Best posts made by aardvarkpepper

@taamvan said in Larry Harris Semi-Official Tournament Game Patch:

FYI, there is no preset bid for any version at the tournament besides Classic.

Thanks for posting!

Does GenCon not use bids that are placed on the board prior to the first round of play?

By “preplaced” I meant the players bid, then the winning bid is distributed as the player sees fit, the bid can be used to purchase then place up to one unit can be placed per territory/sea zone where a power already controls units, unspent IPCs remain in the bank. Is that not how it’s done?

The “preplaced bid” term is a holdover from 1942 Online balance discussions. Some players assert all balance issues can be solved with changes to the setup. I’ve asserted that “preplaced bid” is necessary so player bids can change if the meta advances (and to have a handicapping system).

If a bid is NOT used for GenCon 1942 Second Edition - it does use the LHTR setup? In your experience, USSR opens against West Russia and goes all-in against Ukraine, or sends only 2 tanks to Ukraine? Or do GenCon opens typically use West Russia only opens? Does USSR typically withdraw entirely from the coast, or bulk on Buryatia? Does it land both fighters on Kazakh, Archangel, Caucasus, or does it split, and if split where does each fighter land? (Granted it’ll change depending on opening dice results). Am I correct that UK fighters onto US fighters are an important component of KJF? Is a UK1 attack on Japan’s East Indies fleet (battleship, carrier, two fighters) standard?

You mentioned “before the 42.2 patch” games were imbalanced. How does KGF do at GenCon for 1942 Second Edition with the LHTR setup? Is there a preference for KJF over KGF? If there is a preference for KJF, what do Japan players tend to buy on Japan’s first turn?

My guess is there aren’t really firm answers to any of those questions. But I figure it won’t hurt to ask.

(edit - IRL I’d guess my most urgent and pressing question would be “are they out of spicy fries?” Usually come gametime I figure the prep’s either done or it’s not, but either way might as well enjoy myself. And I do like me some spicy fries.)

@theskeindhu said in All the Russian openings: For Begginers:

@aardvarkpepper Is this forum so active that you can be a dick? This is the most comprehensive thread on Russian openings, which is specifically my discussion, concerning stacking West Russia, enjoy your elitist attitude.

I reported your post, not for flaming, but for being off-topic.

The thread was started by Black Elk, specific to 1942 Second Edition. 1942 Online’s mechanics are different in many ways.

@theskeindhu said in All the Russian openings: For Begginers:

@aardvarkpepper Yea, sorry, should have clarified, I was referring to Larry Harris Gen 3, Axis and Allies online. I’ve been stacking West Russia turn 1 with everything minus fighters which obviously can’t land there first turn. 1 to Egypt, 1 to Szechwan along with one infantry. This has been my tactic and the most consistently successful, since I got tired of gambling a strafe on Ukraine and getting major League screwed enough times, including losing a fighter first round that I decided it wasn’t worth placing the entire fate of the game on round 1 luck. Germany has about 20% success rate rushing a West Russia against my stack R1. This, IMO is because AA isn’t working as intended, a known glitch. The odds improve if I have 6 dice rolling for 1’s and actually take out aircraft.

@theskeindhu said in All the Russian openings: For Begginers:

I took a hiatus and recently returned. I can’t win at all as the Allies. The most recent game I went conservative and stacked everything first turn on West Russia. Germany ignored the UK fleet and brought everything in to West Russia. They barely won and took Moscow round 3. I’m not a statistics guy, but is this a high probability attack? I lost 3 infantry opening attack, both AA Guns and every man was stacked West Russia.

I’d say bleeding off units towards China and Africa isn’t “standard”, but your identified issue is the G1 counter. You say you have respect for this thread, all right. But then you ought to have paid close attention to Black Elk’s notes on the W Rus only open. I quote

“Unfortunately for the Russians there is a slight problem, and that’s the 3 infantry, 1 artillery and 1 tank unit that Germany has occupying W. Russia at the beginning of the game. Four German fodder units that hit at a 2, and a tank that hits at a 3. It might not seem like much, but if the Russians have a poor opening salvo, or the Germans put up a stiff resistance, or if the combat drags out too long, this can easily bleed down the Russian forces to a point where the Allies are completely screwed right at the outset. For some people, a dicey opening like that can really sour the experience. Some might quit and surrender then and there. Some might request a reroll, or might ask for a bid to compensate for this possibility (A bid, for those who are unfamiliar, is a kind of balancing tool for A&A, that awards extra opening IPCs/Units to the underdog). Still others might look to change the game with house rules, or find different ways of rolling the dice altogether, which is basically the Low Luck approach I mentioned in the earlier post. All this to get around the issue of being totally diced at the outset . There are similar dicey battles in the first round for 1942.2 but few quite so critical as this opening battle for W. Russia”

I might disagree with Black Elk on points, but he did nail this one. You get bad dice on a W Rus only open, your eggs are all in one basket. If you eat a counter, you’re toast.

Loads of players use TripleA, which allows for preplaced bids, preplaced bids are standard for live games in my experience, and GenCon allows preplaced bids, I expect that’s just a normal part of the conversation. So naturally I’d start a 1942 Second Edition address by discussing the precise bid, perhaps around 11 to Allies with what I consider the usual practice of maximum one unit per territory/sea zone where a power already controls units, the merits of stabilizing a W Rus only open with USSR bid units in Europe versus stabilizing Africa with a UK bid, or changing the numbers on the UK1 attack against Japan’s East Indies fleet.

But 1942 Online doesn’t address any of those scenarios as there’s no bid. So I would either omit those topics (which wouldn’t be appropriate to a 1942 Second Edition board). Or I could derail the thread to start talking about 1942 Online specific stuff, which would be out of context and confusing to readers that were thinking about 1942 Second Edition. It really just wouldn’t be right.

Then too, think about your response. You write you’re experiencing issues, but you’re not departing from anything Black Elk wrote, nor are you directly addressing points he made. It’s reasonable that threads depart some from the main topic, but arguably you just fundamentally aren’t satisfied with the topic of this thread, which is Russian openings for beginners. If you were satisfied you’d live or die by the simple openings Black Elk described and that would be the end of it. But you want to dig deeper, for 1942 Online specifically.

1. I think transports used to cost 8, but now cost 7

2. Two rules are a little odd; I noticed they weren’t mentioned in the carrier / transport videos, figured they might have been saved for later but mentioning them just in case.

A) A fighter cannot use a planned retreat of a carrier when declaring plans to land the fighter. However, a fighter can assume a carrier can move to pick it up in noncombat phase even if a clearing attack would obviously fail. (e.g. single submarine attacks twenty battleships to “attempt” to clear a sea zone so a carrier may move through that sea zone during noncombat to land a fighter. The submarine won’t win (probably) but it’s an eligible move.)

I think that was in an errata or clarification.

B) Transports can’t enter hostile sea zones, but sea zones occupied by enemy submarines are not “hostile”. Only surface enemy ships create a “hostile” sea zone. An enemy submarine prevents a transport from - was it picking up? or dropping off? or both? and the transport can’t “ignore” the enemy submarine unless a friendly warship accompanies the transport.

A player asked about KJF (Kill Japan First), I replied KJF is no good in 1942 Online and that I’d put up a thread about it.

A couple myths to dispel. First, some players say there’s no real difference between 1942 Online and 1942 Second Edition. But not counting bugs like fighters not being able to perform legal moves or submarine locking, there are fundamental changes.

1. Inability to use allied carriers/transports
2. Inability to use live defender decisions (i.e. defensive profiles)
3. Assignation of casualties after each group of like-valued dice instead of end of sub-phase
4. Player having to assign “friendly/hostile” in combat movement phase instead of deciding which applies during combat phase

Perhaps others that I forget but that’ll do to be getting on with.

Second myth to dispel, that KJF is used at GenCon so must be viable in 1942 Online. GenCon has preplaced bid (by that, I mean players bid, the winning bid is used to pre-place units on the board). Thanks to Black Elk for mentioning the bid, and taamvan for clearing up the substance of the actual bid. GenCon games also have a real-time limit, games that are not won by one or another player by the regular rules are adjudicated and a winner chosen. These, along with 1942 Online’s rules changes, make GenCon1942 Second Edition very different to 1942 Online.

How does it all work out in practical terms?

First, about GenCon. If I understand correctly, if neither side has won normally when time is up, whichever side that’s captured more victory cities than the other is the winner. If the Allies push KGF (Kill Germany First), Germany can capture Karelia, Japan can capture India and possibly Hawaiian Islands. Of the victory cities Axis start with, if the Allies pushed in Atlantic, Japan is pretty secure at Kwangtung, Philippines, and Tokyo. Meanwhile Berlin is easily defended for a long time; that leaves France, Italy, and Karelia. But those are not easy targets. Especially with Japan’s help, Germany has an excellent chance of holding all of those for quite a while. Against a competent Axis defense, the Allies can hope to take one, or with good dice perhaps two - but since the Axis don’t even need to try to play normally and can simply fortify key victory cities if the game’s close to being called on time, that’s about all the Allies can hope for. The projection is a loss.

Contrast with KJF (Kill Japan First) at GenCon. Germany captures Karelia, but now the Allies can hope to win by victory city. Hawaiian Islands should not be lost, India may be held, and Philippines and Kwangtung can be contested.

Black Elk had commented on an Allied bid of 11-something some time ago. I had thought it would be used for a UK submarine in the Indian Ocean to stabilize the odds on UK1 attacking Japan’s East Indies fleet (Japan’s battleship, carrier, and two fighters), and to stabilize USSR’s holding in Europe. I posted questions about this, and if I understood taamvan’s reply correctly only the submarine was necessary, and the additional unit(s) in Europe (and/or Africa) were not deemed necessary. Which I find very interesting, but I won’t get into that here.

So what is different in 1942 Online? First, no preplaced bid, which makes the UK1 attack on Japan’s East Indies fleet very dicey. It’s very much an all-or-nothing attack; if UK doesn’t do well then even UK retreating probably sees UK getting blown up on Japan’s turn. But even that isn’t as bad as all the other things that pile on - no use of allied carriers, no live defender decisions, and even other purportedly “small” changes that rob a player of desperately needed fine control.

In 1942 Online if UK1 doesn’t hit Japan’s East Indies fleet, what are the alternatives? Before looking at that, let’s see what happens if UK1 hits Japan’s East Indies fleet without a bid.

http://calc.axisandallies.org/?mustland=0&abortratio=0&saveunits=0&strafeunits=0&aInf=&aArt=&aArm=&aFig=2&aBom=&aTra=&aSub=1&aDes=&aCru=2&aCar=1&aBat=&adBat=&dInf=&dArt=&dArm=&dFig=2&dBom=&dTra=&dSub=&dDes=&dCru=&dCar=1&dBat=1&ddBat=&ool_att=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Sub-SSub-Des-Fig-JFig-Cru-Bom-HBom-Car-dBat-Tra&ool_def=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Bom-HBom-Sub-SSub-Des-Car-Cru-Fig-JFig-dBat-Tra&battle=Run&rounds=&reps=10000&luck=pure&ruleset=AA1942&territory=&round=1&pbem=

54.3% for attacker, 44.2% for defender. The two-peak model indicates UK will win by a few units or lose by a few units. If UK wins, well and good. But if UK loses then Japan has a battleship and either an expensive carrier or dangerous fighter. That is, there’s a 44.2% (or whatever) chance that Allies pretty much suicide.

(EDIT - Kakarrot1138 pointed out attacker OOL (order of loss) should have carrier first.

http://calc.axisandallies.org/?mustland=0&abortratio=0&saveunits=0&strafeunits=0&aInf=&aArt=&aArm=&aFig=2&aBom=&aTra=&aSub=1&aDes=&aCru=2&aCar=1&aBat=&adBat=&dInf=&dArt=&dArm=&dFig=2&dBom=&dTra=&dSub=&dDes=&dCru=&dCar=1&dBat=1&ddBat=&ool_att=Car-Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Sub-SSub-Des-Fig-JFig-Cru-Bom-HBom-dBat-Tra&ool_def=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Bom-HBom-Sub-SSub-Des-Car-Cru-Fig-JFig-dBat-Tra&battle=Run&rounds=&reps=10000&luck=pure&ruleset=AA1942&territory=&round=1&pbem=

63.9% attacker wins, 30.8% defender, 5.8% tie.

Contrast if a submarine were added to UK’s attacking forces (not possible in 1942 Online)

http://calc.axisandallies.org/?mustland=0&abortratio=0&saveunits=0&strafeunits=0&aInf=&aArt=&aArm=&aFig=2&aBom=&aTra=&aSub=2&aDes=&aCru=2&aCar=1&aBat=&adBat=&dInf=&dArt=&dArm=&dFig=2&dBom=&dTra=&dSub=&dDes=&dCru=&dCar=1&dBat=1&ddBat=&ool_att=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Sub-SSub-Des-Fig-JFig-Cru-Bom-HBom-Car-dBat-Tra&ool_def=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Bom-HBom-Sub-SSub-Des-Car-Cru-Fig-JFig-dBat-Tra&battle=Run&rounds=&reps=10000&luck=pure&ruleset=AA1942&territory=&round=1&pbem=

80.2% attacker wins, or thereabouts. I think it was Baron Munchausen that pointed out some time ago you can improve the percentages by taking attacker subs last. That improves the numbers to 88.6%. One might think that the odds could similarly improve for one attacking submarine instead of two. But actually it isn’t so simple, as correctly understood, the sub hitting or missing is an all or nothing issue. If a submarine hits a battleship then the battleship isn’t around to fire, but if the submarine doesn’t hit the battleship then the battleship is around to fire. So what actually happens with one attacking submarine - if I trust the few runs of 10,000 trials on aacalc that I ran - is, the odds of attacker winning straight out do go up. But so do the odds of the attacker losing straight out. What decreases in return is the probability of a tie. So in the end, even changing OOL (order of loss) leaves the one-submarine-attack very much a coinflippy battle. (edit - after redoing order of loss with attacking carrier first per Kakarrot1138, attacker odds increase to 75.1%, defender to 36.1%. But there’s still a substantial risk to the attack.)

So we’ve looked at the UK1 attack on Japan’s East Indies fleet and understood the mathematical importance of the bid. If UK1 doesn’t hit Japan’s East Indies fleet, what of alternatives?

1. UK builds defensive fleet at India. Carrier, cruiser, 2 fighters, then let’s say UK adds a battleship and a destroyer. (I am NOT saying this is REMOTELY a good idea, I’m simply starting with an imaginary best-case scenario for UK, as if I can demonstrate the plan doesn’t work at the outset then there’s just no need to go into UK’s tempo loss and opportunity costs elsewhere.) Against this, let’s say Japan can bring a battleship, carrier, destroyer, five fighters, and bomber.

http://calc.axisandallies.org/?mustland=0&abortratio=0&saveunits=0&strafeunits=0&aInf=&aArt=&aArm=&aFig=5&aBom=1&aTra=&aSub=&aDes=1&aCru=&aCar=1&aBat=1&adBat=&dInf=&dArt=&dArm=&dFig=2&dBom=&dTra=&dSub=&dDes=1&dCru=1&dCar=1&dBat=1&ddBat=&ool_att=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Sub-SSub-Des-Fig-JFig-Cru-Bom-HBom-Car-dBat-Tra&ool_def=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Bom-HBom-Sub-SSub-Des-Car-Cru-Fig-JFig-dBat-Tra&battle=Run&rounds=&reps=10000&luck=pure&ruleset=AA1942&territory=&round=1&pbem=

shows 95.1% for Japan winning. Yes, I know, actually Japan can send six fighters to the battle, and that’s exactly what I would expect for a high-stakes relatively low-dice count battle, but let’s just say Japan decides to send a fighter somewhere else for mysterious reasons.

2. UK strafes Japan using its Australia units then retreats to India. The prize is the Japanese carrier; sinking it means Japan can only hit with four fighters instead of six. But again UK is stuck with a coinflip. We could talk about UK building multipurpose fleets that could be placed in Atlantic as a reserve in case the East Indies battle goes wrong, but if it does go wrong for UK then Japan buffered a hit with its battleship, will use its battleship to buffer another hit next turn, and UK will really not be in a good position at all.

1 and 2 together establish UK only has coinflippy chances to either destroy a chunk of Japan’s naval/air power, or to establish a UK surface fleet. In 1942 Second Edition US carriers can move into range then UK fighters land before Japan can hit. This moves the timeline on KJF up, and forces Japan to keep its fleet together more (as splitting may see UK fighters hit a weak target then land on US carriers). But in 1942 Online UK fighters can’t land on US carriers. That might not matter so much if UK could effectively reinforce but it can’t. More on this later.

@Kakarrot1138 said in Larry Harris Semi-Official Tournament Game Patch:

After playing online at the plat level for a couple months now, I can’t imagine having to decide a winner by round 7 or so. To me, the game would seem so shallow by comparison. Like it’s more about positioning for VC scrambles as the timer is running out to eek out one more than your opponent, than actually trying to hit 9/10 VCs. Like ending a chess game after 25 moves based on who has more material. Even though you can often tell if it’s gonna be a win loss or draw by that point, that evaluation is based on the fact that the end game is there to play out. But if a chess game was actually capped at 25 moves, people would play much differently. Likewise with this game. Of course, games can’t be allowed to go on for too long in an in-person tournament. Perhaps if both sides had like a 2 hour clock running down whenever it’s their turn (except in conduct combat phase?). Has this been suggested before?

