I’ve recently gotten into playing competitive A&A1914 (with the help of fellow user @Slip-Capone, who has helped me playtest extensively). After playing several games and doing research, we’ve noticed that the Entente is heavily favored by most players. We are not here to dispute this assessment, and we are also not here to disagree with the typical Entente strategy of “UK kills Ottomans, Russia defends, Italy fights Austria, France fights Germany, USA goes where it’s needed”. This Entente strategy works well because, if everything goes well, the resulting endgame will see the Ottomans bleeding IPCs, Russia being battered but still holding on, and Italy/France/USA winning the game for the Entente in Italy/Germany/Austria.

What we do disagree with, however, is the typical Central Powers strategies that we have observed. From what we’ve seen, there are only two approaches typically taken for the Central Powers: “Kill Russia first” (where Austria/Germany/Ottomans gang up on Russia and go for a quick knockout before pivoting to France) and “Kill France first” (where Germany aggressively attacks France while Austria and Ottomans defend). After working together with @Slip Capone, we have refined a third Central Powers strategy that has viability, which is the point of this thread. As the thread title says, we are dubbing this strategy “Kill Italy First”. It should be self-explanatory at a high level, but further discussion is needed to make our point.

What is Kill Italy First (“KIF”)? As the name implies, you direct the Central Powers to defeat Italy first. Italy is by-far the weakest member of the Entente, only boasting 14 IPCs of starting income, and having a very small standing army on the first turn of the game. Additionally, if you are playing under LHTR, Italy also boasts a pathetically low threshold for collapsing (7 Economic/9 Political). However, Italy’s geographic position, coupled with their powerful starting navy, makes them a serious threat to the Central Powers if the game drags on into the later rounds. Left alone, Italy can bridge units into the Middle East (mostly Smyrna/Trans-Jordan), and can even make a run on Constantinople if the Ottoman player makes a mistake. Furthermore, Italy’s meager economy is just enough to be an annoyance to the Austrians, especially once you consider that Tyrolia and Trieste, both worth 4 IPCs, are directly adjacent to Italian territory (Venice). Rome is also a mere 4 tiles away from Vienna (Rome -> Tuscany -> Venice -> Trieste/Tyrolia -> Vienna), making it a source of Entente units that’s extremely close to the front lines.

I went through such lengths to describe Italy’s position above because I’ve found that most players regard Italy as an afterthought, dismissing their role in the game with claims along the lines of “they’re weak and have to harass Austria”. My point here is that, if the Central Powers, specifically Austria and Germany, can take advantage of Italy’s weak starting position and politically-collapse them early, the Central Powers can seize 13 IPCs (not 14, since the last pesky IPC is in Libya) of Victory Points and income, which almost makes up for the 20 extra income USA will bring to the table starting turn 3 (turn 4 OOB). Defeating Italy (under LHTR) also has the added benefit of removing the Italian Navy from the game, which takes a large amount of pressure off of the Ottomans and also opens up the possibility of the Central Powers gaining control of the Mediterranean (more on that later).

Hopefully, my ranting and raving has given you an idea of why I’m advocating this approach. Next, I’d like to talk about what steps you can take as the Central Powers to achieve this. This is something resembling a recommended build order/opening move guide for Austria and Germany. I won’t be discussing the Ottomans here, since their only role in this plan is to survive the onslaught that Russia/U.K. will try to throw their way.

Bid: Assuming you get a bid, throw it in SZ18 (Adriatic Sea, where the Austrian Navy is). Ideally, you want a 12 bid so you can get a Battleship there (mostly for the 2HP, but the extra bombardment helps your consistency in the opening as well). A 9-11 bid (to get a Cruiser in SZ18) is also acceptable, but not really recommended. You really should try for a 12 bid.

This bid will enable you to keep the AH fleet alive, barring good dice by the Entente. This may seem a bit odd, but ensuring you can continuously amphib into Tuscany will cut off the Italian supply line to Piedmont and Venice, two territories that are mission-critical. Maintaining a strong navy in SZ18 will also protect Trieste from amphibious assaults by Italy/France/UK, and will also give you the opportunity to break out of the Adriatic and into the Mediterranean in the mid-late game, which will prevent the Americans/French from sending their fleets to harass the Ottomans or liberate Italy. This can make the difference between winning and losing in a tournament setting.

