Play along with me! - Global War Solitaire AAR

[joshuamnave]

Most notable among the reinforcements are the Japanese Nav bombers. I build early Japanese Nav's more for their tac factors than their air to sea factors. The Japanese Navs are better bombers than their Lnds.

[joshuamnave]

Soldiers around the world paused for a moment to ring in the new year. What will 1940 hold for us? I'm eager to find out.

I'm fairly liberal in scrapping units at year start, particularly obsolete air units.

At the start of the turn, the initiative marker has once again moved toward the allies, and is now dead center with neither side getting a bonus on rolls, and both sides being able to demand a reroll. The allies win the initiative roll, and the axis have a decision to make. By demanding a reroll, the axis has a little under 50/50 chance of getting the initiative, and using it to pound Wavell (less than 50/50 because allies currently win tie rolls). This will push the initiative marker further in the wrong direction, and only gives them a chance at initiative, in a winter turn. Best to let this one go, the axis decides reluctantly. The allies take the initiative, and the weather roll is a 6. Snow in N Temp, Rain in the med, fine in N Typhoon.

CW takes a naval action to protect convoys and suck the HQ's out of France. France takes a combined - only needing limited land moves to plug the southern line and wanting to bring out the French navy to support the UK in the med.

The UK takes to the sea, grabbing the two HQ's in france, as well as the south African infantry. The French fleet sails into the western med. If Italy wants to come out and play with the UK fleet carrying Wavell, they'll have to fight through the French who will be assigned to take the first (and second!) wave of damage.

The allies initiate a naval combat in the western med, hunting the Italian CP. Both Ger and It fly in nav bombers, and Italy send a fighter into the 0 box as well. There's no british air included, because the carriers are all back home for their annual retrofit. Because both sides rolled low, a combat is initiated between the 2 nav bombers and both the british and French fleets. The convoy isn't involved. The axis would rather not fight at all, using their air just to screen the convoy, and they choose not to make it a naval air combat. The allies would love to force the combat to occur, but with no air of their own they can't force the issue. The rule governing what type of naval combat happens is 11.5.7 (RAC pp 55-6). If you're following along as a new player, I suggest looking it over at this time. Round 2 finds both sides once again successful in their searches, with the same result. On the third round, the search rolls fail so combat is avoided. Note that had I not sent the air into the Med, the allies would have been the only ones to succeed on the first search roll and could have picked which sea box(es) to attack. The CP would have certainly been sunk. The lesson here is that naval air fills two functions - First, it can be used to sink enemy ships, but secondly it can be used to screen convoys either by rolling well on search rolls or, if in the 0 box, by forcing the enemy to spend surprise points to shift it away from a naval air combat.

As an example, the british subs in the Italian Coast found the Italian CP there. The Italians had reacted by flying a fighter into the 0 box. Since naval air takes priority over other types of naval combat, Italy can now force a naval air combat. But because the UK has 6 surprise points (I rolled poorly with Italy), they can spend 4 of them to force a sub combat instead. And that's what they do, spending the other 2 points to bump up their naval combat strength. The result is a sunk convoy.

Russia moves Zhukov and the cavalry up the rail line toward the finnish border NE of Leningrad. Flush with their glorious success in seizing Bessarabia, the Russians want to continue the land grab in Finland.

France moves to fill the gap left by Wavell's escape, and the Chinese consolidate their line in the center. Changsha is key to the Chinese defense, and they are not prepared to abandon it at this time. It may come to that this summer, but every turn counts.

The Chinese briefly contemplate attacking the Japanese infantry SE of Changsha. It's +6.5 on the die roll, and would be a massive coup for the Chinese if they pull it off. But then common sense is restored - the cost of failure could be extreme, with as many as 3 Chinese units killed and half the army flipped.

Russian long range bombers head north, ready to support on attack on petsamo should the Finns prove as obstinate as the Rumanians.

