@trulpen yeah, BM is much tougher for the Japanese in China. I waste way too many men trying to suppress the rebellions. I hate it when an American bomber knocks off the lone defender and a Chinese soldier pops up in Tibet.

I had an unusual game where the Axis captured Egypt early. The Americans focused heavily on the European operations and the Allies were steadily making progress on that side of the map. I built up the Japanese air force and sent it on a suicide attack into Moscow around turn 8. Stripping off 15 infantry Allied units in Moscow can change a battle from a 95% chance of losing into a 95% chance of winning when the Germans get their turn. It also means that Germany will keep their air force intact, allowing them to reclaim any European victory cities if necessary.

The best part of this strategy is that the extra Japanese planes can hold the Allies at bay for several turns, forcing India to cower and Anzac + USA to be more conservative with their fleets. All of the planes can raid Moscow from a base in Sichuan, meaning that only one turn is required to setup the pivot from Pacific to Europe.

Of course the Russian AA’s shot down half of my Japanese raiders and the German tanks had their turrets pointed backwards, leading to an abrupt and unhappy end to a genius strategy.

@crockett36 Normandy should be left completely unoccupied by the time the Allies have a sizable landing force. As you mentioned, there can be considerable devastation to any Axis force situated in that territory and it cannot be reasonably defended without diverting from the main goal of crushing Moscow or heading into the Middle East/Egypt. Normandy or Norway will fall, it just is a matter of on which round and whether the Axis will be able to retake it with a counterattack of ground units supported by planes. France is the best place to have the Axis counterstrike infantry/artillery. Mechanized units can help counterstrike from W Germany. Usually, though, a wave of UK fighters add enough defensive might to Normandy or Norway to ensure that the Axis are unable to strike back.

Aircraft carriers and subs are the best investment for the US as they have dual purposes of defending the fleet and attacking/convoy raiding. Build enough destroyers to prevent German wolfpacks from roaming the Atlantic

@Omega1759 I do think that the Axis will be forced to leave Gibraltar soon because defending it starts distracting Germany from the even more attack into Russia or Egypt. I think that he will be gone in another two rounds. Still, that is a huge amount of extra income for Italy during this time.

I have no idea why the UK Med fleet ran towards India. I don’t see what it will do before it inevitably goes back to the Med. The 5 PU bonus for no Allied ships in the Med is a killer bonus for Italy.

You don’t have to fully stop Japan. India and China will inevitably fall no matter what you plan. If you have ANZAC ground troops supported by American planes, you can prevent Australia from falling easily into Japanese hands. Have a couple tanks or mechs that can prevent a beachhead forming in Western Australia. Those planes can shuttle back to Hawaii if he tries to have an amphibious assault to capture that victory territory.

Uncontested in the Pacific, Japan will eventually be able to win in that theater. Still, it takes a surprisingly long time to get to that point so hopefully you can start shifting spending to that side of the board once you got the European Axis powers weakened. You just need to hinder their income by capturing Normandy/Norway and convoy raiding Italy with a big stack of Mediterranean subs. At that point Russia+UK can do most of the maintenance work to hold back Germany.

@andrewaagamer The TUV benefit of the BB becomes even larger when the odds of winning is greater. If you know that eventually you will be able to force a fleet battle in the Pacific, and will be on the winning side because USA is doing either a KGF or KJF strategy, purchasing an additional BB or two could be wise.

If you aren’t absolutely convinced you will have an epic Naval battle with victory firmly on your side, stick with subs and destroyers.

If you are new to the game, whoever is better will win with either side. Usually one person has a very defensive personality, focusing more on not losing than pushing towards a goal. That will inevitably lead to defeat as the other person finds weaknesses and builds an income advantage.

It takes a large number of matches to have the natural Axis advantage manifest itself in face-to-face games. Don’t worry about the imbalance until you are able to predict what happens during the first six rounds of gameplay based just on the first round of dice rolls and spending. Fun game for both beginners and masters.

sure, no problem. feel free to always correct minor mistakes that are obviously mistakes.

Tizkit’s comments

1. agreed
2. agreed
3. agreed, he can start convoy raiding right away
4. definitely agree
5. not really necessary since he can’t step forward with 7 inf, but I would prefer a tank over a mech. Essentially same defense and much greater attack. You are always short on attack as Russia
   6)agreed
6. The cruiser ship block in 114 is very essential.