AH1: Buy: 4 INF/2 ART/1 TT for 26 IPC. The extra TT is for SZ18, which will become important AH2 for ferrying as many units as you can into Tuscany. Everything else is going to head towards Russia to defend against whatever trick they try R1.

AH1: Move: 2 INF from Trieste get on the TT in SZ18 and land in Tuscany. As stated earlier, the idea here is to cut off Italy’s main army in Rome from reaching Venice, guaranteeing its fall. Everything else from Trieste + everything from Tyrolia goes into Venice. If you’re lucky, you can kill Venice in one battle, but if you don’t it’s fine. Germany will pick up the slack.

Meanwhile, send everything from Vienna and Bohemia + 1 INF/2 ART from Galacia into Trieste in particular. Trieste is within two spaces of several important territories in this part of the board (Venice, Piedmont, Tuscany, the TTs in SZ18, Serbia, Galacia) which is why you want a stack there.

Finally, send 4 INF from Budapest to Galacia to hold the lines, but everything else into Serbia (the game rules demand you attack Serbia AH1).

These moves accomplish the following:

A: Clearly and definitively reposition Austria’s starting forces into a posture where Italy is being relentlessly attacked. Italy’s starting forces are no match for this force, meaning you can send most of your buys towards Russia to make up for the units you took away from that front.

B: Fortifies Galacia against Russia. The hope here is that Russia overextends and attacks you, which will allow Germany to send its starting forces to attack G1. This, plus an about-face from the Austrian stacks in Trieste and Vienna, will totally destroy that Russian army. If Russia doesn’t take this bait, you can commit the Trieste stack to destroying Italy as-planned while playing out the Russian front based on what the Entente does.

G1: Buy: 5 INF/2 ART/2 FTR. Germany is going to be buying the FTRs for the Central Powers. Air Superiority is absolutely critical to obtain in this game, due to it allowing your ART to roll @ 4 while also DENYING this benefit to your opponent. The latter is just as important as the former, if not more so.

G1: Move: Everything from Munich + Alsace attack Switzerland. Yes, Switzerland. Switzerland is adjacent to Burgundy, Alsace, Piedmont and Venice. This positioning disrupts France’s first turn, as they now have to properly position their forces to prevent Germany from moving a large stack into Burgundy (which is adjacent to Paris), and also puts Germany within striking distance of Italy’s high-value territories (Piedmont, Venice, Tuscany).

The troops from Ruhr will move in a strange direction. 1 INF goes to Alsace to prevent a walk-in by France. The rest go to Tyrolia. Yes, Tyrolia. Tyrolia is similar to how I described Trieste in my section on Austria. Tyrolia is within 2-spaces of Tuscany/Piedmont/Venice/Alsace/Ruhr/Galacia/Silesia/Budapest, all extremely high-value or strategically important territories.

Silesia and Prussia leave one INF behind each and move everything else into Galacia to join the Austrians. Everything from Hanover goes there as well. We’re trying to hold the line against Russia with just enough to put up a fight while the bulk of the troops go towards Italy.

Last but not least, everything from Berlin and Kiel move down to Munich. Munich, like Tyrolia and Trieste, is a good central location that covers all of your options for the second round.

What you do in Africa is up to you. It’s not relevant to the overall strategy.

NOTE: A lot of this goes out the window if Russia attacks Germany, Silesia or Galcia R1. If Russia makes such a move, which is an over-extension, you should absolutely abandon the “KIF” strategy and crush Russia as quickly as possible.

Now, with those very-specific first moves covered, I will give a general overview for how the rest of the game should play out. No specific moves this time, as you’ll mostly be reacting to what your opponent does at this point.

AH2: Finish off Venice (if you couldn’t break it AH1), defend yourself against Russia as best you can. Build all land units, leaning towards ART (Germany will give Air Support).

