Island hopping is great, but its not critical. Sometimes just having a presense in the region will do just great. This is how I build my fleets…… My flagships are my carriers. They are great for defense and their fighters can support amphibious assaults. I will have no less than 2. I then will support my fleet with destroyers. I try to build 2 for every carrier. If you build destroyers and in order to get more bang for your buck, get combined bombardment. This will increase your amphibious firepower drastically. Basically you’ll be able to do the job of a battleship at half the cost and twice the firepower. Then build the rest of your force out of transports and a couple of submarines. If you use this fleet right, you will have everyship being productive on every aspect, offense, defense, and logistics. Your maximizing your money and strength. Lets take a fleet of 2 AC’s, 6 destoyers, 2 subs, 4 troopships with 2 tanks, 2 artillary, and 4 infantry. You attack the phillipines with an amphibious assault. the 6 destroyers should pretty much wipe out all opposition. But if not, you have 4 fighters and all the ground units to clean up. Battle should be over without losing anything. Your fighters land for fleet defense. Basically you have a fleet that can hit hard on land and sea. Your enemy will think twice before hitting you.
Revisiting the Kill Japan First (KJF) Strategy
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You probably need to work on KJF then since good players regularly take more than 7 IPCs when facing a KGF.
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In my experience, the best players are still averaging 4-7 IPC with 8 being the cut off to prevent Submarine bids in SZ 8
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what makes a sub in SZ 8 so great?
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UK will be left with 1 trn in sz1 when ot´s their turn.
(both battleship will be killed in G1)
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So you give up taking over Egypt just to eliminate the second battleship?
And can’t Russia just see it coming and modify their opening play to take Norway instead of Ukraine? Then you can’t land your bomber, your fighter is dead, and you can no longer kill that 2nd battleship, and now your bid seems like a bit of a waste.
I guess I’m not convinced that that’s such a stellar strategy. I guess it seems pretty great economically because you get to kill 24 IPCs worth of stuff, but the opportunity cost to you is significant. and the battleships actual real world value is significantly less than 24.
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The attack on Norway is very risky. Even if the Submarine in SZ 8 isn’t used to kill the second British Battleship in SZ 2 because the Russian’s killed the fighter in Norway, the risk of losing the Russian fighter is pretty high and most Russian’s, because of it, won’t make the attack.
With a second Submarine in SZ 8 you still kill Egypt, Battleship in SZ 13 as well as Battleship, Transport in SZ 2.
And even if you DONT kill the Egyptians and the British come into the Med. You can always put the Battleship/Transport back in SZ 14 and put a carrier (fighters from land) and 3 Submarines in SZ 14 with them and bulk up in Libya instead of attacking Egypt in Round 1.
Trust me, I’d gladly take a submarine in SZ 8 over just about any other bid in realistic circumstances.
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As risky as the attack on Norway is, so also is the attack on SZ2. There’s a 50% chance there to wind up with only 1 bomber or less. Feels like too much of a coin toss to me, except tails really hurts and heads isn’t always clearly great. It is not a battle in which retreat is acceptable, because that means the BB heals.
The Russian response it to hit Ukraine/W. Russia, and watch the Germans take a very risky series of attacks. I would be very squeamish to attack SZ2, Egypt, and SZ13 like Jen says. That means sending 1 inf 1 arm 1 fig to Egypt, 3 figs 1 bb 1 tran to Gibraltar, and 1 fig 1 bom 2 sub to SZ2. There’s absolutely no more that you can bring to Egypt since the Ukraine fighter is dead, the bomber is off to SZ2, and there’s no bid in Libya. There’s a humongous compound chance of something going horribly wrong between Egypt and SZ2.
It seems to me like a Russian triple - except the odds are crappier and the risks involve fighters.
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@Cmdr:
The attack on Norway is very risky. Even if the Submarine in SZ 8 isn’t used to kill the second British Battleship in SZ 2 because the Russian’s killed the fighter in Norway, the risk of losing the Russian fighter is pretty high and most Russian’s, because of it, won’t make the attack.
