Tweaking the Japanese/Allied Economies

[vettim89]

This is the extension of the discussion of the Japanese Economy that branched out of JWE's Merchant Shipping Thread. The basic premise was that one reason the typical Japan player rarely feels a shipping pinch is that the import/export demand in the game trails the RL model. My initial points on the matter were this

* The Japanese economy can run entirely or nearly entirely on the resources gathered from points already held by IJ on 7 Dec 1941

* The Japanese war time supply need can be met soley from the supply produced by the HI (20 resource + 2 fuel = 2 HI and 2 supply). This means that the bulk if not all of the LI is turned off because it is less efficient at producing supply (15 resource = 1 supply)

* Because of the above two facts, most JFB import little to none of the resources found in the SRA. This has a two-fold effect: fewer xAK/xAKL are needed to haul Resources and those that are used are more efficient than their RL counterparts due to shorter distances to be covered

Those three above facts lead to a portion of the RL Japanese merchant fleet being freed from supporting the economy. These merchants can then be used to either support various ambitious JFB operations (Oz, India, NZ) or simply be put away for a rainy day. If the latter is chosen then even an effective Allied submarine campaign against the Japanese merchant fleet has little to no effect. The Japan player has a built in reserve to keep his economy going.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, the bulk of the raw materials needed for Japan's war time economy could be found in areas already in their control at war's start. That said, there were important items like tin, rubber, etc that had to come from the SRA. Barring expanding the Resource roster to include dozens of resources by type, perhaps tweaking the existing system to model the needs a little better would be the way to go.

I propose too easy steps that will have JFB screaming bloody murder. First reduce the supply out from HI to 1 or 0. Personally I would prefer 0. In exchange you might give the JFB a little discount on the HI input (lower it to say 15-18). Second eliminate the 9:1 refinery output. Make it 10 oil in = 10 fuel out. Why? Without giving anything away, in one of my current games the defenders of Palembang are lobbing 1000's of Molotov cocktails at the IJA while dining on lubricants and diesel fuel (and they aren't going to run out for a very, very, very long time). The game doesn't differentiate different types of supply (avgas, bullets, food, medical supplies, diesel, etc). With that true, having refineries produce supply seems incorrect because the refinery is differentiating its output (some fuel oil and some avgas, diesel, lubricants, etc). Just seems to make more sense to have both systems be in line with one another. The net outcome for this would be to twofold: the Japan player would be forced to import considerable more Resources and the SRA would cease to become self sufficient. With the current fuel/supply refinery output, so much supply is made in the DEI that little if any needs to be exported from Japan which of course is wrong (Palembang alone produces 25K of supply per month in its undamaged state).

I have not run the numbers but it may be possible that just the refinery modification might be sufficient. In fact the more I think about it, just changing that one thing would have an enormous impact of the economy. JOMHO

[vettim89]

After thinking about this all day, I think it may not be necessary to change the HI outputs at all.

Using my above assumptions and the starting figures for Japan (assuming ample fuel/resources to feed everything). Of note, I omitted the small refinery at Bangkok as there is no oil nearby to run it

6950 HI can produce 13900 supply a day using 139000 Resources
1015 Refineries produce 1015 supply a day using no resources (and 9135 fuel)
7100 LI can produce 7100 supply a day using 106500 resources

So even if the Japan player was using all his LI, he would still be getting only 1/3 of his supply from that source. So my initial thinking was to lower the supply output of the HI. If you merely halved it, you would reduce the supply production by nearly half likely forcing the need to turn on the LI. That said, you would also cause a tremendous incease in the resource needs. Perhaps that is necessary but it may not be. What if you just stopped the refineries from producing supply? Look at this chart:



If we just take the supply production out of the refineries we haven't really made a dent in the baseline economy. Can the IJA and IJN run on 400k supply a month. I think so, but to be honest am not sure. Even if it weren't, the player could always turn on some LI

Here's the kicker: out there in lands to be conquered lies 2180 in potential Refineries. Now game play will determine how much of that the Japan player gets but lets just use 60% for a working number which equals 1308. Those 1300+ refineries are going to produce nearly 40,000 supply points a month. What is important about that is not just that the supply is being produced but where it is being produced. At full capacity, the refineries in Burma produce 9000 supply points a month which is more than enough to sustain the typical Burma garrison and stockpile some for combat operations. Likewise the refineries in the DEI can produce a maximum of 56,000 supply a month. Even at 60%, you get over 30,000 a month.

