Would any of you make an effort to dive the enemy out if they were occupied?
-LT04
I take a page out of world war two, and America’s strategy book and island hop. Skip the ones I dont HAVE to take….
true, but losing it is NOT the end of the world….
No. There is no significant advantage to worthless islands as you can easily by-pass them taking valuable land.
For instance, the Pacific Southern Route:
W. USA to Hawaii to Australia to E. Indies to Borneo to Philippines
The Pacific Northern Route:
Alaska to SFE/Buryatia
Neither hit the worthless islands of Midway, Solomons, Wake, Gibraltar or Greenland.
No. There is no significant advantage to worthless islands as you can easily by-pass them taking valuable land.
For instance, the Pacific Southern Route:
W. USA to Hawaii to Australia to E. Indies to Borneo to Philippines
Why would you go that way, when Wus sz to Sol to (Bor, EI, or Phil) is a lot quicker?
Pending Jap/US strat I find Sol, Wake, and Midway all very valuable, esp when you are trying to take away landing spots for attacking aircraft (or giving yourself extra landing spots).
EDIT:
The Car Islands can also be extremely useful.
I can go with the idea of landing units if they are going to be stuck in TRN’s. I can see using them to land bombers. I can’t see using any assets to take them unless the enemy has high $ units left unprotected. (like FTR’s).
Lets take this scenario for a spin around the ball room shall we: lets say the US and has FTR’s on the worthless Wake Island. Japan has a sizeable force on the worthless Solomon Islands. The US also has a fleet off the coast of Hawaii with a butt load of INF and ARM. On the US combat move they choose to take down Japan’s troops b/c they have a bigger navy 2 turns away with all the TRN’s they need to get them off. The US has a smaller Navy but a bigger Army. Unless the US has CV’s they can’t even use the FTR’s b/c its 1 space to the adjacent SZ 2 spaces to the SZ adjacent to Japan’s Army, and 3 spaces to Japan’s Army. So as far as the safe haven idea goes if you have the FTR’s jettison the CV’s to a nearby friendly island for fear you Navy is going down you just stranded them if you don’t have neighboring island to get them out. And like I said before one of the exceptions of taking a no income island is if the enemy has high $ units left unprotected. (like FTR’s). So now you just sold out your own troops.
-LT04
No. There is no significant advantage to worthless islands as you can easily by-pass them taking valuable land.
For instance, the Pacific Southern Route:
W. USA to Hawaii to Australia to E. Indies to Borneo to Philippines
Why would you go that way, when Wus sz to Sol to (Bor, EI, or Phil) is a lot quicker?
Pending Jap/US strat I find Sol, Wake, and Midway all very valuable, esp when you are trying to take away landing spots for attacking aircraft (or giving yourself extra landing spots).
EDIT:
The Car Islands can also be extremely useful.
It’s faster, but it also extends you faster and puts you out of position.
However, if you hit Hawaii first and then get hit by a Japanese fleet and lose, your soldiers are guarding land that is valuable, not useless. They’re also in an easily retrievable area. Not to mention you can easily change direction to hit Japan herself and thus you lock the Japanese fleet in SZ 60 for at least a turn.
I take exception to the phrase:
“I failed to plan a good Navy and need them to land my FTR’s”
Frankly, I think that’s pretty silly. Â A no-income island is as just as good of a fighter base as an income island. Â And you can bet your ass that I use craploads of fighters in KJF.
Hm, can I use a 10 IPC unit that can’t be hit by subs, that attacks on 3, that can immediately be used against ground positions, or moved to supplement ground positions after winning the naval battle?
Or would I rather have a 12 IPC unit that CAN be hit by subs, that attacks at the same value, that is useless against ground positions?
I would rather have a big ass air force.
It’s not a matter of not being able to build carriers to land my fighters. Â It’s a matter of not wanting to use IPCs on carriers that aren’t needed, and building fighters instead, so I can attack earlier - and after I do attack, being able to use those units immediately against ground positions rather than floating around the sea.
I think the question is do you want to have a 16 IPC carrier that can hold those 2 fighters giving you 3 really good defense shots, or a 0 IPC island to hold those 2 fighters that give you no defense shots?
New Paint Brush did you read this?
Lets take this scenario for a spin around the ball room shall we: lets say the US and  has FTR’s on the worthless Wake Island. Japan has a sizeable force on the worthless Solomon Islands. The US also has a fleet off the coast of Hawaii with a butt load of INF and ARM. On the US combat move they choose to take down Japan’s troops b/c they have a bigger navy 2 turns away with all the TRN’s they need to get them off. The US has a smaller Navy but a bigger Army. Unless the US has CV’s they can’t even use the FTR’s b/c its 1 space to the adjacent SZ 2 spaces to the SZ adjacent to Japan’s Army, and 3 spaces to Japan’s Army. So as far as the safe haven idea goes if you have the FTR’s jettison the CV’s to a nearby friendly island for fear you Navy is going down you just stranded them if you don’t have neighboring island to get them out. And like I said before one of the exceptions of taking a no income island is if the enemy has high $ units left unprotected. (like FTR’s). So now you just sold out your own troops.
