• Which do you go for first?

    IC - get them tanks onland immediately and head for the Russian Capital. Steamroll some IPC’s along the way.

    Trannies - Great for defense of a spread out nation. Fodder. Ability to siege Africa if Germany is lackluster in this job. Unload those valuable troops from the islands.

    Both have their value, but trying to do both usually amounts to a dwindling fleet for japan. You can’t fuel trannies and IC’s at the same time unless adding to the fleet is not important anymore.

    Thoughts.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    Depends.  Are the allies going KJF?  Did I get 1 IPC on the bid?  Do i own Borneo and New Guinea on Japan 1?


  • I guess a lot has happened by J1.
    When you say did I get 1 IPC on the bid, what do you mean?
    I thought all bid related IPC have to be placed.
    Learn me


  • I buy 3 transports and 2 Inf J1 if I lost one the Brits, and 2 transports and 3 inf + 1 tank if I didn’t, for a total of 4 transports.  I then use the transports to invade the mainland.  When I’ve maxed out Japan’s production, I build the IC, usually in Manchuria, but I’ve been considering FIC.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    No, you may choose to spend bid IPC or you may keep part of that in cash form.  (And in regards to a FIDA bid, you must keep 50% of the bid in cash form.)

    With 1 extra IPC Japan will most likely buy 2 transports and 1 industrial complex getting the best of both worlds.

    However, let’s say India, Sinkiang and Buryatia are all heavily stacked and England has taken Borneo and New Guinea, sinking my Submarine in the Solomons (maybe even with their own submarine surviving there.)

    That’s a MUCH different picture.  Any IC I place on the mainland will be easily conquered, in which case I may want 3 transports and some infantry for landings on the coast while I concentrate and build up a stronger force.  Or maybe I;ll retreat to Kwangtung and put the IC there.  I don’t know.  As I said, there’s a lot of things that can happen in a normal game.

    Maybe england lost 4 infantry attacking Borneo/New Guinea and I lost none and Russia has pulled out of the East and England has retreated from India.  I might just start with 2 ICs instead of transports.  Especially if I have the Kwangtung and Japanese transports.


  • No you can save money for the next round if you want to, but I wouldn´t recommend to save huge amounts, because why buy units on turn1 when you can have them before?
    What Jen means is that you give J 1IPC and buy 1IC and 2 Trn. J1. after this you have both types.
    If you aren´t doing this I would recommend to buy some transports first and an IC afterwards, by the time you are marching towards Moscow and if the Allies are going after Germany.
    Transports are more flexible and you can bring many units through the north or the central passage into Ussr or use them as cannon fodder in KJF.


  • Makes sense. Trannies first, then IC’s. All depending though. Thanks all


  • I have been automatically devioerting 1 IPC of the bid to Japan since I started playing revised with a bid.

    And I always do 1 IC and 2 TRN buy on J1.  The only question is WHERE I palce the IC (depends on my strat for Japan in that game whether it is in FIC, Kwang or Manch).

    No matter what you buy, you are not going to land more than 2 units anywhere on J1 unless UK left that SZ59 TRN live.  So, it comes down to what you want to land on J2.

    With the IC and 2 TRN, you get 9 divisions to Asia on J2.  You also take care of a very critical limitation for Japan… a build limit of 8 with only the Tokyo IC.

    An all TRN buy leaves you scrambling to get units from the islands (most of which you can grab without delay on J2 with a 2 TRN buy) and leaves TRNs on 2 to 3 turn missions to grab 1 or 2 INF.

    1 IC, 2 TRN simply gets more units into the action FASTER, and provides a more sustainable offense by pusing the build limitation back by about 40%


  • Sometimes it also makes sense to place the IC in East Indies.
    You can build 4 units can´t be attacked from land and you have an ideal base for an african assault.


  • I’ll be honest…
    I’d rather build on land.  That extra unit needs to be a TRN just to get TWO units to the mainland, and that makes an island IC more costly.

    Hell, I wish I could move Japan’s IC to Manch in J1, build one in FIC or Kwang, and work from there, saving the cost of TRNs altogether!


  • I would almost never build an industrial complex at East Indies.  It gives you more speed and flexibility in any attack on India, but I think that infantry bolstered by tanks can serve just as well (allowing an attack focus to be changed from Yakut to China to India), while requiring less IPCs spent on ICs and transports.

