@Red-Harvest Ah, yes, you wrote that, of course. Take out the z111 as well. Yes, that’s a valid option.
You're America, you've been J1 DoW'd, what now…
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Thanks for the detailed feedback! Probably more than my thoughts deserve on this board. :-)
If I’m going to contribute anything much to the Atlantic as US, I’m for dumping the initial 52 into the Atlantic and then going straight 100% Pacific from then on, or at most 8-12/turn (on average) in the Atlantic, if even that.
That sounds fine to me – it’s not that I recommend spending 18 IPC per turn; it’s more about spending roughly 80 IPCs over turns 1-5. You need enough IPC in the Atlantic to create a viable fighting force, and not so much IPC in the Atlantic that your Pacific navy can’t get the job done.
If you do sacrifice the ANZAC boats, japan kills them with planes and subs, and is still sitting the bulk of what they have on the Philippines J3 keeping you from doing much of anything useful at all A3.
You’re not wrong. I still think getting to Caroline on A2 is worth the ANZAC sacrifice. Although you can’t make any useful attacks on A3, you are at least tying the bulk of the Japanese navy down to the Philippines, so that it isn’t available for shore bombardment, creeping up on India, ferrying troops to Amur, etc.
If you have all subs and bombers with only a smattering of other units, Japan will just withdraw just barely out of your immediate reach, then wait for you to move closer, counterattack, and destroy all those subs defending on a 1 with absolutely amazing effectiveness, they wouldn’t even need much more than half of their navy/air to do such a thing.
So, yeah, if you find that all your subs are being attacked by the Japanese navy, then your sub tactics are not working. When you’re advancing west as the US with subs and bombers, you need to use destroyers to screen the relevant naval zones, so that Japanese boats can’t get through to your main sub fleet. When you’re not advancing with subs and bombers, the point is to dead zone a bubble of sea zones around your fleet, giving your transports a chance to circle clockwise to the south of your fleet, running from Hawaii to Caroline to Solomon to Sumatra, so they can approach the money islands even if you don’t win a huge set piece naval battle. At the point where Japan withdraws “just barely” out of your reach from the Carolines, they’re now four sea zones away, which cedes a whole lot of territory.
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To your last point, there are two things worth mentioning:
1:
I have personally played but one game as Japan with German bombers in the Pacific, and dear lord, it was mean. That shuts down US destroyer blocks entirely unless they’re willing to commit a respectable little force to do the blocking. If they do put enough to discourage the bomber attacks, then Japan can kill whatever little target you’ve made with hyper-efficient submarines and planes, so the blocking force must be written off either way.There are other people on this board that swear by German bombers on JP air bases as well. If the German bombers are already outside Moscow and it is clear the slow burn against Russia/middle east is the only viable German strategy, it is not much skin off of Germany’s back to fly 1-4 of their big planes east to help out Japan. In fact, I would always ask for this help as Japan, and I gladly offer it as Germany (assuming the preconditions up to that point allow it).
I didn’t speak about this originally, but if you’ve got a submarine heavy american player trying to be clever with destroyer blocks, then this is what I see in posted games as well in a few games where I’ve managed to get all of my hardcore nerd friends together for a game.
2:
As you can destroyer block Japan, they can do the same to you. “Just out of reach” might not mean 4 sea zones away, but 3, or ideally only 2, with the blocks. Unfortunately, the turn order allows Japan great leeway here, since ANZAC goes after the US, and can’t open up the sea lanes for big brother like Germany can for Japan.I’ve never done a PBforum or PBEmail game with TripleA, but if you want to go through some of these motions I’d be up for it (or a live one for a couple of rounds every once in a while).
And yes, America can kill a blocker to allow the ANZAC to suicide or to possibly sneak in against some vulnerable transports (and the Pac allies must always be looking for opportunities like this), but we’re assuming perfect play in this thread, so that wouldn’t happen.
I posit that it is very difficult for two very experienced, equally skilled players playing US and JP against one another to find themselves in the situation where the US can, before A6 or even A7, get the drop on the JP fleet. Even on A7+, if you have been fiddling in the Atlantic, it may not yet be possible to begin a decisive move, which will end up losing you the game unless Germany/Italy has already been fairly well crushed.
