Forbidding ICs…?

Tis one of the ideas.

The best part of it, if Japan does counter, you just don’t go invade and you really do run your navy into the Med to tear at the soft belly of Germany.  Win/Win for America and you don’t really need to spend too much on navy. (2 carriers and that’s hardly more than most.  Maybe flesh it out with a couple of submarines which could be considered fodder.)

that works but i would throw in a destroyer or 2

I think she’s basically saying that, for example, if you have 2 carriers with 4 fighters in one sea zone stationed with your navy, and you send your navy 1 sz away for an attack, you can land those 4 fighters on a nearby land zone that is up to 3 moves away.  This allows you to bring in 4 extra fighters from 3-4 moves away that would normally have nowhere to land but can now land on the freed carriers.  Thus, your 2 carriers allowed 8 fighters to partake in the naval attack.

It would also work with moving the carriers+fighters 2 sea zones instead of 1, but there would have to be a land zone within 2 moves for the fighters.  And, while generally in that situation you’d be able to station the extra fighters from the land zone if it’s that close, there are times when you can’t and need to extend the range of your extra fighters as in the example above.

i think it is the other way around 8 fighters help navies

Send your fighters out from your carriers and land them on a land mass.  Send your other fighters out from a land mass and land them on your carriers.

for instance.  4 Fighters stationed on Wake and 4 Fighters stationed in SZ 51 can all attack SZ 61 since the fighters on Wake can land on the Carriers and the fighters in SZ 51 can land on China or Buryatia.

quote from com jen

That stated, I have gone KJF successfully building everything in SZ 10.  Trick here is to unload into Africa, securing Africa while building up your navy.  While the Axis believe you are just building a fleet to defend against the Luftwaffe so you can attack North and South, you are really building a seed navy to move into the Pacific. (Which from SZ 22 is one turn away, two turns from invading IPC valued islands.)

this tactic sounds devestating, especially if you build men the same round as you unload into africa. the next round you can then move your navy from algeria and the men from eastern us to panama, without building anything. if japan does not repond, you move you navy to sz 54 and place 76ipc worth of navy there in the same round. if they do respond, you just go mediteranean. could you link to a game where you have used this approach?

Yes, I do advocate building men for Africa, but I don’t recommend bringing them with you into the Pacific.  I actually like going under S. America with the fleet and building more in W. USA instead of going through Panama.

It can be very devastating.  Most players don’t have a clue how to defend against an aggressive Allied attack in the Pacific.  Those that do may not realize what is happening until it is too late to stop it.  Those that see it coming, and act accordingly, can be caught with their pants down if you just don’t go for the Pacific causing them to have slowed their progress and built up a navy that will not be needed while you have built a strong enough navy to allow you safety in SZs 12 and 14.

so you would rather take a longer time to get to the atlantic from the pacific

I never see Tokyo fall against an experience Revised player.

Actually let me rephrase that; I’ve never seen a game where the Allies managed to take Tokyo, without also losing Moscow in the process. If you stick around to finish off Japan, then the Germans will almost always break Russia. This throws you into the typical KJF endgame of a super-Germany (Eurasia) vs. a super-USA (Pacific). With income roughly split between Germany and the remaining Allies, it turns into a production/logistics game which tends to favor the Axis.

This is why many people think that KJF (‘kill Japan first’) is a misnomer, because if you actually invest the resources to kill off the home island it invariably comes back to screw the Allies during endgame. Instead what you will usually see (if anything) is a quick smash and grab maneuver, with the Allies just beating Japan into a position where they can be contained, before redirecting all resources to the defense of Moscow. The strategy is all about ‘timing’, and more specifically ‘keeping time on your side’, because you don’t have to take Berlin to win this game, you just have to prevent Moscow from being captured.

If you removed the production limit on Tokyo, I think it would make a KJF strategy even more difficult than it already is, because the Jap player could just start inf stacking the home island. By the time the USA built up enough production to match Japan’s, chances are the German tanks will already be sweeping down from Moscow to recover the Axis position in Asia. If you removed the production limit on all starting factories (and not just the capitals), I think it would also give a strong advantage to the Russians, since they could drop 8-10 units a turn into Caucasus, which would be a total nightmare for the Axis.