“Plat level” likely means you’re playing 1942 Online, not 1942 Second Edition. 1942 Second Edition is very different, and GenCon is different on top of that. Pretty much all the points you bring up need to consider that context.

For example, clocks seem like a great idea - but we’re not talking about chess players that are used to clocks that go around carrying clocks. A lot of players won’t understand how to use a chess clock and will need to be taught. Even then, many will make mistakes that will require adjudication, or just won’t use the clocks. Then too there’s a question of who pays for the clocks? Players won’t necessarily have their own. And since the clocks aren’t personal property of the players in question, they’ll leave them on tables, unsupervised, and a certain number of these $25 USD clocks can be expected to “disappear” - not necessarily through any malicious intent. So you end up wanting maybe $500 worth of chess clocks, which isn’t necessarily an issue (maybe you could find a cooperative chess league that has a lot of clocks) - but in the end, someone has to be responsible for all of that, and has to pay for any losses.

Besides that is the question of how players take to the clocks. What if they just don’t like them? Suppose someone asks that the clock be stopped so they can use the bathroom. That could be an issue. If the clock is stopped, what about players that take a picture of the board before they go? What about players with disabilities? And you might feel that you have an answer to all these questions, but if you’re not personally administering each and every such question for the entire duration of the event, that means others are going to be involved in decisions. And nothing gets people angry so fast as uneven judge adjudication. Rule one way in one situation, another in another situation, accusations of favoritism start being thrown around. So you need to have detailed instructions available ahead of time, which half the judges won’t read - and there you go.

It’s not the clocks that are the issue so much as getting the whole system to work. I don’t think I’d say it’s a huge issue. But you can see where chess clocks wouldn’t be a thing that would necessarily just happen.

AFAIK at GenCon if you feel an opponent is delaying game, you can call over a judge. If you keep calling over a judge and the judge feels your repeat calls are warranted, they may do something. So there’s that. Not as good as clocks, perhaps, but perhaps enough?

As to being shallow - Axis and Allies is generally shallow. There’s no hidden information. No diplomacy. No exchanging one resource type for another. You don’t have mechanics as in chess like pinning, checking, castling, or promotion. Probability distributions seem complex but aren’t that difficult to understand.

That might seem like a lot to swallow, but you take a fighter out of a defense and say the win odds drop by 17%. Compare to chess, you have a pawn in the right position and you can checkmate. The possibilities in Axis and Allies collapse upon the control and location of industrial complexes. You don’t have “key squares” in chess like that, the center is important but it’s not the same.

All that’s done at GenCon is a few things are tweaked. Maybe they seem like big tweaks, and in some ways they are, but it’s really just another set of conditions. If you feel that improvements can be made - sure. But then, what would you specifically recommend - and not just what, but who and why?

I’m not saying why needs to be strictly defined, but I am saying it’s important to remember for context. If thinking about “why” all the time, the context becomes less “chess clocks should be a thing, get chess clocks”, and more “IF someone else thinks chess clocks are a good idea and is willing to do the administration and cost things, THEN perhaps chess clocks can happen”.

What should KJF/anti-KJF generally look like? There will be differences depending on dice results and player action, but assuming player competency I expect games to go something like this -

First, how I think it looks under 1942 Second Edition at GenCon (with bid). US pushes carriers to Solomons, UK flies fighters onto carriers, the combination is soon too much for Japan to get a good-odds battle, especially as Japan’s East Indies battleship, carrier, and two fighters are destroyed (and likely UK maintained some fleet on top of that). UK and US contest the money-islands and push Japan off the coast. UK and US have no very cost-efficient way of dealing with units Japan may have pushed into USSR’s interior, but it doesn’t matter so much at GenCon because drawn-out games are adjudicated anyways. If the game were to continue, though, UK fighters can reposition to defend Russia while US handles containing Japan and lends support.

1942 Online doesn’t look like that at all. Japan is far more likely to have its East Indies fleet, if UK even attempted an attack, UK fighters can’t land on US carriers, and if Japan is competently played, UK and US can’t effectively reinforce one another. Why? Japan offloads ground units to Yunnan that push Burma. This has to happen regardless; if Japan only produces navy and air then it gets rolled up in Asia then has no income to fight, and Germany has a much harder time aiding the recovery. Besides that, Japan only producing navy/air leaves the Allies a lot more flexibility as they don’t have nearly as many cost-efficient Japanese ground units to deal with.

In 1942 Online, then, what happens with Japan’s fleet off Yunnan? (Japan’s fleet might not go there immediately, but certainly by J3 that’s the expectation - and the only major exceptions are if there’s some sort of opening due to dice or player blunder that Japan is exploiting, so those lines don’t play out any better for Allies).

Note Yunnan’s sea zone is in striking range of India’s sea zone. Any new fleet UK places at India can immediately be punished. Then look at Asia’s coast. What happens if Japan temporarily loses position? Nothing. It’s not great, especially if USSR gets Manchuria and/or other territories that give USSR a nice bit of income. But it’s not a disastrous position for Japan or the Axis in general just so long as Japan doesn’t fight a major losing battle. Japan should threaten the Allies off as long as convenient and withdraw when the pressure becomes too much.

Put those together, and see how the game should play out in 1942 Online. Japan can cut off any UK attempt to build a Pacific fleet. It’s possible that UK might be able to establish some naval presence even with accurate Axis play, but in all likelihood the best-case scenario is still Japan destroying any UK fleet at some cost to Japan. From there the Axis position isn’t fantastic but any money UK put in to fight Japan is less Germany ever has to deal with, and even though US can grab all the money islands and southeast Asia, meanwhile Japan can have captured India, still be pressuring USSR, and be taking African income on top. Japan simply doesn’t care about temporary losses in the Pacific and Asian coast; once Russia and Caucasus fall to Axis, India follows, then it’s 15 Axis units being produced in the region to fight off any US aggression.

Yes, there’s variations, but variations aren’t really better for the Allies in 1942 Online. If UK does manage to keep some sort of UK fleet alive in Indian/Pacific, it still has to get those units to reinforce US. But with Japan posted off Yunnan, the only safe route for UK to travel is towards Australia. It’s a costly delay that the Allies can’t afford; by the time UK (if UK even has a fleet) unites with US, it’s very late, and Germany and Japan have made inroads on Asia.

Even all that assumes Japan simply loses in Asia, but that is not at all a safe assumption. Because of all the ways 1942 Online cripples KJF, I believe Japan is fairly safe building so it ends its turn with four transports barring aggression plus lucksack. The scenarios are 1) UK hits East Indies fleet, in which case the Kwangtung transport and Japan transport are alive; then Japan can build 1 carrier 2 transports and end with 4 transports. 2) UK hits Kwangtung destroyer/transport then Japan can likely destroy any UK navy lurking in the Indian/southwest Pacific (especially as it has its battleship, carrier, and fighters still), and builds three transports and ground. The exception is 3) if UK hits Kwangtung’s destroyer/transport and Japan’s East Indies fleet, and against odds wins at both regions.

So far I’ve addressed why 1942 Online KJF variations involving UK surface navy are horribly awkward. I have yet to address subs/air, air only, and ground push.

Recap: First, I looked at UK1 counter to G1, concluding it made sense to submerge the USSR sub as it isn’t needed on defense. Then, I looked at the numbers on 5 to sz7 1 to East Canada sea zone, vs 6 to sz7, and listed some of the relevant numbers.

Which is going in reverse a bit but whatever.

I mentioned earlier a lot comes down to things outside the realm of simple calculations. In the case of 6 or 5 to sz7, it comes down to, do you want to reduce risks and play a conservative strategy? Or do you think a conservative strategy simply doesn’t work? (Or “overly conservative strategy”, whatever.)

What if playing the Axis well requires taking on a certain amount of risk? Aren’t “top players” recommending 6 units to sz7, yet also saying Allies are advantaged? 🤔

“And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning 'That path leads ever down into stagnation.” - Dune, by Frank Herbert

==

Successful KJF relies on Allied timing. In 1942 Second Edition at GenCon this is accomplished by a bid that drastically changes the probability distributions on the opening, and Allied coordination that quickly pushes to contain Japan. Speed is essential; once Japan is contained, UK can switch its fighters from defending US’s fleets to defending Russia where defense will by then be badly needed.

1942 Online has no bid and makes a load of rules changes that take any semblance of fine control away from competent players. The Allies can try any number of variations, but there is no way to fix the timings. Even if allied use of carriers were implemented, other changes in 1942 Online turn what should be a coordinated attack into a ham-fisted tragedy.

To directly answer the question posed about KJF / anti-KJF -

If you are running KJF you need to find a way to slow Germany’s progress in Europe while pushing Pacific. Barring extraordinary dice, this should not happen if the Axis player is sharp.

If you are running anti-KJF you need to prevent UK and US from combining surface fleets in the Pacific for as long as convenient, particularly any UK carrier. You must not cower building only navy/air trying to “defend” Japan’s islands, that just forces Japan into a corner in which once it loses (as it inevitably will), there is no fallback. Rather, push ground, capture India, then Japan has a second territory far removed from Japan to build its navy (if it so chooses) or to serve as a springboard to push harassing units to Europe/Asia and/or Africa. Whatever losses you take on the Pacific coast will be regained once Germany captures Russia, then Germany’s ground masses head into Africa and Asia and Japan uses its massive navy and air force to push the Allies off the coast.

Edit - “push ground” doesn’t mean pure ground. After seeing US1 Pacific fleet drop, Japan tries to push six ground two submarines until US interdicts Japan’s waters (making any submarine builds unsafe unless Japan commits its fleet to defense which it often doesn’t want to do.) Japan switches to bomber production before the turn it plans to shift its transports from the Japan-Yunnan drops to a Yunnan-India drop (the transports won’t be in position next turn to pick up from Japan anyways and bombers help threaten India provided Japan managed to hold Burma to give an eligible landing zone). Later Japan switches to fighters that help deal with a growing US invasion threat but that can also fly inwards towards Asia/Europe to help pressure USSR and/or push off any UK fleet (if UK built an Atlantic fleet). It’s quite easy for Japan to get into situations in which it’s producing only three ground a turn at India and fighters on Japan - then might switch even that into naval production at India and nothing on Japan.

This thread is lengthy, but is not meant to be a comprehensive address. Some of the stuff not mentioned - the basic theoretical foundation including stack building/bleeding anticipating single attacker against multiple defenders, income, production, logistics, and their application to the aforementioned, starting position, KJF variations including Alaska tanks, US to southwest Pacific, UK IC on Egypt, USSR1 West Russia only open, Germany’s Med fleet, more detailed projections - quite a lot left out. Regardless, the points I made apply across the board; in 1942 Online the Allies can’t coordinate properly at all, so KJF is not good.

@nosho said in First time Playing in over 2 months:

. PNRG is a valid approximation of randomness, that has also been proven repeatedly.

hasn’t.

I wrote at the beginning I didn’t intend to write out detailed projections with numbers and that I fully intended to leave a lot unaddressed.

By now you can perhaps see why this is my usual practice; I try to at least give enough that newer players will understand there is real reasoning behind claims I make, yet not so much that they’re swamped with branches, contingencies, statistical breakdowns, and the like. More experienced players get a few key details to consider for their own projections, but a lack of detailed projections shouldn’t be an issue as they should be running their own projections anyways. It’s really only players that want some sort of flowchart that will be disappointed, but oh well.

The real question now is will Board Game Nation release a Sealion video, and what will be in it?

I predict some mixture of Baltic defensive navy (perhaps a destroyer) and transports, and Mediterranean fleet captures Gibraltar. Transports are how Germany tries to push UK into building ground instead of air, which means less UK options against a potential German unified fleet (or even against the Baltic fleet if Germany’s Med fleet retreats to Med). I think US1 build of carrier/fighters and flying 2 fighters to East Canada will be correctly predicted. I think USSR1 fighter on Archangel may not be predicted. That last is only a guess, but I did feel Mr. Blevins was optimistic about Sealion’s mathematical projections based on informal comments, and though under some dice outcomes it’s very reasonable to argue USSR should leave a fighter on Archangel, there’s also reasonable argument that under other dice outcomes USSR shouldn’t leave a fighter on Archangel.

And though there’s a really lengthy argument against Sealion that involves complications (remember this thread is not the “lengthy argument”, this is sort of like 40% of the Cliff Notes version) I don’t think Mr. Blevins will get into that, not because of any shortcoming, but you can see by watching some videos that he respects the viewers’ time.

So will he decide to do a narrow focus on one particular version of Sealion, which will be relatively short, entertaining, and give viewers things to consider?

Or will he try to actually address everything starting from the ground up, and end up with something that, well, let’s just say it would be complicated.

I have a lot of respect for Mr. Blevins and the quality of his work, but I have to wonder. 23 years after Don Rae’s essays, is this really the moment when someone finally advances the common discourse with proper mathematically supported analysis of Axis and Allies lines of play for common discussion? Is this when we finally take the first big step beyond Don’s Essays? Seems a lot to hope for, and I don’t mean because Don Rae is an iconic unknowable legend or whatever mysticism. I mean you read Don Rae’s essays once you have some understanding of the mathematics and principles, you see how much he left unsaid that he obviously understood. For 23 years and counting nobody including Don decided to go beyond that point.

http://donsessays.freeservers.com/axisand.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xYXUeSmb-Y

Exciting, isn’t it? But let’s not try to pile too much on with the expectations.

I predict the video will have Japan sending airforce to Europe. Not just because I think that’s what Japan should always do against KGF, but there’s a lot of stuff I left unsaid about how the Axis best pursue their options. But I think though the Axis actions may be reasonably predicted, I am not so sure about the Allies. Like the point I made about US blocking a German fleet holed up in the Baltic, just dig up any talk about Sealion in 1942 Second Edition or 1942 Online and where do you see talk of the specific timing and costs of Germany’s Baltic fleet, the timing of a US destroyer blocker, the timing and placement of Japan’s air, how it strains Japan to deny US the destroyer block which requires Japanese air far in the west of Europe, how exactly Japan’s attack on India plays out - I mean, the details are not there in common discussions.

Again, not that I’m an original thinker, as far as I’m concerned other players figured it all out years ago but just never bothered to write it down. But it wasn’t written down anywhere I know of. So?

My final prediction is what projections are run will be limited to the first 7 rounds-ish. Again, it’s just a guess, but if you have an optimistic opinion of Sealion, round 4 is right about when Germany looks really fantastic with loads of what seem to be good options. It’s only after the early Allied purchases and strategy start to catch up and Axis starts getting choked out and countered that things start to go downhill, but with accurate play by both sides the resolution can get pushed back, By about round 7, the Axis position shouldn’t be picked apart by any means, but there should definitely be some areas of concern that the Axis need to worry about, and the longer you run reasonable projections, the more you see UK/US building up transports, dropping units into Finland/Norway, breaking into and holding Karelia (especially with USSR’s help), then reinforcing Russia with cost-effective ground units. And Germany’s Baltic fleet gets stranded, it can’t reasonably be reinforced as Germany’s already weakened its stacks horribly and Germany can’t even drop carriers for Japanese fighters, it just starts getting very questionable the longer it goes. (Again, if talking about a transposition pushing the German Baltic fleet into Mediterranean, trying that line of play would have been better to build a G1 Med carrier in the first place. If it was about a German Med carrier it would be about a German Med carrier, but it’s about Sealion, which is Baltic, so why even talk about the inferior transposition if the emphasis is elsewhere? If you’re thinking about the possibility of testing an opponent for accurate play and reasonable Axis outcomes then your game looks great at round 4, reasonable at round 7, that’s where I predict the emphasis will be as I think it’ll be an optimistic view of Sealion outcomes. After round 7 is about when various Allied options can really start to build up pressure, maybe even a real squeeze, so that’s why I think the emphasis of the video won’t be there. But who knows? Maybe I missed something.

(Provided the Allies undertake reasonable lines of play btw.)

Well, we’ll just have to see won’t we.

Board Game Nation hype!

The problem is G2 Sealion just isn’t a great threat, there isn’t a great Axis transition (that I can think of anyways) out of the Allied counters, including a G3 Sealion buildup. UK doesn’t even need to sacrifice its placement in India under some lines, there’s just so many problems.

Say G1 Baltic carrier, battleship and transport take Gibraltar. You want to pressure UK, maybe get it to do things it doesn’t like to do, that’s the general idea right?

But then all the problems I referenced earlier come back to bite Germany, and more besides.

What is the position of the German battleship in the Mediterranean? Southwest or southeast of Gibraltar? If southeast, then UK has something like a 75% to kill the German battleship with destroyer/bomber, which let’s be real, it’s not a great battle for UK, it’s a low dice count high risk battle, but if the German battleship is cleared then it’s going to really screw with Germany’s fleet survivability in the Atlantic (which I’ll get to later). At 75%, there’s a real chance the Allies decide to just go with the attack, and even if the Allies lose, as significant as the bomber may have been to the UK defense it may not be that much of an issue, which I’ll get to later.

