So happy to finally get the clarification on this. It’s been bugging me. As usual, it’s in the rulebook somewhere, just needed to find it!
Does Japan need to be house ruled to weaken them?
-
@Bunnies:
@Nomarclegs: I’m not going to dig through another thread to look for “Iron Horde”. You want comments, give good details. Like my saying Japan should use the “Voltron” strategy probably isn’t going to help you understand what I’m talking about. (Clearly you could ALSO use “Macross” or “Robotech”.)
@nutbar: You’re claiming Japan should be weakened, and that Germany should be weakened or Allies strengthened. Please provide specific reasoning if you can. Otherwise, the discussion devolves quickly into one side claiming apples are better, and another side claiming oranges are better. Of course, maybe that’s what you want, a show of hands. For my part, I preferred apples a couple years ago, but I like oranges a lot more these days. Tomatoes are also very nice for chicken dishes, or for throwing at angry young gophers. Perhaps the gophers are angry because I’m throwing tomatoes at them, but I digress.
@Biggg: Claiming it’s a Moscow vs Berlin race is, I think, correct. Particularly given Japan’s large starting navy and air force, with US having little to match, plus difficulty for UK and Russia in getting reinforcements to that area, plus the difficulty of 1) UK maintaining control of Africa, and 2) of UK threatening a West Europe invasion without US support (threatening West Europe forces Germany to either add a lot of units to Western Europe to defend, removing units from attack on Russia, or has Germany abandon West Europe, giving Allies a much easier time moving fleet in the Atlantic. (For example, German bombers on Western Europe threaten a lot of the African coast, can hit points in Africa, can hit any number of territories in Russia, threaten all sea zones around London, and threaten any US transports maintaining a East Canada-London transport chain (forcing Allies to build additional escorts for such transports).
BUT I’d say that’s just the nature of the game. If you want a different experience, try looking for something like Pact of Steel (it’s a version of Axis and Allies on the TripleA platform). There, Australia and Union of South Africa are worth 3 IPC, and China and Italy are added as powers, changing the game dynamic to the point that Kill Japan First strategies are (in my opinion) feasible. You could try house rules too, but strengthen Germany to compensate.
Yeah, true, I have been busy with school and not able to check out your version. I wonder if it would be possible to replace an existing Japanese ship with a few German Infantry for team balance. I’ll look into Pact of Steel ASAP (screw grad school).
-
The axis do not need to be weakened. I find the opposite is true. They still need a bid. I do wish there was some way to get some more Pacific action going but we play KGF all the time now.
-
I do wish there was some way to get some more Pacific action going but we play KGF all the time now.
Why not move the E US fleet to the coast of L.A. (as a house rule)? That’ll change your game and probably get the Pacific going.
-
@Bunnies:
BUT I’d say that’s just the nature of the game. If you want a different experience, try looking for something like Pact of Steel (it’s a version of Axis and Allies on the TripleA platform). There, Australia and Union of South Africa are worth 3 IPC, and China and Italy are added as powers, changing the game dynamic to the point that Kill Japan First strategies are (in my opinion) feasible. You could try house rules too, but strengthen Germany to compensate.
I’ve played Pact of Steel quite a bit before Spring 1942 came out. It is a nice game but Axis has the advantage if German/Italy go straight to Russia through Ukraine - it is very hard for the Allies to defeat such a strat and going Pacific with the US would make it even worse.
-
My buddies and I played two games one Saturday a while ago. Everybody played the same power for both games. Allies won the first, and axis won the second. A&A Spring 1942 is very balanced.
-
I do wish there was some way to get some more Pacific action going but we play KGF all the time now.
Why not move the E US fleet to the coast of L.A. (as a house rule)? That’ll change your game and probably get the Pacific going.
You mean switch the fleets or put everything over there?
We play with house rules, but those seem a little extreme. We try not to move pieces but we’ve found switching the tank in Africa with Art in Algeria and movie the german FIG in Ukraine to Southern has helped. All the games we’ve played since doing that have been very close.
-
Here would be an interesting added ruleset, not intended to shift balance, but shift motivations.
1. Pearl Harbor- If Japan gains control of SZ52 on J1, US player loses 10 IPC, representing naval losses on ships not in use.
2. Awoke a Sleeping Giant- If Pearl Harbor happens. US can place 20 IPC worth of free naval forces in SZ52 during the deployment phase of US1. This is scrambling the remaining fleet in Hawaii.The result is that Japan would have to either kill SZ52, hurting US efforts to go to the Atlantic(10 IPC), but face a significant counter force, or Leave SZ52 alone and face a significant counter force anyway. I like it because it is not just adding to US power, there is a trade off. Though the 10 IPC damage and 20 IPC of navy may need to be tweaked.
-
i think that would just take away options for japan– no more ‘pearl harbor lite’. new units in SZ52 will just immediately die to japan again anyway.
-
i think that would just take away options for japan– no more ‘pearl harbor lite’. new units in SZ52 will just immediately die to japan again anyway.
