I think a 5 IPC India could protect itself from Japan, but at what cost? 15+ IPCs per turn to India leaves Britain without the funds to build a serious Atlantic fleet. You might build one destroyer and fill one transport in the Atlantic each turn, or you might not even manage that, if you want any British air support for India or Russia. It becomes very easy for Germany to ward off your tiny fleet with even one German fighter purchase per turn, so Germany will probably get huge, and eventually India gets attacked from both sides, by Germany and Japan.
If the UK abandons a 5 IPC India factory, then Japan can singlehandedly out produce the Caucasus, without the need to build any new factories of its own.
I agree that Britain needs more starting production slots, but I’d rather accomplish that with extra starting factories in South Africa, Australia, and/or Canada.
I think the issue with India is that it’s just more production than the British economy can really handle, even at just 3. Although if it was 5, there is good chance they could hold it long enough to have an impact. The question then becomes, what do you do with it? 5 tanks a turn? Hold it for like 4 turns and then bounce, sending 20 tanks to the Eastern front? Stick it out with 5 artillery and a fighter in UK? It’d pretty much be the only game in town, Japan would have to go south I’d think, or give up on the center. I don’t know it might work actually. But the game would still be pretty one dimensional for UK. It’d be an even bigger magnet at 5 than it is at 3.
Good comments. � I did manage to figure out how to edit the 5 IPC India, and played one game as Allies and one as Axis against Hard AI (no bonuses, but did also use the Red bomber bid game 1 and AI used the 12 IPCs for Russian ground). �
In the first game AI Japan built a factory in Manchuria, but didn’t build up their fleet much (and they never do Pearl) so I hit them with the starting US fleet from Hawaii and the east coast (at 45% odds) and wiped out their fleet. They turtled and were overrun in Asia so it was an easy Allied victory. I was dropping 5 ground in the UK and 1 fighter in London for Moscow support, but Germany never made a real play for Moscow, just played cat and mouse with Russia.
Second game I was Axis, and UK dropped 5 inf in India first turn, which was daunting for Japan. � However, the US transport and destroyer survived G1, so US went Atlantic fleet heavy and UK followed suit, and left India to rot. � Germany was mostly playing defence for the rest of the game, and once Japan had India the Orange monster was in full swing. � Moscow fell after Germany’s main stack peeled all the ground and Japanese tanks rolled in, which is fairly standard when you ignore Japan completely. �  �
The 5 IPC India definitely means the UK has to drop some more IPCs away from Europe, but I feel like this makes a KJF strategy a lot more plausible, since Japan can’t compete on the ground with UK and on the water with US. � Kick Japan off of Asia and then pivot the ground troops to Moscow. �
In a KGF the UK has to balance between the Atlantic and the Pacific, but Japan has to focus resources more on taking India (if dropping even 5 inf per turn) it delays the center crush, and keeps Japan from being the Orange Monster early on. And since they get 2 bonus IPCs per turn and to starting income, some of the costs of stacking extra infantry are mitigated. � If Japan is distracted, the extra Indian units can pivot towards Africa or Moscow, and provide relief in those areas. �
It is hard for me to gauge how realistic this is from just playing the AI, but those are my thoughts. � A good human opponent may make way more hay with Germany with some of the pressure off in the Atlantic.
I’m interested to hear how your face to face A0 games goes. � What bid are you thinking for the Axis?
I played another game with India at 5, but I played against myself instead of the AI (first time doing that!).
Russia got absolutely diced in the heavy Ukraine strafe, and so West Russia was abandoned R2 and with no fighter support (Iceland gone G1, no other good routes) Germany rolled over them on turn G5.
Once the fighter route was gone I went heavy tanks in India, hoping to swing out against the Japanese and provide defence for Moscow. I did have 8 UK tanks about to rush in to Moscow for defence (on UK6), but that would have exposed India on J6 AND Japanese tanks were closing in on Moscow as well, so it would have been a 1 or 2 turn delay at most. Japan had the luxury of building a factory in Manchuria for north route tanks and just stacking Yunnan with art and inf (with their fleet in the adjacent SZ) and deadzone Burma, so the UK troop buildup in India couldn’t really pivot out of India as much as I thought. Any foray out of India, and the 5 IPC factory would be gone, so the two armies stayed in the gravitational pull of one another.
I’ve never really done a KJF, but I think that might work a lot better with 5 IPC India. I might read some KJF strategies and try it out. So far, 5 IPC India is a failure, haha.
