Posts made by Vareel

Well if Japan doesn’t declare war till turn 3 then yes, china is pretty much screwed.  I was speaking in relation to an earlier war declaration.

@KH:

Thanks for giving serious input on this Vareel and Spectre!

The strategy is slightly different though. I attack Alaska in turn 2 (6 stuffed transports). In J-turn 3, I move my 12 Alaska units to British Columbia and land 8 more landunits (4 transports) and all available planes to Alaska. This means US has 17 (turn 1) - 22 (turn 2) - 62 (turn 3) ipc’s to spend before the final attack in J4. I’m totally sure the US can not buy or get enough defense capacity to resist this. I tried naval blocking, but did not succeed yet. Japan could and should attack all early blockades. If US blocks the Alaskan route in US 1, Japan should buy an airbase in J2, kill this blockade in J2 and land in Aleutian instead of Alaska. At the end of the turn, place the airbase in Aleutian. Next turn, as earlier said, Japan should take British Columbia to create a landing space for all fighters and tac bombers in the next turn (J4).

In J3 I bought 3 bombers. They can participate in the final J4 attack and land in BC.

Cheers…

Ok, then your looking at another problem.  The US could strafe your stack if they choose coming in threw canada.  Also, with 17 (5 inf) 22 + 2 (8 inf) +62 (3 fig / 2 arm / 5 inf) gives them alot of ground units.

The biggest thing though, as a UK player, you should see this and begin going ALL navy as early as turn 1.  You have until turn 6 until Japan can even get near you.

Up to test this in a game?  I suffered the loss of WUS once by being a dink i’ll give it another go  :-D

UK AA gun can get there by UK2.  By there I mean china.  Try a UK1 purchase of 4 mech, then move all units toward Yunnan.  China should have earned 15 IPC on turn 1, they retake Yunnan, place 5 inf there, then add the UK 9 inf, 1 art, 4 mech, aa gun, and 5 planes.  If Jap hits that turn 3 they will loose planes, alot of planes.

Ok let us take a serious look at this.  Your goal is to take the US completely with a turn 3 attack on alaska and/or pearl, followed up with a turn 4 attack on US proper, correct?  This also means you will completely show your hand if someone has ever seen this before as you will have all your transports in SZ 6 with your fleet.

By turn 4 you could have around, 3 (starting) 3 (J1 purchase) 3 (J2 purchase) or 9 transports worth.  On J4 you could also purchase bombers if you hit alaska first so you have an LZ.  This gives you 18 ground units, plus 6 carrier planes, and we’ll say 7 bombers.  The US will have earned 17 (start) + (23 x 2) US 1/2 income = 63 IPCs to spend to defend against this.  We will rule out the turn 1 income as she may not react that swiftly so 46 IPCs on hand, or 15 inf, plus 6 original ground units, plus 10 planes that could get there and an AA gun.  It gets worse if they buy men on turn 1 as well though, and/or the 2 Inf from Pearl.  And if you start on turn 2 it gets even worse unless you go for a turn 3 US capture.

And even if you win you get a 1 time windfall of war economy, and gain 15 IPC income a turn from your capture.

Meanwhile, UK income equals yours, ANZAC income is getting up there, and China should be about to kick you off the mainland.

Doesnt matter to me either way, only thing is give it a different name if it breaks compatibility so that I can keep playing my current games with the old, and slowly phase into the new version.

Oh I know they would be unable to strike at the US with the splitting of the fleet, but that really doesn’t matter if they can take/hold DEI area and smash UK.  All they have to do is hang out at carolines/japan, then if you move up to alaska shift everything up to Japan.  Or simply deadzone carolines.  Keep 2 Inf in Manchuria along with some fighters on the home island and the US is pretty much negated.

I’m not saying its a terrible, worthless idea to build an Alaskan naval base, i’m just saying it is situational and pretty easy for Japan to deal with, that it doesn’t ‘win the game’.

And what is keeping japan from simply using a small fleet to hold DEI, say 2 subs, a carrier, BB, cruiser, and a pair of destroyers?  UK/ANZAC cannot kill that fleet and it is less than half of the starting fleet for Japan.  That would be 11 hits and around 23 defensive points.

