From: el0g+@andrew.cmu.edu (Erik Lauer)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Re: A&A: Allied guide to crushing Germany
Date: 5 Oct 92 19:23:21 GMT
Organization: Doctoral student, Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA


 emullins@triton.unm.edu (Eric Mullins) srites:
<I saved this article from years past, and decided to post it again.
<I must apologise for not remembering the original author.  I think
<it might have been Tim Hsu, forgive me if I am wrong.
<--------------------------------------------------------------------------
<What's listed below is the set of important moves.  At the end, I'll
<discuss some common nonimportant moves.  Here's a short legend....
<T = tank, P = plane, C = carrier, TT = Transport, inf = infantry.
<
<Russian 1st move.
<1) Attack E. Europe with 2T, 2P, and all the inf you can muster.
<2) Move all inf in Russia + 3 inf in Caucasus to Karelia.  Move the other
<   2T into Russia.
<3) Build 8 inf (no surprises here) and put them in Karelia.
<
<[my note: ignore 1 if using no russian attack rule]
<
<British 1st move.
<1) Assume that your navy litters the ocean floor.  Unscathed naval pieces
<   should be placed in E. US.
<2) Destroy the remains of the German navy.
<3) Save your income.

<USA 1st move.
<1) Destroy the remains of the German navy.
<2) Move 3P to E. or W. US
<2) Build 1C, 2TT, and put them in E. US.
The carrier is a waste of resources.  By now you would not need it.

<Russian 2nd move.
<1) Attack E. Europe with all the inf, 2T, and 2P.
<2) Build 9 inf in Karelia.

Could be bad if germans took the caucuses the first turn, you would lose
Russia.  If not, then there should be a lot of stuff in E. Europe
(everything that can reach, including the aa gun, and 2 inf  or 1 tank
from Finland).  By starting such a poor battle, you may just give the
axis a resonable chance of winning.

<[my note: if using no russian attack rule, #1 probabaly isn't to good
<          at this point.]

<British 2nd move.
<1) Put 1P onto the US carrier.
<2) Build 1C, 4TT, and inf (will be 2-3).
Wow, you really are into wasting lots of money on carriers!  One loaded
carrier an lots of transports is plenty (the germans can throw their air
force away to kill some transports, but the exchange in cost is poor,
and the Germans lose by trading money with the allies).

<USA 2nd move.
<1) Move all naval units and transport as many land units as possible to
<   Britain.  Move 2P onto the UK carrier, and 1P onto the US carrier.  Shuffle
<   inf and tanks to E. Canada.
<2) Build 2TT, and inf in E. US.
Well, after going through all the effort to make your navy safe, you
build two transports, and allow them to be attacked by planes!

<Russian 3rd move: repeat Russian 2nd move.
Stupider still, you have no tanks, may have already lost a plane, and
are attacking more inf with fewer inf.  Seems like this is a program to
lose the entire game!

<There are now 2C, 4P and 6-7TT around UK.  A pretty nice task force.
<
<Germany is now faced with a group of Russian inf on the east front, a readied
<US assault into W. Europe, a UK player who could hit either Germany, E.
<Europe, or W. Europe.

A group of Russian inf?  Is 8 inf a group?  Why doesn't Germany just
squish Russia, now that Russia has thrown away all its infantry in lousy
battles?

<Good allied moves at this point include the Brits storming E. Europe, the
<US storming W. Europe, and the Russian horde walking into E. Europe in
<preparation to attack Berlin.  An attempt to take all three territories is
<also fun.  It's really hard to screw it up at this point.
Yeah, its hard to screw up a game you have already lost!

<Nonimportant moves.

