G40 Redesign (currently taking suggestions)

@Chris_Henry:

I disagree with the carrier rule above as well. My reasoning for it is based on how long a turn is supposed to represent. If a turn represents 6 months (or even 1 month in this particular case) it wouldn’t be realistic anyways to have to have a whole turn dedicated to “refueling and resupply”. In fact, I think that would make it even less realistic. We must remember the time scope being encompassed in each game round. A single turn would realistically represent multiple recons, battles, missions, etc. that would have taken place in that time frame. Same as with land combat representing essentially a whole campaign of battles and not just a single battle. Yes, if a single turn was only 10 days or something I would totally be more on board with restrictions such as this, but that isn’t the case. Refueling, resupply, refitting, combat, recon, repairs, etc., all are simulated within that one turn that represents one or multiple months.

I can see why people don’t like the idea; perhaps a more feasible variant would be that you cannot take carriers as casualties before the fighters they support. That is, after each round of combat you must demonstrate that all fighters are effectively supported by surviving carrier capacity, and thus able to continue. This should include damaged carriers only supporting one fighter, so if you choose to use CVs to absorb hits you must reduce the number of fighters you can sustain in the battle.

@CWO:

Interesting discussion.  Perhaps the way to find a good solution is to look at what’s the most problematic case in both real life and in the OOB game Japan vs. the United States.

In Europe in real life, the UK and France (in the west) and the USSR (in the east) all had strong motivations to fight Germany (in the middle), and Germany had strong motivations to fight them, so it’s not problematic to translate that motivation into game terms.  That area of the game map has a high concentration of capitals in a small amount of space, and it contains a lot of IPC-rich territories, so it’s a high-profit area to fight over.

Japan and the US are another story…

If I could give this post 2+, I would. Very well said, even if we don’t yet have a solution. This is a great identification of one of, if not THE, trickiest aspect of A&A to make realistic. Europe pretty much takes care of itself. But Asia/Pacific is another story… It is very easy for Japan in a boardgame to over-achieve immensely compared to what was even plausible in real life. I do not want to script the game or place undue limitations on it, but if we want to avoid a cross-Asia run on China and the USSR, which often happens, we need to institute rules or objectives which steer gameplay from that possibility. One of the hardest things to do in a game of this scale is to accurately depict the geographic challenges involved in fighting a world war. If we care about realism at all, I think this needs to be taken into account somehow. Doesn’t mean we need to make certain things completely impossible, just that doing them certain ways will be very, very difficult or near impossible.

@LHoffman:

It is very easy for Japan in a boardgame to over-achieve immensely compared to what was even plausible in real life. I do not want to script the game or place undue limitations on it, but if we want to avoid a cross-Asia run on China and the USSR, which often happens, we need to institute rules or objectives which steer gameplay from that possibility. One of the hardest things to do in a game of this scale is to accurately depict the geographic challenges involved in fighting a world war. If we care about realism at all, I think this needs to be taken into account somehow. Doesn’t mean we need to make certain things completely impossible, just that doing them certain ways will be very, very difficult or near impossible.

I hesitate to put this idea forward because the Japan/US problem (or actually the triple Japan/US Japan/USSR Japan/China problem) needs a comprehensive solution, and this idea is just one fragment that’s not sufficient by itself…but for whatever it’s worth, here it is.

A problem with the game map is that – for various practical reasons – it distorts the size and shape of many land and sea areas.  China is one example: I once estimated that China on the game map is about half as wide as it ought to be relative to its height, with most of the compression located in the western half of the country.  I haven’t done similar estimate for the USSR, but my guess is that it too is much narrower on the game map than it ought to be.  This makes it possible for Japan to march westward across both countries, whereas in reality Japan never penetrated more than one-quarter to one-third of the way into the Chinese interior and never made significant inroads of any kind into the USSR during the WWII era.  In the game, both countries should be impossible for Japan to overrun; grabbing pieces of them sounds fine, but getting all the way to the Himalayas and Moscow does not.

