WA Strategies?

[Graymane]

I'm still figuring out the game and have played a few as WA (so-so results). Too darn many choices What are some successful strategies for WA? How much research/supplies/force ratios? Mostly, I do the following:

Turns before USA is in the war: Far east builds air + infantry with a few arty and AA. Canada pretty much always supplies and transports. UK builds supplies, transports and an air force. USA queues 4 carriers, everything else to research (10 points or so per turn). I tend to research ASW, CAG upgrades, higher transport, heavy fleet evasion and attack and a lot of torp attacks. After those are upgraded a few times, I then research air. I definately like to research fighter range as well. The only offensive actions I do are strat bombing in france and taking control of the med. I also hunt and kill all the uboats I can find.

Once USA is in the war: In the Pacific, I pull any ships and transports still surviving back to ports. I wait till my 6 carriers are ready and send them to PH and then sort of march forward to the home islands. In Europe, I tend to take southern italy for the surrender and bomb the heck out of france until there are few troops and then I invade at which time the AI always sends its whole army to face me. I then have to basically wait for the USSR to beat Germany. Also, once the US is in the war, I dump a ton of points into research (10-30 per turn) as I tend to run low on man power quickly. I also run out of resources about a year in once the USA is in.

So far, I'm not good enough to finish in 1945. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but probably a lot

[kenoyer130]

For WA vs the Japanese I tend to go with super subs. I make about 6 before the fighting starts then send them in mass into the japanese waters. I also beef up the sub evasion and attack through research. The subs sink every transport they can find, paralyzing the Japanese supply structure and island hopping.

I also like to transport as many troops from australia to the near islands to hold off the Japanese. I usually end up losing some transports, but I think it is worth it to keep the Japanese back from Australia itself.

[Dalwin]

Even though I haven't played the WA yet, I would agree that subs are very important against the Japanese. THis was true historically and from what I have seen the AIs doing to each other while I play Germany it seems true here too.

The vast majority of the Japanese resources have to be shipped in by sea. Kill their transports and the economy almost completely shuts down.

[Graymane]

I played another game last night. I think it would have been a decisive victory if the game didn't CTD. I took Japan in '44 and Germany was down to 1 province in '45. From what I posted above and some ideas here I did things a little different. First, I did build more subs (too many though). I think 4-6 is really all that is required for the US. I also researched less early on and build a tad more troops and such earlier. By far, the biggest difference was that I was much more conscience of my supplies (advanced, auto, area). In my previous games, I was rather cavalier with moving my fleets around as many spaces as I wanted. In this game, I only moved fleets 1 sea area per turn except in a few cases. I also moved my invasion forces as far forward as possible. The savings on supplies was huge and was the difference in the game.

Some things that I think are a constant for whatever strategy is used for the WA are:

1. ASW on light fleets. I don't think it is really worth it on transports unless the enemy is building tons and tons of subs, maybe even not then. I'd rather spend more ASW on carrier planes or bombers probably.
2. Lots of transports used well. I've built lots of transports before, but never used them well. It is better to stage an invasion over a few turns than to try to scrounge around for the supplies and transports at the spur of the moment. Since transports seem to move for free in most cases, I leave them in port until I want to invade and stage my invasions as close as possible to the destination.
3. Lots of research in all air types. I upgrade range and evasion on everything and then land attack and air attack. CAG get the works usually because I use carriers a lot. I only do subs and fleets if required. I don't do land units at all until later in the game.

The strength of the WA seems to be heavy naval forces and air power, esp heavy bombers. The Axis troops will generally be better than yours so you need to wear them down by lots of air strikes and installation strikes. With upgraded range, you can hit many Axis territories right from England. So far, I like to do airport strikes until the fighters are gone, then I do ground attacks until the AA is gone, then I do installation strikes as much as possible. I try to control the med completely and take Italy out so I can move forces via Suez to the Pacific ASAP.

The naval advantage in the Pacific is very large. There really isn't much the Japanese can do as they can't win an attrition war and they don't have the points to keep up in research. I tend to group my navy into 3 fleets for the push towards Japan. One fleet starts in PH and the west coast and moves toward the home islands 1 sea lane at a time. A second fleet comes via the canal from the east coast. The 3rd fleet via the med into the India area. The second fleet usually merges with one of the two others. I also use the subs to attack transports and pretty much any small stacks I can find. Moving from island to island, I rebase the invasion forces there (air, arty, tanks and inf). The Japanese must respond to the PH fleet moving toward Japan or lose the home islands so you can fight an attrition war with them or watch them give up all their possessions in the Pacific.

For early builds, I generally go with air units in the UK along with supplies and transports. Canada is usually 100% supplies and transports. The Far east is air and inf and then transports later in the war. The USA does research and naval on the west coast and transports and planes on the east coast. I don't build much navy after the first few turns (4 carriers for the US and a few more subs and a few light fleets for the UK) as you have a bunch to start with and more in the build queues already.

EDIT: I also retreat any surviving transports/forces I can from the Pacific after Japan attacks. You can save about 10 transports if you are lucky. Leave them in ports until the fleets arrive and then you can run them back out again. This will cutoff Australia and the South Pacific, but that is ok.

[mavraamides]

ORIGINAL: Dalwin

Even though I haven't played the WA yet, I would agree that subs are very important against the Japanese. THis was true historically and from what I have seen the AIs doing to each other while I play Germany it seems true here too.

The vast majority of the Japanese resources have to be shipped in by sea. Kill their transports and the economy almost completely shuts down.

In my one game as WA, I finnished it off with a fleet of 11 subs that took out the entire Japanese transport infrastructure in 1 turn! Then I sent them against the rest of their fleet while I moved in my main invasion force for the kill.

Without the resources to rebuild their ships, they were helpless. Since I caught them by surprise, they were also unable to move their ground units back to the home island for defense. When my invasion force arrived, they had only 8 ground units to defend the entire island

[Uncle_Joe]

Yes, I've found one of the key researches for Japan is ASW for their Light Fleets. Without that, the WAllied Subs completely erase their Transports in short order and its 'Goodnight, Gracie'!

[kenoyer130]

I think with the new patch the Japanese AI researches transport evasion. At least my sub attacks aren't as crippling as they were pre patch.

[Graymane]

I just downloaded the patch a few minutes ago, will be interesting to see what has really changed.