Hello, I play pacific 1940 a lot. I have also played global a few times. Pacific 1940 second edition is a great game but I can almost easily win every time if I’m Japan and I attack on the third turn. A new rule was passed around late 2014 to allow the USA to receive a 30 IPC bonus if Japan attacks or declares war on them before turn 4. This seems to balance the game a little but I can still always win with Japan. The strategy for Japan is pretty much the same. Take the money islands, build a minor in French Indo China and Kwangtung and knock out China and India. Post in the Philippines with your huge navy and three fighters that can scramble and those six deadly kamikizes. Let Anzac and USA come to you so you can use the fighters to defend at 4 when the big navy battle happens. Eventually you will be making more than the allies with the money islands NO and the India NO. You should be around the 70-75 mark. Then when the time is right strike at Sydney or Hawaii and hold it and you should win as it will be six victory cities. For the allies, man this can be tuff lol. You better hope Japan attacks you on turn 1 or turn 4 because turn 2 and especially 3 it’s going to be difficult.
1: China: buy men and hit and run and fall back to the north west of China. You will be lucky if the Burma road is open more than two turns. Pull back and make Japan come to you.
2: UK: pull everyone back to India and just buy men!!! Try to bring your navy down to Australia and unite them with Anzac and hopefully later USA. If it looks like India is going to fall then pull your airforce out and send them to Australia to hopefully land on a Anzac or American carrier. If Japan hasn’t declared war early then take as many islands in the south as possible .
3: Anzac: small ships and transports are good. if it looks like Japan is going to invade then pull your forces to south Australia because from there you can hit any territory. Use your small ships to convoy raid or unite with the main USA fleet. Queensland is a great staging area for the allied navy early in the game. Also since there’s a airbase there fighters don’t hurt also since they can scramble.
4:USA: the big boy lol. The problem is when USA is neutral she only makes a freaking 17 ipcs a turn. While Japan is around the 40 mark and Japan has soooooooo many aircraft at its disposal. USA I say aircraft carrier early then mainly subs, destroyers, and a transport every turn with land units. A few rounds into the game get a navy base on the Johnson islands and start combining your fleet with the Anzac fleet and hopefully a small UK fleet. try to take the money islands by sacrificing transports because Japan will have a bigger navy early in the game. When the time is right move to Dutch New Guinea with your fleet and prepare for the big battle. Sometimes it’s better if Japan attacks you and sometimes it’s better if you attsck them. Hopefully you will have a lot of subs at your disposal. If you win the navy battle then Japan is pretty much toast even if they have India and China. Good luck and let me know how the war goes lol. I am playing anniversary edition on Saturday 😜
First impressions
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We got the game yesterday. We did not have time to schedule in a full game but we played a short game of 2 rounds.
Apart from the very dissapointing contents of the box (we paid 80 euro in Holland, the equivalent of 120 dollar) which already have been addressed by others, here are some FIRST impressions of the actual game.
Japan is HUGE. 25 somewhat airplanes, lots of naval units, enough infantry for the landwar and a very decent income to START with. The allies have very little resources and lots of it gets killed on J1
Our group cannot imagine how you could lose with Japan (but again this is a first impression we could be wrong). As we see it Japan should take Phili in round 1 (kill US bomber there) and take out the UK fleet at Malaya. Japan’s main fleet should then move 3 spaces (naval base) to Malaya and next turn move into the position to take out India. In the meantime contain China (which was wiped out in those two turns almost completely) and ignore USA. After that Japan could take out Anzac and fend of USA. Small UK and Anzac cannot possible defend against concentrated forces.
Maybe it is better to split your forces (you have enough to do so) and take on UK and Anzac simultaneously, but we haven’t figured that out yet. Australia is relative easy to reinforce by USA. And by the time India falls you might be too late to take out Anzac.
Of course I hope we are wrong and the game is neatly balanced. :-)
The new units are cool. Tac bombers are very usefull. Try to pair them with fighters on Aircraftt Carriers. However we did not see much mech action.
One other thing. There was some talk (by Larry?) that the USA had a motive to keep a large fleet based at Hawaii (so Pearl would be re-lived again). Our US player thought differently and kept the fleet safely at the west coast to build it up first. But when we finised our test game we saw that there was a route from Japan to Hawaii of only 3 spaces (with a naval base). This means that Hawaii is constant at risk and this is probably the reason why you have to base a fleet there (or at least make it a deadzone for Japan).
