Seems like old times: Nomad (J) vs. Gary (A) - No Nomad Please

[traskott]

What version of WitP are u using ?

No mods ? No new ships ? [:D][:D]

[GaryChildress]

Playing the latest OFFICIAL patch. No mods, just straight stock. I know...here I am making all these ship sides and not using a single one... [:o]

@ Hartwig: Thanks for the overview and tips. I'll see what I can do. I figure my biggest goal in the first months of the war is to keep Australia afloat supply-wise. I remember WitP it was a b**ch trying to keep Australia supplied. Am I right in guessing that the same holds true for AE? Or is Oz relatively self sustaining in AE?

From that it follows that I need to keep the sea lanes open in SoPac. Also I want to keep India safe.

@ Ossian & Jeffk: I may have to agree on Darwin and PM. Especially Darwin will be difficult to supply. PM not quite as bad but if the Japanese want PM early in the game I'm assuming it would be folly to try to stop them?

I guess one additional handicap I have at this point is not knowing exactly what the Japanese are and aren't capable of in AE. I mean, if the Japanese AREN'T capable of invading Oz, then I don't want to waste my time preparing to defend it when I could be planning my offensive instead.

[USSAmerica]

Gary, it's just my impression, but I think it may be slightly easier to keep Oz supplied in AE.  There is almost no way for Japan to cut off the shipping lanes, because you can always send supplies the long way around off map.  Oz does need 60k or so fuel per month to keep industry operating, but it seems to be easier to get it there than in WitP. 

[Ossian]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress
@ Ossian & Jeffk: I may have to agree on Darwin and PM. Especially Darwin will be difficult to supply. PM not quite as bad but if the Japanese want PM early in the game I'm assuming it would be folly to try to stop them?

My PBEM opponent took Morebsy in mid January and I don't know if there was really much I could have done to stop it. Australia has four or five divisions worth of troops available - mostly militia quality - and some armoured units but I think anything other than a substantial build up at PM is only going to slow any half decent IJF player for a short while if he wants it early. Your main problem is you are probably not going to have anywhere near enough PP to buy out what you would need, even if you could get them there quick enough, but this is going to be a recurring Allied problem for quite a chunk of 42.

I'd be wary about using those Aussie division anywhere they are likely to be prison camped. IIRC they upgrade into pretty decent units later on. Apparently, the corks that hang down from the their hats get replaced with hand grenades. [:)]

[Ossian]

ORIGINAL: USS America

Gary, it's just my impression, but I think it may be slightly easier to keep Oz supplied in AE.  There is almost no way for Japan to cut off the shipping lanes, because you can always send supplies the long way around off map.  Oz does need 60k or so fuel per month to keep industry operating, but it seems to be easier to get it there than in WitP. 

Is it as high as 60k? Wow. I had thought it was around half that. You could almost operate a couple of decent sized carrier patrols for that cost. Knowing that I think it looks like fairly good planning for the Allied player to fill up as many tankers in the DEI as he can for use in Oz before Japanese air power or the mini KB makes it impossible for shipping to operate.

[jeffk3510]

Gary- sounds like I am not the only one. I just feel if a Japanese player wants PM, you just turn it into a POW camp, same with Darwin too. That shipping area then becomes a ship graveyard trying to resupply Darwin if they have New G.... just my experience.

I haven't ever played as the Japanese...only Allies.

When I want to play as Japan I fire up my SNES and play PTOII[&o], don't have the patience for them in AE yet....

[jeffk3510]

I too follow Mandrake's AAR... cant figure out if they're having a go at it or not. Good for a great laugh though...

[modrow]

Gary,

some more short comments - it's getting late in Germany.

First, it would be helpful for me if you could state the "mindset" you and your opponent will apply to this game. How "historically bound" do you feel? For example, would you expect repercussions from using lots of Aussie units in other parts of the world (of course properly bought by PP), which probably would not have been possible historically?

Next, could you tell me what "winning the game" would be for you? The end game screen stating a major Allied victory, VPs, not having lost India and Australia over the course of the game,... ?

