Sardaukar's Newbie Tutorial AAR for Newbies (vs. IJ AI)

[Sardaukar]

Bump! [8D]

[Sardaukar]

Bump! [8D]

[diamond dave]

Have gotten hopelessly addicted to this game... my new crack habit...  Even worse than when I had Uncommon Valor.

Actually had this game for a little over a year on the shelf because when I first got it, it tended to bog down with all it's memory & processor requirements on both my (outdated) desktop and laptop.  Got a new laptop after Christmas with more mem & dual-core processor, and can finally run at a (more than) acceptable speed.

After cutting my teeth on the Marianas scenario, followed Sardaukar's guide pretty thoroughly to jump into the big game.  Started out "quiet China"... not so quiet there... next time will include it with the whole shebang.

Am up to May 1942 and thought I was doing pretty good - until the Japanese carriers started showing up after being released from the DEI when Batavia and SB fell.

To date - Pearl Harbor raid cost me the services of Oklahoma and 1 destroyer, and moderate to severe damage to the rest of the battleships.  Nevada is already back in service, and Tennessee just got released from the Alameda shipyard.  Maryland is waiting in Seattle for an escort back to Pearl, and Arizona will be ready there at the end of the month.  WV and Pennsylvania just made it to Alameda after patching up enough sys damage to make the trip from PH and will be in the yard for several more months, and California is still too damaged to risk leaving PH.

Filipino and USAAF air forces put up a good fight over the PI, giving me a number of experienced pilots and a few aces, but eventually had to be withdrawn when numbers got whittled down to point of ineffectiveness.  Singapore held out until Feb, with it's Buffalo pilots shooting down quite a few planes (until the Zeroes started appearing in force) and the Vildabeests and Swordfish making it hazardous on any shipping foolish enough to come into range.  Force Z and Doorman's cruisers (including USS Boise) took down a few transport and amphibious TFs until IJN carriers started showing up in force.  Eventually evacuated Force Z to Colombo, and Doorman to Darwin, with rest of merchies and auxiliaries from DEI and PI split between two.  Air raids sunk a number of them, but a goodish amount made it.  Most of the DEI went down towards end of March, ending the agonies of it's mostly useless air force, but it did keep the attention of the IJN carriers, giving me precious time to reinforce the SW and South Pacific.  Also Dutch subs were able to score on a number of merchies, and have rebased the survivors at Colombo and Tricomalee.

Lost Rangoon and Burma early and way too easily along with the bulk of its forces while my attention was distracted elsewhere, costing me the services of some useful RAF base forces and two out of the three AVG groups.  IJA troops actually made it as far as Cox's Bazaar before I woke up and massively reinforced Chittagong and started raiding their shipping off the coast near Akyab.  That front has stabilized and I think I've pinched the Japanese supplies enough to where they can't launch any offensives into India, at least not from the coastal region.  Also heavily fortified Imphal and nearby bases to make the northerly routes into India as uninviting as possible.

While Japanese attention was mostly focused on that side of the Pacific, did a massive sealift of troops and airpower from Pearl and the West Coast to reinforce Australia and the convoy routes from Christmas Island (Pacific) to Brisbane, with Pago Pago, Suva, and Noumea as major hubs.  Also built up Port Moresby and east coast of Australia all the way up to Horn Island to discourage Japanese moves there.  Got A-24s based on PM which with heavy P-40 escort have been making a mess of any shipping in the Solomon and Bismarck Seas - at least until Japanese started basing Zeroes at Rabaul.  Have had to scale back since due to mounting losses.  Most of Australia's supplies and fuel is actually coming from the west, with CS convoys from Abadan, Aden, and Cape Town offloading in Perth.

Japanese took Luganville, Efate, Funafuti, and Baker Islands, but is having trouble keeping them supplied due to my prowling cruisers, destroyers, and B-26s.  Made a doomed attempt to land on Nadi, but Aussie cruisers made short work of that.  Also keeps trying to land on a heavily fortified Canton Island, which eventually resulted in my first major carrier battle.  That battle permanently cost me the services of Enterprise (moment of silence, please), and put Lexington, Saratoga, and Yorktown in the shop for the month (recently arrived Hornet filling out air groups at Pearl).  IJN lost Ryujo and Zuiho, and took a few bomb hits on Zuikaku and Akagi, hopefully damaging them enough to keep them out of service for a month or two.  Bomber performance on both sides was horrible, probably due to severe weather conditions, else battle would've been ruinous for both sides.  Amazingly TBDs scored a few precious hits on the light carriers, and seemed to suffer less than my SBD air groups, which really got savaged.
 
