How did playtesters miss J1 attack?

@Whackamatt:

Well, it won’t be ruined for me until I’m able to put in as many hours as you in the game.  It’s still fresh and new in my mind, and none in my group know about this strategy.  :evil:

We’re not about to let the game get ruined for us. It’s just a question as to whether or not the OOB set up and rules are worth playing any longer.

rwthe US their 40 IPC national advantage immediately when Japan attacks. Will this be too much? Who knows, but after 7 games, each one has been competitive for both sides and all 7 have been a blast to play. That’s with one easy change.

In the OOB rules, I was also against giving Japan 5 extra IPCs each for controlling India, Sydney and Hawaii. I thought the 5 extra for Hawaii was OK, but the Japanese get all of the countries IPCs on the IPC track when they capture a capital.

My beef was that if India does fall, the Japanese are going to be at 78 IPCs to the US - ANZAC 70. Remember, if India falls, there goes the Burma Road for China. If they aren’t knocked out of the game by then, they woun’t last long without the boost gained from the Burma Road.

So if the game is to continue on after India falling, it isn’t going to be much of a game with Japan bringing in 78 IPCs a turn to the remaining Allies 70.

So my thinking was that if Japan didn’t get the extra 5 a turn for India, then the game would be worth playing on. I felt that the Japanese should only get the 5 extra for hawaii, not India or Sydney.

Also, I though, why in the world do the Japanese need the added advantage of the 6 Kamikazie shots when they have so many advantages already. I thought that needed to go too.

BUT…

In the games where the US gets their 40 IPCs right away, all the above stuff seems to make sense. So by making that one little change, move the US IPC marker up 40 the instant the Japanese attack, we’ve seen the games to be fun for both sides, and everything else in the game made perfect sense, gamewise.

The OOB rules are kinda ruined for us until somebody shows us some strategy that we’ve not seen ourselves for the Allies that makes them competitive.

Talking doesn’t get it, it has to be play tested.

@Van_Trump:

I would normally place the bulk of the Japanese fleet at PI at this point, with maybe a few ships at TRUK and/or Singapore.

After Singapore falls, the Japanese mainly stay at the PI as you say, moving back east when they are set to attack India.

@Van_Trump:

So, 2 turns to reach Japan, unless, of course, the Japanese player blunders and fails to block this very obvious build up with a DD

Those blocks can be a rude shock to the US too.  :evil:

@Van_Trump:

OR

US Player bases his fleet out of a Midway seabase :-D

I like the Midway naval base as a means to get at SZ19, which I think is the Japanese weak spot, not SZ6. The drawback with having too much based at Midway for the US is that it can’t make it to SZ54 in one move. To me, if the US wants to threaten SZ6, then do it from Pearl, and if the Japanese block, the US gets to snack on a DD for every turn the Japanese block.

By my way of thinking, Midway makes the Japanese commit ships to SZ6 to block a possible Midway->SZ16->SZ6->SZ19 US attack. This can be done with just transports. This assault doesn’t require the US to stay and fight on follow on turns either. The transports can be lost. The troops don’t have to stand in place and fend off Japanese counter attacks, they can move inland revitalizing the Chinese.

To me, this is the dagger to the heart the Japanese don’t want to see happen. Americans liberating Chinese territories, which in turn allows Chinese troops to pop up in territories with the US troops.

If US troops can move off the coast in one turn, they are going to be a big factor in freeing Chinese territories, which the Chinese are going to recieve IPCs for on their following turn.

Building an IC in Korea requires the US to hold off Japanese counter attacks, and is too slow to develope.

All the stuff discussed in this thread as far as what the US can do, or should try to do is really stuff. In games we’ve played using the 40 immediate change, it all becomes very relevant strategies.

I mean, the US has to carry the ball as far as the Allied power to take the fight to the Japanese. With only 17 IPCs on turn one, it means the Americans won’t even be able to place a decent force on the board until turn 2, which won’t move to a position of relevance until turn 3!