Now, some (in view of the time not extensive comments) of the aspects you mentioned and - as you seem to be interested in changes in AE relative to WitP - some additional aspects.

a) The Japanese are definitely capable of invading Oz in AE. I think Northern Australia has been occupied in many games, however I am not aware of a game in which the reinforcement line has been intentionally crossed and/or in which Australia has been fully conquered.

b) Next, a comment relating to the changes between AE and WitP (because this outlines at least part of the reason why the above capability exists):

Personally, I feel that one very important change ist the management of LCUs and their TOEs. If applied properly, it can increase the efficiency of your troops a lot. If not, you have to live with non-optimized LCUs.

c) As an example, look at Australia's OOB, the TOEs and the devices used as well as the replacement rates thereof. Compare, e.g., the statistics for the Australian militia to the ones of IJA infantry and your CMF militia.

You will see that most of your LCUs have bad experience, depleted TOEs and relatively little firepower. If you look at the corresponding replacement rates, you will see that they are quite limited. To make things worse, for some of the devices you are in direct competition with British/Indian units (e.g. 18 pdrs and the following upgrade chain). WitP tracker (AE) is quite helpful to see what device is needed by whom. Therefore, one should try to optimize device distribution, think about how to upgrade and upgrade in a controlled way. An Indian Brigade with Inf section 42 fights a lot better than one with the starting infantry section.

Therefore, one of the interesting possibilities of AE is the disbanding of LCUs which do not have a withdrawal date. In other words, you can trade strength where you don't need it early on for strength where you need it ealry on to some extent.

d) What this means for your situation in Australia is that at first i) adjusted combat values will be relatively weak and ii) as the statistics of the units influence the losses inflicted, fighting these units will lead to relatively low damage to the Japanese.

e) Next, check out the Air force available to Australia. No fighters (historically correct), just Wirraways (which are no longer classified as fighter in AE). Few bombers. A pitiful number of Catilinas. This means, at least early on you will most likely fight under total enemy air superiority. The fighter squadrons you receive relatively early in Australia have dismal pilots, so better think twice whether you would like to commit them.

f) Last not least, engineering capacities are limited. You will have to pick carefully where you want to expand what.

g) I think that you currently do not think ahead far enough - sorry if this sounds a bit blunt, no offense intended. Therefore, I have a question for you: What do you want to use Australia for, what role is it supposed to play in your war? The answer is of crucial importance for some of the additional decisions. Even though Australia may be easier to supply now than in WitP, naturally the amount of supplies needed there depends on the troops you put there and the operations you want to start from there. If you want to conduct major offensive operations from Australia, you need to accumulate fuel and supplies, increase port sizes and airfields, ship additional engineers, support units, combat units and planes. If you don't really need Australia, the need is much smaller.

h) All of the above takes time to realize. Your long term plans influence significantly what decisions you have to take now.

Hope this helps. It's good night for me now (1:40 am my time)

Hartwig

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: hartwig.modrow

Gary,

some more short comments - it's getting late in Germany.

First, it would be helpful for me if you could state the "mindset" you and your opponent will apply to this game. How "historically bound" do you feel? For example, would you expect repercussions from using lots of Aussie units in other parts of the world (of course properly bought by PP), which probably would not have been possible historically?

Next, could you tell me what "winning the game" would be for you? The end game screen stating a major Allied victory, VPs, not having lost India and Australia over the course of the game,... ?

Now, some (in view of the time not extensive comments) of the aspects you mentioned and - as you seem to be interested in changes in AE relative to WitP - some additional aspects.

a) The Japanese are definitely capable of invading Oz in AE. I think Northern Australia has been occupied in many games, however I am not aware of a game in which the reinforcement line has been intentionally crossed and/or in which Australia has been fully conquered.

b) Next, a comment relating to the changes between AE and WitP (because this outlines at least part of the reason why the above capability exists):

Personally, I feel that one very important change ist the management of LCUs and their TOEs. If applied properly, it can increase the efficiency of your troops a lot. If not, you have to live with non-optimized LCUs.

c) As an example, look at Australia's OOB, the TOEs and the devices used as well as the replacement rates thereof. Compare, e.g., the statistics for the Australian militia to the ones of IJA infantry and your CMF militia.

You will see that most of your LCUs have bad experience, depleted TOEs and relatively little firepower. If you look at the corresponding replacement rates, you will see that they are quite limited. To make things worse, for some of the devices you are in direct competition with British/Indian units (e.g. 18 pdrs and the following upgrade chain). WitP tracker (AE) is quite helpful to see what device is needed by whom. Therefore, one should try to optimize device distribution, think about how to upgrade and upgrade in a controlled way. An Indian Brigade with Inf section 42 fights a lot better than one with the starting infantry section.

