For my next game as the CP I have considered letting the Ottomans take Romania and then setting aside 6 IPCs as Austria to continually send 2 infantry a turn toward Trans-Jordan. They would arrive by around turn 6 which would hopefully give the Ottomans an increasing defensive wall against Egypt which might let the Ottoman’s shift their focus more toward India.
Posts made by zanetheinsane
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RE: Who Wins
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RE: Who Wins
@Texas:
I have never seen France top 30 per turn, much less 40. With the pick ups you mentioned above adds up to 33, where are the other 7+?
I haven’t seen the British being that successful in the Middle East either. If they are spending that much in India, how are they fending off Germany? What are the Ottomans typically doing to get overrun like that?
Spain, Portugal, Spanish Morocco, Togoland, Kamerun are +9 and are all but guaranteed. More often than not you can send French forces to pick up SW Africa and Angola for another +2. Now France is making +11 for around 35 IPCs. If at any point France ever picks up any German border territory like Alsace or takes back Belgium they can easily get close or over.
All the UK needs to do is buy 1 plane for India to get air superiority. If the Ottomans buy 1 then just buy a second one. The Ottomans barely make enough money to produce infantry, much less planes. Once the UK can buy a handful of tanks in India, those tanks can pretty much negate the impact of every turn worth of Ottoman units. Ottoman supply lines are much longer than India’s.
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RE: Who Wins
French border territories in Europe are only worth about 2 IPCs. France can easily scoop up Portugal, Spanish Morocco, and using their Portugal transports they can claim Togoland and Kamerun in Africa. Even with Germany knocking down their European IPCs they still make about the same IPC as they start the game with. We’ve been doing an F2 Spain hit with air superiority and the round 1 Portugal units and it has been very successful. You can afford to pull back units from Paris to set this up and the additional 4 IPC makes it very difficult for Germany to make a dent in France’s IPCs. They make almost 40 IPCs a turn some rounds.
Britain gets an income boost because they end up easily taking Persia, Afghanistan, Mesopotamia, Trans-Jordan, and more times Arabia. They have no real fear of losing Egypt at that point and their transports in India are invulnerable because of the Suez canal.
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RE: The aberration of the defenseless transport
@Baron:
I would hate to imagine a Germany that bought 10 transports and did Sealion and now you’re facing a fleet of transports that are all rolling on defense. :roll:
That’s mean 5 hit to sink them all and you got all preemptive strike.
5 Fgts can probably do the job…I was thinking more along the lines of a traditional Sealion buy. You know, the one where German has other boats as well.
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RE: Yukon territory question…
The territory was deemed redundant and made inaccessible in second edition. You can still just blitz through British Colombia just fine.
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RE: The aberration of the defenseless transport
I would hate to imagine a Germany that bought 10 transports and did Sealion and now you’re facing a fleet of transports that are all rolling on defense. :roll:
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RE: G40 Classic
I think Italy would be pretty devastated making only 10 IPCs a turn (8 after they lose Libya and Ethiopia). The UK would have them for lunch in Africa and probably the upper med. For sure they would not be able to hold off a combined UK/US invasion. Greece would make up for it a little, but I’d imagine the UK would have no problem taking that from them, as well as Saudia Arabia and the the two 1 IPCs neutrals in Africa.
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RE: What is your bid?
I feel like Austria needs to start with a submarine. As it is now, once all of the powers merge in the med on the first turn all of the CP warships are pretty much trapped forever.
In one of our games where AH attempted to build a navy they had no hope because France can just drop ships directly out of Marseilles. Britain has nothing to fear bringing up their warships from India because the Ottomans can’t ever hope to get through the Suez canal (yet every ally can get through the Bosphorus straight… nice balance).
Britain can easily match any German navy and France can completely neutralize an AH navy with just a couple ships. The CP can never hope to match navies with the Allies and are doomed to sitting in their tiny sea zones staring out.
I firmly believe that the only reason the CP ships even exist is as a speedbump and minor deterrent so the Allies don’t just amphibiously assault in the first 2-3 turns.
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RE: Containing the Ottomans
Buy a plane as India. The Ottomans are probably making +6 (Bulgaria/Sevestolpol) and maybe +1 more from Arabia. At barely 22 IPCs they can’t afford to match that. After the start of turn 4 a couple of tanks will devastate them. Completely negating 2 of the probable 5 units that the Ottoman’s can produce a turn will certainly swing things back in your favor easily.
Contesting Mesopotamia really wrecks their economy. Because of the horrible border design of Ottoman territories your supply line can only go one way: to Smyrna to resupply Trans-Jordan or Ankara towards India. You can’t just send them all to a central territory and then split them up as you need them.
So as UK because of your transports you can shuck units to Trans-Jordan if they’re building up forces there and then devote the rest of your forces to Mesopotamia. Because the Ottomans can only realistically build a few units a turn you can easily match and contain them or overwhelm them if you want to spend even more. And by Turn 3/4 the UK is making almost 40 a turn after cleaning up Africa. They can absolutely afford to spend extra in India to smash the Turks.