The Japanese have 3 CVs, 2 BBs, 2 CAs, 4 DDs, 2SSs, 3 trns, 28 freakin’ air units, enough troops in Asia & Japan to do what they need for the first 3 turns. They will spend 126 IPCs in the first 3 turns.

Against this, the US start with a meager 1 CV, 1 BB, 1 CA, 1 DD, 1 trns, 1 SS, 8 air units & 8 land units. This and 17 IPCs is all the US has to take on the Japanese for the first 3 turns.

They will spend 127 IPCs over the first 3 turns, but the first big 55 IPC buy of that won’t even move into position to do anything until turn 3.

By giving the US the 40 immediately, the Japanese only get a free hand for two turns, not three, and it makes a big difference.

It’s unfortunate that WOTC couldn’t spot this but it seems to me you are right kauf.

The US is always just 1 turn behind no matter what they do. Having production 1 turn from the theatre is enough of a disadvantage without the income lag.

To return to the previous chess analogy: it seems like the OOB setup is a little like giving the white player 2 moves before the black player gets one.

Thanks for all of your time spent researching the matter… though I wish I had the time and opponenets to log 200 hours of AA in half a year. ;-)

@Canuck12:

It’s unfortunate that WOTC couldn’t spot this but it seems to me you are right kauf.

The US is always just 1 turn behind no matter what they do. Having production 1 turn from the theatre is enough of a disadvantage without the income lag.

To return to the previous chess analogy: it seems like the OOB setup is a little like giving the white player 2 moves before the black player gets one.

Thanks for all of your time spent researching the matter… though I wish I had the time and opponenets to log 200 hours of AA in half a year. ;-)

Lets see, my best friend, who goes by Buckeyeboy on here, well, we’ve known each other for damn near 30 years. He works around Dayton, and he’s off again like on the 27th & 28th. So we have yet another potential to game for a couple days.

He recently relocated to Dayton from Columbus, and has the ole’ bachelor pad going. Its too far from Columbus to drive out and back in one day, for the most part. So when I go out, he has a big condo and I just stay over. That way we can booze it up responsibly without having to worry about any driving going on.

So what happens is a butt load of game time! On the 6th & 7th, I went out and got to his place at 7:45pm Monday night, and was there until 7:45pm Wednesday night. I figured we logged about 28 or so game hours!

I think we’re set to do that again in about another week and a half, as I’m hoping to be on vacation that week. I was keeping loose track of our game hours, but we passed the 200hr mark some time ago, and I’ve since lost track.

We’re hoping that we don’t discover a flaw in the immediate 40 that tips things too far the Allied way, but if we do, we’ll just modify the immediate 40 to like…say, immediate 30, bank 10, or something like that for the first US turn.

We’ll see, and we’ll keep playtesting.

Who knows, maybe some intrepid soul will find a good strat for the Allies in the OOB set up that makes that play out better? You never know.

@Lozza007:

Kauf,

I’m pleased you debunked the Korea IC strat.  It’s a great objective, but I was always puzzled how the US was supposed to hold it.  Like you say, the US can’t get units there until turn C, giving the Japanese ample opportunity to regather its Transports and counterattack.

Yeah, I think it’s one of those A&A strats that works maybe one time against a player who hasn’t seen it before and wasn’t expecting it.  I had a Korean IC built on me by my crafty adversary in my latest P40 game (I’ve only played about 5-6 times).  He had a big enough fleet that he even got to the point where he built 10 units once or twice.  But I was sending tanks and mech from Hong Kong as soon as he took it over, knowing he wanted to build an IC, and combined with dropping a few (I had more but didn’t want to sacrifice more than necessary) loaded transports on Manchuria, I mowed down not only Korea but the entire fleet in Z6 the next turn, since he couldn’t use the naval base that he also bought in Korea, to escape  :evil:.  It also gave me the opportunity to Strat bomb him hard for a couple of turns - naval base and major IC (he couldn’t afford fighters to defend against SBR).

So yes, I’ve seen the Korean IC strategy once, and it was the biggest help the Allies gave Japan the entire game…  And I’ll be that much more ready for it the next time.

