Although I agree in some games it may be possible to delay Japan to turn 4 before India falls, it is not the case in most games, several things need to go the right way turn1 Japan has a chance of failing to take Phi, which can in some cases slow the Japanese until turn 4 as well the allies can run the Japanese fleet in Jav (assuming the japanese went there) however played correctly the Japanese fleet there survives more often then not (55-60% of games) and even if it’s lost the Uk losses their airforce which means the Japanse don’t need near the units to take india. As far as the fleet blocking idea we(many of the forum players) have over and over again been able to stop / kill the UK blockers turn 2. I agree completely there are SOME (a very small some) of games that if the Allies play very agressively and risk a lot and get lucky they can delay lossing India unitl turn 4 however they need a good measure of luck. Even if you can delay Japan taking India unitl turn 4, at the point they take India they are collecting a massive income 60-70 nature +plus the india money. I truely feel that if two skilled and evenly matched players are playing without a bid, the Japanese will win 80+% of the time, really mayble even more from what the last 5-10 games online seem to show.
Just my thoughts on it.
I am more curious as to what the Allied player is doing with the USA. Have you guys thought about trying to just go for the jugular and hit Tokyo? I know the IJN is out on the high seas but putting direct pressure on the main island of Japan herself would force him to pull back and divert some forces to deal with the US. I know there are several different tactics but the Allies win by taking Japan right? I think it comes down to the crucial first few turns the US has and building a strong naval invasion force could win or at least drag the game out longer, keeping India alive longer, any thoughts?
Pretty sure as everyone playing on this board reads the errata and corrections… The Japanese simply can not be stopped without a bid.
My question is why Japan taking Calcutta on J3 or J4 means the game is imbalanced. If Japan takes China + UK + Indochina + DEI + PI then it will be earning 68 IPCs + 10 from NOs, while the US + ANZAC have 55 + 15, or 78 to 70. Japan already starts with 704 points of units while the allies have 832 and the Allies will still be making more money than Japan until J3 or J4.
And, as mentioned before the Allies can throw a few speed bumps on the DEI using the ANZAC/US/UK planes and slow the conquest of the islands. Plus, Japan will have to deploy most of its fleet to India unless it wants the UK/ANZAC making combined attacks to sink the transports. This leaves plenty of openings, specially on the DEI since it can be hard/impossible for the Japanese to prevent Allied from retaking islands if they have US/ANZAC transports on Queensland/New Zealand.
And if Japan ignores those DEI islands and concentrates on India, even better for the Allies since Japan will be making at least 9 less IPCs, while the Allies can reinforce the island with further planes and troops.
To me taking India and the DEI as fast as possible is the best way to help Japan winning because of the starting inbalance regarding units and income (and the fact that it is facing 4 powers that need to combine their efforts) but it does not ensure victory.
Or, to conclude, it is pretty much impossible to stop Japan from taking India if he wants to. The question is how much he has to sacrifice elsewhere and if the allied player(s) are skilled enough to take advantage of it.
Yeah I get the point that whatever Japan wants, she can take with brute force. Finding the weak hinges and attacking Tokyo itself is what can lead to a victory in my opinion. Purchases are as crucial as ever with the Allies, I think the sub/DD spamming may not be the most beneficial way to go if Japan is winning most of the games. I think you go for the head of the snake as America and end it before it gets too out of hand.
Pretty sure as everyone playing on this board reads the errata and corrections… The Japanese simpley can not be stopped without a bid.
Yes, we need AA40 Europe to balance it.
Razor you may well have hit on the answer, we don’t really yet know how the two games have been developed where they separatly “balanced” and if so are they really balanced once linked or was it developed as a single large “balanced” game which has been split into two spearate games for pricing and sales reasons?
Guess we’ll find out.
No matter how you look at it, the complexity of actually truly balancing a game of the size of these two is nearing impossible, a bid is likely to be required no matter what.
