We’ve been starting to play with a variant that Japan completes an immediate victory for Axis if they control all VCs on the Pacific side of the board except San Francisco. This is to force the US and British to defend the Pacific and contain Japan’s growth. I.e. a “political” victory condition since the American and British voters wouldn’t have accepted surrender of this theater of operations.

To balance things out we have been using bids for the Allies, but we also think about adding 10 IPCs to the US “home NO”. In this way they would outproduce the Japs and it would be a slightly quicker game. Our experience is that US need to send units to Europe in order to stop Germany as well, but we don’t want every game to end up a “Kill Germany First” with the US just stacking West Coast with land units. What do you think about this variant? Would another idea be to use the Convoy disruption rules from A&A 1940 so that you pay an IPC price for ignoring Japan, has anyone tried this? US would then lose 13 IPCs/turn to Jap convoy attacks, question is if that’s enough to prevent KGF?

Zhukov44 is right on point 2, if Allies neglect building transports and invasion troops you should build 5-6 tanks per turn as Germany and send them East together with some infantry. Together with Italian invasions of two full transports per turn into the south of Russia this should take Russia out of the game before too long. Once you reach around 15 tanks put together you’ll be surprised how quickly Russian infantry stacks vanish.

An IC in France is there to protect against a heavy invasion strategy by Allies, because then you need tons, tons of infantry. If they do heavy SBR, better capture Russian ICs!

You could also dictate that defending fighters are forced to intercept strategic bombardment. Avoiding this thing with AA-fire at fighters who don’t fight and also making the placement of defending fighters a bit more important, while at the same time speeding up play. Historically it would also make sense. It wasn’t as if Germany could ignore the Allied bombing campaign, German fighters were attacked on the ground by Allied air forces. You could also include the bombing of oil resources as something that makes ignoring strategic bombing impossible, the defender’s air force is just as targeted if their oil supplies are destroyed.

I agree with what Funcioneta says about India. When I saw the game map I was a bit surprised by the exclusion of Singapore from the game, which was supposed to hinder expansion towards India. Of course it turned out to be a victory for Japan, but at least Burma was invaded by land and not by seaborne invasion as you can do in this game easily. Right now a UK IC in Africa is the only one viable against good Axis play in the '41 scenario, and most of the time those units arrive too late to hinder a Japanese Caucasus rush.

What would be the effect of a UK fleet in sz37 off Burma at-start, say a cruiser? This would represent the UK naval presence in Singapore at the start of the Pacific war. Japan would then probably have to deploy the Formosa fighter against Phillippines sea zone or against sz37, making a Yunnan attack more difficult. Unless Japan sends those carrier-based fighters against Yunnan, but then UK can use the India transport to attack Egypt or reinforce India with the Transjordan force. Trade-offs that could just make the Axis be less invulnerable than they seem to be at the moment, perhaps together with an infantry addition to Allies set-up.

This thing with unit additions is of course what is the simplest balance change and I find it interesting that Larry does acknowledge this need when presented with playing results considering he earlier on stated that cash-only bids are to be preferred. Should this be the competitive format of the game?

1) Optional rules (int’ceptors+Dardanelles closed)
2) 1 UK inf in Egypt added  (effect: chance of surviving with 1 armor+1 bomber or better with a max attack down from 60 to 36%)
3) 2 Chinese inf in Yunnan added (effect: chance of clearing area with no fighter losses with a 3 inf, 2 fig attack down from 84 to 24%)

As for cruisers and east indies, these are more complex changes and harder to get a consensus on. If we play with a balance-adjusted format we probably won’t be so absorbed with these other issues. UK buys cruisers mostly, which mirrors reality if we look at war production. Carriers protected by destroyers were the main battle instrument for Japs and Yanks, no harm in that being the case in the game. I wouldn’t mind cruisers at 11 IPCs and a no ICs on islands restriction, but can imagine consensus on these changes being more difficult to get.

I’d throw 8 IPC into the water if it meant I kept both Italian NOs (10 IPC a round.)  I was just wondering if you played against a destroyer build. (Or even a carrier build since you have a fighter that can land on it, and Italy could really use the fighter starting in the med so it can attack both theaters of operations.)

CmdrJennifer, I modified the build which was from the start 2 bombers and 1 carrier, in order to have some fodder units instead. It is true of course that Italy has three builds before US3 and can build more than 1CV+1DD which US alone can beat with my proposed US1 build. My idea then was to use the UK navy to finish the attack, probably on the turn after US strikes, UK4. You then send in air and fodder units, 3-4 DDs or subs, and spare your CV and CAs in sz12 to minimize losses to the UK invasion fleet. (A Russian blocking attack against TRJ is then needed to hinder Japanese deployment into the Med., and if Italy survives with a CV don’t forget that figs can be flown onto it before UK moves!)

