How good is Larry Harris on Japan?

DEI is in some ways the reason for the Pacific war. Japan was spread pretty thin in 1941 and running low on materials to keep its war machine running. Java + Sumatra + Borneo was vital for the continuation of the Japanese war effort and the execution of its plan for Asia. So i think the value of the DEI shouldn’t be changed as its pretty good now.

Maybe the solution could be removing a few of Japans starting units to better represent the situation in 1941 and at the same time keep the orange monster calm.

Go Sgt. Basilone! I like it.

@Cow:

I myself am pretty sad America won WWII in real life you know, because Japan is a way better country plus PS3 > XBone. We all know Japan was trying to liberate people from Western imperialism.

Cow I am all for loving japanese culture and Japan itself (also agree with your idea with macarthur and sgt. Basilone) but they werent exactly righteous rooting out western imperialism, they were just trying to make an empire of their own and used “Asia for the Asians” like the Germans used lebensraum to justify their empire building. Given they werent as bad as the nazis, but their atrocities against chinese like the Rape of Nanking was the worst the world had ever known before the holocaust.

@Cow:

Germans were not Nazis that is just a myth. They were just efficient and well trained that is all.

Are you suggesting that the Nazi Party did not exist?
If you are saying that ALL Germans were not Nazis, then I would agree with that. A large majority of the German people were not members of the Nazi Party. However, it was the Nazi Party that ruled the government in Germany from 1933-1945. So, while all Germans may not have been actual Nazis, they did follow orders from the Nazis.

Cow’s an excellent player, but that’s no reason to take his inane historical opinions seriously.

Be careful Cow, it’s easy to cross the line talking like that and discussions about this often derail. I’m not certain if you just denied the Holocaust or just meant what knp said…

Not all Germans were Nazi’s, indeed. Lots of Germans were tricked by the Nazi’s, hoping they would make things better and ignoring all the warnings about them, thinking ‘the Nazi’s can’t be that bad’. They would rather say that all those warnings were just drivel from defeatists. Sadly enough, “Wir haben es nicht gewusst” was genuinely true for a lot of Germans (although they should have known if they hadn’t dismissed the warnings so easily) but also widely abused by the guilty.

And I wouldn’t call the world ok if Germany had won WW2 (which was impossible btw but that’s another discussion).
By the end of the war, Germany was only still effective and well trained at killing Jews, the physically or mentally disabled, dissidents and all the various other so called ‘Untermenschen’.

Fair enough.
I think that is a matter of how any game is/can be balanced so each player (side, in A&A) has an equal chance on winning without giving the feeling that the game is only about balancing…

Tough job and in A&A I think there will always be one side slightly favored by the balance. For a long time it was the allies and nowadays this seems to be the axis.

@Cow:

I just want to know why the axis are so strong in every AnA boardgame since AA50.

It just might be that (relatively speaking) more aggresive players get better results when playing axis then the careful planners. And vice versa. Where you can expect an aggressive player to brag more on the forum about him or her being good at the game.

I actually think that the allies win over 50% IF they do not give up in turn 2 or 3 because they have shit their pants after the first losses (like losing cairo and leningrad).

Btw, DEI is rather important, after the American Oil Embargo the Southern Economic Reservoir was THE reason for going to war. No one cared about India, or China for that matter.

I am NOT going near this thread!! :-o

But on the subject of Japan,  when i play the Axis…i take Japan when i have first choice…

Sweeping naval battles…infantry and aircraft driving a stake through China…kicking the British OUT of the Pacific…telling the United States…HEY!!..you want a piece of this?  Bring it on!!

Japan is a blast…ALL of the countries are…they have their own strengths and weaknesses…and its never the same game twice

Japan should have 4 fewer planes. No one can go near them for most of the game.

I think it has to be very difficult to design a game like this, make it somewhat historically accurate and keep game balance. I would imagine no matter how hard you try, some things are going to slip through the cracks.
I think this game starts out pretty accurate (although Japan may have too many planes). As for how things turn out once you get started, that depends a lot more on how strategic minded the different players are rather than the mechanics and setup of the game itself.
Look at the Allies’ setup:
United States - starts out with a rather weak military due to the strong anti-war sentiments in the 20s and 30s, plus the Great Depression. The anti-war sentiment was so strong that Roosevelt was only able to start building up the military through projects like selling war materials to Allied nations and later the Lend-Lease program for a couple of years or so before the US was actually in the war. However, the US had the largest industrial base in the world back then which accounts for their large starting income and high NOs.
United Kingdom - A little better militarily because they had already been at war for a while, but still relatively weak because they also had some of the same anti-war activists and the British Empire is so spread out all across the world. All added together, the UK has better income than the Axis but because it is so spread out, which is probably well represented by the separate UK London, UK India and ANZAC economies, they end up getting outmatched by the different Axis powers.
Soviet Union - Their vast territory with massive resources makes them wealthier than any Axis country. They also have a fairly large military, but it’s effectiveness is reduced due to the paranoid purges carried out by Stalin and overall, Russia was still somewhat backwards when compared to western industrial nations.
China - A decentralized, un-industrial nation still hampered by a nasty civil war that left them ineffective in fighting off Japanese aggression. The main thing in their favor was the large population and vastness of their territory that really impeded the Japanese.
Now the Axis setup:
All three Axis powers were historically somewhat poor in natural resources and industrial capabilities.
Japan - a small island nation lacking in resources and experiencing a population boom.
Germany - vanquished in WW1 and kept down by the harsh terms of the Versailles Treaty, they had no external colonies left and really suffered from inflation.
Italy - while considered a victor nation in WW1, they did not get to share in the spoils like other Allied nations did and suffered economic strife which led to the rise of Mussolini.
In all three Axis nations, due to the rise of more militant leaders, they managed to use their meager resources to build up large military forces. They disregarded any dis-armament treaties and stood ready to grab by force the territory and resources they felt they were denied.

So, now we have the setup for our game. Allies start with relatively weak militaries but much larger incomes. Axis start with large military forces but very poor income. I think it shows a fairly historical start up without being overly complicated and thus ruining the game. As stated numerous times, perhaps Japan’s air force is really too large, but they also need to spread out fast to make their income more compatible to the Allies. Perhaps Larry Harris felt the best way to do this was to give them more planes to strike with. It is hard for Japan to really expand in Asia as their ground units, which are needed to take and hold the territory they need, get eaten up pretty fast.

Cow,
Perhaps your problem with this game is you have played Japan so often and gotten so good with them that you think they are overpowered. Maybe it would change your thoughts if you gave up Japan and played the Allied powers more often.

Great summary of the respective national situations, knp.

Yes. Great effort and thought put in by you once again

pretty good explanation…cant argue.