I worry that we’d be trading one set of circumstances that favors KGF, for another set that favors KGF.

@italiansarecoming:

so you would rather take a longer time to get to the atlantic from the pacific

No, it does not really take “longer.”  Bear in mind that I am working from the standpoint that you have 2 transports feeding units into Brazil and 2 from Brazil into Africa with the lion’s share of your fleet in SZ 22.  From here you can move into SZ 13, down to SZ 42 or up to SZ 19 giving you quite a lot of flexibility with that fleet.

I’m also assuming you are spending those first three rounds focused on fleshing out the fleet a little (2 carriers at least, a few submarines to go with it wouldn’t hurt in addition to the destroyers and battleship you start with.  You’ll only need to purchase one transport to get the 2 by 2 going anyway.)  and liberating Africa (since a free Africa is paramount to a good KJF.)

I prefer to go from SZ 22 to SZ 42 most of the time because it’s in line with liberating Africa while I am building ships in SZ 55 where I can easily send them up to the Bearing Straights and liberate Russia if Japan races down to E. Indies or something.

Black_Elk raises a valid point, one I have tried to always make clear when I talk KJF.  To “kill Japan” really means to remove his ability to send ground troops into Asia.  That can be accomplished by taking Japan itself, but it’s almost always easier to take his mainland complexes and sink his navy.  After that is done, it’s a matter of racing tanks to Russia to assist England and Russia against the Germans if at all possible.

Why you should take Tokyo? With Japan reduced to her home island (8 IPCs), USA is a super monster of 60+ IPCs, more than Germany can collect if they take Moscow. Even then, with indians, chineses, south africans and south Pacific ICs poping guys to monster Germany and any forces allies can bring from England and East USA, Germans will have a world of pain against western allies collecting about 90 ipcs (strat bombing Tokyo with a token bomber aids Japan never recover). If soviets are alive, it’s even worst, allies gaining more than 100 ipcs

Then only chance germans would have is if they can somehow try Sea Lion, but UK should be very careless for this, and probably USA could retake England easily.

Trading Berlin for Moscow sometimes is not enough for allies, but isolating Tokyo is victory for allies 99 % of times, even if germans take Moscow.

@Cmdr:

But surface ships are also needed.  Sure, your theoretical best bang for the buck is the submarine, but in reality, 4 destroyers > 6 submarines, even though they have the same punch.  They both have the same punch, and the same cost, but the submarines have a significantly smaller chance to hit than the destroyers do. (33% vs 50%)

Wow, just do some calculations, 6 submarines beat 4 destroyers really badly, the chance that there are remaining subs after the battle with all the destroyers destroyed is 75 %.

I’m strongly against the whole KJF thing, not because it doesn’t work, but because it doesn’t work 99% of the time. The single time i’ve lost to this strategy was a triplea ladder game a few days ago, where the following things happened:
UK1: I lose my SZ 59 tranny, SZ 45 sub, New Guinea and Borneo, UK fighter reinforces Pearl.
J1: I go to Pearl with 3 ftrs, BB, AC, DD, bomber, and get spanked, BB, AC, 2 fighters remain (bomber also dies). The SZ 59 DD of the UK proves to be invincible, butchers my carrier and fighter.
US1: US counters Pearl with BB tranny 2 figs and the bomber, loses the transport and a single fighter in the process.
UK2: the UK DD and sub kills 4 trannies of mine.
At this point, the IJN consists of a single battleship, and this is before J2.

