A Nameless but Effective China Strategy

I will try it next game I play, probably use it for Italy, since they need the Navy the most.

@calvinhobbesliker:

@Procas:

A couple people have mentioned it, but you cannot scramble a tac bomber from Egypt unless you build an AB there.

I’m assuming they wanted to build an AB there on UK1.

The only way I can see the UK spending for an airbase UK1 is if there was a J1 attack allowing the Americans to help prevent Sealion.

If the Burma Road is open and Manchuria, Kiangsu & Kwangtung are under Allied control, Chinese units may enter non-Russian Pacific territories (can help clean Japan out of SE Asia and Korea). They are permitted to deploy one transport on the board at a time limited at SZ 20 and it can only move to SZ 36 (let 'em liberate Formosa & Hainan on their own).

@ozimek1:

I realize that the AA guns are more effective when definding in the west against Allied “liberation” attempts. The big question is whether the tempo gain of bringing them east is worth it, and ultimately more efficient.

What I mean is: Yes, an AA-gun is better at defending a stationary stack than advancing with the aim of possibly taking some very random pot-shots at enemy planes. That is pretty obvious. � BUT they happen to start on the board in round one, and they typically won’t be needed in the west for the first several rounds. Bringing them east from the beginning will add some momentum to Barbarossa, but at the cost of a less attractive puchase mix during the mid-game if they are to be replaced by newly purchased AA-guns or their equivalent in infantry. Is the boost worth that downside?

There’s no yes or no answer to that.  Even on G1, where I move the aa guns depends on what went down on G1.  I’ll still be making those choices on G2-G3, depending on how the game is playing out.  The aa guns in the East have limited utility because they have no attack value–their utility is to lessen Russia’s odds of a successful counter-attack.  Whether Germany needs them out there depends on what Germany and Russia are doing.

I would avoid buying new aa guns mid-game as Germany.  With that in mind, I’d keep half the aa guns back, barring exceptional circumstances.  There’s the possibility of moving east until G3, and then turning back, in time to protect Berlin.

In my play group there’s a guy who takes S. Euro with Germany and starts to build a small navy there. With the Italians, that combined fleet is enough to bottle the allies at Gib for a long time. I’ve seen it come out of the med from time to time depending on the situation, but usually he just drops enough men to hold Gib for a very long time. Without an allied presence in the med, Italy can typically make a lot of $$$ and either build a defensive force for Germany while they press towards USSR, move into the middle east and threaten USSR’s underbelly/India, take out UK’s SAF IC, or some combo of the above. It seems very hard to stop if done right, but I’ve yet to play with or against him when he’s the European axis and does this, so I don’t know the details of what happens in between my tours of the others’ boards when I’m waiting for my opponent to take his turn.

oh ok

But it does cost you the 10 IPC NO, so until your planning to go to war with the US consider the IPC value of FIC to be -8

I am in a Global game now.  We just finished Round 9 and decided on a break for a while.  I am playing Germany and the Russian player is also handling China.
Germany captured Paris Round 1, forced a Sealion Round 2 and was successful but at somewhat high cost.  Round 3 took the 3 big neutrals - Spain, Sweeden and Turkey - which also took a fair amount of resources.  Therefore, I don’t think I was able to build up enough in the east for Barbarossa like I would have preferred.  I had a good force by end of Round 3, but it certainly could have been better.
Italy really struggled with Britain in Africa and the Med.
Japan took a gamble by bringing USA into the war Round 1 by attacking Brits and the Philippines.
As for Russia, first three rounds she spent building a lot of infantry along the border with a few artillery and tanks.  Round 4 Russia actually attacked Germany, which I really was not expecting.  Sank all my transports and took an unoccupied Sweeden from me.  Round 5, she had destroyed all three army groups in Europe, took Warsaw and was only frustrated by Finland with a bloody repulse.  Round 6, she threw a massive army at Berlin.  Lucklily, the last couple of rounds of combat went my way and Berlin survived with just 1 fighter unit left.  Both sides were severely depleted but Germany still had her capital.
Fast forward to Round 9. 
Now Germany is getting strong again, starting to advance into Russia itself and threatening Leningrad.  German Navy has been sunk by the US Navy and they keep fighting back and forth over Spain, which US currently holds with a fairly strong force. 
Italy finally finished off all British and French troops in Africa and has a tank running around blitzing territories.  Most of Italy’s resources have been spent trying to help Germany with Spain and threatening Russia with a small force from the south.
Japan has all but destroyed China – 1 territory and 1 infantry unit left.  They have grabbed Calcutta and control Eastern Asia and the DEI.  However, both the Imperial Navy and the US Navy have been slugging it out and are almost non-existant.  Also, Japan has tanks creeping west toward Russia.
So, while Russia is still a ways from being “out of it”, they are in pretty bad shape.  I have seen this in other games as well.  Russia is just too dang big and can’t seem to get a decent number of reiinforcements to the front.  When they start a big offensive, if it runs out of steam then it seems like Germany always grinds them back.  Unless the US can get over there with a large enough force to really threaten Germany in Western Europe, Russia will be taken out and then Germany will have plenty of money to deal with the US and push them back out of Europe with help from Italy.