[Japan north] Stack Korea or Manchuria?

My question would then be, are USSR and UK being played by the same player?

I can’t see any other choice is to let USSR attack but keep a reserve force in place to take back whatever USSR takes. Reason being is that if you attack him first, you’re going to trigger Mongolia, however if he attacks you which I believe he is going to, otherwise why would we waste bring in his air power, he will lose Mongolia. You don’t want him to take Korea because that will allow him to build a minor. He would be a complete fool to do it however you don’t want to deal with a Soviet Pacific Fleet. I think USSR goal here is to scare you enough so you will focus on him over China or India. It seems like your enemy knows you going for India first.

You’re only other option is to build two large armies so you can go for India or you need Germany to drive so deep into USSR that he will pull out to protect Moscow.

I think you’re starting to see the limitations of the J1 move.

I don’t see an easy answer here. You can probably defend Manchuria (and might need to) with a lot of infantry, probably about 14. I wouldn’t worry so much about Korea though. So long as the USA can’t take it, no troops will be mobilised there.

I cannot see that you can attack. As you point out, that would activate Mongolia and those extra troops particularly with a plane around will give you real trouble.

Eventually though if the Allies in the south start working Japan, that force in the north is going to go south or at least keep China in the fight.

I wouldn’t recommend trying to stack either Korea or Manchuria.  It seems to me that if Japan is investing alot of resources defending Manchuria that could be going towards China or India, then the Russian strategy has already worked and Japan is in bad shape.

Note that the Russian player pays a price when they violate the Mongolia pact.

It’s a good idea to try to position your fighters after J2 so that as many as possible can reach Manchuria/Korea on J3 (your goal is dissuade Russia from stacking Manchuria and have a few aircraft that can reach Korea too).

That said I wouldn’t be too worried even if Russia stacks Manchuria.  Your focus on J2 and J3 should be rapid expansion and NOs, not Russia/Korea.  But if Russia continues south to Jehoel on R3 you might have to attack J4…but even if you don’t (hopefully because there is a better attack to make) it’s not the end of the world.  If Russia stays in Manchuria you’ll need to destroy that army eventually, but it’s easy to concentrate alot of aircraft and transports on Manchuria once you’ve already achieved your other objectives.

The danger that you need to block at this stage is a USA landing on Korea reinforced by the Russians.

The attack power of 18 men is so weak, you don’t need much to defend, or deter it.

Japan; minimum 6 men plus 4 planes plus 1 AAA–may still an invite an attack, but he’ll lose to your ripping fighter fire.
If he flew in Air, the calculus changes but Moscow is weakened so that’s good.
More and he wont do it, because even if he takes Manchuria or Korea, he gets $3 and loses 10-15 guys, so his only power over there is lost, which is a win for japan
Just don’t defend both, only 1 of the two.
If you bait an attack, make him go all in 18 guys, that’s usually in Japans favor because Russia will be stuck on the Coast in win/lose/retreat allowing you to wipe that out.

Except it might be wise to allow USSR to foolish take Korea. That will force US to rely on FIC if they want to factory Asia and USSR would be a complete fool to factory Korea, Japan can easily take it, US can’t use it, and USSR just made it easier for Germany to conquer.

If your plan, as Japan, is to not cross or only if Russia completely walk away, then you have to defend 1 of the 2 territories.  If you make them do it, the 6 men loss means they can’t collapse that front.

8-10 men plus a few planes should be safe.  Japan can’t lose these 2 or SZ6, that’s your critical area.

@Fatespinner:

Very interesting thoughts. I shows that AAA is also a political game where having a thread is a very powerful weapon.

The calculator showed that it enough to have 12 inf + 3 fighters to defend against those 18inf + 1fig + 1 tac. Still he could make a suicide attack to hurt my units, but that would not change much. Station them or kill them is nearly the same here.

The fact that the Us can not build a factory in Korea if Russia takes it, is a really good point.

Yeah, a lot of players don’t see sometimes the political advantage of losing land. Only does it matter in some spots.

I have lost manchuria and korea early. It is not that bad.

@Cow:

I have lost manchuria and korea early. It is not that bad.

No it’s not. Unless of course Japan isn’t taking land and/or breaking NO.

If he was smart, he would move his entire stack on Korea and then send his aircraft far enough away that you would be foolish to attack it and then he will most likely move them back to Korea. He already made the foolish mistake of sending aircraft to the east anyways, clearly he isn’t worried about Germany for whatever reason.

@Fatespinner:

He also build a Russian fleet (1 transporter, 1 destroyer and 1 carrier) in the Baltic and moved some mobile units into China. So it looks like he just wants to disrupt with Russia and just delay the Axis.

That is a pretty terrible buy. Worst I’ve ever heard of. This fleet would be smashed first turn Germany declares war. USSR can’t populate the CV and the Leningrad airbase at the same time.