The British rearrange the CVP's on carriers in port. This takes no air missions, so long as all carriers and planes are in the same port. However, the interface for doing it is terrible. I dread the Jan turn of each year for just this reason, and I'm often tempted to just let my CV's keep sailing with outdated air until they're shot down, just to avoid this. The Spitfire in northern France flies south to Bourdeaux. It's taking a series of hops to Malta, where it will be used to provide air cover for the 4 point nav bombers that are about to show up on the map.

Germany starts off the Axis half of the impulse by aligning Rumania. The US doesn't care. The slow pace of US entry is starting to become worrisome for the allies.

Germany and Italy both take combined actions, planning on sending out their subs. Japan needs to move some units from Japan to China, but first they need to get to ports so Japan starts off with a land action.

Japan takes Ankang, a city with no strategic significance other than as a potential reinforcement entry point for China. The US is once again uninterested. There is some minor oozing around the French in the south. In central China, Yamamoto moves up covering the empty space vacated by the Chinese who pulled back to consolidate their lines. Terauchi readies an attack against the double stacked mountain hex, but a failed groundstrike and low odds makes him reconsider for the moment. Yamamoto is less hesitant, launching a +13 attack on the unit SE of Hengyang. The Chinese call for a blitz, hoping to save the unit, and aren't disappointed when Yamamoto rolls a 6, for a modified 19. This is good enough to take the hex, but the unit is only shattered and will go onto the reinforcement spiral to arrive next turn. The Japanese suffer one loss, which must be the engineer who foolishly used his combat factors thinking he was safe in a +13 attack. Such is life in the Japanese army. The other marine unit in the attack is disorganized, effectively ending any offensive actions in the south for this turn.

The impulse ends, and the weather for the following impulse is exactly the same.

[joshuamnave]

China, as seen from outerspace

[joshuamnave]

It's only the second allied impulse of 1940, but the allies are more or less done for the turn. Although there are a few small things they can do, they're essentially in a holding pattern and would benefit more by a fast turn than by any minor moves they can make. If all allies pass, there's a 10% chance of ending the turn, so that's what they do. To the great annoyance of the Axis, the end of turn roll is a 1. But hey, at least winter is over!

The allies add another chit to the Japan pool - another "1". The Japan pool is now 1,1,4. Combined with the European pool, there is just enough for the US to declare an embargo. Amazingly, this is the first US entry action of the game - that's how bad the US entry draws and rolls have been. A "1" chit is moved from entry to tension.

Japan once again manually ships the oil from NEI. But now that the embargo is in effect, you won't have to listen to me grip about the missing US build point anymore.

Production:
Germany 15 BPs - Pilot, Lnd (3), Ftr (2), Rommel
Italy 6 BPs - Badoglio, 1 CP
Japan 15 BPs - Pilot, CV, CVP (1), BB, Inf, Eng, Mil
China 6 BPs - Stilwell, Cav div
CW 17 BPs - Pilot, Pilot, 2 CPs, Nav (4), Alexander, Ca, CA repair
France 8 BPs - Pretalat, Inf
US 10 BPs - Amph, BB, BB, 3 CVP(1)
USSR 15 BPs - Pilot, Ftr (2), Yeremenko, Inf, Mech div

The second French Mtn arrives and goes into Lyons. There are now 9 factors of MTN units in lyons, tripled in Mtns for 27 points. Lyons is a factory city, surrounded on all but one side by rivers, and one side butts up against Switzerland. To take Lyons, the Axis can line up 5 stacks, 4 of which will be at half value, against the 27 point stack. Although this doesn't crush any dreams of incomplete conquest, it certainly has to give Germany a bit of pause. Is Spain really worth all that?

[joshuamnave]

March begins with more bad weather, but the Axis seize the initiative again.

Germany aligns Bulgaria, and the US finally seems concerned, although... not very. A "2" is added to the euro pool. Germany had hoped to align Bulgaria in Jan/Feb so the Axis could rail some units to southern Bulgaria last turn, in prep for an attack on Greece in March. But you can only align one minor per impulse, and in their only impulse in Jan/Feb, Germany aligned Rumania. This will probably push back the war on Greece until July.