Additional: you can leave the planes in Moscow and still reach everywhere on the Western front. It allows you to land in Yunnan if there is some miracle and you can support Yunnan on turn 2. Sometimes I rush a mech and tank to Sikang on R1 and then return them back to Moscow if the dice are not looking good for China.

65 IPCs spent on non anti-Russia fighting forces generally means that Moscow cannot be captured in any reasonable period of time.  It also means that the Russian stack can stand toe-to-toe with the German stack and not be afraid.  That frees up the UK to start producing fast units in Persia.  Combined with a significant UK air force, that can usually push a minor German expedition out of Russia’s soft belly.

I am not saying that it couldn’t work, but I am saying that I rarely see Germany succeed if they significantly spend on anything other than ground units and planes.

@crockett36 Normandy should be left completely unoccupied by the time the Allies have a sizable landing force. As you mentioned, there can be considerable devastation to any Axis force situated in that territory and it cannot be reasonably defended without diverting from the main goal of crushing Moscow or heading into the Middle East/Egypt. Normandy or Norway will fall, it just is a matter of on which round and whether the Axis will be able to retake it with a counterattack of ground units supported by planes. France is the best place to have the Axis counterstrike infantry/artillery. Mechanized units can help counterstrike from W Germany. Usually, though, a wave of UK fighters add enough defensive might to Normandy or Norway to ensure that the Axis are unable to strike back.

Aircraft carriers and subs are the best investment for the US as they have dual purposes of defending the fleet and attacking/convoy raiding. Build enough destroyers to prevent German wolfpacks from roaming the Atlantic

@rommel13579 If you are playing a competent Axis player and there is not a bizarre outcome to the 1st round, there should be no opportunity for the Soviets to counterattack before R6. Here is a standard move sequence for the Northern option:

I2/G3: E Poland
I3/G4: Belarus
R4: retreat to Moscow as it is impossible to stand toe-to-toe with Axis forces or prevent an Italian canopener
I4/G5: Bryansk with additional planes if necessary to provide defense

My guess is that you are playing against a weaker German opponent who overspends to defend the Atlantic seacoast instead of focusing a vast majority of resources into the push to Bryansk or Rostov. Most beginners struggle as Axis as they are too reactive in their strategies and don’t focus on the Prime objectives.

@andrewaagamer The TUV benefit of the BB becomes even larger when the odds of winning is greater. If you know that eventually you will be able to force a fleet battle in the Pacific, and will be on the winning side because USA is doing either a KGF or KJF strategy, purchasing an additional BB or two could be wise.

If you aren’t absolutely convinced you will have an epic Naval battle with victory firmly on your side, stick with subs and destroyers.

@marshmallowofwar if you get into a battle with a high probability of success, the battleships will give you a higher expected TUV swing. Check it out in a typical scenario. It isn’t a huge benefit, ~5 TUV per battleship, and comes with numerous disadvantages

I really do like having 20 subs compared to 15 destroyers or 6 battleships as they are all roughly comparable on defense but the subs are vastly superior on offense.

The choice usually is between a battleship or two destroyers or three subs. The BB can be repaired, while the latter options have numerous advantages.

In large fleet battles, battleships are slightly more advantageous as they don’t have their attack ability decreased after taking a single hit. The benefit is so minimal that I have never personally purchased one in a game.

@ShadowHAwk This is a conditional probability question that you have to look at each route and odds. Let us assume we are going against an awful Axis player who is much worse than you and has had an awful G1/J1/I1 start to the match, just to highlight why it might not be insane in some cases:

Base case of doing nothing: 3% chance of winning as Axis
Attack fleet and fail: 1% chance of winning
Attack fleet and win: 30% chance of winning
Conditional probability: 1%*0.87 + 30%*0.13 = 5%

In such a hypothetical, but not unrealistic case, the Axis has an improved chance of winning the game by doing the high-risk G3 raid on the Allied Atlantic fleet. As you mentioned, the outcomes so much depends on the first round of dice. If the Allies miss with all of their dice, the Axis could be left with a surprising number of planes. Those scenarios are very polarized.

@cornwallis Dark Skies have so many options because the bombers project power in so many directions: Moscow, Middle East, Egypt, Med, “France”, Scandinavia, and the Atlantic. It gives you both offensive and counter-attack capabilities, giving you flexibility to respond to the Allied strategy.

