Hello, I play pacific 1940 a lot. I have also played global a few times. Pacific 1940 second edition is a great game but I can almost easily win every time if I’m Japan and I attack on the third turn. A new rule was passed around late 2014 to allow the USA to receive a 30 IPC bonus if Japan attacks or declares war on them before turn 4. This seems to balance the game a little but I can still always win with Japan. The strategy for Japan is pretty much the same. Take the money islands, build a minor in French Indo China and Kwangtung and knock out China and India. Post in the Philippines with your huge navy and three fighters that can scramble and those six deadly kamikizes. Let Anzac and USA come to you so you can use the fighters to defend at 4 when the big navy battle happens. Eventually you will be making more than the allies with the money islands NO and the India NO. You should be around the 70-75 mark. Then when the time is right strike at Sydney or Hawaii and hold it and you should win as it will be six victory cities. For the allies, man this can be tuff lol. You better hope Japan attacks you on turn 1 or turn 4 because turn 2 and especially 3 it’s going to be difficult.
1: China: buy men and hit and run and fall back to the north west of China. You will be lucky if the Burma road is open more than two turns. Pull back and make Japan come to you.
2: UK: pull everyone back to India and just buy men!!! Try to bring your navy down to Australia and unite them with Anzac and hopefully later USA. If it looks like India is going to fall then pull your airforce out and send them to Australia to hopefully land on a Anzac or American carrier. If Japan hasn’t declared war early then take as many islands in the south as possible .
3: Anzac: small ships and transports are good. if it looks like Japan is going to invade then pull your forces to south Australia because from there you can hit any territory. Use your small ships to convoy raid or unite with the main USA fleet. Queensland is a great staging area for the allied navy early in the game. Also since there’s a airbase there fighters don’t hurt also since they can scramble.
4:USA: the big boy lol. The problem is when USA is neutral she only makes a freaking 17 ipcs a turn. While Japan is around the 40 mark and Japan has soooooooo many aircraft at its disposal. USA I say aircraft carrier early then mainly subs, destroyers, and a transport every turn with land units. A few rounds into the game get a navy base on the Johnson islands and start combining your fleet with the Anzac fleet and hopefully a small UK fleet. try to take the money islands by sacrificing transports because Japan will have a bigger navy early in the game. When the time is right move to Dutch New Guinea with your fleet and prepare for the big battle. Sometimes it’s better if Japan attacks you and sometimes it’s better if you attsck them. Hopefully you will have a lot of subs at your disposal. If you win the navy battle then Japan is pretty much toast even if they have India and China. Good luck and let me know how the war goes lol. I am playing anniversary edition on Saturday 😜
First impressions
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@RogertheShrubber:
It seems from the hi res photos that the quality of the pieces are better compared to AA50. They seem like the quality from AAE, AAP, AAR and such. Would that be a fair assumption?
Yes, they are of the same quality as AA42.
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Hi all,
My first post…
I haven’t played the game in years, but I played pretty much every weekend for several years in my teens, and I have treasured memories playing the original. Can’t believe the number of games that have sprung up, but with this new “monster” game (when both 40’s are combined) has got me to get back into the fold. Hopefully, I’ll get mine before Christmas.
Having said that, I would like to comment on strategic-level Pacific games. The strategic position of Japan is similar (in fact, if not for the same reasons) as the South in The Civil War, and presents tough design choices. In both wars the strategic position of both guaranteed an uphill battle against an enemy who was more numerous, and had access to vastly superior resources and infrastructure. Therefore, these types of games are very hard to model with realism as it’s main goal because the fact is both underdogs had little chance for a favorable outcome. In other words, where is the fun in playing a country who has no chance of victory without resorting to laughable gaminess in order to achieve a sense of hope?
I am very interested in seeing how this design handles this tough obstacle. I don’t want over-complication which is why I have stayed away from some interesting titles (like Empire of the Sun, Asia Engulfed, War in the Pacific) because I have a family and job that keeps me very busy. I would like to have FUN, too, along with a design that gives a nod to actual historical believability.
What I have seen so far looks good, but I don’t think the game will see it’s full potential until it mates with it’s brother next year. Now, I can hope to finally have my World in Flames-lite, and not have to spend weeks (or years, in the case of WitP) playing out my warlord dreams.