Kaufschtick, the Midway threat to Japan IS a feint(unless something presents itself). US true objective should be China, as you surmised.

To get back to the original topic, boardgame rules go through various iterations.

The following scenario is all pure speculation on my part.

I think the set up in Malaya was different at first; maybe two inf + one fighter.
Interim rules introduced scrambling from ALL territories with an AB, not just islands.
This gave the UK an additional defender when Japan attacks the Singapore fleet J1.

Later on, when scrambling was eliminated from non-islands, they moved the fighter from Singapore back to Burma, reinforced Singapore with additional infantry but forgot that the fighter was needed to deter the J1 attack of the UK Fleet-or maybe they boosted US NO income to 40 from 30(something else may have caused them to do this), so they thought that would be enough of a deterrent?

To answer the original question of this thread, I think that the game was developed as AA40 global first, and then the board was “sawed in half” to create the two theater games.  From other comments I’ve seen on other threads here, it seems that Japan wants to start the war as early as possible and Germany wants to delay it as long as possible.  This would provide an exciting tension between the Axis powers in the global game, but could easily with insufficient playtesting create the issues we’re seeing here in AAP40.

@Van_Trump:

Kaufschtick, the Midway threat to Japan IS a feint(unless something presents itself). US true objective should be China, as you surmised.

I wouldn’t exactly call it a feint. What it represents is another thing the Japanese have to defend against. As the US, you don’t want to put all of your offensive “eggs” as it were, in one basket. Part of the Allied goal is to try to spread out the Japanese and make them defend more area than they are capable of doing. So a naval base on Midway forces Japan to keep some naval presence in SZ 6 to prevent US units from passing through and hitting SZ19.

Any position that the Allies, or the US, can take up that forces the Japanese to defend against multiple threats or avenues of attack is key. Just as the Japanese are able to defend island airbases and have their air units force the Allies to commit twice the number of attackers to cover the possibility of the air units defending either the SZ or the land territory. The Allies need to take up possitions that force the Japanese to defend against multiple threats.

Midway is still quite capable of sailing troops down to attack Truk.

I kinda like having the US develope Midway and the Allies getting SZ54 into action. That allows the Allies to spread out the Japanese and still have the option of putting Truk right in the middle of the two bases for a squeeze attack if the Japanese let it get a little weak.

Speaking of Truk, it brings up a good point of how playing US immediate 40 helps the game, and how the OOB rules dont cut it.

In our many games of playing the OOB rules, we’ve had many a game where the Allies have taken Truk. With the OOB rules though, every time this has happened, it has taken all of the Allies collective strength to take Truk, and the win unfortunately leaves the Allies too weakened to take advantage of the situation.

With Truk being just one move from Japan and two moves from the US, the Japanese have always been able to beat the Allies back and retake Truk.

With immediate 40, the Allies, the US in particular, have just enough umph to hang on and and makes taking Truk for the Allies a game winning strategy.

This as opposed to the OOB rules where taking Truk winds up being the Allied victory that costs them the game. :x

Japanese player always overprotects Japan against Midway buildup. They have no choice.

If US is earning 55 ipcs, and already has a sizable navy(mainly cheap subs), they can funnel 4 TTs, 5 inf + 3 art per turn. That’s 8 ground units + transport capacity landing in Midway each turn. Quite a bit of pressure for Japan to worry about. At the very least, Japan spends a couple of turns buying 10 inf for defense in Tokyo. Psychological warfare at its finest.
Japan may even bring the bulk of her fleet back home to defend.
At that point US can go TRUK–>PI and/or Asia mainland and/or DEI, blocking IJN from retaking TRUK with DD’s(can be ANZAC DD’s).
Japan will probably move back to PI.
Then US lands TT’s only all over the map like a bad rash, retreating the fleet back to Midway or Hawaii.
This is not an easy task for the USN. Japan probably has 5-6 loaded carriers at this point.

