Posts made by JLord

I will rarely if ever strat bomb a territory that has an AA gun in it.  If there is no AA gun, then I will certainly bomb if there is nothing else for the bomber to do.  But I can’t think of any common situation (in an evenly contested game) where testing my luck with an aa gun for a strat bombing raid is worth it to me.

My experience is that the results of the battles will generally be the same.  The thing low luck does is prevent crazily one sided battles either way.  But the result will be similar to the expected result usi9ng regular dice.  It really changes your play in certain situations though.  Like you can often tell for certain that you can win a certain battle even though the odds using regular rolling would be around 60% or something.  This drastically changes your planning.  Also, consider the situation where an attacker can bring one inf. + planes against 3 inf.  In a regular rolling game you would not make this attack due to the risk of losing planes.  In LL though you know that the defending 3 inf. will only get one hit so oyu can bring 1 inf. and 6 figs and be assured of killing the 3 inf while only losing 1 inf yourself. Â

I really like playing with both LL and regular dice.

Ok, how about this.  If you had to play without a bid and with giving every nation one NA, what would produce the most balanced game in your opinion?

I was thinking:

Rus: trans-siberian railway
Ger: panzerblitz
UK: radar
Japan: detroyer transport ability
US: island bases

These are all somewhat useful in certain situations, but not overly powerful.  And I think it gives the Axis a slight advantage in terms of the usefulness of the NAs

I know that AAR enhanced seems to do a good job of balancing NAs…  But I was wondering what some good ideas are for playing by regular rules using the regular NAs that can still maintain game balance.

I was thinking that if there was a way to alter the advantages in such a way that all of them would be considered to be of equal value, then you could play using random advantages.  Or mabye just value all the advantages and let each side choose up to a certain total value of all advantages?  Or mabye just come up with a fixed set of advantanges that makes the game balanced?

But how do you value advantages?  Any ideas on how to make advantages balances, or on how to use them to balance the game without using a bid?

@Jennifer:

Most british players are going to attack your naked fleet and lose valuable fighters in the process.  Rare is the battle England escapes without suffering at least two hits on their valuable fighters and sinks your fleet.

With UK, I am happy taking out the Baltic Fleet on the first turn.  Even if it means losing some planes…  By takin git out right away you don’t have to place as much navy to protect your transports in the North.  It also lets you immediately park US and Uk naval forces outside of Germany forcing Germany to defend a lot of space.  I think with a country like UK where you are not trading territories as much, the figs are less valuable.

Right, well I don’t usually abandon the baltic either, but I think it’s pretty clear to me now that you either add to the baltic fleet or go for the channel dash.  Leaving it there without adding to it is nonsensical.

My plans for the bid was to use a tank and inf in Africa plus the units that are there to take Egypt.  An extra transport would be great in the baltic but then you probably can’t take Egypt without committing your battleship.

What about a carrier with allies planes on it that is used as part of an attack?  Can the planes attack?  Can they take damage?

That makes sense to me.  If you’re not adding to the Baltic fleet it makes no sense at all to leave that fleet in the baltic to die.

Good analysis.  So as UK which plan would you go for?  Attack with planes only, or bring the fleet in?

If you want to counter this combined navy in sz7 (2-3 trn, 1bb, 1ac, 2fgt) you could hit it with 5-6 fgt plus bmb.  After 1 round GER trades 3 fgt for 2trn 1fgt.  A second round would be 2 hits each.  A third round GER would clear the BB with a bmb left.  With the allies I think I am happy with this.

Is this assuming that the German Med. fleet will be blocked from joining the battle by the Russian sub?

So it would seem that the option for the allies given the expected results are:
1. Allowing the fleet to merge uncontested. 
2. Risking the destruction of a UK fig or two in order to either destroy the German fleet or force it down to one or two remaining subs
3. Trade the entire UK fleet plus one turn’s worth of income for taking out all or most of Germany’s airforce.

If I am the allies I don’t like option 1 at all.  I don’t mind option 3, but that battle would be very risky for both sides so I would shy away from a possible disaster this early in the game.  I like option 2 the most.  But I wonder what others think.

Given this, then is there any reason to not go for the channel dash as Germany if you are not going to be adding to the Baltic fleet?  Unless you get a carrier up there on G1, the UK player choosing option 2 would obviously attack the Baltic fleet.  So it seems to me that you either buy something to add to the Baltic fleet or you might as well channel dash and force an allied decision rather than just sit in the Baltic and get destroyed.  Does that make sense?

