This topic has been moved to Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition.
How should the Allies counter 2 ICs on J1?
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oh and sorry, to answer Perry’s initial post, if there’s no indian IC build i think it’s a waste of resources to send in us fleet against japan. No single power can stop japan. Better to KGF in that case.
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My response would be a full commitment of the US to the Pacific theater. The US alone can handle Japan, I have done it and have had it done to me. With full naval builds on turn 3 Japan has to either start building ships or completely kiss its islands good bye. That is because after US three the US navy will outnumber the Japanese navy. Japan can buy some time with naval purchases and good maneuvers of its fleet but that is all they can accomplish. There is simply no way Japan can cover its high value islands and the homelands. All Japan can hope for in one of these games is that its initial purchases that were sent towards Moscow are enough to help Germany subdue Russia before they loose the islands and their income. If Japan spent its initial 30 IPCs on ICs I do not see that happening.
As far as building an IC in India with the UK Japan will thank you for the free IC around round 3 or 4.
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Yes, and I will always remember the look I imagine you had on your face when my Japanese forces took out W. USA.
But I agree, generally speaking, if the United States goes full bore after Japan, Japan is doomed. It becomes a game of killing Russia in hopes that Japan can build enough fighters/bombers to sink the American fleet or Germany can build a big enough threat that America has to pull off Japan to defend the Atlantic.
It happens, but rarely. Usually America ends up with a large army going up in Asia as they isolate Japan resulting, eventually, in Japan’s downfall. This is why I prefer to build up a fleet of battleships with America, since for the price of 3 IPC, you can easily kill off 4-6 enemies each round. (When Japan is earning 8-16 IPC, that’s a lot of loss for Japan!) 3 Battleships sounds like a lot, until you look at how it is spread over time, mind you.
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No offense but I couldn’t disagree with you guys more. US can build an ultimately unstoppable navy and take some valuable islands by US turn 3…
By that time japan should own half of asia (with 2-3 IC’s built), which easily offsets those losses, while germany will be dominating the western front.
What that strategy forces is japan to build up infantry and stop putting as much pressure on russia, but a us fleet, and an eventual IC build in Borneo is not going to easily take and hold mainland asia. Japan can and will manage to hold her own and retaliate to any incursion, which at that point is all she needs to do. US ground forces will be comparably limited and unable to take and hold ground.
I do think that a strong us pacific fleet with sufficient transports can be part of an effective anti-japan strategy. It works particularly well if the us hawaiin carrier manages to survive round 1. But that in isolation won’t keep japan from taking and holding mainland asia. And i’ve never played a game where I found purchasing a battleship to be a cost-effective choice for any power. bombers are cheaper and far more versatile, IMO.
When you think about it, the allies rarely want to spend a ton of cash to overwhelm and neutralize the massive japanese navy, just to earn ~10ipc’s late in the game. In contrast, the japanese navy when left alive has some value, but not equivalent to it’s IPC worth, most of which is strong defensively (24+24+16+16+12+8+8= 108). Using strong allied bomber presence in asia to force japan to position boats in a defensive manner is usually enough to tie them down without spending tons to actually kill them.
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On the US going after Japan by building in the WUS, why is it that this strat has almost never been used against me?
I almost never see this in other peoples games, someone who can give me a good answer? -
I would say it is who you are playing and their preferences Subotai. I have seen this strat used in more than one league game here.
eumaies, exactly how much is the US going to contribute to the fight between Russia and Germany by turn 3 in a KGF? On turn 3 when the US fleet first moves out it should already be ahead of Japan because the Japanese destroyer probably did not survive Pearl. That is a moot point anyway as Japan has more places to cover than they can be at. When the US engages Japans Navy it is at the US initiative. A battleship per round is nothing for the US to pull off and they add up quick as do those bombardments. If you are blowing 5 or 6 Japanese troops off the Map by sending in one infantry Japan will be feeling the pain on the mainland without the US even capturing one of the mainland territories.
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depends on your approach, but the us can be funneling troops into norway starting US2. Or on US 1 with british support (or poor german fighter placement) they can begin to contest africa (which is worth $10 in IPC) and threaten southern europe as well.
From an early stage and for the rest of the game the us threatens western europe at every turn, forcing germany to deploy defensive or counter-attacking troops, leavin them fewer troops available for use against russia. It’s a direct and very quick impact.
I totally agree the us fleet you build can mop the floor against japan’s fleet and take islands at will. I just think it’s too little and too late if you’re acting alone and japan was allowed to dominate mainland asia in the meantime.
a battleship per round is devastatingly expensive for the US. aside from ground forces, early investments in transports and air power are a far more efficient investment to do damage to your opponents’ every turn. I have never lost a game against an opponent who built a battleship with any world power.
