Yep, sounds like ANZAC was begging to be attacked in your game
I find a G3 and J2/3 to be the best. A G3 gives you time to get armor and Mech from france to the Russian front. It also gives you time to get forces that Yugo and the infantry in bulgaria on the front to attack. Along with being able to summon a lot more forces it also allows you to focus the majority of your aircraft on England for G1 and G2.
A J1 attack seems to bring the U.S. into the war far to early. Plus it eliminates you from ever getting the 10 ipc free NO for being momentarily at peace. Also Japan only starts with 3 tt which in my opinion doesnt give you the massive expansion that Japan needs when declaring war. If I wait until J2 then I can have 6 tt to launch out and take Guam, Philippines, plus several of the money islands. A J3 DOW gives me 7-8 transports and time to position the 6 other transports exactly where I want them. Then when I make my attack I can take all of the money islands or drop one or two to take Malaya instead. (depending on how hard the allies try to defend them and the counter attacking power against the islands and Malaya. This also gives Japan the first 2 turns to really destroy china.
Thoughts, opinions, arguments?
I think anything past G2:J2 is allowing the Allies to prepare for war too much.
Regarding Germany- If you attack Russia G2, you really don’t need your airforce in the east, so they can still harrass the UK. If you do a G3, yes you can have more forces, but so will Russia.
Regarding Japan- the longer you wait the more powerful India and ANZAC will be. I prefer to take a couple DEI J2 and the rest J3. India has potential to make 24 IPCs or more if you let them gobble up DEI’s while Japan waits for war.
Just read cow’s treatise on the japan and germany playbooks to get more info.
On the other hand I think that anything before J2/G2 is to rushed. Doesnt give you enough time to properly position and strengthen yourself for a long solid campaign of war.
On the other hand I think that anything before J2/G2 is to rushed. Doesnt give you enough time to properly position and strengthen yourself for a long solid campaign of war.
I understand the thought process you have, and it’s what I used to do every game G3:J3; but the Allies have such an IPC advantage that the Axis should be aggressive early. Russia and India would be able to have a wall of Infantry. ANZAC would have a proper fleet, and the US would be ready to strike with its starting units plus ~200 IPCs worth of units.
But, then again you certainly can do well as Axis on G3:J3, just depends on who you are playing and the strategies involved by both parties.
True, it all depends on your preference and the strategy and skill of the opposition.
Our group experienced many, many Allied victories over 2 years of gaming before we started attacking early and often with the Axis… now they win all the time.
Too much experience can be bad for the allies.
Experience makes people soft and less likely to make an iron mountain and actually try to defend something. You can’t win a game running.
Merge China and UK Pacific. If air hits china so be it. If Japan attacks the merged units so be it. You will kill lots of units, you will dent his stack, you will cut that air down. Frontload everything. If you are stacking up, shove the Russians, shove the American navy, shove everything forward at the same time. Japan cannot attack everything at one time.
If germany takes his air to north africa, shove the Russians toward finland, land usa/uk air on it to defend it. Just shove it.
Clear out africa, get the russian guy on the territories.
You have to be aggressive. You have to have a plan to get air into Russia to make it hold. You got to make things happen. There is no sitting back.
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If you do not get a bid, you need to win with grit.
You say ‘just shove it,’ but if the axis attack works in yunnan or the pacific, or wherever this stack battle is, the allies may not be able to recover. One time I did stack Yunnan with everything that can reach. Japan had a ~40% win ratio per triplea. Well, he attacked anyway, and now dead chinese fighter, dead indian fighters, dead allied everything in asia. japan won going away. with those forces held in reserve, japan couldn’t have advanced as fast.
I get what you are saying though, but all I am saying is that if you present Japan with lots of juicy targets, he will oblige somewhere.
Japan will attack and win somewhere but not everywhere. The Russian far east divisions are good for distracting japan.
True… but if Japan’s choices are destroy the american pacific fleet, destroy the joint indian/chinese army, or destroy the russian army- they probably kill american fleet utterly, buying them several turns of dominance in the sea to systematically win asia.
