All the Russian openings: For Begginers

No gift for brevity and too much time on my hands I guess.
:-D

Even in casual conversation I’m prone to digressions, so I’m sure the same tendencies surface in my writing as well.

As far as Japan goes, there are, broadly speaking, two scenerios you should be ready to manage…
What to do when the Allies are ignoring you?
And what to do when they’re not? Hehe

The first situation is fairly straightforward, you help Germany get into position on the center as quickly as possible. I think there is a general agreement that the easiest way to achieve this is with aircraft. If Germany is doing reasonably well in the East, Japan only requires 12 ipcs a round to make a viable contribution to the war effort against Russia. A bomber built in Tokyo can reach Karelia in one move, and from there can bomb Moscow relentlessly. This is often faster and cheaper than taking red territory directly. If you go with that approach it may not even be necessary for you to bring ground units in range of the center, for Germany to still break the Russians. Your starting fighters can support the German advance (providing defensive pips), while your bombers hammer the Soviet production centers. That leaves you with 20 ipcs a round or more to dedicate to your own ground campaigns in Asia, or naval ambitions. The faster you push ground units towards the Center the more likely it is that Axis will take the Russian capital before the western Allies are in a position to stop the center crush. To get your ground forces in range you can either expand production with factories, or (my preference) transport them from Japan to the mainland. With the latter method I dig the shuck into Yunnan from Japan via sz61.

The second situation, where Allies are focusing on you instead of Germany, is a bit more nuanced. Here your main priority is to preserve the Imperial Japanese Navy for as long as possible, stack the home island and do your best to maintain a route into Asia with your transports. Your goal should be to draw as much Allied TUV into the Pacific as possible, without losing your own TUV in the process, that way Germany has a free hand, again to rush the center. Aircraft are very useful here as well, especially in combination with carriers and a one time sub spam. Basically you want to cover the money islands (Borneo and East Indies) to prevent the USA from gaining a production foothold. American conquest of a south Pacific might be inevitable, but the longer it takes them the greater the chances that Germany will run the board and arrive in time to save you on the mainland. More than anything though, you want to stack Tokyo with enough fodder that USA has to invest two or three times as much in ships and air to get an adequate number of infantry transported in range to actually threaten your defensive investment. Again if you already have Tokyo stacked, and can still afford 12 ipcs a round, you can provide Germany with bomber support. More often than not though, you will be the one in the driver’s seat as Japan, because it’s pretty hard for the Allies to mess with you, while still preventing Germany from taking the center.

With the center under Axis control, and both their starting capitals uncontested, Axis have effectively won the game, regardless of how high the USA is on income. You can defend Eurasia with aircraft alone, until Germany is able to build carriers and achieve Naval parity with the Western Allies.

There’s a bit more to it than that of course, but since this is a Ruskie thread I don’t want to get too sidetracked. I’ll probably draft a Japan guide at some point to cover their openers in more detail.

Hitting sz 53 is a strong play, if you haven’t seen it done before, though this puts your starting bomber out of position on Moscow for 3 rounds. It’s just a matter of keeping your fleet consolidated and shucking infantry into China after you shock the USA into submission. It’s possible to run that attack even if you get smoked in sz 37 by UK. The move is 1 sub 1 cruiser, 1 bomber and 2 fighters  (take the fighter from Japan as your first casualty) then send the carrier to sz 61 and land any surviving aircraft at Wake. As Allies/USA you should dive immediately and save your sub for the counter attack. There is really no way for Russia and UK to influence the sz53 situation, unless they just want to sacrifice units in an attempt to draw the Japanese fighters/bomber somewhere other than pearl.

Before going too much father, it might be helpful for me to ask… Where do you feel you are getting stuck with Japan? At India? Or at Moscow? Or on the water?
If I had a sense of where you feel most frustrated as the Emperor we might be able to give you some more useful opening pointers, or more specific strategy ideas for the second and third rounds.
:)

@craykirk that’s a pretty balsy opening by G? Who was your opponent?

This is the danger of not wearing down either Belo or Ukraine, it leaves G with a lot of fodder to attempt an all out air blitz.

One might think that slamming W. Russia would have some effect on the sz7 battle, though unfortunately G can attack the British battleship with just subs and a cruiser and still come out clean.

My assessment would be that you went too big into Baltic states. 3 inf 1 artillery and the bomber is bit overkill, since anything in Baltic States is easily destroyed on G1 (they just have a ton of units in range.) Germany has 1 inf and 1 tank in Baltic States, which is 9 TUV.
3 inf and 1 artillery is 13 TUV, so even if you include the 2 ipcs you gain from taking the territory, you’re still trading at a loss. Russia just can’t afford to trade at a loss on this board, at any point, let alone in the first round.

