Japan R1 attack on pearl harbor

Hello,

Maybe an odd question… Currently playing with just a group of friends but considering joining some other games / ranked play.

My only concern is I can really only do turns during evenings / weekends and even with that maybe 1-2 per evening. So… would always hit the 24 hour between turn warning bit but likely only get in one to two turns per day.

Is that the normal expectation or would I be slowing people down / pissing people off :)?

@leoflow Well, yes, you anonymized your account, so you’ll have to create a new Commander Name etc. But in order to do that, you need the app to work again.

@JuliusBorisovBeamdog

I can specify, what i was doing:

Settings Apple-ID/Profile Registration&Security Sign in with Apple Axis&Allies App Hide my E-Mail > manage Settings Axis&Allies App disable „Forword to (your e-mail)“

Then A&A worked again.

I tried doing the math by hand but I’m very bad with statistics, can someone who is good with statistics proof this strategy? Say you have even odds in a fight your thinking of taking, you win ~50% and you lose ~same IPC overall as opponent. Should you take the fight because attacker can choose to stay or flea vs defense doesn’t? If there are 2 scenarios A) the dice of first round go in your favor or B) the dice go against you and you now have sub 50% and bad IPC then couldn’t you just retreat if B happens and push if A happens? The computer calculating expected losses is doing so under the impression that you stay regardless of outcome so it’s the sum of all negative outcomes + sum of all positives. But if you leave when it goes against you you reduce the sum of negative outcomes partially while I believe reducing the sum of all positive outcomes by less. So you can achieve positive trades from equal fights by having the ability to choose if your going for their full stack or not.

@WHarvey All handled (in the DM).

I just read over your post again and it’s funny how with a different point of view other things stand out.

You said that US fighters to India does not synergize well with US Med Shuck plan. In some ways this is true. The fighters go to India and are not protecting US fleet in sea zone 15 or sea zone 13 on that round. That means 3 starting fighters out of circulation on this round.

However what US can do is round one build of carrier destroyer fighter transport infantry round one for 42 IPC.

UK positions Egypt forces in Trans Jordan round one US fighter from China lands there to support it. US waits in sea zone 11 for its build. Possibly moving starting destroyer and transports to sea zone 10 with 4 ground units moving north to east Canada for additional flexibility if that is safe from German ships in Atlantic.

Then round 2 US moves in to sea zone 13 with 2 destroyers cruiser carrier 2 fighters landing in Morocco. The carrier that went to sea zone 45 round one comes back around south America from there. It will arrive in sea zone 13 on round 4 filling that part of the escort chain at the same time as the Battleship and destroyer from the west coast arrives as well. It should be noted that if the PH carrier did not take this side route to sea zone 45 on round one and makes a bee line for sea zone 13 immediately through the canal it could arrive there on round 3 instead, but because of US needing to buy escorts, transports and ground to fill transports it doesn’t really have the resources to do all of that anyways. Other builds are higher priority and getting fighters to the center higher priority as well instead of having them idle around waiting for that carrier to arrive round 3. The one round detour does not take much away from that in terms of timing.

The US fighters in India have done their job of shoring up defense there vs J3 timing. This may cause Japan to not make the attack because it is unfavorable. Importantly this gives UK one more round to do another build round 4 and shore up its defense there. This may include UK fighters going to West Russia which can transition to India from there and take their place.

US fighters in India can be freed up from India round 3 to go to West Russia, possibly providing air support to attack on Kazakh along the way. Maybe they go to Caucus instead.

Then round 4 they can land on carrier in sea zone 15 and fighters from that carrier go to the carrier now arriving in sea zone 13.

It’s an option and how the transition lines up and actually does work together.

Those fighters may be needed in India or Russia still in which case US builds more fighters round 3 to land on the carrier reaching sea zone 13 round 4 instead. Depending on the board state and what the Allied needs are.

The focus here is to get US support to the center as quickly as possible and then once there to have the flexibility to shift them to where they are most needed afterwards in response to what Axis has done.

The key to all of this is getting units to where they can most help when they are needed. US and UK can do a form of fighter swapping between West Russia and India so that they are always present in the numbers required on Germanys turn, then transitioned to India as required on Japans turn.

UK fighters to India from WR and US fighters from India to WR. Somewhat doubling their defense capabilities by using the turn order against Axis in this way. While also making attacks of opportunity while transitioning.

Some posters on Discord are saying how the Allies player counters Japan’s invasion of Alaska is dependent on “player level”. Sure.

But magical abilities are being ascribed, and it should be understood there is no magic.

For example, I read a “top level” player will supposedly “defend” Alaska. How, exactly? When, exactly? Is it magic?

The first post is to players that already have a very good grasp of what’s going on, telling them this is the timing, the timing shift, the opportunity cost, and so on.

This post is more basic.

Assuming Germany doesn’t have early advantageous dice against USSR (or other disasters), assuming Germany is not in a position to dash forwards and crush Moscow before the Allies can really do anything, the game takes a slower pace. Germany and Japan build up and move towards Moscow; UK and US carry out their own development.

