Observations: 1083 - Mid Jan, Jap ver AI

[vonSchnitter]

Was
doing some number crunching re Jap AC production to get a "feel" and such pre patch, but went testing/playing later. Right now it is mid Jan 42, playing as japs ver the AI.

lets start with a not so popular issue China:

The pro part: Chinese units will no longer sustain on cooking leather belts and sols or fight with spears. They are much more given to surrender than in stock.
What is more, heavy air attacks may render some chinese units ready to surrender. Or even make them disappear from the map.
So what. Your best friend in China is air power. The easiest way to come by this asset is:

Changing 2nd Air DiV (Manchukuo) to a non-restricted command and - banzai - all attached air units are free to move.
Very cheap in terms of PP.
After that: Keep bombing ...

Now for ground combat in China.

After a surprise or two,I went for some WW1 style trench warfare deploiments.

But still, there are suprises:

[vonSchnitter]

Now you guess where the chinese unit went ?

Pucheng ?

Going by this distance, the German 6th Army may have made it .....

[vonSchnitter]

Part 2:


I own up: me daft

The one thing I wondered about was AC replacements:

There is Yamada Det S-1 starting out at Soc Trang (Zeroes). Pretty much the only Zero unit in the area.
The "0" is the best fighter around - using them for sweeps is the thing.

However - how to replace losses ? Being moving around the unit for a while without getting more than "delayed replacements" - or rather no replacements at all.
And now what ?

3rd Ku S1/C at Ternate (some 8500 supplies) can draw zeroes from the pool - the nearest air HQ is 11th AF at Manado.

What do I miss ?

[jwilkerson]

Put your air unit at a base with lots of supplies and an HQ, like Saigon and let it sit there for several turns and eventually you should be able to replace and or upgrade. I've had problems also, but persistance seems to work. It took me many turns to get those Claudes to upgrade, but eventually, sitting in Saigon, they did.

[vonSchnitter]

Sorry mate,

yep - persistence may be the answer, but it did not - I can provide any number of saves ..

[vonSchnitter]

At the start, resources are short at Honshu-
for obvious reasons, I used Shimonoseki as an entry port-
however

once it went up to 999.9999.9999 in terms of resources, it is saturated for the time being,. No reductions ,,

[erstad]

ORIGINAL: vonSchnitter

Changing 2nd Air DiV (Manchukuo) to a non-restricted command and - banzai - all attached air units are free to move.
Very cheap in terms of PP.

I ran into this too, but at least in PBEM it feels a bit gamey (to me, anyway) since I doubt that was the intent. I've been paying PPs to "release" the subordinate air units to Southern Army even though purchasing the 2nd air freed them in game terms.

There's another PP cheat as well; I'm not going to post it but IMHO it's gamey too. (although that one I actually did use for a few turns before I thought it all the way through, but I've since compensated for that.)

My opinion is that both loopholes should be closed. I've suggested that to the devs as well, don't know if it will be considered WAD, "fix needed", or "fix wanted but won't percolate to the top of the list for a while".

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: erstad

ORIGINAL: vonSchnitter

Changing 2nd Air DiV (Manchukuo) to a non-restricted command and - banzai - all attached air units are free to move.
Very cheap in terms of PP.

I ran into this too, but at least in PBEM it feels a bit gamey (to me, anyway) since I doubt that was the intent. I've been paying PPs to "release" the subordinate air units to Southern Army even though purchasing the 2nd air freed them in game terms.

There's another PP cheat as well; I'm not going to post it but IMHO it's gamey too. (although that one I actually did use for a few turns before I thought it all the way through, but I've since compensated for that.)

My opinion is that both loopholes should be closed. I've suggested that to the devs as well, don't know if it will be considered WAD, "fix needed", or "fix wanted but won't percolate to the top of the list for a while".

I'm going to argue the other point of view here on the whole HQ and all units reassign at the same time.

