• Germany can easily take on Russia by herself with a little help from Italy… Granted Russia might not fall till round 11 or later, but with Russia pushed out of the south Germany can then if she wishes go into africa and take all of africa for herself. I don’t see why Japan needs to give up all her land to help germany. I don’t see how Japan can pump out 6 mechs and 4 tanks for more than 1 turn… The US will quickly overtake Japan in naval power get all the islands back and UK india will take back a bunch of land in the south. Japan will be making 10 dollars or so with US stationing 20 or so subs in the pacific doing convoy raid damage.

  • '21 '19 '18 '17 '16

    For Japanese strategy, I think everyone pretty much agrees on taking Hong Kong and Manila on turn 3, and then the next normal option is to position the japanese fleet around sea zone 38 for taking out Calcutta or DEI.  I tried to figure out a valid Hawaii/San Francisco crush strategy as an option, but I couldn’t get an effective amphibious assault mounted on Hawaii along with crushing the US fleet.  You can crush the fleet at Hawaii, just couldn’t take the islands easily on the same turn.  The last option would seem to be an ANZAC crush on turn 3, which seems much more possible.  You would have two potential landing sites, Queensland or Sydney, so ANZAC forces would need to defend both zones.  The money from looting the capitol would be almost as good as Calcutta.  Naval forces would stage to sea zone 33 on turn one, and then sea zones 49 (threatens Hawaii as well), sea zone 53 (take new hebrides on turn 2 for free?), or sea zone 63 (hangout offshore of New Zealand, can’t be blocked from any target site).  Am I missing something in this, or has Commander Jennifer tried this before in some of the online games and I just missed studying that game?

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    There are far less convoy zones to hit Japan with than you might think!  If you take out all the 2 space zones to hit, you only have 1 left.  But I digress, what I did was to send 6 mech, 4 arm into Russia every round for 6 rounds (so round 9 was the last) and then turtle on Japan itself.  It generally takes about 9 rounds before the Americans can sink the Japanese fleet anyway and the goal there was not to win, it wasnt even to hold out, with Japan, the goal was to destroy England with Germany and then tie up the Russians with lots of pretty Japanese units to take the edge off.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    @theROCmonster:

    Hey guys at least none of us believe the hollocaust didn’t happen. Or that the world is run by the Jews LOL.

    Could be worse, someone could believe that the jews ran the holocaust!


  • LOL. I guess anything’s possible.


  • Why are we talking of the holocaust in a Japanese best early options topic?


  • Take care of China and prepare for India at the same time gets my vote!
    If you can nail China fast and hard early, they don’t really require a whole lot of resources to take, whereas if you take your foot off the pedal for even one round…. big mistake (if you want China) It’s not unrealistic to render China impotent by J-3/J-4 and completely subdue them by J5 while still crushing India J4 at the latest. The Japanese can then turn to ANZAC/ US and never have to look back (unless the UK build in Egypt) but even then it might still be a difficult ask of the Brits.


  • As you already own China’s VC, I don’t think China is as important although the early plays preserve how long you have before China comes back to try to take it.  They are “easy” territories to take, which makes them appealing.  However, just taking Borneo alone is worth the same IPC as all 4 “plays” in China on Japan1 and its basically free and much harder to reclaim.

    If you push as far in as you can on J2 and withdraw backwards playing “turtle” to Shanghai, you can buy yourself to at least J5/J6 before China is knocking on its door.  Japan can win in VC’s by that time, or be very close to it with a Sydney sack on J3/J4 instead of committing the northern mainland units to China).

    Plenty of better uses for those fighters scattered around the mainland, and more VC’s (Manilla, Calcutta, Sydney, Hawaii and Defending Tokyo)


  • True enough but……
    China is money (maybe not as much as the DEI) but it’s easier to hold, especially if Germany is S@#$ kicking Russia, it provides the Japanese with options of attacking Russia from different directions, and I hate the idea of doing something half assed. Especially if it means Japan will have to turtle and consolidate their forces in defense of Hong Kong. It’s can still be a good strategy to ignore China but I’m personally not a fan based on my goals!

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    I find China to be way too much effort and cost than it’s worth.  Personally.

    I usually go one of two routes:
    A)  North through Amur, Siberia and westward to Russia, in which case I turtle to annoy America
    or
    B)  South to India, W. India (2 complexes) and into the Middle East to secure Italian holdings and threaten the Caucasus

  • Sponsor

    Take and hold half of China
    Take and hold Calcutta
    Take, hold and liberate Dutch Islands
    …… That should make Japan successful enough.


  • @Young:

    Take and hold half of China
    Take and hold Calcutta
    Take, hold and liberate Dutch Islands
    …… That should make Japan successful enough.

    Japan in a nutshell. Perfect summary.

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