With crappy weather all around, Germany and Japan take combined actions, and Italy takes a naval.

The German and Italian subs scatter, and search for vulnerable CW convoys. Across 5 different sea zones, the Axis fail to locate a single ship.

A fairly uneventful turn. Germany shifts a few more units around on its line, ready to attack Belgium the moment the sun comes out. The Japanese ferry some fresh troops into China. And the turn passes to the allies.

CW takes a naval, France takes a land, USSR takes a combined and demands the Finnish border hexes.

Functionally, this works much like Bessarabia. If Germany denies it, then Russia and Finland go to war. Germany can enforce a peace if Russia controls no Finnish hexes other than the border hexes. However, there are none of the political ramifications. Germany would like to deny it just to force the Soviet declaration of war on Finland, given how bad the US entry is anyway. But the units in Murmansk and the 2 long range soviet bombers that can hit defenders in Petsamo give Germany a bit of pause. Any Finnish units that set up in Petsamo will be out of supply. 2 land bombers will, sooner or later, disorganize those out of supply units, and the Russian divisions will destroy them. Russia is primed to occupy other parts of the border hexes, and make Finland's life miserable. Germany grudgingly gives in.

Britain rolls better on naval searches, and splashes the Italian CP in the eastern med. The turn ends as uneventfully as it began. Russia brings her long range bombers back south a bit, France moves some reinforcements up, and we're done. Weather for the next impulse is another 1, so winter continues. This is not good news for the Germans.

[Majorball68]

The early CW 4 strength naval bombers have poor range.
Is there a reason you build the 1939 models? Would it be better to wait until the Sunderlands in 1940?

Same applies for the German HS123 Dive Bomber, is there any great need to build this prior to being able to scrap it so you get some Stukas instead? I am assuming you would have some in your starting force pool so a couple of pilots built at the start would be better to fill a couple of older planes while you await newer models.

[joshuamnave]

The turn starts out with Germany aligning Finland. Another "1" goes into the US entry pool. German control of Finland gives it access to the resource in Petsamo, and the CP's are already in place to bring it home.

Land actions all around. Bad weather means its unlikely we'll see any combat, but there are some units to maneuver.

It's a short turn, but that's the nature of winter. To make matters worse for the Axis, the Allies decide to all pass giving them a 60% chance of ending the turn. If that happens, then Germany will have had 3 impulses in the first 4 months of 1940, and all in terrible weather. That's bad news for the boys in grey.

Fortunately, the roll is a 7, so the turn goes on. And while it's not good weather, it does clear up a bit. Rain in the north temperate, fine in the med and north monsoon. There will be some action this impulse.

Land actions all around.

The Axis ground strike 2 hexes in southern france and 1 in china. In France, the French and Italian fight an air to air combat but nobody hits anything, and the Italian bomber is cleared through. Both French units are hit, the Japanese miss their target. In fact, I think the Japanese bombers came closer to hitting the French than they did the Chinese.

In southern France, both groundstruck units are attacked. In the mountains NW of Nice, the axis launch an attack at +6.3. The French choose an assault, and on a modified 19 the French unit is dead, along with 2 Italian divisions. The axis occupy the hex and brace themselves for the attack on Marseilles, at +8.4. The axis miss the fractional odds roll, but a natural 17 gives them a modified 23+, and the Italians march into Marseilles.

The turn ends. With no clear weather turns in March/April, we go into May with Belgium still not attacked, the ChiComs still in control of Sian and getting stronger, and the nationalists still holding Lanchow. On the plus side for the Axis, the US entry levels are still low, the Italians are marching unimpeded across north west Africa, and taking over East Africa, Marseilles has fallen, and the Germans have taken virtually no losses the entire game. The Axis is prepared to DOW Greece and Belgium, and the southern front in France will put a lot of pressure on the allies, so a May/Jun conquest of Paris isn't out of the question, assuming decent weather and turn length.

The US finally gets around to activating the Flying Tigers in China, and seizing the Bearn, turning it into a transport. American apathy runs deep, and they are about as interested in American actions as they are Axis. A single "1" chit is moved from the euro pool to tension.

