IC placement

quite simply, transports have to be defended, and the allies can put have in range alot of threatening airpower before japan’s second turn…  and every ship that’s left defending them reduces your ability to cheaply destroy the various allied fleets that might be making a mess in the pacific on turn one.

Other than that, the additional transports allow for 6 units a turn, similarly to the IC’s.  The additional transports give you the ability to grab guys more quickly from the islands, as well as the ability to push on india and africa faster and harder.  But each of these require some tradeoffs (ideally, mass troops in manchuria, but if india looms you may have to deal with that, slowing the flow of 6 units/per turn.

transports assuming a factory build later also ends up reducing the flow of fast moving armor, if that’s necessary.

Don’t get me wrong, i’m a big fan of transports, but they have their drawbacks too.

Submarine have to face a round of fire from the attacking aircraft, then, if it has not been hit, at the end of the round it can submerge.

All Submerged submarines resurface at the end of the turn of the power in which turn they had been submerged. Example: UK aircraft attack a German submarine and miss. The German submarine then submerges. The submarine resurfaces at the end of the UK turn.

I like to build transports first because they can get free units off the islands and also help capture Hawaii, Aus / NZ, India and Madagascar.

My approach with Japan the two games I’ve played has been to build IC in India and FIC, build Arm there, and build TRNs also to keep a steady flow of Inf from Japan to Persia. That puts a lot of pressure on Cau to allow either Germany or Japan to take it. Once you have a big Axis presence in Cau, that Sink IC becomes less valuable to the Allies.

In other words, go around it - to the south. Germany can take Cau a lot sooner if Japan is in a position to immediately reinforce with a bunch of stuff.

My tourney game I also faced Russian defence (but no IC) and was also not able to take Sink / Yakut until J5 or so, but still there was enough money that I had 2 ICs and 7 TRNs running. I think Japan’s priorities should be building TRNs, taking Australia / New Zealand / India ASAP (J3) and picking up all the island Inf. Japan’s TRNs practically pay for themselves because of the island Inf supply, and because they increase the value of your forces by moving them to the front much faster.

Haven’t actually faced that American IC in Sink though.

I’m already on your queue.

Besides, I don’t like the 50/50 bid.  On either side of the coin.

yea, I got the AI to work.

Thanks for the links guys

Lies!  Nothing but LIES!!!

Hmmm, well I guess it is not more effective, you’re right. I just went and looked at the numbers and by the end of round 6 the transport method would only yield you 12 units, while the factory method would yield you (assuming you use original 2 transports) 4 on round 2, 3 on round 3, 4, 5, 6. The method I would be advocating would require two extra transports to shuffle down to brazil, which obviously costs substantially more than the factory and only allows you to get 1 more unit there a turn.

I think I just have an aversion to having a factory around not doing anything later in the game, but in your case it would definitely be worth it. In every other case I would definitely suggest against a brazilian IC, but for the smallest amount of IPCs I guess the factory in brazil would have to be the way to go, assuming you just want to use the original EUS transports.