In my opinion the Trans-Jordan hit and activating Arabia turn 1 is too good. Combine that with an assault on Persia/Mesopotamia and the Ottoman empire absolutely needs outside help to survive. Trans-Jordan needs at least 2 more units starting in it to make it still achievable but less of a gimme.
As it is now, it’s a 100% turn 1. You have to do it because it is too good not to. Not doing it would be like France not activating Portugal on their first turn. There is no real threat of a counter-attack and you get 7 IPCs worth of free units to replace any you lost assaulting TJ.
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RE: Paris or Bust
@WILD:
To my surprise the English didn’t spend a dime in London first few turns, and spent everything in India (yeah the Turks were in trouble). I thought ok, this just might work, its the Germans vs the French with no out side help… I don’t understand how the French can loose 1/2 their main territories, and still have over 20 IPCs because they make it up w/neutrals?..
…Anyway the French didn’t have much help, but were able to defend against the entire might of the German army…
The IPC imbalance in our games has been incredibly noticeable. Just starting off the game France will easily make +5 IPCs from Spanish Morroco, Portugal, and Belgium They will easily have Togoland and Kamerun soon enough, boosting them to well over 30 IPCs very early in the game. Britain will carve up Africa for a tidy bonus, will almost always hold Arabia due to the ability to spend any amount of IPCs they wish in India, which usually means Afghanistan, Persia, and Mesopotamia are theirs for the taking (and keeping).
UK usually ends up making around 40 IPCs that the Central Powers have zero chance of taking away.
Unless Germany and Austria start carving up Russia very quickly the Central Powers start the game off making significantly less IPCs than the Allies, and that doesn’t even include USA. If you count the USA the balance gets even more lopsided.
I realize that the CPs start with more units than the Allies but that is easily made up for the fact that the Allies would have to be lobotomized to not be able to rule every sea zone in the game by Turn 3-4 max. The UK can throw every single IPC they want on offense because all of their territories are unassailable.
Unlike 1940 where the Axis start with a huge head of steam and have to keep going to avoid running out of resources, the CPs in this game seem to start down and out and have to claw and drag themselves out of hole just to get on par with the Allies. It is very frustrating to play as them and just continually get stopped and beat up at every front.
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RE: Yet another 1914 game report
Brief thoughts –
The RR rules being what they are, we’ve decided to not play with them for the time being. Having said that, while they certainly are open to abuse by the Allies, I think they on balance favor the CP.From the threads I have been reading, the only CP wins seem to be when the Russian Revolution was in play. Without it, Russia just seems to be a complete disaster. They have the ability to either turtle in Moscow with 60-70 units, or run around hitting stacks.
Or if they know the inevitable is likely they can even take their massive stack of units and head south and obliterate the Ottoman army without repercussions.
It seems odd that even though the rule is “optional”, it’s almost a necessity for the CPs to even stand a chance.
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RE: Why isn't France a Central Power?
I’m sure France and Germany can come to a reasonable and amenable agreement as to who owns Alsace-Lorraine and then they’ll just be best buds.
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RE: How to balance out the game for the Allies in one easy step
One problem with having France go first (among others) is the time line would be incorrect. Fance was not neutral having declared war in 1939 after the invasion of Poland.
Correct but Italy did not declare war on France until after German had invaded them so easily (which has already been said in this thread).
If you want to take it even historically further, Italy’s invasion of Southern France was actually a disaster in the real war, not a roll-over like it is in AA40.
A France at war with only Germany at the start of the game and able to move forces into Southern France to repel an Italian invasion would be even more accurate. It seems that everyone is arguing that France could too easily invade Northern Italy. Why not just say that France can’t DOW on Italy? Seems simple enough.
Of course, Paris’ starting units would have to be altered to account for the extra 19 IPC, but probably not by much considering it would just be a built-in Allied bid.
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RE: How to balance out the game for the Allies in one easy step
If you’re worried about historical accuracy just go with the France neutral idea and say that France can’t DOW on anyone.
Also…… French infantry in FIC please! :roll: Not for balance issues. It just annoys me.
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RE: Axis and Allies 1914 FAQ/Question and Answer Thread
It never seemed like a problem, we just rely on the time-honored method of a small dry-erase board and then just counting at the end of your turn.
“Checks board You saved X last turn. You’re up Y from these countries. You’re down Z from these. Maths. Done.”
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RE: Possible Rules Change
An example would be if there were a German force contesting Poland with Russia, then Austria-Hungary on its turn moves into and contests Ukraine. The current rule prevents Germany from abandoning its fight in Poland to jump into Ukraine and get one step closer to Moscow without having to fight to get there. Leap-frogging is basically taking advantage of the turn order to capitalize on your allies’ advances, which circumvents the purpose of contesting territories.
