Posts made by Gharen

Why go for the US in this Pacific only game?  If I am playing the US and saw this massive attack beginning to come together over several turns.  I am turtling Russia style with tons of ground force and a plane here or there.  Not to mention I would be going balls out after Asia to stomp Japan out for good because lets face it, if the Japan player is forced to make a counter attack against the UK or ANZAC or China before this US invasion happens, then it will fail.  Because those are valuable resources that are getting delayed.  I really don’t think its even worth the risk of invading the US unless you have above lets say a 70% chance of winning.  You would be really spreading yourself thin and I guarantee you wouldn’t have a huge defense force of Tokyo waiting for a counterattack cause you would be going all out for west coast USA.  I think you should just focus on taking VCs that are more easily obtainable that can be held with tons of units that survived the initial landing.  Its a brilliant thought to come up with a strategy like this, I just don’t think its worth it, way too many risks for the reward of knocking out 1 Allied player.

The reason I feel it is only once per game is to make it so that the Allies can’t overpower Japan by making a few easy attacks and holding them the rest of the game while milking the “cash cow” of national objectives.  Besides a 20+ IPC a turn ANZAC can be quite the nasty little thorn when backing up 2 powerhouses.

Victory for Japan is settled around capturing VCs and basically making the Allies submit to their dominance.  With these sort of manuevers, Japan would be leaving herself vulnerable to attacks on the mainland of Asia.  While these can be easily countered, your layout above basically ignores them.

From the two times I have played this game with friends (alot I know  :-D ) they were Japan while I played the Allies.  They both used Japan’s massive airforce to do ground attacks on anything and everything even with no land units to back up these attacks.  They also used their fleet to push back anything the US was trying to get going on.  I never built any extra bases which I do regret because an extra naval base here or there might have allowed myself to reach more of the map faster even though I won in both cases due to attrition of high value Japanese units.

I personally see the Phillipines, Caroline Islands, and Hawaii as being the perverbial backbone of the Pacific.  I think they are of extreme value and worth fighting over because these 3 points allow you to reach large areas of the map.  Granted a naval base on Wake Island or Midway would be a strategic move, you may just be better off taking Hawaii and or Caroline Islands and saving yourself the 15 IPCs.  From those 3 bases I said before, you can reach every VC coastal water except that of India on just one move from one of those bases.  Interesting point though on the possibility of making more bases which I will keep in mind in future games.

I see the Caroline Islands, Phillipines, and Hawaii as being the backbone to asserting your naval superiority over the Pacifc.  The more of these you control, the better able you are at countering any combat moves against you.  As for another viewpoint on the situation, putting an airbase and naval base on any island makes it a strategic position to hold onto.

It just comes down to personal preference and what the situation calls for.  I personally like the destroyer/cruiser combo cause it puts 2 ships in the water instead of 1.  2 ships can attack 2 different areas as needed instead of just 1.  Saying that, I do try to protect/preserve my capital ships if possible while still being aggressive and taking the fight to the enemy.  Its just a matter of what the individual player wants.  I don’t think cruisers need the AAA opening shot for this new game because of the carrier now being a capital ship.  As for AA50 I could see it being useful.

I apologize for the late back out but I will have absolutely no time to compete in this tournament.  Had a lot of things just come up in the last week.  Once again sorry for the late post, good luck everyone.

Why can’t a country capture enemy territory, build infrastructure there, manufacture weapons of war and move training facilities along with staff to the front line to get troops into the fight faster?  I think there is no problem at all with being able to build frontline ICs, cause if they didn’t the game would take way longer than it normally does.  I understand your reason for why more factories can change the games complexity but I think they are needed.  Japan still needs transports to take islands back from the Allies and to get after the US and ANZAC.  Factory on mainland only allows them to deal with China and UK.  I think the game is fine and that both sides can win in this game regardless if Japan buys more factories or not.  It just comes down to buying the correct units and using them effectively to counteract your opponents strategy.  I am hapy to see a different perspective on the building of ICs on foriegn soil.  Good post.

I understand that the damage could technically be anywhere on the carrier but take the USS Enterprise for example.  It suffered numerous hits from several attacking aircraft and was able to land several of its own planes.  I just think the fact that one hit on it taking away its capabilities is just too much, yeah it saves it so it can be repaired and live to fight another day but when you have 40 to 60+ income you can just as well replace ones you lost.  I know carriers were not used in offensive combat themselves, having little to no armament to fight at other ships, but I just feel they kinda get screwed on the hit policy.  I may just make some sort of house rule to allow a player to land and launch 1 aircraft on a damage carrier.  Seems fair to me since battleships still bombard while damaged.

I just still think that even when they are damaged they should be able to do something with aircraft like be able to only launch and recover 1 plane instead of 2.  Taking a hit on one is such a huge burden to have to take it back to a naval base to repair it where as a battleship could still bombard even when hit once.