<The Russian player should either attack Manchuria, or hole up in Yakut.
Considering you used both planes, and the tank which could attack
Manchuria in the other front, I would not attack Manchuria (you would be
attacking 3 inf and 1 fighter with 5 inf).
<Either move has the same result of delaying the Japanese 1 turn, but holing
<up in Yakut will kill more Japanese, especially since the tank was moved to
<Russia.  As for the Russian navy, I usually attack the Germany navy once.  If
<I kill something, I do it again.  If I get a unit killed, I'll retreat.
<Whatever you do, it doesn't really matter.


<The British player should try to retake portions of Africa over playing with
<the Japanese.  It hurts the Germans more, and that's the object of the game.
I agree (except if the Russians take Manchuria, the Brits should take
Kwangtung the first turn, that is enough to buy the allies a lot of time
to fight the Germans before the Japanese get very far).

<The US player can play a very good delaying battle with the Japanese with
<just the naval units at his disposal in the Pacific.  The point here is that
<you don't need to beat up the Japanese, all you need to do is to delay
<an amphibious assault for a few turns.
Sure, though the Japanese should ignore you too (for the most part), and
go for the mainland (where all the production is).

<A Russian attack into Ukrane or Norway is really unnecessary, in fact, the
<Germans should be taking troops away from those territories to attack, so
<if the opportunity presents itself, take them, but don't forget that E. Europe
<is the focus of the Russian onslaught.
The Germans don't more than one unit in both Norway and Eastern Europe
unless they have Russia on the ropes anyway.  If the Germans are
competent, your "onslaught" is just a way of trading inf with the
germans at a poor ratio.

<Notes.
<
<Notice that the Russians can't keep up this level of aggression for very
<long.  In fact, by the end of turn 4 a good Japanese player will be right
<next to Moscow, not with a large force, mind you, but one that is necessary
<to counter.  With this in mind and the fact that Germany is nearly dead,
<the Russians should reinforce Moscow and not Karelia on turn 4.
You will have to pay a little more attention to the Japanese by then. 
If they are not being attacked, they probably transport their tank over
the second turn, move it up the third, so you have to block it on your
fourth turn (you can either put stuff in the way to keep it from getting
to Moscow or put enough inf in Moscow so you wont lose to one tank and
the Japanese air force).

<If this Japanese force turns out to be larger than you had expected, putting
<most of the RAF on Moscow, along with the Russian inf and aircraft should
<keep the Japanese from progressing.
With the $ the axis earn under this plan, the small amount of support
you give the Russians (you spend so much on planes and carriers instead
of more inf and transports), the way you throw away Russian inf, Russia
will be dead very soon.

<The Axis will come very close to winning under the economic victory
conditions,
<so watch those points and play with Japan if it comes to close.  This becomes
<a major factor around turn 3.

And from then on...
<A good German player (read, has seen this before) will build all inf the
<1st turn and maybe the 2nd turn in a (very good) attempt to take and hold E.
<Europe.  Whether or not the Russian player should defend against an attack
<or attack E. Europe for a few rounds (not to take it, just to kill off inf
<and retreat) is a tough decision.  Defending will kill more Germans, but
<then again, the Germans would have thrown much more hardware into the fray.
Any decent German player realises he has way too many tanks for the
number of inf he has, and will build almost all inf.  I think a basic
strategy is to pile your stuff (instead of leaving it the way it starts
in vulnerable little froups).  A good German player should realise these
things, and not have to have seen this plan before (I never have seen
the Russians decide to make a losing battle every turn after the first)
in order to stop it.  There are many winning Allied plans, but this is
not one of them.  It is an easy decision as to weather to make the
attacks or not: don't.  If you defend, not only do your inf hit twice as
well, and the german inf half as well, but you have an entire extra
turns worth of units in the battle (+ you have the AA gun in the battle
not the germans - german tanks hit on 3's).  Also you can have some
allied planes with you in Karelia, it is an excellent place to stage
planes from (just the ones the allies start with can help a lot).

<----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- 
<   Eric Mullins			Internet: emullins@triton.unm.edu
<Mars the God of War		Bitnet:   emullins@unmb.bitnet

Erik
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