I brought this up a while back, mostly because I find laundry lists of text describing the “moves” written out in words pretty useless when playing at a steady clip (which is probably saying something for me, cause I’m notoriously long winded with my A&A rambling and lists of lists on the forums lol), but I think what most would want is a visual representation of the moved units on the game map that is as easy as possible to parse at a glance. Diamonds and Arrows are only marginally better than lists at the final prompt in my view, since they hide a lot of the relevant information behind another click to view type graphical element. Last time I checked the diamond was updated to a black circle with crossbar riffles, its got a little circular colored meter now showing which units are involved, yellow for ground, red for aircraft ect, which is a bit of an improvement aesthetically over the diamond though functionally its much the same. The arrows have definitely been improved over the past few months, because now the ‘moving’ units don’t shift position within their starting territory to a spot along the border anymore, which was kinda confusing sometimes before, but still, a lot arrows going on.

The optimal method for usability I’d think would be like an inter-phase step, where the units actually move into the relevant territories/sea zones and are displayed clearly on the map in their ending locations rather than with arrows from their starting location (like where the moved unit appears as a ghost or semi-transparent version of itself or whatever ‘while its moving’ in the actual spot where its meant to end up, similar to the way other map games work.) But I’m pretty sure Cody described in discord that something of that sort with a preview was basically impossible given the way the game was designed. In my layman’s way of understanding it there’s no real intermediate game state to save/preview, until the phase is actually completed and then the stuff actually happens, after which point there’s no going back. Which I think is also why there’s no time machine or simple way to access or export a gamesave or to view a previous turn/phase in a game history? I don’t know how it works exactly if it overwrites as it goes maybe, or something like that to ease the load? I do wish there was a way to save games though. Even for something sort of ephemeral like a really killer A&A match, sometimes its cool to have something other than a screen capture that you can look back on later to study, or just show off haha.

I’m not a big fan of the vestigial movement arrows myself, since I think they clutter up the map view and wouldn’t really be necessary if the units just moved into the relevant space with a “to/from” for each unit involved listed in a sidebar when you cursor over the spot haha.

I try not to bring up comparisons too much anymore since I don’t think its particularly productive, but I kinda just wish the map display for movement looked more like TripleA. Like I guess its one of those 'why reinvent the wheel, when you could just take a sleigh, or cross country ski there instead?" heheh. I mean I don’t know, maybe that’s a little harsh, but yeah. I feel ya dude. It’s a bit rough, mild panic sets in immediately after clicking the “End Phase” button.

I know its an online game with “Online” in the name, but I still think not having really any focus on the single player experience is a bit of a missed opportunity. Its the lowest barrier to entry, low-pressure first introduction, that A&A really needs from a product like this. like at least as much as it needs solid online matchmaking. I know I probably played a hundred solitaires or games against goofy computer opponents with the old Hasbro CD before I ever put up an even remotely decent game in a head-to-head match.

Axis and Allies is a kinda wonky game to learn how to play, and one that would be well served by a robust computer tutorial. Even a middling computer opponent would be great to have for learning the basic mechanics of A&A, to say nothing of learning the UI. I think this one is serviceable for people who already know what they’re doing, and just want an official way to play, but I worry its not the most spectacular thing ever if what you’re using it for is just getting your head around the nuts and bolts. Or if the way you’re trying to learn how to play A&A is by running through the tutorial and then playing against the computer, before into a pvp match lol. The Hasbro CD attempt even with the limits of mid 90s gameplay still managed to find ways to engage the Single Player, with like AI generals, splashy stats/graphs/newsflashes stuff of that sort, and a lot of game mode options to mess about with.

This one really does need an editor though or at least a time machine.
Would be cool if there were more built-in communication features too and a way to share histories and gamesaves and such.

I wish I had more time to play lately. I missed the second season entirely. Might check it out again in the third. Things tend to open up for me in the Fall for A&A time sinks heheh. Hope all’s been well!

