Hello, I play pacific 1940 a lot. I have also played global a few times. Pacific 1940 second edition is a great game but I can almost easily win every time if I’m Japan and I attack on the third turn. A new rule was passed around late 2014 to allow the USA to receive a 30 IPC bonus if Japan attacks or declares war on them before turn 4. This seems to balance the game a little but I can still always win with Japan. The strategy for Japan is pretty much the same. Take the money islands, build a minor in French Indo China and Kwangtung and knock out China and India. Post in the Philippines with your huge navy and three fighters that can scramble and those six deadly kamikizes. Let Anzac and USA come to you so you can use the fighters to defend at 4 when the big navy battle happens. Eventually you will be making more than the allies with the money islands NO and the India NO. You should be around the 70-75 mark. Then when the time is right strike at Sydney or Hawaii and hold it and you should win as it will be six victory cities. For the allies, man this can be tuff lol. You better hope Japan attacks you on turn 1 or turn 4 because turn 2 and especially 3 it’s going to be difficult.
1: China: buy men and hit and run and fall back to the north west of China. You will be lucky if the Burma road is open more than two turns. Pull back and make Japan come to you.
2: UK: pull everyone back to India and just buy men!!! Try to bring your navy down to Australia and unite them with Anzac and hopefully later USA. If it looks like India is going to fall then pull your airforce out and send them to Australia to hopefully land on a Anzac or American carrier. If Japan hasn’t declared war early then take as many islands in the south as possible .
3: Anzac: small ships and transports are good. if it looks like Japan is going to invade then pull your forces to south Australia because from there you can hit any territory. Use your small ships to convoy raid or unite with the main USA fleet. Queensland is a great staging area for the allied navy early in the game. Also since there’s a airbase there fighters don’t hurt also since they can scramble.
4:USA: the big boy lol. The problem is when USA is neutral she only makes a freaking 17 ipcs a turn. While Japan is around the 40 mark and Japan has soooooooo many aircraft at its disposal. USA I say aircraft carrier early then mainly subs, destroyers, and a transport every turn with land units. A few rounds into the game get a navy base on the Johnson islands and start combining your fleet with the Anzac fleet and hopefully a small UK fleet. try to take the money islands by sacrificing transports because Japan will have a bigger navy early in the game. When the time is right move to Dutch New Guinea with your fleet and prepare for the big battle. Sometimes it’s better if Japan attacks you and sometimes it’s better if you attsck them. Hopefully you will have a lot of subs at your disposal. If you win the navy battle then Japan is pretty much toast even if they have India and China. Good luck and let me know how the war goes lol. I am playing anniversary edition on Saturday 😜
Japanese Strategies
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cant keep all the subs in one sz. jap will send 1 dd and lots of planes and wipe out all subs in 1 attack. have to keep all subs spread out, force jap to spread out her dd’s.
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cant keep all the subs in one sz. jap will send 1 dd and lots of planes and wipe out all subs in 1 attack. have to keep all subs spread out, force jap to spread out her dd’s.
Not at all. If Japan sends just one or two DDs and a bunch of planes the subs have a good chance to survive. Remember, the subs allocated their hits against the DDs, not against the fighters. So under most normal circumstances the Japanese would only get one round of shooting. The subs would survive, especially if you have more than 5 of them sitting off the coast of Japan.
To really get the subs the Japanese player would have to allocate either a ridiculous amoutn of aircraft to ensure they can kill5+ units in the first round (thats a lot of aircraft) or allocate a lot of other forces (BBs, CAs). Even then, the efficiency by which the subs do their thing would force the Japanese to allocate considerable forces to defend the homeland - forces that the Japanese player would probably like to use elsewhere.
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cant keep all the subs in one sz. jap will send 1 dd and lots of planes and wipe out all subs in 1 attack. have to keep all subs spread out, force jap to spread out her dd’s.
Not at all. If Japan sends just one or two DDs and a bunch of planes the subs have a good chance to survive. Remember, the subs allocated their hits against the DDs, not against the fighters. So under most normal circumstances the Japanese would only get one round of shooting. The subs would survive, especially if you have more than 5 of them sitting off the coast of Japan.
To really get the subs the Japanese player would have to allocate either a ridiculous amoutn of aircraft to ensure they can kill5+ units in the first round (thats a lot of aircraft) or allocate a lot of other forces (BBs, CAs). Even then, the efficiency by which the subs do their thing would force the Japanese to allocate considerable forces to defend the homeland - forces that the Japanese player would probably like to use elsewhere.
But it is better to force Japan to spread its DDs over several SZs so that more subs can attack them afterwards. It will increase J losses regarding cost of units.
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But it is better to force Japan to spread its DDs over several SZs so that more subs can attack them afterwards. It will increase J losses regarding cost of units.
Oh, I am not suggesting spreading out SSs is a bad idea, but that concentrating the SSs also has its advantages - not the least of which is that you could potentially do a lot of IC damage off the coast of Japan. I mean, thats 11 IC printed on the map right there. The ability to target all that IC, even for a turn, is quite juicy.
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WHat I aways do now is J1 build 2 ICs in Asia, preferably near the fighting. Then J2 build 3 tanks at each, and do this again J3. Now to go with all the men you have shipped from japan you have a formidable force that will quickly over run china, and by J4 or J5, India has fallen. This will be even better in Global I think as it will scare the shit out of Russia, having that many tanks possibly sitting behind them, may give Germany an edge if some start lining up on the border with mech infantry forcing russia to sit more in moscow and the east than on the western lines.
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Okay i got a question, What exactly are tasks forces? Oh, and should japan try to destroy china right away?
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From my understanding, if you declare war on UK/Anzac but not USA, USA cannot attack Japan, but they do get their wartime economy that turn.
So if you do the J1 attack, J2 Phillipines, aren’t you really letting the USA get 62 IPC, save their bomber, fighter, DD, and transport, moving them out of harms way to fight another day?
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@Open:
Okay i got a question, What exactly are tasks forces?
Like marshalling card/circles from AAR. When you have so many pieces (usually ships) on one space that they don’t fit well or they are cumbersome to move (if they are moving together), you put a task force marker there and put all the unit pieces in a designated task force location off the board.
From my understanding, if you declare war on UK/Anzac but not USA, USA cannot attack Japan, but they do get their wartime economy that turn.
US only gets its wartime economy once it declares war. US cannot declare war if UK/ANZ initiated DoW on Japan. If Japan declares war on UK/ANZ unproved, then US can and should declare war on its turn - it gains wartime NO and can attack Japan. What you may be thinking of is the fact that US does no convoy damage to Japan in the turn Japan declares war on only UK/ANZ, since the DoW doesn’t actually come until US’s turn.
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usa cannot declare war though no matter what. they are only drawn into it. There is a thread on here about the usa declaration of war and J1 attacks.
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Nevermind. I read the faq and changed the declaration for the USA. So why wait to take the phil’s on J2 instead of just taking it J1. You give the USA time to move everything, giving it that much more firepower to assault japan.