Some proposals have been made in the past to add more territories to the USSR, as a way of slowing down Japan.  I can see the advantages of this, but it involves redrawing the map; my preference is to use the OOB map and find a different solution.  One geographic feature which caught my eye were the map’s impassable terrains, like the Himalayas.  The concept of impassable terrains can’t be used directly to solve the Japan/USSR and Japan/China problems, for two reasons: we shouldn’t make China and the USSR totally impassable, and we shouldn’t use solutions that involve redrawing the map.  The concept of impassable terrains could, however, be adapted in the following way.  When pushing into China and the USSR, Japan could be confronted with “difficult” rather than inpassable terrain, the “difficulty” representing both the challenging nature of the terrain itself and the increasing logistical challenge of supporting the advancing Japanese forces as they go further and further inland and keep stretching their supply lines.  This “difficulty factor” could be represented by something as simple as putting coloured mini poker chips on the map, which have to be removed one at a time (one chip per round) before Japan can advance to the next territory in line.

To give an arbitrary example, let’s look at the shortest route between Japanese-occupied Jehol and Moscow.  Chahar might be given 0 terrain chips (no adjustment), Suiyuan and Kansu might each get 1 terrain chip, and Novosibirsk and Samara might each get 2 terrain chips.  As a result, moving from Jehol to Chahar could be done in 1 turn, moving from Chahar to Suiyuan could be done in 1 turn, but moving from Suiyuan to Kansu would take 2 turns [1 chip removal turn + 1 movement turn], moving from Kansu to Novosibirsk would take 2 turns, moving from Novosibirsk to Samara would take 3 turns, and moving from Samara to Russia (and thus Moscow) would take 3 turns.  Not impossible, but not easy.  To keep some options open for Japan, there could be a related rule saying that Japan can speed up this advance (which we could assume is being done by infantry) but at a substantial cost and/or with substantial restrictions (for example by requiring Japan to ditch its infantry and advance exclusively with more expensive mechanized infantry).

I think more and more that a Victory/Presteige Curve for the Axis is the best way of de-activating the Moscow Tank Magnet.

Japan should strike south-east because that is where its main objectives lie - Victory Cities (which in my suggestion it must capture after a certain point in the game to sustain Axis presteige) and/or oil reserves.

The empty wastes of Siberia and north west China offer nothing in comparison. Only if ultimate economic victory is the sole winning condition does the Russia crush become default Axis strategy.

Also, with individual victory objectives it makes no sense for Japan to expend resourses capturing what should be a German/Italian target.

@CWO:

A problem with the game map is that – for various practical reasons – it distorts the size and shape of many land and sea areas.� China is one example: I once estimated that China on the game map is about half as wide as it ought to be relative to its height, with most of the compression located in the western half of the country.� I haven’t done similar estimate for the USSR, but my guess is that it too is much narrower on the game map than it ought to be.

I just made this comment in a thread on the Global War board about the new HBG map for Global War. The style of the map is great but there are significant distortions from a geographic perspective. I realize some distortion is necessary to fit a sphere onto a rectangle of a given aspect ratio. Not to mention that some territories must be re-sized because they are more important/travelled/utilized and/or stacked with pieces… like Japan and England.

However, this is more of an artistic problem than a geographic one. The real issue is how territories are broken up and how many there are when representing distance or natural obstacles. My assumption is that game designers take these factors into account when creating the map, but I have been wrong to assume such consideration before…

@CWO:

Some proposals have been made in the past to add more territories to the USSR, as a way of slowing down Japan.� I can see the advantages of this, but it involves redrawing the map; my preference is to use the OOB map and find a different solution.� One geographic feature which caught my eye were the map’s impassable terrains, like the Himalayas.

I have come to the point where I no longer find the OOB G40 map to be sufficient for me. I think it could be improved in many ways and my ideal is something along the lines of HBG’s Global War map, but even that could use some tweaking for my tastes. I will never find a perfect solution so I am starting to embark on creating my own. Right now it is more of an exercise to test my ideas and manipulate the map in a way to fix some of these geographic challenges we have been discussing. I want it to be very similar to HBG’s map, because I like a lot of the elements and the framework. Their new map looks cool, but as I said, I have some issues with it and would like some explanations.