Yeah I think the ‘ignore’ advice what they’re really saying is more ‘don’t buy ships in the other theater with USA.’ So USA/Britain aren’t ignoring Japan they’re just managing Japan from the center instead of head on from East/South Pacific. And Usually if you withdraw Atlantic fleet, then you still have to purchase position to cover the West Coast and VC snipes.

I’d prob end up trying to use Britain to threaten an early Japanese press into Kazakh, since they have more to work with than Russia usually. But just having enough Brit fighters there to get the job done sometimes depends on how first round cracked off so that’s rough too. Germany can come hard all by itself, basically they just mass artillery/inf stack pushing. So you have to start trading as quickly as possible into Europe with UK/USA to draw off German hitpoints, or else Russia just topples eventually (usually you want it holding till about round 8-9, but that means drawing Germany back in sufficient numbers that they stall out a bit after W. Russia/Caucasus push intstead of careening straight into the Soviet capital in the 8th round). Germany has so many starting aircraft and tanks that you basically have to force them into half a dozen combats every round just to make a dent in their forward progress to Moscow. And probably have to bomb at some point too, if you really want an edge over even then, which is the most nerveracking. Ideally bombers you’d just want for combat, but sometimes you just can’t even get close to challenging German income without a max-damage into the dirt sort of round, which is a pretty dicey proposition. Allies also have the challenge of landing enough inf units with UK/USA that Germany has to actually funnel hitpoints west each turn to die in trading, instead of heading east for the stackfest. So its more than just the bare minimum inf and bombardments+mass air, usually gotta send more dudes just to die, just to spread G thin enough that they’re actually risking something for the reconquest every round in the trade. Hoping for lucky dud on their part or maybe holding a tile on d every once in a blue moon.

I usually go Africa coverage first then swing north. Depends on sz11. Most people I saw in Plat were going all-in on sz7 attack as Germany, with all the subs on G1 just to make sure, only a couple balsy exceptions out of like 50 some odd games that I saw. So the USA is a little better off with those transports and dd in tact but still hard to get it going fast enough even then.

I like carrier and transports+ art focus first two rounds to get the chain going, then bomber focus. Most of my wins as Allies in KGF have come from the bomber stack like 6 or more deep. Its important to at least threaten airblitz amphib of Berlin in case they mess up their no com fighter landings or placement phase and leave open an early snipe attack vs Berlin, which can sometimes happen.

Its usually easier to prop up Russia by trading north via sz5 or sz3 over the Med trade game I find, but I’ve seen the Med work in some prolonged type games, or where something went wild in early Africa battles. But basically only way to keep Russia up, is the fighter wall to the center and then trading as many spots as possible along German coast so they have to pull back to cover coastal trading instead of just hammering Soviets with everything.

I think it takes 100% USA focus in Pacific if you want to do anything to break IJN early. Otherwise its about meeting the IJN somewhere else in the engame. Usually at the canal/Med, or Indian ocean reverse press where your fighter wall at the center can help prevent the Japanese fleet from just parking into Africa sz34. If you see Japan going against USA in KGF, better to build ground chain up through Canada like the old games, write off Honolulu, and play to make the trade Alaska or whatever that way if Japan goes all balistic with transports north, when they should really be pushing em into Yunnan shuck. Then hope to make em pay for the distraction on the other side of the board with the repeating launch sz10 to sz3 Finland.

ps. another thing not always obvious is how sometimes just funneling hitpoints with USA into British held territory and holding puts pressure on Germany. They don’t always need to advance into territory unless you can start splitting G hard in each fight. Other times it can be helpful just to juice a territory like Northwestern or France after Britain has taken, just to force larger numbers into the next trade. Trying to have even larger numbers via transports for the following clap back to up the stakes. But always optimal is liberating Karelia while the center is still holding, so I like Finland push after Africa coverage for the set up. To at least try for putting heat on Karelia and securing Norway, but there’s always that tension between trying to prop up Russian in the north repeating launch, or just start slamming into G from the West head on? KGF is hard because G is so beefy and has such strong defensive position to stack Berlin. Just trying to save Russia from G is tough enough, but then turn around and save them from J while crack’n Berlin at the same time? pretty tough even with Gencon boost. Bombers in the back pocket helps

ps. this is an aside, but the main issue we have right now for playing the official A&A game digitally, is that its not 1:1 with the rules on the physical board. So the solutions for playbalance are going to be different (and unfortunately don’t port well from the one to the other). Kind of my main idea for what a digital game should be, or how it might be used, is as a way to formalize and popularize solutions that can also work on the physical board, and which are frankly needed for playbalance there.

