Axis "J2/I2" Strategy

Even if it isn’t original, its solid.  This kind of discussion is interesting and useful.  I’m typically not repeating or testing out my own opinions because I’m not that good or creative–I’m repeating other people’s moves and opinions to test them against the group’s experience and opinions.

In most games, there is a “critical path” to victory.  Not a series of “must-dos”, but a series of ‘should-dos’.

That is why the earlier posters this week were spot on by stating what is the “optimal” move.  Not the “best move under all odds in all situations”.  Just the “optimal” one considering everything that we as a group or individuals presume to know.

There’s still no reason to not do J1 that I’ve read (but I’ve not seen your screenshots). The points have been presented before in several threads, and if nobody else does it or finds links, I’ll maybe get around to doing it on a lunch break or something soon.

You can do basically everything you want to do on J2 on J1 with only slightly higher risk, with no net gain for the US, with significantly higher loss for UK Pac, and with a slight increase in your Japanese income. The only downsides are 1: America can go full Atlantic 1 turn earlier (great to see for Japan!), and 2: ANZAC makes 5 more IPCs for one turn. But I am going to have to stop there, bed time.

Or, maybe, you show me something I haven’t seen before and blow my mind. Here’s hoping.

@SubmersedElk:

@Private:

Being on the edge of losing to wittman, who had a 13 bid as allies, I wonder what allied bid you feel would effectively counter the strategy you lay out? My understanding is that experienced players believe axis to have a significant advantage without such a bid.

That’s my question as well. I don’t even know if an effective counter strategy can be pulled off by Allies without serious mistakes made by the Axis player. That’s one concern I have had about G40 for quite some time and it has yet to be demonstrated to me that the Allies are viable on this map. If someone does pull it off, I would very very much like to know how.

Took a look at the League board pp 1&2 - bids vary between 12 and 28, averaging 20.5. wittman is offering me 18. Mmm!

K, summary time. This is super quick and dirty as I stuff my face during my lunch break. I very well may have forgotten something.

I assume you’re familiar with the “standard” J1. The user here, Cow, may not have invented the concept (or maybe he did), but he definitely popularized it.

Further assumptions:
-All players are of equal skill, and that the game will take place at an advanced or higher level of play.
-Russia does not stack Amur. (If they do (they won’t), you should take this gift.)
-If Russia fully stacks Buryatia (and doesn’t send 6 inf to Yakut), you understand the slightly increased risk of doing J1.

America:

On the Philippines, you kill a US destroyer/submarine that could have escaped, as well as a fighter. You have a 99%++ chance to win the fight.

I don’t like the hard IPC metric, but in this instance it’s entirely accurate. You are killing 6+8+10 = 24 IPCs of very mobile units that would have otherwise survived and would have been directly and immediately involved in the Pacific theater. Instead of collecting 52, America collects 70, for an increase of +18. (72 if they take Brazil for +20).

The loss of a land unit on the Philippines can be taken from Paulau. Losing two ground units isn’t optimal, but is still fine. If you get very unlucky, and hit that less than 8% chance, and lose three ground units, then that’s not fun for J2.

In the instance of losing three ground units, you must choose 1: to lose a plane instead, or 2: You’ll likely be taking Malaya J2 and the (rest of) the money islands J3 in that instance, but it’s sometimes possible to still take all of the money islands.

Pros:

1: You have actually removed 4 IPCs from America’s Pacific effort by doing J1, not added anything to it.

Cons:

1: America now has a major factory to build with in the Pacific, so can place more than three boats in the water. This is not a major difference. America usually builds at least one expensive unit on A1 anyway. The only time this would matter much is if they build six destroyers or 8 submarines or something (which is likely non-optimal).

2: America could decide to mess with Europe a bit. This is great for Japan. This is not great for Germany, but by your own admission Germany is likely able to handle this, and we’re speaking entirely about Japan here.

3: ~8% chance to either lose a plane, or to potentially reduce J3 income by 9-16 (somewhat mitigated by ANZAC’s income going down by 5).

United Kingdom:

J1 trounces the p�ss out of the poor brits.

