@calvinhobbesliker:

Techno, how is 70 ipcs enough to kill the Euro Axis? Germany will have about that amount of money, and it only needs to spend 6 ipcs for every 14 ipcs the US spends(2 inf vs inf, art, Transport), leaving it with plenty to fight Russia. Seriously, what in the world are Japan and Germany doing

From what i’ve seen, Germany’s hard pressed devoting all it’s resources to hitting USSR. USA can strike by US4 and Germany’s unlikely to take moscow before G5 - and that’s assuming no Sealion. Without Sealion, the euroUK is still active, tho not a major threat by itself. Combined w USA, the UK becomes v useful to punch holes in German defences. With a Sealion, Germany should be abt halfway to Moscow by the time USA arrives.
I’d repeat, its the extreme lack of pressure USA currently has on it that facilitates the 70ipcs being quite powerful. Yes it has to waste cash on trannies, but it can also use trannies to land wherever it wants etc, so its not all just cash down the toilet.
It seems like once the USA arrives in force, euroAxis are screwed. I’ll happily admit that maybe my games havent balanced particularly well or something, but the basic issue of attrition always looked to eventually crush Germany at that point. Ideally Germany should have some ability to hold off the USA even if they land in europe. Maybe a better group of players than mine can reach that equilibrium where tactics come into play once more. And i’m hoping the proposed changes go a v long way to achieve that also.

Hell, it’s probably best to test the proposed changes as an official errata and see what happens; so there’s small steps of change occurring rather than being more drastic. However i suspect the KGF strategy may still be prevelant with that +20 bonus.
I’d keep in mind that its plausible that with the proposed changes that the USA could actually be 5 ipcs higher than it currently is; and that doesn’t necessarily involve going hard at japan, just taking a few islands in the Pacific.
Tho i’m desperately hoping Japan will be greedy and want the islands too, hence the Pacific battles are ON, baby!!

The changes all seem great, with one or two exceptions:
**1) UK 2nd capital in ottawa - as explained in great detail by sgtBlitz, it nerfs the Sealion strategy completely. Taking euroUK’s only capital and stopping their war contribution is the only reason to Sealion, otherwise the UK isles hv little strategic value for axis. It really is just that simple. If the euroUK is taken out of the war, the UK player still has India to play. If that’s taken too, then they can try to cajole the USA player to liberate London to hv another player rejoin the allies’ ranks. Seems perfectly fair to me.

The major problem with the OOB global game seems to consistently be that for evenly matched (namely good/experienced) players, it is v v hard for the axis to win. Hence the axis really dont need to be nerfed too much. That’s not to say don’t touch them at all if the errata’s altering many things - maybe the axis need a bit of a change to aid the rebalancing of the allies, etc. But there’s little point altering the OOB setup if it doesn’t address this fundamental problem as it currently seems to stand (only 3-4 months after release, admittedly)

**2) The overall potential increase to USA NO’s. Basically, the +20 base alone still places USA at a sufficiently high level to waltz over in 4-6 turns and smash the euroAxis. The +10 for the collection of 7 islands is a great idea. +5 for the 3 pairs of islands may be ok, but could add too much to the USA. Maybe it’s better to only use a +10 base and maintain the other proposals. That way if the USA maintains the Pacific theatre, it could get +35 ipcs - 5 more than the OOB - and if it doesn’t, then its only getting +10 (or maybe a little more if Japan’s lazy).

WRT my earlier point abt it already being tough for the axis, its mainly because the USA comes over to europe and takes berlin. And w relative ease - even if the first wave dies, the second or third does the job shortly afterwards. 70 ipcs is still enuff to do this . This is especially so because those 70 ipcs is almost impossible to reduce. Sure the other powers can accrue high incomes, but all of them are somewhat vulnerable to being shaved down. Not so the USA. That’s why i think Larry’s general proposals are awesome to rebalance things; i’d just go a bit further. Maybe the new victory conditions will address this issue effectively and so his NO’s are fine. Time will tell. I’d suspect tho, that it will take Japan many turns to take India, then Sydney, then Honolulu. I’d guess J7 optimistically; so US5 should make a dent on europe, then 1-2 turns to drop a fleet in hawaii… etc

That said, v v happy w almost all of the other changes. Esp the victory conditions and the new NO’s (esp esp in the pacific). The extras suggested by oztea et al - namely the 2 subs in sz95 would be well worthwhile.

