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@seancb said in The cheezy retreat from Yugoslavia to Romania on G2:

if you all think this is a good thing go ahead. we dont allow cheeze in our games. the maximum movement they have is 2. I certainly wish a new “official” rule addendum would fix this. we just dont allow crap like that
as such i choose not to play with folks that think this kind of stuff is OK

It is a valid tactic since Classic. There won’t be any official rule addendum coming. And I dont agree with your assertion that people playing by the actual rules are somehow cheating or playing unfairly.

@taamvan said in Gen Con 2019 (Aug. 1-4):

Zombie First Day are sold out I bought in Friday 1400H. 4 day Badges are likely to sell out as the total attendee cap has been reached as a practical matter ~62000

Yeah, they sold out 2 years ago too. I got the “near sellout” email from gencon.

I hope to see many of you at Gencon.

@taamvan

Perhaps at Gencon then. Hope there is one.

Triple A has had time to work out bugs/kinks, as well as having all game versions.

To me, the # of games available + the AI are most important.

@surfer

London is toast is this scenario. The allies are toast too, because after the Germans do drop transports the Japanese will take the mic you built for them. The USA will have to try to save London which is great for the Japanese.

I’m not saying a middle earth strategy cant work but this is far too aggressive. And you are not utilizing the infrastructure you already have in SA which you can transport up to the middle east.

I’m not a fan of sea lion but I would happily do so if I saw you making those purchases.

@thedesertfox said in UK Strategy -"Middle Earth":

@squirecam

Pretty much. I dont think it gets simpler than that. Either Axis power has the ability to make the US pay consequentially for choosing one side of the board over the other.

I stated earlier that having assumed Japan takes Calcutta as well as the other cities of course, all that’s left is taking Honolulu or Sydney to which the Americans by GHG’s standard will have been building mostly everything in the Atlantic. yes I know he says to also shuck units back and forward into Hawaii but that’s what the Pearl Harbor attack is for.

You don’t even need to attack. Just build for a J2 attack and stack everything in Carolines that can reach. USA cant stack Hawaii because they will get destroyed. If USA doesnt build in the Pacific they get destroyed J2 or J3.

Just eliminate this whole floating bridge stuff right from the get go.

@jonahawesome said in Global war 1940:

I just started playing Axis and allies 1940 with 6 peoples . Where do I start implementing the more complicated rules of the game and house rules after we got the basics down like phases/ fighting units

I would avoid making any house rules until your group is familiar with the base game and how it plays.

@andrewaagamer said in Axis are underpowered.:

@squirecam

I would agree if the US is not fighting in the Atlantic with anything more than a token force AND there is only a $20 range bid that the Med is up for grabs.

My question is, for OOB, why in the world would anyone accept a $20 range bid? Do these tournaments you play at GenCon have different victory conditions than normal? Are they timed games? I have heard of that but having never played at one my personal experience is nil.

So actually the current tournament uses the 1942 setup, so that all countries start at war. Due to the limited time frame games must end at 10 hrs or so.

But before that setup people played with a bid in the 20s. You do not have time to take 30 minutes to run simulations on the best moves. You cannot use online battle calculators. You need to know what to do beforehand and play more with your gut then an odds calculation. As the games are at risk of mistakes, you really dont need a 60 bid. Moreover, bids are not limited to one unit per territory.

With the 42 setup, the axis win if they have 125 ipc at the end of the game. No bonus income counts. If they dont, they need 6 VC in the pacific. Europe VC win isnt happening. Otherwise the allies win.

@marshmallowofwar said in Axis are underpowered.:

@squirecam said in Axis are underpowered.:

You can pressure the middle east as well if you build a german fleet to aid Italy. You dont have to play out Moscow or bust every game.

In the scenario you’re describing you’re either splitting your forces, which means Russia is on definitive seek and destroy (and possibly even pushing you back), or you’re concentrating in the north, which means there is no pressure on the Middle East until several turns after you build this second fleet.

Assuming you build your fleet in Southern France, you need several turns to build a fleet that can survive if the UK is doing alright and essentially in control of the Med. Your Med fleet depends on the Italians to survive unless you’re spending a lot of money (more not spent on ground troops). If there is any UK or US air presence, your fleet will be blown out of the water as soon as you start building it without an Italian navy or air cover (which you have to build and anchor fighters there – more forces NOT helping you in Russia).

Of course, you might be trying to move your Baltic fleet to the Med. That is several turns of concerted movement through a hostile Atlantic and you are depending on Italian control of Strait of Gibraltar.

And once again, those ships do not occupy territories – they don’t help your economy directly. They are not “boots on the ground”.