AA50 '41 scenario.

Germany has a tank stack on East Poland, say 10 armor, with 3 fighters on it as well as 3 bombers in Berlin.  Say Italy has 1 Bomber in Italy.  As Russia you do not want germany to be able to take Moscow or Caucasus because in moscows case is obvious, in caucasus case japan has some units in india/persia.  Normally you could just move 1 Inf into Ukraine and Eastern Ukraine.  If you do that though, and say you leave either one of those territories without enough units to defend against the germans, then Italy can simply attack Eastern Ukraine with its single bomber allowing the german’s to roll into a target of there choosing.  It gets worse too, lets just assume that Italy has a tank hanging out in the balkans and perhaps even an infantry in Eastern Poland, and who knows maybe they have a carrier with 2 fighters on it in SZ 14 instead of the bomber.  Now how many russian units do you have to place to block the germans?  Lets say you leave 6 in each.  Now the germans can attack both of those stacks with 4 inf each, or even as low as 2 or 3 if they feel ballsy, with a crapton of planes.  Or they can do that to one of the territories and advance into the other with the armor stack that you no longer have enough units to kill.  It happens all the time in that game.  The can opener threat forces you to play in a specific manner and is annoying.

Try playing a game of Pacific where you reverse the allied turn order, tell me how it turns out for you.  Actually, china can openers for the UK all the time for me, so switch it up to Jap-China-ANZAC-UK-US.  Tell me if it changes the gameplay significantly, because it will.

Edit: actually change the turn order to Jap-UK-ANZAC-US-China, that will be the new turn order.  Have fun keeping a pair of ANZAC subs, and/or 2 fighters on a US carrier, to open all the doors the US needs opened.

No, because 40 of there income is from an NO and cannot be convoy raided  :-(

And what is to stop Japan from taking Haw and stacking a huge fleet there, seeing as they will not need a fleet in the south with this tactic?

Couldn’t you attack Russia with Germany and let Italy tackle the french?  Perhaps with a little hit from germany using there inf and planes on the border, sending all there mech/arms directly toward russia turn 1 for a turn 2 assault?

Sounds like a good idea to me  :-D

I think it all depends on your strategic focus as Japan.  Most players try to do a crush india strat from the get-go while holding on in the DEI area.  I think in the future we may see more strats where Japan focuses more on the ANZAC/pearl area to keep the DEI secure while they slowly whittle away at the UK.  In all honesty, with the convoy at India and Malaya japan should easily be able to place a sub or two into those areas and reduce UK’s income to a 1-3 IPC a round within 2 turns of declaring war.  And the SoPac territories only require 3 drops to acquire and you really don’t want ANZAC getting the extra 5, at least I don’t, so I always try to keep 1 of 'em.  And if I got 1, getting the other 3 are pretty easy so it all depends.

I’ve had to face this and it is a pain.  But there are options for the US.

First off the attack on Pearl is only 62% for Japan to win, and even if they win they should only have a handful of units left, like 1 or 2, 3 at the most.  If they fail to take pearl you can hide your fleet in SZ2 while blocking SZ 25 with a destroyer, this means Japan fails to take Pearl till turn 3, by which time US should have naval parity.

If the attack succeeds you have a problem with the US, because 6 planes can hit along with the remaining units.  If you leave your fleet there the Jap will sink it and soak most of the hits with capital ships, then retreat to Pearl.  The first thing you have to do is see if you need more ground units to keep WUS safe.  If you don’t need any more, then that is awesome, you purchase an airbase and put it on the johnston island, move all your boats except a DD (to block bombard) down there along with your planes.  Even the fig from phil can make it to the carrier.  Then ANZAC can land all 4 of her figs on the island as well.  At that point the IJN would have to defeat a naval force of: 7 figs, 2 tacs, 1 BB, 1 Cru, 1 AC, and 1 SS.  It is a fight they can win, but they will not have much left afterwords and on US3 you drop a huge navy.  You could also use the island Samoa.  On following US turns you can either build up a huge airforce, simply save for a turn to drop a massive navy and send your boats in the DEI area, or whatever you wish.