If the UK helps stack Moscow to make for an expensive G6 attack, I swing down towards the Middle East with the fast movers. Italy opens the way with the small group of tanks/mechs. The attack often gets bogged down near Iraq/Persia, but time is now not so critical for the Axis. The powerful bomber force combined with some ground units and perhaps a few subs can force it to be expensive for the Allies to protect their units in all of the threatened regions. Eventually there will be an imbalance when Germany gets up to Round 11-ish. Once one of the dams holding back your forces is broken, it is impossible to contain the German ground units with the powerful backing of the bombers.

Look for an economic victory towards Round 15 when the Allies realize that they are falling further and further behind with no way to catch up in total unit value and hence give up without a final major battle.

@cornwallis I have some relatively standard game plans for the first few turns as Germany assuming nothing goes horribly wrong on G1. On the G2 the airforce can clean up any weak units in the Med, move into the westernmost territories of Russia, and build Mechs/tanks to catch up with the main force. On G3 there usually is little to do except move one more space into Russia. I like the northern route if you want to setup a G6 Moscow attack, or the southern route if the game plan is to push into the Middle East before either going to Egypt or Moscow.

There is no way for the Russians to stand toe-to-toe with German forces until G5, and there is no major option for an amphibious landing in W Europe by the Allies for the first few turns. I do Dark Skies with a large number of bombers built starting in G3 so that further delays potential Allied landings as they have to defend both their landing force and their Navy.

Usually Italy loses their foothold in Africa quite quickly and just needs to focus on having a few fast movers getting into Russia, and then defending W Europe and the Med for as long as possible.

@marshmallow-of-war said in Beating J1:

@arthur-bomber-harris I dunno, I’m in Andrew’s camp on this one. When you win by gambling big, you have to take a lot of big gambles and eventually one will not work out.

Marsh

The Axis start with an advantage of approximately 40 PUs that would be necessary to balance the game. That bid leads to a benefit of about 30 additional PUs as the Scottish fighter can protect SZ111 and help counteract, African units can crush Italy, and other such leverage that you get from smartly placed pre-game units. By the end of the second round, a 40 PU initial bid should be well over 85 PU swing compared to a no-bid match. That type of two round swing is required just to balance the game to 50/50 odds.

How are you going to achieve that type of swing in a no-bid game? Obviously low skill by the opponent is one common way to do it as minor strategic mistakes can cause long-term damage. We saw that in the J1 match earlier where Japan didn’t attack Yunnan, failed to bring all of his units further south, and he failed to execute on a J3 or J4 India crush. Those mistakes were devastating.

For better players, the first two rounds are mostly scripted for the Axis. I can look up the standard play book for Japan and Germany and perhaps make a minor adjustment for bad dice luck for second round plans. Strategically there is little for the Allies to do in the first couple of rounds that would get the game back in balance. The next couple of rounds are even more scripted as Germany drives into Russia on G3-4 with no significant opposition, China gets inevitably crushed, and India turtles down in the capitol. A lucky minor battle can be a 10 point swing, but it is hard to get eight of those all in the Allies favor. Hence, the Axis probably has over 100+ PU advantage in a typical game by G5. People wont make egregious mistakes if using a battle calculator on turns 6-8. Good luck overcoming that Allies disadvantage with dice rolls! I will gladly demonstrate how easy it is to win for the Axis in a no-bid Forum match and I certainly am not a top-end player.

Hence, we get to the logical conclusion that the Allies must start taking high risks, and best to start doing it earlier in the game than later as PU advantages builds on itself. Take those 30% battles and see if the dice are in your favor. Strafe off those FIC troops with Indian fighters. Leave a stack in risk for the Axis to defeat it 70% of the time and dare them to attack. If your risky attacks fail, make even riskier attacks as your level of desperation is even higher. The goal is to win the game as Allies, not to force the match into additional turns by turtling down and avoiding risk.

and even if there is a Cruiser, the UK can choose to strafe the two FIC infantry, ensuring that Yunnan remains in Chinese hands on round 2. It is a risky gambit for the Allies, but worth it if playing G40 without bid.

You have to take big risks as Allies in the first couple of rounds because turns 3-5 are mostly scripted with little chance for luck to get involved. In many matches, the game has been decided by turn 6.