Is There a KJF Strategy in AA41?

A “pure” kjf can mean US sending everything against the japs, a balanced strat can mean that the US have a few subs, or place newly built bmrs in WUS, even if the bmrs fly to London or Africa later. The trick is for the US to keep the second NO as long as possible, the Philippines NO can only possibly be taken back in a pure kjf.

If everything goes bad for Japan J1, this is dice luck, not strats. An Indian IC cannot hold if the Japanese player wants India.

In a pure kjf Germany and Italy will be too strong normally, assuming decent players and fair dice for both sides.

@Subotai:

I can say for sure that any KJF strat in 41 is inefficient. You need better dice, or better playing skills, and that is not a strat…. :roll:

Sure, but also KGF is innefficient. And by the way, also the balanced approach (the less bad strat). There is not a efficient strat in 1941 because that scenario is utterly broken

@Zhukov44:

The problem is….these openings might appear less as people get better at playing Japan in 41

That’s the problem, as players learn to play better Japan, chances of allied vitories go down to zero. I guess most of allied victories in league are due patetic dices or more probably, new players that doesn’t know how exploit Japan’s unique advantages (and also exploit west axis advantages)

More games I play or watch, more convinced I’m AA50 is broken. Problems are:

• China killed J1
• Most of UK and USA’s fleet killed round 1
• Japan starts with 5 trannies (ouch!)
• Axis gets economic advantage too easily (round 3-4)
• No way of holding India
• Even if China is ignored or survives with miracle dices J1, her broken rules made her powerless to do a real difference

Only chance of doing some with allies is very agressive USSR. That can be achieved with skill, only to see with despair how USSR’s allies collapse when USSR was going to get advantage over Germany. Usually Japan reaches to USSR’s rear just at time to save Germany from Soviets  :-P because China has been toasted round 1

I’m annoyed how Larry did a great effort to make China implayable but had no time to doing a non-agression treaty rule

1942. Here the situation is a bit better for allies. India can hold, more boats survive axis carnage of round 1 and China usually gets killed round 3-4 instead round 1 but …

• Germany has a IC at Karelia. There is no way of USSR holding it; they could be able of trading in some rares cases, but most times Germany will start to use the IC round 3 or 4. This is BIG advantage to axis plans
• Japan can choose how toast allies: a full attack on China or a full attack on US fleet. Any of them is easy to do and good. Again, UK usually loses all Indian fleet and has NO starting ANZAC fleet
• Germany and Italy have enough starting income and units do a naval strat and STILL holding USSR. The trick is ensure they hold enough for Japan overcome allied weakness in Pacific to win by economic superioriy, but sometimes axis has even a chance of winning Atlantic battle
• If Germany pursues a naval strat, USA has not enough income to support a 2 front war, and ignoring one of the enemies is even a worse strat because the “ignored” will lead the attack on American mainland (Brazil, Canada if west axis is ignored; Alaska, Canada if Japan is ignored)
• China’s broken rules make them again powerless to stop Japan, even if Japan spares China at first 2-3 rounds. The Flying Tigers are killed J1 again and no chance of rebuilding even

So, 1942, even if gives more chances to allies than 1941, gives advantage to axis. At least in 1942 allies can have some fun because most of them can be hold (but they have few chances of holding all of them) and axis has also some fun because they have to think a bit to win. But the fail continues being: axis starts with militar advantage and has a great chance of getting also economic advantage after a few turns, so the allies are who have to run and take risks before axis can exploit axis economic advantage. This is opposite to Classic and Revised dinamic where axis was the one that had to overcome allied economic advantage (but still the chances for axis were way higher (due their military starting advantage), many agree with a 40%, and that was the reason a fix solved the unbalance so easily that time)

Fixes for this:

• Playing without NOs: only works in 1942, but even then the stuff seems too much to Revised. Stick to Revised instead  :-P There is a chance that even that is not enough, China is still a sparring
• 1941 with NOs: no easy solution; rework all the Pacific setup and chinese rules
• 1942:
    * Make China playable (first to do is delete irreal invisible ACME walls)
    * Delete German IC at Karelia (seems soviet but in fact is german) or move the IC to Novo or Ark to make it soviet instead german
    * Boost a bit US fleets at z10 and z56 to ensure USA has something to use at start OR boost z2 UK’s fleet
    * Maybe a UK IC at India or SAF
    * Give ANZAC some fleet
    * It’s possible that some short of allied bid could work if it doesn’t mean a back of ignore Japan fanmania

Probably a playable China and deleting german IC at Karelia will be enough

There is no need for more than a $9 bid to allies in AA50-41 +NOs, one unit pr. TT.

Without NOs, 41 is favored to allies. I didn’t play enough -NO games to determine how high bid the axis would need then, but probably less than in Revised. Same goes for the 42 scenario.

And you will lose to a good allied player in a AA50-41 +NO, regular dice and no bids setting if you don’t do the right first rnd moves, or if you have very bad dice, which ofc happens less than 50% of all games.

@Subotai:

There is no need for more than a $9 bid to allies in AA50-41 +NOs, one unit pr. TT.

That is not enough to save China (even if you deploy all the inf to Yunnan) and not enough to save both of Egypt and z2. If dd to z2, you saved Egypt but z2 still taken; if (say) infs to egy, kar, ind, you saved Egypt but still z2 is taken. If full bid to Egypt, maybe you saved all Africa; in latter case, it’s possible that the game is almost balanced if germans don’t take TRJ, UK sends trj infs to Egypt and buy a IC at Egypt UK1. It could be valid for balance purposes, but I fear a terrible side effect: KGF fanmania strikes back (so in that case cure is worst than illness)

So, with one unit/TT, I’d say not. In case of full bid, I’d say I prefer playing Revised if we are going to revert to 100% of KGF games

@Subotai:

Without NOs, 41 is favored to allies. I didn’t play enough -NO games to determine how high bid the axis would need then, but probably less than in Revised. Same goes for the 42 scenario.

Disagree, 41 still favors axis and 42 is almost balanced in case of no NOs. That said, playing without NOs is not the solution I want

@Subotai:

And you will lose to a good allied player in a AA50-41 +NO, regular dice and no bids setting if you don’t do the right first rnd moves, or if you have very bad dice, which ofc happens less than 50% of all games.

Agreed, but I don’t want trust that happening in all games, specially in tourneys. Hoping your rival does bad movement or gets horrible dice is not a strategy, as someone said  :roll: Anyway, I still want play a game of AA41 with axis and feel I won by better strats and not due a broken setup. In vanilla 41, playing axis is very boring because all you have to do to win is doing decent moves and not having massive hordes of bad dices (latter can be avoided not doing risky attacks without need)

Just to be clear: I’d define Revised as unbalanced (only for 1 to 1 PBEM, multiplayer is OK) but still playable in vanilla, while AA41 is a broken scenario

@Funcioneta:

@Subotai:

Without NOs, 41 is favored to allies. I didn’t play enough -NO games to determine how high bid the axis would need then, but probably less than in Revised. Same goes for the 42 scenario.

Disagree, 41 still favors axis and 42 is almost balanced in case of no NOs.

Now you’re saying that you don’t know how to play the game, you’re a n00b…… :roll:

Both scenarios are favored to axis with NOs, and both scenarios are favored to allies w/o NOs.

Not sure what game you guys playing, I lost way more games as axis than with allies.

I always felt allies were stronger in both scenario. You just have to know how to play Russia agressively.

When I see players build stacks of russian infantry without any offensive pieces, I get very sad. :cry:

As for the topic, while I don’t think any kill x faction strategies are viable ( except perhaps killing Italy ), I certainly think it’s very possible to stall Japan so it does not have impact on Russia.

I always felt allies were stronger in both scenario. You just have to know how to play Russia agressively.

Definitely not. Allies are at a huge disadvantage in 41. Although Axis is at a huge disadvantage in 42. Its unfortunate that neither scenario is balanced.