In a face to face game, usually the opponent has already been chosen and the bid is used as a way to choose sides based on player confidence/skill assessment. The bid is basically a handicap there.

In the online game the opponent is chosen at random. So I might imagine a way where the bid amount requested brings up a pool of players willing to play Axis vs your Allies at that amount. But it still requires some kind of preliminary game phase or launch option.

I wish the digital game and the physical one were treated the same way, a hybrid release, same promotion and coordinated like that. It is possible to play tripleA or face to face using the A&AO rules in a live game, if you player enforced things like friendly fighter landings or forced casualty selection etc but I don’t know that it’d be any more popular than using OOB rules or Gencon rules and a tournament bid. But it’d be nice if both had the same conventions for play I think.

For tournament live play conditions, sudden death you could add a timer of some sort. But yeah, the cool thing about that would be that when a new release dropped you’d have a way to stitch the two communities together more.

I guess right now short answer to keeping Russia afloat is either bid or solid luck in their opener, depending which version you’re playing. OOB they’d need a bid for sure. Gencon I think a bid might help for choosing sides, but balance their seems more delicate and people seem to have fun with allies even with no bid, so I don’t know if it’d even need to go to double digits to get what we want out of it. I’d for sure play Allies in Gencon with +9 it’d be way more fun than 0 hehe. So least you got a fairly narrow range on bid, closer to what it was in Revised.

But for Russia doesn’t seem like a lot of great things you can do if dice go poorly and no bid to stabilize opener. I mean best strategic choice on offer is probably where to land the second fighter, and what to do with the Kazakh dude. Bringing him back to Caucasus is about the most you can do to juice the eastern front. Everything else comes down to the opening rolls. Only buys I’ve seen really doing much good are 3 art 4 inf (standard), or 4 inf 2 tanks (Karelia aggressive). I still like 3 art 2 inf 1 tank (ultra agro) since it’s money if you sweep both attacks for the follow up, but then probably I just get hosed in W. Russia or Ukraine battle and regret it lol. I think most attack Ukraine all-in to kill bomber, and just take it in the teeth if that fails.

Yeah there are definitely ways to pull it off. In the plat tier for Allies during the first ranked pre-season I saw a lot of peeps doing some clutch KJF play. I think KGF is more reliable when you’re not sure about the opponent, but at either end of the experience curve KJF opens up.

My interest in A&A always comes in these sort of manic waves, where I’ll be all intensely engaged with it for a few months, and then dead to the universe for a few months, then back in it again hehe. Weirdly this past couple months I’ve had less free time during the plague than I did before it cracked off, so not sure about the latest and greatest A&AO, but its cool to see how just when I think I got it pegged in the opener, someone will come up with some new surprise to explore.

I think A&AO by kind of straight-jacketing the set up with no bid, has probably resulted in the most sustained playtest of a given ‘official’ A&A board to date. Even though the rules in A&AO are slightly different owing to friendly landing rules and defense profiles, their approach to the no bid Gencon variant there is probably more consistent for a control than the actual live tournaments where a bid is included and the time limit or live play pressures factor into how people play it, a bid of anything changes a lot.

Now that everyone is all used to the no bid pressure cooker and being deprived of any bid, it might be fun if the idea of the bid was re-introduced in a really deliberate, slow and methodical way. I think the following for example would be pretty fun for an Allied advantage to try…

Bid Season: A bid to starting income of only 1-2 ipc. Which obv isn’t enough to pre-place an inf hitpoint, so everyone would then have to think about it like “OK, what could I do to tip things with 25-26 ipcs as Russia? 32-33 ipcs as UK? or 43-44 as USA?” Like maybe there is an interesting split there, and its fun because it puts the emphasis on first round purchases rather than battles. Let everyone play it for a few months as the new thing.