In this case, and only in this case, i say it is preferable to attack Japan. Thinking about it the chance for all this happening is far far less than 1%. Maybe without a bit less biased dice for the allies, it can still work, but the overall percent of games where it will work is less than 1% for sure. And it doesn’t matter what the Allies do if they don’t get extremely lucky. The US can eventually build a fleet which can compete with Japan, but if he moves out of SZ 55 before turn 4 or so, then it will get really badly destroyed, while Japan happily hops on the Soviet Union. Of course, because of this, Germany will have africa, even worse etc. If the US waits for turn 5, then his fleet can stand against Japan’s but Japan will just sail away, and don’t care about losing ehmm… about 12 IPCs of islands? Which he will lose on turn 7 the earliest, by the time everything is under Japanese control to Novosibirsk. So, Japan just won’t care about that.

So, if the Japan player has some clue about the game, this strategy (US taking a 4 IPC island for a turn or two around turn 5 then gets his fleet obliterated OR US builds up and moves out but the war is over) won’t work unless the dice are extreme.

In the Pearl situation you described there’s just over a 50% chance that Japan loses 2 or more units.  If you lose the destroyer to save the bomber, US can counter with just over 60% odds to win.  In this battle even mutual destruction would mean that the US will have more naval power in the Pacific than Japan after a US1 Pacific build.  It does not seem to me to require incredible luck in all areas of the Pacific.  And yes, all that other havoc in sz 59 and Borneo/New Guinea can help.  I’d guess a fair amount of KJF goes with combining the UK Pac. fleet off Australia, though, right?

In that same Pearl fight 20% of the time you’ll lose 3 or more units, making that fleet indefensible vs. counter-attack regardless of what casualties you choose.

And just to note, I am not a big KJF user.  In fact, I would say I am pretty poor at KJF, probably mostly due to the fact that I have had very little practice at it.  I will say that the last somewhat serious game I played, Japan ignored the Pearl fleet, hoping to get a jump on the assault into Russia.  He did not believe I would go KJF, and when I did it caught him a bit off guard, and he did not know how to respond having almost never defended vs. a KJF.  It worked quite effectively (with Russia and UK handling Germany well enough on their own), and by the end Japan was forced into an attack on my fleet with pretty low odds.  He actually won with incredible dice, but the damage had already been done, and Japan was forced off Asia with Germany fairly contained, so my opponent conceded soon after.

This is why I am a strong supporter of landing the British fighter in Pearl on UK 1 and why I am almost adamant that Japan must send every possible unit to hit SZ 52 that can reach to avoid being left with Battleship, Carrier, 2 Fighters.

That said, let me get back to the 6 submarines vs 4 destroyers.

Technically speaking, yes, if the battle was SOLELY between 6 submarines and 4 destroyers and some idiot decided to go until the death, then the majority of the time the submarines would win.  However, this will never, EVER, happen.  There will almost always be fighters involved as well as carriers, transports and battleships!

How many wars have been won with 6 submarines + 1 transport?  How many wars can be won with just 1 destroyer and 1 transport?  Why?  The destroyer can bombard and that can give you land and it is land that allows you to win the game.  Submarines are great.  I recommend all navies have them because they make wonderful sacrificial units and are one of the better bangs for the buck (Carrier + 2 Fighters is better than 4 submarines and approximately the same cost) but they are worthless without surface ships.

Scenario:

You have 6 Submarines

I have 4 Destroyers, but I also have 3 fighters and a bomber.

You get in range.  I sink 2 of your submarines before you can submerge (LL average.)  Now it is 4 submarines attacking 4 destroyers and those 4 destroyers will win most of the time.

Why will it work out like this for you?  Because you were not strategic enough to consider that your submarines are powerless against enemy air units and that you would have to be in range of enemy air units to also be in range of the enemy fleet.

How do you fix that?  Buy destroyers.  Or, if you are lavish enough, a battleship and or carrier/fighters to defend your submarines.  But now you have ruined the pure analogy you so wanted, the cherry-picked analogy.  In other words, the destroyers are the better option because they can defend themselves against submarines and enemy airpower.

And before I am taken out of context, I am not attempting to say you should only buy destroyers.  I am saying you need to buy some.  4 is plenty which would mean +2 USA and +3 Japan (assuming you did not lose your starting one.)  Submarines can take up the rest of the slack, but you need some and you need to be able to split them up between different fleets if it comes too it.