G2: Push into Piedmont and Tuscany (2-move from Tyrolia -> Venice -> Tuscany). Defend yourself against France and Russia appropriately. Build at least 1-2 FTRs to maintain Air Superiority across the board.

If you got lucky, or if France played poorly, Italy will Economic-Collapse after their turn. If you’ve accomplished this, you’re on your way to a win.

AH3: Push into Rome if possible. If not-possible, move the Tuscany guys into Naples/Piedmont as appropriate. Don’t press combat in Piedmont, you want to minimize France’s chances of saving Italy from Political-Collapse. Continue building land units and sending them towards Russia.

G3: Push into Rome/Naples if Austria couldn’t manage it. Most of your attention should be on stopping France from saving Italy/defending the Ruhr/Munich line from France’s assault. Keep buying FTRs.

At this point, Italy should Political-Collapse. If you got Italy to die this quickly, you’ve basically won. If you didn’t manage it yet, you still have one last chance in round 4 to finish them before the Americans start really giving you trouble.

AH4: You may want to build navy at this point, if your fleet is still alive. You should mostly be focused on attacking Russia at this point. Hopefully after 3 rounds of buys from Germany/Austria Russia will be on the defensive.

G4: Same advice as G3. If you didn’t finish off Italy yet this is your last chance.

After this point, Italy is dead (hopefully), and the Americans have arrived. Your objective at this point changes dramatically. Austria should start buying navy and attempt to dislodge the Entente from SZ17 in particular. Taking this critical Sea Zone will prevent the Americans from making any last-minute plays into the Middle East or Italy, securing the IPCs you’ve gained there. Meanwhile, do your best to evacuate the German/Austrian armies from the Italian peninsula and reposition them to beat the French out of Germany before the game ends. Between whatever gains you made in Russia while all this was going on, and the gains you secured in Italy, you should have done more than enough to offset whatever IPCs you lost in the Ottoman-U.K. front and win the game.

@Tahweh While your tips are generally helpful as a fellow top 200 plat player (got into top 70 as Allies at one point, but I haven’t been playing much lately due to life commitments) I’d give the following caveats:

1. USSR can afford to build a Tank or two. The ability to move two spaces instead of one is sometimes vital for transferring forces from one part of the front to another.

2. Absolute buys should not be suggested. There are multiple openers for each country that compliment different overall strategies. However, I can also see that you’re tailoring this guide towards beginners, so a basic, low-risk KGF/Russia Crush strategy is probably best for just starting out.

3. Germany needs to buy Tanks to make up for the longer “supply line” (as you called it) between Berlin and the Eastern Front Vs. the Soviets’. Of course, you don’t do anything silly like buying all Tanks, but 1-3 Tanks each turn while you’re ahead is recommended, unless you’ve scouted that the Allies are going for a KGF and you don’t see yourself breaking Moscow anytime soon.

4. India falling should not be accepted as a given. It’s a likely outcome, but if you go in with a defeatist mindset that India will fall, then you’re also effectively conceding the game, as once Japan takes India their IPC income usually hits critical mass. India should be fought for tooth and nail so that, once it finally falls, Germany will be near-defeat anyway.

5. Pearl Harbor is not something you should do in 100% of your games. Over-committing to it means you’re not making progress in Asia fast enough and under-committing means whatever is still in the Sea Zone gets counter-attacked A1. Whether Japan does Pearl Harbor or not should depend on what the UK does B1. If UK is committing heavily to India you should ignore Pearl Harbor and focus on Southeast Asia before UK builds momentum there.

6. The build you recommend is valid, but building 1-2 Factories in Manchuria/FIC is also valid. Capturing Moscow before Berlin falls to the Allies is the goal of the game, and you need to accomplish it as quickly/safely as possible based on what the Allies are doing. If the Allies are fortifying Asia, you need to take your time and build INF, but if they’re leaving Asia totally bare, then start building Tanks and make for Moscow as fast as you can.

