@djensen:
All three games I played, there was trouble with the US going into the Pacific by the whomever was playing US just gave up and went to Europe.
If Japan goes all in on the Hawaii sea zone, the boats on the coast of W. USA are hosed the next turn. Even with an an aircraft carrier and fighter, they can’t win. Not only that, the US fleet can’t even run away! What the US does depends on how Japan plays and Japan can decide to keep the US out of the Pacific for 2 turns which in an eternity in this game.
Yeah, they could go blockade the states, but from where I’m sitting, as long as the US player plays it right then it’s the death of Japan. On US1, with a Japanese fleet of pressumably 1 BB, 1 CV with at least 1 fighter left and a transport in Hawaii (I think moving the british sub up to Hawaii on their turn is a good idea, maybe get a pot shot off and sink the BB or something with their ability, which even further reduces this fleet) you can hit that with 3 fighters, a bomber and a sub (if you really want you could try to retake the island and thus stop japan from bringing in that bomber on J2, but that seems to risky). Even if you fail to win, that attack has probably crippled the Fleet there, and when Japan comes a knocking with the rest of their fleet…so what? They take some more casualites and the entire pacific is wide open to a British navy with the ability to plop down a constant stream of units in two seperate locations close to home, and America will eventually sink that fleet sitting in San franciso Harbor.
Japan has to rely on some super lucky die rolls in those high stake naval battles, and maybe taking India or Australia early. But most likely, like their Russian enemy, they are in fact just screwed, ment to balance out the Russians being screwed…and I will have a blast leading every Banzai charge :). Man, I really need to get my hands on this game.