Axis or allies?

What you’re saying is all correct. Typically, people do choose KGF or KJF, unless Japan has awful first turn rolls or leaves another opening and the US changes plans.

My Japanese play puts the emphasis on Russia but I also take advantage of my battleships in the Red Sea/Indian Ocean to trade land in Africa and take potshots at Allied soldiers. The UK’s farflung territories like Australia, New Zealand, and Madagascar should be taken quickly. Rarely can Japan not afford these small, early diversions from the Soviets.

If you’re looking for Axis team tactics, I believe the most important is positioning Japan’s fighters well. Early on, I keep my fighters around Frindo to support a German stack in Ukraine or Egypt depending on Allied moves. Later, I like my fighters in z34. From here, they can reach Novo, Kazakh, Russia, Caucuses, West Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Western Europe, Germany, and Karelia. They can reach most everywhere that Japan will want to attack or help defend. This tactic also breaks the the UK-US double because if the UK suicides into, say Germany, the Japanese fighters swoop in and turn the odds against a US followup.

what I prefer to do is this;
3 inf + 3 tanks on R1, hit ukraine with 2 tanks 2 planes and 3 inf, everything else on west russia, stack bury, and mover everything else west. turn 2 I prefer to buy 1 ftr, 1 art and 5 inf, this is to be able to scirmish on a front that is 3 terretories wide.

on UK1 my first priority is to retake egypt if possible,  to do this I use the bomber,  the india ftr, 2 inf from india, 1 inf from jordan, this should usually at least be enough to kill all the german units, even tho you lose all your infs (depending on defending luck turn 1)
I usually land in algeria, because germany are usually not capable of counterattacking the combined UK an us fleet, If this is not possible, gather the fleet west of UK with my new AC.
if for some reason germany has done a quite common mistake to only have 2 inf and 4 ftrs in france, I attack it, if egypt is not possible i often land in borneo and papua, while using the ftr + sun against j sub, and land the ftr on pearl.

US will usually buy AC + trs + inf/art tanks (if I buy 6 units it will be 4 inf 1 art 1 tank, and long game, more tank than art)

the overall gameplan from this point will be for US to land 8-10 units in africa each turn,  UK build 6-7 units + 1 ftr and at some point swich to landing in norway, when strong enough. USSR keep on scirmishing germany.

If I have a successful game, the US in africa will make it to persia, and be able to match the japanese there, possibly making it to cauc. I once had more than 150 units in cauc, only 50 was ussr. then the win is plain.

if japan manages to be fast enough, I will move all my us trannies to the med (8-10) and start landing the units in africa in s europe (16-20 / turn). I will lose it a few times, but germany will not be able to build more than 10 units / turn, at the same time UK will land in france each turn, and if USSR are not able to hold moscow from the japanses, the entire russian army will start walking towards berlin, doing a final suicide charge to kill german units.

I have had a more than 80% successrate with a bid of 8-10 (set in libya) with this stratigy.

on, and people seem to forget that trannies are prolly one of the best fleetunits on defence, UK/US fleet is often 1 BB 1-2 AC 2 DD and 10-12 trannies. you need a pretty good attacking force to deal with that. And that is before you add the ftrs on defence.

btw, I also 400 games in an insane amount, with some intelligent research, and planning, you should be able to figure it out in much less, especially playing online.

@bb82:

Because the med fleet will be blocked by a Russian sub, Germany, at most, can attack UK with the following:

6 infantry, 6 armor, 6 fighters, and 1 bomber.

I like the 2 FTR, 3 INF on UK1 myself so that isn’t that bad a battle to fight really.

7 INF (2 UK Start; 2 US; 3 UK1 buy)
2 RTL (1 UK, 1 US)
2 ARM (1 UK, 1 US assuming SZ1 TRN sunk)
5 FTRS (2 UK, 1 US, 2 UK1 buy)
2 BOM

Take the Bombers as 1st round casulties and you aren’t too bad.