Now for the trick where Japan stacks Pearl with fighters.  Simply send your fleet to Midway once it is large enough, then Japan is forced to defend 2 key islands.

But, the big thing is, if you scramble a tac to negate the shore bombard at Pearl, it is a 62% chance for them to win, if they do win you still have a good chance to win the game!  If they loose then it will cost them the game.

@Uncle Joe: The really funny thing about this map is this.  If Japan controls all of asia and the Philippine islands they make 55 IPC a turn, same as the US.  This is why DEI is the absolutely most important area in the game.  It is the economic decision maker on who has the advantage.

And i’m telling you that you shall loose all your transports used and navy defending them, and your invasion force will be crushed at a loss of some of japan’s airpower and the handful of ground units hanging out in Manchuria.  If your not planning on putting a factory at Korea there is no real value in taking it.  Your drop will not take place until turn what, 4 or 5?  By then the manpower problems in asia should have solved themselves for japan with the factories on the mainland they build and with China being down to 1-3 inf a turn.  The only viable gain for the US to go hard at Korea would be the intention of getting a factory there, then you could get enough ground units to be a thorn in japan’s side in mainland asia.

TripleA or Abattlemap are the best two options, and both are free, and both have many different game versions to choose from.  TripleA is a full blown java application with the rules hardcoded and is typically played real time, although it has a save feature and a play by email option.  Abattlemap is simply a visual representation of the map/pieces and can be played by forum, but has none of the rules hard coded into it and is the closest to playing the real board game.

http://triplea.sourceforge.net/mywiki for tripleA information.  You must download the maps separately though the program, it is very easy.

http://www.flames-of-europe.de/ is where you can get Abattlemap, you must register to get it.

GTO is an evil, vile company that made a crappy product that they charge for, and then tried to get TripleA shut down.  Yes, wotc only went after tripleA because GTO told them to do it, at least in my opinion.  Otherwise they would have went after Abattlemap as well, and shut them both down with legal action instead of a  simple C&D letter to honor there licenses agreement with GTO.

No if a carrier takes a hit no planes can land on it.

This is why carriers are great on the defense, great to support landings when the planes can hit the target, and absolute junk on the attack.  At times when using land base aircraft to ‘double up’ on the number of planes a carrier can bring to a fight they are very strong, but other than that junk on the attack and in all honesty if you have to buy those planes, or if those planes could be in range without the carrier, really expensive junk on the attack.

I think you would be much better served by just building up US fleet and if a Korea drop looks like it would work well just move said fleet to SZ 3.  It is still 3 away from Japan so land based fighters/tacs cannot hit your fleet, but only 2 spaces from SZ 5 and landing in Korea.  The only way a landing would be a good idea is if you could get a major factory purchased and producing units in Man.  This could easily be done with an additional pair of carriers for your starting planes and an additional 2 transports, with a sprinkling of DDs for extra support.  This would only require 1 turn of wartime purchase.  For Japan to counter this, though, would simply require 2 Inf in Manchuria along with land based planes in Japan to retake Korea before you can do anything with it.

I think this may work against a J1 that focuses heavily in the DEI area, but if they come at the US with any significant force you will be hard pressed to pull it off.

The real kicker though would be if the US could hold Korea for 2 turns, long enough to put a major factory on it and pump out a crapton of ground units.

I still think let them raid 2 IPCs a turn and let them move 3 movement regardless of a naval base presence (meaning they will not move 4 from a naval base, still just 3).

@Hobbes:

The counter there by the Allies would be to move the US/UK/ANZAC DDs and CA to SZs 37/43/35/45. It limits J transports in SZ36 (South China Sea) or SZ33 (Carolines) to attacking Malaya, Borneo and Phillipines on J3. You can take the remaining DEI on J4 but the transports will require protection because the US can fly the 3 bombers to Australia on US3 and the UK planes can also attack.

Simpliest solution to that is to park your fleet in SZ 42 on J2.  Just make sure the UK/ANZAC cannot sink it, US isn’t allowed to attack until turn 4 and cannot land planes on Australia until they are at war so they do not matter in this case.