@Oddbjoern:

Attacking Spain is always suboptimal as it delays US for at least one round.

With the US you can pretty much decide between a defensive or an aggressive approach. IN the defensive you go with 8 transports and in the aggressive you go with 7.
US has 20 IPC and cant move for the first 4 rounds. This means you have 80 IPC worth of units that you need to plan for.
Defensive:
8 transports, 56 ICP + 8 inf, 24 IPC = 80 IPC (You start with 6 inf and 2 art) -> 8 transport with 14 inf and 2 art.

Offensive
7 transport,49 IPC + 1 inf, 3 IPC = 52 IPC -> You have 28 IPC to buy heavy hiters with (needs to fill 5 spots), perhaps, 1 art, 3 tanks and 1 plane. -> 7 transport with 7 inf, 3 art , 3 tanks and 1 plane.

As most of your buys with the US are transport, you might as well buy those the first rounds so you can wait to decide if you wanna go offensive or defensive. In all my games so far US has been forced to go defensive in Italy.

Your statement that attacking Spain always wastes a round isn’t necessarily true.

Transports only cost 6 IPCs in this game meaning that you can buy 8 transports for 48 IPCs. That leaves 32 IPCs which if you want pure offense (optimal in most cases) can be 5 art 2 inf and a fighter for a grand total of 8 inf 7 art and a fighter. This force will have at least 51 pips (and a 50% chance of having 53 pips if the coastal shot misses), not to mention you should probably have the 66% chance of a bombard hit. It’s not a guarantee to be a one round battle by any means, but the most likely outcome is a one round battle.

Assuming that the US doesn’t need to buy any warships to deal with purchased German navy (which shouldn’t happen in a normal game), I like to hit Spain as a base of operations and a great income boost. If you wipe it out in one turn, it should pay for your losses in 3-4 turns. That income is also crucial to upping the US shuck from 6 units a turn to 8 units a turn. I wouldn’t say that Spain is a requirement, but unless Rome or Paris is in grave danger (and neither should be on turn 4 in most games) it helps the US do significantly more damage in the long run.

The big issue is ANZAC effectively producing at Persia. In any game ANZAC is extremely vital in wearing down Japan. The US can can-open destroyers screens and allow ANZAC to get through to take islands or attack small Japanese navies, and ANZAC ships and air are also crucial to the defense of the US fleet. Even if the US goes 100% Pacific, if it gets virtually 0 support from ANZAC (which will be the case if ANZAC is building in Persia) it will be hard pressed to advance on Japan.

Even ignoring the value of ANZAC’s units against Japan, the biggest problem is that ANZAC just can’t build well at Persia. If ANZAC is going for a Persia factory, they are going to be making 12 IPCs a turn after Japan declares war since they won’t be trading islands. That is 3 ANZAC mech in Persia. ANZAC units can only help to defend UK stacks, as opposed to UK units which can be used offensively as well. ANZAC also can’t afford to build 3 fighters in Persia ever, unlike the UK. Those fighter builds are often crucial to holding Moscow, while also giving the UK a lot of flexibility in the Mid East.

The UK can just build a factory in Egypt, but planes there take 2 turns to get to Moscow which can really be a problem.

In short I just don’t see any benefit in taking away a prime factory location from the UK and giving it to ANZAC who can barely make 3 cheap units a turn there. This also of course essentially removes ANZAC from the Pacific theatre, where it is sorely needed.

Brazil is the same concept. ANZAC Brazilians can’t really be used offensively anywhere, unlike a US or UK controlled Brazil. Plus it is sending ANZAC transports a long way from the front that they are most effective on.

ANZAC planes in Europe could be helpful, but by the time they could get to Europe it is unlikely that they’d have much to can-open and they would be spending a useless 3 turns or so in transit as opposed to 3 turns being used against Japan in some fashion.

Nice ideas, but I find ANZAC to just be best used to pester Japan and defend Australia if needed.

Starlight Sniper, per the official errata for Axis and Allies 1914:

“While it remains neutral, the United States is not considered to be either friend or enemy to any other power, and it may not move land or air units out of the United States of America (including onto transports) or attack Central Powers sea units.”

Since it is very unwise for Germany to bring the US into the war early (unless you are playing with house ruled unrestricted submarine warfare rules), the US will not be in the war until its 4th turn. Per the quote above, the US cannot load transports until its 4th turn (or whenever it can declare war) so the US cannot reach Istanbul with loaded transports until US turn 6 in pretty much every game.

On the bright side, the US is completely unnecessary in a KTF strategy. The British should just spend all of their income in India (except maybe a transport or 2 in the Atlantic). If they do this they will have the Ottomans turtled in Istanbul by turn 7 or so and can begin the assault sometime around turn 8-9. I doubt that the US troops could do very much to the Ottomans other than maybe force them back to Constantinople a turn earlier.

