yvesp
Posts: 2083
Joined: 9/12/2008
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Courtenay
Congratulations on a great game.
Thanks!
I like it very much. My first game in 13 years or so... But the end was hell!
Its the first time I win so clearly with the allies.
Indeed, the trouble was with Japan, from the very beginning.I had forgotten to be prudent as a fox : rash attacks almost led to early disaster, later recover through the complet building of the land unit pool. To my discharge, the change of scale makes for a rather different style of play, as I could experiment with the Chinese, which can be deadly without even firing a shot...
However, there were heavy losses on the Chinese front, and the Japanese could never build in time the required naval units for lack of resources, much less take the naval moves necessary to position itself against the USA. The net result is that it did build exceedingly few carriers.
Its air force was also pathetic (it is never good anyway.)
All of this combined to make the US war against Japan rather easy, at least until the American decided to invade: Japan had no interest to spoil its navy (it has never that interest : only the US benefits from an attrition war), but more to the point, the Americans could hardly be bothered since they were soon positionned too close to the heart of Japan. Japan was lucky that its merchant navy survived so well: in part it was because the USA were at first more interested by the European theater which promised to be difficult, especially because it was unsure that the Russians could enter.
So, Japan weakness allowed the USA to lean strongly to Europe ; this was especially blatant in the fight for the control of the West Mediterranean, which involved carriers some of which should have been positionned againt Japan (to set things right, in a different scenario, the US would likely have build more carriers, possibly in advance : it is unclear how that would have changed things.) More blatant was that this allowed the USA to take a lot of land actions when necessary, which is usually difficult if the Japanese positions its fleets at a crucial moment when Germany does something in Europe,or simply when the USA have to do combined actions to ensure the capture of some island without interference...
On the other side, I think I did a rather good job with the Commonwealth, which dealt very well with its sea lanes : nothing in the Mediterranean, nothing in the North Atlantic, and that offered a very small target (two close sea areas) for axis submarines. They were never seen as a serious threat. Germany could never bother to attempt an air assault on them, firts because it was very busy bringing the garrison in the east at the highest possible value, which involves having as many planes as possible on the fornt lines, and still keep a sufficient home air defense against strategic bombings. Second because the number and very soon, quality, of British fighters able to protect in the zero box was overwhelming. Commonwealth major production at the start of the game involved carriers and fighters... as well as lots of convoys. Through in the occasional land units to discourage an invasion, which was unlikely since the sole Germna amphibious was sent to repair from the onset. An error: the German fleet should have been deep in the Baltic, which I had also forgotten. Anyway, I know from experience that invasions of England are almost always failures, and at best a quite chancy business! England is usually really secure.
Germany was really thwarted about not being able to attack Russia in 1941. I had the maximum I could on the border! But not claiming Poland shortens the border. This may have incidences on the garrison ratio which I must study deeper. It also helped the USA enter much sonner than I expected into the war: if you don't claim Poland, why claim anything ? That's a lot of chits that are not put back... And Germany had not even attacked the Netherlands, and Italy was not in the war!
As for Italy, why enter the war, if it cannot help ? Seriously ? No merchant shipping to disrupt, no British ships to bother... conquer Egypt ? Why not. But troops can easily come from India or even Australia. British can easily disrupt supply in the East Mediterranean. And a fleet stationned in Aden is safe and can be problematic for any Italian fleet in the East Mediterranean. Not that nothing can be done, but it involves all sorts of prepartions (planes, transports) which are expensive (hence long) for the small Italian economy. And of course, this usually involves Germna troops, with preferably some panzers. But these were requested on the east front to increase the garrison ratio! For a war declaration that became possible only much too late!
Instead I did choose to play a little roleplaying game whereas Mussolini was keen on his "independance" from Hitler, and where he preferred to play alone in his own turf : Yugoslavia, Greece. Things can be said about that choice of course! And anyway, no Italian is interested in running the risk of meeting the French fleet. So, as long as France has not fallen (or near), entering the war doesn't look smart.
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RE: Global War Solitaire - 
, but the game was rushed (well, sort of, after all these years! 
) and it could have waited two or three more months more... 
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