I 100% agree with you that you don’t have to “Moscow or bust” every game, but you DO need to shut down the Russian army in a way that makes it totally defensive. That takes a LOT of ground troops and planes.

@snpic said in Axis are underpowered.:

@marshmallowofwar thank you for your advice, I will try it on tripleA and tell you what I think.
But I think that there’s a problem because if you take all of Russia you still need another victory city.

That’s true, but it’s rarely an issue. Your practical choice for VC is now Cairo or London. If things have been going well-ish for the Axis in the Med at this point but Egypt still holds out, there’s an excellent chance that the UK player has short-changed the spending on UK defenses. NOW you can build your fleet and air force while you bolster your Western defenses and consolidate Russian territories that you haven’t been able to conquer yet. A late Sea Lion is a beautiful thing (for the Axis).

On the other hand, if Egypt can be destroyed by the forces you currently have at hand (and can produce and deliver in a timely manner), you can go for Egypt.

Marsh

I’m not necessarily concentrating anywhere. I’m going where there is opportunity. The first build is ac + fleet, either 2 transports or des + sub. Then I see what the allies do. Do they attack Taranto. What does the US do in the Pacific (as my fleet is not attacking J1 but stationed in Carolines.) Do they go all Atlantic or pacific or split. What and where does Uk build.

This provides a multitude of options. But I have southern France taken by Germany to allow for med support. I have transports for shipping to Leningrad. In short I have infrastructure purchased G1 and G2 that allow me to put pressure potentially everywhere before US is brought in J3.

The Russian territories are worth 1 or 2 to the axis except for Leningrad. The med is worth +15 to +20 for the axis if you can get four bonuses. And you can do both at the same time. Yes, you aren’t in Stalingrad G6. But you don’t need to be.

@tamer-of-beasts said in The Afrika Korps:

G1 I buy a CV and 2 transports and follow the plan Afrika Korps laid out in his posts: taking France and Normandy, strafing (or just outright taking) Yugoslavia, and sinking UK ships in 110 and 111. For the noncombat I take the two pro-Axis neutrals and send 4 inf. from S. Germany to N. Italy for eventual pickup. Italy’s turn is just a toss up as they usually only have the one transport left, two if the UK rolled poorly in Taranto. But I try to take Greece on I1 and sink the French ships while doing the standard moves in N. Africa.

I would take Southern France on G1. This allows units direct into the med on G2, and helps if there is no Taranto. I would also have Germany take Greece G2 rather than Italy.

G2 I buy inf., mech., and armor for Barbarossa, and for combat I take Gib. and Morocco with 3 inf., an art., and 2 tanks, and I take S. France. In the noncombat phase set I up for Barbarossa with the land units I have in the east as well as send the 4 infantry in N. Italy to S. France for a G3 shuttle. I2 I take Algeria and Egypt if the UK is struggling to maintain a strong presence (bad rolls and spread out units).

I think this is where you may be going wrong. You may need units in the med on G2. Try a german AC + 2 transports and then infantry. You are not rushing moscow, you a playing a med strategy so dont switch up so early.

From there it is less scripted. Germany will buy a destroyer in the Med, likely a bomber or two here and there to keep pressure on the UK factories and any navy, and a steady stream of mech and tanks for the Eastern Front. Finally on G4 I can land my units in Syria or TJ, and push for Iraq and beyond. Italy rebuilds a navy with transports to ferry infantry and art. to Egypt to retain the VC and support Germany where it can. Some games I buy a MIC on Egypt as a supply chain investment.

On G3 you have options as to whether to take the fleet back to the Baltics depending on how the allies are doing, or really have a solid med fleet with a merge. The important territories are Gibraltar and north africa. You want Italy to get 3 bonuses as soon as possible.

The Allied strategy is relatively basic in the grand scheme of things. UK does Taranto, takes Persia, and sets up a few units to deal with the Ethiopian units while not leaving Egypt completely undefended (leave the inf. and ANZAC inf.). From there push units west from Persia and north from S. Africa and wait for American pressure in the east. My main issue as the Axis is not with the UK but dealing with the Russian wall. Most traditional Barbarossa campaigns get to Leningrad by G4, and have the units to push past that with limited risk of losing major stacks or armor and mech. For these games though, the money I put into reinforcements for the Med (the inf. from S. Germany, the units in the transports in G2, and the planes) really make the Leningrad battle more dicey with more losses. The Russians can easily have over 20 inf. with supporting planes and armor by G4, and if Germany gets past that, it is only because Romania is stripped and poorly defended. Maybe I am just doing Barbarossa wrong, but I find that the game will usually end with Germany and Italy doing well in the Med, but with the Americans taking Gibraltar (though not breaking through the Axis navy I station in 92) and the Russians pushing into the Balkans and maybe the Nordic territories. Germany simply doesn’t have the resources to back up its Med investment and take Moscow, and Italy has little say in how Barbarossa goes if it too is focused on Egypt/Iran.

