Was KJF really that bad?

I know it has been a rather tedious argument for both sides on whether the United States should go after Japan first or Germany first, however the more games I play and the more test runs I do I find that Japan takes precedence over Germany in a lot of the games. Granted, maybe going all in on the Pacific just to kill Japan may not be the answer however leaving Japan completely unopposed in the Pacific just doesn’t work either. I admire the idea of going after Germany and Italy as the United States however the U.S can only do that once Japan has been contained. My question to you is this: how would you go about it? How much time and resources do you invest in the Pacific, if any at all?

@superbattleshipyamato

Due to the way warfare in the Pacific works the Americans dont need that many ground units but still, Japan can threaten Honolulu and Sydney and thus threaten to win the game if America just lets them have Hawaii.

@superbattleshipyamato

Regardless of what they do, the U.S has to deal with Japan first. It is super easy for Japan to threaten Honolulu and the U.S be caught totally offguard by it.

@superbattleshipyamato

Like you said with the 70%, 30% concept. The only thing is that the Americans undoubtedly have to ensure that Honolulu is not under any sort of threat by Japan. If they can secure Honolulu then they have a secured supply route that runs all the way to ANZAC should it come down to that which will allow them to commit everything else to the Atlantic.

What I ultimately found when testing out Middle Earth and strategies for the Allies and friends, it’s not Middle Earth at all that’s so detrimental to Germany, it’s Floating Bridge. Regardless of what happens, the only Axis member who can directly affect Floating Bridge is Japan.

@superbattleshipyamato

Floating Bridge is an American strategy that involves them building up a navy in the Atlantic along with lots of transports.

The idea behind Floating Bridge is for the Americans to get to a point where they can shuck atleast 8 units into Morocco and into Southern France at every turn, forcing the German player to split his income and put him on a 2 front war.

@andrewaagamer

So to give credit where credit is due, this obviously isn’t my strategy. The way that I first learned of such a strategy was from GHG. However, I’ve taken the liberty to modify it to better suit my needs in the event that I find myself playing the Allies.

The initial thought for this strategy was commit 70% to the Atlantic and 30% to the Pacific, however that I disagree with all the more. Take America’s turn 1 purchase for instance. What I typically buy on turn 1 is 2 carriers and a battleship. I’ll likely swap it and put one of each in the Pacific and opt to put the other carrier in the Atlantic. The point is, I recognize Japan’s ability to win and found a way for Japan to counter the Floating Bridge by means of taking Honolulu and Sydney.

In another test run of mine to counter Japan, I opted to initially focus my first 2-3 turns of committing my purchases nearly all to the Pacific side of the board. Make no mistake, the part that I changed about this strategy was the fact that America was idle in the Pacific. The American player at some point will have to start making headway in the Pacific and being an active threat to Japan.

Regarding the merits of how much money is being made/spent, in my test runs, Japan never got to the point where they were making 72$, and that’s all thanks to my combined British and Anzac strategy. I am someone who firmly believes in the concept of building up a British and Australian navy in the Pacific Ocean to contest Japan. Are they going to build up as big of a fleet? Absolutely not, and that’s not the ideal goal either. The goal in building a fleet is to do 2 things. #1: Contest the money islands #2: Make it a costly victory for the Japan player should he decide to try to take said navy out. I’ve seen it time and time again where the British player did nothing but turtle up on Calcutta and let Japan run wild getting all of China, the money islands, and all their national objective money for controlling the islands in the Pacific to include Honolulu. I’ve seen it, and it doesn’t work. Because like you, I know that Japan doesn’t need Calcutta to win.

Now to sum it all up, 4 transports is obviously 28$ each. Initially you won’t want to straight up by 4 transports one turn but rather split it between 2 different rounds. However, in the end you’re going to want 12 transports. After you get your 12 transports, all you have left to do is spend your money on 8 units (doesn’t matter what they are). 4 of them will obviously be infantry, and the other 4 can be whatever you want, tanks, artillery, mech, or even more infantry. 47 IPCs will be more then enough to adequately fight Japan.

