Midway - Useless?

[habs4life9]

I’m not sure about how it is in older versions, but with the way the Pacific sea zones are drawn on the AA42 game board, there isn’t a space you can get to from Midway that you can’t get to from Hawaii. If J wants to go island-hopping in the Pacific, it is in her best interests to completely ignore Midway, because it waste of time and resources to invade an island with virtually no strategic value. Isn’t Midway supposed to be equivalent to Wake when the Americans go island-hopping? Wake turns out to be of huge strategic importance for a US Pacific campaign, but not so for Midway for J’s campaign. I think this is a damn shame, especially considering the historic importance of this island. Unless I’m missing something…I’m an intermediate player at best, by no means an expert. Does Midway provide any strategic advantage, for either J or US, that Hawaii does not?

[calvinhobbesliker]

Well, Hawaii may be defended heavily and thus you bypass it by invading midway instead. You get the same strategic value as Hawaii, but you don’t lose as much.

[St. Louis]

whats so great about midway.
Planes movemant is horrible off of an island, essentially -1 its worth no IPC’s or is it worth 1, either way not a huge stratigic value. The only importance I can think of would be to unload land unit to protect them from a potential US assualt wiping out your invading force. But why werent those land units and Asia anyway?

[habs4life9]

Hmm well the one advantage that MIGHT be there if you ever need it is that is if you’re going KUSAF as J and build an Alaska IC. Midway and Alaska are one space apart, that’s closer than any other Pacific island, so you could keep a steady flow on the North American continent without requiring as many transports, protect your complex, and maintain a threat on WUSA all simultaneously. On the other hand, the Alaska complex is quite a difficult strat to pull off, it’s often too easy for the US to defend against and it’s usually only a matter of time before they push J off their continent. I wouldn’t recommend it.

[St. Louis]

the biggest problem with AAA I see is that its very easy for the US to simply ignore the Pacific theatre all together. much better to maintian dominance in the atlantic and keep a steady flow of troops into africa or even better western europe

[Semper_Milites87]

If you are fast enough and you have the forces to take and hold Midway, its a nice air base to use if you want to strategic bomb the crud out of the Western U.S.  Buy 1 maybe 2 bombers and either move any carrier fighters to Midway or purchase some fighters as well and badabing you have a pretty well defended airbase that is close enough to the entire west coast.  Combined with a carrier, you can than use fighters to escort the bombers in and land them on the carrier.

Before even trying this though I strongly recommend you take out all naval forces in the Pacific and keep U.S. air forces in check.

[Dylan the Canadian]

don’t be silly it’s great!

if you want to invade LA from two sides (West Canada being the other) your transports could land the troops on that island then next turn straight to the West US and you can also Bomb LA then land there if your scared to buy a Carrier because you think it’ll eat you (Not my problem if eats you.)

[finnman]

I really can’t see any strategic importance. I’m going to hit Midway I think for a second then hit Hawaii. They have the same value but if I attack Hawaii I will draw the U.S. into a naval ambush.

[Keredrex]

midway is an equal position with hawaii that the US may not care about and can be exploited.  for example… if you conquered it and the US was not in position to take it back… then you control it on your turn and can then land planes and build up the position. 
it may be possible to for example have a strong defensive force that can take Midway but not be able to fight a strong defensive US force around hawaii.  and have in position 2 forces, 1 by japan, 1 by midway, with various airpower that can converge on hawaii or alaska, and threaten California and the US may only have position to protect 1

Basically midway offers you the ability to make the US fight multiple battles.  instead of 1 Giant force. this can have a serious affect on plane movement.

[lnmajor]

last few times i have played JAPAN i have not tried to take HAWAII or MIDWAY. think of how many ipcs it will cost you to take it, and hold it. its too far from JAPAN to be able to quickly reinforce it. its barely worth any ipcs and US an hit it with bombers from mainland. instead i have been using the equal amount of ipcs to keep the US fleet at bay. if you can slow them down and keep sinking alot of their ships, especially transports, you can build JAPAN into a ipc monster and then tangle head on with the US fleet.

[Keredrex]

true… although, if a country can grab a territ even its 1 IPC early and hold it it can be valuable.  especially if it diverts the strategies of your opponent.  basically, sometimes you want your opponent to spend cash to go after the little thorns in there side that you put there. it either slows them down or its a gain of 1 IPC that you never had before.

Like if britain takes the transport to New Guinea in round 1,  attacks it 2 Inf. vs. 1 inf.,  if they take the territory they hold it for at least 2 rounds… If Japan ignors it … great UK makes more money… if they go after it sure they can take everything in the pacific… but now they are sending IPC’s to go after the islands and not going after america or other UK territs in Africa.  and less IPC’s going after Russia.  Its a chess game

[lnmajor]

the problem is how much is it costing Japan to conquer and hold hawaii compared to how much SBR damage it can do to US economy? also include cost of lost Jap bombers in SBRs. and if you dont at the same time keep US transports out of the water, at 2 SZ from US mainland your looking at a massive expendature of IPCs. if you can deny US of all IPC income from Jap SBRs, then it can work, but much easily said than done.