No income islands

Good point Jen.
That seems to happen for me too, in navy battles, they can really swing to the extremes very easily, which is why I like to play the defensive card as the US.  At least let me roll for more 3’s and 4’s.

I’ve played some serious Pac strat games and have had 9 Japan subs get only 1 hit.  Needless to say I go creamed in that battle.
I’ve also had like 3 ACs and 6 ftrs score 7-8 hits plus hits form other units, in battles that should be about 50%, but I end up winning with like 5-6 units left over.

I just got into a game where i did extremely badly on my attack.  I got 1 out of 12 hits instead of the presumed 6 (each unit was a 3 or 4 hit counter) and then on my defense I was attacked by a vastly inferior force (I had 7 to 1 odds to own him) and lost all my units, he lost some damage to his battleship only.  (I lost 2 battleships, 2 aircraft carriers, 4 fighters, 3 destroyers and 7 submarines, but in 5 rounds, I got 1 (count them ONE) hit.)

Let me tell you, I’m extremely screwed as Japan now.  In fact, I don’t think Japan has a chance in hell of defeating KJF against an America who has taken adequate time to prepare.  I don’t care if you own all of Asia west of Moscow.

You missed a VERY good reason to take those islands (beyond a back-up LZ for FIGs if AC’s are lost mentioned above)…

Fighter Exchange.

Example:
USA has 2 loaded AC’s off Wake and controls Wake Island.
USA in the previous turn bought 4 FIGs and placed them in Western US.

USA can now attack SZ60 with ALL 8 FIGs.
the 4 from the AC’s fly to SZ60, then back to land on Wake
the 4 from WUS fly to SZ60 to land on AC’s that moved into the SZ for battle.

You can then REPEAT the Fighter Exchange the next turn with an attack on mainland Japan, sending the AC based FIGs over Japan, then to land on Wake, and the Wake FIGs to fly over Japan and land on the ACs.

You can catch players off guard with this if they have never been hit with it before.

You can do the same thing with Okinawa and gain the ipc too.  Fighters from WUS land on Carriers in SZ 58, and fighters from AC in SZ 58 land on Okinawa, and also puts you into position to hit Philippines, Borneo, or New Guinea.

If your main US force backs Japan around the home islands, a smaller force (or UK) can often walk away with the valuable southern islands too, because Japan may not want to split their forces to hit south or leave the home islands vulnerable.

Doing it in Oki takes a round longer to achieve.  Starting from WUS w/ your fleet, you can attack the main Japan fleet, and possibly even level an attack on Japan itself in just 3 total turns from WUS (1 to Wake and take it, 2 to kill the fleet, 3 to strike Japan).

To attempt it from Oki would take an additional turn to reach Oki.

One other factor for taking the no-IPC island:  deprive your enemy of LZ’s that would allow extra AF to be used on your own fleet.  If you are sitting at Wake, but Japan controls it, they can send Manch based FIGs to attack your fleet since they can land at Wake.

@ncscswitch:

Example:
USA has 2 loaded AC’s off Wake and controls Wake Island.
USA in the previous turn bought 4 FIGs and placed them in Western US.

Didn’t realize you were talking about starting here at San Diego.  Simply trying to agree with you that fighters from WUS can reach deep into the Pacific to land on ACs that are there, perhaps stationed at Wake like you said and hit in and around the home Japanese islands.

If you go from WUS on turn 1 to take Wake, turn 2 to take Oki, then 3 to hit the fleet you get additional naval forces that were placed at WUS on turn 1 and fighters begin arriving too for the fleet attack and for xday.  1 extra turn while you are chewing up additional ipcs along with UK farther south and Japan not gaining ground on Moscow may be a way some want to go.

Non-IPC islands are like one’s views of armor v artillery, they may work better for one situation than another, but they are in the game, so you can way to use them, but they don’t have to be used for everything.  Maybe in one situation they work better than another, that’s the beauty of it.  Maybe it’s 6 one way, half a dozen the other.  Like DarthMaximus said, given the right strat, the islands hold strategic purposes.

You could exchange fighters with ACs in SZ 60 too, and land fighters in Buryatia, then hit Japan too, skip the southern islands all together. (turn 1 to HI, turn to attack fleet in SZ 60, turn 3 to attack Japan)

I still think you are better off jsut skipping them.  why take wake, when you could go a space more and capture something that brings in IPC’s and still can be used as a bomber platform?