But let’s give some concrete numbers. Suppose Japan decides to attack Alaska early. Why would Japan do this? If the US player was very silly, and only then. Generally at the end of J1, Japan should have made whatever opportunistic attacks to start choking USSR’s income. Every unit sent to Alaska is a unit not sent to Asia, and any units Japan dumps to Asia next turn from the Alaska transports will have to be to Buryatia or Manchuria, which is far from India; India has an existing industrial complex that UK uses to disrupt the Axis, and controlling that industrial complex is a big boost to Japan. For reasons I shall not get into at this time.

So the only reason why Japan should hit Alaska J1 or J2 (or generally early), considering it detracts from the basic Axis strategy, considering it detracts from what is normally one of the Axis’ stronger tactical focuses - is if Japan does better to hit Alaska somehow. Which amounts to US overextension. Which shouldn’t happen.

So Japan should not invade Alaska early, unless Allies are super unlucky or super bad. Or unless the Japan player just wants to have fun; games don’t have to be about “winning” or “losing”.

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What about late in the game? Supposing the Allies go KGF?

We must first talk about tanks and opportunity costs. Suppose US buys tanks. A single transport can transport, say, two infantry, or an infantry and a tank. Though tanks are expensive, they can blitz (probably useless if dropped on France but whatever), and they are more efficient defenders than infantry. So should we expect that the US has lots of tanks? Probably not. Because infantry are much cheaper than tanks, and we may expect that the US will use IPCs to buy more transports and infantry.

But there are other reasons to buy tanks, specifically, tanks on Western US defend Western US and threaten Alaska. Tanks on Eastern Canada are ready for US’s usual KGF transport routes and also threaten Alaska.

Then there’s also certain things about timings at Finland. But suffice to say that building a heavy tank force is quite expensive, and though I expect US to build a few tanks, I don’t expect heavy investment.

Yes, three paragraphs to go over things that veteran players already know very well. I did mention this post is more basic.

Those things said, what can we reasonably expect of a Japan to Alaska invasion? Let’s say reasonable worst case.

REASONABLE WORST CASE, JAPAN TO ALASKA

In KGF (if KJF, then Japan hitting Alaska is opportunistic / “best chance”. After Japan takes India (before capturing India, Japan needs its transports to speed attacks on India. Even afterwards, one or two transports may be used for Africa and/or Australia.) US has a few tanks East Canada.

All makes sense? This is as bad as it gets for Japan hitting Alaska. But let’s throw in a few more things that we also know, if we think about it.

Japan isn’t making good progress supporting Germany in Europe. (If Japan were doing great with Germany, who cares about Alaska, just smash Moscow and win). Germany’s position isn’t hopeless, or near hopeless. It just needs a “little more”.

Okay. Now let’s say Japan dumps 2 units to Alaska, 4 units, basically a distraction. This is not the supposed “hard counter” that a lot of players are talking about on Discord. It’s just Japan saying “hi”, now Japan is +2, US is -2.

Now what is the magical defense?

Obviously if US has a pile of infantry on West Canada, then US smashes Japan in Alaska and sits there, and Japan can’t really do much about it. (Remember, we expect Japan to have 8-12 ground on the followup, plus up to six fighters, a bomber, two battleship and a cruiser support shots, plus maybe some more air power, who knows.)

Well, if US was sitting on a huge chunk of infantry on West Canada, then let’s really think on it. Somehow, the Axis are not doing particularly well, despite the US holding back a huge chunk of income on a threat that Japan never even needed to commit to? Then why are the Axis generally doing not so hot in Europe?

You see the magic? Where did this perfect defense materialize from? It comes from the assumption that somehow the Allies are basically already winning.

But let’s make it a little less magical, you say? Let’s say there is a small infantry reserve on West Canada? Well, that infantry reserve will get blown up by Japan’s counter. So really, US needs a lot on West Canada. That’s just how it is.

But US can use fighters against Alaska? Most of US fighters are in or near Europe. They simply haven’t the range.

Bombers? Again, out of range.

But the US fighters and bombers are NOT out of range, one claims, if they are held back? True, but then we again have the situation where US is pre-emptively holding back counter forces, and considerable forces at that, against a potential Japanese invasion.

We need more magic!

Then let’s say US responds late to Japan’s attack. That is, Japan secures Alaska on the initial or the followup.

Then everything I wrote in the initial post is true; Japan threatens multiple locations with a single stack of units; US must pull multiple defenses or come out the loser, Axis units that would not be really relevant until a few turns in suddenly become immediately relevant.

This is just the numbers. The situation. The timing. The logistics. No magic involved.

Japan to Alaska isn’t about some poorly considered premature invasion that pulls away from Axis strategic and tactical goals.

Nor is Japan to Alaska about some late game Hail Mary, trying to brute-force some solution. This is what some posters are saying on Discord, but it’s not about that at all. It’s about pulling a US response, where US wants to invest more in the defense than Japan needs to on the offense, because US wants local superiority of force, Japan gains income from invasion while US is merely reclaiming, and US cannot really afford to lose, given the multiple threat development of Japan.

If US does not respond to the threat with sufficient force (including taking reasonable chances and getting unlucky), then Japan captures Western US. That shouldn’t happen, but Japan may still fuel its invasion with traded territory income. But those are both actually silly scenarios. What probably happens is, US responds “late” (if not, then US was paying an opportunity cost for a threat that never needed to materialize), then US has to keep shoveling resources into repelling the threat, then after Japan switches back to Asia, US’s logistics chains are inefficient for some time while US readjusts, and the majority Allied stack holder may be severely disrupted at least.