The australian navy and Russians in china

I think this is a perfectly reasonable strategy – but keep in mind that you are forfeiting two victory cities as the Axis. The Chinese can attack and occupy Kwangtung, so you’re losing out on both Shanghai and Hong Kong. This makes it very hard for the Axis to get a majority of the victory cities. Even if you completely crush Russia, that only gets you to 9 VC:

Tokyo, Manila, Moscow, Stalingrad, Leningrad, Warsaw, Berlin, Rome, Paris.

So then you also have to pick up India (challenging without any factories in China), or Australia (hard to hold if you’re mostly going after Russia), or Honolulu (ditto).

The Japanese share of Russian income is just not that large – dripping wet, you’ve got Buryatia, SFE, Stanovoj, Yakut, Evenki, Urals, Novosibirsk, Kazakh, and Stalingrad (15 IPCs total).

Meanwhile, the Japanese income for all of China is Manchuria, Kiangsu, Suiyuan, Ningxia, Chinghai, Sikang, Hupeh, Fukien, Yunnan, Kwangtung, and the NO (18 IPCs total).

So, yeah, given that Russia is a more important target than China, you can see where it would be worth a few bucks to go after Russia instead of China, but there are no VCs in Siberia, so that’s the trade-off. If you actually crush Moscow early, then, great, the gambit worked. If not, then you might gain some very minor economic benefits, but you’re likely to stall out and lose on points in the endgame.

@supremem:

take the aussie fleet load it up and go to india……you will be there by b2…help protect the indian ic…it has always worked for me…but as i have only played 1 person in 20+ years i know his thinking…

Don’t you think it’s about time to jump on the bandwagon of PBF (Play by Forum) here on this website?

I also like that Italians help to support the Germans againts the Russians that way.
But I suspect that Russia would survive longer if counterattacking with tanks
instead of building up infantries.

Reason I like buying subs for my japan is cheep fodder.  Usually if US goes pacific i’m stalling to hold on to my money islands just long enough to crush russia, not to actually fight the US.  Because of that, cost is everything to me.

If I wanted an actual show down i’ll focus on fighters (as my 3 carriers can typically allow 12 to attack if based properly) and bombers with a sprinkling of DDs.

@Funcioneta:

You could do the same as Japan. They will have more income than USA pretty early

agreed, BUT as Japan I feel I need a navy much more to control my many islands when comparing to the USA.

In any case, going for HB and LRA seem to be the best options so far. I hope to be able to come up with other alternatives in my coming games however as the game otherwise seems too dull with an overpowered US airforce

@wodan46:

G1: Build 10 Infantry
G2: Build 10 Tanks
G3: Build 10 Tanks
G4: Whistle
G5: Take Moscow with G1+G2+G3 builds.

haha, whistle
good one
once tried your plan, but instead of whistling, i drunk some water
if i did some whistling instead of drinkning, i would of taken moscow
ah well

There’s an easy solution, move the RAF fighters onto Karelia.  Problem solved.

It’s one turn of 5 less production for Russia… well, 3 really, since losing Karelia is 2.  It’s not a big deal.  That 5 bonus is for when Russia’s strong enough, which they aren’t at the beginning as everyone has shown.

Remember Germany also gets 7 (2 for the territory and 5 bonus) production from Karelia, and can start producing armies there.  That’s a huge negative, because without that factory the German line gets stretched out and weak on infantry.  The negatives from losing it are steep, very steep.