I mean, just assume that using transports, ground forces, or air power costs the US 2x whatever damage they do against germany or japan (it isn’t always that bad, but for the sake of argument).
a battleship killing 2/3 of an infantry every round offensively in ground operations is irrelevant for it’s cost. the damage it could do over 5 full rounds of game play is still nowhere near a 2x cost to 1 damage ratio you can get with other forces. And for their main job of taking out any enemy fleet and holding ground, carriers and air power will do the job just fine. The game was designed to reflect the historical inneficiency of building new battleships as compared to carriers, even though they are great units to start the game with.
Per your example of killing 5-6 infantry a turn (with 7 battleships?? :P)…. you might as well build a ton of bombers, land them on an island and bomb japan for $15 IPC’s a turn. It’s cheaper, though I don’t recommend that either.
edit – final thought. the difference in our experiences with battleships is probably because you’ve played games where the japanese opponent attempted to fight back against the us fleet build up. In that case, i’m sure they did pay off comparably, because they had something worthwhile to kill. But ignoring an expensive US battleship makes them pretty inneficient.
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tell ya what eumaies, if you have Abattlemap we can play a forum game. You can take Axis with a bid of 8 I only require that you build 2 mianland ICs Japan 1. You even know what strategy I will employ so it should be an easy win for you.
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that sounds awesome, let’s play. but what’s battlemap? I’d be happy to install it. I currently play on gametableonline – have you played there?
If we’re playing standards A&A revised i’m happy to play axis with no bid (no bonus troops).
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Abattlemap is for all intents and purposes an electronic game board. It doesn’t do anything fancy. You might want to read the stickied thread here about help with it as it has some pointers. I will get us started down in the Play by Forum section.
Download Battlemap here:
http://www.flames-of-europe.de/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownload&cid=2You want the 0.79 version that is at the top. If I recall correctly all you have to do is unzip it and click on the exe. inside the folder.
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First, one should think WHY did Japan build the 2 factories, instead of the usual 3tra 2inf or 3tra 1tnk or 4tra (with 2IPC from bid) ? If they would like maximum pressure in Asia, the best times to build these factories would be in turns 2-3-4, only to supplement the transports started early.
More often, the 2 IC buy is an emergency response e.g. to the British ‘exploding’ around (Borneo, New Guinea, Solomons, bomber near), so Japan cannot defeat them all and cannot escort a transport mass together with the needed Pearl and China attacks.
Then yes, that buy diverts 30 IPC that neither fight soon at sea, nor on land, so ‘helps’ the US decisions towards KJF. But that is still ‘far away’ enough of the decision ‘hump’ (as in the ‘hump of the camel’ or railroad ‘triage hump’).
I’d jump to KJF on 1US if Japan has built 2IC AND took significant losses (1 carrier, e.g. if btl car didn’t sink the UK destroyer in sz59 easy enough; or 1sub 1fig 1bmb in Pearl)
OR Japan didn’t attack Pearl at all - so US survive with sub car fig worth 36 IPC - that usually go down, often taking only the repaired hit on the Jap battleship. -
I think buying 2 Factories in the first round is almost always a bad play for Japan. I’d only consider it, under the most blatant KGF conditions. If there is a possibility for an Allied Pacific game, a double Factory build on the mainland usually just leads to disaster.
You should never buy a factory unless you can fill it with 3 tanks every turn. Japan doesn’t need a second until they are collecting at least 45+ IPCs per round, and even then its debatable. Transports provide more flexibility with less risk. Even the guys from the JTDTM Factory school of thought, usually won’t buy the second IC until the round 2 or 3. In a low luck game the dynamics are more favorable towards factories for J, but low luck distorts the mechanics so dramatically that its basically like playing a totally different game; and in my view not really worth taking seriously. Under standard dice rules, I’d never buy 2 factories in the first round. Its just asking for trouble.
If I was playing Allies, the second factory would make me want to throw everything + the kitchen sink at the Japanese.
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quite simply, transports have to be defended, and the allies can put have in range alot of threatening airpower before japan’s second turn… and every ship that’s left defending them reduces your ability to cheaply destroy the various allied fleets that might be making a mess in the pacific on turn one.
Other than that, the additional transports allow for 6 units a turn, similarly to the IC’s. The additional transports give you the ability to grab guys more quickly from the islands, as well as the ability to push on india and africa faster and harder. But each of these require some tradeoffs (ideally, mass troops in manchuria, but if india looms you may have to deal with that, slowing the flow of 6 units/per turn.
transports assuming a factory build later also ends up reducing the flow of fast moving armor, if that’s necessary.
Don’t get me wrong, i’m a big fan of transports, but they have their drawbacks too.
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