The Japan Playbook

Thinking about purchasing a IC in Malaya next turn…

Also, RUssia initially moved back from Amur but now they have several units in Korea and the rest in Amur…Trying to figure out how to stop this one

I think J1 DOW is probably a solid move. But what is the best way of dealing with the chinese? Especially in the rounds before India falls? If you leave them alone a couple of rounds they are all over the place. If you fight them it tends to slow down the campaign against India. I do not see any clear strategies for this here. what do people do?

What’s the pros/cons against DOWJ1 everywhere but the Phil’s?

Current state in the Pacific. It’s US4 turn.

Russia just built a complex.

ANZAC/US with build up in AUS

What a fantastic strategy for J1!  I did this plan along with G2 push into Russia.  America threatened the Japanese fleet until they finally needed to produce units in the Atlantic to control Germany.  I had India contained to just a couple of territories, and a sub was taking away a fair bit of their limited production.  If the Indian units stepped too far away from the capitol, I could send transports and planes to cheaply grab it.  Hence, they turtled down and waited for my onslaught.

My question is why attack India until it is your final victory city?  Why not bottle them up down there and convey raid their money down to nothing.  Perhaps a J1 or J2 build with a sub or two to head down to the Indian Ocean would hasten the total economic collapse of India without need for an actual invasion.  That would free up additional money to spend on the Japanese navy instead of a land army.  America could obviously counter in this theater with a heavy navy spend, but with the cost of handing Europe to Germany.  Thoughts?

There’s a few reasons why you want to capture India. First, it’s a 5 IPC bonus every round, which is very nice. Second, it threatens the middle east, which can force the UK to respond and possibly take away some resources which would otherwise be defending Moscow.
Finally, and most importantly I think, it allows you to move all of your air and naval assets east to immediately start threatening a win by capturing Sydney or Hawaii. It allows you to build almost exclusively with this goal in mind as well. Thus, either the USA will spend a large amount of resources stopping you, and hopefully allowing Germany to get the win, or Japan will just win outright.

@Cow:

moo

Hey Cow, good to see you back.

My apologies if this is already posted,

I’m not completely convinced one should do either of these:

15. 1 korea fighter -> sz 35
16. 1 mech inf manchuria -> chahar

Re 15: By sending the korea fighter to sz35 you actually are putting 3 air that have to land in sz35: the two that attacked manila and this one. Which means how can the carrier from Carolinas go to sz43? There should be enough ships without needing the fighter in sz35 in combat?

Re 21: If/When china/UK counters yunnan, you have little (hunnan inf maybe) to no ground left to attack, it might be nice to have a piece of fodder. If you leave the mech inf move till noncom, then if Hunnan inf attack survives, or they fail to recapture the territory, you might move the mech inf to anhwe, that way there is a glimmer of hope you have a unit for casualty rolls when countering Yunnan in J2.

You also have two fleets going to sz35 listed, was one supposed to say sz36?

I think some of this stuff should be scripted for the hardAI.  :-D

Or at least, give the broad strokes for it, so the JapanAI can have some early teeth on occasion.
Right now a discussion of how to handle DoW stuff going down…

http://tripleadev.1671093.n2.nabble.com/AI-Development-Discussion-tp7585227p7588842.html

Hi there, I’ve been using a J2 DOW for quite some time now and would like some feedback before a game next weekend. Here are my J1 moves:

PURCHASE: 2 transports, 1 bomber

Combat Moves
1 infantry, Jehol -> hahar
1 Infantry, 1 Artillery, Jehol -> Anwhe
3 Infantry, Shangtung -> Anwhe
2 Infantry, Kiangsu -> Anwhe
1 Mech, Manhcuria -> Anwhe
3 Infantry, 1 Artillery, Kiangsi -> Hunan
2 Fighters, 2 Tacs, Manchuria-> Hunan
3 Infantry, 1 Artillery, Kwangsi-> Yunnan
2 Bombers, Japan-> Yunnan
1 Fighter, 1 Tac, Kiangsu-> Yunnan

Non-combat moves:
2 Fighters, 2 Tacs, Hunan -> Kwangsi
2 Fighters, 2 Tacs, Japan -> Kwangsi
1 Fighter, 1 Tac, 2 Bombers, Yunnan-> Kwangsi
1 AC, 1 fighter, 1 tac, 1 sub, 1 transport (JPN: inf + tank) SZ6 -> SZ37
1 BB, 1 destroyer, 1 sub, 1 transport (inf + art) SZ19 -> SZ37
1 AC,  1 fighter, 1 tac, 1 destroyer, SZ33 -> SZ37
1 cruiser, 1 transport, 1 transport (inf + art) SZ20 -> SZ20
4 infantry, Korea -> Manchuria

I believe this sets up for a nice J2 DOW, though I know some people won’t like splitting the fleet in 2. In my experience, even with less ships sailing south, the UK and ANZAC aren’t willing to engage you at sea and you have the advantage of protecting the waters around Japan. My group likes to park huge Allied fleets in SZ6 if it is left undefended, as it invariably is when you put every boat south.

J2 buy: 1 carrier, 1 tank, 1 artillery, 2 transports

On J2, I like to use the transports in 37 and 20 to grab Malaya (with 2 transports) and Borneo (with 1 transport). I also like to grab Kwangtung with both the transports in SZ6 bought on J1, which puts India down -10. I also like to start bombing raids on Calcutta J2 to really cripple their ability to build stuff. For the Yunnan counterattack you should have what’s leftover in Hunan, plus the mech infantry in Anwhe and all the aircraft in Kwangsi parked there on J1. J3 you should be able to land all your planes on Yunnan, with a J4 takeover by sea with 5 transports.