So midwar defensive stance for the Japan player likely means he has to send little if any supply to Burma. Likewise, he would only be transhipping supply to various bases in the DEI to keep everybody happy. I understand why the designers/modders made the refineries produce supply; it obviously represents non-heavy fuel petroleum products like gasoline, avgas, lubricants, etc. The problem is that the game looks at supply as supply. You can't eat avgas. You can't shoot motor oil from a gun. Yet, our little digital soldiers do all the time

The original point was to put a little more stress on the Japanese Merchant fleet. I think this would do it without an undue burden.

(BTW, I think the Allies need serious tweaking too. I have a plan for that)

[herwin]

See my comments to Andrew Brown in the parallel thread.

[vettim89]

So I had a thought regarding India. This is purely in the concept stage. Why not:

1. Reduce the daily supply allowances at Aden, Abadan, and CT.
2. Add Resource Centers at the above location or enlarge those that are already present
3. Expand the LI in India to account for the supply loss above
4. Damage the Resource Centers in India to match the amount allocated above
5. Possibly add small 100% damaged LI Centers at the above off map bases

So the Allied player does not have very much supply available on the eastern side of the map initially. He is then forced to move resources from the off map ports to India where the LI will turn it into supply. Ah, but those resource centers need repaired and they will consume 1000 points of supply each a day. So the Allied player will be bound to tieing up his merchant fleet moving Resources the entire war (which is 1/15th as efficient as moving supply) or devote the necessary energy to repairing the Indian economy. I suspect it would take the better portion of a year to do this if you did it right which would allow the Allied player to start offensive operations in early 1943. This would obviously be a Scenario 1/DBB option as our JFB friends could steamroll India in any of the enhanced Japan scenarios

I would have to actually look at all the numbers to see what it looks like. Like I said, just a concept right now

I would also do the same thing for the US economy. Replace the supply allowance at ECUSA with damaged LI/Resources and damage some of the centers on the WC too. This would allow a tool up lag before our AFB friends can start getting "offensive". I suspect not nearly as severe of a restriction would be needed on this side of the map

[Local Yokel]

ORIGINAL: vettim89

First reduce the supply out from HI to 1 or 0 . Personally I would prefer 0.

You propose the elimination, at a stroke, of about 55% of the Japanese player's supply generation capability? That would make for some short games, and hollow victories, I suspect!

[Bradley7735]

ORIGINAL: vettim89

So I had a thought regarding India. This is purely in the concept stage. Why not:

1. Reduce the daily supply allowances at Aden, Abadan, and CT.
2. Add Resource Centers at the above location or enlarge those that are already present
3. Expand the LI in India to account for the supply loss above
4. Damage the Resource Centers in India to match the amount allocated above
5. Possibly add small 100% damaged LI Centers at the above off map bases

So the Allied player does not have very much supply available on the eastern side of the map initially. He is then forced to move resources from the off map ports to India where the LI will turn it into supply. Ah, but those resource centers need repaired and they will consume 1000 points of supply each a day. So the Allied player will be bound to tieing up his merchant fleet moving Resources the entire war (which is 1/15th as efficient as moving supply) or devote the necessary energy to repairing the Indian economy. I suspect it would take the better portion of a year to do this if you did it right which would allow the Allied player to start offensive operations in early 1943. This would obviously be a Scenario 1/DBB option as our JFB friends could steamroll India in any of the enhanced Japan scenarios

