It can have another, more important effect: let’s say you’re in a tenuous transport war over the Phillipines/DEI with the Allies. Making the US turn around and spend a turn dealing with your stiletto jab could actually cost them the initiative in the Pacific. The ripple effects could be enormous.
Yes sir. Attacked J4 and the US had 3 transports poised to take over the Corolines on US4. I had 2 fighters, 2 inf, 1 aa in carolines so they needed all 3 transports in order to take it. Slipped a transport with 2 inf to the islands and now what is the US gonna do? Can’t get Carolines with 1 loaded transport and no air can help (unless US had bombers in Queensland but who does that? Especially at US4). At the islands, 4 @ 2 against 2 @ 2 is pretty risky since I have lost that battle a lot and I am sure other people have as well. Don’t want to lose the battle if you go so you have to take some navy if your the US.
And elvenjerk - J4s work just fine. I do them all the time. They really work people who are used to J1/J2 into a lather…
“What the bleep is Japan doing not attacking me, letting my fleet get away, and letting my economy grow… I’ll surely win this game! And why are they building all those transports…”
Then they find out.
Well said :-D
Build a couple transports each round. Get to at least six, or seven. Then don’t be afraid to keep buying them as needed throughout the game.
I have a J4 strat written out where they actually have 10 transports by the time they attack on J4. There are so many options at that point its really quite fun.
The first key is to kick the snot out of China for a few rounds, uncontested. I like to park all my aircraft in Kwangsi, and use straight aircraft to kill the Chinese in Szechwan on J2 - no matter the size of the stack. That means the Burma Road is only collected on once. That matters quite a bit, and losing a couple fighters with Japan is completely worth it.
This matters more than quite a bit… this is huge. This puts china in a huge dilemma. If japan has 2 units left then china has to take at least 4 inf and fighter into yunnan in order to take it back. You can’t risk not getting it back cause if Japan can land all its airplanes there on turn 2 then Calcutta is hosed. That leaves China with 8 inf at the most left in Szechwan and a fighter if they are crazy enought to leave it in there. Japan will have 8 fighters, 5 tacs, 2 bombers and thats if they choose to leave all planes on the carriers (exchanging the Korean fighter with one on a carrier so the carriers are full). If UK wants to attack on UK2 in order to hold the road then that just benefits Japan more. If they don’t attack then Japan can land all its airplanes in Yunnan on J3 and can do what ever they want from that point.
The goal is to keep contesting the DEI, finishing off China, and engaging in a war of attrition with India. In the meantime, timely purchasing of carriers and destroyers is everything
By J5 you should have all the islands along with Kwantung, FIC, Malaya and maybe even Shan State. You may have to do some back and forth with Anzac but that is to be expected. Its pretty frustrating as US when Japan spends 16 to have a loaded carrier and the US has to spend 37.
The thing with J4 is that up to this point the allies can’t really do anything about it since they are not at war. UK/Anzac attack turn 2 then Japan can make a lot of money by turn 4 and have full focus on the US. If they attack on turn 3 (which is expected) they get a one turn bonus on income but its all gone in the next 2 turns. Anzac back to 15 at the most and UK down to 6 or 7.
Germany is doing a G4 as well. Hey, it works for me.
I would be interested in hearing this strategy. It has always seemed to work best for me attacking Russia G1 with the J4 strat. US gets 2-3 turns in the war and the Russians are saluting Hitler :-D