Jim
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how many NO’s does each country/player have? And what are each of them worth?
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how many NO’s does each country/player have? And what are each of them worth?
check them out here, in the latest preview…
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I say do away with the NO’s. Production value for territories is enough of an incentive.
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Japan has a lot of NO :O
Djensen, how high did Japan peak before getting crushed by superior allied numbers?
50+ ipc from USA
3x 10-20ipc country (China, UK and ANZAC)
that’s alot of trouble to handle :O And I’m quite sure Japan needs those IPC!
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Japan needs an ally.
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This comes from a person who has clearly not played this game yet. The NOs are essential for both the Axis and the Allies.
@Brain:
I say do away with the NO’s. Production value for territories is enough of an incentive.
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I think the most that Japan collected was 68 IPCs. I shot up over 60 IPCs fairly quickly. dipped below once in the middle. Even at the end it was still getting over 50 IPCs.
Japan has a lot of NO :O
Djensen, how high did Japan peak before getting crushed by superior allied numbers?
50+ ipc from USA
3x 10-20ipc country (China, UK and ANZAC)
that’s alot of trouble to handle :O And I’m quite sure Japan needs those IPC!
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This comes from a person who has clearly not played this game yet. The NOs are essential for both the Axis and the Allies.
@Brain:
I say do away with the NO’s. Production value for territories is enough of an incentive.
How could I have played the game yet. You are the only one on the planet that has one.
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Also if the NO’s are needed to be competitive, then the game is flawed.
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@Brain:
Japan needs an ally.
I’m curious to know if there were any other minor pacific countries allied with Japan?
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@Brain:
Japan needs an ally.
I’m curious to know if there were any other minor pacific countries allied with Japan?
i don’t think so, some of them may have surrendered like the french and had a few units that went on to fight with the japs, but i do not think they had any actual allies. All the other countries really hated the japs back then (and quite a bit now still), and I really can not blame them either, as the japanese were more ruthless than the germans or russians had ever been. The Japs attempted genocide on every chinese population center they controlled, the only thing that prevented there from being another holocaust was that the japs were complete disorganized and that the genocide was perpetrated from the ground up instead of being orders from the top down.
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It’s why the success rate of empires is, as of yet, Zero. Because vast territory is very difficult to supply and easily susceptible to attack.
I’d say it has more to do with the people’s in those Empires no longer wanting to be ruled by other people, and/or a lack of will from the ‘head’ nation to send people out to die for territory that holds nothing but prestige and offers no real returns. The military threat from the outside is just one factor.
I would say that one thing which has almost never historically worked is the ‘rapid’ building of an Empire. An Empire must be built up step by step with strong controls on all aspects rather than just military. Almost every attempt throughout history by one people to rapidly expand has met with disaster, since rapid expansion brings with it a rapid increase in enemies. Examples of this are the German’s/Japanese in WW2, France during the Napoleonic wars, and even as far back as Alexander the Great’s Empire, which expanded rapidly and then after his death crumbled almost as rapidly.
Examples of ‘successful’ Empires would be the Roman (their military and social organisation was exceptional, as was the political setup that backed it) and the British (Australia/Canada, etc, as well as a democratic and united India are testaments to it’s legacy). I would also say the Spanish/Portuguese Empires did ok, except that they had a habit of asset-stripping their territories, and the home nations were poorly organised.
I think that one of the greatest things Empires did, and something which has been forgotten in the modern politically correct world, is unite people and thread a link through disparate and distant parts of the world. Each successive period of Empire grew in distance due to technology and knowledge, and this has spread things (like technology) around the globe. We live in a globalised world today because we have reached the top of a ladder built by a series of Empires. Whenever each Empire came into conflict with each other, then the smartest/strongest survived and came to dominate the era, when their power ebbed the world took what they had learned from them and moved on… until no one nation was really that far advanced over any other. To put it another way; we know what we know only because Imperialism carried knowledge around the world.
