Caging the Tiger~ Rader (J) vs. GreyJoy (A)

[rader]

Yes, I hid the KB very well in my other game. But then you don't get much use out of it either. If you leave it in a mutually supporting and defensible position with some big air bases where he can't get at it surface TFs, you can make a position almost unaprochable. I would decribe this as the "KB fortress" method. Bad for intel, but man is it potent for stoppping an enemy (in one place only).

[pauk]

"KB fortress" is, unfortunatly, the only way of being alive. Unless you know where Allied DS is, then KB can make some nice trips

Anyway, dont get discouraged.... you can make some serious hits while Allies are in euphoria mode.


Im not familiar how the kamis works in AE, (in witp were next to useless unless Jap players didnt use gamey tactic - seting them to max altitudes).. but could they help?!

[JohnDillworth]

Rader,
thanks for starting updates again. As you can tell by the number of posts GJ has quite a following, myself included. It's clear you are not having any trouble producing aircraft, and have even accelerated a couple of good ones. I am curious as to the quality of your pilots. Your losses have been horrific. How is your IJN and IJA pilot quality? Has your training program held up? Do you think you will continue to keep the quality at a decent level?

[rader]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

Rader,
thanks for starting updates again. As you can tell by the number of posts GJ has quite a following, myself included. It's clear you are not having any trouble producing aircraft, and have even accelerated a couple of good ones. I am curious as to the quality of your pilots. Your losses have been horrific. How is your IJN and IJA pilot quality? Has your training program held up? Do you think you will continue to keep the quality at a decent level?

It's not hard to train a pilot up to 60 skill, 50 def, so that's about what I do. I have pretty much no problem keeping up at this skill level provided I don't go too crazy (believe me, I have shown a lot of restraint, despite throwing away planes in droves - and almost all of that is to preserve pilots, not planes.

[obvert]

It seems with some level 10 bases mutually supporting, you could occasionally throw up 800-1,000 fighters in an area. Even the best Allied fighters sweeping would have trouble hitting that many planes. And as he will start losing a lot of his pilots the quality will be sure to go down at some point.

Should be fun to watch!

[rader]

ORIGINAL: obvert

It seems with some level 10 bases mutually supporting, you could occasionally throw up 800-1,000 fighters in an area. Even the best Allied fighters sweeping would have trouble hitting that many planes. And as he will start losing a lot of his pilots the quality will be sure to go down at some point.

Should be fun to watch!

That's what I'm thinking (hoping).

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: rader
It's not hard to train a pilot up to 60 skill, 50 def, so that's about what I do. I have pretty much no problem keeping up at this skill level provided I don't go too crazy (believe me, I have shown a lot of restraint, despite throwing away planes in droves - and almost all of that is to preserve pilots, not planes.

No problem with the replacement pool of green pilots size so far? Under current beta one can't draw pilots directly from the training program, and currently I train pilots (to skill 70 def 50+) faster than a scen 1-sized training program delivers replacements for IJAAF.

[Schlemiel]

I will say I am most impressed with your economic prowess in this game, Rader. Japanese production is a lot to take in (for me at least) and you seem to have it extremely streamlined. Since you're in a rather unique situation I do have a bit of an economic question for you. Were you able to ship resources/fuel up the Rangoon road at all as the Japanese (who rarely hold the entire thing so effectively). If, say, GJ had somehow pulled off the invasion of the Phillipines instead and direct shipping from the dei was limited by that, would you have been able to keep your economy running decently through your multiple overland routes, do you think (like drop fuel/resources on the Thailand rail and in Rangoon)? I don't know enough about Japanese production or whatever rules might apply to a Japanese controlled Rangoon Road, but the possibility intrigued me at the time given your Chinese holdings and the security of that sector from casual raids.


Any chance we could have sort of a round table discussion thread with you and GJ after this game ends where we can ask questions to both of you about certain moments in the game? This game has had so many interesting moments and your perspective on things would be really fascinating to a lot of people, I'm sure.

[crsutton]

Rader, I am reading GJs AAR have have commented there extensively, so won't comment here. But please keep updating this AAR for us to read. It will be interesting to read you thoughts and evaluations of the game and your opinions on playing the Japanese side. So, I will read here but not comment and will not offer any comments to GJ about your thread. This has been a great game and one of the few that I have followed from day one. Thanks.

[rader]

ORIGINAL: Schlemiel

I will say I am most impressed with your economic prowess in this game, Rader. Japanese production is a lot to take in (for me at least) and you seem to have it extremely streamlined. Since you're in a rather unique situation I do have a bit of an economic question for you. Were you able to ship resources/fuel up the Rangoon road at all as the Japanese (who rarely hold the entire thing so effectively). If, say, GJ had somehow pulled off the invasion of the Phillipines instead and direct shipping from the dei was limited by that, would you have been able to keep your economy running decently through your multiple overland routes, do you think (like drop fuel/resources on the Thailand rail and in Rangoon)? I don't know enough about Japanese production or whatever rules might apply to a Japanese controlled Rangoon Road, but the possibility intrigued me at the time given your Chinese holdings and the security of that sector from casual raids.


Any chance we could have sort of a round table discussion thread with you and GJ after this game ends where we can ask questions to both of you about certain moments in the game? This game has had so many interesting moments and your perspective on things would be really fascinating to a lot of people, I'm sure.

Are you talking about movement of oil/resources to Manchuria through Indochina/China, or between India/Burma? I actually don't know - I never observed a lot of this kind of movement, and it hasn't figured into my planning, but it might be happening without me noticing...

Yes, of course a round table would be great!