Don’t anybody mistake my suggesting that the game requires a bid as a large critacism of the game, it is a fantastic game prehaps Larry Harris’ best in the series so far. I’m just sugesting that incredible difficultly boring on imposiblity of seeing every combination of tactics may… will… lead to bids being nessesary to rebalance the game, post release.
I think that played on it’s own that APP40 currently requires a bid of somewhere between 12-18 IPC to the Allies to be used in the initial setup.
Anyone have thoughts on the bid number? I know 12-18 is a hugely wide range.
Pretty sure as everyone playing on this board reads the errata and corrections… The Japanese simply can not be stopped without a bid.
My question is why Japan taking Calcutta on J3 or J4 means the game is imbalanced. If Japan takes China + UK + Indochina + DEI + PI then it will be earning 68 IPCs + 10 from NOs, while the US + ANZAC have 55 + 15, or 78 to 70. Japan already starts with 704 points of units while the allies have 832 and the Allies will still be making more money than Japan until J3 or J4.
And, as mentioned before the Allies can throw a few speed bumps on the DEI using the ANZAC/US/UK planes and slow the conquest of the islands. Plus, Japan will have to deploy most of its fleet to India unless it wants the UK/ANZAC making combined attacks to sink the transports. This leaves plenty of openings, specially on the DEI since it can be hard/impossible for the Japanese to prevent Allied from retaking islands if they have US/ANZAC transports on Queensland/New Zealand.
And if Japan ignores those DEI islands and concentrates on India, even better for the Allies since Japan will be making at least 9 less IPCs, while the Allies can reinforce the island with further planes and troops.
To me taking India and the DEI as fast as possible is the best way to help Japan winning because of the starting inbalance regarding units and income (and the fact that it is facing 4 powers that need to combine their efforts) but it does not ensure victory.Or, to conclude, it is pretty much impossible to stop Japan from taking India if he wants to. The question is how much he has to sacrifice elsewhere and if the allied player(s) are skilled enough to take advantage of it.
The IPC value of combat units in the game at start are 515 for the Allies and 614 for Japan, of which the allies lose a minimum of 102 in a J1 attack, for very little cost to Japan. If India falls on J3 or J4 and the Japanese are in possesion of the DEI it is extremely difficult to come back from that. Feel free to play a forum game and show us how “skilled” allied players defeat the J1 India rush.
The IPC value of combat units in the game at start are 515 for the Allies and 614 for Japan, of which the allies lose a minimum of 102 in a J1 attack, for very little cost to Japan. If India falls on J3 or J4 and the Japanese are in possesion of the DEI it is extremely difficult to come back from that. Feel free to play a forum game and show us how “skilled” allied players defeat the J1 India rush.
I’ve been reading through your online game with Whitmann and I would have played the 1st Allied round differently, especially the UK and ANZAC. I have never played by forum since I’ve always preferred face to face or using TripleA but I can try it out if it isn’t much of a hassle to use, especially rolling for dice.
I haven’t decided yet if the game requires a bid, I just think that there is more to be discussed regarding it. Imagine the Allies get a bid of 1 inf and place it on Borneo/New Guinea/Phillipines/Kwangung. Would that make a J1 attack more likely to happen? If so, doesn’t that remove a little flexibility to Japan’s options and makes the game more predictable, predictability being the main issue behind the reasoning that Japan can’t be stopped by using a J1 attack.
If Pacific needs some sort of balancing against a J1 attack then it might be better to keep trying until there’s a solution within the game. Someone mentioned on another post that the game testers simply couldn’t have ignored how devastating the J1 attack can be for the Allies without introducing some way to counter it. To me this is like playing Bulge, where I never won as the Allies but I know that there’s something that I’m not getting right, yet.
Yes, we need AA40 Europe to balance it.
AA40 Europe will bring some change to the dynamic of Pacific, the only question is if it keeps favoring more the Axis for an 1940 attack that brings earlier the US (and possibly Russia) into the war.
