@weddingsinger said in Japan goes to south africa. Worth it?:
Is UKPac at risk of breaking out? Will you be able to actually take it with those tanks?
No. I plan to take out burma with artillery and infantry, and then bring 9 tanks, 1 infantry, and 1 artillary the following turn. that stack should be sufficient to win a counter attack. I plan to keep dropping2-4 infantry a turn from japan to korea and keep walking them around mongolia, and in 2 turns trigger the snow monkeys. i’m going bare minimum right now on calcutta in order to move the bulk of my navy towards sz6. I’m waiting to see if someone can change my mind on south africa, but i think putting the squeeze on the US is more important. I’m not sure i’m ready to give up the production on the naval base yet…
Where is the minor factory that belongs in union of South Africa?
Like mentioned before. You need to decide which side of the board you can get the win on and attack accordingly.
If you already have what you need for Calcutta you could start lining your transports and navy up to move on ANZAC, too, as quick as possible. Its not like Japan needs to keep sz6 to win, just a little bit of math to figure out how many inf you need to keep your capital (he’s only got like 1 transport)
/helping in the Middle East would probably be more useful than S. Africa… dumping some planes there to support the Germans
@Paul-Thomas its lost to the sands of time. we always lose it, so now we don’t bother to put it on the board!
@Aaron_the_Warmonger said in Japan goes to south africa. Worth it?:
is it worth to send an expeditionary force with 2 troops and some ships to SZ72?
You need to send more than 2 troops, because the UK can build 3 and it takes 2 turns to get there. I’m not sure what else you would be doing as Japan with your navy. I’d think you’d also need to send some escorts, otherwise one sub can be built in the Red Sea and sink your force. Or fly a plane to Egypt then sink the force.
If UK_Pac are likely to be there for a while shouldn’t you be convoying off their income? I’d be inclined to strat bomb too but the convoying doesn’t have any downsides.
so, germany rolled very badly yet again, and was forced by necessity to go for the throat. 
US only put down 2 surface warships. next attack s/b hawaiian sea zone. even if he puts every penny there, i think i have something like 92% win percent w/ 14 units left. Japan is light on ground troops, so i was thinking full advance to midway next turn.
@simon33 so, my plan was to send a TT, 2 troops, 2 cruisers, destroyer, and ACC w/ TB+F. my thought was that the UK could build 3 units, and i could hit it w/ 2 planes, 2 troops, and 2 bombardments, but germany is looking grim, so i’m just going to step up to blast hawaii. I’m pretty sure i’ve got calcutta in 2 turns, 3 at the latest.
you don’t have a navalbase near burma, so that has to be built. However, uk can always then react by sending a single ship to 72, land his planes in egypt (if he has an airbase there) and build 3 units in S/A. Since you can’t hit it on the second turn, he can build 3 more units in S/A and fly at least 5 planes there from egypt. This means that he has 11 defenders against your 2 landunits and 2 fighters. He also has enough planes and ships to actually kill the navy you send as japan.
It sounds like a suicide mission with 0% chanse of success to me.
Taking South Africa in Global as Japan is a very, very niche play. It might make sense if Britain fell to Sea Lion, so that the South Africa factory is temporarily inactive – then you might want to seize it before Britain can build defenses there, with the idea of helping Italy turn into a monster and permanently keeping Egypt / Iraq / Persia.
But if you do Sea Lion, then typically Russia will be a monster and you will have trouble holding Romania and Poland as Germany, let alone the Middle East. Also, typically when Sea Lion is an option, Britain has done the Taranto raid against Italy, so Italy is not really strong enough to sweep through the Middle East even with no opposition from South Africa.
So really taking South Africa is a response to an Allied blunder – it’s handy if you can get it on the cheap, but it’s too far away and too strategically irrelevant to make a serious investment in it. It’s not a victory city, it’s rarely essential to taking or holding any other victory cities, it’s not worth a ton of cash, and it’s not immediately useful for securing a ton of cash. I think the main reason people like to threaten it is because they feel like a badass going so deep into British territory, but it’s not actually a reasonable strategy in 99% of games.
well, i got my friends to push through 2 japanese turns… germany is pulling back, but are getting close to being able to push back again, and japan has open field running to the middle east and is throttling ANZAC. looking good for the Axis!
Dave occasionally diverts a Japanese fleet to SA, but probably not one that can withstand a big attack, and not with the presence USA is showing. With some VCs (we mod SA as a VC, Mark Movel’s and YGs VC make certain areas more important than OOB) it changes the allied priorities and if Japan is raging then at some point they have almost 80+ income and can take more–to win a game where Germany is about to die or fails to take moscow.
As Japan, you should never leave SZ 6 for the taking, because it paralyzes your ability to lay new forces on the board. So any plan to go around the bend (SZ 37) needs to watch USA carefully and have some or all the ships return to Philippines/SZ 6/Inland Seas. If USA is KGF, then Japan can run wild and smash India and ANZAC pretty easily–its not hard to get 6VC this way and pressuring ANZAC and preventing it from growing is a pretty strong move once you have the money in hand.
@taamvan said in Japan goes to south africa. Worth it?:
As Japan, you should never leave SZ 6 for the taking
I don’t completely agree. So long as you can reclaim it, it’s perfectly fine to run to the money islands/India (hopefully not 3 turns away). You can use the Kamis and air to force them to run back to Midway usually.
@Aaron_the_Warmonger Nice! The allies are in trouble - Japan is a monster! I’d suggest US making a move into Norway then Sweden (USA) followed by a major industrial complex - focus 100% on Europe for a few turns and see how it goes, capitalise on momentum and get the Russians on the offensive. It’s a desperation move to turn things around. Perhaps UK pulling the trigger on Turkey to spread the Axis focus?
@Juno You can’t put a major complex on a non original territory. Unless you’re playing 1st edition.
@simon33 Blast. Okay - thanks, yeah I am (likely) going by 1st edition - I got it a long time ago and going off the rules in the box. I’m out of touch with the newer editions.
That limits the options. Hmmm…but makes sense. Without it the allied USA objective in Europe would be Norway, Norway, Norway, every time.
Cheers
@Juno its why we leave it in the hands of soviets… it gives them income (they have norway and finland for 11IPCs a turn) but it keeps 6 US tanks a turn from pummelling my teammate!
@Juno said in Japan goes to south africa. Worth it?:
@simon33 Blast. Okay - thanks, yeah I am (likely) going by 1st edition - I got it a long time ago and going off the rules in the box. I’m out of touch with the newer editions.
That limits the options. Hmmm…but makes sense. Without it the allied USA objective in Europe would be Norway, Norway, Norway, every time.
Cheers
heh heh worth a try anyway :) Welcome to the boards Juno :)
well, as you can see, we are going for kill the ANZACS in peace and quiet.
Japan pulled in 91 IPCs last turn, and hopefully have the ANZACS down to 3 IPCs a turn. The US did not add any navy to the hawaiian sea zone, i added 2 destroyers, 1 sub, 1 Fighter, and 1 TB. Hoping the jap armour divisions begin to pressure the factory in egypt and my european teammate can push back the allies!
