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Game data:
Axis : Hakon
Allies : Marcel

No auto-victory, normal enddate

Unit data is changed according to expectations in patch, and some units have been moved between Moscow, Irkutsk, Vladivostok and Central Siberia to make an attack by Japan less effective (though still possible).

Edit:
We play with auto victory disabeled, but I will keep track of Axis production (actual production, including resources from trade and gifts), to see what will be the high water mark. A high water mark of 85 we consider an Auto Victory (even if we go on playing after that). It may be that the required number should be lower than 85, though.


Germany, Spring 40

German strategy is basically to go for a strong barbarossa. Quite few resources are put into the med and vs the UK, but still sub evasion is going up on point, in the hopes of at least killing a few transports, and making the allies a little defensive in the beginning.

Reduced armor evasion makes artillery a good build for the russians, but baseline for tac bomber ground attack has increased by 2. It will be interesting to see what consequences that gets.

Japan Spring 40

Japan does a pretty safe opening (not taking any territory), though moving the carriers to get some more bombers in, was probably not worth the supply. In retrospect some more units should be set up against the last chinese costal resource, but it is pretty expensive for him to try to hold it (in terms of supply and risk of bombing).

Tech, wise I am exploring what effect long range (range 6) heavy bombers can have in the game. They can be pretty versatile vs both china, russia and the united states.

Long term plan has not really been decided, but I will probably not grab the DEI untill 42 sometime, as that is when i can include the long range bombers in a strike vs Pearl Harbor. Before that, either China or Russia will find themselves under siege. (Russia, for sure, if they dont build against me.)





Total axis production during this turn: 46. Just 39 to go, now

The summer passed without much happening. No happy days for the axis subs, though i managed to get my med subs into france.

The Japanese airforce had some relatively good days, as the chinese were scattered, outright killing 3 inf and a mil.

Total axis production was 50 during this turn. (37 + 13)

Germany Fa 40

A pretty good turn for Germany. The med is closed without affecting the schedule for a Su 41 barbarossa. Italy should be able to live a lot longer this way. Very defensive play by the allies exposed no weaknesses in the transport links, though.

A little surprising that Gibraltar was not defended better when my bombers were in range, but with this opportunity, I decided to increase my naval emphasis somewhat, starting torpedo attack research for subs, and putting one italian sub in the build queue.

One annoying thing happened though. I tried to send a sub to gibraltar, but the CV-plane rolled 6 of course, so the sub was damaged. Bad luck is to expected once in a while, but the annoying part was that the sub obviously couldnt find it's way to a friendly harbour, since it was not listed in my build queues anywhere.

Japan Fa 40

Japan had a pretty good turn, too. Bombing runs killed off the chinese fighter and 1 mil and damaged both remaining flak as well as a couple of inf. (Hitting the flak was lucky) The cost was only one damaged heavy bomber.

With 3 new heavy bombers built, and land attack tech upped to 6 on them, I am now in a position to more or less eliminate all chinese land forces. This gives japan 2 opportunities:

1. Take out china first, then go for india later.
By doing 1 more turn of ground strikes, I can attack china in spring, at the same time that i loose the american gifts. After taking all chinese resources and factories except sinkiang, i should be able to take out DEI and India before the allies can react, sometime in 42.

2. Attack Russia.
My airpower is now strong enough to knock out the 1 mil + 1inf that starts in central siberia in this mod, and I also have the range to do a paradrop there. This is pretty tempting, considering the number of forces i am freeing up in china, and considering that Marcel does not appear to be building in vladivostok.

Japanese forces are set up in such a way that both strategies are still possible.

Production Fa 40

Japan's production is up by 2 this turn, to 15. This brings the axis total to 52.

Looking at the production chart, I notice the following builds from Russia during the first 2 turns:

2 inf
4 art
1 flak
55 supplies

This probably means that his research is reasonably limited, given that he builds at least a few armour. It will be interesting to see next turn what his first techs are. Without boosting infantry evasion, he will be very vulnerable to Japan.

Germany, building 5 tanks, may have to consider pretty air heavy to counter those art, though.

As for the allies, it looks like they are really building to counter a sealion (which i never intended to do , by building fighters and flak. Unless i invest heavily in fighters, too, i will probably loose air supremacy over western europe. It may be that i will need to build some new flak to reduce the extent to which i can exploit that.

Winter 41

A great naval battle west of Gibraltar sees both sides taking very big losses. On the east front, Russia is building nothing within reacho of my armor, so I should probably set up for a summer attack on leningrad.

The Japanese airforce inflicts great damage on the remains of the chinese army. Only 3 inf and 2 milita remain when they are through. Being able to free up this many forces, Japan has decided to help Germany crush Russia, so more or less the entire Japanese army sets up on Mongolia.

Spring 41

A positioning round for the Axis. Russian invantry tech is now 5-7, which means that they will be able to hit both my tanks and infantry, with some luck. Russia has built nothing within 2 areas from my border, except in leningrad. Armor was repositioned to be able to take that port in the surprise turn.

German builds were very small during this turn, as supplies had a higher priority. Later on, I may be forced to build more infantry, to match russian buildup. At least i still have some tech advantage, with my evasion up to 7.


Japan had a pretty bad round vs 2 newly built chinese flak. Each of the flak hit an aircraft, while none of them were really destroyed. Against the second one I was sending so many aircraft, that I would be _certain_ to kill it, but only one of my aircraft got to shoot. Oh well, good thing my bombers were range 5, because the bombers that hadn't fired were able to reach chunking to damage 3 infantry there.

Next turn, Russia will be attacked, and I should have enough forces to take both Central Siberia, Irkutsk and vladivostok. It will be interesting to see if Russia can survive beeing double teamed like this.

Barbarossa

2 turns into barbarossa, Germany and Japan have made huge gains in Russian territory. In particular, notice that Japan has taken the Central Urals. Russia has 2 armor in the area that will probably be able to throw me out, but if he does not, the area will probably stay japanese permanently.

Axis production is now at 63, which means that there is still a long way to go vs the 85 that we stated as AV conditon at the start of the game.

Losses, so far: