Hello, I play pacific 1940 a lot. I have also played global a few times. Pacific 1940 second edition is a great game but I can almost easily win every time if I’m Japan and I attack on the third turn. A new rule was passed around late 2014 to allow the USA to receive a 30 IPC bonus if Japan attacks or declares war on them before turn 4. This seems to balance the game a little but I can still always win with Japan. The strategy for Japan is pretty much the same. Take the money islands, build a minor in French Indo China and Kwangtung and knock out China and India. Post in the Philippines with your huge navy and three fighters that can scramble and those six deadly kamikizes. Let Anzac and USA come to you so you can use the fighters to defend at 4 when the big navy battle happens. Eventually you will be making more than the allies with the money islands NO and the India NO. You should be around the 70-75 mark. Then when the time is right strike at Sydney or Hawaii and hold it and you should win as it will be six victory cities. For the allies, man this can be tuff lol. You better hope Japan attacks you on turn 1 or turn 4 because turn 2 and especially 3 it’s going to be difficult.
1: China: buy men and hit and run and fall back to the north west of China. You will be lucky if the Burma road is open more than two turns. Pull back and make Japan come to you.
2: UK: pull everyone back to India and just buy men!!! Try to bring your navy down to Australia and unite them with Anzac and hopefully later USA. If it looks like India is going to fall then pull your airforce out and send them to Australia to hopefully land on a Anzac or American carrier. If Japan hasn’t declared war early then take as many islands in the south as possible .
3: Anzac: small ships and transports are good. if it looks like Japan is going to invade then pull your forces to south Australia because from there you can hit any territory. Use your small ships to convoy raid or unite with the main USA fleet. Queensland is a great staging area for the allied navy early in the game. Also since there’s a airbase there fighters don’t hurt also since they can scramble.
4:USA: the big boy lol. The problem is when USA is neutral she only makes a freaking 17 ipcs a turn. While Japan is around the 40 mark and Japan has soooooooo many aircraft at its disposal. USA I say aircraft carrier early then mainly subs, destroyers, and a transport every turn with land units. A few rounds into the game get a navy base on the Johnson islands and start combining your fleet with the Anzac fleet and hopefully a small UK fleet. try to take the money islands by sacrificing transports because Japan will have a bigger navy early in the game. When the time is right move to Dutch New Guinea with your fleet and prepare for the big battle. Sometimes it’s better if Japan attacks you and sometimes it’s better if you attsck them. Hopefully you will have a lot of subs at your disposal. If you win the navy battle then Japan is pretty much toast even if they have India and China. Good luck and let me know how the war goes lol. I am playing anniversary edition on Saturday 😜
Played Our First Game Tonight
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While I’ve only played the game once I’ve noticed several flaws:
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Why doesn’t the US declare war it’s first turn to get it’s massive bonus income? This seems to be the most logical thing for them since Japan will probably initiate its attack on it’s second turn anyway. Might as well allow America to get another extra 40 IPCs.
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This is an admittedly petty and minuscule complaint but the Japanese tactical bombers are incredibly difficult to set on the aircraft carriers correctly because of their little landing gear on the bottom of the piece. Maybe I have OCD but I have to have the planes sitting on the carriers correctly before I can do anything else. I spent a lot of time doing this.
The reason the US can’t declare war until fired upon to reflect the isolationist mindset of pre WW2 US. We didn’t want to be involved in another war after WW1 (heck, we didn’t even join the league of nations), so we let the rest of the world sort itself out. Until Japan poked us. If Japan hadn’t attacked Pearl it’s possible even if Japan had hassled the UK in the east Indies we still may not have gone to war. Doubtful, but possible.
The Vals have landing gear? Oh maaaan, now I may actually need to get the game. Just after my friend who actually enjoys A&A moved and I no longer have a truely interested party to play against. sigh.
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The reason the US can’t declare war until fired upon to reflect the isolationist mindset of pre WW2 US. We didn’t want to be involved in another war after WW1 (heck, we didn’t even join the league of nations), so we let the rest of the world sort itself out. Until Japan poked us. If Japan hadn’t attacked Pearl it’s possible even if Japan had hassled the UK in the east Indies we still may not have gone to war. Doubtful, but possible.
Ok I reread the rules and it appears they can’t declare war until attacked or by the end of the 3rd turn. The rules are written a little confusingly so I thought the US could declare war at any time.
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Way to take one for the team and play one by yourself plum. +1 to you.
I agree with a few of the smaller things you mentionned. Tac-Bombers forsure (maybe I will paint soe of my extra fighters). They could have easily left the income chart right out if they weren’t going to do a good job on it. Used the extra material to divide the boxes or something.
Oh well, if the gameplay is good (and it seems like it is) then the game will be more than worth the $111 Canadian I shelled out.
I didnt buy it for the plastic pieces anyway…
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You are totally right Plum, the game is not worth the money they charged. The map IS amazing, the gameplay IS really fun. But you nailed it with the boxes, paper money, IPC chart, cardboard pieces, lack of tac bombers. I mean, I paid basically the same money for this game as I paid for my copy of AA50 and this AA40 Pacific is missing lots of the quality that AA50 had.
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I do like the map, but the 2 separate pieces thing annoys me as does the huge crease in the lower half. Also, the territories and convoy zone markers are too small. Much better than the aa42 map though, much much better. Any chance someone is going to make a killer PDF of this map, eh eh?
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You are totally right Plum, the game is not worth the money they charged. The map IS amazing, the gameplay IS really fun. But you nailed it with the boxes, paper money, IPC chart, cardboard pieces, lack of tac bombers. I mean, I paid basically the same money for this game as I paid for my copy of AA50 and this AA40 Pacific is missing lots of the quality that AA50 had.
Exactly! I was totally content with how they presented AA50. Everything was high quality and all aspects of the game and its components were top notch. Totally worth the money I spent on it.
While this game certainly has some high quality aspects about it, (especially the game play, which is all that really counts in the end) there are so many small blunders it’s really frustrating. The income chart is what gets me the most. It seems like the day before they shipped the game out somebody realized “Oh crap! We forgot income charts!” and then threw together the first thing they thought of and tossed it in the box. I’m surprised they weren’t scribbled on a piece of notebook paper.
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