How to diversify USA strategies in WWII maps?

[Schulz]

USA has to divert its resources into only one front in all maps and the front is obviously Atlantic (or Pacific only If Europe if further away). Splitting resources into two front isn't efficient in any map.

Why USA has to conduct only one front and should be more predictable/boring when other nations fight in more than one front?

Is it ineviable feature?

[RogerCooper]

@Schulz It may be obviously the Atlantic, but try the Pacific sometimes. If no one fights the Japanese, they can get a tremendous income and then overrun Russia from the east.

The Global 1940 game has the possibility of the Axis winning on either side of the map, to the Americans can't ignore either front.

A less subtle solution is to have separate American incomes for each front like UK-Pacific in the Global game.

The most realistic solution would be to constrain the growth in the US ability to transport forces across oceans and give the US naval parity in the Pacific. Then the Americans would fight the Japanese at sea in the Pacific while building up for a European campaign.

[CrazyG]

In World at War and TWW, the USA usually splits its forces.

The reason it doesn't in most maps is that most of the pacific islands are worth 0 income. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the US won't spend 100's on ships to take territories worth nothing.

[Schulz]

@RogerCooper said in How to diversify USA strategies in WWII maps?:

It may be obviously the Atlantic, but try the Pacific sometimes. If no one fights the Japanese, they can get a tremendous income and then overrun Russia from the east.
The Global 1940 game has the possibility of the Axis winning on either side of the map, to the Americans can't ignore either front.
A less subtle solution is to have separate American incomes for each front like UK-Pacific in the Global game.
The most realistic solution would be to constrain the growth in the US ability to transport forces across oceans and give the US naval parity in the Pacific. Then the Americans would fight the Japanese at sea in the Pacific while building up for a European campaign.

I mean the US player should be free whatever he/she want, they would be able to full force go to Atlantic or Pacific BUT these should not be optimum strategies. USA should be forced to split its resources between Atlantic and Pacific if they want to win games.

Separating American incomes for each front like UK-Pacific is great idea but it still wouldn't totally prevent the US conducting only one front unless we remove connections between east and west US.

[Cernel]

Moving to Mapmaking, as I understand this is more of a query about how to make or modify maps, so to induce people to pursue some (supposedly uncommon) strategies.

[Lord Bevan]

A few factors:
1)Russia factor
Russia has lots of factories in Europe so it make sense for Russia to focus on Europe where the battle requires large stacks.

One map has Russia being neutral to Japan, so that it can focus on Europe. That means USA should go after Japan alone.

2)American factor
If Hawaii and Alaska are 3PU, then it is worth it to build factory there. Hawaii halves the distance to major battlefields. Alaska troops can reach Russia far east better than Russians can. Unless you are talking about trains so that Russia can fight on 2 fronts.

3)U boat factor
Regardless of which version rules you use, if you do not cross the Atlantic you do not need a large navy. Either bomb the u boats from the air or just ignore them.

The only time u boats are scary is in one map they can sail over Canada through the Arctic. Its a WW1 map where the German has a navy squad in the Pacific.

[Hepps]

Seems like it would be kind of important to define what specific map you are examining.

[Schulz]

For all WWII maps.

[Hepps]

@Schulz Well different maps suffer from this to greater and lesser degrees.

[CrazyG]

This is an interesting topic.

I think the answer is to make Japan and Asia more valuable, in particular relative to Europe and Africa. Looking at a map such as WW2 Revised, where the USA tends to go very heavily in Europe. Why doesn't the USA go Pacific? You mean why doesn't the USA target Norway (worth 3), Algeria and Libya (worth 1 each), and then Western and Southern Europe (6 each) instead of 3 islands worth 0 each?

So I don't think the answer is to force Russian-Japanese neutrality. If Japan cannot affect the land war of Eastern Europe, it just makes going Pacific an even worse strategy for the USA.

[Cernel]

@Schulz Rather simple a solution is to make going Pacific for USA the preferred choice (example: World At War), but limiting the placement abilities for USA in Pacific (that would be also realistic, as the Pacific US America was less than 10% the total of USA, at the time), so that USA is obliged to place half or more of its TUV on the Atlantic part of it, for the simple fact that it cannot do otherwise (this can also be enforced by limiting placement of battleships and carriers in the East coast only, as those are usually the placement saving choices). At this point, it is just needed to assure that going Pacific is not so over convenient as to be wanting to send what you place in Atlantic there too, and, so, you will have Americans going both oceans (here you go) (you can even remove the Panama canal, if you don't care about realism).

With this said, while the above is fairly simple to obtain, as long as Japanese is less than half the production of Americans (again, realistic) (and Americans can place less than half their production in Pacific, due to placement limits, as said), the real challenge would be to do so in a realistic way, as all the pacific Islands east of Japan-Philippines-Borneo-Java should be indeed all worth 0 (yes, the Hawaii Islands too), if the total production in the game is 500 or less; as well as Japan shouldn't really have the option to impact on Russians, for diplomatic and geopolitical reasons. A fairly realistic possibility may be to make India and Australia quite valuable, and seriously defensible only with Americans pressure on Japanese.

