J1–>Alaska; J3 Game Over.

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 😜

@AmpsterMan:

I thought that you just counted the SZ next to where you were taking off from, didn’t know attacking counted as a move. Lol, I think that one rule interpretation might have changed a bit of how the game went….

Thanks for the update  :-D

And in case you were wondering, he attacked me in Alaska on turn 4, I repelled him turn 6, by turn nine I had every territory I originally had back in my hands. I was going to win.

We are going to play a game tonight (hopefully) I’ll have to reread the rulebook to make sure I don’t make anymore errors.

In any case, it seems to me that the only reason I won was because I was able to get all of my NO’s where as he didn’t get any. He also didn’t put enough boots on the ground methinks. Am excited to see how tonights game goes on. Thanks for the replys Calvinhobbesliker!

Even if you did that, that’s still 8 moves. Bomber from airbase only gets 7.

Anyway, you’re welcome

@finnman:

@calvinhobbesliker:

I don’t know if it’ll help. Let’s say they take Sydney and also assume they took every mainland australian tt. Then, they would make 93 ipcs to the US’s 55. No need to continue the game

If they take Hawaii, they make 84 ipcs to the US’s 54 and ANZAC’s 15. No need to continue there either, when they have a 15 ipc lead

The most popular strategy I’ve seen involves a major complex in malaya and then pulling your navy onto Australia. Wouldn’t this give lots of time to attack japan with your navy and fortify Hawaii

Yeah, that’s kaufschick’s strat and why he think it’s broken. I’m not sure how he deals with threats to Z6 when his entire fleet is at Singapore. i guess he thinks they can Delay until Sydney falls

@Funcioneta:

The problem is not BC. WUSA just one territory? For 3 millions of square kms? Come on!

Of course it’s not, that’s the point of asking why would it even be involved!!  And what’s 3 millions of square kms in WUSA?  It’s the US, they don’t use the metric system.  shoot, most Canadians don’t even use it still…

seriously though, I’m sure it goes back to the thought of if you can take the WUS, then the game is over and you should just reset the board.  Sorta like what happens when you take France in most games as the Allies.

@Captain:

play a few more games.  Japan should take Phillipenes right away on J1 and the US should not be able to fortify it.

If they do that though they also need to take the uk space along the china coast to prevent both us and uk from their NOs.

Not really a ‘trick’, but inexperienced players seem to miss some crucial sea zone connections around Australia. It’s amazing how quickly the US can get into the DEI through that route.

If you at the Aussie naval base you can hit almost all of the DEI as well as PI and can even land in Burma (!) in one turn! It’s things like that that Allied players miss that give th Japanese a bigger advantage. Once you see those, it’s MUCH harder on Japan IMO.

Can you put this download on Mediafire, because frankly to wait 60 seconds and have to listen to some women explain me some sales pitch is a bit daunting.

Mediafire.com is fast and has no hassles.

Hawaii on round 1 is a pretty dicey proposition.

With no shore shot hits, the odds are about 20% of taking the Island.
If one shore shot hits, you are at 41%. 
If two shore shots hit, you are at 76%. 
Yes, you can get a third shot, but I would count on three hits. 
This assumes that you attach the Islands with all three transports including 3 infantry, 1 artillery and 1 tank (max 5 units since you only have 1 at Caroline)
Bottom line is that you need to be fairly lucky to take Hawaii round 1. 
I think the payoff is huge, but I can’t reccomend building your strategy around something that has such a high chance of failure.

If you fail badly (brick) then the counter attack could be pretty ugly.  The US has 8 planes that can reach along with 5 ships.  That is 13 total units.  You have (If I recall correctly) 15 total units that can reach, including 6 carrier aircraft.  You will likely win.  However, since they will be getting a check for $62, they can afford the losses, but you probably cannot.  You gained nothing on round 1 except a few territories in China.

Too much of a crap shoot for my tastes.