@andrewaagamer

So I’ve counted out all the provinces and in order for Japan to control that much money, they need to have taken ALL of China, ALL of the money islands and ALL of Southeast Asia. That’s without Australia, Honolulu, and Russia. I’m not sure what you’re Allied player is doing to allow Japan to take over that much money but whatever they’re doing is wrong… just straight up wrong. So then my question to you is, do you seriously believe that Japan just “has the ability” to take all that money without the Allies opposing them at all? You speak as though japan has an endless amount of resources to throw into China and South Asia and India and ANZAC and Russia and the United States. The one part that I agree with is when you said that Japan has the ability to impose their will on anybody they want. These words are true in every fashion. The problem that Japan ultimately faces however is that they can’t be everywhere at once. I don’t care how good you are or how good you think you are, no player playing Japan early to mid-game has the resources and efficiency to just “be everywhere” at once. That’s how my Pacific strategy worked in the first place. I built up sizable navies that would take a heavy enough toll on the Japanese fleet enough so to allow the other Allied power to control of the sea.

Now do keep in mind, I even admitted to the fact that, yes, Floating Bridge is not viable should the Japanese threaten to win the game by taking 6 victory cities. However, if the Allies can prevent them from taking atleast 1, (which they can), then it’s a done deal. I’m not sure why this has become so apparent but I guess Allied players have just gotten too comfortable with turtling up on Yunnan and Calcutta and Sydney and Honolulu and just letting Japan take all the money and all the islands. I think you would be quite surprised at how effective the Pacific Allies can be by taking an aggressive stance in contesting certain areas. I wouldn’t have come to my conclusion that Japan can’t be everywhere at once if I hadn’t played it time and time again.

@superbattleshipyamato

An interesting strategy, indeed. One thing is for certain, and that’s that the British need to establish land and air power before they establish their dominance of the sea. Now granted, the UK Pacific economy does not really have the luxury of being able to build big gigantic boats and lots of planes which is why I utilize the Europe economy to buy some of that stuff to send over to the other side.

In one of my test runs, China came SUPER close to falling completely to Japan, the only provinces they were holding at that point were Yunnan and 3 other undefended provinces. The British and Chinese had stacked up infantry and fighters on Yunnan along with AA guns, making an attempt to take Yunnan very unlikely for the Japanese. Either way, the Chinese were kept in the game solely because of the Burma Road.

In regards to the sea, believe it or not, Japan never actually got to a point where they were controlling all 4 money islands at once. The reason for this is that almost immediatly as the UK, I sent a transport along with 2 infantry to occupy Java. On top of that, an aircraft carrier, a couple of destroyers and cruisers and a strat bomber sent over from Egypt made for a sizeable hit squad if Japan wanted to try to send one of their naval taskforces over. They never did, and the reason they never did is because the Americans were actively threatening the Caroline Islands, what could probably be considered the main base of operations in the Pacific.

@superbattleshipyamato

With the strategy that I implement, doing Taranto and Tobruk are priorities. The only way I would be able to send anything from the Med to the Pacific is if it survived or didn’t participate in Taranto. And on top of that, I can understand why people would priotize taking Persia and Iraq, however you will get WAY more bank for your buck if you actually go in and occupy Java. That’ll be a whopping 4 IPCs that will make up for the loss of Borneo if it was taken on J1 and even more money if Borneo was left alive.

On that note, before I can build any carriers or transports I require planes for said carriers, and I really do think you’d be surprised at how successful a British Pacific fleet can be. The key obviously is to ensure that the Japanese navy is not in range of your own while you’re continuing to build up the fleet exponentially. The same can be said with ANZAC. Sure, the Japanese have the ability to go in and take out those fleets but doing so at the risk of leaving the Central Pacific open to the Americans.