What’s the position of German air? If the German battleship is southeast, then at the end of the turn there’s a 33% chance of a German fighter on Morocco, or a 67% chance the German fighter died against the UK cruiser. Because if UK has destroyer/cruiser/bomber against German battleship, well, that’s just going to suck.

But no, you say? If you want to threaten Sealion then you want to preserve Germany’s airforce, which you would reasonably want to do anyways regardless of whether the Allies may go KGF or KJF, which you wouldn’t know for sure about on G1 anyways? So it is NOT a 33% of German fighter on Morocco and 67% German fighter died, because you split a German submarine off to accompany the Berlin fighter?

Very well. And really, if you have a 75% of just destroyer/bomber clearing the German battleship, you don’t want the 1/3 chance of a lone German fighter utterly failing against the lone German cruiser, which brings the expectation of Germany’s battleship being lost before G2 (assuming UK attacks) to 82%. So splitting off a submarine does make sense. But then you’re down to two submarines, cruiser, and two fighters at the UK battleship fight, which increases your risk there. And we know the UK East Canada destroyer and transport survived, and we know the US East US destroyer and transports survived.

Since we know the German cruiser left the Baltic, now the Baltic fleet is vulnerable to the USSR submarine which has 60% win against a lone carrier, or a UK air attack with a USSR fighter followup from Archangel.

But no? The Baltic fleet is safe because G1 built a destroyer? Very well. Then the G2 push on Ukraine is seven units down.

You see what I’m getting at? Every time Germany tries to squeeze out, the net closes elsewhere. There just isn’t one superior option that says “look, you win with Sealion, this is what the mathematics says”.

Back to the German battleship positioning. If southeast of Gibraltar it can be blocked by a destroyer. Germany only has one discretionary submarine in the Atlantic without sacrificing its odds on the UK battleship and even if that submarine wasn’t sent to the UK cruiser there’s still both the UK and US destroyers in range to block and Japan can’t clear either.

And if Germany’s battleship is southwest? Then UK has destroyer, two fighters, and bomber to destroy the battleship outright.

So what’s Germany’s invasion force? Since Germany’s Med fleet won’t factor in, Germany’s Sealion is then 1 infantry, 1 tank, 5 fighters. That’s it.

Against that UK has 1 antiaircraft gun, 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank, 2 fighters, 1 bomber. Setting order of loss to AA, infantry, artillery, tank, bomber, fighter (not even a serious defense)

https://aacalc.freezingblue.com/

Less than 11% attacker wins, and UK literally builds nothing on London, we’re not worried about USSR flying in a fighter from Archangel. Germany doesn’t even get a cheap shot on the bomber because the odds of a successful invasion are so low the Allies can take that chance, and as to why there’s only 1 bomber on London, well, that assumes the UK bomber blew up trying to hit the German battleship and failed. but US flew in a bomber.

But that’s all? That’s all there is to “sealion doesn’t work”? No.

You start looking at these different lines and transpositions and timings and counters and think about what reasonably might happen. So let’s do that. Without digging too deep into the mathematics and each of the branches, let’s just think about the different ways sealion can be opened, how it can play out, how the game develops.

1. Africa. If Germany tries to blow up East Canada and/or East US fleets, that’s going to have an impact. If Germany tries to control access to French West Africa that’s going to make a difference, and not just for UK/US in Africa, but for USSR’s options in Europe too. The problem Germany just doesn’t have a load of great options to begin with, you drop 14 IPC on a carrier and Germany has even fewer options, you drop 8 more IPC on a destroyer and the options are even worse, and you drop 12 IPCs on a bomber for Africa (and for other purposes), then you might as well just set Germany on fire and get some marshmallows.

2. Going heavy into London. Say Germany builds a carrier and three transports, now Germany’s invasion fleet even after the block is 4 infantry 4 tanks 5 fighters, how about that ha ha! But okay, you cut 12 units off the G4 Ukraine push, if you don’t think that’s going to be an issue, well, it will be. The German fleet has lousy survivability, you have to keep back the cruiser, you’re going to risk precious German air in the UK battleship fight, you have almost a 12% chance of the German Med battleship dying to the lone UK cruiser, but let’s not be party poopers and let’s just have a fun pretend game where Germany actually has this thing whatever.

Okay so then what? You have no fodder against the UK cruiser, now the Berlin fighter has to take its chances, but if Germany stays southeast of Gibraltar it’s easily blocked anyways. So let’s say Germany goes southwest of Gibraltar which also helps with the German fighter. Then UK can hit with destroyer, two fighters, and bomber, that’s the German battleship dead and the transport too. So again, there’s no great options for Germany’s Med fleet, you can say you could potentially remove a bomber off defending London or you get some positional pressure, but it’s not great, and you’re not going above 4 infantry 4 tanks 5 fighters in any event.

UK builds 2 infantry 1 artillery for India (not giving up anything there), drops 7 infantry on London, US bomber flies in. Again the Allies go with order of loss AA, infantry, artillery, tank, bomber, fighter. No cheap shots for Germany to take advantage of defensive profile settings.

Now again, we know if Germany’s battleship is southeast of Gibraltar then it can be blocked. UK’s air is not at risk. If Germany’s battleship is southwest of Gibraltar then UK has massive odds and might lose a bomber.

https://aacalc.freezingblue.com/

So just off that, say the defenders are 1 AA gun, 9 infantry 1 artillery 1 tank, 2 bombers (1 UK, 1 US), two fighters. That’s the order of loss, I want to emphasize the Allies are not even taking the invasion threat terribly seriously at that point, as it only has a 15.4% anyways.

But if the Allies do take it seriously? One less infantry on India, one more on UK. Attacker odds drop to 8%. UK transports the East Canada tank in. Attacker odds drop to 3.1%. USSR flies in a fighter from Archangel. Attacker odds drop to 0.6%.

And if Germany follows up with 5 transports? No no, let’s say 6, no, 7 transports! If Germany goes G1 carrier/3 transports that’s 6 IPCS left, it then only needs 43 IPCs for the 49 it needs for 7 transports. That’s definitely got to do it, right?

But no. UK drops 8 more units on London, US drops 8 more units (US1 2 fighters to East Canada, 2 transports to East Canada, builds carrier and fighters, US2 lands 4 fighters 4 land units on London).

It’s not all peaches and cream for the Allies, the Axis are going to be able to pick some targets off. But how can Germany spend 70 IPCs on units with no combat characteristics and not expect to pay for it somewhere down the line? When does Germany move out of the Baltic? US already has 4 fighters and a bomber, and if UK is trapped on London then it doesn’t really need a lot more ground, not just because US is sending in reinforcements, but simply because Germany is running out of units it can transport over from Europe. If Germany goes into carriers, UK can drop cheap subs, if Germany builds a destroyer, UK can drop subs in multiple zones and air and say “come and get some”, with USSR running all over Europe it’s not great.

But there’s compensations? Sure. It’s not like Germany was going to be able to develop its push on USSR too well until G4 anyways even if Germany had stuck to G1/G2 infantry/artillery buys. Germany has a load of mobility and can dump to Karelia at will, also Germany has assured income in Finland, Norway, and maybe even Africa, though that’s maybe asking for a bit much, who knows, it’s not like I’m saying UK was adding its India/Africa fighters to London’s defense. (Again, I’m saying the Allies just have so much they can put on London, maybe it’s not even necessary). Maybe you get the collapse of India, maybe you have a glut of UK units on London, but then what happens?

Well, you have UK stranded and getting its income choked off at Africa, let’s say this is reasonable to claim and nice for the Axis. But then what? Once the Allies blow up the Baltic fleet, which is not long in coming, then UK can use transports to drop all those London units into Europe. There will be some inefficiencies, but with UK’s income being cut from Africa anyways, UK was never going to meet maximum output on London anyways. By UK overbuilding transports to 5 or 6, all that happens is London empties out relatively quickly, Germany certainly doesn’t have the land units in Europe to contest, and the game quickly develops to where UK/US secure Karelia and join the rampaging USSR against the also-rampaging Japan, Germany gets rolled up, Africa contested, and that’s that.

How does that not happen? Especially in 1942 Online.

Germany builds carriers then Japan lands fighters? Not an option in 1942 Online. It wasn’t an early option anyways as Japan’s fighters want to be in range of India, and Baltic is just too far, but with 1942 Online you remove the mid/late game transition, and it’s just too bad.

Germany builds navy and withstands the Allied air assaults? The moment Germany stops heaping on the transports, UK drops air. UK knows it wants air to blow up Germany’s navy, the air helps defend London, after the Atlantic is controlled by Allies UK fighters still help with trading, UK air (esp. bombers) can support in Africa. The only reason UK doesn’t drop air is if UK is dropping transports, and that’s even worse for Germany as UK starts eating up European income.

Germany fights back USSR in Europe and UK/US in Atlantic? With what army? G2-G3 might not be so bad, but eventually a lack of German ground units will take its toll; if G1 had massive naval investment that’s going to be an ugly G4, if G2 had a followup massive naval investment and even G3, then USSR just starts flexing all over Europe. It’s not even normal USSR development, when USSR sees the G1 buy they start thinking about R2 tank builds, if that doesn’t happen, then certainly you start seeing R3 tank builds if USSR can push and hold in Europe against Germany. If USSR manages to collapse Karelia, then you’re looking at possible USSR income in Norway and Finland, and that’s just a nightmare for the Axis with USSR already fat from income from West Russia, Baltic States, Belorussia, Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria-Romania, wherever.

3. Germany goes hard into Atlantic. Baltic is a dead end, and how does Germany build up in Atlantic, exactly, to meet a combined UK/US fleet? If Germany wants to move its Baltic fleet into the Mediterranean to escape, it has to get past the US build at East US sea zone, and even Germany trying to escape the Baltic as early as G2 may be too late.

We’re saying Germany’s Baltic fleet is carrier, two fighters, then either a cruiser or a destroyer, right? UK’s starting air force on London is 2 fighters 1 bomber, UK can build 2 fighters on UK1 yet still build 3 ground units on India.

So UK can have 4 fighters 1 bomber to challenge Germany’s defensive fleet of 1 destroyer or cruiser, 1 carrier, 2 fighters. UK has superior unit count, superior attack versus defense, and unlike Germany, UK may not hesitate to take on good-odds naval battle.

Germany hesitate to take good-odds naval battles? But why? At the opening of this thread I mentioned Germany’s logistics and starting position. I wrote even if Germany has a good-odds attack on UK/US fleet in Atlantic it may still be best for Germany to decline any such battles, as Germany needs to worry about USSR stacks; if Germany is trading with UK and US and losing German air then that not only weakens Axis options against UK/US in Atlantic later, that also reduces Germany’s ability to challenge the combined Allied Europe land stack. Even if Germany has superior odds, Germany has to roll the dice and risk a lot of air if UK builds a reasonable-sized fleet, and dealing with opening Allied fleet in the Atlantic can mean Germany has merely excellent instead of overwhelming odds.

What that means is if Germany has 4 fighters against UK destroyer, carrier, and two fighters, it may not be a great battle even if Germany accepts a little risk, for strategic reasons. But if UK has 4 fighters and bomber against a German destroyer or cruiser, carrier, and two fighters, yes, UK really can’t afford to replace its air, yes UK ideally wants to get away without building more air so it can load up on faster transports and naval escorts, but on the balance, it’s not strategically wrong for UK to take a good odds battle that will reduce Axis options against Atlantic later and also weaken Axis options against the combined Allied European land stack.

It’s not about IPCs in abstract context, it’s not even about probability distributions, I’m talking about general strategy.

So if UK already has a major threat lined up against a German Baltic fleet and no real reason not to take it, then what? Remember too, even if you switch up scenarios on the fly and say UK air isn’t that strong because UK took casualties in a projected battle against the German battleship, that probably means the German battleship is dead, and since we know US1 built carrier/2 fighters against the possibility of Germany doing G2 7 transport build, we know the US has its own followup of 4 fighters 1 bomber - and that assumes the US China fighter is irrelevant (probably true) and the Hawaiian Islands fighter out of the picture (who knows).

Even if you say Germany immediately tries to unite its Baltic and Mediterranean fleets northwest of France on G2, that’s very possibly German forces of 1 destroyer or cruiser, carrier, two fighters, battleship, against UK 4 fighters 1 bomber on UK2 then US 4 fighters 1 bomber on US2.

But it’s a shifting goalposts argument? It can’t be that UK is building 7 ground on London and 2 fighters? If USSR is moving fighters to London, then those USSR fighters are out of position in Europe and maybe the Allied combined defense can’t stand? Just as the Axis need to make choices, so do the Allies, and the Allies need to defend multiple threats, which is exactly the theoretical strength of Sealion?

That’s why when describing German threats and Allied London defenses I emphasized the actual numbers and how much safety margin the Allies need to play with. When you get panicky new players that realize London might be invaded (oh no!) they use the East Canada transport to move a tank into London, they don’t have any USSR air in range to reinforce London, they build a US battleship or something, they build 6 infantry 2 tanks on London and don’t build in India - just knee-jerk costly overreaction that costs them, and the Axis clean up.

But when you get cold-eyed competent Allied players, everything looks different. Go ahead, Germany, take the 80% chance of London invasion failure, lose your whole air force, I dare you. Go ahead, take your four fighters and hit my destroyer, carrier, and fighters, I’ll replace the fleet which will be costly, but you’ll lose air that Germany can’t really afford to replace that will cost Axis tactical options later. Go right ahead, let’s roll these dice on French West Africa, kill a US destroyer and transport with a German fighter, if you fail you die, if you win the German fighter probably dies to the Allied counter, if the German fighter escapes and Germany fortifies northeast Africa and UK retains its Egypt income, those are all acceptable outcomes. Go right ahead and roll those dice, Germany.

And since the Allies have so much safety margin, they can afford to do things like leave some UK/US fighters on West Russia. You notice how in my projections I didn’t account for the US Szechwan fighter or UK Indian Ocean / Egypt fighters? Because they’re just doing whatever they usually are up to in Asia and/or Europe. The Allies are not panicking, they’re taking the bull by the horns, and if UK/US fighters end up on West Russia on UK2/US2, that’s reasonable and gives the Allies even more options for defense against Sealion.

And to wrap up the “shifting goalposts” counter, I know I’ve thrown a lot at the reader (still horribly oversimplified and leaving a lot out, but oh well). But when I talk about shifting goalposts, in the context of a reasoned argument, I’m not using the sort of shifting goalposts reasoning I’ve seen others try, that after the fact of their committing to build and moves, and an opponent committing to a counter, that they go back in time and change what they had built and moved to begin with. That’s really “shifting goalposts”!, it’s not even a reasoned argument, it’s just silly phantom armies popping out of nowhere (with time travel!)

But when I say it looks like shifting goalposts here - it’s not really. It’s just I’ve thrown so much at the reader it’s hard to keep track of. I mentioned UK can build 7 infantry or 2 fighters on London, it clearly can’t be both, wouldn’t it be magical thinking to say UK can choose? But there’s no magic or time travel involved. Think about the turn order. If G1 builds three transports then UK1 builds 7 infantry after the G1 build. If G1 does not build three transports then UK1 builds 2 fighters after the G1 build. UK simply responds after the fact to the German action.

Just as Germany has reserve options I didn’t dig into, so too do the Allies. I’m not saying the Allies ever have 100% safety at all key locations, that’s exactly the mistake that newer players make that end up costing them in the end. But I am saying the Allies can ramp up the risks to the Axis with reasonable lines, then probably the Axis don’t come off that great.

So you can see already, even if Germany adds its Mediterranean battleship to the Baltic fleet on G2 northeast of France, the German combined fleet can still be destroyed. This is a reasonable projection that Germany needs to anticipate.

So now we say, what if Germany goes heavy in Baltic? Destroyers, submarines, whatever? What I’ve tried to establish so far is Germany’s G2 options may not necessarily be that great if Germany tries to escape the Baltic. But what if Germany doesn’t try to escape?

Let’s say Germany builds a couple destroyers on G2. That’s less ground in Europe. It’s not some horrible situation unless Germany decided to go G1 destroyer and bomber build as well; if Germany went 9 infantry 1 carrier it can get reasonable positions early on.

But then what? Germany hasn’t increased its invasion options against London, UK doesn’t need to build more ground on London. Yes, UK doesn’t want to build air, UK wants to ideally build transports and escorts. But the German Baltic fleet has to be dealt with. So right about then is when the UK India/Egypt fighters start to swing up to West Russia for sure - if India has to be abandoned not great but whatever. So instead of UK2 having 4 fighters 1 bomber, UK3 has perhaps 8 fighters 1 bomber. You can imagine how that might be a problem since the German Med battleship won’t be able to defend the Baltic on G3.

No, the German Med battleship can reach? How? If G2 united with the Baltic fleet northwest of France, you already saw how UK and US probably destroyed the whole fleet. If G2 retreated the Mediterranean battleship back to the Mediterranean and bulked up at Baltic, then maybe you have German destroyer/cruiser, 2 German destroyers, German carrier, 2 German fighters against UK 4 fighters 1 bomber, but if Germany doesn’t do anything more on G3 to defend, the UK3 threat is 8 fighters 1 bomber; superior attack, superior attacker count, no strategic reason not to take the battle.