You are constantly contradicting yourself. Your original argument for destroyers was that they have a higher chance to hit, and so 4 destroyers beat 6 submarines, while these navies have exactly the same expected value to hit every round. Now you expect me that i make all my ships disappear with the US somehow, including the 2 destroyers and the battleship, which are not really killable before my move just to be able to go 100 % submarine? Sure, if i do that, i’m not strategic, but i don’t really know how it is possible. I have never said that you should go fight with pure submarine army, the US has 3 fighters at start, assuming that Japan killed two on J1, it would be a sin not to build carriers to utilize the air power that is already there. You said 4 destroyers>6 submarines, now you are saying that 4 destroyers + 3 fighters and a bomber. If i get in range, and you attack with just air, then i’m quite happy, as if you’d take just one of your destroyers to combat, you would wipe out pretty much all my subs, since i can’t submerge after the first round. But, coming back to the armies, 6 submarines = 48 IPCs, 4 destroyers + 3 fighters and a bomber = 93 IPCs. Please tell me a situation where 48 IPC of units can beat 93 IPCs anyhow, without putting bombers to defence. In your last post, you recommended 3-5 subs for every destroyer, now you’re saying that you need 4. That would mean 12-20 submarines, which would be 96-160 IPCs, it’d take 3 rounds to build if you buy nothing else basically, and you are the one who is saying that you shouldn’t only build submarines.

While I would agree with you, Bazse, that her example seems poor, I would not say she is contradicting herself.  All she said is…1) buying 1 destroyer for every 3-5 subs is a good idea, and 2) 4 destroyers is plenty.  ‘Plenty’ certainly doesn’t mean ‘necessary,’ in fact it would mean closer to ‘more than enough.’  So for US to buy 2 destroyers and say 10 subs, that’s 104 IPCs.  Easily doable in 4 rounds with extra money going to carriers and transports.  And if you’re going to say that by that time the game’s over because US didn’t do anything in 4 rounds, no one ever said US has to wait 4 rounds until they have 4 destroyers before they can set out from the US west coast.  And in the situation she drew (though again I think it seems rather poor), 4 destroyers would be “better” than 6 subs since they would kill more IPC-worth of attacking air than the subs would kill worth of defending destroyers on average.

That said, I can’t say I agree that destroyers would be a good buy, except very rarely.  Perhaps I am missing something, but the way I see it both Japan and US will have 1-2 battleships, probably 2 carriers, and at least 1 destroyer.  I don’t see where the need for more anti-air naval power is coming from.  Now I might be able to see a destroyer escorting some subs while they make their way to the main navy, but I don’t think that would really make a difference vs. any kind of decent air attack.

As for destroyers bombarding for territory, you’d need a tech and I really don’t like depending on the randomness of techs and don’t care to hope for a lucky roll to make the destroyers worthwhile.

I’m not sure if I agree that CJF fails 99%, but even with it fails 60% it’s still not as good as KGF. I think KJF fails well over 90%. I mentioned this before a few months back, my first true 1vs1 game victory in the lobby was a game where the opponent went for KJF, at least with US. He had 40% to take tokyo (my  bad, should stack it more solid) but he lost, and so he lost his fleet and surrendered soon afterwards.

I seen the KJF once, possible a few times, but I watched lot’s of games played by the best and played by players who are not at the highest level, conclusions have been made by AAR communites and different playgroups, either you need luck, or the axis players is unexeprienced if KJF is gonna succed.

In any game Japan shouldnt be left alone 100%, but Germany is far more dangerous and important until rnd 4-5. To stop Japan in persia by US forces, or Novo by help of UK is a much safer strategy.

I disagree. KJF works well. You just have to know what to do. And KGF is not a garanted victory, you have traditional ways of beating it with Axis and some wicked strat that very few try. Anyway, days of KGF are ended with Anniversary edition. There is no way USA can defend America against a 60+ ipcs Japan if allies try ignore Japan.

Ya kgf is done no more ignoring japan but even still usa v japan navy even turn 2-4 that measn japan loses asia most likely