Is Japan taking a DEI a DOW?

@internationalaw:

Say first round Japan takes Celebes, dodoes that bring  the US into the war?

Yes.

I believe not right away.

A DOW on any of the DEI (which is required to take it) is also an automatic DOW on the UK and ANZAC. I don’t know, maybe you can’t even DOW DEI but must do so on the UK+ANZAC straight.

The USA may (or may not) DOW Japan in it’s own turn after that. I don’t see why the USA won’t do that, but to be complete ;-).

Curiously, it was the Dutch who declared war against the Japanese in the actual war, and not the other way round. Japan tried to delay it for as long as possible for fear it would result in a US declaration, and because they didn’t want the Dutch to premptively destroy the oil fields before they could be taken.

Also interesting from a history vs game perspective, after the initial occupation by Japan, the Allies made no attempt to recapture the islands of Sumatra and Java (which surrendered to the Allies at the end of the Pacific war.)  In the game these islands are hotly contested because of their high ipc value and National Objective value to Japan, and are a major allied target after DoW. Allies will generally make a B line to this part of the board if possible, and skip passed all the island where historically fighting occured, to get to the rich islands as quickly as possible. Though in the War nothing like that actually happened.

Trying to find a balance for this part of the map has presented issues since classic. I’m wondering why it was necessary to include a specific Japanese NO for these dutch islands, given that they already have such a high ipc value?

Seems that from the perspective of encouraging more historical play patterns, the NO should have been for control of Marianas, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and Palau.

You know, since those smaller islands are totally pointless OOB. At least if Japan had an +5 NO attached to them rather than the Dutch islands (that are already in play), then maybe Allies would have a reason to contest places like Iwo. Alas, the NO just gives players more reasons to do what they would do anyway (only attacking territories worth IPCs), and less reason to fight the way Japan did in the actual war.

I agree Black Elk. Thank you for reminding me that the allies never took them back either.
Those four islands are worth too much to Jalan in this game and is a reason Japan becomes so rich quickly.
You are right to say: give a NO for the pointless, yet stategically placed, ones instead.

@Black_Elk:

Also interesting from a history vs game perspective, after the initial occupation by Japan, the Allies made no attempt to recapture the islands of Sumatra and Java (which surrendered to the Allies at the end of the Pacific war.)  In the game these islands are hotly contested because of their high ipc value and National Objective value to Japan, and are a major allied target after DoW. Allies will generally make a B line to this part of the board if possible, and skip passed all the island where historically fighting occured, to get to the rich islands as quickly as possible. Though in the War nothing like that actually happened.

Good point, and this illustrates the fact that, in real life, the same territory may have completely different levels of importance to the opposing sides in a war.  Japan needed to physically control the DEI because it needed the oil produced there, so possession of the DEI was of great economic importance to Japan.  The US had no need of DEI oil, and the US could (and did) interrupt the flow of oil from the DEI to Japan without conquering the DEI by using its submarines to attack the poorly-escorted Japanese convoy routes between the DEI and Japan.  From a strategic point of view, the DEI had little value to the US: the two objectives of the Americans were to retake the Philippines and to defeat Japan on its own turf (the home islands), so from that perspective the conquest of the DEI (like many territories in the Pacific) would have been an unnecessary and costly detour from the main US drives.  The defeat of Japan, as Black Elk notes, caused the Japanese-occupied DEI (which the Allies had bypassed) to simply surrender, in the same way that the defeat of Germany caused  German-occupied Norway (which the Allies had bypassed) to simply surrender, which is a much more economical way to take control of a territory than invading it.

Hi Marc. Clever and concise as ever, thank you.

@Black_Elk:

Seems that from the perspective of encouraging more historical play patterns, the NO should have been for control of Marianas, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and Palau.

I’m a big fan of this idea, I just think it should only be an eligible NO once US is in the war.

Yeah I agree, when at War with the USA. Sure it wouldn’t be the perfect solution to everything in the pacific, but at least it would be a reason to contest the islands which never see action. It might be better if the NO was awarded for control of any 3 or maybe any 2 of those islands. Then there would be a strong incentive for USA to take Iwo, or Okinawa, instead of just snaking Palau on the sly. ;)

But even for Palau this NO would ensure that at least some ships and battles might be directed there at some point.