Two other possible additions:

1. Add a few more seazones in the Atlantic - eg: split sz 102, 90, 88 each into 2 seazones.
2. Remove the bases in Gibraltar.

Yeah fair enuff - its obviously a silly idea then ;-(
I think i maybe keep forgetting that the destroyers negate the subs First Strike or something, i kept thinking it seemed a bit more plausible than general consensus. Just as well i’ve never tried it in a game!

On the tangent tho, YES the Atlantic is waaay too small. I guess Larry decided it was necessary for game design/balance or something. It is extremely annoying for the axis when the yanks can hit Gibraltar so quickly. Just one more sz to travel would’ve made it soooo much better for the defending axis to prepare. And it does seen v inconsistent compared to the vast expanse of the Pacific that the Japanese/USA/ANZAC’s hv to cover. The Pacific actually is big enuff for naval maneuvers, whereas the Pond is just a playground for everything built in Eastern USA.
Obviously it would be v v hard to errata the map itself, but maybe sz 102, 90, & 88 could each be split down the middle, for example.

True, it seems like a waste of IPC’s - 6 vs 2 - and it takes G4 to get them into position.
However, if you can get them into position, those 27 lots of 6 ipc’s can continue to deprive the USA of income for many rnds (maybe…); and maybe it’s more effective to deprive the USA of IPC’s before they get to build something, rather than work out how to destroy it without casualties after they’ve built it.

Getting them there is a problem; but i was wondering if you could send a single sub forward in each sz around the main sub fleet to prevent the DD’s facilitating the US airforce sinking the bulk of the sub fleet - eg: get the fleet to sz103, with one sub in each of sz’s 90, 91, 102, 104, 107, 108; then all survivors and the fleet wipeout all remaining DD’s in the area (20@2 should take out a few DD’s pretty quickly!)

I appreciate this isn’t doing much to help Germany/Japan’s main tasks of crushing UK/USSR/ANZAC, however a big part of the problem is the Big Green Giant coming over in rnd4 or earlier and smashing Germany. If this sort of worked, then it gives both of them plenty of time to complete these tasks.
Is USSR an actual threat to invade Germany? i can see it being harder to crack by rnd 4, but i find it hard to believe they could seriously hurt Germany even by rnd 4…
Any other ideas to stop the rnd4 termination of the Axis?

I know this is probably a really silly idea, but does the fact that by the end of the 2nd round, Germany & Japan combined can produce the 27 subs required to convoy disrupt USA down to its NO 30ipc income?
I havent really tried to work out if this is at all viable or worthwhile, but the basic idea is USA gets waaaay too big because of it’s income, UK & ANZACS are much of a lesser concern for the same reason, USSR could be a problem unfortunately. So if u could position ur subs by G3/J3 (not easy i admit, USA is reduced to an income similar to UK(europe). Of course the axis continue to do some of the standard opening moves also, such as grab the money isles, take france, etc…
Also working on the idea that maybe Larry included the concept of Convoy disruption to be utilised somehow… ;-)

Has anyone considered or tried this?

The latter mod is much better - additional tanks for backup from a major IC in Norway is a gr8 idea. Using it for possible sealion could work. I’d imagine the UK navy might be a bit stronger by the time moscow falls, and the japanese could be in a slightly precarious position after losing their airforce “softening” up moscow.
The psychology/bluffing of players can b a v impt part of the game, but it’s more of a gamble than the dice sometimes. The ploy of falling back from the russian front may look highly suspicious or may look exactly like a pre-sealion move.
I’d b v v curious to see how the allies respond to this, particularly in a multiplayer game of 4-5 players. 1 ally may easily miss the possible moves, but i’ve found in my overall A&A experience that u just need 1 of a few opponents to get suspicious and the bluffs get v difficult ;-(

The major IC in Norway may solve multiple problems with this and other strategies - Norway is more defendable generally, and with a decent navy to protect them, a few transports can continuously dump backup/expeditions into northern russia. Having the ability to strike beyond the conventional Eastern front may distract the USSR considerably.