ColonelKurtz: Using just the OOB rules and the official FAQ, my experience has been that a full KTF with Britain is the simplest path to a win for the Entente. It is my opinion that the simplest way to balance the game (without any really crazy rule changes) is to find a way of forcing the UK to spend in the Atlantic rather than 100% in India.

I’m not convinced that Sea Lion is impossible to pull off in global in the right circumstance, but your Sea Lion attempt is not going to go well.

I am unsure if you are counting on losing virtually your entire air force in your turn one attacks, but if not, that is exactly what will happen. If I’m UK I am doing a max scramble into 110 without any doubt as well as scrambling the Scotland fighter into 111. In Low Luck, the UK will likely lose no planes if they max scramble (they might lose the Scotland fighter, but if they did the Battleship would definitely survive) while Germany will lose all planes that attack 110 and 111, leaving them with an air force of at most 4 planes (with a 1/3 chance of losing one in 109 and a 1/6 chance of losing one in Paris).

The gist of my UK strategy would be 9 inf turn 2 in London. Do a Taranto sending only the bomber from london, while sending a destroyer and the gib fighter to kill 96. African and Indian forces do standard stuff. Stack all UK units from London except 1 AA in Scotland. This means that Germany will have a 0% chance of attacking either London or Scotland (and the UK won’t lose any planes if Scotland is attacked). Scotland can be attacked by 6 transported Germans plus only 3 planes (2 tac and a bomber, the only other surviving plane from turn one is in N. Italy and not in range) and a Cruiser+Battleship bombard, while it is defended by 12 UK units, thus the 0% chance. On UK 2 I’d probably build max infantry or maybe 8 inf and a fighter (unless I was bombed by the Bomber and took damage in which case I’d build as many inf as possible, which would probably be 9 inf). The UK will haveThis will give Germany a 0% chance in low luck and a very, very low chance in dice of taking London.

If Germany retreated from the scrambled naval battles they might fare slightly better, but they will still take catastrophic plane losses, and retreating will allow both UK battleships to survive, meaning that Germany will have to fight through a solid sized UK navy in 110 if it wants to take London. They’d also run the risk of being attacked in 112 on UK2 (they couldn’t be in 113 because the UK could just block 112 and block the Germans from landing).

My recommendation to this strategy would be to be more conservative with your air force and commit the German battleship to 110. Maybe that would make it more viable. As is, Germany can not afford to trade 5+ German planes for just UK ships on turn one in any game, especially not a in a Sea Lion game.

My initial thought, which hasn’t been addressed at all, is: how is the UK gonna protect London? In your strategy they are putting 19 IPCs minimum a turn into Egypt. What does that leave for London?

On R1, Germany is gonna see a Russia that is going aggressive in the East, but maybe ignores it. After R2 it is very obvious to Germany that Russia is selling out Moscow to try and crush Japan. At this point (after a G2 build which was probably all German fast), Germany might need one more turns worth of fast units for Russia, but that’s it. Thus starting with the G4 purchase, German can be putting at least half of its income at London. With a strong Italy also pressuring Egypt, I just don’t see how London is holding both VCs.

Even if Germany is still sending units east, they can use their air-force to max bomb the London factory while subs convoy. I don’t see how the UK can possibly hold out against this onslaught. I haven’t played it out, but I’m really having a hard time imagining the UK (which is making less than 30 because of convoys and losing its NO) being able to hold out against half of Germany (turn 5 income somewhere around 60, but that will jump to 90 very quickly once it takes Moscow and the wealthy Russian territories) and all of Italy (making at least 25 since there are no ships in the med and they should have Gibraltar). Egypt probably falls before any Russians even get there, or if it doesn’t then London will fall sometime around turn 7.

Japan’s air-force and fleet aren’t something that is going to go down easily either.

Fun gambit strategy that would possibly work against an axis player that always goes G4/J4 and won’t be able to adapt effectively, but against a good axis player who will recognize that Germany can throw a lot of its resources against the UK I just don’t see it ever working.

knp

Is it really wise to aggressively attack the US against full US spending in the Pacific? You said that this caused the Japs to be 100% eliminated (only owning Japan and no fleet) by turn 7. A J1 Japan with a more conservative approach (avoiding a major confrontation with the US fleet if the US is going full Pac) and just slowly retreats under their air umbrella while taking India and all of China, Japan can survive against 100% US spending until turn 7 or 8 at least (from my experience anyways). At this point they aren’t down to just Japan, they should still own a lot of China and maybe some of Russia) with their fleet either surviving (pushed back to mainland factories or possibly Japan sz), or wrecking havoc in the middle east and Egypt.

Imo, Japan should never, ever be attacking the US fleet at W. US (unless the US isn’t respecting Japan at all and has nothing in the Pac allowing the Japs to become an absolute monster), but it sounds like this wasn’t the case). This majorly stretches their supply lines, and gets them away from their air power (their biggest strength).