Ps. Great insights CWOMarc! The thing that’s odd about the Pacific side of G40, in terms of the ipc spread… relative to Classic, the ipc value of various regions has doubled or tripled, except the valueless islands, which have remained valueless. This puts the action almost everywhere other than the valueless islands. Japan has an even stronger incentive to ignore the worthless land and focus on territories with IPCs, Allies do the same in response.

In older games it was the production value of territories like Dutch East Indies that made them so key to the gameplay. Japan could build an industrial complex there to hold off the Allies, or Allies could build an industrial complex to pressure the Mainland or Japan itself. It was more about the ability to mobilize units than income. In G40 this doesn’t happen because of the factory rules,  but the income incentive has become so large that the area is still the primary focus of the Pacific.

Consider how much India or China or Australia or the Dutch Indies have been increased in ipc value relative to Classic or Revised or AA50.  Then look at all the little islands at zero ipcs. Islands with names we all know, because of their storied history in the greatest conflict in human history, but which have little effect on the gameplay in A&A.

Dutch Islands are already in play even without an NO. New Guinea is in play, because of the Anzac NO. Carolines is in play because of the airbase and harbor and because it is on the warpath for USA (towards Australia and East Indies.) But Marianas, Okinawa, Iwo Jima and Palau are not in play. Not only are they worthless in terms of ipcs, but many are in sea zones with Kamikaze markers. This makes them unattractive as targets for USA. They are usually bypassed on the way to the Dutch islands, whereas in the war, the situation was the reverse haha.

This would be fairly easy to fix by replacing the Dutch island NO for Japan, with something oriented more on the Japanese “home islands” the ones they control at the start of play. Not a perfect fix granted, but at least it would help.

The Dutch islands don’t need more help, their gravitational pull is already felt and they are governing the whole Pacific side of the board as is. The op notes, their influence is already so strong from the DoW. Do they really need more NO money attached to them? For gameplay an NO for Iwo Jima and Okinawa would do more as an incentive for the same value +5 ipcs. USA  would have a solid reason to start island hopping as quickly as possible. Japan would have an incentive to protect Iwo, so as not to lose the NO on a walk in. All this would put the gameplay in a more historical direction.

These Dutch territories would still be significant, but they wouldn’t be the whole contest. Japan would have an achievable NO, but one which would necessarily pull some forces away from Dutch islands. Let the British and Australians worry about dutch liberation haha, while American marines go island hoping in places more in tune with the history.
:-D

I see what you guys are saying and I agree. I’ve been kicking around the idea to replace the $5 NO for Japanese control of Borneo, Celebes, Java and Sumatra with the following:

$5 for Japanese control of Okinawa, Formosa, Iwo Jima, Marianas, Palau, Caroline Islands and Marshall Islands. This occurs when Japan is at war with the Western Allies. So if UK and/or ANZAC declare war on Japan, with USA still neutral, then Japan will collect this NO.
I’ve also modified the $5 NO for Japanese control of Midway, Wake, Guam, Solomon Islands and Gilbert Islands. I changed it to $1 for control of each island.

I also removed the US NO of $10 for US control of Eastern US, Central US and Western US because I think that falls in the same category as the DEI NO. The continental US is worth $42 to the US all together, has all their main manufacturing plants and includes two Victory Cities, one of which is their capital. That’s more than enough incentive to not lose any of those three territories. However, I didn’t want to just take away US NO money, so I replaced it with the following:

$1 each for Allied control of the following: Midway, Wake Island, Guam, Marshall Islands, Caroline Islands, Palau, Marianas, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Formosa. This occurs when US is at war with Japan.

So you see, there is still the possibility for the US to make the full $10 in NO money, plus 3 of the Japanese Islands are worth $1 which will be an extra bonus. Also, since 3 of the islands are already US owned, the US can still collect $3 when at war with Japan but before their offensive gets moving.
I thought that might do something to get a little more action in these valueless islands. I wonder if I ought to change Japan’s because once the US is in the war, Japan’s NO is really easy to disrupt because the Marshall Islands are close to the US and they are unguarded. Do you think that I should remove the Marshalls from Japan’s NO?