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 😜
J1–>Alaska; J3 Game Over.
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Do you know how the play by forum works, and do you have the battlemap downloaded? If not gamerman can point you at some links that will describe how it all works. I can do it too, but, you’ll have to put up with Mr. Awesome drool.
Yes and Yes.
I like having the board setup too, it helps me see things from a “different” angle.
Lol, sorry about that. -
Do you know how the play by forum works, and do you have the battlemap downloaded? If not gamerman can point you at some links that will describe how it all works. I can do it too, but, you’ll have to put up with Mr. Awesome drool.
I have an idea, too, Tragedy.
Why don’t you just do the same J1 for both of us. We can both pick up your Battlemap from the point of your J1 completion. That will save you some effort, as well.
There are a few versions of AAP40 running around out there, and I’m not sure they’re all compatible… I’m using some beta version… See my game in Play Boardgames section. Maybe download a map and make sure you can view it?
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My P40 map - check compatibility
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The map looks good to me. If you want to post one map for both of us, or if you’d rather do two seperate maps, just let us know. I’m cool with whatever you’re comfortable with.
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The map is good. I’m having a prob getting the Toolbar window to show in ABattlemap, any suggestions?
I will post 1 map for both, sometime tonight. :-)
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Go to view and on the drop down click on big pieces. I believe this will make the toolbar repop.
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U.S. 1:
Purchase:
1 Fighter
2 InfantryU.S. 2:
Purchase:
5 Fighters
2 InfJ3:
Combat Moves:
Amphibious Assault on Western U.S.:
1 Battleship Bombardment
1 Cruiser Bombardment
4 Bombers, 11 Fighters, 7 Tac (Maybe 8?), 1 Tank, 7 infAA Gun Kills: 1 Bomber, 1 Tac, 1 Fighter
U.S. defends with:
13 fighters total (9 U.S., 4 ANZAC), 3 tacs, 2 Bombers, 1 Tank, 1 Mech, 1 Art, 7 Inf.Japan caps Western U.S. with 1 Tank, 1 Bomber remaining. On turn 3. Both sides had “average” dice rolls.
Thoughts/Feedback?
I agree with the “never work” camp. If Japan, with even dice “barely wins” with the poor US buys, it should not win with proper buys. I will follow this interesting thread though, and watch to see the games posted.
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- I understand the concept of defending with Infantry…When u have 60ish some odd points to spend on U.S. 2 and u can only produce 10 units, suggesting all infantry is obviously inefficient. As Stoney229 said its apples and oranges.
I didn’t mean that the U.S. should buy 10 inf. I was just talking about general defensive tactics. And I will also take a look at this strategy (I really hope that it doesn’t work b/c that would honestly ruin the game). And What on earth are you guys talking about with these forum games? How do you play them? I would really like to show off my strategic brilliance once in a while. :wink:
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I got the ball rolling.
Gwlachmai:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=17513.0gamerman01:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=17514.0 -
@The:
(I really hope that it doesn’t work b/c that would honestly ruin the game).
Totally Agree.
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You have to figure a US invasion scenario is something that got heavily playtested. There would be no point in releasing a game that is over in three rounds. Honestly, I think the game favors the Allies more then the Axis, and balancing Euro40 will be even more difficult.
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This strat is inttiguing but I too think that with proper US buys that this will not work.
However, the mere threat of Japan from the Alleutian Island group may force US into early buys on land forces over naval forces which could prove devastating in rounds 4 and on when the US finally gets in the game.
So in other words its a gambit you pull back from later after round 3. As Allies I may consider attacking right away in rounds 2-3 with the Brits/ANZAC.
Has anyone tried this gambit and then pulled back to mess up the US early buys??? This may have a long-term payoff.
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This strat is inttiguing but I too think that with proper US buys that this will not work.
However, the mere threat of Japan from the Alleutian Island group may force US into early buys on land forces over naval forces which could prove devastating in rounds 4 and on when the US finally gets in the game.
So in other words its a gambit you pull back from later after round 3. As Allies I may consider attacking right away in rounds 2-3 with the Brits/ANZAC.
Has anyone tried this gambit and then pulled back to mess up the US early buys??? This may have a long-term payoff.
3 of us are testing this “gambit” right now. Links to the games are below. I think you will see that it’s more of a gimmick that might work once against a drunken opponent, but is generally not a viable strat.
Rounds 2-3?? :lol: The other allies, including and especially China, all get easy instant growth from round 1 while the bulk of the Japanese navy and air force are trying to get to Alaska for this rash invasion. The Chinese can buy 3 artillery right up front, and the Burma road is uncontested. And if you have to get most of the Jap airforce and navy out of position to get USA to buy 5 infantry with their whopping 17 starting IPC’s, well, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m not sure what round you’re thinking of aborting the bluff positioning, but I don’t see how this screws up the USA in rounds 4 and on.
If you would like to show me what you’re talking about, I’m up for a game.
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If Western U.S. falls do you feel Allies can still win?
This is a all or nothing strat. Japan is “all in” on round 3. Either they take Western U.S. and essentially win imo, or they fail and have wasted their resources to a point they can’t recover from. There is no middle ground or stalling tactics.
