I love AA42, but the one thing I really hate is how pointless and almost impossible it is for Japan to seriously threaten the States. If they don’t want to, the US doesn’t even have to bother with the Pacific, and against quality opponents there is very little Japan can do to force them to. Japan might as well just focus all efforts in Asia for the classic JTDTM.
My solution: Change the production value of the Solomon Islands from 0 to 3.
You don’t even need to raise Japan’s total IPC count. Simply take one IPC away from Borneo, one away from East Indies (dropping both territories to a IPC value of 3), and remove Okinawa’s single IPC.
This change would make the game much more dynamic and global IMO. It gives the Japanese the option to place an IC on the Solomon Islands, and seriously threaten the Western United States, thereby forcing the U.S. to play and protect the Pacific. It could be, in effect, the Japanese version of Brazil.
Not only is it perfect with the way the SZ’s are laid out (the only way to reach the WUS in one turn is through Hawaii’s SZ52, thus making Hawaii and its SZ play a much more important role to the game than it currently does), but it also increases the importance of the U.S. holding Alaska. If it were to fall to the Japanese, it could serve as a potential landing point for bombers launching from the Solomons.
Lastly, it increases the tactical value of Australia and New Zealand for the UK, which I believe would make gameplay even better.
I’ve never played AA50 or AAR, (damn me for missing the initial release AA50. :|), but I assume that at least Revised could benefit from this change too, with the maps and setups being almost identical.
Thoughts or opinions?
I guess this thread perhaps belongs to another forum, but we had lots of discussions on the ipc values of different TTs, from Revised to AA50 and AA42, and what changes that should be implemented to make the game better, more historical, and more global.
This would be interesting to play out. Something would have to be done with the UK navy off Australia or else they could just take it. Maybe putting two inf on the island would be a deterrent. I imagine it would fall to America whenever they felt like taking it out, since they can outspend JP by 12 ipcs. If Japan sends all it’s navy there then Russia and UK are laughing. It would be nice to have more options in the Pacific but I still think it’s not enough to threaten America and would only distract Japan.