Then bring the bid up to 3 ipcs. After everyone has had fun exploring the purchase potential of 1-2 ipcs, now its about using it all in one spot for the extra inf hitpoint (e.g. Ukraine attack for most players I’d guess). The choice would be between playing Allies with the hitpoint boost, or as Axis vs the 1-2 income boost. See how the balance fairs for a month or two like that.

Then introduce the 5 ipc bid for Allies. This bid is really interesting because it combines aspects of the two earlier forms, mainly because 5 is such an awkward number for pre-placement bidding. E.g. Nobody is going to spend it all on an AAgun, so they’re either buying 1 inf (for Ukraine attack) with a 2 ipc remainder left over, or 1 art (for Ukraine attack) and 1 ipc remainder left over. And since everyone had a chance to explore the 1-2 ipc purchasing bid in the very first iteration of a bid season, now they’ll have thoughts about how to best use the remainder income. Whether to just take the inf hitpoint or boost it to art for attack advantage, and then where to use/split the remainder most effectively.

I’d actually stop there before hitting the 6 ipc threshold so it doesn’t hose the naval game right out the gate, and just see if people like the balance on the game at Allies bid 1-5 ipcs. In other words, instead of a broad bid range up front, stage it in, community wide, so that people can have a chance to tease things out before it goes straight into pre-placement bid extra hitpoints dynamic. By stopping just short of 6 ipcs, we keep the focus of the playbalance at a single hitpoint on the ground, and avoid sub breakers to the first round battles.

Having experienced the long deprivation of playing with no bid whatsoever, a bid ranged 1-5 ipcs would suddenly seem pretty awesome and might result in a satisfying play balance for most. But if its not enough, then when you finally introduce the 6 ipc bid, the board resets again. Suddenly everyone focuses on the choice between an extra sub, or 2 hitpoints on the ground. If each season lasted a couple months, by the time you got to a bid 6+ we’d have a lot of information from the games at different tiers to see where the balance actually falls. Maybe 6 is plenty?

That’s wishfull thinking though probably. Challenge for A&AO is coming up with something that works for their matching system. I don’t know that they will ever include familiar bidding as a way to determine sides, because of how their matchmaking process is set up. But maybe they could do it in bid pools? Allies +1 makes up one pool, Allies +2 another and so on. Seems like it would be easier to do it with starting income than preplacement units though, since I don’t know how they’d add a new bidphase to the match, but maybe they could auto add income prior to launch? Probably the easiest thing for them to do is just change the set up, and offer Gencon 2 or whatever. But its too bad, cause bidding is kind of a fun aspect of the game that keeps it from getting stale over time. You could try it in tripleA, but then you don’t have enough games really to tell because the player base isn’t there, and anyway if it was most would just be playing G40 or AA50 or some other game I’d guess over 1942.3 hehe

Which set up are you playing? For A&AO in Gencon or TripleA World War II v5 1942 SE TR, basically USA is spending 100% in Pacific for several rounds to prop up India, clip a money island and sink or push IJN off sz61, while UK/USSR are basically spending 100% to hold the line at W.Russia/Caucasus and the India/Persia/Kazakh wedge.

The most important change in that set up is the extra 2 inf on India, and altered German opener (bomber in Ukraine, naval adjustments in Med and Atlantic.) That set up basically takes G1 Egypt off the table and German press in the east is delayed by a round. Some will invert the canal order (first Trans G1 then Egypt G2) or delay canal with Libya push G1, or ignore for Ukraine or Gibraltar press, but Africa is slower like that.

For OOB bid is in the double digits, going north of 20 ipcs sometimes. So that gives other options to mess with IJN via subs say, or to shut down Med before G fleet can really do anything meaningful with it.

For Gencon in A&AO still no bid is supported, but I’d guess Allies are still good for a hitpoint or two in the bid on balance. Prob most would use vs Ukraine R1, though 6 ipcs or higher opens up some interest for KJF with a Brit sub.

