Japan Basic Strategies, Concepts and Ideas

@atarihuana:

thats a very risky attack. (87% attacker looses all its unis) normally there would be
2CV 3ftr vs 3 ftr 1 bomb.

I know.
But if 3ftr 1bomb vs. 2CV 3ftr is 43% chance to lose one and 29% chance to lose two CV, if I interpret frood.net correctly. Economical benefit, as the US have more IPC than Japan and can replace that lost units easier.

Nevertheless - I have an unpleasant feeling to give my opponent the chance to attack a CV which have no naval support.

also the US will loose the carrier too next round…

Not necessarily. If US lose two ftr, the CV could move to sz 56 (pick up two new ftr there and meet with new naval units) or to the east coast via sz 20.

My Japan 41 first round is nearly identical to Jenifer’s except I take three of the fighters and the destroyer against the battleship and only one against the transport and destroyer in 56. I have been burned by the battleship before, and would rather keep my fighters around.  It is an extremely potent first move for Japan, allowing for a turn two take of Australia or Hawaii Depending on the Allies.  If Brits build IC in India it is yours on round three.

Leaving the allies the flying tigers would be a huge mistake in my opinion.

So far we have found no way for the allies to survive in the pacific after this (short of very bad rolls for j1).  Next week we experiment with the South Africa IC, But with a turn two East Indies IC build for Japan I am skeptical of it’s chances by round 4. It may put england in the position of hoping for improved factories (not the right chart for the Brits i think).

If anything this may be the greatest weakness of the move as it invites a kill Italy first response from the Allies, which sometimes works.

MY first build for Japan is either a Bomber and Scientist, or a Cruiser and Scientist.

Lately I have been withholding the Cruiser from the sea zone 50 battle and moving it in non-combat to sea zone 51. At the end of J1 I have 43 IPCs, at the end of J2 I normally have 55 IPCs so I could care less about losing a carrier or some fighters to the Americans. I have way more ships than them and after round 2 I am making substantially more money. 1 of the carriers would also be my first loss in combat, my fighters can land in the Carolines after combat and I have another carrier and can easily purchase more if I should desire them.

Also I have had the US do the attack on sea zone 51 without having the Cruiser present. It hurt the US way more than it hurt me. They lost units that they had to replace and I lost units that I did not HAVE to replace.

It seems that there are a lot of different thoughts out there, on how to play Japan…
For myself, Japan has always proven to be the most difficult country to play, even since 2nd Ed.

It’s not that Japan has difficulty to expand (Germany is far more threatened than Japan), it is just that I can’t seem to play an optimized game with Japan, as easily as I can with Germany or Italy.

Anyhow, what to do with a Japan, in the case that US goes 100% KGF?

Go all out on Russia - or try to disturb US through landings in Alaska?
How heavy should you land in ALA in that case?

I’m thinking that it might be better to go all out on Russia. But then again, I’m not exactly an expert Japan player…

I’ve been thinking on this and I think there are a few important things japan can/should do.

1. reinforce Italian Med fleet.  This is very important.

2. take IPCs from the allies.  This means taking away there NOs, take islands, take alaska, take africa, bomb the crap outta russia.

I dont think japan should try for an all out push so to speak anywhere, just keep eating up allied IPCs and reinforcing in the med/africa.  If you take egypt/trans-jordan Italy gets 5 IPCs, if allies are landing in africa there not in Europe.  If you can hold Alaska you can bomb the US.

alaska is a dead road imho, waste of resources. focus on india/ med its the fastes way to russia. fastes way to help italy (with fleet/ planes) if USA goes kgf japan must reach europe ASAP. forget silly alaska 2 ipc… its no threat at all

some thougts:

• Leaving Manchuria  empty; too inviting and 5 or more russians are hard to kill on J2

• The fighter in Egypt is the most important piece in turn 1.

• An IC build in Indochina on J1? (will try this next time)

• Japan stratgy is influenced by the actions of Germany on turn 1: egypt or not.

• Ignore Siberia and go for the Caucasus via China
  OR
  Ignore China, let them flourish! Prepare to lose 2 victory cities.  (They can not attack outside China ( just an idea))

Greetings
El Stef

This is in response to Perry’s question.