    If the Allies are attacking heavily, I can see that an IC at East Indies could serve the same role as the W. Europe IC.  (But I don’t like the W. Europe IC either!)  :-P

    I’ve been playing with an IC build on J1 with a bid of 9 (8 to the Germans, 1 leftover to Japan), and I think that I am going to stop the IC builds in favor of massed transports, infantry, tanks, and fighters to fill out Japan’s IPC bill.  You need two dedicated transports to empty the isolated islands, four more to transport constantly from Japan, plus spare fighters to fend off an Allied attack in later rounds; early game, that’s 5 transports to build (assume one dies first turn), so probably build of:

    J1:  3 transports, 1 artillery, save 2 IPC
    J2:  Depending on situation, Japan may be at 32 IPC, buy 2 more transports, 2 artillery, 1 infantry, 1 tank (or thereabouts).
    J3:  Switch to infantry/tanks plus occasional fighter, depending on Allied strategy.

    If the Allies let me take India securely, I WILL build an IC there, spending the IPCs that I’d been saving towards future fighters, but I frankly feel that a French Indochina  IC is not that effective (as you can put 8 units there every other turn with four transports from Japan).

    If the Allies beef up in India, I’ll focus on producing infantry and tanks at Japan and save up some extra IPCs for fighters in later turns.  Saving is usually a terrible idea, and I think that it may STILL be a terrible idea in this case.  The THEORY is that Japan needs to mobilize ground troops as quickly as possible, and does not need fighters until the US starts to approach Japan and the 3-4 IPC islands, so Japan maximizes its pressure on Russia while maximizing defensive potential with a quick fighter (and probably sub) build.  Whether it works in PRACTICE or not is something I’ll have to wait for my next couple of games to show.


  • You just don;t need that many TRNs

    5 would be ideal, but 4 is enough.

    On J1, you only have 1, so you buy 2 (and your IC).

    On J2, you need to start raiding in order to fill your TRNs (since you bought no land units).  So you grab Oki, Wake, and the remainder of your Japan forces to send to Asia.  You also add another TRN (bringing you to 4).

    On J3, you empty Phillipines and Japan, and add teh final TRN.

    On J4, the Phillipines TRN from J3 empties EI, the other 4 empty Japan.

    Now you have 1 TRN that is free to go grab the isolated units in Borneo, New Guinea, Solomons, and Carolines, while still dropping 8 didivions from Japan, and the 3 from your mainland IC.  That is 11 divisions per turn, and Japan has only had to buy 9 a turn of those thus far.

    Ifnou want more troops to Asia, scrap the extra TRNs and buy another IC.  Cheaper than 2 TRNs, and gets 3 divisions per round to Asia (2 TRNs can get you 4, but only once, then the far flung islands are empty and they have nothing left to grab, and you have 3 TRNs with nothing to do…

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    I prefer 5 at least.  6 is even better cause now you have 4 at Japan and 2 shuffling around the Indian Ocean.

    R1: IC/2 TRN
    R2: Infantry/TRN (1)
    R3: Infantry/TRN (1)
    R4: Infantry/TRN (1)

    *note, infantry can be upgraded to artillery or armor if money allows.


  • OK, here is a quick numeric review of the options…

    On J1, all are pretty much equal… at most 2 units to Asia (assuming SZ59 was attacked).

    Japan 2:
    With 1 IC, 2 TRN purchased on J1, you can get an additional 9 divisions to Asia on J2 (1 existing TRN, 2 purchased, 3 units to be built at the new IC)
    To do this, you will strip Japan, Oki, and Wake.  You also buy 1 more TRN in J2

    With 4 TRN on J1, you can get an additional 10 units to Asia on J2… in theory since you have 5 TRN now.  But where to get the units?
    Japan has 4 units left after J1.
    Oki and Wake have 1 each.
    Phillipines has 2.
    Nothing else in range for immediate landing.
    So only 4 TRN full, one is sent sailing away for no gain this round.
    Only EIGHT units to Asia (one less than with the IC).
    You can buy AT MOST 8 units due to build limits

    Japan 3:
    With the original IC buy, you added a 4th TRN the previous round, and now you are landing 8 divisions from Japan, 3 more placed at your new IC for 11 total.