@CWO:

The concept of impassable terrains can’t be used directly to solve the Japan/USSR and Japan/China problems, for two reasons: we shouldn’t make China and the USSR totally impassable, and we shouldn’t use solutions that involve redrawing the map.� The concept of impassable terrains could, however, be adapted in the following way.� When pushing into China and the USSR, Japan could be confronted with “difficult” rather than inpassable terrain, the “difficulty” representing both the challenging nature of the terrain itself and the increasing logistical challenge of supporting the advancing Japanese forces as they go further and further inland and keep stretching their supply lines.� This “difficulty factor” could be represented by something as simple as putting coloured mini poker chips on the map, which have to be removed one at a time (one chip per round) before Japan can advance to the next territory in line.�

Interesting idea. I have toyed with the idea of making up some vaguely reasonable rule that would essentially serve the same purpose (bogging down passage across Asia), but it would be more of a legislative act than your tangible and visual representation. Either one could work, but my idea could be viewed as more red tape where as yours is a bit more concrete and therefore acceptable.

@Flashman:

I think more and more that a Victory/Presteige Curve for the Axis is the best way of de-activating the Moscow Tank Magnet.

Japan should strike south-east because that is where its main objectives lie - Victory Cities (which in my suggestion it must capture after a certain point in the game to sustain Axis presteige) and/or oil reserves.

The empty wastes of Siberia and north west China offer nothing in comparison. Only if ultimate economic victory is the sole winning condition does the Russia crush become default Axis strategy.

Also, with individual victory objectives it makes no sense for Japan to expend resourses capturing what should be a German/Italian target.

Yes! I agree totally. Splitting up the Axis victory is the quickest way to get Japan away from trekking to Moscow because it no longer has a vested interest for doing so. It is, as you said, an unnecessary waste of men, materiel and time.

I was thinking more on the Prestige victory concept last night and wondered how it could be tracked. Certainly a combination of IPC income, holding of victory cities or strategic resource areas could all play a part. The challenge is finding a simple metric. The easiest may be straight up IPC income at the end of your turn. It sort of amalgamates the characteristics of having a certain amount of territory, high value territories and (with NO bonuses) indicates the achievement of strategic objectives. This would also force the Allies to fight for said strategic resource centers or victory cities to some degree, or just to take as much territory back as possible. Islands (if given IPC value) could become relevant.

The problem of the USA/UK just letting Japan win so they can focus on Germany could be avoided by stating that for the any of the Allies to be able to “win” the game, they must defeat both Japan and Germany. No one side has to take both Axis capitals, they just have to both be taken. The US/UK could take Japan and the USSR could take Germany, but the winner would then be calculated by prestige points somehow. I think this would foster the needed amount of competition between the Western Allies and the USSR.

EDIT: just found this on another thread in House Rules. May be a good start in drafting a Prestige Victory system. Never heard of this game before.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=36589.msg1451991#msg1451991

@Black_Elk:

Infantry or other units, instead of being “frozen” in place, might just have their attack value reduced -1 or something like that, when operating in difficult terrain.

Would this mean that they could actually not be able to attack (having a 0 value)… those not supported by artillery.

@Flashman:

I think more and more that a Victory/Presteige Curve for the Axis is the best way of de-activating the Moscow Tank Magnet.

Japan should strike south-east because that is where its main objectives lie - Victory Cities (which in my suggestion it must capture after a certain point in the game to sustain Axis presteige) and/or oil reserves.

The empty wastes of Siberia and north west China offer nothing in comparison. Only if ultimate economic victory is the sole winning condition does the Russia crush become default Axis strategy.

Also, with individual victory objectives it makes no sense for Japan to expend resourses capturing what should be a German/Italian target.

