Hi all,

Here’s my latest plan.

The goal of this strategy is to release some pressure from Russia Anzac and UK Pacific through aggressive US play towards Japan.

I would like to share some thoughts for how I came to these ideas as well.

1.  Boots on the ground in Eurasia is the key to winning. Over the long game the side that has the most men and tanks in the centre of the board will reap the economic benefits of cost efficient battles. Battles involving Naval and air come at a steeper price and usually dont generate income.

For this reason the US must get men ashore as quick as possible.

There are several routes the US can try to achieve this.
West Coast to South Pacific
West Coast to North Pacific
East Coast to Africa
East Coast to France
East Coast to Scandinavia

Looking at these choices we can work out the cost of getting 10 troops ashore each turn. I chose 10 as the number because thats equal to 1 german factory.

1. South Pacific 40 Transports (WC - HAW - CI - PI - China)
2. North Pacific 5 Transports (Alaska - SFE)
3. Africa 10 Transports (via Brazil)
4. France 15 Transports (via UK)
5. Scandinavia 15 Transports (via UK)

Even though US has lots of money I would rather be building ground troops not transports. Now the clear winner is North Pacific. Considering US starts with 3 already only 2 transports need to be produced before the fun can begin.

Obviously the Japanese Navy needs to be dealt with in some way to protect the transports. We will start with 2 CVs on turn 1 to make use of on board starting air units. and be spending 20-24 per turn building 4subs/ 2 DD 1 Sub or 3 DD.

Our goal with the Navy is primarily to keep out transports safe over the first few turns. We will initially hit sea zone 3. This spot is out of range of all Japanese land based air. Later we can move to 4 which is only in range of the bombers.

There is very little the Japanese can do to stop this. Even if they pulled their entire fleet back to SZ6 they are only reaching parity. If they want a Naval arms race they can have it. Because while they are holed up in Japan the ANZAC and UK pacific are busy gobbling up all their islands and china is cranking out infantry and artillery that Japan isnt.

The first 5 turns of production orders might look like this
T1. 2 CV    1 TRN  4 INF.
T2. 3 DD,  1 TRN  2 TKS  2  ART  2 MEC  5 INF 1  FTR
T3. 2 SUB  1 TRN  4 TKS  2  ART or MEC  6 INF
T4. 2 SUB  1 DD  4 TKS  2  MEC    6 INF
T5. 2 SUB  1 DD  4 TKS  2  MEC    6 INF

By T3-5 a steady stream of 12 units per turn will be pouring into Korea and a factory will go up there. This will add 3 more TKS (or art) to the mix.

From there the US will push in three directions.

1. Send Fast movers to central asia/russia
2. Clear the Coast down to French indo China 
3. Clear Yunnan and on to India.

At some stage there will be a major naval confrontation. There are a couple of things that will tip the balance to the US.
1. Keep out of range of Land based air
2. Stay next to friendly land territory so fighters can rebase after carriers hit
3. Lots of Subs and DDs to soak hits.

While this is going on ANZAC will be building up so that when Japanese are weak they can strike. Maybe 3 DD 3SUB 3 FTR or something like that.

When UK pacific feel the heat coming off they will switch to building FTR ARM + MEC and head north to release some pressure off Russia. They will not go after Islands. Leave that to ANZAC

UK Europe will basically try to hold as much ground as possible. T1 they will try to sink as much Italian ships as possible and build 1-2 units a turn in SAF. The rest will be based around holding London and possible nusiance attacks.

Obviously Germany will rampage against russia but there is a chance that either the Siberian Troops, US tanks and planes or UK pacific (or all three) will reach them in time.

The last game we played using this strategy the axis were completely unprepared. They  launched a counterattack against the 2 US troops backed by 18 russians in korea and lost big time, China was blown wide open. Jap fleet was near India / Indonesia and couldnt get back to save Japan from invasion.

How should japan defend against this?

Ive done major factory korea then blitzkrieg into Russia, while mopping up china and stalling against US and UK.

To me it comes down to a strategic choice. Germany has to defend against uk us eventually. What is going to give you the best bang for your buck.

Use naval to sink ships.

Use air to sink ships.

Use air land to repel invasion forces.

The first will catch an inexperience player but 2 and 3 are probably safer in the long run as germany cant match uk us naval builds over the long term

Which do you generally play and how does it change the balance. Should the axis go all out for the critical victory conditions aiming for around t5-8 victory or play a slower style of game gradually building up their economy to wear down the allies and crush them over 15-20 turns.

I also think a bit more of a link to the national objectives would make sense. Economic victory makes more sense for japan than anzac for example.

As Germany my motto is attack where they are weakest. Not strongest. If Moscow has 80 inf bypass it and mop up IPCs until he is forced to attack you.

Maybe have different types of victory.

Tactical victory = control 15 victory cities.
Total victory = knock out all enemy capitals.
Political victory = enemy conceded.
Economic victory = combined ipc over 175

Before game starts each side secretly writes down their goal

This is something i havent thought of before but lets take this one step further. The axis could go completely bonkers on one board in order to gain victory on the other and win the game.

Eg germany invades canada. Lets say Germany ignored russia beyond maybe a token effort. But over turns 4-8 could go all out after America. The goal to is  get US forces distracted and committed to going Atlantic. Russia takes the opportunity to invade germany but as a consequnce Japan gets hawaii.

Another scenario might be germany building strategic bombers to do Japans dirty work and bomb Australia. Germany again loses on the Europe map but with german help Japan walks into Sydney picking up the last Victory City.

So if we say on the Europe map the axis will get 5-6 quite easily

Berlin. Rome. Paris. Warsaw.
Then 2 in Russia.  Leningrad/ Stalingrad

Victory depends on getting 2 of Cairo/Moscow/London

On the pacific map it comes down to India/Australia or Hawaii.

The real question is what are the odds of capturing each of these individual cities and how can gameplay or purchases or cooperation affect the odds of individual cities.

Eg is Japan better off attacking the 6 territories around Soviet Far East and ignoring China. This will have more impact on the Germans collecting the 3 russian victory cities.

How can the European Axis distract UK so Japan can push through India.

Ok folks. Here’s some math

Chance of event A and event B both happening.( allied win)

= p(A) x p(B)

That is .5 x .5 = 0.25 or 25% chance of allied win.

Chance of Axis win. Since condition is OR.

= 1 -  (   p(A) X p (B)  )

= 1 - (.5  x .5 )

= 1 - 0.25

= 0.75 or 75% chance axis win.

Underlying assumption is that axis win = 50% on either board.

The revalation from this perhaps is for Japan to give up on Australia or Hawaii and attack egypt instead. Then build a few factories in middle east and join the assault on Russia. Should be pretty easy to get the three russian ones with joint assault from all three axis powers.

Hi. Thats a lot of options!

I find it easier to spend in sets of $10  at a time.

2inf + 1art = $10 for slow

1mot + 1 arm = 10 for fast.

$10 will also buy 1 small ship or 1 aircraft ( almost)

Its then a question of working out the air land sea mix.

This depends on your turn 5 goals. Do you want to be in moscow london or egypt?