Here is something I was thinking of trying in a live game tonight…  I know the fleet cannot be unified on G1, but I couldn’t think of any other way to describe it…

So on G1 I buy 2 figs, 2 arm, 4 inf.  (this was just my thought, I might switch to a strait inf. and art. buy) Â

Move the baltic fleet west and leave it off the coast of France, linking up with the Atlantic sub.  Move the BB and tranny to take the UK BB and also take gibraltar.  Make whatever attacks in Europe seem reasonable.  Take egypt with bid units and a bomber.  Land all figs in France.  (note: this leaves the UK destroyer alive)

It seems to me that at this point the only way for the allies to prevent a unified fleet is to attack the fleet off the coaast of France.  And unless UK wants to lose its fleet to a counter-attack, it will have to use planes only.  The fleet can still be defeated with only planes, but the extra sub gives a better shot at taking out UK planes.  Also, germany has the option of submerging its 3 subs right away and then linking with the BB next turn. Â

My objective is to give up the naval battle in the north, but have a larger fleet in the Med. so as to prevent easy landings in Africa and hopefully hold Africa for longer.  It also may be a way to maintain a fleet presense without spending any more money on naval units.  It seems better than simply leaving the baltic fleet there because it can be taken out on UK1 with planes anyways.  I know buying a carrier is a common play, but if you assume that you are not going to buy one, is this reasonable. Â

So anyways, what do you do as Britain when you see something like this?  Do you think this is reasonable for Germany?

The protracted war was the situation I was in.  And in such a situation you have to consider the fact that you can be bombarding Western every turn.  send one infantry in, take the two battleship shots and force Germany to keep restocking Western every turn.  You lose one infantry in exchange for 1.5 infantry on average in Western.

Also you would have to consider that the battleship will be taking a free shot that would otherwise be a transport when you do eventually attack the baltic fleet.  So you could look at it as paying 24 for a BB and saving a transport.

Those are good points.  I usually take out the baltic fleet if there is some reason too.  Eventually there will be.  But usually at the beginning of the game, landing in Norway is good enough.

But even if it does become desirable to take out the Baltic fleet right away, wouldn’t a BB help a lot?  Or do you just think that there is a better way to do that?

In a recent game I went for a battleship with UK onthe first turn.  Placed it in the SZ to the west of UK along with the other battleship and transports.  Next turn I went into Norway and blocked Germany (who had a baltic carrier) and placed a carrier and destroyer with my navy.

At some later point I added another transport to this fleet and it kept Germany locked up in Baltic the entire game.  The game turned into a long drawn out affair and I was continually putting troops into Norway.  But when the Norway was already held by UK I was able to send 1 inf per turn into Western Europe to take advantage of the two battleship shots to whittle down German in the West.  so the second battleship was a factor in some way on just about every turn of the game and never died.

I would image that this would be the case in many games.  What I mean is that very often the purchase of a battleship could be justified in that it will likely never be lost, and it could be rolling dice at least for bombardment every turn.

anyways, what do you think?  Anyone like this buy?

My understanding is that Japan cannot claim it unless an allies power takes control of it first.

I have bought a German BB on turn 1.  It works kind of like the German carrier on turn 1.  More money invested, but the free shot is useful sometimes.

You also get protection against amphibeous assaults in Germany for several turns.

Another possibility for UK is to attack on UK 1 with planes only.  Then it would most likely leave the 3 submerged subs plus 3 bombers, against the entire UK fleet.  And Uk would likely only lose 1 bomber.  This battle (assuming a max UK buy) would be 3 subs, 3 bombers vs. 1 battleship, 1 carrier, 2 figs, 2 transports.  An 85% win for the UK with the likely result being 1 battleship, 1 carrier, 1 fighter left.  Probably not good for the Germans.  So I would assume this is the best response?

If so, how do you play Germany from here?

Now there are some pretty easy ways to stop this type of thing.  Like taking out some German fighters.  So it obviously only works with a certain Russian first move.  There are also some things that Russia can do with its sub to mess things up like put it in SZ6 on the first move.  But nobody does that…

The other option for UK on turn 1 is to not attack the German fleet in SZ 7.  But then no matter where UK positions its fleet, Germany will be able to attack it with 3 subs, 1 transport, 1 destroyer, and 3 bombers.  So assuming UK builds the maximum fleet on UK1 they would have 2 transport, 2 figs, 1 battleship, 1 carrier, 1 destroyer.  That gives Germany a 58% chance of wiping out the entire UK fleet.  If UK and US merge fleets in SZ8, then Germany can bring an additional 6 figs into the battle making it even more 1 sided.

So what does UK do?  It seems that if you attack, the odds are you will be sacrificing your fleet for Germany’s fleet.  If you don’t attack the odds are you’ll be sacrificing your fleet for the German fleet.  Mabye some players think this is to UK’s advantage?  I wouldn’t think so because either way, Germany is left with a significant air force.  So UK can’t just start dropping transports in the water and shuttling troops over.  It should leave Germany alone with Russia for a few turns at least.

The other option for Germany of course is to unite its fleets.  I was thinking even uniting them off Brazil and capturing Brazil in the process.  That threatens SZ10 and puts serious pressure on the US.  It forces them to leave a significant navy there and will delay their entry into Europe.

So is this better than building the Baltic carrier?  I know there are advantages to the Baltic carrier and I almost always build one, but this seems like a viable option.