Japanese Declaration of War

I voted J2 but there is always the option of allowing the UK to DOW on UK2.

Of course, if the US is going full Atlantic holding off until turn 4 can make sense to help Germany.

Welcome to the forum then, Witte711. Perhaps the first of many!

I voted J2. There have been detailed arguments on this board about J1 vs J2 vs J3 which you might want to take a look at.

J1 simply because it accelerates the production of ground units on the mainland.

J1 - Build Minor and place in Kiangsu
J2 - Build 2 Minors, place in FIC and Kwangtung.  Build/Place 3 MEC in Kiangsu.
J3 - Build/Place 9 MEC in Kiangsu, FIC and Kwangtung.
J4 - You’ve now got 12 MEC on the Mainland and another 9 to be placed (maybe some ARM too!).
J5 - You’ve got 21 MEC on the mainland, which is 4x the amount of units Calcutta has been puts out per turn out since J3.

If you wait until J2:
J1 - Build Minor and place on Kiangsu
J2 - Build/Place 3 MEC on Kiangsu
J3 - Build/Place 2 Minor on FIC and Kwangtung.  Build/Place 3 MEC in Kiangsu.
J4 - Build/Place 9 MEC on Kiangsu, FIC and Kwangtung.
J5 - You’ve now got 15 MEC on the mainland which is 3x the amount of units Calcutta has been puts out per turn out since J4.

The difference is subtle, but the difference in units and the volume of them for two turns for Calcutta is approximately 10 ground units, of which you now have 6 less ground units yourself by waiting a turn.  You also setup a much larger nut to crack on Yunnan meaning you have to fight potentially two large battles and win both convincingly to ensure Calcutta falls quickly.

That 1 round delay gives you a much smaller ground unit advantage in Asia which translates to more lost planes to take Calcutta (excluding the SB blitz people do from FIC now).

This is why I always subscribe to a J1 DOW and voted as such.

I’ve been seeing more and more the UK selling out their European game in order to save India. When that happens, I don’t mind if it takes a while to capture it, because of all the positive cascading effects this has on the Axis game in general.

Game I’ve got underway currently that’s exactly what happened, Allies went full-bore into saving India, and they’ve saved it for a while - at the cost of the US never making it to Europe, Italy owning the Med unchallenged, Russia isolated and about to fall, and good midgame attack chances against London.

And yet India will eventually fall to Japan anyway, and Japan’s income is plenty good enough to hold the line until that happens.

@Spendo02:

J1 - Build Minor and place in Kiangsu
J2 - Build 2 Minors, place in FIC and Kwangtung.  Build/Place 3 MEC in Kiangsu.

For that to work you need to have 36IPC at the end of J1 and forgo production on Tokyo J2. I suppose FIC+Kwangtung+Borneo+Philippines = 11IPC + 26 standard.

@Spendo02:

J3 - Build/Place 9 MEC in Kiangsu, FIC and Kwangtung.

That needs 36IPC also.

I see you having 3MEC at Kweichow/Hunnan plus perhaps a few survivors of J1 and the 6 at FIC/Kwangtung. Are you getting through Yunnan with this force?

BTW, why MEC at FIC? Surely that’s a waste when you could be buying art.

@Spendo02:

J1 simply because it accelerates the production of ground units on the mainland.

For that reason I J1 on France and take FIC, allowing a factory build there, but delay until J2 for UK & US.

Can’t US declare war on US1 if Japan declares on France J1?

Not if I read the rules correctly :-)

That is a big if though!

@SubmersedElk:

Can’t US declare war on US1 if Japan declares on France J1?

Yes. I believe that is correct.

@SubmersedElk:

Can’t US declare war on US1 if Japan declares on France J1?

No.

The US can declare if Japan makes an unprovoked declaration of war against the UK or ANZAC. Russia and France are fair game for Japan.

Taking French Indochina on J1 does cost Japan a 10IPC objective though.

Marsh

@Marshmallow:

No.

The US can declare if Japan makes an unprovoked declaration of war against the UK or ANZAC. Russia and France are fair game for Japan.

Taking French Indochina on J1 does cost Japan a 10IPC objective though.

Marsh

Correct Marsh. That ipc cost is enough to make me pause, but not enough to stop me wanting to get on with building the various essential facilities in FIC. Essential at least to my one dimensional play of Japan. :-)

@Private:

@Spendo02:

J1 simply because it accelerates the production of ground units on the mainland.

For that reason I J1 on France and take FIC, allowing a factory build there, but delay until J2 for UK & US.

Is it really worth the 8IPC swing to get the factory on FIC one turn earlier? Would be if you can take Malaya or control Yunnan earlier I guess.

@SubmersedElk:

I’ve been seeing more and more the UK selling out their European game in order to save India.

I don’t see this as necessary. India with China can look after themselves. Or perhaps in my games Japan isn’t being played properly?

I suppose with the IC on FIC J2, mobile units can be getting into Malaya J4. But by then you should really have all the money islands and be able to do an amphibious assault with multiple transports anyway. At least in theory.

If India and China can look after themselves, then the Japan play is very weak.

In a normal game both are off the board comfortably by J7 and often as much as 3 turns earlier.

The obvious alternative being that the China/UK play is strong.

I’m assuming strong UK pac/China play in both cases.

There’s nothing magical that the two can do against Japan - both are set up to die by midgame unless Japan really screws it up. That’s intentionally baked in to the game balance. Perfect play by UK and China can delay it but not avoid it. It takes Japan choosing to be distracted by some other objective and failing to follow through in order for either one to survive.

Basically every game report I have read shows UK Pac turtling at some point where I believe it to be ill advised.

It’s this inappropriate turtling that appears to make them weak. Alternatively in games I play weak play by the allies sees them die elsewhere before Japan can finish off UK Pac.

The other thing which is consistently done is India not adequately defending against SBR.

Patton himself could be playing UK-Pac and it would still be doomed to an early demise if Japan chooses to focus on it.

The only way to save India is to pull Japan’s attention away from it. This is a math thing, not a quality-of-play thing. Mathematically India has no defense against a full-force, properly-executed Japanese attack.

You mean if US goes full Atlantic and ANZAC doesn’t help either? Well, obviously.