The Japan Playbook

Not everyone wants to play an 18 hour game. -.- I try to design strategies around winning by round 10. It is good manners.

Against boring axis players … as the allies I’ll do a megadrop and take italy or KJF. It puts people on the clock, you got to force people to push the action sometimes.

If one player doesn’t want to race, it just gives the other player a head start.

That is the thing about Japan, if it wins it is usually under 10 rounds with 6 vcs.
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I doubt people will touch global after 1941 hits. Have you seen that masterpiece? It looks so much fun.

The biggest problem is the players who play global are not aggressive… so the game is not entertaining, unless I make it entertaining.

The next board 1941 forces both sides to be aggressive, yeah I like that.

People say it favors axis, but I don’t know what the allies are doing or the rules yet. Have to wait. It looks rough for the axis if russia can attack round 1. I’ll probably only attack manchuria in my first game.

It is hard to finish a game of global though. Even online where it is faster to move the pieces and play.

Have a whole bunch of games at round 6-8 saved and not finished.

Global is rough time wise to finish. I do my turns fast but still :(

You attack as japan in round 1… well what can I say… come and play with me… You play axis I play the allies… I don’t care if you take calcutta…I will be able to fight back…

The land of sparkling happiness awaits you. Challenge accepted, tell me when you get on the triple a lobby and host a game.

made some updates. changed the j1 picture up so it has 2 dd and 3 fighter back at japan.

Played enough J1 dow to know it is better than J2 dow. J3 DOW is a huge hell no for me. The reason why J1 DOW is so good, is simply because you started taking islands and you aren’t going to get blocked from taking more. The sub and dd dead in sz 35, makes the new south wales fleet less intimidating early on while you are taking islands so you hold 2-3 spots no problem.

Also that 3 fighter 2 inf on java from anzac thing… yeah you can kill that with 4-6 ground and 6 air units … then you can get west australia after with 7 inf (naval base FIC or kwangsi). if he can’t kill west australia… put a bunch of air there and move the fleet up and blam you can take new south wales instead of calcutta.

you have a couple ipc left from your j1 buy, which was 3 tran 1 inf. you should have enough most of the time.

I am not sure if my sz 35 movements were accurate, I no longer keep a fleet off of FIC. I just put it on sz 35.
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Neutral on income is kind of a benefit, because you start taking dutch islands already and income away from UK pacific.

I like the j1 dow, because it starts taking islands sooner as opposed to later.

I am starting to lean towards not having 3 fighters back in japan, instead keeping a few ships back. all the air up front is pretty good, I think for low luck games I would do this because you can reliably kill yunnan in 1 shot or 2 if it is stacked.

I just like J1 DOW because it can hammer out India by or on turn 5 for japan. I like this, because on the other side of the board germany is doing sea lion or all out russia. Usually sea lion feign, they buy appropriately to defend london and get usa bomber in it, fighter on iceland to go inside turn after.  So I dow russia turn 2 with germany, stack nov turn 3, advance and take russia by turn 7. It turns into a two sided race. USA can reliably stop 1 victory, but he has to do it in time so he can stop the other.
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J1 DOW takes getting used to and you do have to be aggressive with axis as a whole, as time is the enemy.

I do it with G2 barb. I do a sea lion feign to force uk to turtle and not really scramble so much. If london looks good I will do it. In fact if you get london on G3… the allies are super screwed, because usa can’t liberate london while putting a stop to japan.

Usually I’ll end up stacking baltic states G2 and holding nov. try not to commit your tanks to yugoslavia, just strafe yugo so you can get guys a step closer toward ukraine. land 2 air units on italy.

I find the games to be much more exciting, which is the main reason I do it. Lots more action especially early on, rather than going through the usual motions.

As far as if it is the ultimate strategy or not… depends on your play style. I just prefer to expand with japan / being aggressive. For some reason, Japan does better going to war early.

bump

@thermomonkey

Thank you.

If you are going for the pacific win, have germany attack moscow the turn before you go for hawaii or new south wales for the last VC. A win for moscow doesn’t instantly end the game, but it does mean usa has to invest in the atlantic to stop the europe win @ egypt and london. If that fails then it is up to Japan to win it.

The nice thing is you get two chances as the axis to win a game and when you do go for the win, it is a decisive way to finish a game. There is no questioning what ifs etc, it is about as direct as it gets, because the battles mean something.