These are good points.  Here’s a revised proposal that incorporates some of the ideas from today’s discussion.  It’s still missing the answer to two crucial questions, but I think it resolves plausibly several of the problems that have been raised.  I was hoping to find a solution to those two remaining questions before posting this message, but I’m a bit rushed at the moment…so I’ll post what I have so far.

1. Japan needs to have a powerful (and credible) motivation in the game to go to war in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.  In WWII, Japan did have such a motivation: oil.  When Japan (with Vichy acquiescence) occupied French IndoChina, the US responded by hitting Japan with an oil embargo.  This embargo posed a deadly threat to the Japanese Empire; as I recall, Japan calculated that its oil reserves would last at best two years, so Japan had to take action to secure new supplies of oil (of which it had none domestically) before its stocks ran out.  The Dutch East Indies were the most practical source that could be acquired by conquest.  There were also other very important strategic raw materials nearby – such as rubber from Malaya – so these resources added further incentives for Japan to go to war in that region.  Oil, however, was the central consideration.

2. This dependence on oil – and hence this strong motivation for Japan to attack the DEI – could be built into the game as one element of those country-specific, time-dependent IPC adjustment tables that I discussed earlier.  And it would be easy to do, in my opinion.  The nominal starting date of Global 1940 is early June 1940, and France is already programmed to fall almost immediately.  Japan first entered FIC in late June, and took full control of FIC in late September 1940.  So our modified rules could plausibly include a provision which automatically puts a Japanese presence in FIC soon after the game begins, thus triggering (in the game’s invisible economic background) the American oil embargo.  The time-dependent IPC adjustment tables would, from that point onward, adjust Japan’s IPC income further and further downward unless Japan captures the DEI.  This would basically force the Japanese player to go to war in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, because otherwise Japan’s IPC income will eventually melt to zero (or close to zero).

3. Japan already starts the game at war with China.  The Japanese invasion of the DEI (which is now almost obligatory under the rules just described) will automatically put Japan at war with the UK, ANZAC, France (nominally) and Holland (nominally), since these were all Allied powers who were at war with Japan’s ally Germany.  However, the Japanese invasion of the DEI will not automatically put Japan at war with the USSR,  nor with the US (unless Japan attacks US-controlled territories as part of its campaign of conquest).  As I mentioned earlier, it would have been logical for Japan not to attack the US in WWII , so let’s assume that the Japanese player (if given a free hand) will only go to war against the “European imperialist colonial powers”.

4. On paper, we’ve now solved the problem of forcing Japan into a state of war with the UK and ANZAC (and France and Holland).  However, we still need two more things: getting the US to enter the war against Japan, and giving the Allied powers a strong motivation to fight Japan actively.  Without such a motivation, the Allies could simply dismiss the Asia-Pacific theatre as a backwater and let Japan run wild there while they concentrate on beating Germany in the European theatre.  With such a motivation, on the other hand, we can solve several problems:

• The US would be at war with Japan rather than at peace.

• The US, the UK and ANZAC (and nominally France) would all be fighting a vigorous war against Japan, rather than settling for a technical state of war and letting Japan run wild.

• The vigorous war fought by the Allied powers against Japan in the Asia-Pacific theatre would force Japan to defend itself, and therefore force it to fight vigorously rather than just resting on its laurels and being satisfied with the territories it has acquired.

• By having to fight vigorously in the Asia-Pacific theatre, in addition to fighting a war in China, Japan would not have the resources (and historically did not have the resources) to get embroiled in a war against the USSR.  So this would solve the Japan/USSR problem: if we can ensure that Japan has to fight for its life in the Asia-Pacific theatre, it won’t dare go to war against the USSR because diverting resources towards Russia would expose Japan to rapid defeat in the Asia-Pacific theatre.

5. So the double-barreled question that now has to be solved is: how do we get Japan and the US into a war against each other, and how do we ensure that the US, the UK and ANZAC will fight so hard against Japan that Japan won’t dare go to war against the USSR?  I’m still thinking about those two questions, but I’m encouraged to see that we have the outline of a plausible overall solution, and that if we can answer those two questions then we’ll have have solved (I think) the other problems too.