Just how does Germany get its Mediterranean battleship to join the defense? It just doesn’t happen except in bad theorycrafting because UK and US can blow it up before it gets in range. Or if Germany is assumed to have massive naval buildup maybe then, but that’s just bad theorycrafting in another way, somehow Germany is dropping all these IPCs on navy and what exactly is happening with USSR making grabs for European income? It’s not the worst situation for Germany, there’s some nice options, but it’s not going to be a picnic as the game goes on.

So let’s say by G3 Germany built . . . a carrier! And let’s even say that for argument’s sake we’ll say Germany did a G2 build of 2 destroyers 1 carrier in the Baltic (!) (Remember this is going to mean exactly how many German land units lost to the Europe push down the line?) and somehow Germany didn’t pay through the nose in Africa though Germany kept its battleship in range of the sea zone northwest of France (!) (how this happens I don’t know, but if we’re going to start with some magical assumptions then sure whatever let’s make a few for argument’s sake) and maybe you get G3 combined fleet of two destroyers, destroyer or cruiser, two carriers, four fighters, and battleship northeast of France. I mean, that’s GOT to be good, right? UK3 threat of 8 fighters 1 bomber against superior defender count (UK West Russia fighters reach with a UK carrier build), then there’s a US followup, okay maybe it’s not looking so great after all, but maybe it’s still reasonable.

So there Germany is, all proud of its great accomplishment, and let’s acknowledge the Allied response is going to cost the Allies somewhere. But while we’re admiring Germany’s huge fleet northwest of France, let’s also admire how the Germans spent 44 IPCs on navy leaving far less for USSR to deal with in Europe eventually, and moved 4 fighters to a position that’s totally irrelevant to most of Europe or Africa. Yes, the German positions on G1-G2 may not suffer overmuch, yes Germany still put out ground and is going to get some sort of reasonable position for a while, but all this German expenditure is going to be an issue eventually. And what has Germany really gotten out of this horribly expensive fleet? Long-term income in Africa? Improved logistics to Karelia? Compared to the massive costs, the benefits really aren’t there. Germany looks great in the Atlantic for the moment, but this is Germany’s shining moment then the sun starts to set.

By this time, the Allied position in Europe is so strong and UK/US have so much air, weird new options start opening up.

There are three sea zones around UK. What if UK drops a submarine at each of those sea zones? Germany can hunt isolated submarines down with destroyers at expected net IPC gain in terms of units destroyed/committed? But again, Germany is 44 IPCs down plus fighters out of position against Europe. The Allies have some room to play. And we’re talking about Germany maintaining its G3 fleet off London. How does that happen if builds 3 submarines 1 fighter, Germany splits a destroyer off, then Germany is left with destroyer, two carriers, four fighters, one battleship against UK 1 submarine, 9 fighters, 1 bomber?

But Germany doesn’t maintain its fleet northwest of France? All right, choose. Germany does maintain its fleet northwest of France, improving Germany’s defense timings with a France IC. Do I really need to get into Germany committing 59 IPCs that aren’t in range of Eastern Europe and taking four plus German fighters out of circulation against Europe for the long term? Just take it that Germany gets some compensations, sure, but the costs are huge and the Allies are catching up.

Germany retreats to the Baltic and builds even more navy? All right, so Germany has this massive navy, which was the whole discussion under this 3) point of Germany building up its navy. But then what? The Allies aren’t sweating an invasion of London, the German Baltic navy isn’t fighting in Europe, the Axis aren’t forcing any position Germany can’t do anything about Allied drops to French West Africa so Japan’s going to have some trouble securing income, it’s not super great for the Allies at all. But it’s also not great for the Axis. By this time, USSR is starting to make an income bulge, and there’s just no way that the Axis can prevent the Allies suddenly repositioning all their UK/US fighters into Europe to help defend. You could say there’s something of an Axis game, Japan takes India and Africa and gradually builds up a threat, Germany doesn’t have to worry about defending Berlin so much, Germany has secured Finland and Norway income and denied France to the Allies. But you see the issue here. Germany can’t just keep building carriers, it’s already using 4 of its 5 surviving fighters; if Germany wants to build more naval defense it’s going to be expensive, and mostly is going to turn to tactically inflexible destroyers for cost, or cruisers which can bombard but the Allies already have so much potential defense on London it’s practically useless, so where exactly does Germany go with this huge Baltic fleet while UK and US start dropping subs and saying “come here Germany, let’s start trading!” and if Germany declines then the Allies push for a position where US moves in a destroyer blocker (after Japan, but before Germany so it can’t be stopped), UK built a load of submarines, then you have UK trading a load of cheap submarines and a few air for Germany’s super expensive air force, and when that happens it’s just UK/US bleeding out Germany’s stacks all over again, which would be bad enough in all the previous scenarios, only then we were talking about UK baiting trades that Germany can’t sustain, and now we’re talking about UK just massively outright destroying Germany’s navy on the cheap, which is even worse.

And yes, the Axis most certainly have counterplay and it’s not quite that simple, but you see where Germany holing up in the Baltic isn’t this fantastic solution either. Especially in 1942 Online, it’s not like you can park Japanese fighters on German carriers. Which let’s face it, that change also screwed with Allies KJF options, but the Allies can just choose to go KGF again, and if we’re thinking about the merits of Sealion, then why go Sealion if Germany’s options are not that great? That’s the point of this whole thread.

Or let’s say the Axis retreat into the Mediterranean? All right, if we play the game of what-ifs then you can reasonably say that maybe the Axis do manage to get a big German fleet into the Mediterranean. But then, why didn’t Germany just build a carrier in the Mediterranean in the first place? What did all this expenditure and dancing around in the Baltic really accomplish? You can maybe preserve the Baltic transport, that’s not a bad prize. But if you’re talking about a real risk that you can’t do G2 northwest of France into G3 escape to Mediterranean, then if you’re talking about 44 IPCs of German Baltic navy into G3 northwest of France then G4 escape, then how many turns of drops were missed in Africa and Europe during that time? Was preserving the Baltic transport really worth the cost? It wasn’t. So you get this strictly inferior transposition for Germany’s midgame that plays out similar to if Germany had built a Mediterranean carrier, only it’s just worse all over the place so why do it?

So having addressed all the German navy buildup options you see where it’s not fantastic for Axis either. Yes, you can maybe get some Axis lines that are not too awful. Maybe you drop a load of late transports, then the Allies have to decide between defending West Russia and London, maybe you drop some bombers for Africa, there’s a bunch of Axis options. But the core problems are no good Axis compensation at Africa, USSR gets income at Europe, Allies can reposition fighters to defend Europe, Germany’s Baltic fleet may not well survive, and US can block the German main fleet with a destroyer which it’s easily going to have without even making assumptions; it’s quite late in the game, US knows it wants a destroyer exactly to block Germany from being able to destroy UK subs, Japan’s air threat has to be massive to threaten off a US destroyer/carrier fleet, we know US built a US1 carrier so it could put 2 fighters on against the possibility of Germany doing a G2 7-transport buy . . . we’ve been over it. I know I’m not exploring all the options, but there should be enough that the reader should understand, no matter what Germany’s options, at best you maybe get something reasonable, it’s not really superior.

Maybe you get some sort of GOOD position if an opponent plays inaccurately. That possibility of opponents playing inaccurately if Germany builds up its fighting navy and/or airforce is why there is a “maybe” in the title of this thread. But if an opponent plays accurately, even if the Axis get some nice lines that entertain a jaded player, they’re probably not really mathematically superior. Not with accurate opponent play and reasonable dice.

4. Germany goes into East Canada. It just doesn’t work against accurate Allied play, it’s too easy for the Allies to threaten to destroy the overextended German fleet while also having a counter to any German invasion of East Canada. Against an unprepared opponent maybe Germany captures Central United States, maybe some nice things happen, but if it was hard enough for Germany to defend northwest of France, defending off East Canada is way harder, and Germany has the added issue that if it sets carriers to be destroyed first, the Allies can retreat after destroying German carriers and German fighters splash into the water.

5. Germany goes to Africa. See ending of 3); why didn’t the Germans just build a Mediterranean carrier to begin with?

6. Germany just sits on Baltic 1 carrier 1 transport. UK gets a credible threat, either Germany loses fighters to a bad-odds battle, or is left with a 14 IPC naval unit that defends like a destroyer but doesn’t have its special abilities. You could say Germany can salvage the position, that Germany took a reasonable risk trying to test the Allies to see if they’d play accurately, but it’s really not great for Germany, and it cost 14 IPC for Germany to test those reactions. It’s really expensive.

(continued)

Recap - I’m saying the supposed benefits of a Baltic carrier aren’t real benefits that add up to the carrier’s 14 IPC price tag. I’m saying the G4 push to Ukraine is fatally weakened (alluded to briefly but yet to be substantiated mathematically), that the German threat against London is not a real inconvenience (yet to be established), that there’s issues with the G1 opening (specifically buy, moves, and risks to arrive at a reasonable Axis position), and I mentioned I’d get into some aspects of Germany in the Atlantic.

To get to even that point, I mentioned some concepts of Axis and Allies play that are pretty fundamental. I left out a lot of explanation, and oversimplified some of what explanation I did provide, but it should have been enough to be getting on with.

I left off saying we’re going to look at the G1 opening and consider G1’s Atlantic position, think through the consequences of various options. From there I’m going to address Germany’s threat against London isn’t a real issue for the Allies, how the Allies shut down G2 options, how I say the German position degrades with strictly inferior positions compared to other G1 opening options (other than the G1 Baltic carrier buy and Sealion), and hence the “proof” of why I say Sealion doesn’t work.

In this I will not use heavy use of mathematical projection because I just don’t think that may really be necessary once you look at all the little problems that add up.

Okay, so let’s say G1 opening. Say Germany opens with G1 Baltic carrier. Then what?

Let’s say the G1 “meta” open is 2 subs 1 cruiser 2 fighters against UK battleship, destroyer, USSR submarine. Some players say to use 3 subs, 1 cruiser, 2 fighters.

What happens if you send the cruiser? Well let’s just say the cruiser is really important. You don’t send the cruiser, then you cut the odds on the UK battleship fight. If you say that’s okay because you bring three subs, that’s just not how it works. You have to give up even the potentiality of the gains that third sub could have gotten, and it’s very likely the UK East Canada destroyer and UK air can blow up any German submarines that survived the UK battleship fight, then there are other issues elsewhere I’ll get into.

This is what I mean by mathematics with numbers. You can’t just wave it off and say oh, it’s all going to magically work out. You have to decide where to make the cut, and no matter where you cut, you’re going to give something up somewhere. Sorry, but that’s just how it is.

But it’s okay, let’s magically make things work out by buying a G1 destroyer? Sorry again. You gave up four units on the G4 push to Ukraine already, and the destroyer costs you another three units. Now you’re seven units down on the G4 push to Ukraine. ONE unit is enough more than 10% win/loss swings in even large battles of near a hundred units. You think you can get away with even four? That’s already going way beyond pushing it, but then you want to try to get away with seven? Sorry, that’s just not how it works. And the destroyer really does cost three ground units; G1 41 IPCs buys 11 infantry 2 artillery, or 9 infantry 1 carrier, or 5 infantry 1 artillery 1 carrier 1 destroyer. That’s just how it works, you can’t take off two artillery that you already took off to pay for the carrier, you have 41 IPCs and how are you going to get 7 ground units, a destroyer, and a carrier? You won’t. It’s just game mechanics and mathematics.

When you drop four units off the G4 push to Ukraine if you get some really lucky dice maybe you can still sustain some sort of push. But you drop seven, and you’re looking at a USSR actually pushing Germany back. Maybe not from Karelia, but USSR could be making grabs for Poland and Bulgaria-Romania income from a secure USSR position on Ukraine, and that’s just a totally different game to Germany trying to choke off and restrict USSR income by denying it Ukraine, Poland, and Bulgaria-Romania completely. You can say dice outcomes differ here or there, but you start talking a seven unit drain, and what, you’re going to land in Normandy with the power of positive thinking and a couple of kittens or what is it?

But then okay let’s just not build a destroyer? Let’s send the cruiser to the UK battleship fight? Well then, UK1 has two fighters and a bomber that can hit the German carrier and fighters. That’s 334 versus 244, and if the German carrier dies first then UK can just retreat and leave UK to finish off the German Baltic fleet with a fighter from Archangel.

But there is no USSR fighter on Archangel because meta players always park 2 fighters on Caucasus? But why would they? If USSR captures Ukraine, sends both AA guns to West Russia, and sends its Kazakh infantry into Szechwan to support the US infantry/fighter, you can still get a 5-unit USSR defense of Caucasus with one USSR fighter and build placement, and does Germany really want to go 1 infantry 1 tank 3 fighters 1 battleship bombard against that with 35% failure, knowing failure means UK gets a cheap attack of destroyer, fighter, and bomber with the UK bomber very possibly surviving to UK2, unlike the UK1 counter to the German battleship pushing to Africa projection? If USSR can afford to keep back its Kazakh infantry or an AA gun, then the odds of attacker failure shoot up way past 35%.

And remember, Germany’s air losses are irrecoverable. You cut the German air force, you get no credible German/Japanese air threat later that locks Allied fleets and threatens huge Allied transport losses. It’s not that Germany needs a huge air force, five fighters is enough for some pretty credible threats, but you have two fighters, well, it’s just not the same at all.

But you can rebuild Germany’s air? Again, you can get what you want in one place, but you lose out in others. You build German air, you don’t have as many German infantry and tanks, you don’t have the sheer stack sizes you want to break the Allied combined stack, how do you get out of that? You can’t, it’s just mechanics and mathematics. You build a bigger Japanese air force? Still can’t do anything about the turn order, if US goes and splits off from the UK navy in the Atlantic, then Germany’s weak air can’t credibly threaten either the UK or US fleets, then UK moves to join the US fleet, then Japan never has a chance to pick off the separated UK or US fleets, Japan can only face the combined UK and US fleet, and the fact that Germany didn’t have a credible threat made it possible for UK and US to have a lot more freedom.

Well, we don’t really know how the R1 dice will turn out, and we could say that Sealion is conditional on certain R1 dice outcomes. Maybe R1 opening doesn’t do so hot against West Russia so USSR wants to move both AA guns in, maybe R1 dice open leaves USSR wanting to park 2 fighters on Caucasus and not split one off to Archangel. But even then, there’s nothing the Axis can do about USSR’s submarine in the Atlantic.

Even if you say German Sealion is conditional on R1 dice, you just don’t know USSR’s settings. There’s good reason to have the USSR submarine fight, but there’s also some reason for the USSR submarine submerge (and if it were the board game you’d have discretion you simply don’t have in 1942 Online but I digress).

So what happens if the German cruiser isn’t alongside the German carrier? Then you potentially have a lone USSR submarine facing a lone German cruiser, which favors the USSR submarine 60/40. Germany drops four units on its G4 push to Ukraine to take a 60% loss of a 14 IPC unit? You can see how that could be bad.

So how much does the Axis player bet that the USSR player doesn’t submerge? Does the Axis player keep the cruiser back? Does the Axis player build a destroyer? NONE of these are really great or safe for the Axis.

That’s just the really basic G1 Atlantic issues, but there’s more to it. There’s also the question of UK’s East Canada destroyer and transport, US’s East US destroyer and transports, UK’s cruiser off Gibraltar, then there’s the question of G1’s decisions in the Mediterranean and Africa. There’s even a question of Germany’s position in France versus Northwestern Europe, and even all that leaves a lot out, and all of those factors including the ones not mentioned is all connected, and again any decision Germany makes anywhere is going to cost it somewhere else, and again I’ll say competent players will put the squeeze on.

Suppose UK1 moves destroyer and transport to French West Africa, and US1 follows with destroyer and two transports. The German fighter on Morocco doesn’t have odds against two destroyers. Then UK2 has 1 infantry 1 tank to counter any G2 push into Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and US3 has a followup.

Or suppose UK1 uses destroyer to hit Germany’s submarines that survived the UK battleship fight, if UK wins then UK and US park a transport each at East Canada, US sends a destroyer and transport to French West Africa, if Germany wants to take a 50% shot on the destroyer (a mutual wipe is a “win” for US as the US transport escapes and a valuable German fighter dies) then fine, even if Germany takes the shot and survives, that means G2 landing a fighter on Morocco, which can be killed by the US1 build into a US2 landing, which Germany can prevent by fortifying Morocco which allows UK to sit on all its Egypt and Africa income plus messes with Germany’s Africa units ever joining up in with Germany’s push into Caucasus on any sort of reasonable timeline. Meanwhile UK1 can build destroyer and carrier northwest of London, where the German fighter from Morocco can’t hit, if Germany has four fighters in range and has favorable odds, it’s still likely even if Germany accepts the battle that Germany loses valuable air that can’t be used later to develop turn order threats alongside Japanese air against Allied Atlantic fleet buildup, and there’s no free transport prizes, and if Germany doesn’t hit then UK2 into Norway, US2 into Finland, and if Germany didn’t secure Karelia on G1 then it can’t land fighters on Karelia G2 then if Germany wants to threaten a weak-escort early Allied push into Finland/Norway that means landing German fighters on NW Europe which means France is probably open unless Germany is holding two infantry stacks back from the eastern front, and didn’t we already mention Germany is irrecoverably four units down on the G4 push, and if Germany’s trying to push multiple infantry stacks (even if it’s just tiny wee stacks) west, then you can just imagine how that’s going to affect timings in the east.