I don’t usually take the Philippines with this opener, nor do I typically grab all the money islands before taking over India, as I like to focus 100% on obliterating UK pacific. I would like to know what the community thinks of this strategy though.

This is a great post creeping-deth87, I look forward to going over it in detail after work. After a quick skim through I see that there are no IC purchases in the first 2 rounds, but rather lots of transports… I assume that you plan on supplying the mainland with mostly naval landings, not sure if this is wise, but I look forward to learning more and studying your blue print

Thanks for the enthusiasm Young Grasshopper! You are correct that there are no complex purchases in the first 2 rounds. I have never, in any version of Axis and Allies, thought that buying factories was worth it except for REALLY late game, play-to-world-conquest scenarios. I am much more a fan of transports for getting my units around, another reason why I split off into distinct North and South Pacific fleets with my Japan play.

I have but one big question:

What does this do that you can’t also do with a J1 attack the same or better?

Japan trades with America, for +10, but at the expense of not slamming the hell out of UK Pac. It’s also not getting 2+4+3+2 = 11 IPCs from FIC/Borneo/Kwangtung/Philippines, so you’ve really managed to actually cost yourself an IPC, not gain any. You’ve also delayed your possibility of putting a mIC facility in FIC by an entire turn (and therefore any new units wait until J4 to be useful). I know you said you don’t build mIC, but that’s a whole other subject. You also can’t build a naval base there J2, meaning using it to threaten SZ 6/Carlines must wait until J4.

UK Pac gets one whole extra round of full income, including their 5 bonus (edit-actually, do they get this if not at war?). They could take a money island/Dutch New Guinea (I say could because I usually use the UK Pac TT to take Iraq UK1 and their transport gets to live until the next round for a continued botherance). UK Pac gets to keep their battleship, which, while very possibly is not useful in the pacific all that much, can be in the med 3 turns later and is useful there, or it can suicide into some JP fleet later with the other boats, or a crafty UK player might keep it alive long enough to stack with with the US/ANZAC invasion force.

ANZAC can grab a money island/Dutch New Guinea, just like in a J1 so no difference, but since you’re not at war they don’t make their extra 10 IPCs on round 1. This might make up for the gift you’ve given to the UK, because I’d argue that I’d rather see the UK Pac make money, and ANZAC not, since UK Pac is easier to shut down and can’t meet up to reinforce the Americans the way ANZAC can. So here, the situation with ANZAC, is the first piece (and only), that I can see working a bit better than a J1.

And as for the US, at the start of US1 they’re going to have 52 IPCs either way, war or no war. They can also move their fleet basically anywhere they like to position it. All you’ve done to the US is delayed them from getting 30 IPCs on US2, but those 30 IPCs wouldn’t have been a threat that you had to consider, at the earliest, until J4. But you’re potentially not even doing that, costing them 30, because you allowed 26 IPCs (fighter/sub/DD/2 IPC) from the Philippines to live. You may very well kill the two US boats on J2, mind you, but a crafty US player can scatter them or send them the long way to Hawaii to make doing so absolutely unappealing.

Is the bomber purchase only to be able to bomb Calcutta on J3? I don’t understand why you’d need it on J1, so early, otherwise.

China is in basically the same position as it would be in a J1 attack, maybe slightly worse off. Or am I missing something?

Do you really need to take Calcutta? Is it not basically enough to put them down to 5 IPC/turn? With just one cheap submarine to convoy, that’s now 2-5/turn, with the odds heavily favoring closer to 2. The money islands give you the economy to fight America ASAP, and not sending pieces of your fleet so far west to India allows you to continually threaten ANZAC (so that it builds land units instead of navy) and to keep America the hell away.

Is the point of this more to allow Germany some breathing room before a US entry, and if so, how do you imagine that plays out? Or is taking Calcutta and then pushing into the middle east from two Indian mICs churning out units the ultimate goal?

As it is now, it seems like you’re slowing Japan down by 1 turn with little, nothing, or worse, to show for it. And if the 18+2 Ruskies stack Amur and you must go up there and kill them, this strategy doesn’t apply.

Cow I was wondering why you don’t also take out the US Hawaii fleet in your J1 attack (sz26 sub, destroyer, cruiser transport). If you use the sz6 transport to take Wake Is it allows you to park your 2 sz6 carriers and battleship there to pick up surviving planes (or to fly new planes out from Japan if you lose one). Attacking sz26 with 4 air units, and sub/dd’s (maybe a cruiser) should be minimum risk, and leave you a blocker in sz26 so the San Fran fleet can’t hit you at Wake (must have dd left to block even at expense of air). On US turn if he does do a suicide flyby on your Wake fleet you can take the first 3 hits on the BB and carriers and land the planes on Wake.

You still have plenty of ships to take out the Phil navy, and using sz33 carrier/planes and your other 2 transports take the Phil Island. Killing off 5 US support ships sets them back, and will give you some breathing room.

On J2 I prob buy an IC for FIC, and take Malaya using the transports that took Phil Is (Anz NO). Then NCM Wake fleet to Carolies and bring my 3 new transports from Japan (loaded) to Phil to go for the money islands J3. At the start of J3 I had 1 transport at Caroline, 2 transports at Malaya, and 3 transports at Phil. You have a couple options at this point, the smart conservative way to use 4 transports to take all the DEI, and maybe Burma if its safe (pushing towards India). Option 2 is you also have 6 loaded transports in range that could hit Queensland and the fleet and air to back it up depending on what the US has done which puts some pressure on Anz (maybe they buy ground instead of navy?)

Anyway just wondered if you sometimes change things up a bit and smack the Pearl fleet?

Sorry if this was addressed already, didn’t re-read the thread WB