A basic outline of my Japanese play is on page 5. Basic summary ICs in Manchuria and Kiangsu. I use these to produce 5 tanks a turn that are dedicated to Russia. Japan produces it’s 4 units. 5 ARM for the mainland and 4 INF 4 ARM for Japan is 57 IPCs which is achieved around round 3. I like to dump the Japan units in Fukien as they can go through China towards Russia or South towards India. Around this time say round 3-5 I should probably capture India and in most games will put an IC there as well. My priorities for production are India, Manchuria, Kiangsu, and finally Japan with whatever shortage there is being less infantry produced as they take too long to reach Russia to be effective and are poor at attack anyway.

With the US completely ignoring Japan I have no need to invest in ships. Once the above conditions are met I can consolidate my Navy around Japan and buy whatever transports I need to set up a 4 X 4 invasion of Alaska supported by 6 fighters and a cruiser and Battleship bombardment every turn. The only thing this pulls away from Russia is the 4 ARM from Japan and Generally by this point it is not that big an issue anyway. When this occurs Japan is Generally trading Novosibirsk, Kazakh, and Persia with the allies and making around 70 or so IPCs a turn. The US has NO choice but to stop sending units to Europe and fight Japan in Alaska. Yes they should defeat the Japanese every turn and liberate Alaska. However, with the above described attacking force they will not have enough in Alaska to keep Japan out. Depending on how things are going with Russia additional transports can be added to transport troops out of Manchuria giving the US and even bigger force to have to overcome every round.

After getting a few more AA50 games under my belt, I have come to the decision that the first turn IC must wait.  Japan REALLY needs to build 1 if not 2 destroyers on turn 1 to help nullify a US sub drop.

This makes my J1 build either 1 tr, 1 dd@15 save 2 or 2 dd@16 save 1.

I see no need for Japan to slow down its mainland production just because the US might buy some subs. So what if they do. It will take them a couple of turns to even be relevant to Japan. Japan will have more money on J2 to purchase destroyers if needed.

One other thing to keep in mind is you only need 6 trannies to drop 8 units a turn into alaska.  4 of them go back and forth from japan, but when they hit japan sea zone bridge to bury, then 2 trans bridge from there each round.  I am curious if there is a way to take hawawii, bury, and one other island off US on turn 1 so you can drop 8 units a round into alaska beginning turn 2 without completely loosing your econ advantage.

alaska route is just a waste of time.

@a44bigdog:

I see no need for Japan to slow down its mainland production just because the US might buy some subs. So what if they do. It will take them a couple of turns to even be relevant to Japan. Japan will have more money on J2 to purchase destroyers if needed.

If the US player tries to KGF (which has happened in every one of the last 4 AA50 games where I played as the Axis), then I usually try to eliminate the US’s second NO on J2 setting up to attack the US on J3 (just to make him nervous and not ignore the Pacific), which means that if the US built subs on US1, they can really put a hurt on Japan’s navy.  So, to offset the sub build, Japan really needs to build at least 1 dd on J1.

That is where we differ.

I do not waste my time with the US that early.

I would rather demolish UK’s money and build mine in the first two rounds to get Japan up and running in Asia on Asia. Once that is accomplish the islands can actually even be sacrificed if it comes down to it. Japan will still have enough off of its Asian continental holdings to do what it needs to do there and Japan itself can last an extremely long time. Jenn can attest to that fact.

@a44bigdog:

At the end of J1 I have 43 IPCs

Wow, that’s quite the head start bigdog. I’ve been running through the scenarios and by my count you have to get all of the NO’s and do a crazy territory grab to get 43 IPCs by round 1.

Suiyan - 3INF from Manuchuria
Hupeh - 2INF from Kiangsu, 1FTR from Manchuria
Fukien - 1INF from Kiangsu, 1INF from French Indo-China, 1FTR from Japan
Kwangtung - 2INF from French Indo-China, 1FTR from Formosa
Borneo - 1TN (2INF) from sz61
East Indies - 1TN (1INF) from sz51
Philippine Islands - 1TN (1INF, 1ARM) from sz62, 1TN (1INF, 1ART) from sz61
sz50 - 1BB, 1CA from sz61
sz53 - 1 DD from sz51, 2FTR from sz57
Hawaiian Islands - 1TN (2INF) from sz51, 2FTR from sz57
sz35 - 2FTR from sz61

Now you’ve got 47 IPCs and all three NO’s but are spread pretty thin, also you’ve had to leave Funnan’s FTR alone. Unless there’s another way I’m not seeing.  :-P

Take out the following:

Philippines
Borneo
East Indies
Kwangtung

plus either 3 Chinese territories or Burma + 2 Chinease territories. That’ll get you to 42, then if the Soviets pull back from Burytia you can stick a guy from Manch in there for 43.

