Allied Transport Poverty

[juliet7bravo]

The ship has to be in Noumea, and it has to be out of a TF, and "anchored" in the port. Only time the "Pearl" command works. Scuttle only works if the damage is severe enough I think.

[Didz]

This does seem to be a problem.

I'm playing #17 Allies and it is now Feb in the final year.

I have only lost 2 AP's and 1 AK in the entire campaign but even so I am having trouble keeping my forward bases supplied.

However, I have CV's and DD's stacked up doing nothing and would gladly trade them for more AP's.

As it is I have troops sitting in Noumea and Brisbane that could be taking out more enemy bases if only I had transports to spare to get them there.

[cyberwop]

I agree with brisd, the system is fine just the way it is. If you don't like it turn up the ship commitment.

Remember the south pacific in 42 and early 43 was a secondary theatre. The U.S. west coast was concidered threated let alone Hawii. [midway, alaska, ect]

Also Nimitz was c-in-c of central pacific so he is pearl harbor. So your saying he reported back to himself?

This isn't Panzer General. [great game] The whole prestege system would stink in this game, unrealistic. Read your history sometimes the best commander gets less support in times of desperation because his boss may think a good commander may get by with less. And a front threatened with total collapes may get rushed reiforcements to stave off defeat..

The thing to remember this game puts you in a role of a theatre commander whole support may depend on strategic decisions beyond his scope.

If you don't like it fine. Play a RTS game and you can plunk down a little CV or BB factory and collect coconut crystal ore and buy all the capital ships you want. Me I love this game, I lonve the role of theatre commander with subordinates who screw up and a higher HQ that doesn't fully understand the plight of the troops in the field.

In thinking of dressing my son up as my adjudent :} I don't think the wife would understand.

[Didz]

Originally posted by cyberwop
If you don't like it fine. Play a RTS game and you can plunk down a little CV or BB factory and collect coconut crystal ore and buy all the capital ships you want. Me I love this game, I lonve the role of theatre commander with subordinates who screw up and a higher HQ that doesn't fully understand the plight of the troops in the field.

Hmm! I think you may be over reacting slightly here CW.

I don't beleive anyone on this thread has requested a facility to be able to select the ships they receive as reinforcements let alone build them to order.

I beleive the point being made is a valid one and worth noting and that whilst brand loyalty is commendable it can go a little too far when it begins to stiffle valid suggestions for improvement.

The ship reinforcement schedule as defined in the game is presumably based upon the actual priority and availability that occured durng the campaign.

However, that priority and availability was influenced and determined by actual events and by the needs and requests of the various commanders at that time.

Now! inevitably in a wargame events may not actually pan out exactly the same way as they did historically and consequently the requests that we the commanders might wish to make to our superiors will vary from those of our historical counter-parts.

The suggestion being made is that UV should accept that this is likely to happen and allow the player a limited degree of influence over the reinforcement schedule. I don't consider such a suggestion a-historic or unreasonalbe in fact it makes far more sense than having a fixed reinforcement schedule that continues to pump your forces with unnecessary reinforcements whilst ignoring your real requirements.

[brisd]

cyberwop - good analogy, got a laugh out of me this morning!

[mjk428]

A more robust replacement system would add to the realism IMO. Any competent theater commander would be on the horn asking for what he needed. Almost always he would get less. Sometimes he'd even get something useless. The requests would still have some overall effect though.

It's been pointed out that the assets may be needed elsewhere. OK then, give us some indication as to how things are going in other theaters. Then we will understand why we're not getting needed assets.

Too many things in this game are hidden and random for my tastes. Maybe if I was given more details as to why X,Y & Z occured I'd feel differently. It's all very convenient to say it's "FOW" or "It's Operational" or "The Weather" or "The Tokyo Express". Some people find the randomness exhilerating but if I'm looking for that kind of a thrill I'll go to a casino. UV is a good game but I feel there are things going on "under the hood" that need to be tweaked.

Now of course the loyalists will tell me to play something else. OK, I will.

