Japan

so china pulling back to szechwan counters my strat pretty well :P

Maybe.  If they attack you in Yunnan and actually take the territory on turn 2, you probably have another bunch of ground troops that just moved into Hunan from Anhwe.  Now you can smash them with those ground units supported by all your air power.  At that point you grab as many chinese territories as fast as possible so they don’t rebuild their army.  All of China is your cash cow.

BUT, what if they strafe you instead?  Suppose they attack Yunnan on turn 2 with 3 artillery, 1 fighter and just a handful of infantry.  A few infantry are lost on both sides and then they pull back to Scechwan.  Next turn you land air units and move ground units into Yunnan and you are excited thinking you can go in for the kill.  BUT, they move back to Sikang or Shensi and when you walk into Sechwan we repeat the process again.  Do that routine a couple times and you will find yourself out of position and short on ground units.  You might be a smart guy and walk in with just 1 infantry but then they are completely off the hook and they march around China 2 territories away from you regaining lost territory and growing bigger and bigger until they get brave and retake Peking.  That will be one VC you dont get because by that time they will have >30 infantry on it!

A lot of people would not think to just strafe you though.  Most would go all in and then you would prevail.  So your strategy would probably work most of the time but its up to the other side.

Seems like there are various opinions on how best to play Japan.  I have only played AAG40 with the OOB rules but will be playing with the newest Alpha 3 rules soon.  Can anyone help me by explaining the impact the new alpha rules have on Japan?

Also, I have traditionally liked to use a kill Russia first with the Axis and apply pressure to Russia with Japan?  Is this less effective with alpha 3 - specifically with the new Mongolian rules?

Thanks

China= big resource drain for Japan.
That’s all I can say on this topic.  8-)

@urmomsmom7:

China= big resource drain for Japan.
That’s all I can say on this topic.  8-)

i would completely disagree, china falls almost without trying

it will be much more of a resource drain later if you dont take care of them early

I so agree with uncrustable

China is easily doable by Japan, and the Mongolians are pretty close to irrelevent. If Japans strategy involves attacking Russia then enough power will be applied so that the Mongols don’t make any difference. If Japans strategy involves avoiding Russia then the Nongols do protect Russia a little bit but when the 18 inf are well on their way to Moscow Japan can attack and only have 3 infnatry to deal with, the 3 inf in the back side are close enough to Moscow that they will probably head straight there and are 2 or 3 turns away from causing Japan trouble anyway.

Here are the 3 things I have learned fighting China:

1. They are NEVER completely taken care of!
2. 1 minor IC on the mainland building 9-12 ipc’s of Mech or Inf plus dedicated air force can keep them in check.
  The trick is to keep their income around what you spend at the factory.  I agree they can be an economical drain
    if you are having naval troubles.
3. Take India, Burma road is closed end of story!

China can be what Japan lets them be!  Just my two cents.

I agree with the above. China really isn’t worth the time. India I just leave as a job for the Italians. My opponent marches them to Africa and the Middle East since Japan doesn’t attack them at all. I just focus on Australlia and America and Russia. Also sometimes I will launch an attack on India with the Japanese navy if I feel I can spare the resources.