To defeat the Japanese AI in TripleA, the best way to pressure their fleet is from the air. Fighter/Bomber spam works pretty well for that (against human, dd/sub spam is more reliable over the long haul and just stacking hitpoints, but the machine in tripleA gets brain freeze vs air attack power). HardAI will tend to retreat their fleet rather than hold position to defend sz61/62 the way most humans would. Been a while since I played vs the AI for latest updates, but the computer is pretty good at the Tokyo turtle, so I’d just bypass and try to force their fleet off the home island. The AI tends to build production on Manchuria too, so that’s another quick crash if you can nuke the transports or force them out of range. HardAI in tripleA has its own play patterns that you can start to tease apart, but its pretty decent at the basics. An income bonus to the AI can be fun for harder challenge once you’ve got it pegged, or for painting the whole map world conquest type challenge after most human opponents would throw in the towel.

The computer opponent in A&AO is pretty middling, since it doesn’t know how to use aircraft properly and will land fighters in vulnerable positions even from the first round. On that platform its pretty much pvp or bust, since the computer can’t hold its own.

ps. just played a few out using the stable, saw computer Japan going for early bomber focus, with more Moscow raids and such, and a couple fleet sweepers when the bombers stacked to the ceiling after their fleet gives hehe. Feels improved from the last few times I played hard AI. Still I think the best way is to push up on IJN from the south first sz44 then 49 to springboard into the island trade. Aussie fleet doubles back to keep the pressure on for round 4, and sack a transport to start the exchange. Japan sometimes goofs by pressuring north towards Alaska and such and leaving a money island out reach to set up shop. Russia surviving or how for long prob comes down almost entirely to W. Russia/Ukraine result in the first round with no bid in Gencon, but if playing vs a computer I imagine most would just dip after W. Russia slaughter anyway. If Russia gets in W. Russia with 6 inf+ though and handles Ukraine center wedge can get pretty strong before G can crash the party. AI Germany pushes their art stacks pretty east pretty well, but also suffers from undervaluing their starting air. Break downs for their fighter landings can give Allies a leg up.

The Hard AI can be made pretty challenging by giving the computer opponents each a bid of an extra starting bomber edit. AI is pretty good at building off early bomber strength. But it also struggles sometimes on air protection, landing them in vulnerable spots or withdrawing from a spot where a teammates air has landed, that’s usually where it gives I find.

Anyhow have fun on the next one! Glad to see Redrum’s AI still pulling out some strong play

I had always hoped for something more like RiskII for a combat animation layout (just for another 90s cd call back). Like where you were given the option to run the battles in a sidebar, or actually enter the tile and have it expand to combat scale, with little toy soldier type dudes and tanks blasting while the dice roll. Or basically all the same features from a roller that RiskII had on the fly, where you could scale it to fast battle and just see numbers and dice flashes for a sec, or view the combat in a minimized battle board window, or on actual terrain with full animations (more along the lines of what they did visually in the A&A RTS game from 04, but with the animations only going with dice rolls, not like the actual mini game that that one was based off.)

For the map, the main thing I really want is just a full scale pan out. Max zoom-out to see the entire world at a glance and read the numbers. It’d be cool if it ran like a mini version of google maps, where you get the global pan out at various scales, but can go to a street view where it generates a table top layout on actual terrain. In combat a view like that shows the tanks roll around and blast, or fighters strafing across the screen, and when hits are made the tanks explode and planes crash, dudes keel over and disappear. That sort of thing. At sea much the same, just with fleets and open water, or coastal terrain at the zoom in combat if it’s amphib. An iso or birdseye quick view would be cool for that, planes coming in when hits are made, battleships bombarding when the dice drop with craters and clouds. Capitals and VCs might have their own visual flourishes at that scale for terrain zooms with iconic buildings or landmarks, bridges or whathaveyou.

Features for a camera view Z axis to rotate around and position a cam like it was an actual table. A tricked out battlefield game-table, in someones imaginary double wide garage palace, ultimate board hehe. Where the player can set and move pieces that look like plastic army men into position in columns, on a game plane simulating a physical board that looks like a model train-terrain set up. That would be cool. Or something with a cartoon vibe maybe. And just stats screens plastered with info, and with WW2 ephemera all around. Medals posters old photos or clippings, whatever. All the window dressings basically.