[Didz]

Originally posted by mjk428

It's been pointed out that the assets may be needed elsewhere. OK then, give us some indication as to how things are going in other theaters. Then we will understand why we're not getting needed assets.

This came to mind when I was penning my last thread. I seem to recall playing a game in the past that had just this sort of mechanism but can't remember what it was.

Like UV in this game the player was commanding one theatre of operations and the rest of the war was going on outside the game so to speak.

As a result the reinforcement schedule was constantly being influenced by events reported elsewhere so that you could find your expected reinforcements suddenly redirected to another front or could suddenly have a bonus as fresh troops were released following a success elsewhere. You could even be presented with demands to release some of your existing forces to assist elsewhere.

This added a tremendous amount of uncertainty to the game but as you quite rightly mention it was not an issue simply because the game explained what it was doing and why.

[segorn]

The current system is a bit weak, and not just because the forty transports I needed were stuck at Pearl while they kept sending me useless surface reinforcements.

There's another issue with teh current model though that bear consideration: its vulnerable to exploits.

Example:

The allies have about twenty minesweepers total in the game. Maybe 6 DMS and about 15 more MSW that enter the game at various stages.

As a japanese player, I am aware of this material bottleneck, and equally aware that the allies will take huge casualties if I mine a lot and they can't sweep them.

So, I spend min 1942 hunting minesweepers. I don't get them all, but I reduce the allies to two DMS and a half dozen MSW. The, in a fit of luck, I sink those sweepers during the allied player's invasion of Lunga.

Now, we're in a sitaution where the allied player has no minesweepign capability at all.

You can bet that, were this the actual world, the theatre commander would be screaming for minesweepers and .. he'd get them. Even if by some miracle the folks back at Pearl decided not to send him some, he could put minesweeping planes on some of his older DDs and do the job.

As it stand now though, the game is vulnerable to bottlenecking and doesn't model the real world's plasticity in response to a narrow assault. When certain critical ship classes run low, the real world makes more of them.

[cyberwop]

I'm sorry about this morning. I was comming off my 1st midnight shift of the week and was a bit tweaked.

All I meant was I would hate to see a system where if I sank 2 enemy CV's I would get 600 points to spend at the Pearal Harbor gift shop.

I've got a few problems with this game which I will post in another thread.

[Didz]

Originally posted by cyberwop

All I meant was I would hate to see a system where if I sank 2 enemy CV's I would get 600 points to spend at the Pearal Harbor gift shop.

I think we are all with you on that CW. I'm even a little dubious about the instant PT and Barge feature.

[vils]

Originally posted by segorn
I agree, I'd like to have some capability to request specific ships and/or classes. Maybe some form of buy point system would work e.g. I'll trade you that 300 VP carrier you were going to send me for 20 15 VP Assault Transports...

This is an exellent idea!

Say, you get x points every day, and you can choose if you should aim for carriers or subs or transports! Of course you should only be able to 'buy' ships after their historical appearance.

It should be very easy to tweak the point system so that you never get to much pts..

Imagine, this game would become extremely alot better with this!

Matrix, what do you say???

[Didz]

Originally posted by vils

Say, you get x points every day, and you can choose if you should aim for carriers or subs or transports! Of course you should only be able to 'buy' ships after their historical appearance.

It should be very easy to tweak the point system so that you never get to much pts..

Personally, I'm not too keen the idea of trading points for ships.

I was thinking more along the lines of a priority system where I could indicate a preference for transport vessels rather than surface combat vessels and the reinforcement schedule would expedite the arrival of that class of vessel whilst retarding the others.

So, for example assuming the historical schedule listed the following:

CA 10 days
DD 12 days
AP 15 days
AK 16 days
DD 17 days
CV 22 days

This schedule would remain unchanged unless I registered a priority needs for Transport vessels at which point the program would seek to expedite the AP and AK by a random increase in the speed the arrive time reduced whilst delaying the combat vessels by a similar random rate.

Thus 10 days later the schedule might look like this:

AP 1 day (4 days early)
CA 2 day (2 days late)
AK 2 days (4 days early)
DD 6 days (4 days late)
DD 9 days (2 days late)
CV 18 Days (6 days late)

The theory being that resources are being fed into freeing up and preparing the transport vessels whilst the effort in making the combat vessels ready is being given lower priority.

