Pointlessly Broken

@Eggman:

Having looked at the Sword game, it does seem fairly hopeless for the US player.  Japan’s ability to drop the small fleet in SZ14 means you can’t prevent them from getting the Aleutians J2.  This means you can’t prevent the Canada attack J3 so US goes down J4.  This is way too fast for the UK and ANZAC to do anything meaningful.  I was curious as to what happens if the US player isn’t limited by their factory output: if you swap out the 6 Tank buy for 12 Infantry, Japan’s odds only drop from 97% to 87%.

The UK and ANZAC only have 3 rounds of moves they can make to try and help the US.  The UK is completely too far away to do anything at all.  A Samoa Air Base might allow the TAC + Fighter from Calcutta to get to W. USA on UK4, but this means you delayed the attack until J5, which I don’t see happening.  ANZAC can dump in 3 Fighters + 4 Infantry or 4 Fighters + 2 Infantry.  If Japan doesn’t show any interest in Hawaii or the other Air Bases, then you don’t need anything in Samoa to get this support over there.  Japan could also use blockers of its own to stop the ANZAC TTs from arriving, but I don’t see this paltry amount of aid as doing anything.

I think this illustrates my earlier point about relying on the in-house team to do anything: if they shipped a game and went through several rules updates and still didn’t catch moves like this, it doesn’t leave me brimming with confidence they will identify a correct fix.  Game designers are notorious for getting so locked in to how their games should be played that they are often blind to options anybody coming in fresh could see.

Good catch on the Aleutians concept, that’s why I stack it as USA since if I don’t Japan gets an airbase there on J3, and in every game that J3 airbase (or the even easier Alaska situation) has happened, it was all she wrote. In order to block the aleutians and alaska though, USA needs to sacrifice at least 5 ships, which seems absurd as well.

I really don’t see any challenge at all in keeping the ANZAC trns away, but as I mentioned earlier, I am not convinced that forcing the ANZAC AF to samoa (by taking hawaii) is worth it. It’s nice to have the UK burn 15 IPC on the AB, but I would almost rather the 2 J infantry on USA than Hawaii.

Excellent point about the “in-house team.” I think that also has a lot to do with why Sword was able to do this his first game on the map (at least he said it was his first).  Getting “locked-in” can happen with expert players, where there is a sense of conservatism (not in a political sense) that can sometimes get in the way of innovation. It’s the loopy “noobs” (that’s all a compliment) like Sword who can sometimes really turn heads. I realize that might get under the experts skin, but just look at examples in the field of invention where some “weirdo” with an epiphany revolutionizes something while the R&D departments get locked into a routine and lack a real spark.

Hold up a minute on the number of blockers needed to block Alaska and the Aleutians.

USA needs 1 each in 8 and 9 to block Alaska.

They also need to block the 5 trns on SZ6 from getting to Aleutians:
If they don’t block 4, Japan can go 5 to 4 to 8.
If they don’t block 7, Japan can go 7 to 8.
If they don’t block 15 or 16, Japan can go 16 to 15 to 8.

That means that either the carrier or BB will need to be thrown out there if the Aleutians and Alaska are to be blocked.

Let me know if I am missing something on that.

If USA only puts 2 inf on Aleutians with the planes, Japan has a 2 in 3 shot of getting it with 1 land unit. Not saying I would always do that attack as Japan, but the average result (rounded, it was 1.89) of 1 plane 1 artillery remaining is tempting. Perhaps Japan doesn’t want to risk the 2 in 3 chance, but IMO the risk for the USA of moving only 2 guys there is greater. IMO it’s gotta be 4 land units 4 ftr 1 tac or not at all.

With the 5 blocks, it does push the attack back (if it happens at all), but Japan can do some interesting things. My favorite is an attack on Hawaii and the Philippines (If UK doesn’t sacrifice BB and USA a destroyer to block Philippines, that’s up to 7 easy blocker kills J2, with at least 2 capital ships), while destroying the blockers around Alaska. USA still has to buy max infantry US2 because you can come right back at them, but when you do the Philippines/Hawaii move (USA can’t possibly block Hawaii, Alaska, and Aleutians on US1, even with ANZAC help.), the commonwealth has to prepare for the possibility you are on your way to them while the US navy is on the bottom of the ocean.

As I described earlier, the Aleutians block/stack is the surefire way to prevent an attack on USA until J5, but it is a prime scenario for Japan to at least feint to switch gears, and that feint demands a response.

You are right on China taking care of itself if Japan goes full for US, but like I have been saying, remember that Japan needs 6 cities, and China can only be relevant to two. According to the current rules, china cannot help stack India, which means that going full navy (what I also think is UK’s best option from what I have seen) is incredibly risky.

I also was not keen on the BB sacrifice.

Not sure if I adressed everything in your post, sorry if not, I got to get to bed.