I like a tutorial advisor, fully voice acted like they do in Total War, or things like news reels or bulletin period headlines. Splashes randomly during the various phase, turn, round sequence transitions. A passing computer opponent that makes for fun solo games and AI generals that randomize the computer playpatterns in different ways.

Then just AA50 or Global with all that going on. Options to edit the board state at any time to allow for all game possibilities. I think a tutorial mode and a decent computer opponent using an established board like AA50 would help the learning curve because the game almost needs a ride along show, and step up to Global scale which is pretty complicated without a primer. But I think 3D map, terrain, weather etc for sure. Give a happy medium, or just a gang of options to have basic abstract national-color with plastic looking army men and cardboard vibe, or painted tin soldiers decal’d out on train model scale with the tiny waving flags miniature vibe and all that. I think those are the two looks most people like.

If max zoom’d out to view the whole map, more like the former, if entering the close up combat view, more like the latter. It would look slick. In my head, anyway. Just pining lol

Interestingly I think that’s like the default move that the computer opponent does if assigned to play Allies. Not that I’d suggest following the machine for much, but who knows might be something to it that most have neglected? I think its just the high cost for the Russians vs what Allies are likely to get out the deal long term. 5 inf for 15 ipcs is pretty pricey for a bait, and parking a Brit fighter to back it up takes that up to 25 likely destroyed. I don’t know could just be me, but if Russia stacks Bury without a Brit fighter I will always try to smoke it on J1. If they do bring the fighter then the profit for the Bury attack starts getting closer to Pearl level trade off (such that J might consider leaving 53 alone to pull it off). Japan can also run a hit on 53 with the sacrificial fighter coming from sz37 instead of Tokyo if they wanted, and still land the Bury fighters on deck in sz60 after.

4 inf 1 tank 2 fighters 1 bombardment vs 5 inf 1 fighter is still like 80% to the attacker with 2 units remaining on ave, 3 if attacker won.

Every now and again that might break unlucky for Japan with a dud or something, but most times they blast through 6 hitpoints like it was nothing, and then the north is open road for the rush to Evenki line. Obv the plan for that to have much pay off would be like full on KJF slam trying to break the Japanese in the first couple rounds. For a fast game high stakes might be fun, cause there’s only so much Japan can do in their opener. If I was Japan I’d prob just bring the bomber into it, and focus north initially instead of Pearl, cause it would really suck to get rolled on the mainland immediately. Or like you mentioned, also possible to ignore the Bury stack and just bolster manchuria on D, delay of game tactics for both sides hehe. But on balance I think its just tough for Allies to have Soviets leading the charge in the East, when they are already struggling so much just to maintain vs G onslaught, and then not having those Siberian dudes to back up the middle path across China or as a life line to bolster the center in the 4th round. This based more on the A&AO situation which is slightly different from the physical board, with no bids and such to help the set up beyond the Gencon tweaks. Then again its just kinda speculation, I haven’t seen enough games where players tried for the Bury stack to really know the ultimate trade off. That’s a strong telegraph for KJF, so as G I would just go for broke in the opener I think, and play for the fast game on the center.

I gave it a pretty good run during the first ranked season, with a fair amount of early access type updates along the way. I’d say the main thing it has going for it is essentially the player base. That’s the draw.

Aesthetically I think the digital platforms all still leave a lot to be desired. I wouldn’t say that A&AO is ugly, or that TripleA is a thing of beauty hehe, or that GTO looked slick or stale, but I mean its pretty clear that the Art wasn’t exactly top priority after initial development of the game map and core assets. On the one hand you have an art department for the official products (or I don’t know exactly if its a team or a couple peeps or what) that is basically limited in terms of resources for that, and also by having a publisher that requires everything artwise to be pre-approved by Wizards or whatever. Its all based on the boxed art more or less. Then on the other hand you have an open source thing with unpaid enthusiast making the stuff, using a platform almost 20 years old, and not able to use any official art for it, so of course that’s going to show as well. It’s too bad, because in my head I can picture all sorts of ways that the visual appeal could be really dialed up. Like with really polished alternative map skins, or same deal with Units or Dice, splashier splash screens and all the rest. In some ways I still think the Old Hasbro CD still takes em both to task, even with late 90s sprites lol. But it is what it is I guess.