7. Ignoring Japan in the Pacific lets them turn into an IPC monster extremely quickly. Some naval presence in the Pacific is recommended. You don’t need to contest the Pacific, you just need to force Japan to actually spend some of their IPCs on Surface Vessels so they’re not flinging 45+ IPCs towards India/Moscow every turn.

8. Japan can buy 1-2 factories a game. However I wouldn’t recommend that a beginner try doing such a strategy.

9. Great article otherwise. Avoiding these common pitfalls + learning the optimal opening(s) for each country are the two biggest hurdles to “stop being bad” at Axis & Allies. The road to “getting good” involves learning how to play out the long game and not panic when individual battles go badly.

For having good taste and going with the Revised-style map instead of that atrociously ugly design they use in the actual 42SE game.

Yo.

Apologies for not being active lately, Christmas season was extremely busy in my line of work, so I had to put A&A on hold to juggle work/family (as I’m sure most of you had to do as well).

Anyway, I finally got my hands on AAZ, undeniably the most controversial game that the franchise has ever seen, and I would like to take the next few days to share my thoughts on it.

To anyone reading this, know that I was originally supportive of this game in the face of the massive backlash it received from the community when it was originally unveiled a few months ago. I’m not bringing this up to re-fight any flame wars. I just want to make it clear that if I end up criticizing or disliking this game it is not because I believe that “Wizards of the Coast ruined my childhood” or “They made fun of veterans” or whatever. Some people have those opinions and that’s fine, but I’m going to look at this game from a more objective standpoint (or at lease from as objective of an standpoint as an opinion about a dice-rolling abstract wargame can be).

Anyway, this is my first post of 3 on this topic, a quick discussion of the components of the game. I’ll try to be brief, as components are relatively unimportant to me in these games (I own almost every edition of A&A at this point, and I just kind of keep all my unit sculpts, dice, etc. together in one massive collection). However, most members of this community highly value the sculpts that come in these games (for customization purposes, historical reasons, or otherwise), so I am going to take the time to address the quality of the product.

The Units themselves aren’t much to write home about. They’re just reprints of sculpts from other games (1942SE and possibly G40 I think, but I’m not an expert on this so someone correct me if I’m wrong). Other people can detail this much better than I. One odd note is that my British Units came out a darker shade of tan than I’m used to seeing. Not sure if that was a printing error or if it was intentional.

The Zombie units look fine. Their color being pale is probably why the British Units were made a darker shade. They’re relatively generic-looking too, which is a bonus if you want to use the sculpts in other games (HBG Global War, house rules for your G40 setup, etc.) as Partisan/Resistance/Civilian Units. I certainly plan on doing so.

I was disappointed to see that they cheaped out and didn’t print Industrial Complexes/AA Guns, but we are finally seeing the triumphant return of Paper Money to the A&A Series, so I’ll take what I can get on this front.

Anyway, on to the last bit for this part, the map.

The map quality was honestly my biggest fear coming into this edition of A&A. One of the first things we learned about AAZ is that it was going to be targeting mass audiences (simpler ruleset, 40 USD price tag, zombies added for flavor, etc.). The last edition of A&A that “targeted mass audiences” was 1941, which has the most abysmal map quality in the franchise bar none (except maybe the Nova Games version but honestly that doesn’t count). My obvious fear is that the map for this game would be hopelessly scrunched on an impossibly small board, making the game virtually unplayable.

I’m glad to report that I was wrong to be afraid on this point. The map isn’t perfect, but they’re pitfalls that most A&A games fall in to (lots of dead space in the ocean, Africa is too big, Russian chokepoints like West Russia and Ukraine are too small, etc.). The territories on the map are easy to distinguish from one another, and where one country’s territory ends and another’s begins is clear. This is due to the stylistic change they made with regards to the map design. The territories are no longer given the “terrain” style they’ve had since AA50 (which featured in AA50, 41, 42, 42SE, and G40), but are given sharp colors (more akin to what was in Classic, Revised, and 1914). In my opinion, this is an improvement, as my play group and I had difficulty distinguishing territories from one another when attempting to setup games with the former style for the first time.