@CWO:

2. This dependence on oil – and hence this strong motivation for Japan to attack the DEI – could be built into the game as one element of those country-specific, time-dependent IPC adjustment tables that I discussed earlier.  And it would be easy to do, in my opinion.  The nominal starting date of Global 1940 is early June 1940, and France is already programmed to fall almost immediately.  …  So our modified rules could plausibly include a provision which automatically puts a Japanese presence in FIC soon after the game begins, thus triggering (in the game’s invisible economic background) the American oil embargo.  The time-dependent IPC adjustment tables would, from that point onward, adjust Japan’s IPC income further and further downward unless Japan captures the DEI.  This would basically force the Japanese player to go to war in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, because otherwise Japan’s IPC income will eventually melt to zero (or close to zero).

I think I understand this and it is intriguing. There would be a discrepancy then between the total IPC income that Japan is collecting via occupied territories and what actually reaches the player’s hand. Maybe it is just semantics or procedure, but it may be clearer to allow Japan to collect everything they are due, but institute a rule or drawdown table such that every turn that Japan lacks the DEI then they must surrender 5 IPCs (multiplied by the Turn number) back to the bank. This simulates the tapping of their strategic oil reserves. If they have not taken the DEI by Turn 4, Japan is losing 20 IPCs automatically.

Per the G40 political rules, Japan must declare war on the UK/ANZAC before attacking the DEI. An unprovoked DoW against the UK/ANZAC allows the US to declare war on any and all Axis powers on their turn. These situations and Japan’s need to take the DEI soon basically result in the US entering the war by Turn 2… almost always. The rules never say the US must declare war on Japan, but there is no reason for them not to. The longer they wait to fight them, the more territory, objectives, IPCs/prestige Japan accumulates and decreases the ability for the Western Allies to win.

@CWO:

3. Japan already starts the game at war with China.  The Japanese invasion of the DEI (which is now almost obligatory under the rules just described) will automatically put Japan at war with the UK, ANZAC, France (nominally) and Holland (nominally), since these were all Allied powers who were at war with Japan’s ally Germany.  However, the Japanese invasion of the DEI will not automatically put Japan at war with the USSR, nor with the US (unless Japan attacks US-controlled territories as part of its campaign of conquest).  As I mentioned earlier, it would have been logical for Japan not to attack the US in WWII , so let’s assume that the Japanese player (if given a free hand) will only go to war against the “European imperialist colonial powers”.

Per above… the bold statement is not true. At least not the second half.

@CWO:

5. So the double-barreled question that now has to be solved is: how do we get Japan and the US into a war against each other, and how do we ensure that the US, the UK and ANZAC will fight so hard against Japan that Japan won’t dare go to war against the USSR?  I’m still thinking about those two questions, but I’m encouraged to see that we have the outline of a plausible overall solution, and that if we can answer those two questions then we’ll have have solved (I think) the other problems too.

I think the first part is solved.

Motivation for fighting Japan is also solved if giving Japan independent victory conditions that are easier to achieve than taking Moscow. Japan and Germany never worked together tactically or strategically so they should not have a joint goal of bringing down the USSR as the only path to victory.

@LHoffman:

I think I understand this and it is intriguing. There would be a discrepancy then between the total IPC income that Japan is collecting via occupied territories and what actually reaches the player’s hand. Maybe it is just semantics or procedure, but it may be clearer to allow Japan to collect everything they are due, but institute a rule or drawdown table such that every turn that Japan lacks the DEI then they must surrender 5 IPCs (multiplied by the Turn number) back to the bank. This simulates the tapping of their strategic oil reserves. If they have not taken the DEI by Turn 4, Japan is losing 20 IPCs automatically.

Yes, the idea behind the tables I’ve been discussing is that they serve to adjust the net income that reaches a player’s hands.  The net income is determined by taking the IPC value of the territories held by the player (gross income) and adjusting it by that particular power’s table for that particular round (which raises or lowers the gross income to produce the net income).  Each power has its own table, and each table has specific adjustments (perhaps some obligatory and some conditional) for each round of play.

