Just curious about something. Has anyone else used a strategy based on sinking as many Japanese transports as possible on the first two turns of the game? I have used this a few times as the Allied player, and also seen it used in a couple of games that I was moderating for my summer historical gaming class, and normally it works pretty well. The Japanese player finds himself building transports instead of other units, while I then start working on his navy.
Never this strategy all on its own but one of my general theories for playing all versions of A&A is that you have to sink enemy navy whenever you can. Particularly those of the island countries. Easier said than done of course.
That sounds pretty legit, but I usually play as the japanese player and I usualy whipe out most of the allied navy early on in the game then I continue to try and kill off as many naval units as they are created to buy me some time for advances in other places. And I usually keep my transports pretty well deffended and out of range of allied air units.
Hmmm, the Allied Player let you get away with that? I normally build air units the first turn as America, and make sure that the Japanese carriers move back toward Japan, and then build naval units, both on the West Coast and in Hawaii. I also keep sending subs after the carriers, so the Japanese player either uses up all of his destroyers, or I kill a couple of carriers. Also use subs on the transports, and again he either looses warships or transports.
It wasn’t so much that they allowed me but I’ve gotten pretty lucky on most of those rolls. Also I have found that if you make advances in several diffrent directions the allies really don’t know where to concentrate their forces. Also in the first turn you can move your carrier force back two spaces and the US could only buy 5 bombers plus the two or three on the board to start with so that isn’t very much of a strinking force and the carrier would be pretty well protected by then and almost out of range.
I do not actually go after the carriers, I just want them to move closer to Japan like you indicated that you did. I build a mix of fighters and bombers, plus an AA gun and some units on Hawaii. Generally, I use the bombers to hit anything near Rabaul, and the fighters to beef up other islands. As I said, I go after the carrier concentration with subs, and only attack the carriers after they either split up or I have sunk one or more. With respect to attacking in several directions, that is what the Japanese did historically, but I figure that they have to go after either New South Wales or India in the end, and reinforce them as I can. I still concentrate on taking out the transports as that makes invading Australia pretty difficult, and I can concentrate on defending India. To win the game, the Japanese have to attack and take those two areas, and with new production appearing only in Japan, no transports makes that hard to do as well.
Transports are the purpose of Naval Forces. To take land, you need transports (and troops on them). To push the enemy back you need to transport forces forward. All other naval vessels are simply means of protecting or destroying transports.
Even when used as “fodder”, taking the loss of a transport in battle is simply to preserve your capital ships so that they still exist to protect the NEXT wave of transports that you are building (and to destroy enemy transports that are heading your way).
Just curious about something. Has anyone else used a strategy based on sinking as many Japanese transports as possible on the first two turns of the game? I have used this a few times as the Allied player, and also seen it used in a couple of games that I was moderating for my summer historical gaming class, and normally it works pretty well. The Japanese player finds himself building transports instead of other units, while I then start working on his navy.
Killing Japanese transports is always a good idea for the Allies, but it is only the sloppy Japanese player that leaves more than 2 or 3 transports exposed through the first 3 turns of the game. Thereafter, the transports should be consolidated in a fleet of Japanese ships and will act as cannon fodder for the big battle that almost always happens. At that point, Japan doesn’t mind losing the transports.
SS