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One thing I would like to add:
Of course Japan has the option not to attack UK/Anzac and USA the first 3 turns, but I really don’t see why you wouldn’t. You can kill off the planes on Philippines and the UK BB at Malaya on J1. Very juicy targets. Of course, you get into war straight away, but leaving those targets alive and then moving them to safe spots will get you intro trouble later on IMHO.
Also UK will impose a big threat on Southern Asia if you keep those trannies at Malaya alive on J1 and I think UK will attack Japan before Japan does so herself.
But as John said, time will tell. Maybe in a few weeks it proves better to leave the allies alone until J4, you never know. :-D
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I am absolutely praying and praying that this game is balanced. A very good number of people in my play group refuse to use bids or anything the equalize the game, and also do not recognize anything that doesn’t ship with the game (no rules errata, etc., if its not in the rule book that ships, its not in this playgroup), which kind of sucks.
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I am absolutely praying and praying that this game is balanced.
I am sure the playtesters did a good job. But at this early stage I fail to see it.
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I am absolutely praying and praying that this game is balanced. A very good number of people in my play group refuse to use bids or anything the equalize the game, and also do not recognize anything that doesn’t ship with the game (no rules errata, etc., if its not in the rule book that ships, its not in this playgroup), which kind of sucks.
I can understand the no bids part but not recognizing errata or clarifications/FAQs seems a bit much. To each is own, I guess.
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On the Hawai subject : With a naval base, the US are at a striking distance of japan from there, so keeping a fleet there also tell Japan : If your not careful, we are invading!
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One other thing. There was some talk (by Larry?) that the USA had a motive to keep a large fleet based at Hawaii (so Pearl would be re-lived again). Our US player thought differently and kept the fleet safely at the west coast to build it up first. But when we finised our test game we saw that there was a route from Japan to Hawaii of only 3 spaces (with a naval base). This means that Hawaii is constant at risk and this is probably the reason why you have to base a fleet there (or at least make it a deadzone for Japan).
Regarding Hawaii, is it possible for Japan to get its victory conditions very early. I heard it needs 6 vc. Can they get the other 5 then hit Hawaii for the 6th, forcing the US to build up there?
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I am absolutely praying and praying that this game is balanced. A very good number of people in my play group refuse to use bids or anything the equalize the game, and also do not recognize anything that doesn’t ship with the game (no rules errata, etc., if its not in the rule book that ships, its not in this playgroup), which kind of sucks.
Most of my players are of this same opinion. And I personally, think it’s lame to have to introduce bids and ‘bandaids.’ If a game needs too much of those - then it fell short of the mark in the first place (incidentally, we don’t use bids in AAA50th - and it’s been fairly balanced).
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On the Hawai subject : With a naval base, the US are at a striking distance of japan from there, so keeping a fleet there also tell Japan : If your not careful, we are invading!
Yes, it works both ways
@WILD:
One other thing. There was some talk (by Larry?) that the USA had a motive to keep a large fleet based at Hawaii (so Pearl would be re-lived again). Our US player thought differently and kept the fleet safely at the west coast to build it up first. But when we finised our test game we saw that there was a route from Japan to Hawaii of only 3 spaces (with a naval base). This means that Hawaii is constant at risk and this is probably the reason why you have to base a fleet there (or at least make it a deadzone for Japan).
Regarding Hawaii, is it possible for Japan to get its victory conditions very early. I heard it needs 6 vc. Can they get the other 5 then hit Hawaii for the 6th, forcing the US to build up there?
Japan start at 2 VC’s and takes another 2 on J2. To get to 6 VC you need India and Australia or leave one of those and go for Hawaii. I think India should always be your first target. While pushing for Australia you should always be on the lookout if an opportunity arises to finish the game at Hawaii. This forces USA to keep a presence there (Hawaii is probably more important than we realized).
I am not sure what the exact victory conditions are (no rulebook near me) but if Japan has to keep the 6 cities until the end of the round (after Anzacs turn) Hawaii as 6th city can be proven difficult because it is easy to take it back. -
Most rules errata are not rules “bandaids”, but simply mistakes that were made in the production of the rulebook. A missing word or sentence can make a big difference in the interpretation of a rule. Personally, I would rather play a game the way the designer(s) intended it, rather than based on an error in the rulebook.
