AE Map, Base, Economic Issues [OUTDATED]

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Flying Tiger

On a slightly different topic.....

are you planning on revising some of the max values of bases? Many of the islands in the Solomons chain in particular were potentially useable airfields, but were never developed. In WitP they are almost all listed as 0:0 bases. This is a little harsh - especially considering some tiny atolls are given higher ratings. Many of these bases should have an airfield rating of 1 or more, and some also have good natural harbours which could have been developed if needed. I noticed that many of the bases in the Aleutians were changed in CHS, but the south Pacific area generally remained the same. Just because they were not developed historically does not mean they could not have been.

I took a different approach to the airfield SPS values in AE. Instead of subjectively evaluating bases, or modifying the stock values, I decided to start from scratch with an objective approach. The airfield SPS values are based on terrain, presence of roads/railways and, for islands, the island size.

Andrew

[bradfordkay]

Sounds sensible, Andrew.


Where's the emoticon for "waiting with baited breath"? ???

[Flying Tiger]

Sounds reasonable Andrew. And i'm very glad to hear you have at least looked at the values. Not sure how much influence the presence of roads/railways should have though? Certainly there were no major roads (and CERTAINLY no railroads) on Guadalcanal before the war, but a lot of infrastructure was built during the war because Henderson Field was developed into a reasonably major base. The same is true for most of the Sth Pac islands - lack of development prior to WWII should not indicate lack of potential to be developed. Terrain and island size are certainly key factors though. Will be interesting to see what figures you have eventually decided upon.
 
Keep up the great work
FT

[Flying Tiger]

By the way Andrew, i loved the neat little line (on your map) showing where the Malaria zone was and was not. Will we see something similar on the AE map?

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Flying Tiger

Sounds reasonable Andrew. And i'm very glad to hear you have at least looked at the values. Not sure how much influence the presence of roads/railways should have though? Certainly there were no major roads (and CERTAINLY no railroads) on Guadalcanal before the war, but a lot of infrastructure was built during the war because Henderson Field was developed into a reasonably major base. The same is true for most of the Sth Pac islands - lack of development prior to WWII should not indicate lack of potential to be developed. Terrain and island size are certainly key factors though. Will be interesting to see what figures you have eventually decided upon.

Keep up the great work
FT

Yes I know what you are saying, but I will try to explain why I give a bonus for the presence of railways/roads. I see these things as making it easier and quicker to build up infrastructure, compared to locations that were undeveloped. Such an effect can only be represented by having a higher SPS value, because this translates to a higher point at which the construction costs/times increase (being when the airfield value rises above the SPS value, +1 through to +3, when costs and times become much greater).

I realise that this also impacts the ultimate size of the airfield, which depends mainly on terrain as you say, but on balance I prefer to have this cost/time variation even with that side-effect (and you could even argue that better roads/railways should allow for more infrastructure anyway, due to good sites being more accessible in any case).

Andrew

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Flying Tiger

By the way Andrew, i loved the neat little line (on your map) showing where the Malaria zone was and was not. Will we see something similar on the AE map?

No these are not on the map, but it would not be that difficult for me to come up with an alternative map with these lines. I do plan to do that but it will not be until after release, I expect.

Andrew

[Shark7]

Andrew sorry if you've already answered this, but the search function being what it is, I have been unable to find it.
 
Will Corrigador be a separate base from Bataan on the AE map?

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

Andrew sorry if you've already answered this, but the search function being what it is, I have been unable to find it.

Will Corrigador be a separate base from Bataan on the AE map?

No

[dennishe]

I took a different approach to the airfield SPS values in AE. Instead of subjectively evaluating bases, or modifying the stock values, I decided to start from scratch with an objective approach. The airfield SPS values are based on terrain, presence of roads/railways and, for islands, the island size.

 
Awesome! I want to build airfields and ports where it was possible not where the Allies or Japanese decided to build them as I do not always agree with their strategies.

[bradfordkay]

Keep in mind that it is unlikely that every hex will have a potential base site. We will have far more than we have now, and they should be more accurate as to their potential size - but please don't be upset if there aren't potential bases in just the locations where you want them. [;)]

[Dili]

Probably in most hexes(at 40 miles each) should be possible to make an airfield of size 1.

[dennishe]

Keep in mind that it is unlikely that every hex will have a potential base site. We will have far more than we have now, and they should be more accurate as to their potential size - but please don't be upset if there aren't potential bases in just the locations where you want them. [;)]

 
Will it be more difficult to build up airbases, so that even the Allies with all their seebeas will not be able to build up all bases to the full maximum?

[bradfordkay]

Looking at one of the older screenshots, I don't see Dobadura on the map. Is the dot too small for my tired old eyes?


It's interesting to see what new bases have been added to the US mainland... it appears that US troops are going to be more scattered about on Dec 7 than in the old game.

[Andy Mac]

Airbase construction is about the same as in stock as are ports - forts especially high level forts are harder
 
But with so many more bases engineering assets are going to spread thinner and massing 10 Seabee Bns on an Atoll will cause major problems if a player tries it as the stacking penalties for overstacking an atoll that badly will be nasty.
 
 

[Mike Solli]

I'm looking at the new screen shots and am currently looking at the weather map.  I see malaria and cold zones marked.  The malaria zone is obvious but what effects does the cold zone have?
 
Thanks.

[Kereguelen]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

I'm looking at the new screen shots and am currently looking at the weather map. I see malaria and cold zones marked. The malaria zone is obvious but what effects does the cold zone have?

Thanks.

Same effects as in WITP.

[Mike Solli]

Ok, thanks.  Next dumb question.  I never knew there was a cold zone let alone effects for it.  What are they? [:D]

[Kereguelen]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Ok, thanks. Next dumb question. I never knew there was a cold zone let alone effects for it. What are they? [:D]

12.0

[Pascal_slith]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: mikemike

I recently bought a reprint of the 1918 edition of "Weyers Flottentaschenbuch" (Pocket guide to the World's war fleets - still well worth having in the contemporary editions, lists all ships of all navies with photos and line drawings). Now I'm certain that the data about the navies participating in WWI is somewhat suspect, due to propaganda/fog of war, but this was an official reference for navy officers.

There is a section in the back listing the shipyard infrastructure of those countries that had a shipbuilding industry, and in the section about Japan - Navy yards there appear the following entries:

Port Arthur: two drydocks - repair shipyard

Pescadores: one drydock, one floating dock - ship repair facility

This is information from 1918 or earlier, and those docks were not marked as suitable for major warships, but in WitP stock, neither Port Arthur nor Pescadores have repair yards. I should guess that, if those entries are correct, Pescadores would rate 5-10 repair yards, and Port Arthur 10-20 repair yards. Does AE have those facilities?

I will have to check, but I have yet to spend much time reviewing the location of naval shipyards. It is on the list though, so any useful information is welcome.

Andrew

Check the Hyperwar website. There is a set of the 1945 studies done on Japanese Naval Shipbuilding, among other goodies like the two volumes on the building of bases by the Navy from before the war right through to 1945. You can find the status of every pre-war US Navy base/airfield as of Dec. 7 1941 too.

[Pascal_slith]

Back to something I pointed out a few years ago. The original game had too much fuel sitting around in various bases at the start (my references were the volumes on Navy base building, a book titled "oil & war", and the log/combat book of CinCPac). This was partially corrected in CHS and more recent stock updates. Unfortunately, I did not have the data for the Japanese (not sure anyone has this except perhaps in the Japanese language official histories).

Will AE fully correct this? (Of course, as this data is part of the base database, we can always correct it later...).