Obviously Europe will change the dynamics of the game. That doesn’t change the fact that Pac40 was released as a stand alone game. I’m not quite willing to call it broken yet, but, it’s hard not to think that when you see the same attack set over and over with the same end result.
me personally I am really hesitant to call the game broke(a broke board game….still makes me laugh) If there is anything that me and my group agrees is that it takes more a heck of a lot more skill to play the allies in this game than in any other A&A game we have played. The game is still very new so i wouldn’t give it the official ruling yet as with AA50 there is still no definitive answer if the out of the box set up and rules are broke.
12-18 IPCs is quite a lot, that could be 4-6 more infantry on the board for Asia. I still honestly think that most players aren’t going for broke against the main island of Japan with the USA. Sure he could scramble lots of planes to kill your fleet, but those planes are NOT hitting India and other vital targets. Don’t get sucked into the “cold war arms race” which I have seen happen in several versions of AAA. Not saying that it happens all the time in this one. I think most of you are aggressive at getting America into the war fast after a J1 attack, the question is, are you getting those units to defensive positions only or are you killing Japanese units asap?
I know its redundant that people say just keep playing the game, but not all strategies are figured out in the first 3 months of a AAA game. They take some time, some fresh thinking, because you can easily get sucked into buying the same things the first few rounds while trying a new tactic that still ultimately yields the same end result.
I know that if India falls it really hurts the Allies but if you are trading blows in the Pacific and are wearing down the IJN to practically nothing then the game may not be over quite yet.
Don’t get sucked into the “cold war arms race” which I have seen happen in several versions of AAA.
I know that if India falls it really hurts the Allies but if you are trading blows in the Pacific and are wearing down the IJN to practically nothing then the game may not be over quite yet.
I completely share both opinions. Looking for the ‘mother of all battles’ is exactly what Japan wanted in WW2, in order to be able to crush the Allies into submission. The previous games preconditioned A&A players to seek those battles but to do so with the Allies on Pacific is to play into Japan’s hand.
Someone (I keep forgetting whom grrr) mentioned on another thread a while ago that the key for the Allies to win is to deliberately sacrifice a part of its forces by presenting a target for Japan that it just can’t miss, but that will be then counterattacked by follow on Allied forces. I’ve seen this happening quite a bit in my games, where the Allies will lose a bunch of units due to an amphibious attack but the Japanese usually lose some major naval units and the transports right afterwards, tipping the naval balance to the Allies.
This game is designed and playtestet by people that are far clever than we are. It cant be broken. Actually this game looks like the Bulge game, where Germany startet with ten times as many units than the allies, and of course Germany always won the first year, until people figured out how to play the allies correctly.
I was thinking what did the allies do in the real war ? Well, they did in fact build a lot of subs, and the subs strangled Japan by sinking all the japanese trannies. The war was in fact won by the subs long before Truman dropped “The Bomb”, wich I belive just was a show-off to Stalin.
So back off to our game. How about UK, Anzac and US build nothing but subs the first turns, and place one in each seazone. Either Japan must build a lot of destroyers, and that tradeoff (6 IPC versus 8 IPC) will favour the allies, or Japan will not recive any income from places nearby a convoy center. And in addition, build Naval Bases that push your subs like arrows deep into Japanese home waters.
US subs were attacking Japanese transvestites? I must have missed that on Wikipedia. So basically the counter arguement is that the game is not broken is…we can’t (or won’t) demonstate that it’s not broken, just take our word for it, the play testers are smarter then we are. I’m all for reasoned debate, but, that line of thinking brings nothing to the discussion.
So basically the counter arguement is that the game is not broken is…we can’t (or won’t) demonstate that it’s not broken, just take our word for it, the play testers are smarter then we are. I’m all for reasoned debate, but, that line of thinking brings nothing to the discussion.
So basically some of WOTC’s sharpest brains started to playtest this game back in 2005, and you know what, some of the playtesters are actually lurking this forum, and they laugh at you at this very moment, when they see your level. So let me get you straight, you purchased this game two months ago, right, and how many games have you played, less than 10, right, and now you claim the game is broken ? Dude, come back to me next year, and if you still think the game is broken, I just might wrote you an strategy essay and explain how the allies are played correctly. Obviously you dont have a clue.
