gobble up income for Japan. If you’re not outright building ICs for FIC and Manchuria, you should just buy additional Transports after J1 to ferry units from Japan to the mainland as your income grows and you start producing more units.

    You only need three of the transports you start the game with + part of your starting fleet (specifically, the 2 TTs+DD in SZ51, The BB+CR+1 of the TTs from SZ61, optionally, you can also have the SZ57 Carriers work their way towards Australia, but even without them you should still be fine) should be taking the money islands J1 and can thus be in-position to hit Australia from SZ38 (Northwest Coast of Australia) J2. Once you break Australia, SZ38 is only two moves away from India/Burma, based on how the rest of your game is going/what UK is doing.

    If you take Australia this way, then UK will never get their NO back, Japan will get its NO for occupying one of India/Australia a full round sooner, and UK/US . Additionally, having the Japanese fleet roaming the board will actively deny the UK their objective to hold an originally-Japan-controlled territory for a while, which denies even more income to the UK until someone takes Wake Island. Yes, it hurts your timetable of pushing units into Russia ever so slightly, but you’re also slowing down the UK/US buildup in the west by denying them their NOs for longer, which gives Germany/Italy more time to cripple the Soviets if not outright kill them. Even if you rush as fast as you can with Japan, you’re not reaching Moscow with any meaningful force until J6 anyway,

    Additionally, after whatever you do on J3 with that small fleet in the south Pacific, it’s free to do whatever it wants until the USA tries to build a fleet to stop you. Specifically, it can ferry small numbers of troops to Africa to further slow down the Allies, or even make a break for Hawaii/West USA to force USA to start spending income on a fleet/land units for West USA. Japan’s entire role in the 41 scenario is to, for the first 4 rounds or so, to slow down the USA/UK and hurt their income as much as possible while mopping up China (as China is pathetically weak) and slowly pushing against USSR (although you won’t be able to break their Siberian Stack unless they march it to Moscow, in which case you just gobble up their territories as they retreat from them). Round 5 onward, after your logistics are already setup and the main German and Russian stacks have annihilated each other in Moscow, is where Japan is in-position with a 60+ IPC economy (after NOs) to finish off USSR and reinforce Europe before USA/UK can kill Germany (Italy will probably die by round 5/6 no matter what you do, if your group plays KGF as aggressively as it sounds like you do (100% of US/UK income in Europe, 0 in Pacific unless it’s forced by necessity)).


  • @andrewaagamer So after I made my arguments here, I thought things over, and realized I hadn’t touched AA50 41 Scenario in a while, so I straight up took the day off work and solitaire’d 6 games in TripleA (I used no bid because I was lazy). I did a 100% all-in KGF strategy for the Allies every time and tried a variety of strategies for the Axis. Basic rundown below:

    Game #1: All Axis Powers 100% Aggression against Moscow. Allies won on ~Turn 5 because I tried pushing Moscow with Germany on G5 and the dice didn’t go my way. Even if I had succeeded, Allies had a solid chance to still win because they were already in Italy and US/UK were both ferrying 3 transports full of units + bomber spam across Europe, so Germany was more-or-less on death’s door. Japan meanwhile, despite going 100% for Moscow, was only in Novosbirisk with like 3 tanks, and in Persia with 2 (they had bigger stacks behind this, but they after the main German/Italian push had failed, USSR would be able to stall out Japan long enough for UK/US to finish off Germany).

    Game #2: Same strategy as game #1 because I thought I got unfairly diced in the Moscow fight. I refined my Allied play a bit (Game #1 was pretty rough around the edges because I was rusty as all hell) and this time Italy ended up falling on USA4, meaning Germany never even really got a chance to push for Moscow because they were under too much pressure at home. Once again Japan was not close enough to Moscow with a large enough force to make a difference by time the game was decided. Allies win.

    Game #3: Germany 100% guns it for Moscow, Italy plays defensively, Japan 100% guns it for Moscow. Same result as game #2, except this time Germany didn’t get very far into Russia as the Soviets were able to exploit the lack of an Italian southern flank and constantly harass the Germans by pushing Ukraine with 3-4 INF stacks in Ukraine, threatening the NO in Bulgaria-Romania. Same old story with Japan. Italy playing more defensively didn’t change the result, as they died USA4 anyway (they had pretty mediocre dice on more than one occasion but I doubt that better dice would have bought me more than one more round anyway). Allies win.