Typically the US will build up a fleet in sz55 (with the WUS complex).  When that fleet gets strong enough for the US player to decide to venture out, they typically want to move their fleet out but keep it within 1 seazone of sz55.  Why?  So that the fleet is only 1 turn away from reinforcements.  So the fleet can move to Wake Island sea zone and still get reinforced the following turn because it is only two seazones (1 turn of movement) away from sz55.

Okinawa is 3 sea zones away from sz55, so it takes 2 turns for reinforcements to get there.

That is one reason why you might want Wake not Okinawa.  Soloman Islands is an excellent strategic point, where if you move there in enough force you may force Japan to move their fleet from sz60 to sz61 to avoid being attacked.  Whereas a move to Wake with the same US fleet might have been in range of additional Jap fighters from Japan that would have instigated an attack.  Once Japan has conceded sz60 the US can waltz into EI, Car, Bor, or New and still be out of range of the Japan navy.

Those are 2 examples of good reasons why you might want the 0 IPC islands.

If you can own something with little or no risk, own it.
The Solomon Islands is prolly the most valuable freebie on the map.

@ankmcfly:

If you can own something with little or no risk, own it.
The Solomon Islands is prolly the most valuable freebie on the map.

how do you get that?

@losttribe04:

New Paint Brush did you read this?

Lets take this scenario for a spin around the ball room shall we: lets say the US and  has FTR’s on the worthless Wake Island. Japan has a sizeable force on the worthless Solomon Islands. The US also has a fleet off the coast of Hawaii with a butt load of INF and ARM. On the US combat move they choose to take down Japan’s troops b/c they have a bigger navy 2 turns away with all the TRN’s they need to get them off. The US has a smaller Navy but a bigger Army. Unless the US has CV’s they can’t even use the FTR’s b/c its 1 space to the adjacent SZ 2 spaces to the SZ adjacent to Japan’s Army, and 3 spaces to Japan’s Army. So as far as the safe haven idea goes if you have the FTR’s jettison the CV’s to a nearby friendly island for fear you Navy is going down you just stranded them if you don’t have neighboring island to get them out. And like I said before one of the exceptions of taking a no income island is if the enemy has high $ units left unprotected. (like FTR’s). So now you just sold out your own troops.

-LT04

1.  Wake is not worthless.  Nor are the Solomons.  You astound me.

2.  Woah.  Reading what I wrote, let me clarify.  I think US carriers are essential for KJF.  However, depending on the Japanese fleet movement, I will sometimes have up to 4 or 5 US fighters per US carrier.

3.  US can’t afford to spend craploads of IPCs on transports.  Two or three transports is about the limit.  Japan’s power is naval and air, which it can use at its discretion against US navy ONLY.  Considering Japan’s starting navy and air, US can’t muck around with a lotta transport production.  I consider two the maximum for the US until you take one of the 4 IPC islands south of India; until then, I think US should concentrate on blowing up the Jap fleet.

@zosima:

@ankmcfly:

If you can own something with little or no risk, own it.
The Solomon Islands is prolly the most valuable freebie on the map.

how do you get that?

Because of all the stuff within transport range of the Solomons.

@zosima:

I still think you are better off jsut skipping them.  why take wake, when you could go a space more and capture something that brings in IPC’s and still can be used as a bomber platform?

If you CAN go that space more, you should of course do it.

In practice, it’s pretty difficult to get that extra space.

@newpaintbrush:

@zosima:

@ankmcfly:

If you can own something with little or no risk, own it.
The Solomon Islands is prolly the most valuable freebie on the map.

how do you get that?

Because of all the stuff within transport range of the Solomons.

Exactly. Every Island Group is within range, Japan’s homeland is in range. It’s the perfect base to start operatiions in the Pacific
because you can get reinforcements to it in one move.
Once you get a fleet assembled here, island hopping is next.

A few rules of game play:
1.  If you can destroy an enemy (or potential enemy) landing zone, base, unit, or territory with little or no risk, DO SO!
2.  NEVER leave the enemy a safe have in the rear of your advance.
3.  Protect your flanks as much as possible.

Sometimes that means taking Wake, Solomons, or Midway.  Hell, it might even mean a landing in Greenland if the Axis is roaming the North Atlantic…
But do NOT give the enemy any more options that is absolutely possible.  The more you can limit his movement, the better chance you have of planning to counter future moves.

@zosima:

I still think you are better off jsut skipping them.  why take wake, when you could go a space more and capture something that brings in IPC’s and still can be used as a bomber platform?

if you go two steps instead of one its a good place to rest your loaded transports.

If you take the solomon islands as the US you are in range of all of Japans islands.  So the Japanese player has to account for that and plan accordingly, generally that means less money going towards Russia.  I prefer to be in stricking range of the majority of Japan’s income.