Posts made by SubmersedElk

It really depends on what else is going on around the board.

Obviously, taking and holding France means the Allies are advancing in western Europe, and have a new power building units there and unlock the income of the remaining French territories on the board, so in isolation it does represent a major accomplishment by the Allies.

On the other hand, as long as Germany holds Western Germany it hasn’t been seriously impaired, so it’s not by any means a death sentence. It could be that in order to achieve the liberation, the Allies chose to be weaker throughout the entire map, losing strategic territories and handing a win to Japan.

Trying to explain that the initial board setup and game rules doom India and only a conscious choice by Japan to engage in sub-optimal play can change that.

If you all want to get all prickly about it, then I won’t bother to help answer questions in the future.

@simon33:

@SubmersedElk:

I mean even in an all-out KJF, India cannot be saved if Japan is determined to take it. US can go full Pac and Russia can help China and UK can shuffle units from Africa and all of that combined can’t save India.

The only thing that can save India is the Japan player deciding he has other priorities.

That is not my experience.

With all due respect, you don’t have very much experience. Was it 60 days ago, or less, when you arrived here asking newbie questions?

Play against quality competition and it’s a different game than the one played by people who aren’t all that experienced.

At least through G3 you should be safe to stay on offense in Europe, with an eye towards spamming infantry and covering with air once the allies get their attack under way. You should max out the pressure on Russia until the Allies force you to do something else.

If the Allies are indeed going full Atlantic, Japan should get aggressive. A US1 Pac build in and of itself doesn’t mean anything since those can be shifted into the Atlantic on US2 and join a fleet off Gibraltar on US3 or 4, whenever you allow them into the war.

Sweep China, lock down DEI and mass against India. If US is completely abandoning Pac, nothing wrong with unloading a couple of transports onto Hawaii, but don’t let that distract you. In a couple of turns you can consider blitzing through eastern Russia to help Germany.

I mean even in an all-out KJF, India cannot be saved if Japan is determined to take it. US can go full Pac and Russia can help China and UK can shuffle units from Africa and all of that combined can’t save India.

The only thing that can save India is the Japan player deciding he has other priorities.

Patton himself could be playing UK-Pac and it would still be doomed to an early demise if Japan chooses to focus on it.

The only way to save India is to pull Japan’s attention away from it. This is a math thing, not a quality-of-play thing. Mathematically India has no defense against a full-force, properly-executed Japanese attack.

I’m assuming strong UK pac/China play in both cases.

There’s nothing magical that the two can do against Japan - both are set up to die by midgame unless Japan really screws it up. That’s intentionally baked in to the game balance. Perfect play by UK and China can delay it but not avoid it. It takes Japan choosing to be distracted by some other objective and failing to follow through in order for either one to survive.

If India and China can look after themselves, then the Japan play is very weak.

In a normal game both are off the board comfortably by J7 and often as much as 3 turns earlier.

Can’t US declare war on US1 if Japan declares on France J1?

I’ve been seeing more and more the UK selling out their European game in order to save India. When that happens, I don’t mind if it takes a while to capture it, because of all the positive cascading effects this has on the Axis game in general.

Game I’ve got underway currently that’s exactly what happened, Allies went full-bore into saving India, and they’ve saved it for a while - at the cost of the US never making it to Europe, Italy owning the Med unchallenged, Russia isolated and about to fall, and good midgame attack chances against London.

And yet India will eventually fall to Japan anyway, and Japan’s income is plenty good enough to hold the line until that happens.

@Maddog77:

@Kreuzfeld:

The techrules in axis and allies are horrible, and always has been. In the old days, if you played with techs and usa rolled a 6 and a 6, on round 1, it was game over. No matter what.

The only viable option for playing with tech is if you want to change the game balanace. Maybe one player is much better than the other, or you want to give each nation a certain tech at the beginning of the game, just to make it more interesting.

I don’t understand why they havent fixt it yet.

Because there’s nothing to “fix”. It’s not broke.  Your opinion that tech options are “horrible” is not shared by me. In the old days of rolling and 6 and another 6 (you’re referring to Heavy Bombers) most certainly did not mean game over. There are ways to counter that. Only inexperienced players would cry foul and throw in the towel when an opponent gained heavy bombers. Tech rules add a level of excitement and challenge to an already great game.

Out of curiosity, what percentage of games where your opponent got HBs and you didn’t ended up as wins for your side?

@simon33:

Are you advocating unloading all CV and attacking Yunnan with everything? Hmm.

Japan can get in 11ftr 8tb 2sb and maybe 2inf vs 14inf (including 2UK units) and 1tb. On average, Japan loses 2inf 3ftr in the first round for killing 13inf. It needs to trade planes to take the territory.