I’d b v curious as to how this goes. It sounds v cunning!

I’d have a minor reservation tho: by G4 at Moscow USSR could potentially hv 38 inf, 2 mech, 2 art, 2 tanks, 2 ftrs, 1 tac
(calc’d from pure inf builds for 3 rnds plus some adjacent stuff moved into defend moscow)
That’s 42@2, 4@3, 1@4.
An extra rnd to hit w everything is an extra 12 inf (that’s 54@2, et al).

I calc’d the approx chances of a German (ground) thrust directly for Moscow starting at rnd 1 - a strategy my play group had been discussing. You can hit with 7 inf, 11 mech, 8 tanks, 5 ftr, 7 tac, 4 strats.
That’s 18@1, 13@3, 11@4

I think working w some averages (maybe hoping for a slight edge for the german dice) the germans probably take Moscow with 1-2 tanks and maybe 1-3 surviving air units (tacs/strats). Kinda depends if AA hits anything. And it 4 rnds of combat. A lot can happen in 4 rnds!

Generalising massively, the addition of Japanese planes roughly compensates for the extra 12 russian inf and reduced ground units to allow a G5 strike on moscow. I can’t see a G4 strike being possible with ur tactic unless USSR builds poorly.
That kinda means i think it might work, especially if you get some early luck on dice rolls in the moscow combats. Similarly you could lose it all and barely scratch the ruskies ;-(

My calc’s were based on the issue that a few of us in my play group are of the opinion that all USSR has to do for the entire game is defend Russia by building purely Inf and stacking them in Moscow, while attempting to delay the germans/japs as best as possible. Hence, the idea there are abt 38 inf sitting in moscow at G4 may not apply to many games…

I hope my 2 cents worth isn’t completely superfluous - i’m guessing this sort of analysis has been discussed already but i’ve missed it.

My other reservations are: What are the other allies doing? and does Japan just forgo it’s conquering of the money islands & India? Can the control of moscow result in a game-win if Japan is heavily weakened in the Pacific?

NB: i’ll happily admit i hv only played a single game of global (and that was last night!), tho i’ve played a fair few games of Pacific, Europe and Anniversary. I played germany and hit USSR at G2. I charged at Moscow, stopping first at Leningrad and hit it with an enormous stack by G6 or G7 - unfortunately also defended by another enormous stack. Basically i lost, leaving only 3 USSR planes in moscow. Consequently i’ve spent a bit of time today doing some analysis of options, such as the stuff i mentioned above.

My assumptions could easily b wrong, so i’d still luv to see you hv a crack at it!!

As per title, if i place a German sub (etc) in SZ125 in G1, and dont attack the USSR in G1, does the USSR NO get cancelled? ie: the USSR NO whereby they get 5 IPC’s from having sz125 clear of enemy vessels.
I’m asking because germany & USSR start w a non-aggression pact, so i assume germany is not considered “enemy” until the DOW.
Thanks

PS: playing germany/italy in our first a&a global game - any hot tips??

What is everyone’s experience of the best time for Germany to attack Russia; and what is the best time for Japan to attack Russia or UK/USA?
This is obviously based on a successful outcome - ie: Axis victory.

I think i saw a mention of part of this on a previous post - something like how G1 was bad, G2 seemed pretty good, G3 bit worse, G4 too late, etc
V curious to see the answers for this, as my group are yet to play (had the boxes for 2 months!) but are set to kick-off in the next few weeks.
_.

• • exception = Blitchga; but roughly the same situation ;-)_

So, just to be sure, i can blitz into the first empty neutral territory and hit the second neutral territory; but only if someone on my side has already hit a True Neutral and hence the neutral i’m taking is a non-friendly neutral. Correct?

Does that mean that i cannot blitz either the first True Neutral territory i take, or any friendly neutral territories?