The clutter of the board is not that bad, as the board was made reasonably large. Still, the map is not fantastic. It’s pretty small, and suffers from the clutter issues I mentioned previously. Because of this, I’d put AAZ’s components quality somewhere in the middle, better than abominations like 41 and 42 First Edition, on-par with the likes of 42SE and Revised, but below masterpieces like AA50 and G40. Yes, I called the maps of AA50 and G40 masterpieces. Regardless of my opinions on the art style of the map, AA50 and G40 have well-crafted maps that are big enough to actually play the game on, even if you need a special table for it in most cases. Is it fair to compare the quality of the components of AAZ, a game that retails for 40 USD, to games that retail for over 100? Probably not, but I did it anyway.

I would also like to address the design and structure of the map from a gameplay/balance perspective and compare it to other games in the franchise, but I’ll cover that more in a later part (or an entirely separate topic).

Stay tuned for part 2, where I post a review of the gameplay of this edition. I’m going to be meeting with my group tonight to play a game with Zombies enabled. My feedback will address the overall “feel” of the game, and whether I believe the Zombies actually have anything worthwhile to contribute to the series. That part will be out tomorrow probably. Thursday at the latest.

Part 3 I will upload later this week, and will cover a solitaire run or two I plan on completing after my initial play with others. I’ll be aiming to compare how this game runs with and without the Zombie Mechanic, to see if this game as a whole has anything worthwhile to contribute to the series. As a bonus, I’ll also be trying the “introductory scenario” that is in the rulebook. I haven’t reviewed it yet, but the concept of a 1939 start date is probably the single thing I was most excited for in this game, tutorial or otherwise.

If you actually read all this, way to go.

Just found this thread, so figured I’d throw my two cents in the ring, since Allies are more fun to play than Axis in this version (even if they have a much harder time winning).

Under LHTR (AKA “Gencon 3.0” or whatever they call it in AAO), killing the German bomber is the linchpin of the entire Allied opening, as you need the following chain of events to occur:

• USSR kills Germany’s bomber in Ukraine R1.
• No Bomber for Germany = Germany can’t reliably kill Egypt G1.
• Egypt surviving = UK gets an extra FTR B1 for use against the IJN off DEI (SZ37)
• Extra fighter for UK against SZ37 fleet = UK trades its entire Pacific fleet to take down half the IJN B1.
• Japan losing half its navy = Their offensive momentum is totally halted, giving the Allies a solid amount of wiggle room to play the game.

This necessity, coupled with the necessity of taking West Russia R1, as it is the most important tile in Russia in terms of what it connects to, means that you can’t expect to hold Karelia. Thus, I go for the following opening:

Karelia: FTR -> Ukraine, rest -> W. Russia
Archangel: All -> W. Russia
Moscow: Tanks + FTRs -> Ukraine, rest to W. Russia
Caucasus: All -> Ukraine

Despite this, you can and may lose the Ukraine fight. However, due to the default AAO Defense Profiles (WHICH YOU CAN CHANGE IN THE SETTINGS BY THE WAY, PLEASE DO THIS) being terrible, Germany by-default will lose the Bomber last, which means that pulling out after killing the Bomber is not usually an option.

For the Siberia guys, there’s more flexibility with what you can do, but you at least want the Kazakh guy going to Szechwan, move the Ural guys to Archangel, move the Novosibirsk guy to Moscow and to consolidate the guys in Yakut/SFE/Bury. I like to stick them in Yakut, but you can go for Buryatia if you’re planning on a KJF for whatever reason.

After the opening, as Black_Elk said, the strategy depends on the ebb and flow of the game. Things like how Germany/Japan are playing, how dice rolls are going, etc. This determines whether you build 1-2 TANKs with your land units, or all INF/ART. I don’t agree with the notion that the Soviets should be buying FTRs ever. Leave the expensive units to USA/UK.

Finally, I personally find Strat Bombing worthless. Bombers are expensive and don’t pay for themselves until a point where the game has usually been decided one way or the other anyway. For the price of the Bomber you’re gambling IPC value on, you can buy 2 SUBs, 4 INF, 3 ART, or 2 TANK, based on your needs. All of these options are blatantly superior to a Bomber. The only thing that’s worse for you value-wise is probably a Cruiser, lol.

