IC for US and UK

It seems to be a popular view that Japan is wasting its money if it buys a complex before it has maxed out the first one (i.e. is transporting 8 units/turn to the mainland).  However, I am of the opinion that 2 tran 1 IC–this is assuming $1 bid to Japan–is the optimal J1 purchase for getting units to the mainland quickly.  There was an old thread (sorry, I couldn’t find the link on my first search and I’m too lazy to look harder) that had some calculations to this effect, but for the short version, consider:
—If you build 3 tran on J1, you can put 8 units in Asia on your second turn.  However, with 2 tran 1 IC you can get 9 units there: 6 from your three transports, and three more from your complex.  With a 2 IC purchase it’s down to 8 again, one from your transport and 6 from your complexes.  (I’m assuming throughout that the UK killed your transport in SZ 59 so that you only have one to start with.)  So if you’re trying to get as many units to Asia on J2 as you can, 2 tran 1 IC is the way to go. 
—4 tran on J1, using a bid of $2, is also a good way to start fast.  However, in this case your capacity outstrips your income; it will be a couple rounds before you can actually get new units fast enough to keep your transports busy.  The 2 tran 1 IC buy is better optimized at keeping your production/transport capacity matched up with the number of units you can afford to produce.  In particular, a 4 tran J1 purchase enables you to put as many as 10 units into Asia on J2 if you clean out Philippines, East Indies, Okinawa, and Wake, but then you run out of island units and can only make up to 8 new ones in Japan.  So you get a lot of inf on J2 but it’s more of an anomaly, where the 2 tran 1 IC buy gives you a smoother and more continuous startup.
—As far as location, I like FIC the best.  Kwang is farther from Moscow than either Fic or Man, so if you’re trying to put pressure on the Russians quickly you want either Fic or Man.  You can supply plenty of troops to the northern area from Japan itself, so the complex is needed more on the southern end.  Plus it enables you to get to Africa, Caucasus, etc better.
—So far I’ve been assuming KGF.  In KJF you should certainly be a bit more hesitant about getting factories up quickly.  However, I’ve found that a FIC complex, which is always where I build on J1 if I build a factory at all, can be very helpful in KJF.  Ideally when defending against an American fleet you want to defend as far out as possible, e.g. with a fleet in the Caroline or even Solomon islands.  However, if you’re forced to fall back, FIC is a great fallback point.  The key thing about it is that it borders all three of your valuable islands.  If you get in trouble you can fall back to SZ 36 and build more ships there to join your retreating fleet.  Often this will be enough to prevent the Americans from taking any of those expensive islands right away.  If your only factory is in Japan you’re forced to keep your navy farther north to incorporate the new builds, and the Americans have an easier time getting to the southern islands.

As I said above I’m not that keen on sea lion myself. and if the conditions are unfavorable (like Russia took Ukr) than to hell with it.

Additionally I want to remind you that I would spend only 1 die on tech so germany can build new troops on G1 for 35 ipc.

I agree, the game is already favoring the Allies. A great bid for the Germans then seems fair to me.

lol… :-D

@Thorak:

Assume I have loaded 2 UK inf on a US transport and then in the US turn I moved the transport to the seazone next to Ukraine. Can the inf on the transport participate on an attack on Ukraine in the following UK turn together with other UK units? Does it make any difference if Ukraine is empty and the units can take it alone?

The infantry can participate in an attack on Ukraine.

You do not have to unload both infantry during combat, although you may if you wish.

It makes no difference as to whether or not you unload infantry if Ukraine is empty or not.

1. I have tried it.
2. I usually try to have 6-8 Russian infantry defend Sinkiang. You need about that much and sometimes the Russian fighters to deter a full push from Japan if his goal is to knock it out.
3. I’ve done that a few times. It scares the crap out of newer players. However you have to understand that you’re letting the Kwangtung transport and the Solomon Islands sub to live.
4. My friends have done both. Personally I think it’s a mistake to gun the British fleet down in the first turn in that scenario. Letting Pearl Harbor survive is a big mistake as it allows the US to accumulate a significant naval force 1-2 turns faster than usual.
5. Well, what do you mean by work? In the short term doing all of those things (both ICs, combining British fleet, sending us fighters and russian infantry) will indubitably control Japanese expansion. But past that it’s all up to what the US does. The ICs alone won’t stop Japan for long; if you look at the math Japan can overwhelm India on turn 3 even after doing Pearl Harbor. Japan simply has too many fighters to stop early on if he is focused on his targets. If the US continues to gun after Japan then you will stop Japan from being strong permanently, but then Africa will fall to Germany quickly. You always also have to keep a very careful eye on the UK because a tricky Germany player will pop out 6 transports in one turn and try to overwhelm the UK since he’s been building troops in India and is down all those IPCs in Africa.
6. A tough question no doubt. Like I said, I think it’s asking for trouble if you let Germany take over Africa, which means it’s a good idea to have the US liberate it early on. However, if the US doesn’t follow up on those ICs, then Japan will overwhelm them if he’s good.