I would have to actually look at all the numbers to see what it looks like. Like I said, just a concept right now

I would also do the same thing for the US economy. Replace the supply allowance at ECUSA with damaged LI/Resources and damage some of the centers on the WC too. This would allow a tool up lag before our AFB friends can start getting "offensive". I suspect not nearly as severe of a restriction would be needed on this side of the map

Vettim, I think your post here is a great concept. Granted, I haven't processed it for very long, but with initial reaction, I think it sounds good. My only concern to making this adjustment is in regards to Nik's point on the Japanese economy. It's still way too hard to starve the Japanese. They need to use their merchant fleet more than they do. I think Treespider thought that increasing the resources required to operate HI was a good concept as well (bear in mind that I haven't thought about it all day.)

Maybe implementing your idea and implementing Treespider's idea would go a long way to slowing down the allies early, and forcing Japan to depend on her merchant fleet. (fyi, if she needs her merchies, then JWE's thread becomes a little more relevant as well.)

[Bradley7735]

ORIGINAL: Local Yokel

ORIGINAL: vettim89

First reduce the supply out from HI to 1 or 0 . Personally I would prefer 0.

You propose the elimination, at a stroke, of about 55% of the Japanese player's supply generation capability? That would make for some short games, and hollow victories, I suspect!

I agree with you LY. Don't reduce supply from HI. However, Treespider suggested increasing the resources needed to operate HI (I think it was him.) His idea might have a lot of merit in the regards that Japan doesn't seem to need the SRA's resources in the game.

[vettim89]

ORIGINAL: Local Yokel

ORIGINAL: vettim89

First reduce the supply out from HI to 1 or 0 . Personally I would prefer 0.

You propose the elimination, at a stroke, of about 55% of the Japanese player's supply generation capability? That would make for some short games, and hollow victories, I suspect!

While I did initially post that, I also retracted it. I think the "no supply from Refinery" idea has a lot of merit. If you did this it would take an equivalent amount of shipping to move say at least 30k supply from HI to SRA per month. Also, you are losing an additional 30k of supply in the HI from the Refinery Centers. So now we are talking about a 60k per month loss in supply. You would 1.2 million resource points to get 60k of supply out of the LI. So just removing the supply from the Refineries creates a pretty substantial burden on the Japanese merchant fleet.

BTW, the WCUSA refineries would also see the same decrease in output

One thing I don't know if I made clear of not is that Refinery fuel output would be increased to 10.

[PaxMondo]

Not sure that I agree with your intial assumption: IJ has too much supply and can turn off its LI.  I think this depends entirely upon the tempo of the game.
 
In a lot of games, the tempo is slower than historical as the allies use a Sir Robin.  I'm not criticizing that tactic, in reality it is a good one.  Historically though, it wasn't possible.  Thus, the IJ captures far more supply and resources than it did historically with this defense. 
 
If the the allied player puts up a stout defense (a la Nemo), my experience is that you have to be really careful on your air factory changes as you will have to export a lot of supplies in the early going from the HI.  I'm not suggesting that the allied player can starve the IJ, but he can make it a LOT more difficult on him.
 
Anyway, my point is that before you go and take some whacks at the IJ economy, make sure that you don't create an easy allied victory strategy of simply following the historical tactic of fighting for every inch which crashes the IJ economy.  Remember, IJ wasn't so much resource starved as she was oil/energy starved.