Right, I know, take a breath, but even if I don’t outline all the Allied options you get the idea. No matter what Germany does, there’s always going to be Allied responses, and if Germany covers its bets in one way, it’s going to leave stuff uncovered in another way.

And it’s just not accurate to say Germany’s advantages with mobility from a Baltic transport offset its brute power losses in Ukraine. The Baltic is not adjacent to Ukraine, there’s no direct offset. Nor does Germany has some advantage to its defense of France or Karelia; if anything needing to commit two fighters to a naval zone means there’s less German defense to go around in the land territories. If UK loses a transport every turn to trade France it’s not fantastic to be bleeding out the income, but 6 IPCs almost pays for a 7 IPC transport, and when you add Germany’s positional weakness at Ukraine that USSR may leverage into additional income and Germany bleeding out its stacks with early repeated trades with UK as well as trying to maintain its eastern position against USSR, well, you start to see the issues. It’s not that the Allies have this huge obvious counter, it’s not that the Axis have zero options, it’s more that the Allies have a lot of little things that start to add up, and the Axis have options but just not a lot of good ones that matter in the places they need to matter.

So hopefully that’s illustrative of some of the Allied options in the Atlantic, how Germany’s options can be limited. I’m not trying to say Germany Sealion is absolutely totally stupid and pointless, I’m saying you just look at where the weaknesses are, how you can exploit them and pick Germany’s position apart, not through crazy dice outcomes, not through some stroke of genius, you just look at the map and think about it, instead of being over-apprehensive about taking risks, think about the risks and rewards and how the positions naturally develop over time, and how even IPC-negative outcomes (like if Germany can send 4 fighters to attack a UK carrier and fighters) can still pose real risks to the Axis by having the Axis roll dice and whittling down their numbers so eventually likely resulting in limiting Axis options.

But what of the supposed threat to London? (continued)

I’m usually opposed to saying things don’t work. When it’s said something doesn’t work, players get the idea “oh hey, someone said it doesn’t work, now we don’t need to think about it”.

And usually, I think there’s something to be said for the legitimacy of different lines of play. You get players with different risk preferences, starting off different dice outcomes and player actions, trying to play lines an opponent doesn’t know so the opponent won’t play as accurately, etc. So it’s usually less that something doesn’t work, as you just need to find the right situation.

But for Sealion, I feel there’s just a little too much to fight against, just a little too much of the uphill battle for too long, not enough good options. It’s like R1 2 fighter buy, like you see there’s some good things that come out of it, but you start adding up the conditions you need to make it work, figure out the probable downsides, it’s like “whoa”.

So anyways Board Game Nation recently put out a nice video on Youtube, and in the comments I was like mmm, I dunno, Sealion, it’s gonna bite you in the ***, and they were like hey we’ll make a video about it and I was like OMG rly I’m SUPER interested (because I am) and they’re like hey, they think Sealion’s cool, and I’m like hey yeah? Because I don’t think it works, not really. But won’t that be interesting if Board Game Nation does put out a KJF video; maybe then I’ll see something that changes my mind about how things work, and that’s always very interesting and fun, at least I think it is.

Instead of waiting to watch the video then writing a text wall, I figured why not just start in? Because the reasons I think Sealion doesn’t work aren’t about disagreeing with anyone in particular, it’s just mathematics and mechanics and even though I don’t have a full analysis, I think I can give enough that others will see my point.

First off, a disclaimer, this is just my OPINIONS about mathematics and stuff that’s just there in the game. And yeah, I say “opinions” but you read through, you’ll see what I mean, there’s something to what I’m saying. Anyways, I’m not trying to claim I’m some big original thinker even if I’ve never seen anyone write stuff remotely like what I’m writing; as far as I’m concerned others just couldn’t be bothered to write it up, and who can blame them. Certainly I know some specific people that can’t be bothered but I won’t get into IRL stuff here.

Another important thing, I’m talking about competent players. Often I’ll watch videos by some players that say “okay, here’s what’s going to happen!” (not picking on anyone in particular, lot of different content creators) and it happens, and I’m like yeah okay we all just saw it happen but it should NOT have happened because the opponent obviously screwed up here and here and there, and this is exactly how and why it went wrong and if the things that ought to have happened didn’t happen, then you can’t count on this setup happening, so how can you assume that the same standard should apply to all players? If cascade failures are so normal, why doesn’t the content creator seem to run into those same issues manifesting in similar ways when they play the other side? I’m not saying exactly the same, I’m saying even accounting for aberrant dice and reasonable player action, the games look nothing similar, why do you really think that is?

Anyways to the topic. I say Sealion doesn’t work (probably). Why?

Okay, first some general observations. Germany has 15 production capacity between Germany, Italy, and Karelia, and all those territories and Germany’s target are contiguous on the same continent. Germany has the largest stack size in Europe/Asia out of the Axis, Russia has the largest stack size in Europe/Asia out of the Allies. Axis air serves a dual purpose against KGF (Kill Germany First - I wrote elsewhere why KJF (Kill Japan First) is just so bad in 1942 Online), anyways Axis air both threatens Atlantic shipping and ground targets.

More, Japan has 8 production capacity, if Japan buys ICs that’s 15 IPCs down the drain, then Japan has to defend that territory as well, plus Japan’s forte is mobility with dropping units via transport to any number of coastal territories and being able to reposition air. That’s not to say Japan can’t challenge Russia’s stacks in the right situation, but it’s a long time for that to happen if the Allies are at all competent, the more Japan spends on ICs the less flexibility and mobility Japan has, there’s just this kind of ugly place where if you’re already winning with Axis then you can leverage Japan into slowly crushing Russia, but if you’re not winning with Axis then shoving poor mobility stacks at Russia works against you.

What I’m getting at is - Japan has limited income (though it goes up later), limited production capacity, small starting stacks, and for all those reasons it just takes a while for it to legitimately challenge Russia. This is not me saying “this is how I play the game, therefore this is what is mathematically right”. I’m just saying you think about the game mechanics and the starting position, this is literally what is there.

What does that have to do with Sealion? I’m getting there.

A little more background though. So let’s say you have an Allied combined defensive stack with USSR ground units, UK fighters, and US fighters. How are you going to beat that stack down? Are you going to make a lot of attacks with small stacks, that kill your small stacks in one round of defender fire, while your small stacks inflict only minor casualties on the massed defenders? Let’s consider a very simple example.

Let’s say 4 tanks attack 8 tanks, and that both attackers and defenders get hits on half their dice. Correctly predicting the outcome statistically that isn’t REALLY what we should expect but for simplicity and brevity I’m not going to dig into two-peaked discrete probability distributions here, this is just an oversimplified example for illustrative purposes.

Anyways in one round of fire the 4 attacking tanks destroy 2 defending tanks. The 8 defending tanks destroy 4 attacking tanks. Combat ends, attackers lost 4 units, defenders lost 2 units.

That’s just how it works. Again, this is not about me and my claims about how I think things work (in fact, I want to be VERY clear this is NOT how it REALLY works once you start properly considering multi-peak discrete probability distributions which is how you’d correctly understand mathematically model outcomes in Axis and Allies). But for illustrative purposes, you understand, you have small stacks attacking big stacks, that’s not going to be a good thing on an ongoing basis okay?

But? Oh okay, let’s look at some other stuff. If you have naval bombardment then you can reduce even huge enemy stacks at reasonable attacker costs. It’s still bad; you need a fleet that can bombard which isn’t the best naval composition by far (I’ll leave off THAT explanation too, just take my word for it or not, feel free to ask about it if you want though), the attacker still needs to invest more IPCs than the defender, and it’s just not great at all, but if you do have that infrastructure then it does at least beat sending small stacks to attack huge stacks on a repeating ongoing basis.

Or if you do industrial bombing that doesn’t weaken the enemy stack directly, but if the bombing keeps up and the bombers don’t get shot down, that production has to be paid for at some point. (Which is ANOTHER whole discussion, but golly, let’s just not for now okay).

But what I’m getting at is - for Germany, you don’t have a big bombardment fleet, I say you don’t want to build one. (If anyone wants to dispute, I’m fine with picking up on that, just say the word). Even if Germany did have a big naval bombard fleet, you can’t hit West Russia with naval bombards, so that’s out.

Since you don’t have those various ways of dealing with the Allied combined defensive stack (and you COULD use Japan to industrial bomb, though that’s another whole topic I won’t get into), but anyways think about the German strengths. Big starting stacks. High production. High income. Territories contiguous to the target, ideal for producing then blitzing tanks that can quickly catch up to the front. You want to break the Allied combined defensive stack with an even bigger German stack, and if you do early German infantry builds, later German tank builds, then switch to German bombers for the push into USSR, well - if Allies are going KGF they’re going to try to put on the pressure to prevent exactly that, but that is what you try for.

And if you can’t break the Allied defensive stack with Germany, then you try to bleed out USSR from the rear with Japan with trades and/or industrial bombing, Japan also cuts into UK income in Asia and Africa, and if the Allies don’t get the Allied defense to where it needs to be on the right time, then the Axis can just out-income the Allies, bleed out the various territories, wait for Japan to grow into a monster, then Japan crushes USSR while Germany fends UK and US off from cost-effective ground reinforcement. Something like that.

But whatever openings the Allies leave and however the Axis play, the one fundamental thing is Germany should play to its strengths. Build on its stack sizes and try to hit a timing to either break the Allied combined defense or push it back; if the Allies are pushed back then the Axis get more income, the Allies are under more pressure to break the Axis position, the Allies send more units to that position, the Allies have less to send to Africa, the Allies send less to Africa the Axis can get income out of Africa, the Allies can get some counterplay if UK gets France income but . . . leaving off yet another topic, let’s just say no matter what Germany does, it’s going to want to have really good-sized stacks at forward positions against USSR.

So now let’s think about what happens with a G1 carrier. What is kinda the axiomatic Axis game plan? You push German stack and strengthen the timing, such that either the Allies player take a bad-odds stand on W Russia right around G4 (more on this later), if you’re lucky then you try to get Germany to simultaneously threaten West Russia and Caucasus on G4, USSR chooses to abandon West Russia (because the Germans may be able to take and hold Caucasus with Japanese fighter reinforcements, then the Germans have 4 production on Russia’s doorstep a turn early) so Germany pushes West Russia on G4 (since USSR chooses to defend Caucasus), then USSR needs to choose between defending Russia and Caucasus, USSR defends Russia, Germany moves into Caucasus, and cuts off any UK stack from India.

And you can definitely mess with the timings a little, like maybe Germany pushes Ukraine on G5 instead of G4 to build that simultaneous threat to West Russia and Caucasus, maybe the Allies build up heavy on Finland and Germany shifts to West Russia on G5 then the Allies press in on Karelia and Germany reverses to crush the Allied stack at Karelia on G6 instead of pressing towards Moscow, then the Axis consolidate their position and trade USSR’s stacks on Russia down. Whatever.

But the core idea is, you want a G1 infantry/artillery build, just sheer unit count, then your G2 Berlin infantry maybe join up with some of those G1 infantry later to push into Poland G3, then maybe a take and hold of Ukraine on G4 while also Germany holds Karelia. Okay?

And why don’t you just do G1 tanks? Because if UK decides to send even a little help from India, then you end up in a situation where you don’t have cheap German infantry to trade at the front, USSR whittled down your stacks, and you just don’t have the units to take and hold even with Japanese fighter reinforcement. It depends on the situation; with dice outcomes and player decisions maybe you can get some early German tanks, but the heavier Germany pushes on tanks the less numbers it has to defend its push later on, and believe me, USSR has some pretty brutal threat power especially if Germany wants to simultaneously hold Ukraine and Karelia, I mean, woo! scary.

So what’s sealion do? Your G1 “meta” build is 11 inf 2 artillery (I said this a long time ago, some players said I was wrong, guess they came around though). You drop a carrier, and boop! There go four ground units. It doesn’t matter that they didn’t get blown up, if they were never born versus they got blown up, small difference - and the carrier isn’t THAT great for reasons I’ll get to.

But there’s compensations? Sure. But I’m saying you look at those compensations, you think about the risks, and it starts looking real weird.

Okay, so let’s start with one assumption - that you can somehow make up the lack of numbers in the KGF because you have a protected Baltic transport. But not really. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the Baltic transport lets you move additional units into Karelia. But so what? There’s no guarantee Germany can hold on G1 depending on dice outcomes and player actions, but sprinkle in some G1 tank buy, and you have additional dice that can defend Karelia on G2. If USSR wants to double down by building tanks, sure, let’s have USSR bleed out its stacks trading with Japan and Germany over time, with German income, production, and unit count marching to the fore. I’ll save you some time, you can pull a lot of fun tricks with USSR tanks, but there’s a limit to the chances you can take, and if the Axis decide to play ball, so to speak, USSR can find it bit off a little too much a little too quickly.

Anyways what I’m getting at is - you ALREADY had a situation in which Germany doesn’t NEED a G1 Baltic carrier to secure G2 Karelia, and once Germany holds Karelia for a turn, boop, German fighters land. Maybe that’s not ideal for Germany because UK can build a safe fleet, but Germany can’t stop a UK3 fleet drop into US3 reinforcement anyways, and you already had German air deterring up to any UK2 build, and if US3 to Finland/Norway then G2 fighters on Karelia will blow that up anyways, and if UK2 build into UK3 transport to Finland/Norway with US reinforcement to Finland/Norway sea zone then Germany already had its shot at blowing up the UK2 build and if it didn’t take it then it deserves what it gets. See? What does Germany really lose by having no carrier at all?

What I’m getting at is the Baltic carrier protecting the Baltic transport really isn’t such a big deal. It’s not like the you need the Baltic carrier for G2 Karelia take and hold (it’s 14 IPCs!), it’s not like you need so much at Karelia anyways, it’s Ukraine that’s the problem, it’s not like the carrier is some great offensive threat against any UK/US fleet push (it’s just one more dice, and it helps with fighter placement and threat zones, but still, a combined UK/US fleet is a combined fleet, and if Germany didn’t blow up a UK2 build then Germany isn’t going to be in great position for UK3 into US3 at Finland Norway OR for UK3 fleet drop into US3 reinforcement northwest of London anyways. Germany has its shots at UK/US Atlantic fleet regardless of the carrier. So you look at the things Germany supposedly gets, and there just really isn’t anything.

But there’s an invasion of London? No. But I’ll get to that later.

But there’s compensation? Sure. Let’s not sneeze at the Axis hugely improved logistics against any Allied incursions into Finland and Norway; a single German transport’s worth of units might not seem like a lot but it really shuts down the Allies building up any sort of early cheap beachhead. Then too, the Axis navy sort of threatens invasion of London. But it’s kinda not the greatest thing. Finland/Norway is lovely, it really is, but there’s this 14 IPC price tag, plus the risks, which I"ll get into in a moment.

What of the G1 naval opening? You start piling on all these awkward questions, and I mean awkward. If you assume the opponent sucks, then they’re going to overextend, eat your attacks, die, overextend again, eat more attacks, die more, do wildly inappropriate and stupid builds, die some more, then eventually lose.

But if you assume the opponent is competent? Then how do you push your G4 stack to Ukraine? How do you deal with the Allies cutting Germany’s north Atlantic fleet off from safety? How do you prevent the Allies from building an air counter to the stranded German Baltic fleet, all while fending off USSR pressure? And yes, you can have answers to all those questions if you assume Germany is lucky, but what if Germany is NOT lucky? What are the risks Germany takes, really, with the G1 opening, what are the tradeoffs? You can expect to get lucky here and there, but where will it break down? Because there are really a lot of points where it can break down.

And this is a point I cannot over emphasize - this is NOT just some sort of doom and gloom “oh no, what if the sun doesn’t come up tomorrow” nonsense. There are real risks and real costs that Germany has to deal with, it’s a matter of mathematics, and I don’t mean the sort of fake “mathematics” argument I sometimes read like “oh, I TEACH STATISTICS” (unsubstantiated) I’m very important, you should Pay Attention To Me!" sort of argument that doesn’t actually involve numbers, well, what is that really? If it’s a mathematical argument, there need to be numbers, you know? Which is really not seen a lot in Axis and Allies discussions for whatever reason.

MATHEMATICS WITH NUMBERS! I know, it’s a revolutionary concept, no wait, that was the Mesopatamians over five thousand years ago? You don’t say.

What’s the G1 naval open? What’s the consequence of different G1 choices?

First off, let’s say you’re doing G1 Baltic, we know you’re going to be 4 units down on pushing to Ukraine. If it were a Med carrier, you might be able to catch up on the timing later, but Baltic no way no how. And mathematically, you rob the Ukraine push of 4 units, that’s not going to be nice.