It does make sense. If you are transferring the whole command between theatres, it is only natural that all attached units would go with the command HQ. What it should do is charge you more PPs for changing a command HQ with units attached, maybe not the entire value of the HQ and all the units, but perhaps full price for the HQ and half the price for the attached units.

[medicff]

With the intent of PP's to "buy" troops from restricted command it should be FULL price for all the units that become unrestricted. Maybe the idea to split it up so each unit can go separately so that you can buy one at a time as PP accumulate.

[vonSchnitter]

Remember ?
Shimoneseki - western end of Honshu - had a cap on taking resorces at 999.999 points.

While 999.999 looks like a reasonable "Breack Point" for anything I do have at least four issues with this:
a) the manual does not make mention of this kind of breack point.
b) Transports keep unloading regardless (load points lost ?)
c) The place has a 800 point resource production (lost ?)
d) The 999.999 resource points stood, till I send in some 100k plus transport TFs to to get the numbers down.

Up to this point I would have accepted the "issue" as a part of the learning curve.
And the place kept below the threshold for a few turns..
But all of a sudden Shimoneseki is back to the 999.999 resource issue !
Even though I am not using the place for imports !

I can provide any number of saves ...

Sorry chaps, but this is a major B.S. in my book

Cheers

[sval062]

I have exactly the same problem than you VonSchnitter [;)]

[vonSchnitter]

Ground combat and Hex side control:

I do not mind to own up the fact: I did not comprehend a single word of the manuals ramblings on ground combat and hex (side) control.

Because of this, I decided to run a large scale test in China:

Part 1:

As described before, I went for a WW1 style continuous trench solution from north of Paotow to Nanchang.
Well, I decided to chase a chinese unit 35th Chinese Cps with 102 NcPc around the theater and bomb the crap out of them while doing so.

The good news is: The Chinese unit failed to receive reinforcement/supply behind my solid line - or so it appears - but managed to trace a line of retrat - from east of kaifeng to pucheng in the south. Which suggests a difference in line of retreat and a supply line.

At the end, the chinese unit went poof. However, the difference in "escape" and "supply" line kept it alive - to my lights the escape line needs some sort of capping

[vonSchnitter]

Since I had some reservations re, ground combat, I went for the big solution:
Kesselschlacht.
It worked. I used the cordon of units around the encirclement to stop esapes etc. From what I learned, it is not required to maintain the cordon.

[vonSchnitter]

Here is the pic

[vaned74]

Hi Mike - didn't realize the 12,000 ton TKs shouldn't be able to convert to Tonan Whalers - well, what's done is done and I suppose I'll benefit a little from the extra few thousand tons of lift capacity; on the other hand there are not many ports that can handle more than a few of these large ships at a time (at most 3 in Palembang at one time).

The Shimonoseki thing is an issue - I just had it jump to 999,999 resources a few turns back and immediately pulled off a couple of hundred thousand tons by ship. Then it dropped right down to 400,000 tons in a couple of days (obviously some resources moved out by overland once we got it off the 999,999 mark by using ships).

The overland routing of resources and oil is just about impossible to understand the logic on. Unfortunately, this can play havoc with your convoy routing plans.

[vonSchnitter]

The "Ghost Brigade" - part 3

Remember Rommels "Ghost Division" ? Here is 19th Mixed Brigade starting from Swatow:
I am not sure, but probably the best explanation of the ground war....

The AI decided to have a go at Foochow and Amoy. I did not know.

Send 19th North aiming for Kanshien, while a different unit (66 Inf Reg) went for Kukong.
Since I learned about the chinese move to Amoy,I turned the 19th east and then to Amoy to the south.

At the end of the evolution the 19th helped to wipe out all Chinese units (65th/66th Corps, 7th War area) at Amoy.

Interesting, is it not ?

[vonSchnitter]

Still trying to figure, how the "Ghost Brigade" may apply to your fortunes in Burma ?

Really ?

Just in case you missed it. If you are playing on "Historical first turn" off, it looks like you can airlift any unit where you want it - playing as jap. Limited use and value, but worthwhile knowing.