Bottom line, the Japanese have to mess up badly to be down to only Japan with no fleet (and I’m assuming little to no air force) by turn 7 (if Germany killed Russia, then who the heck was liberating all of China? India should never be that strong that early in the game).

If US goes 100% Pac or close to it, I have had success (and seen success in other games) when Japan is conservative, forcing the US to continue to spend very heavily against them until at least turn 7-8 (in a J1 that is. If the US spends 100% against the Japs and Japan does a J3 or J4, Japan isn’t gonna last as long as if they do a J1). If Japan can draw at least 80% of the US’s builds until at least turn 8 (which I have seen them do with good play), it’s probably game over for the Allies if Germany is doing it’s job (taking Moscow sometime between G6-G8).

There are situations where a scramble makes sense. Often I see a Germany that sends too little to 111 and the UK scrambles. My rule is that if my fighter is likely to take out 2 German units (either 2 planes or a plane and a battleship) if I scramble it, then it’s worth the scramble. This is especially true because Germany is often just trying to strafe 111 anyways, and in that case the fighter just gets you an extra 4 pips into the battle without endangering the fighter. Also, the threat of scramble is also what protects the destroyer/transport in 109.

Scrambling in sea zone 110 on the other hand is pretty much always a bad idea (even trading 4 German planes for the 3 planes on the UK would be a bad trade for the UK).

Not to nitpick ItIsLeClerc, but the incomes that you used to support your J4 attack are a bit flawed.

In a J4, UK would be stupid not to DOW on turn 3, so their last turn will be 29 income, not 24 (and ANZAC will get plus 10 NO from a DOW on turn 3, although they get that for a J1 automatically so that’s mostly moot). Also, J1 is being done very wrong if Borneo isn’t taken on J1, which means that India will be reduced to only 9 income collected on round one. India could hypothetically take Sumatra, but in my experience India won’t sacrifice the transport to take an island for 4 IPCs and will instead send it west to Persia or Ethiopia (this just makes more economical sense, since it allows the transport to survive).

So with those adjustments, India is actually making an extra 9 more income on top of the 25 you mentioned. That makes the total 34 IPCs, which is 10INF+1ART. That’s very significant imo, especially since India is probably gonna make more on UK5 in the event of a J4 than it will on UK2 in the event of a J1. Yes India will still be neuter-able, but if Japan waits to J4 they are not ever taking India unless they sacrifice most of their air force, which spells doom for them anyways. A J1 should allow for a fairly easy India take (with only ~5 aircraft lost) sometime around J4-J7 if Japan choses to take it. Another big advantage of a J1 is the destruction of allied units, namely the US ones at the Philippines and the British Battleship at Malaya for very little comparative loss. Still while this makes the J1 look good, I agree that those units don’t matter that much against Japan come J4.

Other than India becoming virtually unassailable, I 100% agree with you. ANZAC doesn’t really make anymore income and US makes significantly less in a J4 vs a J1. That plus Japan being able to develop a solid income base in China and Russia could actually make J4 a much more favorable strategy than most give it credit for (myself included).

I am not as experienced as many of the other members on here, but I thought I’d share my thoughts since they’re considerably different.

In my games Japan almost always attacks J1 (and imo this is probably the best axis strategy). In response, the US spends 100% of it’s income and units against Japan until the threat is neutralized. I think that we can all agree that the only way to completely neutralize Japan (the same as it was in real life) is to eliminate it’s fleet. With no fleet Japan can’t retake it’s islands or protect itself from convoy raiding, so even if it still has ~20 IPCs from Russia and China, Anzac and India and can easily liberate China and thus end Japan.

I think a problem that a lot of people are having is that they want to destroy the Japanese fleet at all costs, without accomplishing the real focus of a "K"JF (never actually killing Japan) which is removing Japanese income and giving it to the Pacific Allies. Once the Pacific Allies (China, India, ANZAC) can easily advance on Japan alone, it’s over for Japan.

So what is the flaw that I’m seeing in people’s strategy against Japan? They aren’t being aggressive enough in their builds, especially with the US and ANZAC. The US (even with ANZAC building full defensive fleet to augment them) will never be able to match the combined strength the IJN and the Japanese air force in this game. Maybe by like US 9 or 10 if they’re going full KJF they could manage it, but by that point Germany has definitely taken Moscow and is probably only a turn or two away from taking Cairo (if it hasn’t fallen already) and the game is over in Europe before the US has even reached Gibraltar.

This means that the goal of a smart allies player isn’t to survive a full-on assault by everything that Japan can throw at them (which we all know is A LOT), but to pick Japan’s money apart and force their fleet to retreat to the mainland (and hopefully eventually destroying the fleet). But how is this accomplished?