But there’s compensations? Where, exactly? You didn’t need those 4 units at Ukraine? You kind of did. Your defense of the Atlantic will be better so you can bleed out Karelia south towards Belorussia into Ukraine? So USSR gets an odds-on attack into Karelia, UK/US follow up to break Karelia, that’s not a great scenario either. But wait, you say, if the Allies need to deal with a Baltic navy, then Berlin doesn’t need to be as heavily defended, so Germany can underdefend Berlin compared to another KGF game, and send tanks on a G3 build to do the G4 push into Ukraine?

Ah, now we’re talking. OR ARE WE?

If you’re a critical thinker then you’ll already have identified the flaw in the “reasoning”. We assume the German Baltic fleet helps defend Berlin in a real and serious way on G3, but what if that’s not true?

We’ll get there. But to get there we need to look at the G1 moves, think about the consequences. (continued)

It isn’t about perception. There’s a real mathematical difference.

Also it isn’t “balanced”.

You get a pizza and it’s a slice short. You say “oh no”, the delivery person says “don’t worry!” and eats the rest of the pizza. Now you have a perfectly balanced empty box.

KJF, anti-KJF, the overview.

1. KJF in 1942 Online is trash compared to 1942 Second Edition. Less powerful by far, less interesting to play.

2. I don’t think KJF in 1942 Online is even viable. (Note I don’t hesitate to personally play bad lines. I just don’t recommend anyone else do the same unless they don’t care about “winning”.)

3. For those that read my comments elsewhere, I’ve said if UK1 hits East Indies there’s a probability distribution worth looking at. But when you look at the percentages on the “failure” outcomes and consider all the drawbacks, it’s just too much.

Yes, you can put in preconditions. But if you stipulate Germany gets a 6% result on German battleship vs UK destroyer (and German battleship being sunk) and USSR having a fighter on Caucasus to pick up the German Med transport, or if you stipulate Germany doesn’t hit Egypt or Trans-Jordan and builds a Med carrier, in the first case perhaps German income can be contained, in the second case even though the German line transposes to only slightly inferior to G1 11 inf 2 art buy off KJF - but even then it’s not enough. UK still can’t effectively add to US’s speed of progress in the Pacific what with 1942 Online’s rules changes; going south around Australia is just too slow.

I think for KJF in 1942 Online to work you also have to stipulate multiple lucksacks and/or the Axis play badly. That’s a bit much for me.

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For execution:

1. You can ignore or overlook the details but the details still matter.

2. Pick your battles. You have limited resources, think about how your choices will change projected outcomes over time. Not in a vague way, but in very specific ways.

3. Japan can’t afford to skimp on ground to Asia. Especially in KJF.

4. Japan needs subs against KJF, but it doesn’t need them early or all at once. The Allies threat in the Pacific only develops over time, and Japan only needs enough subs to make any early hard Allied push expensive. If the Allies push early light then Japan smashes.

5. If Allies go KJF, UK should hit Japan’s fleet off East Indies. It’s not a “good” battle, there’s decent chance of failure, no good contingencies in case of failure, no alternate plan for even partial failure. But considering 1942 Online’s rules changes, UK can’t land fighters on US carriers to speed US’s progress in Pacific, and Japan can too easily cut off UK navy built at India trying to unite early with US fleet in Pacific. So it’s East Indies or bust.

There’s a load of second-string options, ranging from UK1 India naval build with UK doing attack/retreat into Japan’s East Indies fleet, UK capturing East Indies, UK capturing Borneo, UK threatening early IC on Borneo / East Indies, UK positioning transports south where they can hit Burma and French Indochina Thailand, UK building 3 India ground and 2 London fighters, blah blah. But it all comes down to you’re going to roll the dice at East Indies and there being no real option because there’s just no way Allies can deal with a full-strength Japanese fleet and air force threatening India and pushing off any US naval threat. If UK wants to make a contribution to the Pacific it’s going to involve dice at East Indies, there’s just no way around it.

6. There’s a bunch of KJF so-called threats ranging from US dumping units into Asia from a protected fleet off Soviet Far East (too close to Japan’s logistics at Tokyo, and too late to help Russia), US grabbing Japan’s money islands (Japan can see US coming a mile away, can build in response to US’s builds, and still be in position for cheap punishment, plus Japan transitioning to bomber is expected anyways for when Japan breaks India and Japan decides when to go for India or not; if US wants to sacrifice its whole fleet for cheapo subs and delay Japan capturing India a turn fantastic), US pushing Japan off the coast (only reason Japan lets US push it off the coast is if Japan is using the time to help Germany secure the position against Russia without serious Axis losses so the expectation is Germany crushes Russia and/or chases Allies away, then between income and production at Russia, Axis income at Africa it simply becomes an Axis win off position, stack size, economy, and attrition), US going mass subs to try to blow up Japan’s fleet (doesn’t work, massed US subs are vulnerable to destruction, splitting means sacrificing a few and it takes too long for US to mass a serious threat against a decent Japan), US going transports and air to island hop (doesn’t work, Japan either reclaims in force which it can afford to do with four transports and two carriers, battleship, plus, or possibly Japan just sacrifices a transport, again sacrifices only happening if the Axis are pretty well crushing it on the rest of the board so again Axis victory). Then there’s UK building fleet at India (gets cut off too easily from US’s forces in Pacific, Japan can just pick them both off unless UK goes south around Australia and that takes too long), UK going bombers (not the worst but you can imagine what happens when you’re trying to mass 12 IPC bombers against 8 IPC destroyers and Japan having that huge navy stack advantage). Any of those Allied plans works eventually but I expect each to be a bit too late.

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You can legitimately play KJF against players if you think their reactions might not be correct. But against a prepared opponent you just need too much luck.

@moonzar said in Japan R1 attack on pearl harbor:

probably 3-4 subs to prepare for KJF.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Kyi0WNg40

Error 1: If players overestimate the utility of J1 subs - well okay, it’s a matter of missed details and suboptimal application.

Error 2: If players are overreacting pre-emptively on J1 to what might not turn out to be KJF after all (you only really know after a US1 Pacific fleet drop), a 24 IPC commitment to tactically inflexible naval units with very narrow applications, oof. That’s bad.

Understand the difference between that and G1 11 infantry 2 artillery build. Without Germany immediately trying some variation of attack USSR-controlled West Russia setting the stage for a tank dash, the expectation is Germany needs mass numbers to hold Karelia, choke off USSR income at Ukraine, deal with UK relief forces after UK abandons India, etc. There’s some numbers involved and I could get into G1 mixing in 1-2 tanks depending on income denial, opportunity costs, planned counters, but I won’t. Suffice to say Germany makes good on those units one way or another.

But Japanese submarines? Suppose US doesn’t drop a Pacific fleet. What does Japan do with Japanese submarines? If Japan goes through the Suez into the Mediterranean, all right, maybe Japan relieves pressure. But Japan must control the Suez for that to happen, which only happens after India falls - unless Japan slows its attack on India to hit Africa, which often isn’t best. Even if US does drop a Pacific fleet, I explained how often Japanese submarines are used later rather than earlier and (broadly) naval positioning timing and opportunity costs.

You could argue that Japan can “recover” the situation, which if it were only a question of navy, might be the case. But it’s not, which leads to -

Error 3: You may get transposition of more or less viable lines in other cases, but in this case Japan is talking about committing to navy when the ground game is in question. Using a non-viable line in place of a viable line is not merely bad, it’s fatal. After looking at some of what I write later, maybe you’ll see what I mean.

Error 4: The whole “hard defense” mentality regarding Japan is awful. Battle of Cannae. Napoleon. Blitzkrieg. Heck, George Foreman vs Muhammad Ali in 1974. Time and again history has shown the importance of manuever, but some players absolutely insist on trying to force some battle of raw strength, even when they shouldn’t.

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I’ve explained Japan’s naval situation is precarious, and some readers I’m sure are thinking “if Japan’s navy can’t stand the pressure, how can Japan POSSIBLY afford to build ground units as well?”

I’ve already given the answer in brief in previous posts. Japan takes advantage of stretched Allied logistics chains and applies various other game mechanics that allow late yet effective Japanese naval/air action in the Pacific. I didn’t elaborate, but that’s the basics.

So Japan can afford to build ground. Not unthinkingly! Rather, Japan has very specific objectives with very specific requirements and timings, and should build ground, navy, and air as required.

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I mentioned earlier Japan has 13 ground in Asia, Allies 15 or 16 or whatever depending on UK India build and USSR Szechwan reinforcement, whatever. Japan has transports and can dump to the mainland, but with UK popping out 3 units at India a turn (and this is with US and UK pretty well totally ignoring Asia) you can see it’s an uphill battle for Japan - especially since UK and US fighters can quickly reposition from West Russia to India.

I’ve read some advising Japan can ignore India. That only works if your opponent is fantastically bad. Otherwise UK simply starts sending UK India units through Persia. And because some players totally have no fundamentals, they don’t understand how bad that is.

I’ll assume readers are somewhat competent. Germany is trying to build a stack big enough to break a combined USSR/UK/US stack. Does this sound familiar? Now if I say - which I do - that Germany needs to think very carefully about what it commits, where and when, because Germany wants to be able to get enough pressure to push that combined Allied stack backwards, and maybe even eventually break it, does that make sense?

Meanwhile, USSR is trying to build a stack big enough to push the Axis Europe stack back. Does that also sound familiar? It should.

So now think about it. Suppose Germany holds a 2-IPC European territory with 1 infantry. UK attacks with 1 infantry 1 fighter. It’s a favorable battle for UK, but what if UK loses its infantry? Then US has a turn. Then USSR has a turn. And if at all possible, and that’s often going to be the case because the Allies try to make exactly that happen, either UK or USSR ends up with income.

Then what happens? Remember USSR is trying to conserve all the units it can to threaten a major stack battle against the Axis in Europe. So if UK is spending UK units, well, that’s a USSR unit saved. If UK just clears but doesn’t claim a territory, that’s even better for Allies; USSR blitzes the territory with a tank on its turn and gets USSR income (amazing) and doesn’t even need to commit a unit.

This is the fundamentals of stack building and bleeding, which in turn is fundamental to Axis and Allies strategy.

But Japan makes gains if it ignores India? How, exactly? Japan moves in force right up to Russia? UK or USSR blow them up. So USSR can’t push Germany back as easily? Considering every turn of delay is another turn for UK and US to break through at Karelia that’s not enough. Japan can cripple itself with overextension and the Axis still lose. If that’s the plan Axis have to rely on luck delivering most of the game into their hands in the first place.

But say Japan moves in only one unit per territory, pressuring USSR to trade? I’d say that’s far less situational and much more consistent with Axis strategy, but in what world does that require some sort of brute force dump through Yunnan? It doesn’t. Japan only needs a small trickle of units if that, because the more USSR pushes back in east Asia, the longer USSR’s logistics lines get, the shorter Japan’s get. Japan LOVES it if USSR flails around blindly in Asia for 1-IPC territories, please do. If Japan could give up territory in Asia to TEMPT USSR out of position, then Japan should do that, only there’s no way for Japan to force USSR to do something it shouldn’t. In the KGF, the key battles are fought in Europe, and early, and that’s how it should be played.

So what happens when Japan just pushes through China? You could argue in some games it works, if Axis are already winning on economy / attrition / position. But how does that happen? I just mentioned lucksacking, and I’ll say it again. It’s not a solid plan. Japan should not allow UK to bleed Germany out in Europe unless there’s pretty solid reason to do so - and there probably isn’t reason to do so.

I already mentioned using India as for a backup sea zone after control of Japan’s sea zones are lost, and as I’ll get into later, India is also massively useful for Japan for loads of other reasons. For now, suffice to say that Japan can produce up to 8 units on Tokyo, but Tokyo is far from the action, Japan’s income can ramp up to 40+, and Japan can make good use of India and its IC, without having to foot the bill and sit on the delay of buying its own IC. Japan has horrible logistics issues, and India solves just about everything.

Yes, I did say Japan DOES ignore India. But in the one case in which it “does”, it actually doesn’t. Because in the scenario I’m talking about, what is it, J1 spends 15 IPCs on an industrial complex just to ensure ONE MORE DICE on the timing to Moscow? That’s how close it is. And if you think Japan can swiftly redirect tanks from the interior of USSR to India, well, that’s what I mean by Japan not really ignoring India after all. When Japan is spending crazy money for just one dice, you really think Japan is going to laugh off UK popping out three dice every turn? It shouldn’t and it won’t, and if UK does it (which it should, why wouldn’t it), then Japan needs to do what it has to do.

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Well, back to Japan in Asia.

Consistent with stack building/bleeding, you understand Japan really doesn’t want to let USSR have income. This is just entirely consistent with the basics. I also explained earlier that 5 USSR infantry on Buryatia screws USSR over even if it can possibly capture Manchuria because of opportunity costs and timing at Allied defense of West Russia, then there’s possibilities of Allied reinforcement coming through China and/or India, all of which I ignored to this point. And why? Because I say even against KJF Japan is dropping 6 ground units a turn into Asia. If the Allies ruin their holdings in Europe, let Germany storm in super fast, Japan probably still pushes in all over Asia, and if the Allies don’t ruin their holdings in Europe, probably Japan still pushes in all over Asia and Germany gets to where it’s going eventually anyways.

Why 6 ground? Why not 8? Or 4?

The answer links to references I’ve made earlier. Like UK producing three ground on India, two fighters on London, and flying the fighters from London to West Russia to India. Also as I mentioned UK has whatever air units survived UK1, probably there will be some fighters in that mix. So it’s not just that Japan’s trying to race 3 UK units on India a turn it’s more, and Japan has a pretty good-sized hump to get over in the first place. That’s why it isn’t 4 units, 4 really isn’t enough against competent Allies players.

Japan also wants to win at India pretty quickly. The faster India falls, the faster UK can’t put anything out there, the faster Japan can put things out there, the faster Japan has a springboard to Africa income.

I referenced stack building and bleeding, but also something about planned stack battles is, you don’t hold back. If you have just one more unit in a battle, that means a surviving unit the first round, the second round, the third round, any casualties inflicted are casualties that aren’t around to inflict casualties in turn later.

If India’s so important why not send more? Even against the KJF?

The only reason Japan “holds back” at all is because Japan is thinking about two stack battles - one in the Pacific, one in India. And Japan does need to start putting out submarines on J2 if there’s a US1 fleet drop. Otherwise Japan simply won’t have any cost-effective attack fodder (and submarines are quite nice when attacking too). That’s why it isn’t 8 ground units.

Finally, there are some issues with Japan’s production. Not just its logistics, but actually its production.

If UK hits Japan’s Kwangtung destroyer/transport then J1 buys three transports and ground. If UK hits Japan’s East Indies fleet then J1 buys carrier two transports. After that J2 is 2 subs 6 ground (using 30 IPCs, perhaps working in an artillery but even saving IPCs sometimes), then followup probably the same until Japan’s sea zones are interdicted, then Japan switches to fighter and/or bomber production, probably also Japan having done a Yunnan shift so there’s a block of infantry defending Tokyo against invasion (along with any Tokyo air builds).

And yes, if UK hits Japan’s East Indies fleet then J2 there’s some reason to go maybe 3 submarines instead of 2. Maybe even 4. Depends on the situation. But if it’s at all possible Japan should do early ground and late subs rather than early subs and late ground. Not that the subs should be too late, but sometimes Japan can get away with a late-round pure submarine buy. But if Japan tries to get away with a late-round pure ground buy after Japan’s already been pushed out of Asia, too little too late too bad.

Japan must make use of its production before the Allies cut Tokyo off. While Japan can pump out cheap subs and cheap ground and use Tokyo’s production to capcity, then it should do so. But if it’s KJF and the Allies interdict the sea zones around Japan, technically Japan might be able to build 6 submarines 2 infantry and do a main fleet defense of Tokyo but that’s probably not what Japan SHOULD do.

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Explaining Japan in Asia takes a bit of doing.

Remember the core Axis doctrine. That they want to make USSR bleed. That they want to build on Germany’s starting stacks and superior logistics.

So a lot of Japan players, they get fixated on the idea that they “have” to defend Asia. Because Asia “belongs” to Japan or whatever. But actually no. If Japan gives up all of Asia and its money islands besides (I mean Borneo, East Indies, Philippines, not mainland Japan), so what really? If the Axis crush Russia and have unit count, position, economy, and attrition, then that spells an Axis win. Yes, if Japan lets the Allies swarm too fast then that’s going to be a problem. But if Japan just slows the Allies down, then what?

And while Japan is “slowing the Allies down”, what does that mean? What does that all really mean? Does it mean Japan needs to fight some heroic lone last-ditch stupid defense? No. Think about it, if so much relies on the Axis breaking Russia before Japan’s defense crumbles too much in Asia, then what if Japan makes Russia fall faster? Because Japan CAN and SHOULD do exactly that.

