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.

@slip-capone The concept of units being allowed to move 2 spaces in non-combat spices this game up a lot, in my opinion. It really gives all sides a lot more options in the early/mid-game.

@chaosido Are you hitting the Japanese fleet off of DEI on B1? It’s a 50/50 battle, roughly (especially in AAO where you can’t bid 1 sub to the India SZ), but it’s basically a mandatory first step to take down the IJN in anything resembling a short enough time frame to beat/cripple Japan (and thus allow India’s production to start going into Russia to save the Soviets) before Moscow falls to the Germans.

EDIT: I say it’s a mandatory first step because if Japan’s skipping PH then they’re going to have an entire death-fleet in striking distance of India for basically the whole game, which will prevent UK from really being allowed to do much in terms of building navy. Japan’s starting fleet is impressive too, so it will take USA like 3-4 rounds to be able to surpass/defeat it (assuming Japan is actually building navy/bombers to supplement it and not dumping 100% of their income into transports/land units), which isn’t fast enough to stop Japan before Germany walks into Moscow and wins the game for the Axis.

Alternatively, if you’re in a lower tier (i.e. anything below mid-gold), just spend 100% of USA’s income on fleet until you’re on-par with/slightly-better than Japan’s navy, then just make a beeline for the Japan SZ, to project a threat at Manchuria and Japan simultaneously. Assuming you’re in a lower tier, your opponent will be bad at the game/not used to this situation, and will probably start panicking and making mistakes which you can exploit to secure the Pacific.

@ericb I don’t see how it’s “easy” for USSR to hold off tank pressure from India while managing to not die to Germany, unless you’re not taking India in your games until like round 5 and you’re also playing against a 100% KGF from the Allies.

Moderator’s edit:
The question behind the following answer and the follow up discussion has been:

German Carrier SZ 15
How to deal with? Ignore? It effectively stalls the Allies putting pressure on Germany for at least a turn. My USA build is usually Aircraft carrier and 3 destroyers, or 1 destroyer and a battleship, I know all the reasons not to buy battleships, but the 2 hit pays for itself many times over against aircraft. UK buys 2 infantry and a fighter for India, and one fighter for Great Britain. With Germany funneling troops into Africa, you’d think Russia would have some advantage, but apparently Germany can do both attack Africa and crush the meager Russians with Storm troopers piling in from Japan. It’s round 3 before the USA has a fleet large enough to even push a landing on south Africa due to the German Navy, that’s with pure defensive build, limited to the 2 transports that usually destroyed round 1. If Japan even fakes at coming towards the Pacific, USA has to shore up defense there, buying another turn of Russia being on an island. UK relegated to defending India and shuffling fighters over to defend Moscow, with no fleet after round one and a now significant threat from German fighters with increased range due to their carrier. By the time the USA gets a fleet large enough to defend itself, they are faced with the choice to chase down the German menace which can blithely skip through the Mediterranean, or ignore and push Normandy or Norway. Ignoring it means the Germans can park in SZ 15 virtually all game after the US fleet moves up, they can pound Africa destroying the UK income. There is no margin for error as the Allies, no time for stalled turns, round 5 is when they can actually mount a significant onslaught on Germany and by that time Russia is well on their heels. Any delay is death, basically for 14 IPC’s Germany can tactically destroy the Allied march.

I think your issue lies with your UK response to the German Carrier. If I see a Germany investing in navy my natural response would be to go almost 100% KGF (except maybe like 3 INF a turn for India to slow Japan down a bit). If you had bought something like 1 CV/1DD/3 INF B1, and landed the initial British fighters on the new CV, you would have had a competent UK Navy in SZ 6 that would have prevented the German Navy from leaving SZ5 without taking some decent losses. The idea would be to trade navy with Germany for as long as they’re willing to keep building navy, since every IPC Germany is spending on navy takes an enormous amount of pressure off of the Soviets. Yes, the starting German Army is extremely strong and more than a match for the USSR, but if Germany neglects their land forces for too long by spending large amounts of IPC on navy, then eventually the Soviets will catch up and reach the high 20s/low 30s in income (by taking West Russia/Ukraine/Belorussia and possibly retaking Karelia). If you as Germany let the USSR cross that threshold then they stop being a punching bag for the Axis and start becoming a serious threat that you will be hard-pressed to deal with.