This is a simplification, of course, because you might try to hide ships in sz15/sz16 as Italy and so forth. I haven’t played this myself that much yet, when I tried it Italy has acquiesced in losing their fleet but for one game where I built two bombers US1 and didn’t have enough fodder units.

UK doing the killing alone I think is a bad idea. They need to be invading and sending the fleet into battle first does too much harm to it. In the example above of a double US/UK strike at the Italian fleet, you can survive with the core of your Royal Navy if you play well. In this scenario you can’t invade FRA/NWE for a turn or two for a long-term benefit of destroying plenty of Axis IPCs.

I can’t see a quick strike at France succeeding if Axis plays well, builds an extra IC as Germany and then uses both Italian and German inf to make landing very expensive indeed. If UK looses Africa they will be down to the low 20s in IPCs and won’t be very threatening. The SAF IC can be used against Japan in the later game, channelling tanks through the Middle East and relieving pressure on Caucasus.

As for invasions of northern Europe, they are important and that’s why I think USA should take the main responsibility for destroying the Italian fleet. Typically you land in Norway on UK2 and then somewhere on the continent on UK3, and that pretty much is what you can do early on. After the first US buy oriented towards Africa, they can start building up for the ECA/FRA shuck and maybe some Pacific builds. Those bombers in Africa of course transfer back to Europe after doing their job! It’s not an all-out anti-African campaign that I’m advocating, it’s just that in a long game IPC-balance is vital and Africa tips the scales.

OK, I posted this on the Italian fleet thread but I do it again in a revised format to get some feedback. The fastest and quickest way of killing the Italian fleet should be:

1. On US1, build 1 CV +1 DD +1 sub + 1 bom -> EUS/sz10.
2. On US2, move 1 sub, 2 DD+1 fully loaded CV to sz12, move 3 bom’s to French West Africa (note: safe from attack from Egypt and can reach East Med., if Axis has tanks in range, place bom’s in Belgian Congo covered by UK troops, i.e. 2 inf from SAF). Sz12 might be bolstered by UK fleet if needed for defence against German air strike.
3. On US3, strike Italian fleet with either: sz15 or sz16 2 figs, 3 boms, or: sz13 or sz14 1 sub 2 DD 1 CV 2 fig 3 bom. If the Italians builds a fleet of 1 DD+1 fully loaded CV in sz14 you still have 1 sub 2 DD, 1 CV, 2 fig, 3 bom vs. 1 DD, 2 CA, 1 CV, 2 fig, 1 BB, a 70%+ attack.

The only way for Axis to counter this strategy seems to be to build even more fleet and in that case a combined US + UK strike should be enough to finish it off. I doubt if an Italian fleet build is even worth it with this US strategy, it’s probably a waste of IPCs that will be at the bottom of the sea! If the Axis survive with 2 tanks in EGY on turn 1, 2 infs might not do it to protect your bombers, and in that case using Russia as the bomber base works as well.

With a SAF IC and landings in Algeria, Africa will be secure quite quickly and UK’s vital IPCs saved from dwindling too low. The stage is set for Allied success.  

Subs being sunk by aircraft only happened in the war, especially in the Bay of Biscay when the German subs were transferring to the Central Atlantic, but given the scale of the game it’s good that it’s omitted. We also see shore batteries and mines sinking subs on the link posted, but that’s not in the game? Bringing a DD is easy to do and it introduces more strategy in the game and builds matching the opponent, works very well.

Only thing I’d like to change is 1) subs move being blocked by DDs (since this pretty much kills German sub builds in Baltic) 2) subs not being able to block movement of unescorted transports. After that, subs are perfect! 

The Italian fleet is REALLY important for game outcome, since having those African IPCs is vital for UK to be a threat to Germany and once the navy is gone you should mop-up Africa soon enough.

But what’s the best way of destroying the Italian fleet? I think the following:

1. On US1, build 1 CV+2 bom’s.
2. On US2, move 1 DD+1 fully loaded CV to sz12, move 4 bom’s to French West Africa (note: safe from attack from Egypt and can reach East Med., if Axis has tanks in range, place bom’s in Belgian Congo covered by UK troops). Sz12 might be bolstered by UK fleet if needed for defence against German air strike.
3. On US3, strike Italian fleet with 2 figs, 3 boms. With this air set-up, there’s nowhere for Italy to hide unless they sail out of the Med.! Also, if both figs are destroyed in the combat (as is likely), you don’t even need to sail your fleet into the Med. and expose yourself to counterattack by German air, just land surviving bombers in Africa or Russia.

I think this is the best way since UK can then focus on building an invasion fleet strong enough to withstand air attack. In the case of a CV build by Italy on turn 2, though, you might need a combined UK/US strike to wipe out the fleet, preferably not sacrificing the whole UK fleet but only some DDs/figs. A UK turn 2 move to sz12 with the fleet is a good precaution in case of an Italian CV build.