Moving the UK BB and TRN and the R sub to SZ6 will draw off some air power as Frood says it is aprox. 78% for the UK/R in the naval battle with just 2 subs and a Des.

One of those things you shouldn’t feel too bad about losing though.

I think we are in agreement, I’ll only buy the 2nd one when I do anticipate 14 units being placed.  I ment the 10-11 unit thing in addition to the IC so I need to be earning about 45 so I can buy 1 IC+10 inf and then place 10 inf (say 3 fic, 7 jap) and then place my IC on either Sin/Ind.  Since I’m already at 44-45, I know next turn I’ll have no trouble spending 45 on 13-14 units.

My typical turns/income will be

Rd 1 - 30 (3 trns, 1 arm, save 1)  - collect 33 (chi + bury) + 1 save
Rd 2 - 34 (1 trn, 6 inf, 1 arm save 3) - collect 37 (chi, sin, bury, sfe, yak) + 3 save (you may be able to take ind but I didn’t count it)
Rd 3 - 40 (1 IC, 8 ground units) - collect 43 (above + ind, aus, hi)
Rd 4 - Here I’d probably pass on a 2nd (purchased) IC until Rd 5 but if I was able to take Novo (or Kaz) in J3 or took Ind in J2 I’d probably be over 45.  So in that case I’d buy the 2nd IC and still place 10 units.  I also have no problem waiting another rd.  Spend my 43 on 8 inf 3 arm save 4 and then in Rd 5 buy the IC and perhaps place on Sin or Ind in this case.

Also the turn that I am short 1 unit is the turn I’ll move the AA to the mainland to cover my IC.

But it takes two turns to arrive in WR. So first step is always Ukraine, being Belorussia an inferior choices. The final destination of the Gemran Army moving west is Moscow, passing for WR or Caucasus, depending on the situation. So it is not a different proposal from going to Ukraine, is a possible step after that move.

The problem that I see is that meanwhile Allies could invade Karelia and then EE.
Or, moving Karelia and Arcangelsk, being ready to counterattack in Moscow if it falls.
Moving German main army East implies redisposition of German Fig. further East, for being useful.

I thing that the German may efficiently focus on EE dead zoning Karelia and trading it every turn. If Allied come out in force, strafing them for at least delay their action. This should give to the Japanese all the needed time for conquering Moscow and for relieving Germany.

Trihero:  Odds, slim.  How many times have I seen it happen?  More times then not.

There’s no need to act like I haven’t seen it a lot, either. I just try to evaluate moves based on higher principles on bad dice that I personally happen to see.

@Jennifer:

Leaving the second BB alone is bad for two reasons:

You gave England a capital warship that can bombard you at will.  That means two bombardments for the price of 1 infantry.  (6 IPC for 3?  That’s a good trade!) England is not out 16 IPC for a carrier to defender herself.

Don’t forget that the Allies don’t have to worry about keeping 1-2 Figs on the carrier giving them even more versatility

He leaves minimal men in W.Europe and S. Europe because he has overwhelming force the next turn to get it back so he realisticly don’t lose money. Me and my bro tried to land UK in Western E/ than fly 6 fighters(U.S) and some of their ground units to stop Germany from retaking it.

Then I feel it is quite feasible to beat your uncle if all he does is build mainly tanks + 1 fighter here and there. What you’re going to want to do is take out his navy and take Norway with the UK on the first round, provided he doesn’t have his fighters within range to kill your navy. After Norway is taken, just keep landing as much as you can in W. Europe. This will take the pressure off of Russia in a jiffy. He can’t use his 8 tanks per turn both to take W. Europe back as well as invade Russia. At first the landings may seem ineffectual since it’s just the UK, but after a few turns the landings grow substantial because of the US, and it should no longer be economical for him to retake W. Europe. After that, S. Europe falls, and things collapse for the Germans.

If you can’t land in W. Europe, then just take it slow and mass troops in Karelia to protect the Russian’s northern flank until the US comes. A joint defense of Russia and UK together should be more than enough to stop the Germans from taking Moscow. Once you’re ready then march towards Germany with masses of troops.