I watched (yes, watched …) a game that Japan took Western US (round 5 I think) and the Allies continued to press on until Japan finally fell around turn 9.
Absolutely it is possible. Difficult, but possible, especially since by taking WUS, Japan is “all in” leaving the rest of the pacific open (to an extent).
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What happened, did Japan completely abandon Asia? The UK load up a bunch of transports with Chinese infantry and artillery? :-o
:lol:
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This strat is inttiguing but I too think that with proper US buys that this will not work.
However, the mere threat of Japan from the Alleutian Island group may force US into early buys on land forces over naval forces which could prove devastating in rounds 4 and on when the US finally gets in the game.
So in other words its a gambit you pull back from later after round 3. As Allies I may consider attacking right away in rounds 2-3 with the Brits/ANZAC.
Has anyone tried this gambit and then pulled back to mess up the US early buys??? This may have a long-term payoff.
3 of us are testing this “gambit” right now. Links to the games are below. I think you will see that it’s more of a gimmick that might work once against a drunken opponent, but is generally not a viable strat.
Rounds 2-3?? :lol: The other allies, including and especially China, all get easy instant growth from round 1 while the bulk of the Japanese navy and air force are trying to get to Alaska for this rash invasion. The Chinese can buy 3 artillery right up front, and the Burma road is uncontested. And if you have to get most of the Jap airforce and navy out of position to get USA to buy 5 infantry with their whopping 17 starting IPC’s, well, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m not sure what round you’re thinking of aborting the bluff positioning, but I don’t see how this screws up the USA in rounds 4 and on.
If you would like to show me what you’re talking about, I’m up for a game.
No I completely agree, I figured the that China+India would be able to grow much better in this scenario. Even if you were able to put some pressure on China AND make the US buy infantry because to the Alleutian Is. threat, when you pull back after or during round 3 your Jap navy is too far north and way out of position to handle a US round 4 or 5 strike. ANZAC would be huge positional advantage.
Just curious anyway- does sound like a gimmick more than a true gambit :-)
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No I completely agree, I figured the that China+India would be able to grow much better in this scenario. Even if you were able to put some pressure on China AND make the US buy infantry because to the Alleutian Is. threat, when you pull back after or during round 3 your Jap navy is too far north and way out of position to handle a US round 4 or 5 strike. ANZAC would be huge positional advantage.
Just curious anyway- does sound like a gimmick more than a true gambit :-)
:-) One of the two test games has reached a conclusion, I think, and Tragedy will be moving J2 on my game before long. You could look at the end of turn one, too.
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I have been looking at this over the past week and it does look intriguing, but I also believe proper US play should diffuse it. I am curious on some of the opening Jap and US moves however. One simple thing I saw at first (Although not a game breaker by any means) was that when he moved his CV’s into defensive positions at Hawaii and seazone 1 he left the Tac’s on board. I would have non-commed a fighter on all my CV’s for added defensive power. Also why bring the loaded tranny from TRUK to Hawaii, was that just to entice a response in the area more so then seazone 1. Otherwise I personally would have sent it to sz 6 turn one with the 3 purchased trannies. Lastly, I thought the strat involved a turn 2 minor IC purchase on Jap 2 for Alaska? Just inquiring, I may have read some of the posted moves wrong, so correct me if I interpreted it incorrectly.
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The progression of the Invade Western U.S. in 3 rounds thing (it’s really difficult to pull off in 3rds imo) is to test the pros and cons of possibly hitting U.S. hard early and then “tieing” them up in Alaska/Aleutian Isles with a “token” force.
After hitting them hard, I was considering the possibilities of Escorted Bombing raids + Subs in SZ 10. Then take care of business elsewhere…
Gamer I’m REALLY interested to see how our game turns out.
A battle/game that hinges on AA rolls is not a clear cut victory either way imo…
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@RogertheShrubber:
I have been looking at this over the past week and it does look intriguing, but I also believe proper US play should diffuse it. I am curious on some of the opening Jap and US moves however. One simple thing I saw at first (Although not a game breaker by any means) was that when he moved his CV’s into defensive positions at Hawaii and seazone 1 he left the Tac’s on board. I would have non-commed a fighter on all my CV’s for added defensive power. Also why bring the loaded tranny from TRUK to Hawaii, was that just to entice a response in the area more so then seazone 1. Otherwise I personally would have sent it to sz 6 turn one with the 3 purchased trannies. Lastly, I thought the strat involved a turn 2 minor IC purchase on Jap 2 for Alaska? Just inquiring, I may have read some of the posted moves wrong, so correct me if I interpreted it incorrectly.
I used the Tac’s to attack the Battleship and Destroyer that were in SZ 26. I went into that game with the pretence that I must invade Western U.S. on turn 3 no matter what. This forced me to make several “unoptimized” moves that normally I wouldn’t have made. For example the Battleship and Destroyer could have blocked Sea lanes preventing a Rd 3 invasion so i was “forced” to sink them. I agree the transport would have been better off in SZ 6 (this was my first go at this opening move). The minor IC wouldn’t make a difference in a round 3 invasion, but I’m exploring the long term effect of having it their.