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When are you willing to risk rolling the dice as the US to declare war? It's M/A 41 and the US has a 50% of declaring on an unprepared Japan. Is that worth it? If it isn't what is?

It depends a little bit on what options you've taken and how the situation is on the map. Are things desperate for the Allies that the US needs to be in the war now, or can they affort to wait a little bit longer. And there are the contents of the chits boxes to be considered too...

If they can wait, do so, since a failed US DoW can mean that the US needs half a year to try again, if high chits are removed. Personally, I believe a healthy 70% is needed, before the first attempt.

One should see the map, really. If you can reinforce some key islands by the DoW and Japan have them denied - maybe bogged with land units in China, etc - I'd give it a go.

Without more details, it is impossible to answer your question accurately. There are situations where it is obviously correct for the US to try the DOW. There are others were it is obviously wrong. In an average game, I would tend not to do so, but part of my reasoning is based on my firm belief that critical 50% chances work about 25% of the time. [:)]

If the Allies are losing, you might have to take a chance. If the Allies are winning, don't make the DOW; why risk losing a good game?

ORIGINAL: alex_van_d

When are you willing to risk rolling the dice as the US to declare war? It's M/A 41 and the US has a 50% of declaring on an unprepared Japan. Is that worth it? If it isn't what is?

I would, most likely, make the declaration of war with USA. 50% chance that early is a opportunity that begs to be taken. Even if it do not succeed I bet it will rattle the Japanese player.

but part of my reasoning is based on my firm belief that critical 50% chances work about 25% of the time.

My attempts to DOW when I have 70% chance fail nine times out of ten. So I rather have your one success out of four attempts. [:D]

If the Japanese come out adjacent to Pearl and I have even a 30% chance to successfully DoW them, I probably would try it. DoWs are all about surprise!

But as noted above it is a highly situational decision. You need to look at your entry chits and at the "It's War" chart and the potential impact of losing an entry and a tension chit if you fail. In this situation, having a lot of low value chits in either pool is much better than having only a few high value chits. There are some places on the "It's War" chart where losing the "right" chits on a failure (which are randomly chosen of course, so an obvious luck factor applies) mean your next attempt will be at the same or even better odds. These places are generally up at the higher entry levels, though.

I've never played a game where the US did the declaring of war, so I rolled the bones. And the US is in! Now I get to play a very different sort of game!