For a change, Japan has to play with precision. But, with precise play, win they do unless the caveman has anything to say about it.

Has anyone tried moving the starting US fleet to SZ 7 on turn 1, to go for a turn 2 Korea takeover?  I have a feeling this will be much scarier in global as well with the 18 russian inf to back it up.  Even if you don’t get to nab Korea it should send a large amount of the japan fleet back to SZ 6.  And if the allies can convoy raid in SZ6 japan is in serious trouble.

Also, against the india crush, with gobal it will not be doable on turn 3 anymore as the UK blockers can hide in the left side SZs.

Lastly, has anyone tried putting Russia into the game?  Giving them there Inf, as well as collecting IPCs and building in the far left?  I have a feeling this would really make the India crush a bit less desireable for Japan.

@Van_Trump:

Japanese player always overprotects Japan against Midway buildup. They have no choice.

Very right you are, sir.  :evil: :-D

@Van_Trump:

If US is earning 55 ipcs, and already has a sizable navy(mainly cheap subs), they can funnel 4 TTs, 5 inf + 3 art per turn. That’s 8 ground units + transport capacity landing in Midway each turn. Quite a bit of pressure for Japan to worry about. At the very least, Japan spends a couple of turns buying 10 inf for defense in Tokyo.

Yes, but the trouble here is that the cheap subs don’t help those transports one bit against defending fighters on the Japanese home islands. As we’ve played the game, the Japanese have loaded the home islands and Truk with planes. The planes can jump back and forth between the two depending on the prevailing threat from the Yanks.

@Van_Trump:

Psychological warfare at its finest.

LOL! So true!  :lol: That’s the best part of the Midway NB. The Yanks can use it to leverage the Japanese defences on Truk back to Japan, and possibly grab Truk.

@Van_Trump:

Then US lands TT’s only all over the map like a bad rash, retreating the fleet back to Midway or Hawaii. This is not an easy task for the USN. Japan probably has 5-6 loaded carriers at this point.

A bad rash indeed!  :-D :lol: We had a game of immediate 40 where the US was able to take Truk with enough force to win the initial attack (Japanese air came out to defend the SZ, 4 fully loaded US transports took the island after the naval battle win) and just barely enough to hold off the Japanese counter attack.

Those transports then went; three to SZ19, landing troops in Jehol, Shantung & Kiangsu. The fourth went to liberate Hong Kong, and the Japanese folded at that point. The deal with that move was that the Japanese were going to have but one chance to counter attack those troops. The next US move would see them move into China and off the coast.

“If you wanna live, get off the beach!”

That’s the trouble with Korea. Even if you see, as the US, that you aren’t going to be able to bring in more reinforcements in to Korea from sea, it’s three turns before you can move your troops off the coast from Korea, giving the Japanese plenty of time to round up a naval force with troops to cut the US force to ribbons.

@Van_Trump:

For a change, Japan has to play with precision. But, with precise play, win they do unless the caveman has anything to say about it.

LOL!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Well, the Caveman (whatever happened to that thread? :wink:) says that if you play immediate 40, both sides suddenly have the same feel about them. There’s a little more forgiveness in play for the Allies, and a little less in play for the Japanese, making them fairly close to equal.

As you’ve very nicely stated before, the Allies have to play perfect each move just to stay alive in the OOB games. The other thing that has to happen for the Allies to stay alive in the OOB game, is that they can’t have anything less than average dice, and they also need the Japanese to have nothing more than average dice.

Lady luck has to stay neutral or in the Allied camp. We’ve had many a OOB game end real quick just because the Allies had a run of bad dice in the begining, or the Japanese had a run of good dice. Either one of these is not good for the Allies in OOB.

This is a post by Larry Harris on his website that I felt I should post regarding this topic since I kind of feel the same way about it that he does.  http://www.harrisgamedesign.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2409 
Hi Urjohn
Great questions - let me try to answer them…

Quote:
I have seen a lot of people complain in forums about Japan being overpowered in AAP: 40. But it seems to me that your team most likely allowed that intentionally. How are my guesses and assumptions?