The table adjustments partly reflect some time-dependent factors that are assumed to automatically happen in the background of the game (like the positive effects of increased wartime production or the negative effects of enemy actions like oil embargoes or submarine campaings) and partly depend on events under the control of the players (e.g., does Japan capture the DEI or not?).

The adjustments could potentially work in two ways.  The less drastic way would be additive or subtractive: take your gross IPC income and add (or subtract) so many dollars to calculate your net income.  The more drastic way would be multiplicative: take your gross income, multiply it by x%, then add (or subtract) that amount to calculate your net income.

@CWO:

Yes, the idea behind the tables I’ve been discussing is that they serve to adjust the net income that reaches a player’s hands.  The net income is determined by taking the IPC value of the territories held by the player (gross income) and adjusting it by that particular power’s table for that particular round (which raises or lowers the gross income to produce the net income).  Each power has its own table, and each table has specific adjustments (perhaps some obligatory and some conditional) for each round of play.

The table adjustments partly reflect some time-dependent factors that are assumed to automatically happen in the background of the game (like the positive effects of increased wartime production or the negative effects of enemy actions like oil embargoes or submarine campaings) and partly depend on events under the control of the players (e.g., does Japan capture the DEI or not?).

The adjustments could potentially work in two ways.  The less drastic way would be additive or subtractive: take your gross IPC income and add (or subtract) so many dollars to calculate your net income.  The more drastic way would be multiplicative: take your gross income, multiply it by x%, then add (or subtract) that amount to calculate your net income.

Gotcha… I didn’t realize you were talking about doing this for other Powers also.

In general, this is a pretty simple mechanic. I am not so sure about the multiplication part. I assume most people can do math, but it is simpler to have a set amount to add or subtract (even if it becomes compounded over turns in the case of Japan). What you surrender is known and constant rather than variable based on what you gain, lose or have in your hand. You get into stuff like “do bonuses count towards this loss?” and “do I include money I have leftover from my purchase phase?”… even though it seems to me the answers to those are pretty clear (yes and no, respectively).

@LHoffman:

Gotcha… I didn’t realize you were talking about doing this for other Powers also.

In general, this is a pretty simple mechanic. I am not so sure about the multiplication part. I assume most people can do math, but it is simpler to have a set amount to add or subtract (even if it becomes compounded over turns in the case of Japan). What you surrender is known and constant rather than variable based on what you gain, lose or have in your hand. You get into stuff like “do bonuses count towards this loss?” and “do I include money I have leftover from my purchase phase?”… even though it seems to me the answers to those are pretty clear (yes and no, respectively).

Yes, at this point the table idea is just a very general concept, not a finished tool or even a working prototype.

The finished mechanic itself would be simple to use (especially if it just uses plain addition and subtraction), but it would require a good deal of thinking and research to set up.  We’d need to look into things like:

• The economic adjustments that are already built into the game, such as the national objective bonuses and the US shift to a wartime economy.  We’d have to decide which ones to keep as is, which ones to modify, which ones to discard – and then which ones to integrate into the table and which ones to keep separate as N/Os (or whatever).

• The game-dependent events that we want to model into the tables.  Example: the idea we’ve been discussing about Japan taking an oil embargo hit when it occupies FIC, and the oil boost it gets when it occupies the DEI.  (It’s interesting that Japan has such a rocky relationship with three-letter abbreviations: FIC and the DEI both have a major effect on Japan’s GDP.)

• The “background” economic and attritional events of WWII that the tables are intended to reflect.  I gave examples of these “boosts” and “hits” for Germany and Japan in my Reply #94 of September 19.  To work out those time-dependent curves, we’d need to consult sources giving economic statistics for the WWII participants, to look for things like gross domestic product, convoy sinkings, percentage of population mobilized in industry, bomber damage and so forth.