-LT04
Lost Tribe,
The idea of landing your fighters on nearby friendly islands was only after the naval battle. Those fighters would be sitting on the ac, and if the fleet is attacked, and if I select my ac as a casualty, and if my opponent is destroyed or withdraws while I still have fighters left, then my fighters are allowed 1 movement to find a friendly landing spot. That is where the friendly island comed in. If I didn’t capture the island on my previous turn, then in this situation my fighters would splash because there would be no friendly landing spot within 1 move of my defending fighters.
Oh, I got the impression New paint brush didn’t use CV’s I missunderstood.
I was saying how a FTR can’t make it from one space to another and back (like SFE to attack Alaska and return) without CV’s.
-LT04
Lets take this scenario for a spin around the ball room shall we: lets say the US and has FTR’s on the worthless Wake Island. Japan has a sizeable force on the worthless Solomon Islands. The US also has a fleet off the coast of Hawaii with a butt load of INF and ARM. On the US combat move they choose to take down Japan’s troops b/c they have a bigger navy 2 turns away with all the TRN’s they need to get them off. The US has a smaller Navy but a bigger Army. Unless the US has CV’s they can’t even use the FTR’s b/c its 1 space to the adjacent SZ 2 spaces to the SZ adjacent to Japan’s Army, and 3 spaces to Japan’s Army. So as far as the safe haven idea goes if you have the FTR’s jettison the CV’s to a nearby friendly island for fear you Navy is going down you just stranded them if you don’t have neighboring island to get them out. And like I said before one of the exceptions of taking a no income island is if the enemy has high $ units left unprotected. (like FTR’s). So now you just sold out your own troops.
-LT04
I can’t really respond to this, b/c I’m not sure the hypothetical fits, it might be a bit too unrealistic.
Why would Japan have a large force on Sol to begin with, how and why did it get there? Â And why did the trans just leave them?
More likely Japan would have invaded Hawaii instead on Sol.
If the US has a massive army in HI, why don’t they just invade SZ 60 or Japan instead?
I’m not necessarily advocating large scale invasions of the islands, but I do know that Sol, Wake, Mid, and Car all hold stragetic purposes given the right strat.
Wake allows US bombers to go from Mos to sz 60 then land in Wake. Â Oki can be too hard to get sometimes, since Japan is well aware of the US Navy sitting in at Hi, Wake, or Sol.
No. There is no significant advantage to worthless islands as you can easily by-pass them taking valuable land.
For instance, the Pacific Southern Route:
W. USA to Hawaii to Australia to E. Indies to Borneo to Philippines
Why would you go that way, when Wus sz to Sol to (Bor, EI, or Phil) is a lot quicker?
Pending Jap/US strat I find Sol, Wake, and Midway all very valuable, esp when you are trying to take away landing spots for attacking aircraft (or giving yourself extra landing spots).
EDIT:
The Car Islands can also be extremely useful.
It’s faster, but it also extends you faster and puts you out of position.
However, if you hit Hawaii first and then get hit by a Japanese fleet and lose, your soldiers are guarding land that is valuable, not useless. They’re also in an easily retrievable area. Not to mention you can easily change direction to hit Japan herself and thus you lock the Japanese fleet in SZ 60 for at least a turn.
Sol puts you in better position to threaten Bor, EI, and Phil all at once as well as Sz 60. Â Japan can’t protect them all.
Midway - can serve a similar purpose as Wake only for Japan. Â Hawaii is preferrable but if US heavily defends HI, then Mid is nice substitute.
Car - is nice b/c it threatens just about every important zone in the Pacific, including some mainland Asia spots.
My point about additional landing spots is, you need to take out almost all the islands regardless of worth, b/c if you don’t then 2 AC’s can support 8 ftrs (not 4). Â If you only take out the islands worth 1 or more, you leave too many holes for attack planes to land. Â Remember they don’t actually have to land there they just need a spot to land to engage in the naval battle.
And owning Wake, for example could mean quite a bit of difference in the number of ftrs that can be brought in.
Consider this (US owns wake):
4 US ftrs, 1 bom in Mos
4 ftrs, 2 AC at Sol sz
2 ftrs, 1 AC at Wus sz
That is 11 planes that can attack and all can land somewhere.
You usually don’t have to fight over the island itself, but the sz that holds the island.
