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There is a way to deal a harsh defeat to the United States Navy at Pearl Harbor ... the secret/spolier is to SURROUND Pearl Harbor (just the four "adjacent" Sea Territores N,S,E,W of the Pearl Harbor Sea Zone) before capturing it with troops. When you capture it with troops, the USNavy in the Harbor can't retreat and thus all become "Surrounded and Destoyed". I only received 1x Japanese Carrier plane to "damage" status, and 1x Japanese Inf "damaged". In return I DESTROYED four USN Battleships, three USN Destroyers, and almost thrity US Supply.

The other little "trick" is to damage or destroy the one US Artillary on Pearl by attacking it with two Japanese Carrier Planes and "bombarding" with your Japanese Capitol ships to make way for your four Japanese Infrantry units that you invade with using transports.

BTW, you can still take China beforehand too ...

In fact, it is Summer '42, and I have all of China captured and garrisioned (and mostly repaired too), and have taken a few Russian territories in the East too, as well as a few of the Southern Resource Areas.

All on Challanging Level too!!

Anyone who thinks Japan starts off too weak should reconsider ... in the hands of a mighty conqueror Japan is indeed the Land Of The Rising Sun - at least for now ... I'll let you know how the "sleeping giant" reacts to having their vacation paradise in the hands of the vacationing Japanese

On To Hollywood!

ICS

Hollywoooood!!

Sounds awesome! Let us know how it turns out, I will tell you, the US gets pretty tough to deal with after time goes on. Just keep pressure on them and keep attacking, don't give them breathing room and time to build up. What campaign were you playing and did you attack Pearl Harbor in 41' or 42'? What were your researches if any? I would like to try out that strategy.

This sounds promising and I'd like to see what you are having to give up in order to accomplish it.

With that type of transport commitment to Pearl, what do have available to take the resource-rich South Pacific? Do you delay taking them for a turn or two?

What is your research level at that point in order to pull that off?

When I've attacked Pearl the 'normal' way, I usually damage/destroy 4 ships (mix of BBs and CAs). You are killing off a few more and a pile of Supply. If you can do that without sacrificing Research or the South Pacific, it might be a great move. If you are delaying taking Indonesia et al, then I'm not sure I'd want to trade that for a few more US ships.

I too am curious how the rest of the war goes!

Thanx for posting!

The same could be said for any port really, it's not just a yank thing. They call it a naval blockage.

Uncle Joe,
I just spent the last 4 hours doing this, it works!!!!!! It slows down the US 1-4 turns,why? Because they concentrate the first 1-2 turns taking back Pearl harbor.Meanwhile you are retreating your boats back 1 step at a time.

On my version of how I played it out, I kept moving my ships 1 at a time(before Pearl Harbor) so I could wipe out every US destroyer and a few transports, I was in control of the Pacific. For a limited time at least, Too many supply mistakes as Germany killed me ;( Although I don't know what I did wrong. I had some 200 supply but it said my units couldn't move,out of supply?????? Weird. But I will try this strategy again and crush with Germany this time.

However, to Icecream Soldier,
I would like to hear how you took China and Pearl harbor out by 1942. I didn't touch China(except the coast) And I was still only eeking out enough resources to pull it off(before you take a few islands)<a successful Pearl Harbor> but I did mine in late 1942 right before 1943. And mine was on Normal mode.

How did you take out China without getting your planes shot down?

Hi All

Thanks for the replies - the War is still going pretty good for me. I will try and post a screenshot tomorrow of my exploits ...

I attacked and captured Pearl in the Summer of '42 - but I might be able to do it earlier next time ...

I had little Research at all - in fact the only thing I had researched at the time was my Inf attack value to 7 ...

I took out China using mostly ground-pounders (Inf) - I didn't need to use planes much in China and never lost a one - still haven't actually ...

The only S.Resource Area I took by Summer '42 was Northern Phillipines ... of course, I eventually took the rest in the next turn or two ...

Right now, Russia is about done for (I am knocking on Moscow's backdoor - even though Germany took Moscow a few turns ago), and I am holding-off the USA still ... its Summer '44 right now ...

You are right Randal - it really causes the USA to come at Japan much later ... in fact, it took them at least 6 to 7 turns to get back Pearl (I left three Inf and some supply to defend as I pulled my Navy back a space-at-a-time as mentioned ...

As far as Transports - I use one in each sea-zone leading to Pearl, and then four at Pearl for my four Inf ... I only had to build two extra Transports to have enough to do what I did ... and still had enough to hit the Philipines the turn I took Pearl ... by the time I took Pearl, China had been totally taken ...

You have to attack twice though - once to take-out the one USA Artillary unit using two Carrier planes and some Bombardments - and then a second attack with the four Inf units ...

Thanks again for all the posts and kind words - I'll try and post again tomorrow with next update.

ICS

P.S. It looks like Hollywood will have to wait for another game

nice strat! it seems like gaming the game a bit though. never-the-less I think I'm going to try it myself! thanks

I did this right after the new patch and yes it works great. I'd say though the AI seems to get a bit wacked as after the WA spent 3-4 turns getting back Pearl and killing a few ships here and there, they never bothered me until late 44. By that time I had researched my carrier planes up to range 4, and other such nasties for em and had about 10 carrier planes sitting on the production que waiting to be put on map. As a result even though germany was completly run over I held the philp,borneo, and sumatra areas right to the end. I was even able to scratch about 5 WA carriers on the last turn for only 3 planes

Yes, the AI seems befuddled by completely a-historical strats. The same happens against a Germany that takes Spain/Gibraltar/England. The AI seem to 'forget' that the Italian navy is now unbottled and will leave huge numbers of unescorted transports to be slaughtered.

If you play reasonably historically, the AI can do OK, but the unexpected throws it off. I'm guessing that they will be tweaking the AI in these circumstances as the game goes forward.