Japan once again manually ships the NEI resources home. I should just macro that...

During the RTB phase, the CW lands the South African infantry in Algiers, right in front of the Italians.

Production:
Germany 15 BPs - Pilot, Nav (4), Ftr (2), arm, sub
Italy, 6 BPs - Pilot, Ftr (2), BB repair
Japan, 15 BPs - Pilot, Shokaku, Ftr (2), Marine div, BB, Mtn
China, 5 BPs - Ftr, Inf
CW,17 BPs - Pilot, Pilot, 2 CPs, Duke of York, Nigeria, ftr (2), cvp (1), amph
France, 8 BPs - Pilot, Lnd (4), Terr
US 10 BPs, Pilot, Trans, 2 CVP (1), BB, CP
USSR, 16 BPs - Pilot, Ftr (2), arm, inf, inf

Reinforcements for May/Jun. Noteable - the first long range nav for the UK, Guderian for Germany

[Majorball68]

Don't worry about my post regarding the sunderland![:)]

[joshuamnave]

ORIGINAL: Majorball68

The early CW 4 strength naval bombers have poor range.
Is there a reason you build the 1939 models? Would it be better to wait until the Sunderlands in 1940?

Same applies for the German HS123 Dive Bomber, is there any great need to build this prior to being able to scrap it so you get some Stukas instead? I am assuming you would have some in your starting force pool so a couple of pilots built at the start would be better to fill a couple of older planes while you await newer models.

I'm a little confused - the CW nav(4) I built on turn 1 was a Sunderland and is arriving on the board this turn. It has a range of 20. That's poor range?

I wouldn't usually build the early German Nav, but I was concerned about Italy after the massive losses they took cracking the French border. I wanted some German air power in the Med to free up a few Italian BPs for rebuilding ground forces.

[joshuamnave]

ORIGINAL: Majorball68

Don't worry about my post regarding the sunderland![:)]

[:D]

It happens. There's a LOT to keep track of this game. I had to go back through my posts and the forcepools to double check.

[joshuamnave]

The save file for those wanting to play along. This would be another good place for a new player to pick up the game and try a turn or two - the attack on France is about to begin in earnest.

[joshuamnave]

The situation in southern France. There's nothing much to see in northern France - just a pile of Germans sitting on the Belgian border.

[joshuamnave]

The gathering storm... I need to bring in a little air and secure the sea lanes to prevent UK reins.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Majorball68

ORIGINAL: Majorball68

ORIGINAL: Courtenay

The French do not need a convoy point for the Algerian resource: there is a land rail line through Spanish Morocco Gibraltar and Spain to France.

Also, to get a the build point from Japan to the US, have the Japanese save a build point, and do not have a convoy chain all the way to the Philippines. I have gotten the build point every turn but the first, following those two rules.

In my games I get the build point from the start. Seems odd!

This is quite baffling. I have studied your save and my save game at the same stage and right from the first impulse Japan sends the USA a build point. The only difference I see is I have 6 Convoy points in US West Coast. One of mine is unused obviously. Try moving an additional convoy point to the West coast sea box sea what happens.

I could have sworn I fixed this with 1.0.8.0, but when I tested it yesterday with 1.0.8.6 the build point was not being sent. There was one unused convoy in all 5 of the sea areas. I worked on fixing this last night but couldn't figure out what was wrong. I'll get it fixed for the next patch - which I expect to make available next week.

[joshuamnave]

The allies win the initiative roll. This is one of those rare times where the Axis doesn't care that much about initiative. Chances are the weather will be clear and we'll be taking land actions, so getting a naval move in before the CW can send out escorts isn't really an issue. Because most of the thrust of the turn will be fighting Belgian units that aren't even deployed yet, there's no real advantage to taking the initiative there. The situation in southern France and China is relatively static (although the ChiComs are going to be able to reinforce their mountain hex, ugh). All in all, not worth burning a reroll for a chance at taking initiative.