Germany does not have the resources to do everything so that is why I have Japan move to Caroline Islands J1. You are being attacked by USA and they are getting Gibraltar which is a must hold. Force the USA to build in the pacific and you will find it easier. If US wont build in the pacific then wipe out their fleet and take hawaii and australia. Then just wait as Germany while Japan gets the other VC needed.

Also dont be tied to a med strategy. Sometimes it better to have 3 transports attacking Lenningrad each turn. You can have a small fleet in the med if you merge germany and italian fleets if u take SF G1 and build G2.

If the allies are determined to get into the med, then the only way to stop them is by building units and shipping them each turn into Gibraltar or going through spain. It is more important to not lose Gibratar than it is trying to speed rush Egypt, especially if the UK has multiple middle east factories.

@tamer-of-beasts said in The Afrika Korps:

I am fascinated by this strategy, but I am running into the problem some people mentioned earlier in the thread: as Germany, I simply cannot be successful in diverting the resources I need to in the Middle East at the same time as staging a whalloping Barbarossa. In my (albeit limited so far) playtesting against myself (sub-optimal, but it’s what I have), Germany may get Leningrad, but by the end of round 5 or maybe 6 the eastern front looks like a stalemate if not Russians in Romania. If the German land units are sent south and investments are put into the navy, Russia is difficult not even to capture but to hold back. Anyone found a good way to handle this?

So what are your purchases and the moves for the first three or four turns with Germany? What are you doing with the allies in response?

@arthur-bomber-harris said in The Afrika Korps:

@squirecam There is a big range of skill levels in G40. I used to be in the upper half of the League players and now I have fallen to the lower half of the talent as I haven’t been active for the last four years. I can only beat players like Axis Dominion with incredible luck of the dice. Players like Adam wouldn’t even put themselves in a situation where I can have variance make up for the talent gap. It is what it is.

Crocket is way, way below me currently. Perhaps he will catch up in skill if he plays a bunch of games, or perhaps he will enjoy his current casual level of gameplay. Nothing wrong with either option. It is what it is.

My point is that the strategies need to be tested against a decent opponent to find flaws. Almost everything works against players that make a ton of mistakes. Heck, Japan could have attacked Amur on J1 in your game and essentially ended the match on the first turn in your game. Hard to come back after having the entire Siberian army destroyed, leaving the entire Soviet Far East open for rapid conquest.

You aren’t listening to what I am saying. This wasnt a game and it wasnt the point to attack the Russians. Crockett was saying that he could go “one on one” with the us fleet (using subs) and destroy the Japanese fleet with a KJF. I told him that Japan was not going to lose its fleet and instead would crush the US fleet if it wanted to. There were others in that thread who insisted that Japan could be blocked from destroying the US fleet. Obviously they weren’t considering that Japan can wait until J3 to attack and can ignore any blocking by going to hawaii.

Attacking Amur was not the point. The point was to show Crockett that his KJF idea was not going to work. That he wasn’t going to destroy the Japanese fleet as he thought.

This was never meant as anything but that. Because I was staying within the test parameters of moving everything towards caroline’s i was not going to attack Amur.

@arthur-bomber-harris said in The Afrika Korps:

@squirecam It appears that you lost the exhibition match by Turn 6 despite Crocket being a very bottom-tier opponent?

I think not.

The test was supposed to be to see if Japan could be killed by a KJF. It couldnt. The usa fleet was wiped. Japan, though temporarily losing china, kept its entire fleet. It was poised to take the money Islands back and nothing was between it and australia. It still had Hawaii. So it just needed the India or the Chinese VC to win after that.

Crockett then switched sides. Moving to the atlantic. Which wasnt part of what we were testing.

But in any event there was no troops between Germany and the middle east. Germany could have stalingrad and moved in troops to take india. The middle east was wide open. Germany also could have went into Turkey with troops and the italians or played more conservative and just taken territories and held.

As a further example, the next round attack on Australia, not counting shore bombards, would be 93% win.

As I said it was a different parameters. But you wanted a link to the opening move which is what that test had.

Also, whatever you think or dont think about someone, its rather rude to say what you did about him.

@arthur-bomber-harris

This is from my last testing with Crockett. It was a different scenario where Crockett was saying he had a KJF strategy he wanted to test. I just moved everything to Hawaii to show that Japan couldn’t be blocked if it wanted it. So that was a weird version of a test, but it has the opening move in it.