And should Japan blow up its entire fleet, even to get some supposed “win” on IPC? No. That probably isn’t good either. You already understand Japan can shift between key sea zones. What happens when Germany brings a reserve fleet up? If UK has no fleet in the area, Germany moves, Japan moves, then US has to crack a combined Axis fleet. If US wasn’t crushing Japan’s navy to begin with, is that something that will reasonably happen? No. On the other hand if Germany’s racing to build a navy from scratch while trying to consolidate its position in Europe and Japan has nothing to begin with, it’s much harder for Germany. Defense trumps offense; you could argue submarines make navy a different story than ground but 70 IPCs of German/Japanese navy against 40 IPC of US reinforcements, you’ve got to figure how that goes.

So instead of thinking “Japan MUST defend this or that”, think. Just what can Japan give up? And when? And for how long? How does the position develop?

And it turns out Japan can give up a LOT Just about everything except Japan itself. Probably Japan doesn’t want to give up its money islands too fast, if UK and/or US pop down ICs then they can get big boosts to their timings. But even Japan’s money islands can be allowed to fall if the Axis have the position - which, with 1942 Online’s rules changes, is what I’d expect.

Suppose Japan’s been dumping ground into Asia right along. Suppose Japan’s been pushing those ground units in towards Russia, and why not? Axis doctrine is for Japan to try to bleed out USSR so Germany has less to deal with.

But if Japan’s dropping in six units a turn, probably USSR isn’t using six units a turn to fight Japan. Not hardly. If USSR figured its bets right, probably it’s fighting hard in Europe for those valuable territories. So that means Japan has a surplus of power in Asia for a while.

Yes, in a while it’s very difficult for Japan to hold Asia coast. But remember again what happens as US stretches its logistics lines further and further. Okay, so US can drop transports and a chunk of air against any Asian coast territory? Sure, let US land on the coast. Japanese units that landed on earlier turns reverse out of Asia and recapture the territories. And this can happen again and again and again. This is how Japan can lock US out of having industrial complexes working on the Asian coast even after Japan loses control of the Asian coast - because Japanese units are already in the interior. Even then, Japan isn’t forced into a “immediate must recapture” situation, US has to capture a territory, hold past a possible Japanese capture, build an IC, hold another turn, and only then can US produce units, and even then it’s not an assured defense. Japan has the logistics advantage and Japan can pick the timing, you can see that’s very nice.

Suppose US is pushing towards Borneo, East Indies, Philippines. Maybe interdicts the sea zones around Japan. But that isn’t easy for US either. It’s a lot easier for US if UK blew up Japan’s East Indies fleet, but even so, fighters on Tokyo protect Tokyo and threaten any number of sea zones, and India may be producing subs. And though Japan fighters can push in towards USSR (and be used to fight off any Allied navy in Atlantic, relieving pressure on Germany - or Japanese fighters can land on newly captured German territory to reinforce, though UK can counter), at some point Japan may decide to pull all its units out of Europe and Asia and head towards US in the coast. Not as some knee-jerk response, but if the Axis have calculated there’s no need for Japanese support in Europe any more, Japan might as well get on with the cleanup. And by that point maybe Japan has eight fighters so a two-carrier placement at India along with earlier Japan sub/destroyer builds sees a massive Japanese navy. Remember Japan’s income wasn’t crippled, Japan has Asia income, China income, India income, Africa income because Japan tried to push ground hard.

If Japan doesn’t push ground hard, then Allies wrap Japan up in Asia then start blowing up the money islands. As I mentioned earlier UK then sends all its India production to Europe, and Germany has to deal with it.

And I’ll point out - of all coastal Asia, what must Japan hold? It’s inconvenient if US gets a Manchuria IC, but even that’s not fatal. If Japan is on the brink of collapse on the ground in Asia and the Allies grab the coast then Japan’s wrecked. But if there’s swarms of Japanese ground inland? That’s going to be a problem. In the meantime, what can the Allies really do in the Pacific? Even if Japan’s sea zones are interdicted, the US can’t stop fighter production on Tokyo. US trying to recapture India is just incredibly tough in terms of logistics, it’s far more realistic in KGF that the Allies lose India then reclaim it after having secured UK/US ground through Karelia into Russia; if UK/US aren’t breaking through at Karelia, if there’s no reserve of UK units, if all the Allies can depend on is US’s super-long logistics lines in KJF, well, that’s going to suck for Allies. Even if US just sticks around Philippines, Borneo, East Indies, Japan is pumping out fighters on Tokyo and maybe navy near India, and the more US spends on navy/air the less US has any hope to reinforce Russia through Asia.

So now let’s think about Japan in Asia. What do the Axis need to do? Break Russia. How does any amount of Japanese naval expenditure help that? How does Japan getting pushed out of Asia help that? It doesn’t. Japan needs to have ground in Asia, even against KJF. ESPECIALLY against KJF.

Japan shouldn’t lose too much too fast in the Pacific either. But you saw how close the balance of power in Asia was to begin with. You see how US can spend 100% on Pacific and will until US wins. If Japan doesn’t dump a chunk of ground in Asia early, when will it do so? After Japan’s lost control of the sea zones around Tokyo so can no longer safely transport ground units? After Japan’s been pushed out of Asia and is losing money? When? Early or never.

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I mentioned I’d reference Japan in Europe even against KJF. Germany has nice starting stack sizes and better logistics against Russia than Japan, but even so, Berlin is some distance from Russia, and that’s a problem. German-held IC on Karelia helps, but Germany needs to push far and fast, try to grab Caucasus ASAP. How will Germany do that? Considering USSR also has huge starting stack sizes and is waiting to punch Germany in the mouth? With Japanese fighter reinforcements, Germany can push in, and if USSR punches there’ll be some bloody knuckles.

Besides USSR, there’s also Germany not wanting to use its air to sink any UK/US Atlantic fleet (and there may be some). Yes, it’s going to be a pain for Japan if a KJF is on, but it needs to be understood in some games that’s just what Japan should do. Instead of trying to do some sort of overkill losing defense in the Pacific, improve Germany’s timings, get Russia to fall that much faster, then the Axis can recover the position in Asia.

Imagine the alternative. Germany has to fight against UK/US’s navy and USSR’s ground? Splitting Germany’s stacks? That’s not what Axis want if they can help it. I mean really, that’s just totally counter to fundamentals. On the other hand, Japan taking on as much as it can, leaving the door open for Germany? That’s exactly what the Axis generally want.

I’m not saying in the KJF Japan should always be sending air to Europe. But even against KJF I send Japanese air to Europe far more often than not. Mind that’s part of a decently executed Germany, I’m not just saying to fly Japanese air in randomly.

Next up: the overview.

In this thread I write some about Japan in Pacific and Asia, how the specifics play out. As when I wrote about how Japan’s decision to hit US’s Hawaiian Islands fleet properly considers USSR1’s buy and outcomes at West Russia, again, a lot of things that might not seem directly relevant I say are relevant. It’s just a matter of understanding how.

I made the point J1 subs are useless against UK lucksack against Japan’s East Indies fleet and/or UK India fleet builds. Some players might argue theoretically J1 subs CAN be used to threaten off premature UK movement in later rounds. But how does that happen exactly?

And as to threat of Allied interdiction against Japan’s sea zones, how does that happen exactly?

Suppose Japan keeps its main fleet off Philippine Islands. From there Japan can threaten any new UK builds at India’s sea zone, threaten any US push to Solomon Islands, and even threaten any US push off Iwo Jima that would threaten Japan’s sea zones.

But Japan doesn’t want to keep its main fleet off Philippine Islands. If Japan does that, then Japan isn’t transporting units from Tokyo to the Asian coast. So, the first point. Remember, it’s not just about Japan shifting units around the Pacific. Japan must also consider its position in Asia.

I bring up again and again elsewhere, you don’t want to walk into the face of your opponent’s logistics given any decent choice. I say the Allies do not WANT to try to push in against Japan in Asia (until the Allies have basically won the game) as that shortens Japan’s logistics lines and extends Allied logistics lines. USSR doesn’t want to be aggressive against Germany for much the same reason. If Germany walks into the face of USSR’s logistics, well, what else is it really going to do. Especially in 1942 Online with its rules changes.

So what does Japan really gain by threatening US at Solomons? Yes, Solomon is just one step away from Borneo, but Japan has to be way out of position to threaten Solomons, Japan’s logistics are badly stretched, and effectively US’s logistics lines just get shorter.

No, if Japan SHOULD fight, then I say it should hit AFTER the Allies push. Or I’d even say maybe Japan just runs away. More on that later. If I forget to get into it, somebody poke me maybe.

If you look at the board, you’ve got to understand. There’s three key sea zones that Japan needs to think about really hard. Japan needs to think about all the sea zones, all the timings, but three in particular. Which do you think those are?

Go on, look at the board. Try to figure it out for yourself. Early game, midgame, late game? What are the key sea zones?

1. Sea zone east of Yunnan. Why? Because Japan can pick up ground units from Tokyo, drop to Yunnan, and that’s as good as it gets for moving units quickly and cheaply from Tokyo towards India. Units dropped to Yunnan can also be picked up by Japan and dropped to India, though that means those transports can’t pick up and drop off from Tokyo that turn, the “Yunnan shift” can be well worth it.

There’s the “Turbo Burma” variant which involves Japan basically shuttling things one way and developing quick pressure but I won’t get into that here. Also the East Indies IC variant. But Turbo Burma is situational and East Indies IC is costly and I think overcommitment so I won’t elaborate on those here.

2. India sea zone, with the mentality Japan captured India. If US interdicts Japan’s sea zones, well, that doesn’t happen right away, but it does happen reasonably quickly. But it should be very hard for US to both interdict Japan’s sea zones and the India sea zones. Instead of hanging back off Iwo Jima, that means US has to be off Yunnan or Philippines. Remember logistics. US’s lines are longer, Japan’s shorter.

3. Sea zone west of Japan. Against KJF probably Japan loses control of Japan’s sea zones, but there are some scenarios where Japan can move its fleet west of Japan and not be trapped or seriously threatened by Allies (that is very important, I am not talking about some stupid last-ditch defense of a sea zone that doesn’t have to be fought over, I’m talking about what happens if the Allies don’t invest heavily in navy/air and push ground instead; the Allies then have a stronger ground game but Japan has counterplay is what I’m getting at.

And why? If Japan’s secured India (which it should), then what with early game gains, Japan should have India, China, probably some bits of Africa. From there, where do the Allies push back? If the Allies push back towards India, they’re bleeding out Moscow and stretching Allied logistic lines. If Allies push towards China, they must go through Kazakh or Novosibirsk; if Japan has control of Persia then Kazakh isn’t reliable, if Japan has control of Evenki then Novosibirsk and Sinkiang aren’t reliable. If Japan has production at India - you see?

Well, maybe not.

Early game, provided Axis aren’t tank dashing, Japan should choke off India. I won’t get into the details except to say if Japan doesn’t then UK should make the Axis pay and pay and pay. For India, Japan wants to press Yunnan. Yes, Japan might use J1-J2 to consolidate control of the Asian coast so Japan can start choking out USSR income in northeast Asia and start grabbing China and other income, but J3+ at least should start seeing Yunnan drops until India falls.

But later in the game when India is secured, look at the board. I’ve referenced elsewhere Germany marching into Ukraine, West Russia, then Caucasus, and it might seem Kazakh is Japan’s West Russia. And some players might think the shortest route from Tokyo to Moscow is via Kazakh (which is true; Tokyo, Yunnan, Szechwan, Kazakh, Russia).

But how does the position really develop? Suppose Japan goes Tokyo, Buryatia, Yakut, Evenki, Archangel/Novosibirsk, Russia. Six steps versus five, what does the math say?

If oversimplifying it’s very easy to concentrate on Kazakh, and in tank dashes then timing is key. But in a slower game, Japan really needs to think about the Buryatia route.

Suppose Japan is pushing through Persia and China. How can Japan possibly reinforce Germany’s forces, or reduce pressure on Germany in any way? Doesn’t Japan need units at Evenki if Japan wants to trade Archangel and Vologda anyways? (It does). Will Japan be in position to create a major stack that USSR can’t challenge? (Shouldn’t be, unless Germany can force, and I do mean FORCE, a major stack battle on Germany’s terms, and though Germany tries very hard to do exactly that and there’s a lot of things Axis can do, it shouldn’t be all that easy). So probably Japan won’t be in a position to REALLY make a brute-force stack challenge, and if it is, then Japan can stack multiples off lines reinforced through Buryatia anyways. (Remember, this is assuming Japan is also feeding units in through India/Persia).

So of those three sea zones I say are key, two are key because they allow Japan to drop ground units from Tokyo to mainland Asia, the third is key because it allows Japan to reinforce its navy if it so chooses (and if not, then Japan can pump out ground units there so it’s still not wasted).

My point here is Japan wants to defend certain sea zones at certain times. The Allies know this. Japan might be able to switch up some, but the Allies know Japan MUST defend those different territories at different times for different reasons, and it’s with that knowledge the Allies create their attack plans.

So do you see now why J1 subs are premature?

I know US wants to threaten Japan’s sea zones. Suppose I build a lone carrier on J1. Or J2. Or J3. Then what?

By J2-J3, that newly built carrier is vulnerable to attack by sea, or attack by air. It could be a lone sub that takes it out, or a mix of air and navy, but there’s any number of threats that could develop; I don’t know what US1 will build but US can build enough that it has a pretty serious threat against Japan’s sea zones on US2/US3.

But J1? A lone Japanese carrier build isn’t “safe” but it’s not terribly vulnerable either. The Allies just haven’t had time to develop their position yet.

Suppose Japan does want to build a carrier J2-J3. How does Japan deal with developed Allied threats? By parking Japan’s main fleet in the build zone. But that means that Japanese fleet isn’t parked off Yunnan. It isn’t parked off Soviet Far East. It isn’t at Borneo, it isn’t at Philippines.

And since the Allies can see that Japan has limited flexibility, that means the Allies have more options.

So it becomes less a matter of vague brute force magical thinking where Japanese J1 subs are “needed” to fight some indeterminate threat. Instead, it becomes a very specific question. Is Japan worried about US1 to Iwo Jima? That’s the one threat J1 subs answer. But even beyond that, exactly what are Japanese submarines going to DO even if US1 DOES push to Iwo Jima?

And the tradeoff is, what happens if you get J1 carrier as oppose to J2+ carrier? You can see J1 carrier means Japan has freedom later when it needs it most, J2+ carrier locks Japan down.

Hmm?

And now I pull out something I’ve referenced a bajazillion times in passing. Axis strategic air doctrine.

(sounds fancy doesn’t it)

Generally it’s like this. Axis don’t lose air. Why? Because Axis air can hit multiple targets. You have a single Axis fighter, Allies have to defend Europe and the Atlantic, or India, Asia, and the Pacific. And no, it’s not as simple as saying Axis can just “buy more air”. Axis also need ground, every air unit built is a real sacrifice, so Axis have to try not to lose air.

There’s exceptions, like if Axis can get a positional advantage, but I won’t get into that here.

On paper maybe Japan can get a “winning” battle out of Iwo Jima, though I wouldn’t count on it. On paper maybe Japan can lose cheap subs. But think about how the position develops, how Japan can use that air until it’s forced to battle (and Japan probably can never be FORCED to battle except at Tokyo and that’s on terms incredibly favorable to Japan). Does Japan really want to start trading off even cheap submarines in exchange for expensive US capital ships, how long can Japan sustain that sort of trading, what is the projection?

The projection is, if US does push Iwo Jima, it’s still too early for Japan to fight. It’s not a joyous thought, that Japan can already be outmatched on US1, but think on it. Even if Japan wins the battle, will Japan lose the war?

Suppose Japan limits its naval units to west of Japan (can drop to Buryatia/Manchuria) and east of Yunnan (drop to Yunnan, Kwangtung, Kiangsu). Let’s say Japan can put 120 IPC of naval/air against Iwo Jima’s sea zone, plus J1’s build. And let’s ignore, for the time being, Japan’s later development. Let’s ignore that Japan should have transports and ground, that Japan should have two carriers, let’s just say Japan goes 3-4 subs, very brute-force. Will we see the magic?

US1 fleet at Iwo Jima is battleship, carrier, two fighters, two destroyers, submarine. Only 76 IPC against 120 of attack.

But remember, US has three fighters, bomber, and cruiser to counter, without US even building anything.

Suppose US is “dumb” and decides to go to Iwo Jima. Japan’s “disposable” fleet is submarine, two destroyers, cruiser. Japan doesn’t really care much if it loses all that stuff if the cost to the opponent is a lot higher. The cruiser is 12 IPCs, but though it’s nice to have, it’s not that much better against KJF than an 8 IPC destroyer. What Japan really wants to protect is its battleship, carrier(s) (if it builds more), and air. Plus of course Japan wants to get everything cheaply as possible.

Without getting into the numbers too much, there’s a few possibilities. Japan blows up US fleet and withdraws, Japan blows up US fleet and stays.

First, the “stay” scenario. Suppose Japan keeps its battleship, carrier, a destroyer, cruiser, two fighters. US has three fighters, bomber, and cruiser without even building anything. Throw in up to seven US1 build submarines and it’s a blowout.

