The Raw Luck theorum. (How to make luck, like you make Units)

The confusion seems to be in you’re holding back naval ships for naval bombardment. The advantage about scrambling planes is that it forces the attacker to commit all their naval ships regardless if they want to or not. That’s why it is sometimes wise to scramble in a losing battle if the enemy is relying on bombardment for victory. The easiest situation would be when Japan invades the Philippine islands. If Japan was so aggressive that all they brought was two infantry with two cruisers as example. I would scramble the fighter in that situation because while I will lose the sea battle, if you choose to invade the island after the battle, you’re doing it without naval support which gives my defending infantry a better chance at winning.

Unfortunately, just like in the real war, the most effective unit seems to be the Infantry.  They have the IPM, they are used in territory trading (what I call attacks of attrition), they can be deployed as barriers to protect valuable units in the rear, etcetera.

Tanks, in my opinion, best compliment the IPM benefit of infantry.

Fighters come in third, as they can range out to hit, but cannot take land.  Great defensive units as well.

@StuckTojo:

@8thGuards:

@Ichabod:

I’m reading some revisionist history here.

Emplacing an oil embargo on Japan for murdering Chinese civilians by the bushel is hardly “enticing” Japan to attack the US on purpose.

From Japan’s point of view, it did not “have” to attack the US, but BELIEVED that they would eventually go to war with the US due to their war aggression. They’d been better off not doing so because America came at them with extreme vengeance. The power of the US was so great that one Japanese admiral described it as going to war against the world. In Pittsburg, PA, home of the Pittsburg Steelers football team, named after the steel manufacturing, more steel was produced in just that one area of America than Italy and Germany combined!

Since Japan lost a source of oil, they decided that they would seize other locations that contained oil like Java or Borneo. Doing so would essentially be “attacking” another western nation. Still, they could have done that without also simultaneously attacking the US at Pearl Harbor. The US public sentiment was really against going to war anywhere.

There was some limited activity in the Atlantic, but not widely publicized amongst the US population. And it wasn’t “war” like another poster suggested. They were naval operations which protected US Shipping from submarine attacks. The US did have a right to remain neutral and sell or provide war materials to whomever it wished. That in itself may be helping the war capabilities of an ally, the UK, but doing so is not in and of itself an act of war. Defensive naval operations is not essentially war. These types of actions happen daily out on the vast expanse of the ocean’s navigable routes and are not considered “acts of war.”

Sure the Soviets weren’t exactly nice to people whom they suspected of disloyalty but it was little compared to the industrial level genocide that Germany perpetrated or the casual mass killings done by Japan.
The Soviets lost 25-27 million people in the war, China lost 10-20 million and there is a very clear reason for that as I expressed.

Are you serious?!?!?!  The Soviets, under both Lenin and Stalin, killed millions - more like tens of millions - before WWII even started, over eight million Ukrainians alone in the forced famine, millions more by firing squad, slave labour camp, and gulag.  Not to mention the bungled invasion of Poland by Lenin and the even more bungled invasion of Finland by Stalin. Just because the “intellectual” class doesn’t talk about it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

I believe 11-14 million under Stalin. Makes him one of history’s worst criminals, but still far less than Hitler with 30 million plus in the war he started and escalated (thus most victims in Europe can be assigned to him). Hitler is responsible for more Soviet deaths than Stalin is, even if the latter was complicit in Poland 1939-1941). Please don’t cite Cold War propaganda numbers.

A new generation of German historians also keeps finding that the Wehrmacht was far more aware of war crimes (and participated therein) than previously known. Throughout the Cold War Germany was allowed to uphold the “clean Wehrmacht” myth (and Soviet deaths in WW II were all counted as “killed by Stalin”) but that has by now utterly fallen apart.

@Maddog77:

I actually put Japan markers (roundels) on the Chinese territories that Japan starts the game with. That way if those territories are liberated, we can remove the Japan marker and see the Chinese logo which indicates it is owned by China. Makes for an easy quick visual when counting IPC tally.

I do the same thing.  I just think it is easier marking the enemy controlled territories.  In this case, Japan just captured these territories before the game starts.

@cyanight:

That might be the reason Harris designed it so the Flying Tigers stay in the mainland of China. If Hainan was labeled a Chinese territory then the whole rule on transports could become an issue as well as the Flying Tiger being able to attack units in seazones. The way the game is setup the plane is penned inside of China with the exception of Burma and Kwangtung.And if the Chinese could load onto transports it would be easy to use them with USA since their turns are back to back.

Good theory – that may very well be the explanation.  I’d always wondered why Hainan was incorrectly represented on the game map (from the point of view of which territories were Chinese when Japan started conquering them in 1931).  Formosa and Korea I could understand, since China ceded Formosa to Japan under the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki and recognized Korean independence (which proved to be short-lived, since the Russians and the Japanese both had territorial ambitions there) under the same treaty.

@Gargantua:

I don’t know about you guys, but I find that weaker players SUFFER more in dice games, as low luck is more calculatable.

Especially when you consider that units you lose this turn, you won’t be able to use for the next 4, 5 ,6, etc turns.

It’s also easier to scare people with dice potentials, when they don’t know what they can count on in a dice game.

A great player won’t loose to a decent player in Low Luck ever. In dice the decent player can “get lucky” against the better player. Dice makes worse players have a better chance to win.

Functioneta:

Correct, 6 Victory Cities to win for the Pacific.
or
8 Victory Cities for the Atlantic

San Fran is the hardest of all to get and hold.  Under Alpha 2 (probably OOB too) it is theoretically possible to get and hold it if you can do it on round 3.

Thanks for the answers.