I recommend playing a tighter game, especially for people new to pacific. Set yourself up for J2 war, in all honesty all you need is a transport couple carrier some of your starting subs and dd in caroline if you want him to sit in hawaii.
then you move on regardless on what usa does. you get the islands, you need to make cash before you can start to worry about sinking america. USA will gladly get sunk knowing that he’s being bait so china/USpac can merge, which is Japan’s worst nightmare.
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you are fighting four countries. the least important is USA, because fighting him is not profitable. his naval is the strongest, but he is also the first to act after your turn ends. so you shouldn’t be losing transports round 1. Japan is easy to play once you understand where the money is and how to get it.
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When playing japan this is all you need to know:
GET THE MONEY AND MAINTAIN THE FAME.
When all your naval and all your air is in one spot, nothing can come close to you. all that cheddar is on those dutch/spice islands. you don’t need much in terms of inf to kill china… you get enough starting ground forces to do it, because your attacks come in 3 and 4 rolls and his attack come in 1s only with a single 3.
calcutta is also much easier the sooner you cut into his income and so is the entire game, you want to cut india to 6-7 ipc sooner than later, it makes taking him over easier or simply just containing him for the remainder of the game.