8 inf 2 artillery 2 aaaguns and 4 tanks is a strong result for W. Russia in the Soviet opener. So for G to go balls out and attack you with everything, means that your opponent is either being reckless, or they simply don’t consider you much of a threat.

A larger bid might have been advisable if dealing with a disparity in player experience. If your opponent is seasoned, he may have felt the need to hit you with a hot shot right away, just to shake you. Which seems to have been successful. Forcing a player to play outside their comfort zone is a pretty sound strategy, if you think you can pull it off. Now the dilemma you’re faced with is how to respond to an unconventional play. The only thing you really have going for you at this point is that Gs air is out of position on sz7. So the optimal response is probably a carrier build by UK. Though this will depend on whether your Canadian destroyer survived, and whether G built more bombers.

It’s a tough spot man, I feel for you. I’d say just do you best to muddle through. Instead of approaching things like you’ve already lost, try to see how long you can hold out, and throw everything you can at G with UK/USA. A crushing defeat in W. Russia on G1, requires an immediate response from UK. You can’t give G a round to regroup, but you’ll have to be careful of the threat from the rear. If G smashed all your ground, they might just turtle up and let Japan do the dirty work.

I’m just getting off work and gotta drive home. I’ll response to Fuhrer about Japan when I get home.

@Fuhrer when you say “pumping 2 fighters into India” do you mean he is flying 2 fighters to India from UK, or that he is actually purchasing fighters in India? If the later is the case, that is rather poor purchasing on your opponent’s part, and you should exploit it. This means he will have very low fodder hitpoints at India.

If you’re running into problems pressuring India with Japan, this usually means you aren’t purchasing enough transports.

If your Japanese fleet is being regularly destroyed, that means either you’re not supporting it with sufficient carrier defense, or you’re trying to move it too far from home too quickly.

Operating out of sz 61 or sz62/60 is much safer than trying to do so out of sz 36, especially if UK is concentrating their air-power in India (and if they have ships surviving after a successful sz 37 attack, to help make that air-power more effective.) If you’re second carrier is destroyed, you should replace it immediately.

If your transport in sz 61 survives UK1, you are still in a strong position to crush India, but you have to back it up. Often times the Japanese player will stop short of purchasing enough transports to be effective. This is a minimum of 4 transports so you can transport the max production (8 ground) off Japan each round. But even this is on the low end. It’s better to have 5 or even 6 transports as the Japanese.

This allows you to push units first into Buryatia, to feint like you’re going to drive against Russia along the northern route, only to pick up some of those units the following round (with the purchase of additional transport capacity) and then swing south to pressure India.

Don’t be overly distracted by East Indies, Although it certainly sucks to lose this income to UK, its worse to let it deter your advance on India, while you get stuck out of position trying to recoup your loses in sz 37. If you keep pushing ground units into Yunnan via sz 61, this will allow you to threaten both India, and East Indies the following round, without putting your fleet at risk from India based fighters in the process. Even if Japan loses 2 of their starting fighters in sz 37, they still have 4 fighters and the bomber left, which is a lot of attack power, when combined with sufficient transport capacity.

I’d say your friend is on the right track that he needs fighters for India defense, but he should really be transiting them over from W. Russia or Archangel to India, rather than building them in India, both to cover Moscow and to give India sufficient hitpoints to face down a Japanese Burma push.

As for the 1 destroyer a round built at UK, you should be destroying these with German aircraft as soon as they hit the water. You can trade at advantage vs a single UK destroyer with 2 German fighters pretty easily. The DD only has a 1 in 3 chance to shoot you down, which means more often than not you can crush that enemy TUV at no loss to yourself. Better to sink a destroyer when its by itself, than waiting for it to stack up in a larger group.

If both players are on an equal footing a bomber bid to Russia can be fun, but going up against someone like Cow who digs Axis and has a good grasp of the blitz, I think more hitpoints on the bid would have been advisable.

It’s very hard to back the Germans off W. Russia if you leave both Belo and Ukraine alive. The Baltic states opening I described in this thread calls for 1 inf 1 art and 1 fighter and was noted as a gambit, meaning you’re just trying to trip the other guy up on an equal trade, or a trade at advantage, counting on luck. This allows you to send an additional hitpoint into the W. Russia fight. But even then it can be tight. Your fighter landing choices may have helped sealed the deal psychologically for the Germans, since they were flown out of range of the north.

I think the best use for the bomber is in an attack on Ukraine, so you can hold Caucasus instead of having to trade it ;)