I would disagree that the BB is the least valuable unit in the game. Indeed, it’s not useful in most games the first couple of turns, but any decent British person, if they can keep it, will be using it effectively on or before UK 4. Whether that’s in the med, or doing a suicide ram into your fleet before ANZAC does the same, it’s a damn battleship, and it is very useful. Sending the cruiser down to hit the BB is a 66% chance to lose the cruiser. 33% chance to keep it. If you do keep it, the brits can decide to put planes and a destroyer out of place to kill it, which is great for Japan. Britain never does this. That cruiser can then potentially convoy Malaya. Losing the cruiser hurts, no doubt, especially since you’ll likely be doing some bombardments and gimungous naval battles later, but you still have three other bombarding units, and I’d argue it’s totally worth the cruiser to sink the battleship. The reduction of variables in the game helps the Axis. When you add in the 1/3 chance of the cruiser surviving (actually very slightly less but let’s not get too deep into probability), which is a god damned fantastic boon, the move is fully justified in my opinion.

The Kwangtung fight is the most painful one, because there is the 11% chance to lose both of your ground units. In this case, I’d argue it’s better to lose a plane (which can be replaced quickly at any point later on since it’s flying in) because that also robs UK Pac of 8 IPCS (3 + NO). Either way, you can stand the loss of one plane at this stage of the game, especially if it’s only an 11% chance.

You can still lightly threaten Calcutta on J3, forcing a destroyer block (which you kill with a great ratio), or forcing them to reduce aid to China. You can have a serious J4 threat against Calcutta, which then adds enough pressure to turtle them up.

There are a lot of variables about the UK’s pacific transport. Do they go for Sumatra? Dutch New Guinea? Stack on Java? Persia? Iraq? Something else weird? All I can say about this is, is see my comments on the ANZAC transport below. Your arguments for J2 being better at handling this transport are flawed.

Pros:

-UK Pac’s economy is immediately reduced to only 10 + a money island if they choose to lose the transport to take one (which I’d argue is non-optimal). There’s also a 16.6% chance that you convoy them in SZ 37.
-A BB is destroyed, reducing the UK Pac’s navy’s effectiveness by half, and saving the Med. Axis or Japan grief later on.

Cons:

-Japan has a ~2/3 chance to lose a cruiser.
-Japan has a 11% chance to lose a fighter in Kwangtung.

ANZAC:

Anzac has the most to gain from this. They will make their 10 + 5 from the Malaya NO + another 4 or 5 more, depending on what they want to do, for 19 or 20 IPCs. (Britain could have also gotten Dutch New Guinea for them, meaning 24 IPCs, but that’s at a loss of a british transport).

J1 is definitely worse than J2/J3 if your goal is to take Sydney, but let’s be honest, nobody really ever guns for an early Sydney against non-stupid Allied players. There’s too much wealth to be had in China/the money islands. Easily shutting down Calcutta’s income to 5 - convoys helps both sides of the map immediately. These things are easily argued to be more advantageous than a very complex J4/J5 Sydney.

ANZAC is very possibly going to lose that transport to annoy you whether you do J1 or J2. If you do J1 and they don’t move it out to claim anything, it’s also not doing anything useful. Your claiming you get to kill the ANZAC transport where you otherwise may not and that this is a completely positive thing exclusive to J2 is a fallacious statement.

China:

China is in a stronger position than it might otherwise be, but not by a great amount. You mention them stacking Yunan, which is a major fear of yours. Yeah, that kinda sucks, but that’s not that bad. You can bring up a couple of infantry to defend your plane stack on Kwangsi. They won’t attack it, and if they do: good. Wasting 80% of the Chinese land units at this stage in the game is a dozen nails in their coffin. Is your progress in China slowed for a couple of turns? Potentially yes. When the Japanese ground forces move south a bit more, by J4/J5, China is in full retreat, having never made any real progress. Without Russian aid, China is dead or crippled, with only a momentary hiccup in the process coming when Japan must fight an American fleet or take Calcutta. Also see my comments below in Japan’s section.

Japan:

You now own FIC. You can place a mIC there one turn earlier. You now own Kwangsi, where you can also optionally place a mIC there one turn earlier. These can produce 6 land units (mechs, likely) to nail China, or to refill your transports on their way to wherever.

You now own the Philippines, which is a fantastic staging point for J2.