First, I almost never take the Carolines, let alone stack there. Two big problems, and a small one, with the Carolines that eliminate the benefit of more options over Queensland:
1. The Japanese can move all of their air to the Philippines and that air has 3 potential landing spots (Marianas, Paulau, and Marshall). This makes it really easy to force the US to retreat.
2. ANZAC isn’t defended. This really limits what ANZAC can do since they can’t really put any units in Queensland and have to worry about a potential invasion. ANZAC is (imo) the most underrated power and crucial to the success of the US in the Pacific.
Small problem: In my games the Caroline Japanese units are just stuck there doing nothing, while taking the Carolines will cost a US unit or 2 (depending on what is first sent there).

We all know that Japan needs the money islands to compete with the allies income-wise, and that they tend to base their fleet at the Philippines. What my strategy tends to start with is building offensively as the US. You still need some defensive elements, which I use Carriers for since fighters are so useful (I tend to have 4 full US carriers at Queensland by US5 (in a J1), but it’s whatever you need for limited defense). I use destroyers almost exclusively for blocking when I need it since I want to be attacking the IJN, not vice versa. That’s where the subs come in. They are the most efficient offense, and also provide beneficial trades as you can force Japan to trade destroyers for US subs, which is a great trade for the US. The US’s goal should be to do whatever it can to force the Japs out of the Philippines. Once this is accomplished, the navy should move forward (blocking if necessary) and continue to try to destroy the Japanese navy. Eventually the Japanese will be trapped and the US will be able to destroy them (which they should do even if it means mutual annihilation).

Now something that I’ve left out at this point is US transports, but there is a reason for that. Many of you say that the US fleet is useless without a huge compliment of transports (like 8?) accompanying it. I strongly disagree. Since the US fleet is so easily block-able by Japan from the DEIs, they often can’t take any islands on their turn. If they US can’t take islands than those transports are wasted. Maybe after the Japanese fleet is destroyed more transports can be made to accelerate the Allies advance on the mainland, but until that point I don’t believe in extensive transport spending. The US starts with 3 transports, I tend to buy 1 or maybe 2 more and that’s it. ANZAC should be doing most of the island taking while the US focuses on the primary goal, destroying the Japanese fleet.

What should ANZAC be doing during this time? Harassing the Japanese as much as possible. They should be building only transports (and units for the transports) and subs. A typical ANZAC build is one art, one transport, one sub (only costs 17, and ANAC should be making 19 from 10+5 for the easy NO+ 4 for Java). They should either own Java or be trading it every single turn, and picking off a lot of Japanese transports (Japan does not want to be building transports if it’s in an arms race with the US). Eventually ANZAC will probably want to build a minor in Queensland in order to produce more units (i.e. once they are holding Java and trading other islands/Malaya). If ANZAC can use it’s income to destroy an equal or greater amount of Japanese income (which imo can only be accomplished if they are trading with Japan instead of being defensive), it’s doing an excellent job.

If ANZAC (and China while it’s still alive) and India is surviving (which if the US is going 100% Pacific, India shouldn’t fall), the US should be strong enough to force the Japanese fleet to retreat, and eventually destroy it. Now I’m not sure how well this will work, but I’m just curious to get some opinions on what seems to be a different approach than what some other people are suggesting.

I may have no idea what I’m talking about, so I’d love some opinions on my overall strategy. Thanks guys.

I’m still not seeing any benefit to this strategy.

Even if it achieves it’s goal of completely taking the US out of the war (it won’t fall unless the US player has no idea what they’re doing, it isn’t worth the crushing blow that it will deal to Japan and Italy. The best case scenario is the Pacific Allies being stalemated by Japan for a few rounds while the UK and Russia take on Germany and a shadow of Italy (no fleet means no threat of achieving anything). After a few turns the US will have enough land units to be completely protected from Japan and it will move to crush the small Japanese beachheads. Japan will gain very little economically while sacrificing tons of IPCs in South Asia. Not to mention the fact that it would be super easy to block Italy from Panama (or the Americas in general) using the UK or US ships. If Italy gets blocked then Japan is just stuck at Alaska for another turn and the whole strategy is doomed to fail before it really even starts.

Without it’s air force in China/India, they will lose the ground war very quickly. Italy sending whatever remains of it’s fleet to the Americas will doom it with very minimal UK investment. This leaves Japan struggling to make it to 40 IPCs (which will be matched by India+China+ANZAC. The US will be reduced to approximately 60, maybe even less, but I just don’t see any threat on the US. If you’re gonna try attacking the US at home, might as well go for the all out attack that has been suggested before (basically the same as this strategy except Japan attacks a turn later and that is combined with Germany faking Sea Lion and then moving to Gibraltar to attack the US).

Sorry to be so negative, but I don’t see this working on anyone but a complete beginner (<5 games played) and even then it’d be a strategy that is only semi-effective one time.