Some thoughts on KJF……
I played mostly KJF for my first dozen games or so as Allies, mostly on TripleA live against opponents of varying skill. I never got to play KJF much on GTO since nobody ever wanted to let me Allies without a silly Axis bid for them.
In general I found that while I did fine against less skilled players, for the most part I couldn’t win with this strategy against experts. This may be because my strats were too crude. But anyway I switched to aggressive KGF tactics and found them just as (or almost as) much fun to play, with a much higher rate of success.
Anyway, here are some of my working hypotheses from that time.
-In conjunction with WR/UKR R1, I would use a sub buy + r2 med fleet assault with Russia, sometimes in combo with an air buy (nowadays I would strongly advise against the latter…but at the time I was uncomfortable with the 10% chance that the R2 attack will fail). The reasoning is that Allies need to gamble early to secure Africa. If Germany is allowed to blitz Africa, then they’ll have so much cash for tanks that Allies don’t have a chance in hell. But if Germany’s income is limited to around 40-45 or so, then alot of Axis players won’t be making heavy tank buys (as they ought to against a KJF strategy). This gives Russia valuable time.
-I have a hard time justifying a FIC attack over an Egy counter if Germany hits Egy. If Germany has 1-2 tanks on Egy, those tanks need to go…simple as that. Plus FIC is super duper ueber risky… What I would do is hit Egy and then go ahead and buy the India factory anyway, and just leave the 2 inf + aa. My hope was that the Axis player might be tempted to spread himself too thin (i was typically stacking Bury too). There’s also a 33% of an aa hit if Japs bring 2 figs to ind, and 50% if they bring 3. In other cases where I was feeling less risky, I’d simply withdraw the 2 inf + aa to Per, and then move them back in on UK2 (if r counters with 2 inf 2 arm, then on average they should take ind back with 1 inf 2 arm, so after uk2 there should be something like 4 inf 4 arm fig aa defending India).
Note that I’ll have bought 2 tanks with Russia and place them in Cauc. Also, I usually moved the 2 inf in kaz (or at least 1) to per. So if japan takes India, I would liberate india with the inf/tanks r2, and then build 3 more units with uk on uk2.
I suppose Japan could try to counter these tactics and seize India if they have the foresight to move everything towards India (btw nobody ever did), but in that case I would fight for India aggressively with Russia, and hope Japan being distracted allowed for a big USA success in the naval war, as well as hope that Japan takes big aa losses in the battles for India. If Japan doesn’t hit China…then maybe a double factory USA1 to really put the heat on (this never happened either).
-I rarely used the Sink factory. I’m not sure if this was good strategy or not. My reasoning was Sink is expensive, vulnerable, easy to bomb, and spending there distracts from the USA air/naval offensive. Further, unlike India, allies can’t liberate Sink for you. I’d rather spend that money on air power that forces Japan to buy defensive naval units and which can also strafe Japan land units and act as can openers for Russian or UK tanks.
-I used primarily air power with USA. The key is getting a mainland base close to Japan’s naval production to really frustrate them and force them to spend the majority of their income on naval production or lose their navy and transports.
-I’m on the fence on whether it’s a good idea for Russia to stack Bury with just the 6 inf (ie without the brit fig, which presumably is attacking Egy). The problem is a smart Japan player might decide that the sub buy + Bury stack=weak as hell Russia and just skip Pearl and go all out for Bry, leading to a quick conquest of Russia. On the other hand, those 6 inf can be very dynamic and it’s always fun to have the extra options the bry stack provides.
To reiterate, I simply experimented with these tactics. I don’t recommend them against dangerous opponents. But I would wholeheartedly recommend them for a F2F game or for something fun and different.