Axis and Allies online #2: The med shuck

[@christianwhitmer2472]

Quintin, just want to say that your style of presenting AA games, and the information you share, is some of the best AA content on the internet. Keep up the awesome work!

[@CompleteIdeal]

Fiery Russian play is a thing of beauty. That Bully Japan First was brutally ugly at the end though. To defend Med Shuck it's essential to keep Italy stacked, otherwise US gets the value it wants. Germany also needs a sprinkling of offensive units: tanks for stack pivots, artillery for big trades, and both for offensive projection. This also shows why Japan shouldn't attempt Southern route without a light flow of units onto the mainland and an East Indies IC to build 4 extra units to tussle for India. Nice video, I'd ask for better image quality but I don't know how inconvenient that is for you. Just keep them coming!

[@shaunmaclennan]

In round 3 you're trading lots of German territory but the sea zones are quite vulnerable to German air attack. Is this strategy not severely hampered if a player is able to wipe out the British navy here or the ships in the med? I guess it will be costly for Germany to replace fighters and it will make it harder for Germany to trade efficiently if the air force is distracted.

[@Mefisto5000]

Very nice game and strategy. About "med shuck", it needs a lot of transports and naval units, I think. Mean a US fleet to secure sz near Morocco and another one to protect transports that are working on Mediterran area. It means 2 US fleets and a lot of transports. What about if Germany builds a lot of fighters/bombers to counter these ?

[@konstan65]

Germany did go for a decent amount of air this game actually. US can match up to a certain point. If G gets a critical mass or a lot of J air arrives you'll have to transition away from the med. Might cover that variation in a future video. Heavy air play as G is pretty rare at high level though since the unit count is low.

[@Mefisto5000]

@@konstan65 Understand, thanks

[@nosho409]

Thanks for the video. I recently got completely destroyed by Jan who went for a Med shuck. By turn 5, I simply could not believe how fast the pressure had built against Berlin, so I definitely want to learn more about it and experiment with it. I feel this game was pretty much done after G1 though, given how strong R1 turned out. Thoughts?

[@konstan65]

Strong R1 helps for sure, but I've won games with axis from that position against plat opponents so theres still a lot to play for.

[@timcorcoran4412]

Hi Quintin. Thank you for the video, it is very informative. I wanted to ask you about your thought process regarding defending your different allied fleet groups. It looks like Germany has 5 fighters and 2 bombers which could hit one of your fleet positions and may have odds to win while probably losing 3-5 fighters depending on which fleet G attacks. Is part of the Med Shuck strategy to almost dare G to attack one of the fleet positions to lose fighters making it even more difficult to trade territories because buying new fighters is expensive and you cannot replenish the inf needed to retake territories?

[@konstan65]

Yeah you're right. G is being pressured and can only take efficient trades or risk collapsing. A big trade generally favors allies, even if it is in the negative (up to a point). Attacking the boats also has an opportunity cost of not being able to trade all the provinces efficiently. This means that allies can comfortably offer 60% odds on one of the stacks, provided you dont have all your transports in that one SZ. If G hit the US italy stack for example, it wouldnt stop units from landing next turn. Any protection above the point where attacking would be bad for G is wasted IPCs.

[@Checkmate54321]

@@konstan65 I think this is where Ive been going wrong with my attempts at a Med shuck. Im always trying to keep my fleets safe above 80% or so. But by doing that i'm too slow getting moving, waiting on more defensive fleets. I'll try shooting for around 60% and see how it goes!

[@anachronofspace]

nice one

[@zeedrow5379]

Are you norwegian?