Posts made by KaLeu

Welcome to the forum!

It’s explained on page 31 of the rule book. If you don’t have the rule book, check this thread for a download: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=16910

The rules say: “Loading onto and/or offloading from a transport counts as a land unit’s entire move [….]”
Not the “and/or”: the land unit may load and offload in one move, but it may also choose to load, and offload at a later time.

Also: “A transport can load cargo in friendly sea zones before, during, and after it moves. A transport can pick up cargo, move one sea zone, pick up more cargo, move one more sea zone, and offload the cargo at the end of its movement […]”

Now this is obviously one of my favorite movies!

Hmm, I suppose you’re right about that. I got into thinking that I should buy something “better” than the extra transport that was mentioned earlier in the thread, without considering that it could just be skipped.
I would only consider the strategy against the Russian sub buy anyway - after all, that sub also costs Russia a few land units.

Thank you! Following up on that, my reasoning would be:

(a) If there’s no Russian sub in SZ16 and Germany does the Egypt attack, I can’t see a very good reason for the AC + transport buy on G1. The AC won’t protect the battleship, and the battleship itself can only be attacked by the UK with one bomber and one fighter, when any surviving UK planes need to land in Transjordan. That’s a risky attack anyway, and if the battleship kills one of the planes, the UK would need to let the bomber go, because if the fighter dies and the bomber lands, Transjordan may be a tempting target for a G2 attack from Egypt supported by a fighter or two. In that case, the only benefit of having an extra German transport in SZ14 would be to further reinforce that attack on Transjordan - so it seems like a costly measure to counter a UK move that doesn’t look very good anyway.
So without the Russian sub I wouldn’t buy any German navy on G1 because it wouldn’t really contribute to the safety of the German med fleet anyway - and if the fleet is still around on G2 and looks like being in danger by then, I can always move it back to SZ14 and do the AC buy on G2.

(b) If there is a Russian sub in SZ16, then I’d be inclined to buy an AC and a destroyer rather than another transport in SZ14, because I don’t understand why I’d need two transports there. In that case, suppose that Russia has taken the Ukraine and killed a German fighter, Germany can still send three fighters  after the UK destroyer in SZ15, and land two of them on the new AC. I’d prefer to kill the SZ15 destroyer rather than the SZ13 cruiser, because the cruiser has a bigger chance of downing one of the German planes, and also, if the destroyer lives, the UK may sail its SZ35 fleet to SZ15, and with the Russian sub added, it will be too strong to effectively kill it on G2 - and leaving it there allows the UK to attack the German fleet with the fleet plus land based planes.
So in that case I suppose Germany could take Egypt on G2 overland, and possibly Transjordan amphibiously unless the UK reinforces it heavily, in which it can still be attacked on G3. After the work in the East Mediterranean is done, the German fleet could move to SZ13, reunite with whatever is left of the Baltic fleet if that moves to SZ7 on G1, and be reinforced by Japan. That won’t be enough to match the combined UK/US naval buying power of course, but at least it forces them to pour some money into buying enough capital ships to protect the Atlantic from a German air/naval raid.

Does all of that make any sense?

I suppose that under Spring 1942 rules, this would be a variant / house rule. It’s not normally allowed to invade neutral territories at all.

I have a question regarding this strategy.

If you’re buying a new aircraft carrier and a transport in SZ14 on G1, is the idea then, to still attack SZ15 and Egypt that round? So that if Russia has indeed built that submarine in SZ16, the original German mediterranean fleet will die on R2, but you’ve built a new one beforehand?
Or is the idea, to keep the entire fleet in SZ14 in order to have a pretty strong med fleet on G2 and be able to transport more units to Africa?

There’s some debate about the meaning of the “V” in “CV”, actually. Quoting an explanation from http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/index_ships_list.htm:

The following is taken from “United States Naval Aviation 1910-1995, Appendix 16:  US Navy and Marine Corps Squadron Designations and Abbreviations”:

On 17 July 1920, the Secretary of the Navy prescribed a standard nomenclature for types and classes of NAVAL VESSELs, including aircraft, in which lighter-than air craft were identified by the type “Z” and heavier-than air craft by the letter “V”.  The reference also speculates that:  “The use of the “V” designation has been a question since the 1920s.  However, no conclusive evidence has been found to identify why the letter “V” was chosen.  It is generally believed the “V” was in reference to the French word volplane.  As a verb, the word means to glide or soar. As a noun, it described an aeronautical device sustained in the air by lifting devices (wings), as opposed to the bag of gas that the airships (denoted by “Z”) used.  The same case may be regarding the use of “Z”.  It is generally believed the “Z” was used in deference to Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin.  However, documentation has not been located to verify this assumption.”

And for the neutral wastelands that don’t care which side will win - Jabba the Hutt.

Johnny Mnemonic scanned it for us: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=16910.

Welcome to the forum!

You can play each of the A&A games with the components in the box - everything is there and you don’t need anything else. Several people who are active on these boards have created some wonderful additional playing aids that look very pretty and can come in quite handy, but the games are also perfectly playable as they are.
As to the different versions - there are global variants that cover the entire war, there are variants dedicated to the European or the Pacific theater, and there are specific scenarios such as D-Day, Guadalcanal, and Battle of the Bulge. Each comes as a complete game with it’s own map, units, and rules.
I recommend trying the most common global version, which is A&A Spring 1942 and comes at a price of about 30 euros or dollars, depending on where you live and where you can buy it. The global game is the “main” line of A&A, and it has gradually been altered (and improved imho) over the years - some of the older variants are in fact predecessors to Spring 1942.

