Well first we play with OOB setup and AA + bonuses Japan is a lot stronger since they got 28 planes and can scrable all of them on japan sea, and no we dont play victory cities we play domination. Play till you concede how you get there its up to the players. (also a sidenote the not at war FIC bonus is reduced to +5, that is our gamegroups sweetspot or believed opportunity cost of FIC). We also do not grant japan a bonus for taking the big four islands of indonesia, we feel that taking all those islands are good enough of a reward. A tilt of more then +17 axis ipc (ie.+22 with bonus) and a minus of -22 (17 for islands and a lost bonus for US) for allies is to strong. This reduces a lot of strategic choices for japan redundant and makes their goals very linear, ie size the islands at any cost.
Japans other plans of starving russia (manchuria factory strategy), going all in vs US (if US leaves pacific) or going all in through china are not as good as going for the islands if they also get a bonus for the islands…
In our setup US is a bit stronger too, and moves after Italy, that makes the europe theather the weak spot for axis thus I’ve been threathening and “trying” to get parts of the japan fleet into the atlantic (2 carriers and a destroyer and a sub. All games US has stopped this move. If combined with a heavy axis fleet build US got a tougher time to force open the atlantic and one can maybe starve him on the east coast. US can prevent this of course but at what cost? Since I’ve not played a game with this strategy it’s still a unclear scenario. I also stated that it was a dream strategy, it’s like some people hope to kill US first strategy, it won’t work vs good opposition.
My main goal with the manouver of sailing the japanese fleet to threaten to go into atlantic and combining this move with a german move to gibraltar.
I still think that its possible to sail a chunk of fleet to hawaii as Japan in peace and then place most of it on zone 11 (2 carriers+ destroyer and a sub) then place rest of it on hawaii (in peace round 2).This forces US to defend both hawaii and west coast.
I do not know if you can sail down the german fleet (carrier, DD, BB, sub, cruiser, transport) to gibraltar round 2 and stand there in AA + setup since UK got more planes (on malta for instance). I always liked that double threat, then of course japan goes for the aimed goal of hawaii, and germany either sails home with fleet or sails into mediterrean. With that fleet one could force open egypt regardless how many planes they sent from india (in our setup they got 5 palnes not 3) if combined with a yugoslavia factory. The main goal was to not allow the british to build a factory in egypt in round 2, by threathening to size it. The threats here are once again is the main goal, fulfilling them isn’t.
One don’t have to force open it one can still go home with german fleet and use it to hit leningrad on round 4 (and maybe builiding mech in yugoslavia factory), or to place it ontop of zone 109 in order to keep a few subs alive and starve UK one round, or go home and place it on zone 125 on round 4 in order to starve the russians. By picking different moves in subsequent games one can test the options and you are a hell of a lot thougher to predict. That makes for a tired opponent and tired people make mistakes.
Also one idea was to send 4 planes from japan to europe teather round 3, then fill up carriers from japan with new aircraft. But with Japan starting with 20 airplanes this is a bit more tricky, in our setup (28 planes) I’ve always thougth japan needs around 20 airplanes to keep pressure on india, chinese and russian front. Thus I freely accept trades of 5-8 planes on chinese, russian, indian infantry,