But US might not build seven submarines? My point is Japan shouldn’t commit to a line of play that US can react to after the fact of Japan’s turn. Imagine asking someone to play rock-scissors-paper but before the game begins you shout “rock” and play and commit to rock. Being quicker and “anticipating” your opponent gave you no advantage, all you really did was telegraph your opponent and give them a counter.

Second, the “withdraw” option. Suppose J2 hits US1’s push off Iwo Jima with a load of units. Even ignoring the opportunity cost of J1 positioning to be in place to hit off Iwo Jima, there’s a bunch of problems. First, attacks with intent to retreat are tricky business, if you blow up all defenders by accident you’re stuck. So you actually don’t want to damage them too much, but then you just paid all your opportunity costs for limited gains. Second, US has a battleship and carrier, and should probably have captured Iwo Jima. So US has the option of dropping carriers early as defenders as its fighters can land, and if its battleship survives that’s a capital ship. Battleships aren’t worth their cost but it’s not bad for US if US keeps the one it’s got. And if Japan is attacking with intent to retreat it won’t be capturing Iwo Jima so Iwo Jima will be safe to land fighters on. (Again, in 1942 Second Edition US defenders can react appropriately and in 1942 Online not, because of defensive profiles, but it’s still not peaches and cream for Japan).

How do J1 subs help if your opponent simply does nothing in Pacific? If your opponent goes mass air and island trading in Pacific? Subs are not good for that stuff.

Also consider some stuff I mentioned earlier, like I said Japan can cut off UK from using its India fleet to reinforce US quickly. That’s true - if Japan takes appropriate measures.

But look at the board. If Japan’s committed all its fleet to off Yunnan and west of Japan, then how can Japan hit any UK fleet, possibly including a UK carrier, that survived East Indies? It can’t.

And if you respond saying Japan built J1 submarines exactly so Japan could hit any US1 off Iwo Jima yet also counter UK?

All right, so you line up two favorable attacks. Supposedly. But remember, I mentioned what happens if US pushes to Iwo Jima and Japan attacks full out (bad), or if Japan tries to attack and retreat (limited gains). There’s also the possibility US doesn’t push to Iwo Jima at all. That US builds nothing in Pacific. Then those J1 subs are pretty trash.

Disagree? All right, say US pushes a major fleet to Solomons. From there they threaten both Borneo and Philippines. Oh, it’s not a GREAT US threat, sure. But from Solomons US won’t threaten the sea zone east of Japan. The sea zone east of Japan can place Japanese subs that immediately threaten Borneo and Philippine sea zones. So did you really need J1 subs, as opposed to J2 subs? Was it perhaps that on J2 you were going to reposition the J1 subs to hit Solomons? So then where is Japan’s main fleet, where is its air? No, the probability if US went to Solomons it’s because it’s safe, if Japan wanted to threaten Solomons then that would mean Japan stretching its logistics chains while shortening US’s so . . . J1 subs? Good? Not always. Considering all the opportunity costs (and I haven’t even gotten into Japan’s ground game yet), I’d say very questionable.

And even if you discount that, remember Axis strategic air doctrine. Axis doesn’t want to trade with UK/US, they want to pressure USSR on the ground as late as possible. Axis want to avoid trading with UK/US except on supremely favorable terms for the Axis. If you want to say Japan hit a UK carrier to prevent 34+ IPC of UK navy quickly reinforcing US, well, it’s unfortunate, but arguably necessary. But building J1 subs to challenge US at Iwo Jima when US doesn’t even need to go to Iwo Jima, when multiple scenarios including dice frack make the entire Axis exercise questionable? Better to go J1 carrier/2 transports and see how the situation develops. As I’ll get into later, Japan needs to develop its ground game in Asia.

J2 subs are a different matter, after a US1 Pacific fleet drop, provided Japan could place J2 subs safely. In that case US has already commited a chunk of economy, it’s assured that Japanese submarine investment will have returns.

Even if US tries to be “clever” and redirect its entire Pacific fleet suddenly to Atlantic, US still lost a chunk of time to try to fake out Japan. Even if US doesn’t build anything US1, US still lost time.

So really think about how the position develops.

Closing out, I mentioned earlier if UK blows up Japan’s fleet at East Indies, that I feel Japan shouldn’t go after US fleet at Hawaiian Islands. Having explained what I consider Axis strategic air doctrine, maybe you understand. Japan is a battleship, carrier, and two fighters down. Hitting Hawaiian Islands guarantees the loss of a third fighter, it’s unlikely but possibly the second carrier, and if US decides to take a potshot at Japanese islands, possibly a fourth Japanese fighter or the Japanese bomber. On some level you could argue that Japan needs to fight eventually, but as I explain later, Japan probably doesn’t need to fight for a long time, and I think it questionable that Japan trade sub, cruiser, and fighter for sub, destroyer, carrier, and fighter.

Recap:

1. J1 subs bad. Because opportunity costs. Because timing. J2 subs are another matter, but even then not to go overboard.
2. If UK blows up Japan’s East Indies fleet then I favor J1 carrier/2 transport build. There’s a lot of issues with J1 carrier and I’d prefer to put it off until J2+ if even necessary, but I think against competent play there’s just too much shenanigans Allies can pull.
3. I’ll be covering Japan in Asia.
4. I’ll be covering Japan in Europe. Yes, even against KJF.
5. I’ll also be covering Japan’s defense as I say it should be played, and Allied offense as I say it should be played.

Reading back, I can see some readers might feel lost. There’s a question about J1 attack on US Hawaiian fleet, then I introduce all sorts of complications (except they’re not really complications, they’re just necessary to basic understanding) then I seem to be talking about Japan’s entire strategy from the ground up.

But this all comes from my going back to basics, fundamentals, numbers, specifics. It’s not enough that I say “J1 subs bad”. I explain why J1 subs are bad, both in abstract and specific. It’s not enough that I say “avoid J1 hitting US fleet off Hawaiian Islands”, again I dig into abstract and specifics.

Even so, what I’ve written so far is only rough notes on Pacific development. So some players might feel they can “improve” on what I’m writing by arguing you can do this or that or some other thing by pulling Japan’s support from Asia - all while “handwaving” the details aside because they “don’t matter”. But of course I don’t intend to let that just happen. I’m going to explain why Asia does matter.

Oh wait, I mean I’m going to explain why Asia matters again, because I’ve gotten into this bunches of times elsewhere, but whatever. Nature of the internet, same question gets asked by different people.

Did a writeup on Japan to Alaska a few times I think on Steam, came up again on Discord. Putting an outline here so it won’t get lost.

Used to be a paper “Trans-Siberian Express” or something like that from Revised. Japan to Alaska in KGF isn’t new, some of the details are different between Revised and 1942 Online but whatever.

Why Japan to Alaska? Not because US builds a fleet to counter (too expensive). Not because US has to build in W US. It’s a timing shift.

Say Japan dumps to Buryatia, which then goes to Yakut, Evenki, Archangel, Karelia. Every space with infantry is “wasted” in that they’re on their way somewhere important, rather than being important of themselves. Getting into details about Evenki, or Yunnan-Szechwan-Kazakh or through India, I’ll leave off.

What about the necessary infrastructure? By that time Japan should be running 6+ transports, what with Africa, Australia, etc, but none of that is real pressure, and excess transports don’t really help Japan’s infantry stream timing against Moscow. Japan built transports early, but now they’re not being used much, so what to do with them?

Probably Allies are beginning to pressure Germany. What does Japan do to pile on pressure? Depends on the game, maybe tanks through Asia hits a timing, but I won’t get into that here.

But let’s say Japan dumps to Alaska. What then?

1. You can get alternate transports between Japan and Alaska, feeding 6-8 units into Alaska a turn. (I won’t discuss the tradeoffs except to say it’s not great for Japan, but it does mean Japan’s Alaska push has to be taken seriously.)

2. Grab Hawaii. Shouldn’t be a VC victory because Allies should have pressed into Europe by now, but it’s something.

3. Threaten West USA. There’s this thing where Japan builds carriers and lands fighters on to secure W USA under some conditions.

The above happen, but no real threats there with normal dice against competent players. But they’re the “obvious” answers to address before dismissing.

==

When Japan lands bombers on Alaska, both East Canada sea zones are threatened, which means Allies need to split defensive fleet (as opposed to having undefended empty transports off East Canada). But Japan’s air also has range to France / NW Europe, as well as Finland.

Then there’s the things that happen when Japan can push into Western Canada and land fighters, develop a threat against Eastern Canada, blitz into Central United States.

One stack of Japanese bombers threatens multiple RELEVANT sea zones in the Atlantic, can be used in CONJUNCTION with German ground, SIMULTANEOUSLY West US is threatened, US’s troops on East Canada are threatened, Japan has economic pressure if West Canada is left undefended with blitzing into Central US.

None of that is game-ending, especially since US Pacific survivors should be arriving in Atlantic right about then. But at the very least, US will probably have to let up on pressure in Europe.

And what does Japan give up? 8 infantry on Alaska is a lot nastier immediate pressure than 8 infantry on Buryatia. Or Yunnan. Or moved from Burma to wherever, probably. This is the “timing shift”. What would be irrelevant until three turns down the line is instead immediately relevant, with Japan’s shift.

What if the Allies overbuild on navy to prevent Japan from doing this? In RESPONSE to Japan building bombers, say? Then Allies are slower to reinforce in Europe in the first place, also acceptable.

What if invading Alaska “fails”? By then Japan should have Africa and Australia (maybe running around with a skeleton fleet for cleanup, but the bulk of Japan’s transports no longer urgently needed to develop timings or pressure). So Japan really doesn’t have much use for excess transports. So how does it use them? Japan heads towards Hawaiian Islands anyways. Japan wants more income (Alaska). It’s just sort of the natural development.

And if Japan had a winning game pushing stacks into Asia in the first place, then Japan doesn’t invade Alaska. Capture Moscow, consolidate, push Allies out of Europe, win.

Japan to Alaska in KGF is one of the timing shifts used in an air-heavy Japan, just another tool in the toolbox. Japanese bombers on Alaska is the easy spot, there’s some variants I won’t get into but the general idea is the same.

If a player is building (probably Manchuria IC) and trying to push major Japanese stacks then that’s an entirely different strategy. There, it’s like the Axis are locked into trying to build Japanese-majority-stack in Asia, so that’s the Axis game plan. Japan to Alaska in those games can still happen but probably shouldn’t.

From Discord:

This is one of those game where everything seems to go wrong.
Not gonna go into details, but opponent was giving away a lot of territory and Germany was buying lots of air and 2 sub. I calculated my fleet and decided to go for a 50% survive. 32% the attacker would survive with 2 bombers. That would be ok, since I had some back up, and it would take pressure from Russia and the future fleet. Of course he took the fight and got top 7%. Now he still has 7 air and I’m way behind.
Japan is going full in India, which I can maybe hold on for another round.
What would you do?

The first thing is to understand the risk model on a fundamental level. A lot of players cite “50% win” or “32% 2 bombers” and leave it at that.

But actually, no. Very much no.

Outcomes in Axis and Allies are a multi-peak distribution. Suppose you have 50 tanks fighting 50 tanks. What do you think will be the result?

Some players will respond one or two tanks on each side. Others will imagine vagaries of dice and respond five or six, or even more.

But what actually happens is early rounds of dice results tend to be reinforcing. If attacker gets lucky and defender unlucky on just the first round, maybe next round the trend will reverse but even more so, cancelling out the earlier luck? No. To compensate for first round luck, much more luck would be needed the second round. That sort of luck can happen! But actually second round expectations should be mapped onto their own probability curve, that’s the expectation.

In other words, if you’re lucky initial rounds, that’s probably going to mean the rest of the combat will go that much more your way.

For the example of 50 tanks vs 50 tanks, either attacker or defender will usually end up with 10 tanks.

https://axis-and-allies-calculator.com/graph.php?cmd=barchart&rules=1942&battleType=land&roundCount=all&attTank=50&defTank=50

. . . which is the second pitfall.

A lot of players might look at a curve and say oh, they can bet on the “average”. But it’s not an average (a single number), It’s a distribution.

Suppose I were to say that 50 tanks fight 50 tanks and either attacker or defender has about 1-2 tanks surviving. No huge surprise there? Things evened out?

But looking at the numbers, it’s about as likely that 16-18 tanks survive for only attacker or only defender. Like, whaaat? (But really, that’s about how it works out.)

So if you thought, hey, 50%, maybe attacker loses, maybe both sides pretty much get wiped out -

Well, after the opening round of fire, if the attacker got lucky (which probably happened here), the odds of mutual wipe went down, and the odds attacker survived with a chunk of units went up. (And that’s exactly what happened).

The third pitfall is thinking an opponent won’t attack if they only have 50%.

Here, the attacker had subs as fodder. If things don’t go great, well, it’s just cheap subs.

On the other hand, if things go well, probably blow up a lot of defenseless costly transports.

So in that situation, should attacker attack or not? Well, they could take that chance.

1. “Main Stack Controller”.

What is “main stack”?

Suppose Moscow is protected by 8 tanks.

Now say Germany attacks with 8 tanks. Germany has a 50% chance, does this make sense? 8 tanks against 8 tanks, same attack, same defense, same unit count.

Now say Germany attacks with 4 tanks, then Japan attacks with 4 tanks. Low Luck really isn’t how dice work, but for the purposes of this example we’ll use it to simplify. After one round of Germany attacking, German tanks are wiped out and Moscow has 6 tanks remaining. After one round of Japan attacking, Japan has 1 tank left and Moscow has 4 tanks; the second round of Japan attacking sees Japan’s tanks wiped out and 3-4 USSR tanks remain.

This, roughly, is the idea of “main stack” for attackers. You try to preserve the units of a single power, so you have a big “main stack” to attack a defender’s stack. Opponents try to “bleed” your stack by making attacks elsewhere; if you respond then you likely leave units vulnerable to counterattack, and have less units to put into any final decisive battle.

A) UK/US bleed Germany at Karelia.

When Karelia is open to UK/US troops, UK and US troops attack Baltic States, Belorussia, and such. If Germany allows UK/US to keep those territory, Germany loses income. If Germany counterattacks, Germany bleeds its stack.

B) UK/US add to Moscow’s defensive stack with cheap effective ground units.

Both Germany and Japan must contend with the additional cheap ground units UK/US can stream into Moscow through Karelia. This is why the Axis try to defend Karelia in some games; if the Allies cannot break through, it makes it much harder for a cut-off USSR to be defended. (Typically the Allies try to bring various pressures to bear so Allies end up in control of Karelia, and Axis counter in various ways, but I won’t get into that here.)

C) Positional issues for Germany

So let’s think about what happens, what really happens, what exactly happens when Axis try to hold Karelia. Suppose Germany abandoned France to have a main infantry stack on Berlin, a medium infantry stack on Baltic States, and a main infantry stack on Karelia. (This is optimistic for Axis.) But you can see where even if Germany withdraws from Karelia, it’s still poised to crush any Allied move in force to Karelia. And any major Allied landing in France or NW Europe can be hit by the Baltic States tanks. Holding Baltic States allows Germany to keep feeding infantry to Karelia.

But now imagine Germany has tanks at Ukraine. Those tanks are not in range of France or NW Europe. This gives Allies additional tactical options. It’s not a disaster, Axis have plenty of options, but it is one of these things where that’s just how the map is, and a decent Allies player will try to do something about that opening.

D) Loss of Karelia’s industrial complex

Sometimes you get weaker players that think Karelia doesn’t make a difference, and on some level that makes sense. After all, Germany can be stalled out against West Russia, and what difference does a few units at Karelia make? They don’t see a difference. And when Allies start dumping ground units via transport into Europe through Mediterranean, that seems like something really major that needs to be dealt with. What’s a couple units here or there?

But actually, depending on dice and player decisions, Karelia’s industrial complex can be vital to timings. Holding it means cost-effective infantry can get to the front two turns sooner than if they had been placed on Berlin. And though there may not be obvious consequences, an Axis player should be looking for whatever advantage, however small, that may contribute to victory.

It’s okay for Axis not to have Karelia’s industrial complex. But it’s just one of many things that add up.

E) Allied freedom in Atlantic.

When Axis air is near Ukraine, it’s not in range of north Atlantic. So the Allies really don’t need as much transport escorts; they don’t need to buy them, so they can do more transports, more ground.

Again, not a disaster, and if Axis move air power in range later, that can disrupt Allied shipping. But the Axis position can be expected to be just that little bit worse because of the Allied pressure, and that’s something that has to be balanced again whatever gains may come from Axis pushing Ukraine.

F) Japanese logistics.

Japan has terrible logistics against Moscow. Anything on Tokyo can’t just blitz straight to Moscow; they need transports to make it to the mainland; air is expensive, ICs are expensive, capturing India is difficult.

If Allies are going KGF, often Axis want Japan to become the major stack controller. If that happens, then Japan wants to hold Caucasus. It is very difficult for the Axis to engineer this, especially against an Allied player that is very conscious of the dangers of Japanese-held Caucasus. So imagine what happens when Germany controls Caucasus, and the Allies just refuse to recapture it. Go on, keep that 4 IPC, denying Japan the industrial complex is more important.