If I recall correctly, in most games where I stack the Aleutians I used the arrangement of 3 inf +AA.

Clearing out the blockers does have an effect on Japan, But Japan has 4 DD’s and 2 subs to start out with, and USA/UK, if they want to use all 7 blockers, will need to throw 3 DD, 2 CA, 1 BB, and either a US Carrier or Battleship. The problem for the Allies is that for most of those blocking situations, Japan’s AF is able to show up to each in overwhelming numbers, to the point where in most or all of the block clears, the Allies will only be able to roll once in defense.

(Note also that now I am starting to be fond of leaving 1 tac 1 ftr on carolines with 1 DD in 33 J1)

The most difficult locations for Japan to attack the allies while the Allies a blocking Philippines, Alaska, and Aleutians are, from what I can tell: 19 (or 18, possibly, there isn’t much difference, I suppose I would go 19 myself), 21, 4, 7, 8, 9, 15.
(EDIT: note if 15 is blocked instead of 16, it may not be that big of a deal, but Hawaii is then open from 6)

EDIT 2: Japan can prevent a block of the philippines by leaving a cruiser in SZ 20. The UK battleship could face 6 kamikazes and a surface ship if it attacks 20, which it has no reasonable expecation to survive. The US DD cannot move to 19 or 20, which leaves its blocking options for the Philippines as 18 and 21. For 18 to work, UK needs to be in 19, which is not possible with the 20 block. Thus The US DD would need to be in 21 to try to block. Thus, the only hope for the block is for one battleship to survive 6 kamikazes and 1 cruiser. Japan will know whether or not they want to use the Kamikazes based on whether or not USA blocks Aleut and Alaska.

IMO 15 is much better for the allies than 16 because ftr/tac from Japan have to find a carrier if they go there. Japan still has 2 bmb though.

The reason why it is worth killing the blockers in my opinion is that when combined with the aggressive southern move, Japan has the option of going the “traditional” route, except to save itself, USA had to sacrifice almost every ship. When Japan moves south, they can still back up and go for the USA, or keep going south. That puts UK/ANZAC between a rock and a hard place because they have both strategies to consider when doing buys/moves.

Here is the situation J2 with my attempt at combining the Expert moves with my experience testing this a couple dozen times.

Note that if USA stacks the aleutians with only 1 trn, Japan has a 2 in 3 chance of taking it with at least 1 land unit left, and on average Japan will have 1 plane in addition to that land unit left. That’s why there are 4 land units on the Aleutians, as ridiculous as it seems. 3 land units does take Japan below 50%, so I am considering just taking 3.

Pacific Test 2-7 J2.tsvg

Note where I moved the ANZAC cruiser, this has been a typical move for me for about a week now. This can potentially contribute to a block of Alaska J3 depending on what Japan does. But that block would require the sacrifice of yet another captial ship and cruiser.

I like your take on it, I might’ve done a little different but now I’m not so sure. With this one you are still threatening ANZAC too,although the your navy is more vulnerable than mine would be, but the trn’s are of course safe and the BC invasion is totally in business. Do note that you are 1 unit short for your SZ 6 trns, and are potentially out of position for the next wave, but those are things you can do while still keeping the same attacks in the sea. I’ll look a little deeper later.

Since you didn’t want Philippines, there was no need to leave the cruiser in 19 on my J1, so that is something that you can change too, and that extra ship would of course be a big help somewhere.

Very nice moves!

@Gamerman01:

@Zhukov44:

Worth noting that the game also seems to be easy for Japan if it goes the mainland route so it’s not clear yet which way to victory is actually more broken.

That’s what I’ve been trying to say.  If going straight for USA is not measurably more successful than the traditional strategy, then this strategy is no great revelation, even in 2nd edition.

To me this sounds like you are trying to find a face-saving way to back out of your stance coming into the thread, where all that needed to be done was to give you this USA crush strat and you would quickly save the day by solving it like you say you did with a version of it in OOB, which since it sounds like this person DOWed J1, it probably wasn’t worth much anyways.

You have yet to explain any possible means by which the Allies can win if USA is taken before the Allies can actually threaten a landing on Japan. Every resource they commit to helping defend the USA is something less to be used to actually play offensively. As you can see from Zhukov’s move, the Japanese Navy is not too hard to keep very much intact while obliterating most of the starting Allied ships.

You keep trying to say that this doesn’t matter at all, the game needed a bid anyways, etc., yet for the bid you recommended 3 infantry for the USA. Are those infantry going to significantly help the Allies with countering the more traditional strat? Not really, if we are honest, so this strat does need to be addressed.

Note also, as I have said, is that as part of this move to 14, Japan can simutaneously threaten USA and the traditional means of victory.