Instead of gaining +14 over your original income (Trading with America NO + 4 in China), you gain +14 or +15 (3 or 4 in China, +FIC, +Borneo, +Philippines, +Kwangtugn) so either it’s the same or better.

You are still in position to take the money islands on J2 unless ANZAC/UK has done something screwy with their planes/transports. However, if they do that, then you’re now able to kill their planes/transports. It’s a win/win situation. They could have done something equally as screwy whether you did J2 or J1, mind you, so this doesn’t really even matter.

You have an 11% chance and an 8% chance to lose a plane. You have a lot of planes. Come on. And while losing both would kinda suck, there’s only a ~1% chance of that.

You hurt the allies more or no less by doing J1 instead of J2. Inarguable. Your situation as Japan is either stronger doing J1 than J2, or the same, unless you get truly terrible probability. J2 reduces this probabilistic self-fucking, but a very tiny amount made even less isn’t really all that noticable. It’s like being stranded in the middle of, then drowning in, Lake Superior vs. the Indian Ocean. Apart from the saltwater stinging your eyes a bit as you gulp in your final, deadly breath (drink?), what’s the damn difference?

_edit-

And finally, there’s one more thing I like about J1 that has no place in a mechanical discussion, but I feel is worth mentioning as a footnote. When playing at a table of real people, getting the guy playing America into the fight sooner is a bit more fun for him._

Yea, this is a solid strategy.  I use a variation of it myself lately, and it’s working out pretty well for me.  I feel like the most important part is deciding what to buy as Germany.  I tend to forgo the carrier in round 1, building only 6 Art, 2 Inf instead.  Realistically, no one takes the sealion threat seriously anyway, so why bother?

Another fun side effect of this is that I often see my opponents leave Britain nearly undefended.  And I let them think that’s safe, until I pull a round 6-8 sealion out of my hat.  Fun stuff.  But situational.

So I continue building mostly Art and Inf in rounds 2, 3, and 4.  Then build fast movers for rounds 5 and 6.  Of course, you’re also building in the Russian factories during all this, but that’s pretty intuitive.

By round 7, you’re building mostly bombers.  At this point, you’re almost unstoppable.

@teslas:

I might also have a hard time understanding you based on your word choices and grammar as I have in some other posts, so forgive me there. (I’m not making fun of you by any means, I can barely speak just this one language, so anyone who can piddle about in two or more deserves respect.)

I’ll try to improve my grammar.
You are right. It is only a 2PU value territory.

What I meant is:
Adding Greece to Germany on G2 is saving the Italians the NO Bonus for I3.
Sometimes, Italy ends up having only 3 Ipc’s on I2.

I agree with you teslas, that in the run for moscow, the attack on Greece by Germany might not be much of a help if you need all available Units in Russia as SubmersedElk suggested in this Topic.

I was also interested in SubmersedElk view of an Russian Player who is going after Finnland, but this question is allready answered now.

I have two games on these boards where I’ve J1’d. Sadly, neither is a great example because in one, the opponent wasn’t super good, and in the other, he went heavy Atlantic.

This is the more recent one, still ongoing:

Houserule: +14 IPCs/turn (including initial 52->66) for USA
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=36657.0

I’ll J1 some more and post them here in the future, I promise :p

SZ 101 doesn’t need it, and if I had it, it would often just sail right on through the panama canal on US 1 anyway, so it may just as well go to SZ 10 or nowhere at all. (A destroyer might be a different story since that could be used to kill a German sub US1 if on a J1 DoW.)

SZ 10, that’s somewhat tempting. I don’t know for certain, actually.

Can’t the British BB sail to Queensland Rd1, becoming an important backbone of the Allied navy when trying to advance on Japan? It’s only out of position Rd1, which is why killing it is such a boon. Not to mention you already kill more that 20 IPCs of immediate US units that can’t be back in the fight until Rd 3/4 (collect extra Rd1, spend it Rd2, planes can reach SZ6 Rd3 [although you might not have extra carrier space for them], ships can do something Rd4)

Also, you talk a lot about the bombard value of Battleships/Cruisers. How often do you find yourself actually using these? You can’t bombard in island trades because they’ll just die to air counterattacks, which is what most of the transports in the Pac are used for.