[rader]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

Rader, I am reading GJs AAR have have commented there extensively, so won't comment here. But please keep updating this AAR for us to read. It will be interesting to read you thoughts and evaluations of the game and your opinions on playing the Japanese side. So, I will read here but not comment and will not offer any comments to GJ about your thread. This has been a great game and one of the few that I have followed from day one. Thanks.

I'll definitely try to post an update every now and then, but I don't have a whole lot of free time (RL and 2 intense games). But feel free to ask questions and I'll try to post anything especially interesting in addition to the occasional situation update.

[rader]

ORIGINAL: Schlemiel

I will say I am most impressed with your economic prowess in this game, Rader. Japanese production is a lot to take in (for me at least) and you seem to have it extremely streamlined. Since you're in a rather unique situation I do have a bit of an economic question for you. Were you able to ship resources/fuel up the Rangoon road at all as the Japanese (who rarely hold the entire thing so effectively). If, say, GJ had somehow pulled off the invasion of the Phillipines instead and direct shipping from the dei was limited by that, would you have been able to keep your economy running decently through your multiple overland routes, do you think (like drop fuel/resources on the Thailand rail and in Rangoon)? I don't know enough about Japanese production or whatever rules might apply to a Japanese controlled Rangoon Road, but the possibility intrigued me at the time given your Chinese holdings and the security of that sector from casual raids.


Any chance we could have sort of a round table discussion thread with you and GJ after this game ends where we can ask questions to both of you about certain moments in the game? This game has had so many interesting moments and your perspective on things would be really fascinating to a lot of people, I'm sure.

Japanese economics is my favourite part of the game by far. That's what makes the game for me. In fact, it's the main reason why I probably wouldn't find the allied side so interesting. I like the allied toys, but I want to be able to micromanage the production of them. I supect giving allies that kind of power wold probably break the game though. "I want to produce only P-47s and B-29s." [:D]

In fact, I pretty much pre-planned the entire Japanese economy before starting the game. I had the target engine/shipyard/factory numbers decided at the start of the game, as well as which ships to accelerate/halt when etc., and based on heavy industry production assumptions. It was based on experience I'd gained in the Jzanes game, which was very educational. I was hesitant about playing Greyjoy because it was his first game and wasn't sure it was right to pull this kind of planning on a newbie, but we talked a lot before, and I could tell he was a very bright fellow and quick learner. He insisted that he wanted to play with an experienced player to learn faster. Boy, did he ever do that [;)] I feel like obiwan Kenobi meeting Darth Vader on the Death Star.

[Schlemiel]

He definitely learned faster too though. You've kind of created a monster here in GreyJoy, Rader He had to learn the game (both mechanically and strategically) to a deep degree just to survive. I'd personally love to learn to play as Japan, as I do think the production would be a really interesting thing, but you have to start out so fast to have any slim chance. The allies have the double "luxury" of starting with little (so you learn what you have fairly fast) and getting steady reinforcements. You can start as the allies and learn on the job reasonably well. Japan needs a fairly solid strategic vision and a good knowledge of its assets at the word go to be remotely successful, I believe. That's kind of what happened this game, I think. Grey got battered so badly, but he could afford the lessons and kept his CVs intact and took advantage of that short, short axis of advance up north. Great game though for us spectators

[JohnDillworth]

I understand you would be happy if you never saw another PT boat, but what aircraft have given you the most trouble?  Clearly the B-17's have been a problem, what else?

[rader]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

I understand you would be happy if you never saw another PT boat, but what aircraft have given you the most trouble?  Clearly the B-17's have been a problem, what else?

P-47s are killers. And any 4Es are devastating. The corsairs have been seeming pretty good lateyl. And Hellcats are way better than what I have except for the very best (i.e., Franks).

[rader]

He's wearing down the defenders outside Hakkodate relentlessly. Soon he will control the entire island of Hokkaido.

Quite a bit of action in the air today. It is about the best we can expect at this point vs. P-47s: around 3:2 losses in the allies favour. We took down some bombers, but not enough to put a serious dent in his force. The best part was when we got to kill some stragglers. The bombers that came in with the mian package got off almost scott free.

It's really strange actually. I'm not sure why, but all the "time to targets" are listed as around 5 minutes!! I think this is why the air to air combats weren't very bloody. I guess this is because there was no radar in the hex? We actually did set LRCAP over the hex, which I though would help a lot. But this just hammers in the point that radar is really critical to a successful air defense.

Also, we're starting to get ramming attacks on bombers, but it is actually pretty annoying because my pilots are throwing their lives away to get mere damages on enemy bombers. And these ar even B-25s... 2 rams, neither destroyed.

[Miller]

Ramming attacks were a big problem in my previous game. I was seeing 10 fighters a day ramming B25s and maybe destroying 2 or 3 at most whilst I lost all the planes and pilots in return. I mentioned it and the attacks were toned down but they are still a bit out of whack (IMO)......

Here is a link to my thread about it: tm.asp?m=2469825

[crsutton]

Actually, I do have a question. Was there any economic benefit in taking all of India's industry or considering your finite supply of oil, was it more industry than you could use?

[rader]

Yes, you have enough extra oil to run the indian industry. And actually, india comes with about 150 oil anyway.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Miller

Ramming attacks were a big problem in my previous game. I was seeing 10 fighters a day ramming B25s and maybe destroying 2 or 3 at most whilst I lost all the planes and pilots in return. I mentioned it and the attacks were toned down but they are still a bit out of whack (IMO)......

Here is a link to my thread about it: tm.asp?m=2469825

I saw similar results in my recent Downfall play. I've seen +20 fighters in a single engagement ram and only down a couple of 4E's. If it was 1:1, might not be so bad ... but 10:1 in 4E's favor makes it really difficult to take. [:(]