EDIT: I’m specifically talking about purchasing a BOMB. Bidding for one is perfectly acceptable due to how the bidding rules work. An extra BOMB in Russia’s opener gives you much better odds in Ukraine, and you then have the ability to keep the Bomber alive for other roles on both sides of the map.

@Argothair said in Why is Global better than Revised?:

Very interesting, thank you. So, digging a little deeper, can anyone articulate what it means for something to be a “wargame” or why G40 would scratch the “wargame hunger” better than Revised? In concrete terms, why does G40 feel like a wargame?

The gist of it is that G40 has a higher level of complexity and scale than Revised, in terms of number of territories on the board, distinct unit types, special rules/scenarios, how scripted the opening moves are (in the big picture, I mean), etc.

Take your average wargame. Hex-based Grid, super-historically accurate setup (with minor concessions for balance reasons), Chits corresponding to individual unit/battalions/whatever (this differs based on the game). Wargames also typically cover the full timeline of the war, with certain historical events more-or-less pre-determined (i.e. France will lose to the Nazi assault in 1940 every time. Germany will need to declare war on the Soviet Union ever time, USA will enter the war on the Allies’ side after either Japan attacks them or certain conditions are met, etc.).

Does this sort of thing sound more like Revised, or G40? Clearly the answer here is G40. Revised has a comparatively static initial board state set late in the war (~1942), that isn’t historically accurate (i.e. “Pearl Harbor” happens J1 despite the Germans already being more-or-less set up to make their doomed attack into Stalingrad, but somehow the Russians get to make the first move? Also Germany/Italy just gets to take Egypt at the start of the game?). Meanwhile, G40 starts you off in a relatively accurate representation of 1940 Europe, with things like the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet-Japanese Non-Aggression Pact, America’s Neutrality, and Japan not yet being at war with most of the Allies all being present and accounted for.

Revised, when played at a high level, looks nothing like World War 2 in terms of strategies used by the Players. G40 doesn’t either, but it comes a lot closer than Revised does. That’s why I call G40 “close to a wargame” rather than giving it the full distinction.

But what else are you going to do? Either the action has a central focus (in which case people will complain that the only thing to do is go right for the center) or the action doesn’t have a central focus (in which case people will complain that it feels casual and screwy and ahistorical and winds up in stalemates where you trade the same peripheral territories forever). Maybe I’m feeling too philosophical today to talk sense. I’m just trying to figure out what makes A&A games fun and what makes them frustrating, at a really abstract and general level.

What makes a A&A game fun/frustrating is a subjective question, I guess I’ll give you my take:

• Fun - Relatively quick compared to other wargames.

• Fun - Straightforward-enough rules, but not for babies like Risk or your typical Milton Bradley/Hasbro game.

• Fun - Exciting World War 2 Action.

• Fun - Decent-to-huge variety in strategic options available to the player. You’re not forced to follow history 1:1.

• Fun - While luck is a factory, the better player will usually win due to skill.

• Fun - Asynchronous Gameplay. The Axis start with more Power, but less Economy. The Allies start with more Economy, but less Power. The Axis have to try their best to gain the economic advantage over the Allies before the Allies’ superior economy allows them to overpower the Axis’ starting advantage. It’s like picking White or Black in Chess, but on a much higher level than just “who goes first”.

• Fun - Ability to make custom scenarios easily, as the simple rules lend themselves easily to modifications, as shown by the hard work a lot of people do on this forum.

• Frustrating - Once optimal play is found for a map, most games usually come down to arguments about bids and dice rolls.

• Frustrating - Because of the OOB system, games can be decided by single rounds of combat if one side rolls well.

• Frustrating - Grind Games. While some long, drawn out games can be breathtakingly exciting, more often than not you’re staring at 20 turns of swapping some clay in Ukraine/some territory adjacent to Moscow and waiting for something exciting to happen while looking at the clock. Face-to-Face rules that impose a strict turn limit do a lot to alleviate this, though.