[Brady]

ORIGINAL: vettim89

So I had a thought regarding India. This is purely in the concept stage. Why not:

1. Reduce the daily supply allowances at Aden, Abadan, and CT.
2. Add Resource Centers at the above location or enlarge those that are already present
3. Expand the LI in India to account for the supply loss above
4. Damage the Resource Centers in India to match the amount allocated above
5. Possibly add small 100% damaged LI Centers at the above off map bases

So the Allied player does not have very much supply available on the eastern side of the map initially. He is then forced to move resources from the off map ports to India where the LI will turn it into supply. Ah, but those resource centers need repaired and they will consume 1000 points of supply each a day. So the Allied player will be bound to tieing up his merchant fleet moving Resources the entire war (which is 1/15th as efficient as moving supply) or devote the necessary energy to repairing the Indian economy. I suspect it would take the better portion of a year to do this if you did it right which would allow the Allied player to start offensive operations in early 1943. This would obviously be a Scenario 1/DBB option as our JFB friends could steamroll India in any of the enhanced Japan scenarios

I would have to actually look at all the numbers to see what it looks like. Like I said, just a concept right now

I would also do the same thing for the US economy. Replace the supply allowance at ECUSA with damaged LI/Resources and damage some of the centers on the WC too. This would allow a tool up lag before our AFB friends can start getting "offensive". I suspect not nearly as severe of a restriction would be needed on this side of the map

The trick would be to adjust this so the Allied forces did not wither on the vine, but were limited to the extent that they neaded to be set to rest/training, so any ofensive would be not posable unless new suples were brought in but forces in theater could get buy.

[Brady]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Not sure that I agree with your intial assumption: IJ has too much supply and can turn off its LI.  I think this depends entirely upon the tempo of the game.

In a lot of games, the tempo is slower than historical as the allies use a Sir Robin.  I'm not criticizing that tactic, in reality it is a good one.  Historically though, it wasn't possible.  Thus, the IJ captures far more supply and resources than it did historically with this defense. 

If the the allied player puts up a stout defense (a la Nemo), my experience is that you have to be really careful on your air factory changes as you will have to export a lot of supplies in the early going from the HI.  I'm not suggesting that the allied player can starve the IJ, but he can make it a LOT more difficult on him.

Anyway, my point is that before you go and take some whacks at the IJ economy, make sure that you don't create an easy allied victory strategy of simply following the historical tactic of fighting for every inch which crashes the IJ economy.  Remember, IJ wasn't so much resource starved as she was oil/energy starved.

Indead, it was not that their was not enough resources/Oil to be had but ratehr a problem of transportation.

The vast bulk of the neaded raw material did come from Close at hand China/Korea, some did come from the SRA but as noted elsewhear thats all abstracted in game, the small quanities of specialised raw materials neaded from the SRA (comparatively small) other than Oil tend to slip through the cracks represenataion wise.

The basic game as noted elsewhear represents the vast bulk of the Japanese tonage available at wars start and sorta models the ships built during the war, many of the Standarised types are not built on game.

Why their tends to be ample shiping to hand in game, is because players use those assests much better than the Japanese did.

1) The Japanese did not maintain their merchant fleat very well, and as a result many ships were in port awaiting repair during the mid war perioud because regular mainitance was not done on them.

2) The Japanese did not convoy many of the ships for most of the war, only Military Convoys were escorted with regularity during the entire war, Civilain later in the war.

3) The Japanese did not asigne decent escorts to many of the convoys they did escort during the early part of the war.

4) The Ships asigned to the military did not (mostly) move raw materials back to Japan.

5) The Militry took the best ships for the most part.

6) When they gave them back (rarely) they were mostly were worn out for lack of maintance.

7) The Japanese ecenomy did not realy start to starve out untill the Mining campagine of Japanese home waters by the B-29's. In 1944 Japan produced more war materials than she had in all the war years before.

8) The japanese figured they had enough ships and resources to make everything work, wheir they fell down was managing that resource, and what they did do played right into the allies hand.

..............

Gross merchant tonage built by Japanese yards b year, I noted a the peak pre war figure to show an example of pre war capacity:

1937 aprox. 450,000 (subsidy programs)

1941 aprox 250,000

1942 aprox. 350,000

1943 aprox. 1,100,000

1944 aprox 1,600,000

1945 aprox 200,000 (by Aug.)

