China Cluster Campaign

@Panther Thank you for verifying it for me.

Victory in the Pacific is essentially impossible if you lose China.  You need the cash from those territories to be able to to outspend India + ANZAC + US in the theater.  Still, I find if China is making 15 PUs, ANZAC is at 20, and India can get up to 10, it is difficult to make much progress anyway.  There will be more Allied ground units made each round in Asia than you can pump out from 2 factories.  It is possible to build a third Japanese factory on the mainland, but then you are spending almost your entire budget on ground units and can’t compete in the naval battles.

When Yunnan is held strongly, I transition to helping Germany out by forcing the US to keep spending in the Pacific.  It is a huge help if you can hold the Philippines, threaten Hawaii, sometimes take the Aleutians or an ANZAC territory, and prevent India from sending troops West. You can still make 40 PUs without much of China, convoy raid India to keep their economy slow, and force the US to spend 20 PUs a round in the Pacific to prevent things from getting too out of hand.

Well the result is that when Japans DOW in J3 the US is NOT yet at war until the end of her turn. So Japan can do what it wants until US4…

Incorrect.  UK units may not move into or through China unless UK-ANZAC is at war with Japan.

Krieg, stop being so cool.

What Japan does in the north really depends on what Russia does.
If they pile up all 18 infantry on Amur, then do like Wittmann said, pound them good and quick. Except for the 6 guys in Mongolia, that basically opens up all the Russian far east territories for Japan to walk into over the next few rounds. Almost like free IPCs for Japan.
If Russia withdraws all troops to head for Moscow, which I have seen happen, that leaves you free to use most of those troops in Manchuria and Korea in China or other places you might need extra troops. Just leave a few there on the border. Then after 3 rounds or so, when the Russians are too far west to hinder you, walk some troops up and start taking Soviet territories. Of course, you will have to deal with the 6 Mongolian/Russian troops but that shouldn’t be too difficult.
If Russia only withdraws some of the far eastern troops, like say he leaves 6-9 infantry in Amur and heads the rest toward Moscow, that usually means he wants to guard his eastern territories but isn’t looking to be aggressive toward Japan unless a blatant opportunity comes up (like Japan withdrawing all troops from Korea or Manchuria and leaving them totally open). In that case, as Japan, I would simply leave the troops there on Manchuria and Korea and consider that area a “non-combat zone”, meaning there is simply no fighting going on there. You could possibly take a couple of the troops to use elsewhere, but you don’t want to weaken youself too much or Russia might take advantage. Yeah, it sucks leaving so many guys just sitting there, but you have to keep Russia honest. Plus, at least you start with those guys and any new stuff can go to your campaigns elsewhere.

Thanks for the answers.

But it does cost you the 10 IPC NO, so until your planning to go to war with the US consider the IPC value of FIC to be -8