    Game #4: Germany tries to replicate the “Dark Skies” strategy from G40 to stop the UK fleet buildup, Italy 100% guns it for Africa, Japan plays for NOs. I tried a bit of a “Kill Britain First” (minus the sealion, I just wanted to keep the Western Allies out of the game for as long as possible). This worked for all of 2 turns before UK2 Britain basically rebuilt their entire fleet and Germany couldn’t keep up with the attrition while also making progress against a USSR that was playing more aggressively to exploit the fact that Germany wasn’t building many land units. I called the game as early as G3 because I realized that Axis had no hope of actually winning. Allies win.

    Game #5: Germany plays defensively (building mostly INF/FTR + the occasional TANK. Whatever combination results in 10 units in Germany each turn). Italy also plays defensively, Japan focuses primarily on NOs (both collecting its own and denying US/UK theirs) + consolidating its navy. This game was much more even than the previous 4. Germany/Italy turtled for an extremely long time, which was made possible by Japan’s moves in the Pacific (which I outlined earlier in this thread) eliminating all of UK’s NOs and all of USA’s (except for the freebie they get for controlling mainland USA) by round 2. This, combined with Japan hurling its starting fleet (sans the Fighters, which went into Russia to try to help push down Moscow), slowed the Western Allies down enough that, by round 7, Germany was able to suicide its main stack onto Moscow to weaken the Russians to the point where, even after a build, Japan was able to take it. Unfortunately, UK/USA responded to this by going all in and doing a one-two punch to take Berlin. Germany did succeed at getting back into Berlin for one turn, but the damage was already done, and USA/UK just took it a second time with another one-two punch. Two rounds of pilfering Germany’s income made Japan’s seizure of Moscow insufficient to carry the game, so they conceded on USA 8. Allies win, but barely.

    Game #6: Same strategy as before, but Japan builds ICs on the mainland instead of going 100% transport shuck. This mostly played out the same as game #5, but I was able to get Japan’s Air Stack into Europe around Round 6, preventing Germany/Italy from falling for long enough to seize Moscow with Japan on J8. Germany never got a chance to suicide its stack against Moscow though, as they had much worse dice luck on that front and never managed to hold even Karelia for more than a round or two. Still, with Moscow gone and with USA/UK not able to break Italy or Germany (they were trading France/NW Europe though), the Allies had to concede after J8, Axis win relatively easily, but not as easily as I thought they’d win in this scenario.

    TL;DR in my next post.


  • @AndrewAAGamer tl;dr to the above post. I was wrong to say that the Axis have a neigh-unbreakable advantage when playing with NOs turned on, but I still believe that they do have a palpable advantage, and that the game as a whole would be better off being played without them. The scenario as a whole, NOs or not, is much more balanced than I originally thought, though.


  • @domanmacgee said in Putting it all together. Improving Allied Play:

    @AndrewAAGamer tl;dr to the above post. I was wrong to say that the Axis have a neigh-unbreakable advantage when playing with NOs turned on, but I still believe that they do have a palpable advantage, and that the game as a whole would be better off being played without them. The scenario as a whole, NOs or not, is much more balanced than I originally thought, though.

    That matches our experience. Since the collection of money regarding the NO’s is very close I guess you could play the game without them and it would not make a big difference. We just like them and I have never played without them.

    IMHO I think AA50 1941 with a $6 Allied bid is a pick 'em game. I have seen the Axis and Allies both win and lose fairly evenly. It usually comes down to what you described in your test games; the Allies win if they take Italy and then Germany the same Turn as Moscow falls or before Moscow falls. They take Germany the Turn after Moscow falls and it is a pick 'em game again and if they take Moscow 2 Turns after Moscow falls or later, as in never too, and it is too late and the Axis win.

    Appreciate you testing your own theory and validating a different outcome than you had argued. That shows honesty. :)

  • 2024 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18

    @andrewaagamer Oh, three more questions as we wrap this up, just as a sanity check.

    1.) Do you play with Dardanelles Open or Closed?
    2.) Do you play with Fighter Escorts for Bombing Raids On or Off?
    3.) Do you play with Tech On or Off?

    For the tests I ran yesterday, I ran with Dardanelles Closed (to stop Italy from one-turn shucking guys into Ukraine/Caucasus and/or hiding their fleet from Allied Air Power); Escorts On (to give Axis some breathing room against USA Bombing Raids, which are crippling otherwise); Tech Off (because I’m never a fan of tech, even in the games where they’re not too out of hand).

    @andrewaagamer said in Putting it all together. Improving Allied Play:

    Appreciate you testing your own theory and validating a different outcome than you had argued. That shows honesty. :)

    Yeah, as I was reading your posts and my own to spot-check grammar, correct territory names, etc., I was starting to feel that something might have been off. I like being correct in the long-term more than I like arguing for the sake of arguing, even if it means changing my mind/admitting I was wrong lol.