Cargo ships represent about half those figures and Tankers the bulk of the rest with a tiny fraction as Fishing/Ferry/Tug/and pasanger Ships.

p.163 Japanese Merchant Marine in WW2.

...........

Subs sank aprox. 60% of the Japanese merchants, Air sank the bulk of the rest and Mines acounted for a lesser amount than air.

1944 being the worst year for Japa sinking wise.

Mines acounted for a half million tons, Air 2.5 million tons and subs- 4.8million tons (aprox.). p 207

Tonage lost:

1941 48,574

1942 884,928

1943 1,688,086

1944 3,694,026

1945 1,722,508

p.224




......................

[Captain Cruft]

If we are assuming that code changes are possible then I think that stopping refineries from producing supply plus making air missions use fuel might be a good idea.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

If we are assuming that code changes are possible then I think that stopping refineries from producing supply plus making air missions use fuel might be a good idea.

Very easily done in the editor...its right there on the devices page. You can modify the input and output of every resource or industry for the scenario.

[Bradley7735]

I'm just thinking out loud here. I personally don't have the same experience that most of you have (I play the AI, not a human).

But, IF the tempo is too fast for the Allied advance in late 42, and IF Japan doesn't really use their merchant fleet as much as they did historically, and IF the average Japanese player turns off LI, then MAYBE there is way way too much supply for both sides.

Has any allied player ever had to limit offensive actions based on supply, instead of just ships available? Are the if's mentioned above true for the average Japanese player?

Maybe supply output should be reduced across the board (including Allies), and maybe there should be an increased amount of resources/fuel in the process of HI and LI?

I haven't used Tracker. Is it easy to see the exact supply needs on any given game turn? I'd be curious to see the supply needs for all Allied LCU's on the map, say at 1/1/43, with no offensive or expansion needs. Compare that to the daily supply input. Is it significantly larger?

Just throwing a number out there, but I think either side should not have much more than 20% more supply than their 'at rest' LCU needs. If there's more like 100% more supply than is being used, then anyone can expand and go on the offensive just about anywhere/everywhere on the map.

If you had to wait 1-2 months for a supply build up to do the next offensive, then the pace would be significantly slowed. I think Vettim's suggestion re: India supply has some merit, and can be used to start the Allies off slow, but still allow enough supply to build up their offensive pace in 44-45.

Treespiders suggestion of increasing the resources for HI has merit regarding his and Nik's concern about the IJN merchant fleet.

[Nomad]

I have never turned off LI as Japan, I wonder if there is some confusion with players not repairing LI. I have never let damaged LI repair, it is not cost effective.

[vettim89]

ORIGINAL: Brady

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Not sure that I agree with your intial assumption: IJ has too much supply and can turn off its LI.  I think this depends entirely upon the tempo of the game.

In a lot of games, the tempo is slower than historical as the allies use a Sir Robin.  I'm not criticizing that tactic, in reality it is a good one.  Historically though, it wasn't possible.  Thus, the IJ captures far more supply and resources than it did historically with this defense. 

If the the allied player puts up a stout defense (a la Nemo), my experience is that you have to be really careful on your air factory changes as you will have to export a lot of supplies in the early going from the HI.  I'm not suggesting that the allied player can starve the IJ, but he can make it a LOT more difficult on him.

Anyway, my point is that before you go and take some whacks at the IJ economy, make sure that you don't create an easy allied victory strategy of simply following the historical tactic of fighting for every inch which crashes the IJ economy.  Remember, IJ wasn't so much resource starved as she was oil/energy starved.

Indead, it was not that their was not enough resources/Oil to be had but ratehr a problem of transportation.

The vast bulk of the neaded raw material did come from Close at hand China/Korea, some did come from the SRA but as noted elsewhear thats all abstracted in game, the small quanities of specialised raw materials neaded from the SRA (comparatively small) other than Oil tend to slip through the cracks represenataion wise.

The basic game as noted elsewhear represents the vast bulk of the Japanese tonage available at wars start and sorta models the ships built during the war, many of the Standarised types are not built on game.