If Japan is going for India as fast as possible then the ANZAC needs to ferry fighters as soon as possible to provide some high rolling defence.  I think the US should try to pressure the island of Japan itself and throw everything you have at it.  Its an idea and it could force Japan to build more things there just to try to ward you off.  Basically you could fake out Japan then land on mainland Asia.  Being extremely aggressive with the US and not being afraid to lose things is what I found worked against Japan in both my allies wins.  Granted I was playing against people who are not as good as me, it came down to buying the correct units and playing smartly, taking things back from Japan and giving her more options to consider instead of just all or nothing at India.  ANZAC needs to try to get both bonuses to get themselves faster in the game which some people probably don’t even try to do.  Just have to harass and pick off units where ever possible with the allies, all the while pushing as fast and as hard as you can.

Is anyone else starting to think that giving carriers 2 hits, cost 2 more IPCs, and removing the attack value basically does nothing for the carrier.  Once hit it can do anything for planes until its repaired unless it has allied planes on it.  But I think the fact that planes can’t land on a damaged carrier just defeats the purpose of moving them even remotely close to combat.  Battleships still retain bombard capabilty even when damaged.  Why shouldn’t carriers be allowed to at least land their aircraft and not be able to launch them until repaired, giving the player the option of trying to save his planes instead of losing countless more ships and aircraft just to save a moving/non attacking airbase?

Just curious if anyone else thinks that this change weakens carriers.

I understand you need to make an effort to save the planes if at all possible.  In the example I gave above, only 1 plane would have been screwed on not making it to another carrier if the US player were able to take 2 hits on his carrier, the problem would be avoided if the carrier was sunk, battleship was damaged and the 1 plane that couldn’t make it was taken as a casualty.  I just wanted to clarify that you could do the “going for broke” tactic.

Thats what I thought where as my friend was trying to compare it to just attacking far off places with any number of planes and crashing them in the end everytime.  I knew that if you had a possible landing point at the start you could do this, just needed a clarification on it.

Thanks for the clarification, my friend was trying to argue that we couldn’t bring bombers into the sea zone just in case he wanted to scramble.

Lets say the US is going to invade an empty Korea with 4 infantry with a fleet of 2 transports, 1 battleship while being protected by 2 fighters and 1 tactical bomber from a possible scramble from mainland Japan.  The Japan player of course scrambles 2 fighters and 2 tactical bombers.  Lets say the US player assumes Japan will scramble ahead of time, can he move 2 US bombers to that seazone where his fleet is to “be ready to attack” the oncoming scramble?

So lets say the US player attacks the Japan seazone with carrier, battleship, fighter and tactical bomber from the attacking carrier and one tactical bomber from wake island.  US moved a carrier in range of landing one plane from the attacking carrier so he could make the attack with 3 planes on the Japan sea zone.  Japan had a carrier with fighter and tactical bomber and a battleship and scramble a tactical bomber to defend.  My question is can the attacking player “go for broke” and take the hits on his carrier first knowing he might lost everything in the attack, just to kill the Japanese force.  Can you take hits on the carrier and give 2 of those 3 planes or actually just 1 of those 3 planes no safe landing zone if you somehow won this engagement?

Looks like a lot of fun, I always wanted to try a double blind game.  It sure would make it very interesting if you don’t always see what your opponent is building.

Yes planes from Japan can scramble to defend its seazone even if the opponent intends to invade Korea because the scramble only cares about the seazone.  As for the purchases, if you see a possible invasion coming, especially that against your capital then you buy the most amount of units you can afford each turn till then.  Yes fighters defend on 4 but it is only 1 unit as stated in an above post.  The player should have bought mountains of infantry and some tanks and let the ANZAC fighters do the major hit scoring while your ground troops soak up hits.  Also moving the fleet out of annihilation range is key and just key a bombard blocking shit as a sacrificial lamb.  Maybe even buying a sub, just one may force their hand to attack sooner than they intended if they don’t have a destroyer but from the sounds of it they brought the “house” on the US this game.

Conclusion being that the US player bought the wrong thing for defending his capital cause he should have had over 60 some odd IPCs worth of units.  Also after seeing that turn 1 move by Japan, they China and UK player should look to press their advantage as fast as possible so when their invasion of US fails they will be screwed on income and will be set back awhile from taking things over in asia.

I would rather see a naval base give a boost to attacking or defending rolls for nearby units to go along with the movement bonus.  IE like giving a sub that is going out to hit a lone destroyer a roll of 3 on the first round instead of 2.  Just a thought though, there is a lot to think about for giving a tech specific bonus to naval bases.

That is a great point of them putting a unique roundel there for the possibility of the US doing NCM as a neutral.  Kinda interesting the more you think about it and yes I can’t wait for this board to come out as well, been chomping at the bit to play this combiner board.