[Schulz]

USA would still exceed its placement limit in the western coast by spawning fighters in the eastern coast than they can send them to the Pacfic front.

Japan would have never won against the USA but they could have forced USA to negotiation table by achieving decisive victories in Peal Harbour, Midway and Guadalcanal. I doubt USA would continue its campaign in the Pacific.

[Cernel]

@Schulz As long as placement limits for Pacific are very strict (and, as I said, you could set that carriers can be placed only in Atlantic, or you can make air cheaper and carrier able to land only 1), even if you could spend most or all your TUV by buying carriers in the west coast and air units in the east coast, the composition to achieve such a result may become inefficient enough that you will have convenience in producing both for the Atlantic and the Pacific, as long as Japanese are weak enough and the condition in Pacific are interesting enough to go there.

[Cernel]

Another simpler solution is to make Japanese so weak that you simply have no use to go on them with all Americans, while making convenient to go for Pacific. For example, if Americans have 4+ times the production of Japanese, you would for sure do something in Atlantic, as there would be no point using all your production against the Japanese, you can easily beat with a fraction of it. This would be also realistic, but, of course, would make for a serious balancing challenge in Europe.

[Schulz]

Better to remove connecions between western and eastern USA and also western-eastern canada otherwise USA fighters from eastern couas can already participate Pacific battles. Also I don't like preventing USA to build carrier in the western coast. But also dividing USA like 2 separate country is bad.

I don't knowis this kind of mechanism exist in the game assuming USA has total 50 Production power and nominally able to spend 25 Pus to the west and 25 Pus to the east but if USa player wants to invest more to one of the these threatz; USA player will get penalty per unit.

Example; If we had implemented %50 penalty and USA player wanted to go only Atlantic in this case USA real production power would decrease from 50 to 37.5 (25+12.5).

If USa had alread spent 25 Pus for the west and wanted to place additional battleship for example. This battleship cost would be 30 instead of 20.

[Cernel]

@Schulz As I said, you can really do that with strict placement limits in pacific (like making Pacific US America worth 2 or 3), and limiting carriers to land 1 air unit of value not greater than the value of the carrier itself (again, realistic, as actually what you transport in a carrier should cost less than 1/10 the cost of the carrier itself). The inefficiency of trying to have more TUV in pacific would be given by the time required to move from the east coast through the panama canal and the inefficiency of building to max out TUV placement under constraints (like spamming battleships only or carriers plus fighters produced in the east coast), also counting placing less transports than what you would like.
Then, as long as going Pacific is a little (not too much) more convenient than going Atlantic (example: World At War), and the Japanese are half or less the production of Americans, the Americans will go both Pacific and Atlantic, if properly played.

[Schulz]

Limiting placements in Pacific will prevent USA to rush Japan but Won't prevent USA to go only Atlantic since Pacific islands are worthless realistically, USA would only spend land units for to defend the mainland, USA would never buy any single ship in the Pacific.

The main issue is not only worhless Pacific islands, also naval units are more expensive than land units. Without producion penalty or making pacific islands unrealistically valuable USA will always go for Atlantic. Invading France and trying to knock Germany out of war will always be more valuable than trying to save Australia.

I have convinced myself, production penalty would be only solution and the better one than making valuable pacific islands.

[Lord Bevan]

I forgot about the France factor specifically in WAW 1940.
France has second capital so fighting in France mainland, allies could not capture factories which will help them to produce the massive units required for Europe. Instead the Allies need to go through Spain but Spain was neutral in WW2 so it makes little sense.

[Cernel]

@Schulz Again, matters can be fine tuned in a number of ways, until the balance being in favour of going Pacific instead of Atlantic. For example, the transport's purchase cost makes less worthwhile to go atlantic the higher it is (also bomber cost should be increased coherently). So, if you make transports very costly, going Pacific will be preferred, as it would cost a lot to send land units to fight in Europe, while the Pacific is far less transports demanding. Even World At War has pacific as a clearly better option, despite the fact that transports are very cheap, and you even have more efficient bigger versions of them!

EDIT: Of course, World At War values Pacific play by assigning a lot of income to all those realistically mostly worthless Pacific islands. As I said, it is easy enough to achieve partial Pacific play by a combination of placement limits and income distribution, but it would become a huge challenge to do it realistically (and it might be that realistically going full Atlantic would have been actually the most convenient option).

[Schulz]

Is production penalty possible in te current engine? I still wouldn't favour of restricting USA in Pacific.

Going Pacific is better in WaW because USA is too far to Europe and Britain-Russia can already handle Germany-Italy without USA assist in Europe. Big World also the same story.