Scrambling Korea/Japan

Very interesting. I’d agree that Japan usually wants at least one factory in China no later than turn 3, even if you’re primarily playing a naval game. It’s rare to see a board where you’d want zero factories, although I believe it is a possibility. You can use up your limited 10 production slots pretty easily when you’re building serious naval units. Even if you’re pulling in 80 IPCs a turn, that can usefully go to something like 1 BB, 1 CV, 1 DD, 1 SS, 2 trans, 2 inf, 1 art, 1 tnk.

The USA sub build is a special case, because subs are optimized for killing your navy, but subs are bad at protecting American transports. If the USA builds more than 3 subs in the first 2 turns, then you do want to build Japanese factories, because, as you say, the subs make it too difficult for Japan to protect its fleet, and the subs also make it easier for Japan to nuke any transports that the USA tries to bring west to take over your factories. The USA is rich, but it can’t afford to build a huge sub stack and a huge carrier stack and a huge stack of loaded transports all in the first few turns, even if it ignores Europe altogether.

Any war against the USA will get nowhere fast without the Money Islands. Therefore, attacking UK/ANZAC is an absolute must, so that you can rake in that badly needed +20 IPCs.

Awesome thank you all for the clarification!

@ShadowHAwk:

Well you could move 1 step forward capturing a contry and then move 1 step back. Sort of capturing a country without actualy ending up there.

Yes, but that happens during the combat move. Once the non-combat move phase comes around, that particular tank can not move again. It has to wait until that player’s next turn.

alaska is a non issue. can block hawaii with a dd.

us cannot take DEI if it is dutch, but anzac and uk pac already did, you did not DOW yet, of course they took all the dutch islands round 2.

Keeping japan in sz 6 doesn’t keep us honest. it is away from your objectives. It is the exact opposite. America is not afraid of losing alaska. 16 units is not going to take and hold hollywood. usa can spam ground forces after the fact, the hell.

block hawaii with a dd and done. don’t worry about pacific. No J1 or J2 dow = you are not trying to win in the pacific.

take fleet to queensland and screw making pacific ships. If japan doesn’t want to be near the cash islands, he won’t make enough to win in the pacific. america won’t need to be there.

Would I abandon calcutta, I’d have enough to defend it considering the 20+ income it makes, but I’d move stuff out for sure.

If you are away from your money and not declaring war, that is a big green light for usa to go full atlantic.
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plus there are enough dds laying around in the pacific to block your naval from hitting calcutta, in which case calcutta moves.

if you telegraph what you are doing like this, of course america is going to try and drop on italy. Egypt can be well defended too you know.

lots of people drop egypt minor and build off south africa and egypt with uk, instead of making a silly london fleet.
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Don’t get me wrong, the strategy works the first time around usually, but after that people figure it out easy.

but staying in sz6 is absolutely silly, you aren’t fooling anyone. At least if you are near the money, usa might think you are trying with japan.

Anyway,  most people don’t buy much in the pacific when there is no J2 DOW, regardless of where your naval is. you might see 3 units of sub/dd mix, but that is about it.

sometimes on USA 2 if no J2 dow happened and Japan doesn’t look like he will dow… I pull the USA 1 buy off west usa into the atlantic. get hawaii to queensland and taunt.

K, thanks for your answer!

For simplicity, the game doesn’t deal with the Vichy government.  All French units are considered to be Free French.

New Guinea is after Greenland the largest island in the world.

The fact that Japan can scramble is a big advantage, of course. But if it gets to that Japan is in serious trouble. Then you need to hold out until Germany captures Moscow and Italy captures India.