The allies feel the same way and almost want to let the Axis go first, just for the chance of pushing the initiative track further their way. However, if the weather is bad, that would be an open invitation for german and Italian naval move to rampage through their convoys, so the Allies go ahead and move first.

Sure enough, bad weather continues with rain in the north temp and storms in the north monsoon. Only the med has fine weather.

Britain takes a naval, the French take a combined. The British want to close up the Med. If they can shut the Italians down this turn, then the CW can respond to an attack on Greece by landing some units. If the CW can get 4 land units into Greece before the Germans conquer it, then the CW can align Yugoslavia and that would make all of our planning and scheming for naught.

Of course, this presents Britain with another dilemma - if all her transports head to the Med, the BEF is on its own. Should things go bad in France (and really, what could go wrong there?) they risk being pinned down and destroyed. If the transports pick the BEF up and bring them to the med in preparation for landing in Greece, then the French line will collapse in a strong breeze (instead of a light wind). For now, her transports are poised to help Greece, but if Germany knocks Greece out in one turn, then the UK will be too slow.

The British subs sink the Italian convoy in the Italian Coast. In Cape St Vincent, the Italian subs sneak past the British CVs and Cruisers to smack around some freighters. 2 CPs sink, 3 more are aborted. The UK will have to replace them this turn or start suffering some BP hits.

Germany and Japan take combined actions, Italy takes a naval and brings out its fleet to challenge the allies in the eastern med. Italy is far outgunned here and will need some good search rolls. Japan brings more units into Japan, and Italy and Germany send out their subs.

The Italians find the allies in the eastern med, and elect to take out the CP's. Now any british units landing in Greece will be going in unsupplied, vulnerable to being groundstruck and destroyed. Britain will have to reestablish a convoy route here first. In the West Med, it's the other way around and Italy loses one cruiser and aborts her CP here. This will stall the north African campaign until supply can be reestablished. In Faeroes Gap, Germany sinks 2 CP's and aborts 1 more, but both German subs are sent home by the allied cruisers.

Germany attempts to groundstrike the French infantry in the mountains north of Marseilles and the French intercept. One bomber and the French fighter are shot down. The remaining bomber fails to find its target.

Germany and Italy move some air toward Greece, and the impulse ends. Going into the next impulse the weather will be clear on a 2 or higher. So of course the roll is a 1. Bad weather continues in the north temperate. The last time Germany saw clear skies in her primary zone of operation was October.

[joshuamnave]

Trudging on, Germany grows frustrated. The failure of the Italians to push past their initial breach of the French line now looms large. The French have had several turns of extra production as a result and while that won't prevent Germany from wiping them off the face of Europe, each turn of weather induced delay just raises the eventual cost in men and material.

Once again, the allies have a 10% chance of ending the turn by passing, and once again they have no critical moves to make. Everyone is in a bit of a holding pattern, but the allies benefit more from short turns and so they pass. This time the turn does not end, and the Axis get a second impulse. However it's still crappy weather in the north, and there's a strong chance they will not get a 3rd impulse, even if the weather clears up.

Land actions all around.

The British appear to have made a mistake by leaving a transport in Malta. It's there to move Wavell into Greece should the Axis attack, but now it's just bait for the German dive bomber in Sicily. But if Germany takes the bait, the carrier air in the Eastern Med will pounce, and the Henkel 115c will find itself badly outnumbered. Instead it joins its Italian counterparts in patrolling the sea zone. The CW tries to lure in the axis bombers, but nobody sees nothing and there is no combat there this impulse.

The Italian bombers are no more effective than the Germans at hitting the French unit in the mtns. Italians march into Khartoum and Berbera, and advance on Nairobi. CW needs to start building territorials or risk being wiped out of Africa.

The impulse ends without any attacks. Finally clear weather!

[joshuamnave]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
I could have sworn I fixed this with 1.0.8.0, but when I tested it yesterday with 1.0.8.6 the build point was not being sent. There was one unused convoy in all 5 of the sea areas. I worked on fixing this last night but couldn't figure out what was wrong. I'll get it fixed for the next patch - which I expect to make available next week.