Therefore, one of the interesting possibilities of AE is the disbanding of LCUs which do not have a withdrawal date. In other words, you can trade strength where you don't need it early on for strength where you need it ealry on to some extent.

d) What this means for your situation in Australia is that at first i) adjusted combat values will be relatively weak and ii) as the statistics of the units influence the losses inflicted, fighting these units will lead to relatively low damage to the Japanese.

e) Next, check out the Air force available to Australia. No fighters (historically correct), just Wirraways (which are no longer classified as fighter in AE). Few bombers. A pitiful number of Catilinas. This means, at least early on you will most likely fight under total enemy air superiority. The fighter squadrons you receive relatively early in Australia have dismal pilots, so better think twice whether you would like to commit them.

f) Last not least, engineering capacities are limited. You will have to pick carefully where you want to expand what.

g) I think that you currently do not think ahead far enough - sorry if this sounds a bit blunt, no offense intended. Therefore, I have a question for you: What do you want to use Australia for, what role is it supposed to play in your war? The answer is of crucial importance for some of the additional decisions. Even though Australia may be easier to supply now than in WitP, naturally the amount of supplies needed there depends on the troops you put there and the operations you want to start from there. If you want to conduct major offensive operations from Australia, you need to accumulate fuel and supplies, increase port sizes and airfields, ship additional engineers, support units, combat units and planes. If you don't really need Australia, the need is much smaller.

h) All of the above takes time to realize. Your long term plans influence significantly what decisions you have to take now.

Hope this helps. It's good night for me now (1:40 am my time)

Hartwig

Well, I would like to simply hold Australia, maybe launch an offensive from Perth into the Southern DEI at some point. I'm not all that worried about the Solomon Islands or the eastern Australian sea board, other than simply keeping it out of Japanese hands.

As far as not thinking ahead, you're probably right. I'm not much of a strategic planner. I mostly just react to my opponents, trying to throw a monkey wrench in here and there. Ideally I would like to focus most of my resources toward retaking the DEI as soon as possible. The CenPac I don't see a lot of value to. The Japs can have Burma but I hope to stop them at the gates of India.

My idea of victory is to not do worse than the Allies historically did.

[modrow]

Gary,

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

Well, I would like to simply hold Australia, maybe launch an offensive from Perth into the Southern DEI at some point. I'm not all that worried about the Solomon Islands or the eastern Australian sea board, other than simply keeping it out of Japanese hands.

As far as not thinking ahead, you're probably right. I'm not much of a strategic planner. I mostly just react to my opponents, trying to throw a monkey wrench in here and there. Ideally I would like to focus most of my resources toward retaking the DEI as soon as possible. The CenPac I don't see a lot of value to. The Japs can have Burma but I hope to stop them at the gates of India.

My idea of victory is to not do worse than the Allies historically did.

thanks for your input, which is very helpful to understand what you aim for. After all, strategy is subordinate to national goals; I assume your national goal is to “do no worse as the Allies historically did”. If you can set it up, a list what this means for you would be helpful – if the important parameter is beating Japan into submission before the historical date of surrender, the way to achieve that may be different from the way to go if you want to avoid being pushed back further than the Allies were in the war, e.g.. For now, I assume that part of this is losing as little as possible of India and Australia and being in a position to contest Japanese expansion into the Solomons by August of 1942. Feel free to add more details and/or correct me.

Most importantly, please tell me if you feel I keep pushing you towards a way of playing you just don’t want to play. This is your game, and the important thing is that you enjoy it in the way you play it. I just advocate some private opinion how I believe likelihood of success for your operations may be increased and hope to trigger some discussion to be able to recognize my own mistakes.

There is a second important thing I would like to stress:

With respect to strategic thinking, I think most Allied players, first and foremost myself, are frequently seduced by the game not to do it. It is difficult, sometimes tedious, requires discipline, and at first it seems like an immense task, which gets easier only by practice.

However, I think to respond to opportunity is something which was made more difficult by AE compared to WitP. E.g., impromptu amphibious counterinvasions without sufficient preparation seem not to work well any more, the limits to rearming ships at a port of a given size necessitate adequate development of the base structure and/or providing Naval support or AKE’s prior to operations, and do not forget the supply storage limits that are dependent on how developed a base is; thus having the necessary amount of supplies at hand requires base development as well.