By my team I assume you mean playtesters. My playtesters don’t make the final calls on set up, I do. I test certain aspects of the game, or rather they do and I make the final game decisions based on what I feel the game needs. Especially how it should be setup. What guides me is first and foremost the actual history of the issue or situation in question. I’m no slave to history, however. That’s just where I begin. As for Japan being too powerful…Look, in AAP the Japanese have a 2:1 air force advantage over the allies. At the beginning of the war Japan was truly a supper power in the pacific. It actually had a 6:1 advantage in aviation. It had the Zero which was arguably the best fighter in the world at the time. 6:1!? I could not let history guide the setup to reflect a 6:1 advantage. I’m sure you’ll agree. So I made it a 2:1 advantage, and you lily white pansies are still complaining. Come on… if the real allies could do it (beat the Japs) so can you. Personally I enjoy the challenge.

Quote:

1. It seems that the USSR troops which will be included in the global game in the Pacific theater will weaken the Japanese position in Asia.
   Yes indeed. I think the way the game is setup the Japanese and the Russians will both be hesitant to mix it up. They both have too many other opportunities and/or needs to willfully go to war off the bat. I could be wrong but I think there will not be too many early game Russian/Japanese attacks. Why should there be. In the mid game and especially the end game, however, I’m very sure the stronger – the one with the greatest to gain and least to risk, will launch an attack against the other. This is kind of what happened historically. In the last days of the war Russia ended up attacking the Japanese in Manchuria, or as the Russians called it – the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation. That attack did not come till August 9th 1945. The war in Europe ended on May 8th. The Soviet attack was right on time! You see, during the Tehran Conference in ’43 and finalized at the Yalta conference ’45, the Russians agreed to go to war with Japan within 3 months following the conclusion of the war in Europe.

Quote:
2) I figure the European Axis will not want to go to war with the USA any sooner than they have to, and this will put pressure on the Japanese not to attack on J1, which gives the allies a chance to catch up in the Pacific theater.
Bless your heart… Right you are. The last thing the Germans want is to have a premature two front war with the US bringing to bear all that industrial power it has. The Germans and the Italians would like to limit their world war to Europe at least until the Soviets are on the ropes.

Quote:
3) I assume the reason the European Axis will want to avoid war at least in part due to a USA NO for being at war on the Europe map.
Yep.

Quote:
4) My guess is this NO will be 40 IPCs / turn.
Almost…You’re about 10 IPCs too high.

Quote:
5) I think your team had planned this out before the AAP: 40 game was even complete. It seems logical that balance and elegance in the G: 40 game take precedence over balance in the P: 40 game.
No, not really. The G40 game took absolutely no precedence or priority over P40. P40 is very much its own independent game seeking its own excellence in every way. Dependent on no other game for how it stands on its own two feet. The big compensator for P40, in terms of balance was primarily based on two things… I wanted an early allied challenge – thus reflecting the difficult task they had to deal with – namely a very militarized Japan. The 2nd thing was the US Economy. Which I must point out is 20 IPCs more than they receive in the G40 game. In the P40 game the US also has the potential of picking up even 10 other IPCs that they won’t have in G40.

It could end up that indeed Japan has turned out to be too strong in P40. I don’t really know yet for sure. I can tell you this… in the circle of people I play the game with it has been our feeling that, yes Japan is powerful (I like that and it probably is totally my fault if it is) but in no way is there anything automatic about their victory. See if you can find your own way of beating Japan. I’ve done it

P.S.
kaufschtick, my invitation to play you and your super/uber/unbeatable moves still stands, even if just so that I can see how exactly the whole thing plays out so I can try to think of how I would kick you in the pants if you used it a second time.  :p

Thanks for posting that, kung fu, but there is one glaring omission!!

What about a question about the J1 attack, the actual subject of this thread??  Why would the Axis player ever not attack on J1 in the P40 game??  By his answers, it sounds like the P40 game was unduly affected by the Europe game, where the European Axis doesn’t want the USA at war in round 1.  But if you take Europe out of it, as in P40, I don’t see any reason for Japan to wait, and then it has a much bigger advantage and can use that airforce right away!