@CWO:

The finished mechanic itself would be simple to use (especially if it just uses plain addition and subtraction), but it would require a good deal of thinking and research to set up.  We’d need to look into things like:

• The “background” economic and attritional events of WWII that the tables are intended to reflect.  I gave examples of these “boosts” and “hits” for Germany and Japan in my Reply #94 of September 19.  To work out those time-dependent curves, we’d need to consult sources giving economic statistics for the WWII participants, to look for things like gross domestic product, convoy sinkings, percentage of population mobilized in industry, bomber damage and so forth.

“Good deal of research”… no joke.

@LHoffman:

“Good deal of research”… no joke.

Fortunately, the goal isn’t to produce a highly detailed economic model of WWII, because that level of detail would be wasted on a game that is extremely simple and abstract when it comes to depicting economic factors.  The goal is simply to identify some large-scale economic factors that had large-scale effects on the course of WWII within some broad slices of time, and to use these factors to fix parts of the game that are problematic.  The table adjustments don’t need to be intricate, nor even super-accurate; they just need to be reasonably credible and to feel right from an impressionistic point of view, with a view to improving the game in ways that people are happy with.

@CWO:

Fortunately, the goal isn’t to produce a highly detailed economic model of WWII, because that level of detail would be wasted on a game that is extremely simple and abstract when it comes to depicting economic factors.  The goal is simply to identify some large-scale economic factors that had large-scale effects on the course of WWII within some broad slices of time, and to use these factors to fix parts of the game that are problematic.  The table adjustments don’t need to be intricate, nor even super-accurate; they just need to be reasonably credible and to feel right from an impressionistic point of view, with a view to improving the game in ways that people are happy with.

That is exactly my philosophy as well.

I think the problem with USA vs Japan is two fold:

A)  Even in history there really was no rationale for going to war.  Japan’s navy needed resources because the Army was getting it all, so they picked a fight to justify more resources from the Emperor.  America, of course, retaliated.

B)  It’s too hard to take islands.  You CAN load transports but then to move on you have to use those transports again.  In Europe/Africa you use the transports then leave the troops behind so they can move on without you.  Perhaps if you allowed Destroyers to carry 1 infantry unit and transports could carry either 3 infantry, or 2 mechanized units (artillery, mech infantry or armor) thus improving the functionality of them IN THE PACIFIC ONLY we’d see a better push by the USA to take out Japan.

Alternatively, perhaps just say that you may move 1 infantry from one island group to the next without a transport.  So Carolines could go to Paulau without a transport as if they were going from Algeria to Libya.

I looked at the G40 map and I noticed that Malaya has a pretty decent IPC value (3), which goes nicely with the DEI islands of Borneo, Sumatra and Java (4 each) and Celebes (3).  The total value of those five pieces of real estate is 18 IPCs, which makes them important in themselves, and they become even more important if we use the adjustment table factor we discussed: with a US oil embargo in place, Japan’s IPCs get adjusted downward more and more with every round unless it takes and holds the DEI.  So Japan would have strong economic reasons to grab the DEI and fight for them at all costs.  An additional rubber-from-Malaya bonus/penalty adjustment could be thrown in too, if desired, as a bit of extra motivational icing on the cake.

Now for the missing piece of the puzzle: giving the US a strong reason to go to war against Japan and fight actively in the Asia-Pacific theatre rather than just letting Japan romp all over the area while the US attends to the more pressing matter of Nazi Germany in Europe.  Thanks to LHoffman for pointing out that the going-to-war part is a virtual certainty under the OOB political rules, which solves half the problem.  As for the strong-reason-to-fight part, I’ve had an idea that I’d like to float for consideration.  As what’s proposed above for Japan, it’s meant to make it financially disadvantageous for the US to simply sit around in a technical state of war without actively fighting.

The proposal is in two parts, but both parts hinge on the same assumption: that the US can only get the full benefits of a fully mobilized wartime economy if the American public is strongly motivated to support the war effort.  This is a credible premise because that’s exactly why the American public: a) abandoned isolationism and supported Roosevelt and Congress in declaring war against Japan after Pearl Harbor; b) went along with the call-up of men into the armed services and the call-up of women into the shipyards and factories; c) went along – though with some grumbling, especially as regards gasoline for their cars – with rationing and other privations; and d) contributed an awful lot of money to the war effort by buying war bonds.

