You're America, you've been J1 DoW'd, what now…

Thanks for the detailed feedback! Probably more than my thoughts deserve on this board. :-)

If I’m going to contribute anything much to the Atlantic as US, I’m for dumping the initial 52 into the Atlantic and then going straight 100% Pacific from then on, or at most 8-12/turn (on average) in the Atlantic, if even that.

That sounds fine to me – it’s not that I recommend spending 18 IPC per turn; it’s more about spending roughly 80 IPCs over turns 1-5. You need enough IPC in the Atlantic to create a viable fighting force, and not so much IPC in the Atlantic that your Pacific navy can’t get the job done.

If you do sacrifice the ANZAC boats, japan kills them with planes and subs, and is still sitting the bulk of what they have on the Philippines J3 keeping you from doing much of anything useful at all A3.

You’re not wrong. I still think getting to Caroline on A2 is worth the ANZAC sacrifice. Although you can’t make any useful attacks on A3, you are at least tying the bulk of the Japanese navy down to the Philippines, so that it isn’t available for shore bombardment, creeping up on India, ferrying troops to Amur, etc.

If you have all subs and bombers with only a smattering of other units, Japan will just withdraw just barely out of your immediate reach, then wait for you to move closer, counterattack, and destroy all those subs defending on a 1 with absolutely amazing effectiveness, they wouldn’t even need much more than half of their navy/air to do such a thing.

So, yeah, if you find that all your subs are being attacked by the Japanese navy, then your sub tactics are not working. When you’re advancing west as the US with subs and bombers, you need to use destroyers to screen the relevant naval zones, so that Japanese boats can’t get through to your main sub fleet. When you’re not advancing with subs and bombers, the point is to dead zone a bubble of sea zones around your fleet, giving your transports a chance to circle clockwise to the south of your fleet, running from Hawaii to Caroline to Solomon to Sumatra, so they can approach the money islands even if you don’t win a huge set piece naval battle. At the point where Japan withdraws “just barely” out of your reach from the Carolines, they’re now four sea zones away, which cedes a whole lot of territory.

1: I honestly hadn’t thought of that. With 4 German bombers at Japanese airbases, I agree that a sub-heavy American strategy is garbage. I was relying on Japan not having a local can-opener.

2: What I have in mind is less ANZAC sneaking in to kill transports (I agree that skilled players would not leave any such transports lying around), and more ANZAC sneaking in to take money islands. Even if the Japanese fleet is only 2 sea zones away, that leaves room for the US to substitute an American destroyer for the Japanese blocker in the intermediate zone, potentially screening off the ANZAC transports from the Japanese navy. But again, that doesn’t work if German bombers can just pick off the American destroyer before Japan even moves.

I posit that it is very difficult for two very experienced, equally skilled players playing US and JP against one another to find themselves in the situation where the US can, before A6 or even A7, get the drop on the JP fleet. Even on A7+, if you have been fiddling in the Atlantic, it may not yet be possible to begin a decisive move, which will end up losing you the game unless Germany/Italy has already been fairly well crushed.

So is this a claim about the game being unbalanced? Are you saying that whenever Russia retreats its Siberian infantry, Japan should declare war on J1 and will thereafter enjoy favorable odds for an eventual victory?

The most effective tactic is conceding and then J1ing your next opponent.

@teslas:

Sometimes a thread on a forum reaches a high point, conclusion, where something has been discussed and/or decided, and something productive has finally come from all of the smelly nerds pounding away on their dirty keyboards.

Pherman’s post is the exact point at which this thread has become complete. I salute you.

Thank you sir.

Hey, was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!

As silly as Bluto’s line was that can actually happen in A&A though.

@General:

Hey, was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!

As silly as Bluto’s line was that can actually happen in A&A though.

But J1 usually doesn’t include a Pearl Harbor attack.

I try and make Japan pay for everything with all the allies in the Pacific and make them spread out and earn everything; I try and wear them out. I generally just keep enough going to ensure they don’t win the game in the Pacific.

I like to employ a heavy convoy strategy if possible; there is a lot of convoys to place Anzac & US subs into; it gets really expensive/annoying for Japan to continue to replenish their destroyers clearing our subs and losing them to counter-attacks while still losing money in a few other convoy areas, which means less money in general.

@teslas:

-G1 “standard”. They either built some navy, bombers, or saved 30. At any rate ,no strong indication of their plan.
-UK1 will be full defensive buy for London: 6 inf 1 fighter.

I think its very interesting that the OP considered those three openers as standard for Germany (I would add a big artillery build as option #4).  I recall a time when all navy was standard.  The approaches have changed a lot.

Full defensive for UK would be all infantry.