With a second Submarine in SZ 8 you still kill Egypt, Battleship in SZ 13 as well as Battleship, Transport in SZ 2.
And even if you DONT kill the Egyptians and the British come into the Med. You can always put the Battleship/Transport back in SZ 14 and put a carrier (fighters from land) and 3 Submarines in SZ 14 with them and bulk up in Libya instead of attacking Egypt in Round 1.
Trust me, I’d gladly take a submarine in SZ 8 over just about any other bid in realistic circumstances.
Put the battleship back in SZ 14? Then you’re probably not killing the british BB in 13…or you’re sacrificing a plane or two (or three!) to do it. And if you’re not killing the british BB…well, I thought killing both BBs was the whole point of this submarine bid.
And you suggest spending your entire budget on navy? 3 submarines? Meanwhile you build no ground troops and Russia rolls right over you? Honestly this sounds like one of the worst strategies you could come up with. -
I have no problem with loosing 2-3 figs if i can clear the Uk navy out on G1 (uually you end up with 1-2 lost).
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Beebs, putting the Battleship back in SZ 14 means I moved it from somewhere, like SZ 13. So the British Battleship is most likely dieing without killing anything in SZ 13.
Coupled with the loss of the other Battleship and leaving the Suez open isn’t so bad.
Germany Round 1:
Buy(40)
Carrier >> 16 IPC
3 Submarines >> 24 IPCGermany Round 2:
Buy(40)
Carrier >> 16 IPC
3 Submarines >> 40 IPC(Assumed W. Russia is Russian, Karelia taken by Germany and Ukraine liberated.)
From here on, it’s a game of keeping the Allies out of the Atlantic while you dedicated everything you have against Russia. Not the worlds BEST tactic, and you’d have to make sure you killed the British battleship on G1 in SZ 2 and the one in SZ 13 to even have a chance, but it’d be fun to pull once or twice!
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That’d be interesting to fight against, is it something you want to try in a fun/friendly game, Jen?
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@Bean:
That’d be interesting to fight against, is it something you want to try in a fun/friendly game, Jen?
Love too. Never played it in a regular AAR game. Dunno how that would work out in the long run.
Give me 7 IPC bid? It’s what I normally bid anyway.
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I have played with and against the 2 CV Germain strat, it can lead to some interesting options for Germany especially if you use AC heavily.
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Sure, take 7 and we’ll keep it ADS for your sake :evil:
I’m a little bit confused though, I kind of got the impression that you wanted an 8 IPC bid for a sub in SZ8 to kill both BBs and leave the Suez open.
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Nah, trying out the 2 CV 6 Submarine purchase strat.
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What I also find contradictory about doing a KJF is when you say Jen that it’s 300% easier to defend than to attack, but then you try to make the US attack Japan when Japan has a great defense and more IPCs. I’d rather send the US off to Germany to defend/contain it faster, then defend Moscow. Defense is easier than offense, no?
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It’s not contradictory. No defense in the world will save you from losing. That’s because you cannot conquer if you never attack.
And, btw, if a44 insists on stacking up SZ 12, I may not get around to building the carrier, 3 submarines in SZ 14. :P
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In fact, is Japan who must attack at the begining, or UK/USA’s fleet will conquer those tasty IPCs islands at Indonesia/Philippines.
Japan must also attack the India and Sinkiang’s ICs, Siberia … :-P
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In fact, is Japan who must attack at the begining, or UK/USA’s fleet will conquer those tasty IPCs islands at Indonesia/Philippines.
Japan must also attack the India and Sinkiang’s ICs, Siberia … :-P
You commonly build IC with US+UK in Asia?
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In fact, is Japan who must attack at the begining, or UK/USA’s fleet will conquer those tasty IPCs islands at Indonesia/Philippines.
Well so far Jen delays her fleet build up, so it is not I who have to attack, but she. Liberation of Hawaii on Round 5 at which point I’m already contesting Novo and have a near 50 IPC income.
I would like to fight an early KJF in which case Japan would have to significantly alter strategy, but that is not the case - as of yet.