Why their tends to be ample shiping to hand in game, is because players use those assests much better than the Japanese did.

1) The Japanese did not maintain their merchant fleat very well, and as a result many ships were in port awaiting repair during the mid war perioud because regular mainitance was not done on them.

2) The Japanese did not convoy many of the ships for most of the war, only Military Convoys were escorted with regularity during the entire war, Civilain later in the war.

3) The Japanese did not asigne decent escorts to many of the convoys they did escort during the early part of the war.

4) The Ships asigned to the military did not (mostly) move raw materials back to Japan.

5) The Militry took the best ships for the most part.

6) When they gave them back (rarely) they were mostly were worn out for lack of maintance.

7) The Japanese ecenomy did not realy start to starve out untill the Mining campagine of Japanese home waters by the B-29's. In 1944 Japan produced more war materials than she had in all the war years before.

8) The japanese figured they had enough ships and resources to make everything work, wheir they fell down was managing that resource, and what they did do played right into the allies hand.

I will address both posts in one reply if you don't mind.

PaxMondo: the point was not necessarily that the Japanese economy made too much supply but instead that it isn't stressed enough in terms of Merchant Shipping. The two are interrelated because the point was/is made that you cannot starve the Japanese Economy in game the way it was in RL by sinking a large portion of the merchant fleet. JWE pointed out that both DBB and stock do a pretty good job of modeling the Japanese merchant fleet. I disagree that Japan was not starved in general. There were tremendous food shortages in the winter of 1944/45. Consumer good were all in very short supply. Just because the armed forces were not starving doesn't mean the populace wasn't going hungry.

Brady: you make a very good point. Like many things in game, we are better at managing the forces at our disposal than the RL commanders, economic ministers, and factory managers. So in a certain sense you may be right that it would be hard to put the Japanese Economy into a nose dive by attacking merchant shipping. I could counter with the point though that the Japan player has an advantage because in game sub routines do not match the efficiency of the USN in the war. While more effective ASW practices by the Japan player have a lot to do with that being true, some of it has to do with other factors that have to do with game mechanics. It has been suggested that one of the factors may have to do with the fact that Japan just doesn't have to haul enough. This is what led to the discussion in the Merchant Shipping thread and the opening of this thread.

My point was that just a very simple modification of the game will put an increased workload on the Japan player. It would stop unreasonable supply accumulation in the SRA through POL production that because of the games simple resource and supply system, allows soldiers to eat avgas and use lubricants for ammo. Also with the supply=replacement mechanism, it brings to mind the scene from The Lord of Rings: Two Towers where they are making new orcs out of mud down in the pit. This is a very minor change that just adds to the workload the Japanese merchants have to accomplish.

While the economic model in AE is certainly higher functional and workable, it is far from perfect. Perhaps for the general public, it is best "as is". For a few of us hard core grognards, we would like to see things being harder for both sides to be a little closer to RL demands. This is not for everybody and any mod incorporating these changes would not be for the neophyte. I know a lot of people are more interested in the "enhanced mods", but there are a few of us that would like a "less enhanced mod" that is harder for both sides to play. This discussion is largely for those interested in the game being a little more realistic. I could go on about this but I am wasting electrons

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

I have never turned off LI as Japan, I wonder if there is some confusion with players not repairing LI. I have never let damaged LI repair, it is not cost effective.

Agreed. I never 'turn it off' I just don't waste supplies repairing the LI in a base I know I'm going to lose 2-3 years down the road. Total waste of supply...1000 to repair, and chances are you will not get that 1000 investment back out of it.

[Brady]

Japan- Part of the problem in trying to reduce Japanese suply is that it's always been my impreshion its rather tight, and Japan neads surpluss suply to repair captured industry in the SRA and China consumes a lot of suply, or can.

The allied isue with suply is not so much imo thats theirs to much at hand, its that theirs to much whear you nead it.