I’m not really an expert on this as I haven’t tested it extensively in a while (I tried KJF a few months ago but I didn’t know a few tactics I know now). I would say though that if the Japan player is excellent, then nothing short of all 3 powers going after him will hinder him permanently. I have personally broken free of the sinkiang/indian IC very quickly without US naval support bogging me down. Good Japanese players realize that it’s OK to empty the mainland territories to charge straight into China; although it lets Russia/UK take a territory, this lets you completely and utterly bone the Sinkiang IC turn two, and you can always easily regain the coastal territories using your fighters and battleship bombardments. Your strategy is very good against perhaps low-mid level Japanese players though, looking at that combined British fleet and all those ICs on the mainland it bound to panic him.

I have some additional tips for KJF:

1. Take a good look at where the Japanese player is placing his first turn transport buys. If he is silly enough to place them in the outer Japan seazone, then blow them out of the water with the Hawaaiin fighter + Washington Bomber or just one of them. Believe it or not, the bomber can reach that outer seazone and land in Buryatia; fly up to eastern canada, then to western canada, then to that seazone bordering the north of western canda, then I think from there it’s 2 spaces to that seazone then 1 space into Buryatia, making for 6 spaces. It’s an almost instant game win if you destroy the 3 transports he builds there, and is very clever the first time you see it, although probably past then it will never work. Also if China somehow survived then the fighter there is in a great position to strike at either seazones that the transports deploy in. It takes an observant and clever Japanese player to protect his transports carefully.

2. Somtimes you can panic the Japanese player by consolidating 6 infantry into Buryatia as well as sending 2 tanks in Moscow to the east 2 spaces. Against good Japanese players this probably won’t affect their strategy but against people who haven’t seen it, they will usually panic and not attack China first turn because they’ll look at Manchuria and panic.

3. You can consolidate the British fleet into sz30 as well as sz38. Sz30 is much more out of the way of the Japanese navy than sz38, though if your intent is lure them into attacking your fleet with a lot of units then this isn’t the way to go. Putting them in sz30 though really forces the Japanese to keep an eye on it since it’s in a position to invade some islands. Load full infantry into both transports when you converge them into sz30 will make the Japanese player sweat a bit. He’ll have to keep his bship/car in west indies or you’ll invade it, and he’s not in a good position to attack your fleet with just that because he’ll probably take at least 2 hits and lose a fighter or so. He may be tempted to strafe you with all those infantry aboard but thats’ pretty much what you want because your navy will make him pay for the strafe (1 car + 1 or 2 fighters if the anglo egypt one survived, 1 sub, 1 destroyer, 2 trans).

Also Britain can send their bomber to sinkiang on turn one. This puts an additional monkey wrench in Japanese logistics if they’re used to buying all transports turn one. Now they have to protect their transports wherever they mobilize them, which means buying a destroyer or something which they normally wouldn’t do.

Another alternate monkey wrench move is instead of consolidating the fleets, do this: send the destroyer, carrier, and transport to attack the Kwangtung transport. Send the fighter and sub to attack the solomon island sub. The fighter will land on the US carrier =) Usually you’ll end up destroying the enemy sub before it can submerge. Now you have presented the Japanese with some thorns. Pearl Harbor is a little harder to attack now since he lost a sub and now that there’s an additional fighter defending there. Also now there’s this quirky fleet sitting next to Kwangtung which is poised to strike as new naval units being built if it isn’t instantly targeted by the Indies fleet. Sometimes you can incur a fighter casualty with this fleet when Japan strikes it (2 hits total).

4. When your US fleet is gunning after Japan, I personally believe that the best tactical maneuver is not to charge straight west into the Japan seazone (2 turns), but to drop down to Solomon islands. This puts Japan in a bind, because from here you can attack his money islands (boreno, philiippines, west indies) as well as the Japan mainland. He is going to be forced to attack you there, giving you the defending advantage, or risk you grabbing his money islands because he can’t defend nearly all of them and then deploying an IC there, which totally throws things out of whack for him.

There are a number of Japanese strategies to help counter these tricky KJF strategies, but I don’t want to go into them right now because I’m lazy. Besides a few tricks the basic goal is to wait for Germany to overcome Africa, take some Russian territories, and then either crush Moscow then go to India or surprise attack Britain.

But is it even possible to hold off a British / U.S. invasion in Europe while attacking Africa, all the while getting bombed? I would think not, unless one had lucky rolls. And if Russia was smart they would take advantage of the situation and pick apart any scattered German positions. In this situation, I think Japan has to do its part flawlessly, whatever that may be. Annoying U.S., trying to help roll up Russia, taking NZ Australia and India?

Sounds like a tough decision to make.

An IC in Anglo Egypt is the only one that makes sense, in my opinion. Africa is worth 12 IPCs per turn. If Germany, by buying an IPC in Africa, can hold Africa for an additional two turns, the benefits outweigh the cost, so it’s a good choice.