Oh hey, you managed to recreate a glitch I posted about a super-long time ago:

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/34414/possible-glitch-sub-vortex

I was never able to figure out exactly how to replicate it though. Good on you. Hopefully @JuliusBorisovBeamdog finds this and can get it to the development team.

@Brian-Cannon I’m a bit late getting to this but as @aardvarkpepper suggested, the battle calculator (hosted by this very site at http://calc.axisandallies.org/) is your friend here. Basically, before committing to your moves, take a look at what your opponent’s possible moves are going to be and run battle calculations on what would happen if your opponent played a certain way (IMPORTANT NOTE: Remember to set the “rounds of combat” setting to “all” and “10,000X” (more simulated battles = more accurate prediction) and to also set the “luck” setting to “1942” and “Pure Luck” to be accurate to AAO.

I’m not going to speak to your specific game example because that’s not what this thread was about, but I’ll give you the same advice other people gave when faced faced the “Dark Skies” strategy. Basically, a large intimidating air stack can only attack one large stack (be it a land stack of ~10 INF or greater or a naval stack of ~5 Destroyers or greater) in one round. Because of this, you need to be a bit greedy and push forward with all of your large stacks simultaneously, creating potentially-game-winning threats in multiple regions of the board. This puts the Allies in a bad spot because they’ll be forced to choose between solidly destroying one of your threats (and letting the other ones get off scott-free to accomplish its objective) and taking multiple risky fights trying to stop all of your threats (which will probably result in the air stack getting severely reduced/destroyed, making it your victory). I’ve been talking in abstracts here but I can give a rough-ish approximation based on your game. Don’t take this as a one-to-one guide on what you should’ve done in that game, I have no idea what the board looked like:

• Scenario: USA is ferrying air stacks from W. USA -> Yakut -> Center Map (Moscow). USA is using said stack to wipe out anything that moves (i.e. Japanese navy, Germany trading attempts in Russia, etc.).

• Threat #1 - Get Germany’s entire army (or at least a good chunk of it) in Caucasus, threatening Moscow and demanding that USA keep the air stack in or around Moscow.

• Threat #2 - Move out with Japan’s fleet and either threaten taking Hawaii+India for the last VCs (you said you had Karelia earlier and I’m assuming with a strategy like this the Allies weren’t taking Philippines/Rome/Paris anytime soon) OR threaten challenging/destroying the US fleet off of Alaska. If taking the first option here you’d just need to spend a turn or two spamming land units on Japan proper to avoid a landing in Japan. Japan is really easy to defend because of it’s 8 production.

With a large-enough Japanese Navy threatening game-over in one part of the board (by either sinking the USN (thus shutting off the stream of air units into Russia) and the German Army threatening game-over in another (Moscow), the USA in this hypothetical scenario is forced to use their air stack to either sink the IJN or wipe out the German Army. If they sink the IJN the Nazis grab Moscow and win the game, and if they wipe out the Caucasus stack the IJN accomplishes its objective and you win the game. If the USA tries for both they’ll probably fail unless the AAO RNG screws you, in which case you do what the rest of us good folks do and make a thread/post complaining about it.

tl;dr Use the Battle Calculator. Make multiple threats so the Allies need to pick one to deal with and the other(s) can prevail without issue. Don’t fear the reaper, as the song goes.

Hope this helps at least somewhat.

Sounds like people just used an Allied variant of the “Dark Skies” strategy that Germany likes to use in G40 lol. Once Air Stacks hit critical mass they get pretty nasty but you should be able to use keep tight stacks of land units to deter it.

@Eqqman It’s a bit of a grind yeah. In my experience opponents are basically free wins (barring terrible dice luck) until you get to mid Platinum (like top 150). I haven’t put in the effort to get that high since season 1 though, so the overall skill level might have improved a bit since then. Whether the opportunity to truly get your teeth kicked in by the best of the best is worth the grind is up to you, though. There’s no real shortcut to getting to the top of the leaderboard, unfortunately.

Agreed that we’re way off topic and should stop. I already agree with @Imperious-Leader that 2v3 should be its own unique ladder. I just disagree with the idea that it should outright replace the 1v1 ladder so we’ll just leave it at that.

@aardvarkpepper I replied to you but deleted it because I didn’t see @djensen 's post asking everyone to knock it off and agreed with it. There’s no point in getting into a flamewar over dice RNG.

All I will say is that, if you’re that burnt out by bad dice, just take a break from the game dude.