ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
... My options:
1. KEEP GOING IN INDIA
2. INVADE West Australia: This would attract US Army troops no doubt, but taking Perth would really keep the USN out of the Indian Ocean.
3. INVADE NORTHEAST OZ: I evacuated Cooktown, but coming back with several divisions would change the tune
4. FIJI
5. MIDWAY
6. ALEUTIANS
7. RAID: PEARL HARBOR REDUX, Perhaps? If I am really lucky, the USN CVs are sitting there.
I would prefer a target that will bring out the US Fleet. That is most likely Midway, though that island isn't worth much in terms of points, or really anything other than an irritating base.
These are just a few preliminary comments. I'll come back with more detail after I've looked at the map and thought about the issues.
1. You may need to keep going in India, at least until you reach the trigger line, just to capture sufficient resource centers to feed your major Indian industrial centers. I need to check this, but the Indian industry north of the trigger line may be dependent on access to resource centers south of the trigger line. Some of the resource centers are located in dot base hexes.
2. Be very careful you do not trigger Australian reinforcements. I'm not certain which hexes trigger the reinforcements. IIRC it is one hex below Brisbane, but is it a straight horizontal line, in which case Perth would be a trigger. If it is safe to invade Western Australia and not trigger reinforcements, you should consider landing Esperance and driving north to capture Kalgoorlie. That would trap the Perth garrison.
3. A Japanese controlled north east Australia opens up the possibility of racking up strategic point VPs by bombing Australian industry. It also allows for destruction of Allied local supply generation and of Australian aircraft production.
4. Fiji only makes sense to me if the intention is to destroy the local garrison and once accomplished move the same conquering Japanese units to Tonga, rinse and repeat to Samoa, rinse and repeat to Cook Islands, ditto Marquesas etc. If this is not completely achievable, I would hesitate starting the process by invading Fiji. You don't need to capture Fiji if your intention is to invade New Zealand, but that operation is very questionable IMHO.
5. Only if the intention is to ultimately move on to Hawaii (see my post of some months back). Otherwise, such a late term invasion of Midway, in the face of a completely undamaged USN fleet, is merely creating a very vulnerable outpost. It would be only slightly less vulnerable if you also captured Johnston Island and then the Line Islands, but then only because the Allies would have a plethora of tragets to choose from.
6. Aleutians could be good, depending on how much you think your opponent has built them up. Small garrison, isolated, non mutually supportive bases, would be a tempting target if you can land two divisions at a time. If you go down this path of destroying small garrisons, don't overlook Nome which has probably not been reinforced as it is usually too far away from the frontline. You could capture and then abandon Nome.
7. I understand your reluctance to invade Hawaii but there is one scenario which makes the the cost of the invasion worthwhile. A Japanese Hawaii serving as the base of operations for an invasion of the West Coast. That is not such a fantastical idea as it might seem at first for the following reasons.
(a) the follow on landing on the West Coast would occur close to the majical 4:1 auto victory period that you would not need to capture too many cities before it kicks in
(b) as your time on the ground would be short, the American reinforcements could be largely dismissed
(c) the late invasion would benefit from the usual Allied praxis of buying out units and sending them elsewhere, leaving little to defend against a full Japanese invasion (or whatever you can scrape together after garrisoning India)
(d) not too many Allied players would bother building forts on the West Coast. Combine this with (c) and you mioght be surprised at how weak the Allied defences are
(e) with Hawaii as your base, think of all the fun you will have sinking all those Allied troop convoys rushing back to the West Coast with those out of position Allied LCUs
Alfred
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