  • @domanmacgee said in Putting it all together. Improving Allied Play:

    1.) Do you play with Dardanelles Open or Closed?
    2.) Do you play with Fighter Escorts for Bombing Raids On or Off?
    3.) Do you play with Tech On or Off?

    1.) Do you play with Dardanelles Open or Closed? CLOSED
    2.) Do you play with Fighter Escorts for Bombing Raids On or Off? ON
    3.) Do you play with Tech On or Off? USUALLY OFF - THOUGH SOME LIKE ON.

    Personally I do not like the Tech component only because it begins immediately upn success. Can’t tell you how many times I have lost a Jap transport on US 1 because the US Player rolls one die and gets long range aircraft.


  • @andrewaagamer said in [Putting it all together. Improving Allied

    Personally I do not like the Tech component only because it begins immediately upn success. Can’t tell you how many times I have lost a Jap transport on US 1 because the US Player rolls one die and gets long range aircraft.

    Ditto. I’ve lost entirely won games because the opponent went for tech as a desperation move, pulled super subs or long range aircraft, and used their new tech to instantly swing the odds on a big battle somewhere on the board.


  • @domanmacgee Yeah, I don’t like Tech because I consider it just luck.

    When I used to play at Axis and Allies Members Club (AAMC) there was one gentlemen, and I don’t remember his handle, who wanted to play me in a bunch of AA50 games; with Tech.

    During the first game, he was Axis, he caught me by surprise when he rolled for mechanized infantry as Germany. He succeeded and the attack on the Russian stack in East Poland from Germany suddenly was greatly in his favor due to a bunch of infantry getting into the battle that I had not accounted for. Since he was a good Player, not as good as me but good, I was unable to overcome this disaster and he won.

    In the second game I was Axis, and now that I understood his strategy; I accounted for it. I will say he was a Master at it! He would buy and set up subs to attack the IJN and if he could have rolled Super Subs he would win the battle easily. He had planes in position that if he got Long Range Aircraft my fleets would suddenly be exposed. He would buy artillery as Russia hoping to get Heavy Artillery and adjust those battles. On each Turn as the Axis I had to think - “Okay if he rolls for this Tech and it goes into effect how will that affect the board?” It was very difficult to account for all the Tech possibilities in each and every move I made. I won the second game and then the third game too by using this new tool of always accounting for possible Tech.

    In the fourth game I made an error in France. I forgot to move two Japanese fighters there to protect my Italian/German stack. Even though he only had a 12% chance of taking it he still went for it with UK as he was losing and desperate. Not only did he win, which he should of been wiped out, he took it with enough to actually hold it from the Italian counter attack!

    Thus, he was back in the game and slightly ahead but I was fighting back until he rolled Paratroopers as UK. Suddenly, nowhere was I safe on the Continent, and his ability to take virtually any area not heavily defended put him back ahead in the money game. The game was that close. He eventually went on to win.

    That was our last game because he got mad at me. In some after action e-mails discussing the game I pointed out that he got lucky in France and also his entire Tech strategy was based on luck. While he was extremely good at it his whole strategy was based on a) getting the Tech he needed at the right moment and b) catching his opponent by surprise. Since his Opponent could, as I had shown, account for his Tech rolling he only could win against better Players than him by rolling the Tech when he needed it, which is luck in my opinion, and catching his opponent unawares. He was definitely good enough to beat most Players without his luck strategy.

    He took offense to this comment even though I didn’t mean it to be an attack on his ability. I don’t mind people playing a luck game if they are lucky. If I always rolled good I know I would be very happy with that advantage. Perhaps he missed the part where I said he was a Master at it. Setting yourself up to take advantage of a Tech Roll is definitely a skill and he is the only Player I have ever seen that based his entire strategy on it.

    Anyway, so much for old war stories. :)


  • Good discussion. In my playgroup, NO’s off/Dardanelles closed/escort & interceptor allowed/tech allowed (but rarely used)/6-12 bid to allies (typically +2inf on eastern front, +1inf in Egypt, +1 inf in Yunan) seems to provide a fairly balanced game.

    When we played with NOs on, the ability of the axis to couple their starting hardware advantage with near economic parity by round 2 or 3 (before the US is even “in the game”) always resulted in axis win. We didn’t take the time to figure out what the bid for the allies needs to be to have a balanced game with NOs on but I suspect it might be between 25-30 IPCs. Of course, our predictable play might be the actual issue!

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