Until proven otherwise, which even an expert with his best possible Allied moves was unable to show, that outside of ridiculously bad dice, Japan’s ability to take (or at least threaten) the US makes this game (the actual, official game, the only game that I have been talking about), pointless to play if the goal is both sides having a decently even shot at winning. Bids may work great in the daily situations, but as long as the designers are up for trying to get a solution that doesn’t require bids, there is no need to be against supporting that effort, even if in so doing one can save face.

I really don’t see any other threads discussing 2e balance, so to act like this is not a big deal is either not looking at what is in front of you, or trying to not have to face the overconfidence you came into the thread with.

@Gamerman01:

Oh, shut up.  You are such a blowhard.  Did you even comprehend what I just said?

You are unbelievably arrogant.  You think you’re the first one to think of KUSAF in P40?  What hubris.

How ironic. Go to the very first post in this thread. Talk about not even comprehending what other people say.  :roll:

We go from “Just give it to me and I will stomp this”

to “Whatever, this game needed a bid anyways, just put 3 inf in W USA”

to  “This is hardly a revelation.”

It sounds to me like you are more upset at the fact that someone other than you found this strat for 2e, and that someone other than you brought it to attention. You can’t stand the fact that a player in his first game of Pac opened the door for this one in 2e, and that you, the vaunted expert Gamerman, did not. Once it became clear that you could not “trash” it like you claimed you could, you try to avoid facing up to your claim. After several tests I came on here convinced that if J
Japan did this 14 move, it broke the game. You come on, act like the 4 pages written is beneath you, demand that I supply you with the strat so you can save the day, demand that the game be played as you want, and then don’t even put up a respectable resistance to the strat while claiming they were the best moves the allies had. And then you call ME arrogant!

Cool, Japan has a good chance of winning going mainland. So what? Where did I say differently? What I have shown, and what Zhukov has even more clearly shown is that it is too easy for the Axis to win with the 14 move. As I have said from before you entered the thread as the savior of Pacific, the with the 14 move, Japan either gets the USA or

The USA crush cannot be ignored, even though you came into the thread acting like after you easily trashed one noob, it would be a non-factor.

You still have not addressed why you simultaneously said this strat is not a big deal but then say that the US needs more inf.  You still have not shown (forget showing for now, let’s try even a SUGGESTION from the expert for starters), how the Allies can hope to win when against it’s already been shown that Japan can not reasonably be stopped from taking the US by J5 with the IJN  and a good chunk of air still very much intact. And you still haven’t admitted that if this strat isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, you have no reason to say that it is not very, very close to being that good.

You are making it sound like the USA crush is irrelevant because Japan can win anyways by going mainland. Wha-?

@Gamerman01:

Save your typin’ fingers. Â I’m not reading another word you write, including that last one, or most of the previous one.

I guess it’s therapeutic for you to rant, though. Â It’s all you do.

Cool. I only put up with your condescension and arrogance this long because I thought you might have a counter, but now that you have shown nothing that could actually stop this strategy about which you are so jealous of Sword for starting, and even though you talked big, your potential to be helpful to fixing this strat (that according to the evidence definitely breaks the game) in any meaningful way is pretty much at zero.

Hopefully someone out there with the talent and/or A&A intuition exists that can come up with something that can stop the optimal USA crush in Pac 2e AND Japan’s responses to the attempts to stop it. I have a feeling that since it was a player in his first game on the map who started this, if it is going to be solved, it will be similarly be by someone who isn’t stuck in complacency that a self-assigned title of “expert” might bring.

It would also help if the person who was trying to find a counter was more interested in actually making the game balanced than in trying to “trash” some “noobs” who dared to bring up an important balance issue before he, the “expert” did.

If anyone would like a game, PM me to set up a time. There are a few examples already posted, but seeing it in action is sometimes more helpful. Just give a little respect and you’ll get plenty more. Please read what has already been written, you will probably learn something and I can guarantee that with a little investigation you will realize that a USA defense has it tougher than it would look just by looking at the starting setup. The time spent reading can actually save time, since it might help you avoid some mistakes that would mean wasted games.

I think it’s safe to say that regardless of Pac 2e’s problems when Japan goes mainland, all the evidence we have points to there being an at the very least equal (probably greater) problem when Japan goes after the USA. The evidence is very strong for the 14 move showing the game to be quite broken. Addressing balance definitely needs to take the USA crush into account, whereas before Sword opened the door for this strat in 2e, if there were any balance concerns voiced, they were about the traditional strat. Neither the traditional nor the crush should be ignored during the attempts to fix this game, and the chances of it not needing a fix have declined much recently.

Whether or Japan’s traditional moves bring too easy a victory doesn’t change the fact that the evidence so far clearly shows an attack on the USA brings too easy a victory. Regardless of whether or not it was an issue in OOB, and regardless of whether or not it was discovered during OOB, it is almost assuredly a MAJOR issue in 2e right now. The whole situation is  “darned if I do, darned if I don’t,”  for the Allies, but perhaps there is still hope for a reliable counter.