I’ll warn you in advance, this one does have a few errors. :oops:
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such as?
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I dont care as long as the global game is gonna be balanced and perfect.
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Most rules errata are not rules “bandaids”, but simply mistakes that were made in the production of the rulebook. A missing word or sentence can make a big difference in the interpretation of a rule. Personally, I would rather play a game the way the designer(s) intended it, rather than based on an error in the rulebook.
I’ll warn you in advance, this one does have a few errors. :oops:
I did not directly refer to erratas as “bandaids,” you did. To reiterate, I personally don’t like it when bids and “add-on rules” are needed to balance a game. An “erratum” or errata, is a list of errors or corrections in regard to a body of text. These are prone to happen (though too many makes me think that the company needs to hire competent or more editors). But introducing new rules in order to balance a game… well, that shows flaws in the game mechanic itself - which to me is a much more serious issue, and one that shows poor workmanship. Typos or bad sentence structure - eh, no big deal.
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There are several reasons why the A&A games are not balanced like chess. But the designers and playtesters could come pretty close if they choose to use veteran A&A players using a software utility, (i.e. TripleA), or something more “advanced”. This is much more effective than 5-6 players playing the boardgame version regardless if the players are experienced or not.
You can play 5 games at the time it takes a playgroup to finish a single game.
There is also differences between 1vs1 games and multiplayer games. 1vs1 games are much more effective in regards to the different tactics and strategies players choose throughout a game. -
One thing I would like to add:
Of course Japan has the option not to attack UK/Anzac and USA the first 3 turns, but I really don’t see why you wouldn’t. You can kill off the planes on Philippines and the UK BB at Malaya on J1. Very juicy targets. Of course, you get into war straight away, but leaving those targets alive and then moving them to safe spots will get you intro trouble later on IMHO.
Also UK will impose a big threat on Southern Asia if you keep those trannies at Malaya alive on J1 and I think UK will attack Japan before Japan does so herself.
But as John said, time will tell. Maybe in a few weeks it proves better to leave the allies alone until J4, you never know. :-D
Keep in mind: Not attacking as Japan for 3 turns mean allies get 120 less IPCs. You could spend those three turns better positioning yourself to wreak even more havoc on your first assault, and if UK does attack you before hand then all the better. Mind you if US started off with 50 IPCs instead of 10 when it’s at peace there’d be little reason to wait.
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One other thing. There was some talk (by Larry?) that the USA had a motive to keep a large fleet based at Hawaii (so Pearl would be re-lived again). Our US player thought differently and kept the fleet safely at the west coast to build it up first. But when we finised our test game we saw that there was a route from Japan to Hawaii of only 3 spaces (with a naval base). This means that Hawaii is constant at risk and this is probably the reason why you have to base a fleet there (or at least make it a deadzone for Japan).
I don’t like the idea of Hawaii within a single move (with a naval base) from Japan and vice versa.
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Since US goes to war at beginning of collect income phase turn 3 then there will only be two turns when US can make the 10 rather than the 50, not 3. So Japan might as well attack whomever on J3.
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Since US goes to war at beginning of collect income phase turn 3 then there will only be two turns when US can make the 10 rather than the 50, not 3. So Japan might as well attack whomever on J3.
Oh yeah, still. 80 IPCs is nothing to scoff at.
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Anyone got the total starting IPC for Japan and combined allies?
I’m trying to figure out the starting situation of the game and cannot wait for my copy to arrive.
From what I’ve seen and heard so far, Japan can choose to do a fast or slow game by choosing when to start the US machine.
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We got the game yesterday. We did not have time to schedule in a full game but we played a short game of 2 rounds.
Only playing 2 rounds you only see the massive potential power of Japan. You fail to see the downside, which is getting spread too thin too fast. You just cannot cover the entire Pacific and Asia with your supply lines. Something will be missed and it gives the USA the chance to move in and dominate.
In my game, I probably didn’t attack fast enough but I still was stretched thin. There’s just not enough boats to keep all of your transports safe. But to rapidly expand to get the National Obective bonuses, you need to use all of those transports.
In my opinion, I think it is a false to say the game is unbalanced after 2 rounds of play.
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