IMO the change in OOL does nothing to prevent the main sources of imbalance in 42SE, namely:

• Germany’s starting forces are too powerful and will overwhelm the Soviets every time.

• The Soviet IC in Karelia is more of a curse than a blessing, as Germany will always seize it G1 and gain access to a free IC two territories away from Moscow, and adjacent to the main Soviet stack (West Russia). The most the Allies can do to oppose this is SBR the factory, but 4 IPC/turn is a small price to pay for the huge benefit that having an IC deep in Soviet territory provides.

• The UK IC in India is in a similar position, as UK is forced to spend 9-18 IPC a turn stacking land units there to deter Japan from seizing the territory. UK is forced into this position, because the moment Japan seizes the IC, they will be able to pump out 3 Tanks/turn from it. India is two territories away from Caucasus, a vital territory on the board, and Russia cannot possibly survive the pressure of a Japanese push on Caucasus AND the Germans stacking Karelia.

EDIT: Forgot the point of my rambling about the UK India IC. My point is that, because UK has to spend 1/3 - 1/2 of its income guarding India, its ability to send assistance to the USSR via re-assembling the Royal Navy is extremely impeded. This is especially troubling when you take into consideration the relative ease at which Germany destroys the Royal Navy on G1. It could take as many as 4-5 rounds for UK/US to just get into a position where they can start applying pressure to the periphery of the ETO (North Africa/Scandinavia), let alone actually do anything close to real damage. By G5 Germany will already have the Russians either dead or helplessly holed up in Moscow.

The only thing the OOL change impacts is naval battles (which is why I did not list the overwhelming power of the IJN as a problem) and fringe cases where Fighters/Bombers were left guarding key positions (France, West Russia, etc.)

tl;dr the key issues with 42SE’s setup arise from the land situation on the Russian Front, and land battles are generally unaffected by the OOL changes.

I haven’t played a PVP game yet, but I wanted to offer my take on the tutorial and the Vs. AI modes.

Hopped in today. Game is going for a certain aesthetic. I’m not big on it as I prefer minimalist designs, but I can live with it. The UI is cumbersome and overdone, but that’s not an issue for the most part as I can disable the animations and mute the music/SFX via the options menu. So far so good.

That’s where the nitpicks start for the UI, though.

• The lines each unit leave behind to indicate that they’re advancing from point A to point B can cause a fair bit of clutter. This is especially painful on turn 1 for countries with denser initial setups, like Germany and USSR. At multiple points I ended up accidentally not moving a Fighter simply because I though that I’d already moved it. TripleA handles this by actually having the units move into the territory you’re trying to attack, instead of awkwardly hovering halfway between the origin territory and the target like this game does.

• At the start of each new game phase, the camera warps back to the maximum zoom setting. I play the game zoomed out as far as I can by default, so needing to zoom back out for each and every phase of my turn was frustrating.

• I can’t select multiple units from a territory at once when trying to move them. It’s time-consuming to have to click on a unit and then click the target territory for that unit multiple times until I clear out the stack. I was trying to finish off Moscow G4 with a 12 INF/13 TANK stack and it took me almost 90 seconds to get the battle setup. In TripleA I just have to shift+click West Russia and then click Moscow and boom, done.

• Transports feel a bit clunky as well. First you have to click the transport you intend to load, then click on any units in any adjacent territories you want to load on the transport, then click on the destination for the transport, then click on the unload target. If you accidentally click on any other unit during this process you have to start over. It’s irritating. Additionally, you can’t click on a land unit then click on the transport. You have to click the transport first. It’s slightly counter-intuitive, but that’s probably just my years of reflexes from playing TripleA getting to me.

That’s it for UI nitpicks, but I’d also like to add that the game takes a while to play out. Can’t really put my finger on why, but everything just feels “slow”. I know I’m not exactly being descriptive here, so I’m sorry about that.

The tutorial mode was fine, loved the thick British Accent on the commander guy. It really needs sections on Naval Combat, Strategic Bombing, and Naval Bombardment, though.