What is the consensus on moving troops out of a contested territory into a territory that an ally controls (not contested)?
Do you already have to have a troop in there? The possibility exists for Austria to attack with overwhelming force in somewhere like the Ukraine which could allow Germans to leap-frog into there without the “one troop” stipulation.
But then you have the odd problem is that German and Austria are probably going to be slicing up Russia in odd ways, which means some retreat options that seem plausible would suddenly become disallowed.
For example: in our first game, German troops were advancing on Moscow and were in Livonia, contesting it. An unforseen landing by the UK in Karelia stopped the German’s plans and they decided to retreat, except that Poland was controlled by Austria and Germany did not have one unit there. Belarus was being contested by Austria so Germany obviously couldn’t jump out of their battle and into there.
It seemed silly that Germany couldn’t retreat to Poland via virtually any version of the rules so we let it happen.
Another good example is if Austria controls Switzerland, without a unit there Germany could not retreat there from a contested territory around it (maybe to avoid a big allied counter-attack, or to regroup, etc). Having to leave a token infantry all around you just in case you need to retreat to a friendly territory seems clunky.
To me it seems the easiest application of the rule would be that you can move units out of a contested territory and into an uncontested allied territory as long as the destination territory has been held by that ally for one round (thus stopping you from just smashing a territory with one power and then immediately moving another power’s troops in).
This combined with the provision that you have to have one troop in a contested territory at the start of your turn to move units from another contested territory into it seems to pretty much solve all of the problems with the rules except a couple scenarios.
While it works good for the “can opener” protection, here is an example where it might be a little :?
Let’s say that Germany invades Moscow and captures it. On UK’s turn the send units to Karelia. Then on Russia’s next turn, for some reason they had some troops that were slow getting back from beating up Turks, Russia reinvades Moscow and liberates it. Now, knowing that the UK is going to try to reinforce it, Germany sends over a token force to contest Karelia with the UK. When the UK’s turn rolls around, under the above rule, they cannot send troops to reinforce Moscow because Russia has not held it for one turn (maybe they need to rebuild a few bridges). Of course that wouldn’t be possible anyway in any of the rules, so maybe it’s not too bad.
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RE: Axis and Allies 1914 FAQ/Question and Answer Thread
Rules as strict state that mines happen at the end of the move phase, which would of course mean after you have loaded your transports (which of course seems pretty silly).
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RE: Has anyone bought a cruiser yet?
In our current first game, Germany hit the starting British navy hard, and some small naval purchases by the Austrians and Ottomans in the med forced France to send most of it’s navy to the med to cover the Indian and Italian navies there. With the UK covering Italy in SZ17 you really have to worry about Ottoman cruisers and their ability to get down to SZ27. Austrian naval purchases have kept the allied med fleet performing containment duty in SZ17.
German cruisers are sitting in SZ11 behind the safety of the Kiel and Berlin minefields (and some German battleships and subs) preventing UK from sending transports to Karelia because their longer range allows them snake around behind without UK leaving a cruiser to block in SZ5 (which will of course have to happen).
UK has been trying to balance rebuilding their navy with fighting off a very offensive-minded set of Ottomans in India. The German navy has absolutely save the Ottoman Empire since the UK has had to devote 70+% of it’s resources into London. France has been down to building a cruiser a turn out of Marseilles because they can’t spare the IPCs from the fight on the land but they need something a little bigger than submarines to deter a sizable Austrian navy.
Of course it’s turn 4 now, and unless Germany wants to continue to try to match UK’s naval buys (which they can’t keep up with now) it looks like in another turn the UK will be able to drop the hammer on Germany’s fleet or at least neutralize them. The US looks to be itching to get into the fight in the med, which will help tremendously, so the Central Powers have been going heavy on land buys.
While battleships have definitely been the favorite buy, sometimes a cruiser is worth it just that one more infantry worth of IPCs into the fight. The threat of a long range cruiser strike can lock down ships and when you need block you don’t really want to throw away a battleship for it.
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RE: Has anyone bought a cruiser yet?
I have the board setup for our first game today but have yet to dive in, but from what it looks like, the UK has no option of building ships anywhere other than off London and Wales. Cruisers could be helpful for reinforcing the med or Egypt since they could get there in 2 turns instead of 3/4.
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RE: US/UK Purchases Help Turn 1
I’m not going to try to say that the game is already over, but Germany is in for a very hard victory if France doesn’t fall turn 1.
Since Russia will be facing less troops from Germany, they should absolutely push into Finland and Norway and make nightmares for Germany.
With that strong of a UK navy, the UK might be able to handle themselves without too much American support. You may want to consider a ridiculously heavy Pacific buy (with maybe only 1-3 transports) and chase down Japan’s navy. Don’t focus on a big invasion fleet, just enough to take back the Philippines or the DEI. Instead focus on subs and destroyers and maybe a couple extra carriers with planes.