The exception for the modern world is China still squatting in Tibet, something which the western world should have done something about when it happened.
i don’t think so, some of them may have surrendered like the french and had a few units that went on to fight with the japs, but i do not think they had any actual allies. All the other countries really hated the japs back then (and quite a bit now still), and I really can not blame them either, as the japanese were more ruthless than the germans or russians had ever been. The Japs attempted genocide on every chinese population center they controlled, the only thing that prevented there from being another holocaust was that the japs were complete disorganized and that the genocide was perpetrated from the ground up instead of being orders from the top down.
True, and the Japanese are still a highly racist people who will not allow immigration, yet oddly, we think it’s cute or interesting because they aren’t white. People seem to love their eccentric culture, which is to be some kind of twisted hybrid of Western culture and ancient Japanese culture filtered through the lens of a schizophrenic people. We think it makes them unique. Yes, and Britain would seem just that unique it they didn’t allow any one who wasn’t white to settle there, but would we be as forgiving?
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@Brain:
Japan needs an ally.
I’m curious to know if there were any other minor pacific countries allied with Japan?
Thailand was, but their main intention in doing so was to maintain independence, as they were the only non-colonized SE Asian country. They felt siding with Japan was the best bet.
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Saim was also allied with Japan, and the Pupet regime in Manchuria….if you want to count them.
The Greater East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere… -
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It’s why the success rate of empires is, as of yet, Zero. Because vast territory is very difficult to supply and easily susceptible to attack.As far as Empires, the common thread is they always come to an end. The last being the British. Most of the Commonwealth has gained independence (although still very loyal). WWII marked the batten being past to its offspring. The US is kinda at an economic and political crises right now. I hope we have learned from the past as we seem to be spread a little thin in world affairs, as things at home are also under a great deal of pressure.
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I don’t think there will be any wars over territorial expansion anymore. The US, China, Russia, Australia, Canada, etc, will all stay as they are - huge. Part of the role of Empires is to explore and ‘civilise’ with some degree of safety. The reason Empires don’t last is that by their very definition they are temporary things.
The US is itself is an Empire built on the land taken from Indians as well as that captured from Mexicans/Spanish and bought or traded from the French/British. The south might even argue that the north colonised it following defeat in the ‘civil’ war. But the point is moot; the US is here to stay, Russia - on its conquered Asian land - is here to stay. Nations like Britain and France are not going to get larger, and nobody would stand for them trying to ‘conquer’ anyone else. In a way, the world has - despite some continuing conflicts in certain areas - never been so stable as it is today.
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@Army:
In a way, the world has - despite some continuing conflicts in certain areas - never been so stable as it is today.
Ah the end of History argument. A student of Fukuyama I see…
All wars are fought over gold. (Perhaps a ridiculous generalization but hear me out.)
I think the biggest reason we wont see too many more changing borders is because originally, when wars were fought, they were fought for wealth, which at the time was tied to natural resources, which was tied to land which is territory. These days there is no need to conquer territory by military means in order to obtain wealth. Wealth is not tied to territory anymore. The wars that are being fought and continue to be fought are economic wars. Wars over markets, over trade or over tariffs and subsidies.
Did you know the United States government imposes over 400% import tariffs on textiles from sub-Saharan African countries? This, along with the dumping of surplus second-hand clothes, completely destroys any possible textile industry (the first step for nearly all nation to industrialization) by eliminating both the domestic and foreign markets. This keeps Africa poor and undeveloped and ensures the squalid living conditions and remarkably high death rate of people there. This situation can easily be looked upon as an act in parallel to an act of war. They, as well as the EU and other developped countries, do the same thing with agricultural subsidies, which is generally looked upon by economists as one of the primary causes of poverty in the third world.
Just because there are fewer shooting wars going on certainly does not mean we have come to a time of stability. The battle ground we need to be thinking of in the 21st century is on wall-street, in the Nikkei and Swiss banks.
Geopolitically yes, there is likely more territorial stability than ever before. However, this is not the only kind of stability out there. Everyone is still looking to crap on whomever they have to in order to get a bigger piece of the pie and just because they don’t use tanks to do it anymore does not mean its not going on. All we have really seen is a shift in methods.
P.S. Thailand was called Siam in 1940, so there was really only one ally of Japan. Unless you want to count the conquered colonies like Formosa, Korea or someone mentioned Manchuria, conquered only a few years earlier.
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little off topic maybe?
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