Actually this game looks like the Bulge game, where Germany startet with ten times as many units than the allies, and of course Germany always won the first year, until people figured out how to play the allies correctly.
US subs were attacking Japanese transvestites? I must have missed that on Wikipedia. So basically the counter arguement is that the game is not broken is…we can’t (or won’t) demonstate that it’s not broken, just take our word for it, the play testers are smarter then we are. I’m all for reasoned debate, but, that line of thinking brings nothing to the discussion.
Razor’s comments on Bulge might be right on the mark regarding Pacific. I’ve never managed to win with the Allies on Bulge no matter how much I read the forums. But I don’t believe that Bulge is broken, it is simply that I haven’t figured out something important to win that game.
As for demonstrating that the game is/isn’t broken with a J1 attack aiming for India… like it was said before, still early to tell. If I play 30 games with a J1 attack with a lot of different players of all skills and Japan always wins, then yeah I’d say it is broken. Until then the J1 attack on India is a excellent tactic by Japan that requires thinking and reevaluation to try to defeat it. It is like science, you keep trying and trying and repeating the experiment until you figure it out. But changing the initial conditions (e.g. a bid) to get the final result you want doesn’t really get to the root of the problem.
So basically the counter arguement is that the game is not broken is…we can’t (or won’t) demonstate that it’s not broken, just take our word for it, the play testers are smarter then we are. I’m all for reasoned debate, but, that line of thinking brings nothing to the discussion.
So basically some of WOTC’s sharpest brains started to playtest this game back in 2005, and you know what, some of the playtesters are actually lurking this forum, and they laugh at you at this very moment, when they see your level. So let me get you straight, you purchased this game two months ago, right, and how many games have you played, less than 10, right, and now you claim the game is broken ? Dude, come back to me next year, and if you still think the game is broken, I just might wrote you an strategy essay and explain how the allies are played correctly. Obviously you dont have a clue.
I purchased the game the day it arrived in my local game store, so closer to four months ago, I’ve played six forum games and my gaming group was closing in on 20 before some of the guys got tired of it (by it I mean the J1 India rush) and stopped. How many exactly have you played, or are you posting as the manditory WOTC fanboi that seems to pop up in any thread? “Some of WOTC’s sharpest brains”
What the f–k does that even mean? Give me a lesson in strategy right now, let’s see if you can beat me in a forum game, otherwise you’re just here trolling. Dibs on Japan btw…
It seems that coordinated play between the British and ANZAC can get ANZAC fighters to the asian mainland by the end of turn 2 - even without an airbase. Agree that ANZAC fighters could get to Java in turn 1. But let’s assume that Japan takes out the UK BB and Transports in J1 - thus threatening allied planes landing in Java turn 1. It would be inhospitable for ANZAC to land planes there without fodder in turn 1. Nevertheless, the UK should be able to trade the Shan State with Japan for at least 2 turns. In fact, Japan may have to keep its infantry in Siam in J1 as fodder. Otherwise, the UK could counterstrike unprotected Jap bombers/fighter landed there after taking out the british navy in Malaya. In the ANZAC Turn 2, fighters can stage from West Australia to Shan State to support UK inf/art. With three inf/art as fodder there, they can at worst extract valuable planes from Japan’s attack there in J3.
I’m going to keep beating this drum, as it seems that nobody has heard the news:
Korea is the key to winning this game for the Allies. A US Major IC build there stops Japan dead in its tracks: Japan is blockaded into economic submission by newly-built US naval units, while mainland Asia is liberated by newly-built US land units.
I’ve seen the Axis lose this way several times now. Overconfident Japan players rarely guard Korea (preferring to push their forces from Manchuria into China), and even when they do they are rarely able to keep it from a determined US player.
Allow me to iterate:
An all-out India push can and must be countered with an all-out Korea push.