[worr]

Originally posted by segorn
I have 10 APs and 2 AKs in theatre.

The game obstinantly refuses to send me transport reinforcements. I fact, the sum total of transport resources for all of 1943 was 2 LSTs and 2 LCIs. Many other transports reached Pearl, but none made it out to me.

Is anyone else running into this? If so, is there a solution? Alternately, does Matrix need to change their ship release formula to release ships based on class needs e.g. I'm not running out of ships in general, but I sure am running out of APs?

A

Been there; done that, seagorn.

I've husbanded my transports very carefully in two games....and found myself still unable to reinforce all my succeeses. I've even sent back fleet carriers in order to change the commitment level in theater only to have them send back CVs. while Pearl keeps all the APs TK and AKs at home.

Something is out of balance there. Especailly when you play one of the scenarios which start later in the war. Then you see all the resources that are availble in theater and you cratch your head. I stopped playing UV for this reason...only to wait for a patch to fix the bugs and the OOB problems.

Worr, out

[worr]

Originally posted by cyberwop
Remember the south pacific in 42 and early 43 was a secondary theatre. The U.S. west coast was concidered threated let alone Hawii. [midway, alaska, ect]

When you play one of the scenarios that begin in mid 43 you'll see the committment level is much higher than you'll ever get if you play the larger campaign.

Worr, out

[mjk428]

When you play one of the scenarios that begin in mid 43 you'll see the committment level is much higher than you'll ever get if you play the larger campaign.

Worr, out

Based on what I could glean from the manual, if I set ship commitment to 100% and use a "fixed" replacement schedule, I would get the historical order of battle. That not the case?

[siRkid]

I'll tell you what I did out of desperation. After losing most of my transports and not getting any from PH, I quit sending the damaged ones back for repairs. The damage does not affect the amount of cargo they can hold just the speed. (Maybe this should be fixed?) I now use them for the short runs and save my undamaged ones for the long runs. I have some transports with as much as 60% sys damage and they are still hauling cargo.

Would this happen in the real word? Maybe, if a Theater Commander was as starved for transports as I am.

Rick

[segorn]

Yeah, I tried that too, but ultimately a transport moving at half speed is only half as valuable as one moving at full speed b/c delivers 1/2 the supplies per unit time.

The problem, I think, is mre subtle than just jimmying with the replacement schedule.

The replacement schedule ultimately represents the shipbuilding that the United States actually laid down and constructed in response to the *actual* situation during WW II.

I guarantee you, had the Japanese been victorious at Midway, sinking the American carriers and not the other way around, the US would physically have laid down more aircraft carriers.

Conversely, if the United States merchant marine were decimated by the Japanese, I guarantee the nation would have laid down more transports.

As we play the game and alter the path of the war away from that which historically happened, the game need to alter its shipbuilding and delivery to factor that in.

In my mind, this means bulding more ships where there is a deficiency, and even building less than the historical numbers of ship classes where a clear superiority exists.

[siRkid]

I agree. Maybe the way to handle it would be to set a level for each category of ship. For example if the number of mine sweepers fell below a certain level then a priority of High would be assigned to releasing mine sweepers. Just thinking out loud.

[segorn]

Yah. I don't even know that we need to, as players, be able to set the priority

I'd just like the game to keep seperate *target* levels for different ship classes.

e.g. the January 1st, 1943 target levels could be (Allied)

CV X 4
BB X 4
CA X 8
DD X 40
AP X 30
AK X 20
TK X 15
A0 X 10
DMS X 8
ML X 4

If a particular ship class is overrepresented then, build/send less of them to the theatre.
If a particular ship class is running low, then build/send more of them to the theatre.

I'd still want to put in place some sort of a cap on industrial production e.g. just because I stupidly lost my whole navy and am way under the commitement level in all classes of warship doesn't mean even the US war economy can replace those kinds of losses in a month.

[siRkid]

I would sign up for that.