    With the 5 TRN buy, you move the 8 divisions you bought for Japan in J2, and you MAY land 2 units from the TRN sent scavenging the previous round (maybe not if it went to Solomons and New Guinea).  10 divisions total.

    Each turn after J1, the IC in Asia gets one addiitional unit to Asia.  And by the end of J4 or 5, the extra TRN is wasted, because there are no units left to scavenge.

    Also, to buy 4 TRN on J1 requires a 2 IPC bid to asia, so less income for Germany is also in the mix.

    And even if you build an IC on J2 or later, you are still down 1-2 units in Asia.  May not sound like much, but in a hard fought game against a skilled opponent, a single INF in the right place at the right time (like an extra INF in the front wall of the Japan attack that you get with the IC), you are able to take territory stornger and faster, and do more damage to your opponent with less loses of your own forces.  And extra INF to Asia by Japan early has a cumulative benefit over several turns.


  • @ncscswitch:

    You just don;t need that many TRNs

    I disagree.

    Additional transports let you pad the Japanese navy against US attack, and let you attack targets like Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and India with the infantry from the southeast Pacific islands.  Additional transports also let you threaten a larger Alaska or West Canada attack.

    I mentioned six transports, but I consider that the minimum; I actually hit seven transports in most games, and have played up to nine transports in a long game.

    “May not sound like much, but in a hard fought game against a skilled opponent, a single INF in the right place at the right time (like an extra INF in the front wall of the Japan attack that you get with the IC), you are able to take territory stornger and faster, and do more damage to your opponent with less loses of your own forces.  And extra INF to Asia by Japan early has a cumulative benefit over several turns.”

    This is exactly why I advocated the use of Japanese infantry/tanks rather than infantry/artillery in that other thread - tanks have the mobility to hit the right place at the right time.  Transports can also be used to give infantry greater effective range.

    (edit) - fixed typo (/edit)

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    The problem with 4 tran max is you have nothing to leap-frog troops with later.  ICs are great, don’t get me wrong, but an IC on J1 is a luxury, not a necessity.  You’re much better off getting that IC on J3 or J4 when you need rapid deployment to the fronts.


  • Obviously a difference of opinion.

    The key discrpancies…
    1.  The need for extra “padding” of the Japan fleet… only needed if the US comes into the Pacific (which will have Germany doing a Happy Dance anyway).
    2.  Grabbing Australia, etc.  I USED to be an advocate of that.  But if you have extra TRN, then they are better used near Africa not down in the South Pacific.
    3.  It appears that many of you do not fully appreciate the power of ART/INF combos being built early on to be your front line force, backed up with later ARM builds, and perhaps even alter FIGs/BOMs).  Each ART built costs 1 IPC more than INF, but you increase from a 2 attack with 2 INF to a 4 attack with the combo (total of course, not each).  That means that each ART/INF combo is a match for defending INF, instead of just INF that is HALF of defending INF.  Then you add your ARM/FIG/BOM punch…  INF defenders are a lot less impressive when the ATTACKING INF is also  a 2…  INF/ART combos are the same total attack value as an INF/ARM, but it is cheaper.  And in the first 2-3 rounds, you don;t yet need SPEED as Japan… you will just outrun your cannon fodder if you try to go too fast…

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    Aye aye, I agree.

    But, as I mentioned before, you don’t NEED that IC on round 1.  You can be even more effective being short a unit and having more mobility.  Remember, you can always build it on R2 or R3, if you want.

    Meanwhile, without the IC England’s bomber is drifting in the wind instead of set up for a free strafing run on your southern IC, America pretty much has to face an entire Japanese aggression force if they decide to go Pac Strat instead of something safer like hitting Germany and Japan is just as mobile and just as hard hitting as if they had the IC.  Only now, they can set it up in a more beneficial location. (ie, if the allies hold the north strong, you can put it in the south.  If the allies are annoying in the south, put it in the middle or the north.)

    In this way you force the allies to play on your terms.  Not you on theirs.

  • 2007 AAR League

    I like to give Japan $2 of the bid so I can buy 4trn on J1.  The existing trn gets sent south on J1 to either raid the southern islands for troops or attack Australia/NZ on J2/J3.  I will usually build my 1st IC in FIC but no sooner than J2.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    I like that idea too.  Though isn’t there something better you could do with 32 IPC?  Maybe set up an insurance policy against an American Pac Strat with 3 Transports, 1 Submarine?  Gives you a legup.

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