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1: I honestly hadn’t thought of that. With 4 German bombers at Japanese airbases, I agree that a sub-heavy American strategy is garbage. I was relying on Japan not having a local can-opener.
2: What I have in mind is less ANZAC sneaking in to kill transports (I agree that skilled players would not leave any such transports lying around), and more ANZAC sneaking in to take money islands. Even if the Japanese fleet is only 2 sea zones away, that leaves room for the US to substitute an American destroyer for the Japanese blocker in the intermediate zone, potentially screening off the ANZAC transports from the Japanese navy. But again, that doesn’t work if German bombers can just pick off the American destroyer before Japan even moves.
I posit that it is very difficult for two very experienced, equally skilled players playing US and JP against one another to find themselves in the situation where the US can, before A6 or even A7, get the drop on the JP fleet. Even on A7+, if you have been fiddling in the Atlantic, it may not yet be possible to begin a decisive move, which will end up losing you the game unless Germany/Italy has already been fairly well crushed.
So is this a claim about the game being unbalanced? Are you saying that whenever Russia retreats its Siberian infantry, Japan should declare war on J1 and will thereafter enjoy favorable odds for an eventual victory?
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I think everyone here agrees that a J1 DoW forces the US into a nearly 100% Kill Japan First strategy, and even then, they won’t see the fruit of their labor for what is a very long time in terms of game rounds.
What I am claiming is that I myself don’t know how best to respond to this as America. I came here to hopefully have people enlighten me, because it seems, to me, that the US is forced into simply waiting, take little to no direct action to slow down Japan until at least A5, if not 6 or 7, and even then the odds are still not that great for you (I think I said ~70% earlier).
The following statements are not new to this board, so feel free to skip reading them:
I am 100% saying that if Russians retreat those inf, then Japan should absolutely do a turn 1 DoW. I think this is clearly superior to any situation where they wait until J3, and very probably superior to any J2 play.
That’s not to say sending the 18 ruskies back west is bad, it definitely is a very viable decision and will probably lock Germany out of Moscow (or allow the russians to actually push back if they built enough artillery and Germany is overextending itself).
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The most effective tactic is conceding and then J1ing your next opponent.
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Sometimes a thread on a forum reaches a high point, conclusion, where something has been discussed and/or decided, and something productive has finally come from all of the smelly nerds pounding away on their dirty keyboards.
Pherman’s post is the exact point at which this thread has become complete. I salute you.
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Sometimes a thread on a forum reaches a high point, conclusion, where something has been discussed and/or decided, and something productive has finally come from all of the smelly nerds pounding away on their dirty keyboards.
Pherman’s post is the exact point at which this thread has become complete. I salute you.
Thank you sir.
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Hey, was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!
As silly as Bluto’s line was that can actually happen in A&A though.
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Hey, was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!
As silly as Bluto’s line was that can actually happen in A&A though.
But J1 usually doesn’t include a Pearl Harbor attack.
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I try and make Japan pay for everything with all the allies in the Pacific and make them spread out and earn everything; I try and wear them out. I generally just keep enough going to ensure they don’t win the game in the Pacific.
I like to employ a heavy convoy strategy if possible; there is a lot of convoys to place Anzac & US subs into; it gets really expensive/annoying for Japan to continue to replenish their destroyers clearing our subs and losing them to counter-attacks while still losing money in a few other convoy areas, which means less money in general.
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NoMercy, do you happen to have any concrete examples of a turn or two’s moves to see exactly what you’re doing?
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-G1 “standard”. They either built some navy, bombers, or saved 30. At any rate ,no strong indication of their plan.
-UK1 will be full defensive buy for London: 6 inf 1 fighter.I think its very interesting that the OP considered those three openers as standard for Germany (I would add a big artillery build as option #4). I recall a time when all navy was standard. The approaches have changed a lot.
Full defensive for UK would be all infantry.
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The point of the Germany build was that it didn’t give you a clear indication of their plan. Full artillery does: that they’re (probably) going east. Full mech/tank does: that they’re (almost definitely) going east.
Yes, the most effective UK full defensive buy is all infantry, but the fighter is useful for the rest of the game, and that buy is still a very, very strong sea lion deterrent. It’s more common than all inf.
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