If Japan is the subject of a KJF then I think it should give up China and kill the US fleet, which is what happened in the test.

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/37066/squirecam-vs-crockett?page=1

@arthur-bomber-harris said in The Afrika Korps:

@squirecam have you done this strategy in a play-by-forum match before?

Yes. My typical opening is purchase of the German fleet (carrier either with transports or sub/des) and moving J1 fleet to Caroline Islands.

This doesnt mean I’m moving into the med with the fleet, or intent on attacking the neutrals, or that I won’t attack J2 into the money Islands. It’s simply a round 1 placement that allows me options and the knowledge of what the allies are doing before I strike.

If you attack J1 the allies know where you are going and that India is the target. India can still be the target from my placement but so can Australia or Hawaii.

Likewise I can have options for the med or a sea lion or attack back into Lenningrad.

@argothair said in The Afrika Korps:

@squirecam I’m late to this thread, but what’s the importance of taking Sweden before you take Turkey? Wouldn’t it be better to just let Sweden be for a turn? If you’re building a second carrier to hold the Baltic and putting pressure on Leningrad, it’s quite hard for the Allies to get any troops into Sweden; Sweden doesn’t have a coastline on the White Sea. I’d much rather risk the Allies getting control of Sweden around turn 6 than risk having the Russians reinforce Turkey on turn 4. If you lose Sweden it creates moderate economic problems later in the game; if you lose Turkey the entire strategy falls apart.

If I were to attack the neutrals then I would be planning it from the start, or at least planning that I might be. Which means I’d be planning on taking all 3 neutrals on the same turn.

Let’s say G4. In that case, Italy would attack USSR I3. Germany would not declare war but simply reinforce the Italy territory. Then Germany takes all 3 neutrals so that it keeps the bonuses, both for Sweden and not attacking USSR.

Italy should have troops in Greece to follow Germany into Turkey. If the USSR had too many forces to somehow threaten Turkey then you wouldnt attack the neutrals but would move into Ukraine.

All of this depends upon Germany supporting Italy from the start. Which is why attacking the neutrals needs to be somewhat planned instead of a spur of the moment idea.

@tamer-of-beasts said in Axis are underpowered.:

I suspect that we can learn from both sides here. The benefits of a J1 and J2 DOW have been clearly and repeatedly examined by many well-established players. In that I agree with arthur-bomber-harris. However, I am curious to know (perhaps in a new thread so as to not be too far off topic) what squirecam’s thoughts are on why a J3 is the way to go. If we give up seeking new strategies and the willingness to learn, then we are sad Axis and Allies players indeed.

I stated why a few posts ago. I want options and a J1 limits German and Italian options. I want to know where US is going, what its builds have been, and an idea of its strategy while I am planning my opening strike. I like being in Caroline Islands so that I can strike almost anywhere J2 or J3, and not be married to a India crush strategy.

@arthur-bomber-harris said in Axis are underpowered.:

@squirecam I can battle calc just fine in my own head, getting the odds on critical battles with plenty of accuracy. I have no problem playing f2f matches and making the right choices. My opponents, on the other hand, are quite bad in such situations and I can quite reliably wait until they goof in live games.

League matches is where you go if you want to really test your strategy since you can’t count on them doing something stupid. It is such a higher level of competition. Top guys like Axis Dominion or Adam or Cow will take advantage of your minor mistakes and give you few openings to catch back up.

Taking advantage of mistakes is part of the game. Having more time doesnt mean a mistake free game, as you know. I’ve seen many players ask for do overs in both types for moves they have forgotten.

I disagree though as to a higher level of competition. Making the wrong move is part of a strategy game. This is a beer and pretzel game. Moreover, Larry made this version for the people he saw playing at Gencon, who he thought wanted a day long game. It still didnt come with a battle calculator.

People who play online are good no doubt. But using the calculator is a crutch. An example of better skills is to play without it and still win. As you say you have no issue doing.

@arthur-bomber-harris said in Axis are underpowered.:

@argothair The Axis starts out with less than half the income of the Allies. Even with excellent tactics, it is difficult for a player to find battles with better than 1.2 : 1 exchange of unit value over the long run. The Axis must catch up with income and it cannot be just in the European theater. Find a top League player who consistently waits until J3 for DoW… you won’t. Easy to get away with it in face-to-face games where you can wait for dumb mistakes but not a reliable strategy in games where the opponent will battle calc every possible response to moves.

I could just as easily say the following then:

If you need to rely upon battle calculators to tell you what to do then how good are you? If you need four hours between moves then stay online because you may risk losing in a ftf game when you must play without the crutch.