ANZAC Autonomy! Anzac declares war on Japan separately from the UK

“Let’s eat Grandma”

“Let’s eat, Grandma”

COMMAS SAVE LIVES.

@Afrikakorps Mostly agree with Taamvan here – you’ve described an interesting gambit, but it sounds like your opponent fell for your trap by passively consolidating his Italian fleet and leaving it idle.

As other commenters have pointed out, the Axis can completely counter this strategy by using the Germans to clear away blockers, taking Egypt or Gibraltar pretty early and with potentially disastrous results for the British.

Even without German reinforcements, the Italian player can still actively consolidate their fleet by bringing it together in a different sea zone each turn, killing one British unit at a time. Italy-1, you kill a destroyer. Italy-2, you kill a cruiser. Take casualties on your air units or battleships, save your money on Italy’s first turn, and by turn 2 you can build an Italian carrier + sub, or carrier + fighter, or whatever else you need for naval parity. By passing up the opportunity to kill the Italian fleet on UK1, you may lose the opportunity to ever kill off that fleet, and if you follow through with plans to move the entire RAF to the Med, spend part of the UK economy in South Africa / Persia, etc., then Germany will have a free hand in the north Atlantic, and Moscow will be more vulnerable when the Germans are ready to attack it. Basically any time you concentrate the mobile British forces, you need to achieve decisive results within a couple of turns, because events will continue to develop elsewhere on the board, so if you’re merely stalemating the Italians in the Med while losing ground in the Atlantic and Moscow (and perhaps India as well), then you’re not making the right kind of forward progress on the globe as a whole.

It’s not easy, you’ll probably lose most of China to the FEC, and you’ll have to start from scratch in South East Asia. You’re also giving the Americans free rein in the Pacific. It’s easier to take advantage of ANZAC’s low income to keep a small fleet in sz63, maybe conquer NZ and Solomons/NB, and keep them bottled up, while attacking Calcutta and US fleet.

I argued should I for Scotland too which I said no as you have to worry about that being Sea Lion invasion and you can just beat it up from London.

@ItIsILeClerc:

What Barney said will probably work fine, since you seem to have a pretty solid plan.

I can give two answers to your questions though, but please keep in mind those things work for me, not necessarily for you too.

1. I never ignore the Siberians. I kill them, chase them down, or screen/defend against them, depending on what Russia did and what my own plans are. Since Russia moves before Japan, I adapt accordingly. Sometimes it’s even worth it to allow them 1 or 2 turns into Manchuria/Korea if you can kill them/force them to retreat later on anyway (no later than 3rd turn after), because this keeps them away from Moscow and ‘upsets’ Mongolia.
Good thing to know: Japan can take down China + India completely without the troops from Manchuria/Korea. IJAF has 21 airplanes and it’s OK to sacrifice ~4planes if this means killing the entire Chinese (or Indian) army.

2. Use them when you can ;-). Use them to deny USN shorebombardment or to strengthen the IJN if it comes under threat of an attack so stage it off Japan and/or Philippines.

I usually let russia go to korea, but make sure I can deadzone manchuria.  Especially good idea since korea is easily convoy raided.

You know I played two games that day! And it was over a week ago I suppose it was 1 sub 1 transport and 1 bomber and I pocketed the money. My mistake! Lol

alaska is a non issue. can block hawaii with a dd.

us cannot take DEI if it is dutch, but anzac and uk pac already did, you did not DOW yet, of course they took all the dutch islands round 2.

Keeping japan in sz 6 doesn’t keep us honest. it is away from your objectives. It is the exact opposite. America is not afraid of losing alaska. 16 units is not going to take and hold hollywood. usa can spam ground forces after the fact, the hell.

block hawaii with a dd and done. don’t worry about pacific. No J1 or J2 dow = you are not trying to win in the pacific.

take fleet to queensland and screw making pacific ships. If japan doesn’t want to be near the cash islands, he won’t make enough to win in the pacific. america won’t need to be there.

Would I abandon calcutta, I’d have enough to defend it considering the 20+ income it makes, but I’d move stuff out for sure.

If you are away from your money and not declaring war, that is a big green light for usa to go full atlantic.
~
plus there are enough dds laying around in the pacific to block your naval from hitting calcutta, in which case calcutta moves.

if you telegraph what you are doing like this, of course america is going to try and drop on italy. Egypt can be well defended too you know.

lots of people drop egypt minor and build off south africa and egypt with uk, instead of making a silly london fleet.
~

Don’t get me wrong, the strategy works the first time around usually, but after that people figure it out easy.

but staying in sz6 is absolutely silly, you aren’t fooling anyone. At least if you are near the money, usa might think you are trying with japan.

Anyway,  most people don’t buy much in the pacific when there is no J2 DOW, regardless of where your naval is. you might see 3 units of sub/dd mix, but that is about it.

sometimes on USA 2 if no J2 dow happened and Japan doesn’t look like he will dow… I pull the USA 1 buy off west usa into the atlantic. get hawaii to queensland and taunt.

@BigBadBruce:

@Noll:

#ZehKaiser

what if after you move all your fleet in India’s seas, during J2, the american player moves all his fleet 1 sea zone from sz6?

I don’t see this as a real problem. USA can’t have an amphibious attack strong enough to take Japan. As for navy, I never (ever) saw a USA able to hold in z6 long… with Japan’s planes, I would just load 2 fresh carrier in z6 along with few DD (as ZEH said, kept behind) and additionnal 3 planes in Japan. It should do it to repel USA Navy.

Keeps them off india for a turn however, very helpful