That's good news and I hope it does get fixed, although another week seems like a long time to wait. I've had the game for over a month, and at this price point this is one of those things I just expect to work right. How long before partisans are working correctly? How long before French surrender doesn't crash the game? The recombine pool crash? For a $100+ game that's been out for 2+ months, there are still far too many game ending bugs.

Not your fault, I know you're still smashing bugs as fast as you can. The game just should not have been released at this price point with this many issues.

Moving on to things more interesting...

Here's the Med going into the 3rd allied Impulse of MJ 40

[joshuamnave]

And East Africa.

[joshuamnave]

Clear weather, now the allies really want the turn to end. If the first German turn of clear weather since Oct comes in July, the Axis will have a lot of ground to make up. Everyone passes, making it a 50% chance. Remarkably, the turn does NOT end, and the German generals suddenly wake up. Germany declares war on Belgium and Greece. Belgium aligns itself to France, Greece to the UK.

Italy doesn't need to declare war on Greece since it's already at war with the CW. In past games, I didn't realize this and I declared with both Axis countries, and took two US entry hits (which I'm pretty sure isn't supposed to happen). This time I won't declare with Italy, and see if it all works properly.

The US cares about Belgium, adding a "3" to the entry pool. But preemptive anger about future debt problems and danger to the Eurozone has made American capitalists ambivalent about the Greeks. No entry chit pulled.

The Greeks set up their mountain corps in the mountain resource hex, and their other infantry in Athens.

Belgian set up is always a bit of a mystery to me. The CP's go in the Congo, safely out of reach of the Germans. But what to do with the land units... Anyway you stack them, they're dead. It's just a matter of inflicting German casualties and keeping them further from France. The one thing I'm sure about is not putting anything into the resource hex SE of Brussels. A breakthrough result on a blitz attack there will allow German armor to move into the forest hex before the French have the chance to reinforce it.

3 land actions.

Italy ground strikes the Greek Mtn unit. Now I see why there's a separate US entry pull if both axis powers declare war... since Italy didn't actually declare war, the Greeks are not surprised by Italy, only by Germany. British CVPs in the med intercept the groundstriking bomber, which they couldn't have done in a surprise impulse. Even if the bomber gets through, it won't get two rolls on ground strike either. The silly thing is that only Italy was going to be getting any benefit from surprise, so if I had realized this, I would have declared war with Italy, and let Germany get the auto war dec. The result on US entry would be the same, the political situation would be the same, but this bomber would be unimpeded and twice as lethal. Live and learn.
Sure enough, the Brits shoot down the Italian bomber. Urgh. German Stukas manage to hit 2 out of 3 Belgian units and the Belgian fighter and the Japanese disorg one of the 3 chicoms stacked in the mountains. Even though it's a low odds attack, it's never going to get much better and the Japanese may have to clear that hex 1 unit at a time.

In the Balkans, the Axis pour into Greece. On the west coast, Italy marches through the port of Corfu, while German units secure the north east coastal rail line. One advantage of a late turn DOW like this is that there's a decent chance the turn will end before the UK can try to bring in reinforcements. With any lucky, the axis will retake initiative, and take Greece out before the allies ever get a chance to react at all.

In Belgium, german units ooze around the front line defenders. If at all possible, they want to knock Brussels out this impulse, before the allies can get the us entry roll for supporting a minor. To do that, they'll need to take Brussels and Liege. Here's the situation after German moves:

[joshuamnave]

Germans attack all three Belgian units. In the south, a combined German/Italian attack is launched on the mtn hex, and the Japanese make a poor odds attack on the mountains east of Sian.

The French and Japanese fly ground support missions, and it's time to roll our fate.

Often in China, the Chinese want to chooze blitz attacks and save their units by retreating. But with this many units involved and the chance to do some real damage to the IJA, the chicoms decide to dig in and call an assault. It's not a pretty picture. The Chinese lose a division and the attack is halted for now. Japan will have to grind away at the Chinese until we're through Sian.