“My counter to a black sea sub is a simple mediterain destroyer. More often than not, the destroyer wins in combat, espeically on the offensive, so the sub wasnt able to inpact beyond me burning those 8 IPCs.”
-russellkid

“In that case, what do you do on G1?  I suppose you just leave the battleship and the transport where they are and do not attack Egypt?”
-KaLeun

I think that’s what his strategy called for. In general, I’d be leery of skipping out on the African G1 attack. If I were the UK and saw that move, I would evacuate the Indian ocean fleet into the Med, use the transport to pull over 2 inf from India, and drop them in Anglo Egypt. I would couple this move with a transfer of 1 inf from transjordan. Depending on the exact deployment pattern of the Luftwaffe, I would consider moving the fighter from Egypt onto the AC or vice versa. In either case, the UK fleet menaces Germany’s southern flank, and forces the German player to devote far more resources to Africa/the Med than he normally would. Either he has to divert fighters and bombers to destroy the med fleet, or attempt attacking 4 inf and 1 armor with 2 inf 1 art and 1 armor with air support.

Opting not to destroy this new UK med fleet G2 raises the specter of a UK Egypt IC, which, if executed properly can cause a number of headaches for the Axis player, as after it’s used to kick the Germans out of Africa, it can be used to snipe either territories in southern europe, reinforce the russians via stacking tanks in persia, or opportunistically going after the East Indies if Japan empties them.

You’re right to say that the UK was late in setting up the Atlantic Transport chain due to their turns 1-3 purchases. Japan actually wasn’t able to get any further in Asia than Sinkiang, India, and Yakut due to US pressure forcing more naval builds than I usually pull off. (I tend to favor transports over factories when playing with japan) That being said, those three IPCs taken from the USSR coupled with the lack of UK presence in the North Atlantic, meant that Moscow fell before the US was able to make any serious gains in the South Pacific. (They managed to destroy my first Japanese fleet, but it turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory, the remnants of their fleet were picked off by Japanese air the next turn.)

My main concern, is if the Black Sea Sub build is accompanied by a UK north atlantic strat as opposed to the UK South African IC build and bomber strats, how can Germany remain competitive economically or positionally? I find that with appropriate deadzoning, it’s really hard to push into Russia without a massive piece advantage, which is why I normally favor a strong German African strat.

In a sort of unrelated question, how should the Japanese counter a strong US push? I think I ended up getting lucky, as the US player pushed out a little too early and exposed their fleet to counter attacks by the Japanese airforce. What’s the best staging area for a Japanese fleet stack? I think controlling the Solomon Islands in key, but stacking there seems problematic for supply reasons.

Hey Guys,

This is my first post here to the forums, although, I’ve been skimming some of the articles here for about the past week or so. I’ve been able to consistently beat my friend while playing as the axis, usually through a German strategy that focuses on capturing Africa first and then leveraging that economic advantage to crush the USSR (it also has the added bonus of effectively castrating the UK) the Japanese then link up with them in Transjordan after conquering india, and that’s game. However, I’m having issues countering the Russian Black Sea Sub build. My friend plays with the UK and USSR focusing on the Germans, while the Americans contend with the Japanese.

Normally my friend likes to play with an aggressive attack against Ukraine and West Russia. While he usually buys inf and artillery or 3 art 3 armor as russia, this game he built 3 inf 1 art 1 armor and 1 sub.

I did my normal German purchases of an AC and transport build off the coast of Italy, coupled with a mixed buy of inf and armor in Germany. While this normally places me a little bit short in terms of troops in Europe, it normally works out in the end, due to the fact that I’m crushing him in Africa. The play started out with the usual G1 German assault on Egypt with 1 fighter 2 inf and 2 armor. Egypt was captured with 2 armor remaining.

Other moves included a successful capture of Karelia with one inf (he left it open) and destruction of the British seazone 2 fleet with only loss of the zone 8 sub. The entire British Atlantic (except the seazone 1 tranny) and Med fleets were destroyed.

As the UK he went with an all bomber purchase bombers and retook Egypt with an amphibious assault from India supported with the inf from transjordan and cruiser support shot and fighter. He captured it with 2 inf remaining (I got some really atrocious rolls).

I won’t go over the Pacific theater, because I have a pretty good grasp of the situation there, even with all of the US funds going to the pacific, I find that the Japanese can easily match any US fleet build coupled with their overwhelming initial unit advantage means that Japan actually is really quite difficult to take down.

For R2 he destroyed my battleship with 2 fighters and 1 sub, losing only the sub. G2 I retook Egypt with the inf and art from libya (initially from algeria) and 1 tank and 1 inf transported from southern Europe (Results 1 inf, 1 art, 1 armor remaining).

UK 2 he purchased a South African IC and 1 bomber saving three. He sunk the carrier 2 fighters and transport off the coast of egypt with his three bombers, landing  the surviving single bomber in transjordan protected by one inf from persia.

R3 nothing particularly unusual or exciting happened in the European Theater. G3 I opted not to purchase more navy b/c i was starting to get concerned that I might be a little bit shorter on inf than I’d like in Europe. I sent my Afrika Korp to destroy the bomber and the inf, suffering no casualties.

In the end, ultimately, I got kicked out of Africa b/c his SA factory was dropping 2 tanks a turn, with no corresponding German investment. Any new naval builds would be destroyed by his UK bomber command.

Do you guys have any suggestions for possible counters, or should I just adopt a different German strategy altogether? I’m actually rather fond of my current German African strategy and am somewhat reluctant to abandon it.