Poll: Japan at war?

Very interesting. I’d agree that Japan usually wants at least one factory in China no later than turn 3, even if you’re primarily playing a naval game. It’s rare to see a board where you’d want zero factories, although I believe it is a possibility. You can use up your limited 10 production slots pretty easily when you’re building serious naval units. Even if you’re pulling in 80 IPCs a turn, that can usefully go to something like 1 BB, 1 CV, 1 DD, 1 SS, 2 trans, 2 inf, 1 art, 1 tnk.

The USA sub build is a special case, because subs are optimized for killing your navy, but subs are bad at protecting American transports. If the USA builds more than 3 subs in the first 2 turns, then you do want to build Japanese factories, because, as you say, the subs make it too difficult for Japan to protect its fleet, and the subs also make it easier for Japan to nuke any transports that the USA tries to bring west to take over your factories. The USA is rich, but it can’t afford to build a huge sub stack and a huge carrier stack and a huge stack of loaded transports all in the first few turns, even if it ignores Europe altogether.

Yeah the history is known, but the highlighting is also new to me. It seems like a good feature.

Great participation so far everyone, I guess it’s safe to say that Japan’s success has a lot to do with building an IC south of Hong Kong.

pretty good explanation…cant argue.

I don’t see a reason to expose your fleet early as Japan.  That said, even playing games with the Americans, albeit fun; is counterproductive.

You don’t gain much as you can still bait the US into buy full Pacific early in the game against a well-versed player, so that school of thought is out.

Carolines don’t come into play until much later in the game (read securing Calcutta) and VC win is Hawaii or Sydney.  However, I’m banking that Hawaii is “easier” to take once removing the fleet than Sydney.  This is primarily due to the Minor IC being able to put out multiple units round after round until you arrive with an Amphib that requires the Carolines.

Its much easier to go after Hawaii as it is a single move from Tokyo anyways (barring any blocks).  Having to fight for the Carolines and then Sydney seems less… efficient?

@barnee said in What Turn to Attack with Japan?:

@AndrewAAGamer

I always thought it was cow who originated it. Good to know. As in the real world, things do develop in parallel : )

I believe Cow is the one that exercised it / pushed it to the level of respect it deserves.

@shadowguidex:

To clarify - if France DW Japan, can Japan take Indochina and NOT lose the NO?

No.  If Japan attacks FIC, they lose the NO.

A state of war between Japan and France does not affect the NO.  Only an attack on FIC cancels it (outside of the other limiters - war with US, unprovoked war with UK/ANZAC)

I would wait a turn and build an IC in a useful place. If you build it in J1, then it will mostly be used against China and perhaps Russia. HK and Singapore are way better options. From Malaya you can be in India in one turn (with fleet), in Australia, all of DEI and back to Japan quite fast. Land units are also quite close to Burma road (Chinese lifeline).

So if you decide to attack the UK on J2 then I would build an IC on J3 in Malaya or Kwantung. If you are going to wait longer then China (and perhaps Russia) may become too much of a pain and you need to transport units to the mainland.

My next game as Japan I will attack UK on J2 in Malaya. It gives you +3, UK -3 and ANZAC NO lost. And it is arguably the best place for an IC. For the attack I need a lot of transports, because I also want to take most of the other prices, like the DEI island, Phillipines and/or Kwantung. This gives your economy a major boost and the UK loses a lot of IPC income. I would also prefer to take DEI island from the UK instead of the Dutch controlled islands. You can take those later and the UK islands work both ways (more for you, less for them).