Let’s try to scale down the planning ahead a bit in accordance with one of the aspect you stated you want to achieve (and simultaneously demonstrate the time span you need to plan ahead to realize that aim):

If I understand you correctly, you want to be able to contest expansion into the Solomons in the last third of 1942, because otherwise you would do worse than the Allies did historically in that respect.

That means you want to have an adequately developed base infrastructure in the region to be able to rearm and do at least preliminary repairs on damaged ships to prevent losing them, as a point to amass troops prior to your amphibious moves and to store the necessary supplies, as well as adequately (80-100% for a given target) prepared, somewhat experienced LCUs with full, up to date TOE and high morale.

If you want to achieve this, 9 months or so are not a long time. You need time to move Engineers and/or base forces into place, let them expand the bases to the desire/required level while also taking care that the expanding base is not getting too attractive for the Japanese, ship storage of supplies and fuel to the places, bring in the invasion troops allowing them to rest for some time etc.

That means essentially, that at this point of time you should start thinking about the bases you want to use to start a Solomons campaign plus a fall-back-position (it may be that New Caledonia and New Hebrides will be taken by this point of time), and start expanding those bases adequately if you want to be able to put up resistance in the Solomons.

That’s my 2cts for now. If you get bored about my harping for long-time planning, let me know –I’ll stop it. If you think this discussion is interesting and/or helpful, just cue me to move on.

Hartwig

[cantona2]

Loving the newspaper look [:D]

[GaryChildress]

OK. I'll go over what I've done so far, strategic planning I will put on a sidebar for now. I just now finished with the first turn. Wow! There is a LOT to do in AE. [X(]

One thing I did was pack up most of my infantry in Darwin and I'm going to send them to Java to try to give the Japs more fight there.

Most of the reinforcements headed for Singapore I've diverted to other places.

I've set ALL bases to expand fortifications.

I've left China unattended for now. Honestly I don't know what to do there and I hate messing around with China. Honestly I would be happier if AE just didn't include China as a zone of opperation-mark it off as inaccessible or something and lock all the units there. [>:]

I've sent about 3-4 PI infantry units to meet the Japs in Vigan.

Almost all my subs are mobilized.

I'm moving as many AKs and TKs out of their little dens and have them moving to ports where I expect to be shipping cargo.

Moved ALL air groups out of Eastern USA to San Francisco.

PILOT TRAINING: How do I start a pilot training program? Do I simply set all my air units to "training" mode or is there a better way to train pilots? Can someone enlighten me a bit on this aspect of the game?

Thanks.

[traskott]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

OK. I'll go over what I've done so far, strategic planning I will put on a sidebar for now. I just now finished with the first turn. Wow! There is a LOT to do in AE. [X(]

One thing I did was pack up most of my infantry in Darwin and I'm going to send them to Java to try to give the Japs more fight there.

Most of the reinforcements headed for Singapore I've diverted to other places.

I've set ALL bases to expand fortifications.

I've left China unattended for now. Honestly I don't know what to do there and I hate messing around with China. Honestly I would be happier if AE just didn't include China as a zone of opperation-mark it off as inaccessible or something and lock all the units there. [>:]

I've sent about 3-4 PI infantry units to meet the Japs in Vigan.

Almost all my subs are mobilized.

I'm moving as many AKs and TKs out of their little dens and have them moving to ports where I expect to be shipping cargo.

Moved ALL air groups out of Eastern USA to San Francisco.

PILOT TRAINING: How do I start a pilot training program? Do I simply set all my air units to "training" mode or is there a better way to train pilots? Can someone enlighten me a bit on this aspect of the game?

Thanks.

Wrong about China: You must move NOW. First days at this theatre are CRITICAL. Send ALL troops you have around Ichang to that city. If the japanese is lazy, u can even took it. Move all your troops to your cities, or, at least to forest terrain. DON'T change their targets, even if you have different ideas for them.
Personal advice: join all the corps with their respectives HQ !!! The chinese LCU are so weak that the % modifier for been in HQ range is a very good boost to those troops.

Send all chinese airplanes to Chungking and put them to train at 100%. Bombers should train recon (very useful).

Move all bgdes near URSS front to the bases NW of Sian, they are critically important to keep China supplied and their garrison is very poor.

Good luck.