Once you kill or trap the opposing Navy (in a Pac strat) the islands, ipc or no ipc, will fall eventually too, but to get the 3,4,4 islands you need the 0 ones as US. Â And as Japan, it is better to prevent the US move to Sol, HI, or Wake rather than wait and then have to be concerned with losing your big islands.
Generally speaking, Japan can sink the US Navy easier at Solomon Islands and strand America’s ground forces on a worthless island.
Believe me, I’d rather have 5 American INfnatry and 3 American tanks on Solomon Islands then Hawaii. :P
Darth, you said how Cor Islands could be a nice place to anchor a Navy b/c of the strategic location of getting to just about any where in the Pacific, well if Japan has a Navy any where in the Pacific they can very easily get to you as well. I would rather chose my encounters with a OP4 Navy then place myself centrally like that so they can chose their encounter with me.
-LT04
Darth, you said how Cor Islands could be a nice place to anchor a Navy b/c of the strategic location of getting to just about any where in the Pacific, well if Japan has a Navy any where in the Pacific they can very easily get to you as well. I would rather chose my encounters with a OP4 Navy then place myself centrally like that so they can chose their encounter with me.
-LT04
Obviously, you don’t go there if you are going to get obliterated. BUT…
is it even worth it for Japan to engage the US navy?
I am of the philosophy (esp when I go US Pac), to NEVER attack (unless I have a huge advantage) the other navy, but it force Japan back to Sz 60 or 61 without a fight.
This can be accomplished with the purchase of AC’s and ftrs since they are much stronger on def then on off, and at least trns get to fire too.
So in the scenerio for the US consolidating its fleet at Car, does Japan really want to attack when it’s own trns can’t fire and are only fodder, while its AC’s go from 3’s to 1’s and it’s ftrs from 4’s to 3’s while the US’s defense gets a big boost? And how much will this set Japan back in its push toward Mosocw.
All that being said, I would much perfer to go to Sol then EI, since I can usually have Japan right where I want her at that point, and I’ll forgo Car and some of the other lesser islands until a little later
When it comes to navy, I have found that numerical supriority is a myth. Unless you have as many battleships as he has units, you never have enough superiority with navy, or you always have too much superiority.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve crushed the American navy in Solomons because he advanced too far, too fast. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been crushed when I had 5 to 1 odds in my favor of winning.
That’s what makes navy fun. Odds are you’ll get no where near what you expect for a result at the end.
Good point Jen.
That seems to happen for me too, in navy battles, they can really swing to the extremes very easily, which is why I like to play the defensive card as the US. At least let me roll for more 3’s and 4’s.
I’ve played some serious Pac strat games and have had 9 Japan subs get only 1 hit. Needless to say I go creamed in that battle.
I’ve also had like 3 ACs and 6 ftrs score 7-8 hits plus hits form other units, in battles that should be about 50%, but I end up winning with like 5-6 units left over.
I just got into a game where i did extremely badly on my attack. I got 1 out of 12 hits instead of the presumed 6 (each unit was a 3 or 4 hit counter) and then on my defense I was attacked by a vastly inferior force (I had 7 to 1 odds to own him) and lost all my units, he lost some damage to his battleship only. (I lost 2 battleships, 2 aircraft carriers, 4 fighters, 3 destroyers and 7 submarines, but in 5 rounds, I got 1 (count them ONE) hit.)
Let me tell you, I’m extremely screwed as Japan now. In fact, I don’t think Japan has a chance in hell of defeating KJF against an America who has taken adequate time to prepare. I don’t care if you own all of Asia west of Moscow.
You missed a VERY good reason to take those islands (beyond a back-up LZ for FIGs if AC’s are lost mentioned above)…
Fighter Exchange.
Example:
USA has 2 loaded AC’s off Wake and controls Wake Island.
USA in the previous turn bought 4 FIGs and placed them in Western US.
USA can now attack SZ60 with ALL 8 FIGs.
the 4 from the AC’s fly to SZ60, then back to land on Wake
the 4 from WUS fly to SZ60 to land on AC’s that moved into the SZ for battle.
You can then REPEAT the Fighter Exchange the next turn with an attack on mainland Japan, sending the AC based FIGs over Japan, then to land on Wake, and the Wake FIGs to fly over Japan and land on the ACs.
You can catch players off guard with this if they have never been hit with it before.
You can do the same thing with Okinawa and gain the ipc too. Fighters from WUS land on Carriers in SZ 58, and fighters from AC in SZ 58 land on Okinawa, and also puts you into position to hit Philippines, Borneo, or New Guinea.
If your main US force backs Japan around the home islands, a smaller force (or UK) can often walk away with the valuable southern islands too, because Japan may not want to split their forces to hit south or leave the home islands vulnerable.