@HolKann:

Germany has an income of about 40. Let’s assume it needs 10 units each turn. So its best bet is to only repair Germany fully, giving you 20 IPC’s a turn to shoot at. With 4 bmrs, this will seldomly (=in less than 1.5% of cases) be overkill (chances of getting >20 are (5/6)^4 -getting past AA with 4 bmrs- * 2.7% -throwing 21 or more, see http://anydice.com/  < ~1.5%).

Germany wouldn’t repair the German IC completely in that case, because that would only leave 20 IPC’s to actually buy those units. In general, Germany could adapt to the SBR strategy by planning it’s purchases in a specific way, provided that it can afford to do so.
Suppose that Germany has an income of around 36, assuming that some progress has been made by the Allies. Regardless of whether the German or Italian IC is repaired, it’s impossible to buy more that 6 units with that money. Now if Germany desperately needs those units right away, it may be compelled to do so - for instance, repair Italy, buy 3 inf 3 tanks.
But that’s a pretty expensive option, and gives the US bombers something useful to do next round. So Germany can consider whether it’s viable to wait for one round and just try and hold with what they have, in order to repair the German IC next round and then buy their units in a more cost-effective way, especially when there’s no other clear objective for the US bombers.
I’m not saying that such a response negates the entire idea, but you’d have to consider that Germany may adapt to the SBR’s by means of a specific purchasing strategy.

The most powerful and culturally most influential nation of the nineteenth century was the United Kingdom. For nearly 64 years, the British Empire was ruled by Queen Victoria. And while her political power in a nation that was on its way to become a modern democracy was naturally limited, she was very much the symbol of an era that is often named after her.

If Canada would have stayed out of the war…. oh, the poor Dutch girls would have been so sad…  :-D

Improvements to the chess rating system are indeed being discussed. I’m going to live dangerously and post a link, hoping that it won’t be considered spamming: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6687

It’s totally possible to set up a system that will avoid undue boosting of ratings by playing against weak opponents.

Ah, Granada made the same points but didn’t need all my wordiness.  :-)

Anyway, like I said, I have an idea on how to do this if you’re interested.

I hope you don’t mind me interfering - it’s really none of my business since I don’t intend to play, but I do have some experience with chess rating systems.

I see a few problems with the system proposed:

(a) The explanation and examples suggest that it’s actually better to lose against a lower rated opponent than against a higher rated one. For instance, if your rating in the first example would have been 110, then we’d see (changes in bold):

My rating = 110
Zhuk (My opponent) rating = 125
I win

My rating change

125-50 = 75 + (100*1) = 175
175/10 = 17.5
110+17.5=127.5

Zhuk’s rating change

110-50 = 60 + (100*0) = 60
60/10 = 6
125-6=119

So Zhuk lost an extra point because he played a stronger opponent than in the original example. This effect becomes even stranger at lower ratings, because from what I understand of the calculation, it’s actually possible to gain points by losing to someone rated at 40.

(b) The method adds points to the rating pool as a whole. In the above example, you gained more points than Zhuk lost. When that happens, all ratings tend to drift upwards over time - it’s happened with international chess ratings as well. The effect seems to be rather strong here, and that implies that players who play a lot tend to get overrated as compared to those who play fewer games. Some say that it’s good to “reward” active players by doing that, but it’s contrary to the principle of rating lists.

The basic thought behind a rating system is that it’s not a competition, but a statistical tool to compare relative playing strengths. That implies that the system should be able to compute an expected average outcome for a game between two players on the list. In other words: if everyone keeps playing at the same level as when they started, that expected outcome will be met, and the ratings will hardly change at all. Conversely, a player who improves and achieves better results relative to the others in the rating pool, will move up.

The FIDE rating system used in chess works like that, but it’s a bit of a pain to do the calculations. If you’re interested, I can suggest a manageable alternative that works in approximately the same way but is much easier to understand and calculate than the FIDE ratings. It would be a simplified version of a system proposed by Jeff Sonas, an expert in the field of chess rating.

INTP. Classic nerdiness I suppose.

RAMMSTEIN!

It’s everywhere.

I live in the Netherlands, near Rotterdam, the center of which was bombed by the Germans in 1940. The remainders of the Atlantikwall are just twenty miles away. My old school was commandeered by the German military. Unexploded ordnance is still occasionally being detected and cleared. Walking in a park last week, I saw an old Panther tank, now a memorial to the fighting that once took place there. I even work for a government institution that supports WWII victims.

Yes, it’s everywhere. From the names of streets, to the silence of the graveyards, to the stories and memories of elderly people.

@FieldMarshalGames:

One of the biggest mistakes made by Germany was the suppression and Oppression of the Eastern European nations after invasion.  In the Baltic states and Ukraine for example, they were greeted as liberators…  they squandered their chance to bring these nations into the Axis orbit as minor partners when they treated the locals as sub-human.

Not only did they lose the free co-operation of these nations, but in the end they were fighting a war behind their own lines against all kinds of passive and sometimes active resistance.

Excellent point. I even believe that the entire Nazi racial ideology contributed to the defeat of Germany. The holocaust was not only a horrible crime at a humanitarian level, but it also robbed Germany of many great minds and organizers in science, culture, and economics. Germany’s Jews thought of themselves as Germans, and many fought for Germany in World War I. Instead of keeping all that potential available for the benefit of their country, the Nazis expelled or murdered them. And to do so, they built a gruesome and expensive system of oppression, manned by large numbers of other Germans who could instead have fought at the front.