That said I’ve enjoyed playing. If nothing else it certainly popularized the Gencon ruleset and helped to give a clearer picture of the real playbalance of the game at different levels of player skill (which unsurprisingly has confirmed a lot of what was said here at A&A.org, just with more data to back it up). Also helped quite a bit with expanding the community of digital players and getting some returning vets who probably haven’t played online in a long time if ever. The main thing that’s always held tripleA back is difficulty of installation and the sort of port forwarding/hosting live play issues you mentioned. So having something on steam that’s sort of ready to go click-click for 20 bucks is nice just for convenience factor, although the asynchronous playstyle is pretty different from playing live like you would on the physical board. But yeah, I feel you for sure. It’s not exactly what my pipe dream fantasy for a digital A&A board would be, (nothing ever is, I have high expectations lol) though I don’t regret spending a few bucks just to keep it going haha

I have seen a couple approaches, one is to essentially ignore America after the opening round and focus on India/Center crush with the plan first to delay then cede/trade the money islands to USA when they eventually arrive. Priority for that one is sz61 funnel with naval/air forces large enough to deter a US sweep, even if you can’t destroy their fleet yourself. Turtle up home island and drive for the center with G more or less.

Another way is to go forward vs USA early to try and deter the pacific game. For that one J1 sub spam, and positioning New Guinea seems to work pretty well if pearl goes to plan. The trade off is no added transport capacity J2, but the Imperial Japanese Navy can then go toe to toe and is pretty hard to sink both starting carriers are free to non com. Japan then has the option to spam a second round of subs or transport capacity on J2 depending on how the USA responds. For Axis preserving the Japanese fleet in KJF basically sets the playlength of the game. Once its destroyed or outclassed USA does the creeper money island push, and its down to just stacking Tokyo, so the logic is that you just try to outclass USA so they can’t move on the islands for as long as possible. Or go for an all out trade fleet for fleet if one presents itself.

Third way I’ve seen is the run and gun on India, which would be like trying for J3/4 slam before USA can really get out, with early transports. That one is more high reward high risk, since if you’re pushing Burma or trying to drop the VC early it often comes down to things like aafire bombardments and mass air, where the swings can be kinda wild. Or also the risk that it stalls and you have to redirect if India can’t be swept and US start mucking about in the backfield.

USA going full in on Pacific can be rough, especially once USA gets out, or threatens bomber strikes vs fleet, or if they clip the islands and spam production there. But Japan can get up to match them on income pretty quickly just by sweeping China/Soviet lands, and sz61/62 is a strong position for transports to shuttle back and forth to push hitpoints across the middle. Expanding production early is a liability if USA is spending in the Pacific, but I’ve seen people make do with fewer transports or just 2/3 transport pushing steady and the rest on fleet coverage. But anyway I think safest J1 build if you fear KJF press might be only 1 transport or forego added transports on J1 just to make sure to secure the fleet. Sub spam is pretty potent. Sometimes seems better to drop a gang of em at once and close off the lane by threatening attack, and then you also got a fodder cushion. Marine Iguana floated it as an idea a while back. I haven’t tried the 5 subs build in enough games to know if it really has the full psy ops deterrent to KJF, (USA might still come at you regardless, or see it as a challenge for a high stakes naval game, which is fun in its own right hehe) but there’s something to be said for having hella subs as Japan. If you get a 10 stack of subs going for example, with all Japans starting ships and fighters that’s a pretty hard fleet to dislodge, but also gives ya something to throw at USA or trade if you have to delay the money islands play.

Some stuff in this thread might be worth checking out. The game in A&AO is a little different for things like defense profile/subs and such. But broad strokes still some good ideas in there:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/25675/how-to-do-a-good-kjf/2

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/26266/japan-s-response-to-kjf/2

Best Elk