What I mean by that is that their is to much in India and in Aus, and NZ to a lesser extent. A player should have to move large quanities to these places from day one, but in Game India can fead its self and Austraila is more or less the same. I always send suply to these places but it is by no mean an imparative, and Historicaly these far flung points were short of military suply.

I generaly dont send specialised suply convoys I just use every ship I can get to move men and planes, and the extra capacity is filled with suply, if I had to move suply....

I would not advocate  reducing the Base suply in the US but I would embrace making suply tight at the end of the line.

Part of the reasion that the Allies can get going so early is the availabality of Troops and the means with which to move them. From what I can tell the US did not ship troops in bulk cargo ships or on Pasanger ships that had not been taken into service (normaly). When the US 41 st Infentry Divishion shiped out from Washington for example part of it went to the East Coast to load up on Transports to sail for Austraila via the panama canal...

In game every ship can be used to move Allied troops, this is a great enabler.

Part of the isue again is the availabality of Allied troops, a big chunk of that is the AIF at games start this groupe represents the single bigest allied force that can be readly deployed and historicaly it went more or less streight to Aus. and camped out for the first half of 42 and was comited to action picemeal afterwords. Realy it should show up in Aus. and have a PP asigned to freeing it up.

Most of the forces in India are prety well tied up and whats not forms a respectible deterent, though Indian Divishions can be had on the cheap and are a favorate item to buy for me as a result in any game. Personaly a unit should imo be valued at its full potential not by its present disabled value.

Moving forces to the CBI is also very easy to do as moving them to cape town is prety easy the problem is that the off map network can alow for an infinate number of units to be moved to capetown and asumes theirs always enough ships in the Europeen suply chain free to take care of it all,  its like a force multiplier for the Allies.

Also for most of 42 the eastern seaboard of the US was a death trap for ships, U-boats baged like 600 some odd ships their, yet everything that leaves the eastern US bound for captown arives intact.

.........

So-

1) Make Austraila New Zeland and India neady suply wise.

2) Send the AIF home ( and slap a PP on it.)

3) Make it so US formations nead to ride an "A" rated ship (AP, AK, APA, exc...)

4) Make it so you nead to load troops on Ships on the East coast to get to Cape Town no more free rides.

5) Make it so Units PP values are based on their Potential AV not their disabled AV.

...........

Subs- Enabling subs to strike multiple targts in a TF as they histroicly did might be a way to put some more preshure on the Japanese erchant fleat.

Historicaly toward the end of the war, well later in the war, the Japanse did forward deploy training and aircraft maintance units so they would not have to ship suply (avgas) back to Japan, so their is some argument fore suply production in the forward areas, also their was industry in the forwad areas that did produce war materials and food was of course taken localy, even at rabaul food was grown for the troops their.

[stuman]

This is not for everybody and any mod incorporating these changes would not be for the neophyte. I know a lot of people are more interested in the "enhanced mods", but there are a few of us that would like a "less enhanced mod" that is harder for both sides to play. This discussion is largely for those interested in the game being a little more realistic. I could go on about this but I am wasting electrons

No kidding [:)]

[Brady]

At the risk of stating the obvious, the Japanese ecenomy is to an extent hard wired to lose, aside from miniour flexabality in the speading up ships and some flexabality with aircraft production, you cant realy build more ships or LCU than Japan did and you more or less get what she built, also you have to take reduction in LCU power later in the war if you take upgrades, no mater how well you manage the merchant fleat.
 
 What she historicaly built us of course a product of the return from the everdiminishing merchant marine, even if in game things go better, your still not going to be able to realy do much better than she did with regard to output from her industry, aside from having extra suply and fuel.
 
 Also as we have already noted their is a tremendious lack of tonnage that the game does not acount for, I am not nescessarly arguing for its inclushion hear, just pointing out that a big chunk of her output is also missing.
 
 So I gues the pich is built into the game after a fashion.