It’s definately do-able. I’ll let you figure out the logistics of it though. :D

Ah I see, you don’t have to take Hawaii and instead shift your resources west, then you can take Funnan and still get 42 IPCs. I guess it would also depend on how aggressive the Russian player was, if there was a huge stack of infantry on Buryatia you’d want to be poised for an attack/counter-attack.

@Cmdr:

Darth:

I believe a rather intelligent player wouldn’t get into that situation unless it was completely unavoidable.  Odds are if you have 6 submarines, your opponent will probably have 3 destroyers, 2 Cruisers, Aircraft Carrier, 2 Fighters and 2 IPC left over.  (Just taking the same cash money for a more realistically balanced navy.)

Notice how the submarines are pretty much useless attacking this fleet and how they can be easily crushed by the fleet if they have to go on the defense.

Thing is, guys, submarines are so easily pushed aside and negated they really serve no purpose anymore.  Perhaps if we gave them the ability to block naval movement back they’d have at least the function of cheap fodder to slow the enemy.

Huh??

3xDestroyer = 24 IPC, 2xCruiser = 24 IPC, 1xAC =14, 2xFighter =20 total = 82 IPC
6xSub = 36 IPC.

No suprise that the sub fleet is ineffective against a force twice as big….
Im not sure what your point was here.

now if it was 12 subs (72IPC) on the attack against the same fleet I would like those odds as the sub commander.

Back of a ciggy packet calculations indicate:

Round 1 - sub commander inflicts 4 ship only hits, defender inflicts 3-4 hits (lets say 4)
I am going to assume the defender loses 2xdestroyer 2xCruiser

Round 2 - sub gets 2.66 hits defender gets approx 2 hits
Both remaining defendign naval vessels are sunk, and the defending planes either spash into the sea or land on a friendly island.
attacker has lost 36 IPC defender 62…

A big stack of subs creates a 2 space bubble around itself that opposing navy better be careful of entering…

maybe I am missing your point.

I have 43 IPCs because I purchase a mainland IC on round 1. This leaves 2 IPCs. The IC goes in Kiangsu. This allows me to purchase up to 2 transports on J2 that are safe from US bombers in W. US that could land in Russia. I will move back north both of the Transports that took the Philippines and there is 1 already in SZ61 that took Kwangtung for the 2nd NO with Philippines, E. Indies and Borneo. On J2 if the Russians have not taken Manchuria I place an IC there if they have it will be J3. I shuck from Japan to Asia in SZ61 as again I can not worry about the unescorted transports for few turns until I am ready to some of my capitol ships back due to a US naval presence. With these 2 mainland ICs and Japan that is 9 yes 9 Armor as turn in Asia. the Infantry from Japan is just icing on the cake and I have recently been skipping it after the first few rounds for a ship are two to keep abreast/ahead of the US.

I think Jenn’s point was the US will have to buy 12 subs while Japan starts with a massive Navy. It is not like both powers start building fleets from scratch. Subs are nice but too many people are looking for them to be way more than they are. They do not block ships, they hit on a two or less, they cannot be taken as casualties from aircraft, and they are horrible on defense.

And honestly after the first few and I do mean few turns Japan is not running unescorted transports around the Pacific. They have already grabbed the cash and left.

@a44bigdog:

I think Jenn’s point was the US will have to buy 12 subs while Japan starts with a massive Navy. It is not like both powers start building fleets from scratch. Subs are nice but too many people are looking for them to be way more than they are. They do not block ships, they hit on a two or less, they cannot be taken as casualties from aircraft, and they are horrible on defense.

Okay fair enough - but I see some of the things you mention about subs as being virtues namely - they cannot be taken as casualties from aircraft - if you are dealing with an opponent who has local naval and air superiority this is a -good- thing.  Further you miss one further virtue - all hits made by a sub -must- be taken against a ship - again if you are dealing with an opponent with local naval and air superiority this is a virtue.

I still see the value in a big sub stack, interestingly I think its stronger defensively than offensively - its difficult to move the stack into attacking position (not impposible - see below) but there is a 2 space bubble around the subs that your opponent must be wary of crossing into.

To use it offensively you actually need to break the stack up so that it can collapse onto an enemy position - if your opponent only has a few destroyers they can only effectively attack one stack and then the other subs ‘collapse’ onto the enemy position.  Much trivkier to pull off.