If the U.K. declares war, can Japan enter the DEI - or is that a DOW on the USA

@Private-Mike No. this one-time bonus is part of the Pacific ruleset, only.

This attack is an ok move, but it will limit some of the other things you could accomplish during your J1. You have pushed the US to max income and made his immediate objective clear (pushing you back off Hawaii).

Considering that you have limited income in this scenario, his 70 should trump your 40, and he will eventually push you out of SZ 26.

Because of this focus on the USA, other objectives (building factories, capturing VCs, money and india) may be missed, and so you would probably be less-well prepared to win the game or defeat america by trying to confront your biggest opponent first. What’s at risk is only 1CA 1 DD 1 SUB and 1 TT, so that reward has to be measured against the other things you could have done and like oystello says, its only a 6$ income swing.

A easier way to approach this as japan is to spend your first 5 turns getting 5 VCs the old fashioned way, and then, while America is focused elsewhere or splitting his forces, take Hawaii (or Sydney) as the last VC with your plodding megafleet built over the course of the whole game and not diminished by the attrition you’ll suffer if you try to get into an early naval pawn for pawn type trade

@Cow:

Get the African NOs for Russia as well. African NOs are very important for Russia.

Agreed wholeheartedly!
I must admit though, I’m still a little in doubt about when to take them and when not to.

For example, if Germany is doing SeaLion it seems better not to (correct me if I’m wrong)? If Russia goes there (early) in this situation, it has just too few units to start contesting Eastern Europe and/or Scandinavia RU3 (assuming GE did sortie into London). Contesting those area’s with Germany seems better than getting into Africa, since the Russian profit is the same or even higher but it also denies Germany valuable IPCs. Maybe in this case get the African NO’s at a later point?

In all the other situations I’d go for African NO’s (except perhaps a G1 DOW?).

Also, unless you declare war on the allies on turn 2 on your plan, india will block you anyway so he really wont need to turtle.  The idea is to trick the allies in that it is business as usual.  If japan got straight for india turn 2, then it becomes 100% clear that Japan is giving up the pac and so the US will start dumping in the atlantic while UK turtles egypt harder.

I agree that Japan should be split, and have two sz"s.

Then we could have Sea Lion on the Euro side, and Sea Serpent on the Pac side.

alaska is a non issue. can block hawaii with a dd.

us cannot take DEI if it is dutch, but anzac and uk pac already did, you did not DOW yet, of course they took all the dutch islands round 2.

Keeping japan in sz 6 doesn’t keep us honest. it is away from your objectives. It is the exact opposite. America is not afraid of losing alaska. 16 units is not going to take and hold hollywood. usa can spam ground forces after the fact, the hell.

block hawaii with a dd and done. don’t worry about pacific. No J1 or J2 dow = you are not trying to win in the pacific.

take fleet to queensland and screw making pacific ships. If japan doesn’t want to be near the cash islands, he won’t make enough to win in the pacific. america won’t need to be there.

Would I abandon calcutta, I’d have enough to defend it considering the 20+ income it makes, but I’d move stuff out for sure.

If you are away from your money and not declaring war, that is a big green light for usa to go full atlantic.
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plus there are enough dds laying around in the pacific to block your naval from hitting calcutta, in which case calcutta moves.

if you telegraph what you are doing like this, of course america is going to try and drop on italy. Egypt can be well defended too you know.

lots of people drop egypt minor and build off south africa and egypt with uk, instead of making a silly london fleet.
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Don’t get me wrong, the strategy works the first time around usually, but after that people figure it out easy.

but staying in sz6 is absolutely silly, you aren’t fooling anyone. At least if you are near the money, usa might think you are trying with japan.

Anyway,  most people don’t buy much in the pacific when there is no J2 DOW, regardless of where your naval is. you might see 3 units of sub/dd mix, but that is about it.

sometimes on USA 2 if no J2 dow happened and Japan doesn’t look like he will dow… I pull the USA 1 buy off west usa into the atlantic. get hawaii to queensland and taunt.

@Frontovik:

everybody is complaining US going 100% in pacific ruins the game
well, in my games US does hardly something (let japan rot): they have hard time conquering india and containing Anzacs with very little support, and meanwhile italy is pummeled and germany stops its supply to eastern front cause allies can threaten with a whole lot of troops to conquer europe and berlin…

I really don’t understand what do you want us to say…

@Krieghund:

After the “or”.

Gracias. Might want to re-word that on the original post so there isn’t anymore confusion.