Part one of the proposal has to do with the state of war in and of itself.  Even though a DoW is virtually guaranteed onder the OOB rules, it doesn’t hurt to give things a little (actually a big) nudge in the right direction.  So here’s the idea: the US can (obviously) only shift to a wartime economy if it goes to war, but it can only shift to a full wartime economy if it goes to war against both Japan and the European Axis powers.  The rationale is simple: being at war against both Japan and the Germany/Italy pairing is a far bigger crisis than being at war just in the Pacific or just in Europe, so it’s easier to convince the public that a far greater effort is needed.  Therefore: If the US is at war against Japan alone, it can only ramp up to x% of its potential full wartime economy (x being significantly smaller than 100).  If the US is at war against Germany/Italy alone, it can only ramp up to y% of its potential full wartime economy (y being significantly smaller than 100).  Only if it’s at war against all the Axis power can it ramp up to 100% of its potential full wartime economy.

Now for part two, which has to do with the need to fight aggressively.  Here’s the idea: unless the US fights actively on both fronts, on a fairly constant basis, it won’t be able to maintain its full wartime economy.  The rationale is that the workers and the bond-buyers on the home front have to be kept motivated by a sense of urgency, and by the feeling that the weapons they’re building and financing are being put to good use in active combat.  A great example of this sort of thing was the motivational wartime documentary Angel in Overalls – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhVikLVKWVU – which was made “for the men and women of American industry”.  It shows an isolated and damaged American bomber over Germany facing gim odds against some German fighters, until a P-38 Lightning charges to the rescue and blasts the enemy planes out of the air.

This part of the economic adjustment table would, in essence, deduct points from the US wartime economy if the Americans aren’t actively fighting on one of their two fronts…and would deduct even more if they’re not fighting actively on either front.  “Fighting actively” would have to be defined, of course, but here’s the neat part: it’s the “fighting actively” part that would matter, not whether the Americans are winning or losing.  News that the troops are fighting a winning war can be a great motivator on the home front (“Angel in Overalls” basically tells factory workers: “The fighter planes you build are saving Americans boys in combat, so please keep up the good work and build even more”), but news that the troops have suffered a grave defeat and are desperate for weapons can be a powerful motivator too (as British workers proved after Dunkirk and Russian workers proved in the second half of 1941).

Getting the US to fight actively in this way will go a long way to keeping Japan occupied (and away from Russia), so that’s already a big help.  Is there a way to motivate the British to likewise fight actively in the Asia/Pacfic theatre?  This will require more thought, but one option would be to make use of the fact that India was: a) enormously important to the British economy; and b) politically restless, and under active attempts at Japanese political subversion; and c) under direct threat once Japan had invaded Burma.  So, to apply here a formula similar to the one above for the US, the UK might get IPC points deducted owing to restlessness in India unless it can show the population of India that it’s fighting actively against Japan (including nearby in Burma).

I was under the impression that the US has to go heavy pacific already or they’ll generally lose. I thought the issue was Japan steamrolling China or blazing through Russia. Give China some more dudes and maybe a free spawn of 2 inf should help.

Russia would be a little more problematic. It’s been talked about limiting minors to inf/mech builds only. IDK if that’s the answer as Japan would be severely limited building any type of other units.

Japan already has plenty of incentive to take the DEIs. While penalizing them for not having the DEIs would help the allies in Asia later in the game, it would encourage a KJF strategy even more.

I guess it depends on what you’re after but just because certain things didn’t happen or were unlikely to historically, doesn’t mean they should be excluded or so unlikely to succeed that they never happen. I don’t think Japan would have done well blowing through Russia in the real war. It should still be a viable strategy if you want to try it though. Japan just needs to be slowed down/discouraged a little bit more than currently.