J1–>Alaska; J3 Game Over.

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 😜

@Funcioneta:

The problem is not BC. WUSA just one territory? For 3 millions of square kms? Come on!

Of course it’s not, that’s the point of asking why would it even be involved!!  And what’s 3 millions of square kms in WUSA?  It’s the US, they don’t use the metric system.  shoot, most Canadians don’t even use it still…

seriously though, I’m sure it goes back to the thought of if you can take the WUS, then the game is over and you should just reset the board.  Sorta like what happens when you take France in most games as the Allies.

@allboxcars:

@Autarch:

Though I do question starting Siam under Japanese control….

I imagine this will change with the Global game as it depends on what happens to France.

#501

I’m not talking about FIC. Siam had a favorable view of Japan’s opposition to Western Imperialism and their diplomatic assistance in settling border disputes with France, but was not interested in becoming part of the Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere. Japan landed troops there during the opening days of the war to secure passage into Malaya. Realizing there would be no help from the west, Siam negotiated a truce and allowed Japanese access to railroads, harbors and airfields.

Kiangsi and Kwangsi were invaded by Japan in 1938 but only in several small coastal pockets at that and were non contiguous. None of these territories should start under complete Japanese control in 1940.

I would like to thank you guys for the advice, because I won my game against my best buddy.

I immediately pushed my Navy South and took NSW from the Austrailians (he had alot of troops in Queensland).  I also built a factory in Kwangtung which the next turn I made 9 men there (and a transport) followed by 10 tanks the next turn.  I traded NSW for a few turns back and forth eventually killing off all the Australian troops two turns before America could send their then massive navy to Austrailia.

I used two transports and took Sumatra and Malaya with Battleship and Destroyer support, and smashed the remaining Brits and 3 Chinese in Yunnan at the cost of about 8 planes to the 4 British planes and several infantry.

With Australia clear of troops I moved transports and bombers into a poor India and took it over and blocked the United States from reaching Austrailia, Japan, or the Phillipenes.

Thank you all for the advice, but next time Ill attack sooner with Japan, the Brits got rich fast which caused me a big headache.

Krupp Steel, I think its a good guess to say that the Soveits are going to have a large force on the manchurian border.
The Soveits scored a vicotry against Japan in their 1938-1939 war at battle of Nomonhan, but still saw Japan as a threat and it wasnt until april 13 1941 that the two sides signed a five year non-agresion pact.

@Kilukru:

Just noticed, the image of the battlestrip in the rulebook(p.7) is correct.

My new guess is this : all the poorly made stuff is because they rushed the game out to hit X-mas time and dinnt have the time to produce everything they wanted.

My guess is that they only care about their card game.

@bigopfer:

You are totally right Plum, the game is not worth the money they charged. The map IS amazing, the gameplay IS really fun. But you nailed it with the boxes, paper money, IPC chart, cardboard pieces, lack of tac bombers. I mean, I paid basically the same money for this game as I paid for my copy of AA50 and this AA40 Pacific is missing lots of the quality that AA50 had.

Exactly!  I was totally content with how they presented AA50.  Everything was high quality and all aspects of the game and its components were top notch.  Totally worth the money I spent on it.

While this game certainly has some high quality aspects about it, (especially the game play, which is all that really counts in the end) there are so many small blunders it’s really frustrating.  The income chart is what gets me the most.  It seems like the day before they shipped the game out somebody realized “Oh crap!  We forgot income charts!” and then threw together the first thing they thought of and tossed it in the box.  I’m surprised they weren’t scribbled on a piece of notebook paper.

That is awesome, I just did not realize that they had already gotten past the preliminary stages with AAE40.