Minor industrial complex in China strategy.

@arthur-bomber-harris said in A Nameless but Effective China Strategy:

Round 2: Japan captures 3 out of the 4 of the following territories: Malaya, Java, Sumatra, and Celebes. In your game you only captured Malaya.

Everything goes down the drain if you don’t have a strong J2 turn.

I’m not a fan playing against myself - it can make you go blind and miss obvious moves. The J1 was Cow, and J2 - 3 were Andrew’s moves from our mini-test.

The real problem is turn 3. The Allies have mid-sized fleets off both India and Queensland. As for as I can tell, Japan has 3 options for J3:
*Option #1 - Put the IJN in between the Allied fleets. This is what Andrew did, and is probably the least bad option. Most likely outcome is you trade the IJN for both Allied navies.
*Option #2 - Attack one of the fleets. Face the multi wave counter attacks ready on either side. Most likely outcome is you trade the IJN for only 1 of the Allied navies.
*Option #3 - Retreat north. Allow the Allied fleets to merge into a fleet bigger than the IJN. I haven’t played against this yet, but it feels like Japan is turtling.

Note - the absolute best realistic outcome Japan can hope for in the first 2 options is wounded capital ships limping back to a NB while facing another turn of Allied attacks.

I really hope I’m missing something and there is a 4th option.

@argothair yes that indeed is an issue. That is why i stop doing taranto but this form of Gibastion. This way i save the fleet and carrier. So UK 2 i move them (UK fighters from the Med and London who are now in algeria) to Egypte and there on to Moscow. Togethee with the Anzac fighters this gives Russia a bit of breathing space.
The factory in Egypte buys subs and a fighter turn two and from turn 3 on fighters abd Land units .
It is not the perfect plan but wirh a US going 75% KJF you can’t invade Europe direct.

@general-veers

Corsica was given to Italy after France died. Since Germany usually kills it before any of the powers of the Mediterranean has their first turn, it makes sense.

It would be nice though to have an additional rule where Italy only controls it if France dies.

These are NOT optimal strategies.  They are meant to be funny and either ridicule “standard strategies” or make fun of losing situations.  Let me explain tthem to the best of my abillity:

Germany:
Must kill Russia and not worry about anything else like Sea Lion or Africa.  This comes from many players who believe that taking Moscow early is the only way to victory for Germany.

Soviet Union:
This comes from the classic Russian build up early on which is soon negated by overwhelming German force.  It ridicules those who just stack Moscow instead of trying to counterattack.

Japan:
1 symbolizes the J1 attack which is used more than J2 and J3
2 symbolizes taking the money islands
3 symbolizes getting so rapped up is Asia, that you allow the U.S. to take Tokyo (lol!)

U.S.
This is actually quite true: with the U.S. you must get enough force to defend yourself or make a hole in your opponent.  Then you must get into a great position like Gibraltar or Carolines.  Then eventually you get that great opportunity–wham!

China:
This, of course, is about players who think China is useless.  In my personal experience, I think most people just like to sacrifice Chinese units.  And of course such gameplay will cause Japan to hit Stalingrad and then Russia yells at you.

United Kingdom:
Europe:
Defending is important early but only in the UK itself.  If Germany at least threatens Sea lion, we see UK just defending for awhile.  Then finallly they make a big blow like Rome or Denmark.

Pacific:
This ridicules players who just build infantry and simply put everything in India.  You bet they get bored.

Italy:
This is more of a ridicule of Mussolini himself.  Or Italy after a really pro-UK Taranto dice mow -over.

ANZAC:
Quite true.  The money islands are ANZACs biggest thing they usually can do…and Japan hates that.

France:
I object to explaining this one.

Well, he could blow up Russia, THEN blow up Turkey at his leisure, but its more obvious for Germany just to take his 4 factories north of you and his 4 objectives and pour units into your last bastion.

I’m not a fan of KGF (at all or anymore), it does nothing to slow Germany down, reduce its income, or tie up more than 1-2 turns of troops.    Pouring all your resources into the Atlantic US1-4 is a recipe for getting VCd in the Pacific or, barring that, an overwhelming Japan that backdoors Persia and Russia.  Add to that handing 3-4 neutrals to the Axis that they can use to bulk their troop stacks, and its a more difficult…perhaps tenable KGF plan, not sure.

Even if Germany is totally snoozing in France, he has to be totally asleep to miss the USA buildup, still his mobile units can travel through Normandy or S-France without blitzing and blow up whatever lands…the geometry of Europe is far too favorable to the Axis (all defense areas are 2 spaces from build areas).

He’s talking about just killing the UK fleet in the SZ off India. A suboptimal move in my opinion, stretches Japan really thin and that fleet can’t really be aggressive against much without dying in return. It also makes your cleanup around the Solomons weak. Same with the attack on the Hawaiian SZ, there’s no point for Japan to be throwing its material forward in barely positive trades when Japan excels at keeping a large American fleet at bay when it can consolidate its fleet resources at the Philippines.

@Zhukov44:

There are several good reasons to get an ac instead of a battleship.  The first is that Germany already has fighters to land on the AC.  So with the AC (plus fighters) you get a defense punch of 10, with a count of 4, compared to the bb’s punch of 4 and count of 2.  The second is that you won’t get many bombards out of that battleship unless you are using it in the Baltic.  You might get the one bombard when you attack England, but ultimately that one bombard shot is pretty useless compared to 2 fighters (also 20 ipc) that would participate in every round of the battle.

Another reason is acs extend the range of your fighters.  Unlike ships, fighters can’t be blocked.

Whether you intend to go for London or go for Moscow, there are better ways to spend that 20 ipcs.

Agreed, all good points.

@leddux:

@Krieghund:

@leddux:

can you upgrade the minor complexes to major status paying the 20 IPCs while still neutral?

No.

They changed that rule.