OK, I asked this question on Larry’s Game Design site, in the same thread.  If he responds, I’ll copy the response over to here.  (Response to the original question - How did playtesters (and Larry!?) miss the J1 attack?)

I deleted my post, because I found some good discussion at Harris Game Design on a different thread about this topic, complete with pictures or a P40 game (with very cool, expensive miniatures  :|)

Okay,  what he’s actually saying is that regardless of what anyone else thinks, Pacific 1940 is it’s own stand alone game that does not need another theater to balance it.  Furthermore, if you constantly (and I say constantly because if you do anything over and over and over again it’s boring as poop and you’re hamstringing your self strategically), attack on round one then you’re forced to fight India generally the same way every time.  You have 26 IPC’s on turn one alone.  Try buying ACs and subs or destroyers for the first few turns and deploying your fleet strategically.  Even is you just wait one turn you still have a huge advantage over the UK in terms of boats and you can set up almost two turns worth of attacks without worrying about the Americans at all.  If you’re playing against opponents who have no variation in their strategies than use the same “victory” moves over and over, by all means.  My favorite opening moves are Japanese turn two or three attacks that confuse and mislead the allies as to my real initial objectives.  It could just be that my opponents and I are better Allied players than yours are, so unless I make interesting and novel Japan turn two and three moves/attacks then they are able to defend aaginst an attack they see comming a mile away Or at least a fwe turnss before.

@calvinhobbesliker:

What would your allied players do against kauf’s strat?

Also, have you heard of the J3 India crush?

I’m with calvinliker on this.  Interesting to finally hear someone say they attack on J2 or J3 or whatever, but I can’t imagine.  There are so many targets of opportunity that far outweigh the little 40 IPC to the USA “deterrent” it’s not even funny.  Shoot, the British BB and 2 transports, Hong Kong, the Phillipines, complete with a US fighter and bomber….

Phillipines value to USA - 7
Value to Jap - 2
Bomber and fighter on Phillipines - 22
Transport and destroyer at Phi - 15
UK 2 transports and battleship (less 2/3 chance at losing bomber) - 26
US transport at Hawaii - 7
ANZAC sub - 6
ANZAC transport and destroyer - 15
Taking away the UK’s ability to take money islands - 8 (or more - Jap doesn’t have to kill infantry on said islands later on, and UK could earn it more than 1 turn, I suppose)
Hong Kong to Japan - 8
Hong Kong denied to UK - 8
Annihilating most of the Allied starting boats and demoralizing them pretty much all around - PRICELESS!

Are we past 40 yet???
Seems like a no-brainer to me.  J1 attack all the wayyyyy!!!

@calvinhobbesliker:

Yeah, J1 is the best OOB.

What would be your strategy against kauf’s one? The J3 India crush?

Actually, I didn’t read all of his strategy.

But generally, I prefer letting India earn their pathetic 3-5 IPC’s per turn and crushing it when I can do so without risking as much air to AA fire, and can hopefully lose mostly infantry.  I’d rather forgo the 8 income for a few turns if it’s going to save me several aircraft and leave them free to do other things…  Sometimes I disrupt India’s convoy, too, so that they’re earning pretty much nothing.  If India’s no threat, the only reason to take it is to get the 8 IPC’s of income.  If this is going to cost a lot of planes or tanks, or has a risk of actually failing, I will build up and wait.  With a major complex in Singapore, this is no problem.  I think it’s best to take India on Japan’s terms, at her leisure…  in general…

@calvinhobbesliker:

His strat is basically take the DEI by J2, Malaya on J3, and build a major there J4, while keeping the fleet together and never splitting it

Oh - yeah - I misunderstood your question.

I have very little experience as the Allies.  I’ve only played them maybe once to demonstrate that KUSAF is not a good idea.  I am looking to play as Allies a few times in the near future…  And I’m expecting to get smashed.  :-)