You could still go lite, you would just have to deal with the fact that you are killing SZ52 to slow down America in the Atlantic. Alternately you could go big as Japan, but it bogs you down for an extra turn.
-
i think that would just take away options for japan– no more ‘pearl harbor lite’. new units in SZ52 will just immediately die to japan again anyway.
Really? With 20 IPC, he could place AC+ 1 sub. Add to that the submerged sub already in SZ52+ W US BB + 1-2 FTR, that’s no small fleet to sink!
-
i think that would just take away options for japan– no more ‘pearl harbor lite’. new units in SZ52 will just immediately die to japan again anyway.
Really? With 20 IPC, he could place AC+ 1 sub. Add to that the submerged sub already in SZ52+ W US BB + 1-2 FTR, that’s no small fleet to sink!
The only quirk there is that the BB can’t move into SZ52 without starting a combat. So if there is already a Japanese fleet in SZ52, you couldn’t combine the way you are saying. But…. since we are making up a rule anyways, you could always temporarily allow the BB to move in without starting a combat.
-
i guess i didn’t factor in that you would land 2 fighters there. and yeah biggg is right about the BB. still, if i’m thinking this out correctly, this change basically just forces japan to take more effort in dealing with the US in the pacific. maybe this makes KJF a bit more viable?
-
I did expect to run into the leftover Jap fleet, but I usually face Pearl lite in my games, so maybe I underestimated that.
But even then, you could deal a major blow to that fleet. Because the US attack will be:
BB, SUB, 2 FTR. Depending on the opposition, I would also consider bringing the BMB. That should be enough to anihilate any fleet leftover. And then the US can begin to use its economical advantage. -
just so i’m following: US would use the BB, SUB, and 2 FTR to mop up the leftovers of pearl or pearl lite, and then throw in an extra 20 IPC of navy into SZ-52. so then Japan would have to deal with upwards of BB, AC, 2 FTR, SUB if it made a counter-strike. OK, that is pretty daunting. i think it wouldn’t be worth the 10 IPC hit to US, and Japan would do better to focus on its Asia campaign. Even if pearl harbour survives, Japan has enough surface ships on the table at the beginning of the game that they won’t have to divert resources to the pacific for several rounds.
well, it’s interesting to think about.
-
If your games have become repetitive why not change the turn order. US, Japan, USSR, Germany, UK would change the dynamic for sure. No more Pearl Harbor; no more Brits in Borneo; US can stack up China; UK Indian Ocean fleet is toast, etc.
Might be cool. Lots of new angles. -
If your games have become repetitive why not change the turn order. US, Japan, USSR, Germany, UK would change the dynamic for sure. No more Pearl Harbor; no more Brits in Borneo; US can stack up China; UK Indian Ocean fleet is toast, etc.
Might be cool. Lots of new angles.Yeah there are a few things we are going to start playing around with. Also, sent you a pm Nomar in regards to the other thread, not sure if anything pops up when you have a new pm. But I may only be intermittently available over the next few days, had a recent death in the family.
-
So we’ve gotten to the point in our house games where Japan has 1 unstoppable strategy. Two IC’s in Asia on J1. Assuming the Japanese player isn’t retarded he starts with more than enough navy to keep the Americans at bay for 4 or 5 turns.
Japan now has 2 territories on Asia that need to defend at all costs
Hi, I’m new to the game and the forum. Your relpies really help me understand the game quickly. Although I prefer the flexible trannie buying for J1, I wonder how can allies put presure on 2 ICs (probably in Man and FIC)? I know that G1 could gather 6 inf in Bury, but its not a big deal especially J1 goes Light Pearl. Uk only has 3 inf in Ind and 1 in Persia. China would be conqured in J1. Rusia cannot afford to go for Asia significantly. If US go for Pacific, I don’t think Rusia could make a life between G and J. So, I tend to believe with 2 IC, Japan can make money more quickly in Asia with the cost of losing opportunity to make a significant present in Pacific and trading Africa. Besides, in your opinion, with J1 trannie opening how can Japan utilize troops in Pacific islands without giving US easy way to capture those money islands?
-
I have experimented with going after Japan in several recent games. Although I still consider my startegy far from perfect – Pacific is really messy! – I think Japan can be really squeezed into corner quite easily, but there has to be one condition met. And this is at least one of the battles does not go for the Japan well.
If Japan fails Pearl or does it heavy and loses some ships, or has very light presence in China or – most often – exposes some of its ships to counters, there are two stretegies you can really follow with success: 1. US IC build on Sink R1 and UK IC build on India R2 plus naval buys US or 2. just naval buys US which is the way to go if Japan lost or is about to lose 2 of its capital ships.
If Japan does not make mistakes R1 and does not hit bad luck though, I think it is very difficult to break it. But then still you can slow it most of the times sufficiently to get to Berlin the same round japs get to mosc which should be sufficient.
Japan definitely does not need to be house ruled to weaken them.
Suggested Topics