In my game there are two calculations for Japan that are vital: the result of a US attack on SZ6; and the result of a Japanese attack on a combined allied stack in Yunnan. Everything else is gravy. If a plane in Carolines means allies can hold the position, you don’t have the luxury of putting the plane in the Carolines.

I keep my Japanese carriers along the coast in the early game all I can to make sure their fighters can threaten Yunnan. You can move a BB DD sub and transport out to Carolines on J1 if you want to project force deeper into the Pacific.

I don’t see anything out there that’s worth the trouble early, but if you think there is then that’s the way to roll.

It depends. If IJN has a loaded CV at Carolines they can hit the CV/FTR with it, if not whatever it sends is dead in the counterstrike. Of course if they do have those planes there, then the allies get better odds in Yunnan and might be able to hold it.

Japan really does not want to be trading ships with the US before it can equalize income. It cannot afford to do so while making the progress it needs to make elsewhere. So before J5 or so any ships traded will inure to USA benefit, even at a net IPC value loss.

In terms of deployment of naval power, Japan’s ideal scenario is forcing the US to mass ships turn after turn after turn without being able to use them effectively until it’s too late to matter. The USA ideal scenario is trading off material to increase the relative power of ANZAC through attrition of IJN units. USA takes a long time to threaten DEI but ANZAC is right there and lacks only the ability to survive Japanese counters. The faster Japanese units are traded away, the faster ANZAC can retake those islands by force.

The US can also move the carrier to Johnston Island to catch the fighter.

As Japan, I don’t mind if the US does that because it reduces the ability of both to project threat on J2 and J3.

@simon33:

Then where is the advantage in going to war J1?

Without SBR on Calcutta J2, which would have a negative expected value with a UK1 ftr buy, you don’t actually weaken UK Pac that much by going J1 vs J2.

Are you sure you aren’t overstating it here though:
@SubmersedElk:

With all the things Japan needs to get done in the first four turns, diverting even a single unit to Hawaii borders on insanity.

Seems to make sense to send at least a sub, a DD and some planes there.

Nope. The US can replace its losses more easily than Japan. That sub and DD are 100% dead in the counter, the net loss for US is of no importance to them. The US is now making over 70 IPC per turn and you have 40 IPC income to not only deal with that but also everything you want to do elsewhere.

You could instead be using that sub effectively in the south and the DD as a blocker to protect SZ6 from attacks, instead of now having to replace the DD and being down a sub.

Meanwhile, your planes and any carriers you sent to land them on are now out of position and you lose leverage in key Asian territories such as Yunnan where maximized strike ability is vital to preventing a frustrating enemy multinational stack from forming.

With all the things Japan needs to get done in the first four turns, diverting even a single unit to Hawaii borders on insanity.

You’ve got all of East and South Asia, as well as the entire South Pacific, there for the taking. Allies can’t stop you. And you’re going to attack Hawaii instead? Do you want to lose?

The only place Japan can build a major is Korea.

Yeah, Marsh’s math doesn’t add up. We’re not just talking 11 IPC of convoy damage per turn, but another large chunk of IPC to defend Japan proper - at a crucial turning point in the game, no less. Holding India at that point doesn’t bring Japan even close to US production, and ANZAC and Chinese production plus any support the Russians can offer on that front have to be taken into account as well. The time it takes to recover even in ideal situations is plenty of time for the US to order up a boatload of loaded transports and get them to amphib assault Japan, plus they’ll have the bombard support and no doubt a huge number of planes (as they’d be needed to hold SZ6 in the first place). Japan proper needs to be stacked with well over 20 units to defend that, and if it is, then there’s no building forces to reclaim SZ6 because there’s no money for it. That’s not to mention that if the US can hold SZ6 then it can take Philippines as well.

India is NOT worth it when you can simply outbuild them on land and advance at your leisure while holding SZ6 strong.

Losing SZ6 is extremely difficult to recover from. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it done successfully. It is not merely the 11 IPC lost to convoys, but the need to now defend Japan proper with land units to avoid losing the capital, as well as the loss of strategic leverage in the lack of ability to project threat from that SZ over the entire Asian coast and much of the Pacific.

IMO losing SZ6 is a game-breaker for Japan. If Germany is not having a fantastic game at that point, the Axis have lost.

There are much much better ways to screw over Italy than letting them have Egypt. Use UK air to prevent Italy from floating any ships, then send a bunch of subs to convoy away its income. Tried and true method of keeping Italy down to at most whatever income it cannibalized off of Germany on the eastern front.