The AI is complete crap (I could use more colorful language but that’d be rude) at the game. I was able to beat it as Allies on turn 5. Yes, I won 42SE as Allies with no bid on turn 5 (for reference, I’m not the greatest A&A player out there, and the TripleA Hard AI actually gives me a pretty rough go of things on 42SE no bid if I take Allies). The Germans attack into bad situations in a desperate bid to take VCs (Leningrad in particular), and the Japanese fail completely at taking out the initial British Fleet and have a tendency to hang their fleet. The AI just kind of sucks at naval combat in-general. When I was playing as Axis, the USN let my starting Submarines basically roam the board and snipe all of their transports without even trying to stop them. One turn they even built 3 Transports right next to my submarines with 0 cover.

Other than that, the game’s functional, and an accurate simulation of 42SE. Only issue I can see are the general balance issues for 42SE that have been talked to death already. Would appreciate it if the 42.3 balance patch was implemented and included as an alternate setup. It shouldn’t take too much effort, as it’s the exact same map and starting territories as the base game, just with different units assigned to each territory.

One last note is that I got tons of random JavaScript exceptions while playing. Can’t replicate all of them, but I know for sure that one of them was caused by me pressing the “back” key on my mouse. Might want to look into that.

Super happy to finally be playing this. Hoping to play some PVP tomorrow and provide more feedback.

I’ll also be posting this on Steam to try to get discussion going.

Just want to say that a new patch dropped today. It sped up things like combat and the pauses between phases/button presses considerably. I was able to play a turn just now in like 3 minutes, where before it would take 5-7 minutes.

Keep up the good work, @JuliusBorisovBeamdog and Co.

I don’t see any value in going after Scandinavia with the Soviets. Leave that to the UK. They need income/a base of operations and they’re more suited to take it than the Russians anyway due to their navy (once they rebuild it, anyway…)

Any Soviet unit that goes to Scandinavia isn’t going to make it back to Moscow in time for the final battle, period. They’ll be cut off as the German/Italian can-opener rages by.

The 'Spread of Communism" bonus is nice but it may ultimately not end up being worth it if you have to devote too many units to obtain it in the first place.

@imperious-leader I thought you were just trolling for a minute before I remembered that “Zombie” is what they called draft dodgers in Canada lol.

@franklin_cain said in Canada's distinct ownership icons:

Regarding the distinct ownership icons used for the Canadian territories, I have these questions…

1. Why? That is, why did/does Canada need to have its territories marked differently from the rest of the UK?

This one is actually a bit interesting. Way back when these games were first coming out, Pacific 1940 and Europe 1940 were released about a year apart from one another, with Pacific 1940 coming out first. When P40 was first being revealed (as the entire G40 experience was hyped to the moon, information was drip-fed to folks via semi-regular updates from Larry), the map for Pacific 1940 got its own dedicated update.

You may or may not know from poking around this site, but A&A actually has a rather large following in Canada, so the fact that Canada clearly had its own territory, distinct from UK, coupled with the facts that:

1. ANZAC was its own country.
2. “UK Pacific” (i.e. India) was its own country.
3. Larry promised that the presence of a special Canada territory marker was “significant” (or something like that, it’s been like 11 years since these games came out lol. Someone correct me if I’m wrong on this).

hopes were high that Canada was in fact going to be its own playable country. However, when Europe 1940 was being revealed, and the playable countries were announced, there was no unique Canada faction. Instead, the Canada territory markers were given some excuse like “to pay tribute to the heroism/exploits that Canadians made during World War II”, citing stuff like Canadian Action during D-Day, etc.

So, tl;dr: the Canada markers mean nothing, but are a neat tease at what could have been.

2. Why wasn’t Newfoundland/Labrador so marked as well? (It is part of Canada, isn’t it?) Was this an error?

IIRC, historically, Newfoundland wasn’t part of the Dominion of Canada, and during the 30s and 40s was a direct colony of Britain. An actual Canadian probably knows this history better than me though. I just used Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newfoundland_and_Labrador#Commission_of_Government_and_Canadian_Confederation)

@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.

@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.

@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.

@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 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 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.

@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.

@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.