[Fishbed]

Keep it up Gary, you made my late afternoon much funnier today [:D]

[jeffk3510]

Your subs dude rate is very high as you probably already know. However, you might as well use them with the chance of hitting something. Have a s*** ton of them at major choke points and or major shipping lanes. Haven't seen you mention much on subs that is why I did. I think subs will pay dividends in the long run if you're patient. Also the far western Aluetians make a good sub base for HI sub action. lvl 3 port with AS (someone let me know if I am mistaken...at work at the moment..) should do the trick to reload subs....Perth (spelling?) works for DEI for your fleet subs. Eastern OZ (AE map wise...) is good aslo until you start taking back islands to move your sub bases forward...maybe I should do a PBEM with team mates, and only handle the subs :)

[Ossian]

Subs are the bane of my life just now. I've been having suspiciously bad luck with them in my current game - far worse than I've ever done before.

Having said that, my big hint about subs is to change the skippers as soon as you can. Just like in real life, most of the skippers you start with are woeful; many of them have very, very low aggression (many are in the 20s,) and a substantial proportion of them aren't even rated as suitable for command of a submarine. I think it's imperative that you swap them for better commanders as soon as possible. This is mostly a US issue; for the most part, the Dutch and Brit sub commanders aren't nearly so bad.

[jeffk3510]

Is that what you spend the bulk of your PP Points on in the first part of the war? What about your front line airgroups commanders as well?

[Ossian]

Subs first, being a sub fan. [:)] Actually, the cost isn't too much, being 3-5 PP each. They also tend to get spread out because you can only change them when the sub is in port so that adds as a natural barrier against blowing the whole lot at once. I change a few squadron commanders here and there as well, when I can, and also PT boat commanders too - never underestimate the irritation factor to the JFB of a PT boat flotilla turning up at just the wrong time during an invasion - especially with a good leader and particularly if he has no screening force.

I've always found that trying to work out what to spend your precious PP on is one of the real early war challenges for an Allied player. 50 per day is no where near enough - which, I suppose, is the point.

[GaryChildress]

OK. I went back and fortified China a bit, and scrambled almost ALL my subs. Every time I opened the turn to work on it I would find more stuff that needed to be done so I finally just drew the line and ended it. Otherwise I'd be with it all month. [X(]

Didn't get around to fooling with TF commanders and such. Almost used some PPs to change command of a Dutch INF unit so I could load it on ship and then thought better of it.

So I sent the turn off...finally. [:o]

[modrow]

Gary,

PILOT TRAINING: How do I start a pilot training program? Do I simply set all my air units to "training" mode or is there a better way to train pilots? Can someone enlighten me a bit on this aspect of the game?

I'll tell you what I do, but note that this is not necessarily the best way. Welcome to another real clickfest [;)]

a) I think it is important to max out at least those units that will not participate in combat any time soon (e.g. restricted ones in the US) with pilots. You will have noted that after the group has been filled with the number of pilots that corresponds to its number of planes according to its OOB a limited number of additional pilots can be added. Do that.

b) set the units to train. There are different theories floating around regarding the optimized percentage -40% is default, but that may be a tad low, some people advocate 100%, I usually end up with 70-90% as a function of fatigue accumulation.

c) chose a specific mission to train. The mission you train will influence the pilot skills that are improved. Actually, I have not seen much of a difference between training port attack, airfield attack and ground attack. Perhaps someone out there can elaborate whether there is one ?

d) one caveat as Allied player is that you probably have to do some strange mission assignments (US catilinas training naval attack with torpedoes) to make sure you keep enough US pilots with torpedo skills in order to replenish your ranks after a carrier battle.

e) check progress from time to time (e.g. every 10th turn or so) and "harvest" ready pilots by sending them to general reserve. Note that you can harvest also from units with a set withdrawal date, you just have to refill with fresh pilots when you are no longer able to send someone to general reserve.

f) there were some speculations/discussions on whether assignment of highly skilled pilots accelerates training or not. I do not know what was the final result, perhaps someone else does.

g) As a rule of thumb, I

i) don't use pilots whose relevant skills (e.g. for fighter pilots air and defense) are lower than 50 for any combat action
ii) avoid using pilots whose relevant skills are lower than 60. Note that "avoid" means in this context that I do not use a unit comprising such pilots unless I believe the situation absolutely requires it.
iii) think that only pilots with skills of about 70 and above provide really good results.

If you compare these values to the ones your pilots have, you see that you have a bit of work to do. You will have to learn to accept being bombed as well as missions with limited success. Specifically, compared to WitP naval attack using medium bombers has a much lower rate of success at least at the beginning of the game than you are used to.

Hope this helps. Perhaps someone else can add any point I missed or that I may do wrong

Hartwig