Now recently - the other half of the IJN carrier fleet did a raid on the east coast of Australia, mostly concentrating on Sydney.  Massed B-26 low-level raids did score four bomb hits on Shokaku, but not enough to seriously damage her and prevent the carnage amongst most of my air forces and shipping in port.  All my carriers are at Pearl being repaired except for Hornet, and she still doesn't have her air groups filled out completely yet, so it'll be the end of the month before I can put them back together.  Until I get more F4Fs and SBDs in the pools, may have to leave a carrier home just to fill out all the air groups on the others.  That Canton/Baker carrier battle really decimated my fighters and DBs, even after disbanding Enterprise's meager survivors into the other air groups there isn't a whole lot left.  Already went in and renamed one of the impending Essex carriers as the new Big E, can't wait until late 1943.  As Captain Picard once said, "there's still more letters in the alphabet".  (cue Star Trek:NG theme)

Am currently concentrating on holding the Burma-India border, keeping an eye out for IJN carrier incursions into the Indian Ocean or Western Australia (not that I could do much to prevent that), and keeping the South Pacific convoy lines open and the Japanese out.  AI seems to have an obsession with taking Canton Island, which means that sea bottom between Baker and Canton is getting filled with Japanese ships, courtesy of Marine air groups on Canton and light cruiser forces mostly formed from old Omaha class cruisers, which I've had to almost permanently station off of Canton.  Am taking a huge toll of Japanese merchies with air power and hit-n-run carrier raids, plus the efforts of British/Dutch subs and S-boats (the Mk-10 torp being the only semi-reliable weapon the American subs have at this point).  At this rate the Japanese won't be able to move troops or supplies by mid-1943, by which time my new carriers will start showing up.  Trouble is holding onto what I have right now in case IJN carriers decide to get really obnoxious in force, because I can't afford another carrier slugfest without seriously whittling down Japan's carrier strength in return. 

Hope this isn't too long and I'm not hijacking things here.  If so, feel free to move to more appropriate forum.  But I do appreciate the newbie guide and opening moves, it's made things much simpler for me and for what I have to do to master this game.  Now if I could put this away long enough to pay more attention to my family...

[Sardaukar]

It's fine, there is definitely many ways to handle opening moves, depending on strategy. And this thread is just fine for it and open to debate. [8D]

[diamond dave]

Another recommendation that may or may not have been mentioned elsewhere: turn automatic upgrade to OFF on major fleet units, particularly carriers.  That way YOU can decide when to upgrade them and they don't get taken out of service at critical times if you leave them disbanded or being repaired in a major port.  I was six days from getting Saratoga back from repairs when it got sent back to the yard for 30 days to be upgraded at the first of June 1942, right at the time I needed ALL my carriers in operation.  

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: diamond dave

Another recommendation that may or may not have been mentioned elsewhere: turn automatic upgrade to OFF on major fleet units, particularly carriers.  That way YOU can decide when to upgrade them and they don't get taken out of service at critical times if you leave them disbanded or being repaired in a major port.  I was six days from getting Saratoga back from repairs when it got sent back to the yard for 30 days to be upgraded at the first of June 1942, right at the time I needed ALL my carriers in operation.  

It's pretty much accepted wisdom among experienced players to turn automatic upgrades off for everything, ships, LCUs and installations allowing the player to decide when resources are comitted and when ships go into drydock.

[Sardaukar]

It can definitely be quite a disappointment to have CVs refitting..severe delay in operations. On the other hand, some of those upgrades are quite substantial, so it is trade-off and have to be considered carefully.

[diamond dave]

Okay... I've made it to November 1942 and the tide is slowly starting to turn against the Japanese. Interestingly, not because of major battles, but because of attrition. Other than my previously mentioned battle with Japanese carriers near Canton Island that resulted in the loss of Enterprise, the IJN seems reluctant to confront any of my heavy units directly in battle. Instead they keep sending their warships around piecemeal as convoy escorts, or uselessly sailing for no apparent reason right into heavy LBA opposition, usually to their detriment. And what's up with these DMS raids just outside Pearl Harbor, and finding seaplane and submarine tenders (Chiyoda, Nisshin, Mizuho, etc.) in the waters between Johnson and Pearl? Was there a plan from the AI, or were they just providing gratuitous target practice for my Saratoga and Wasp fliers, and my newly minted Marine TBF's? The AI did manage to pull a fast one on me, sending carriers into my WC-PH convoy routes and costing me a full task force of tankers (ouch!) so I'm forced to keep two carriers in Pearl at all times to guard against repeats. They also did a raid with a large carrier battlegroup on Brisbane and Sydney while my carriers and airgroups were laid up after the Canton battle, which were finally chased off after mass B26 attacks managed to score a few hits on Shokaku. Since then, sightings of Kido Butai have been few and far in between.

The South Pacific convoy routes and Australian west coast have been heavily reinforced with LBA and trained pilots. Noumea is now a major base, and the offensive up New Guinea has started, with the Australian units rescued from Singapore taking Milne Bay and Buna. I bypassed (temporarily) a large garrison on Efate and elected to go for the lesser defended Luganville, which resulted in the Marines rudely evicting their Japanese counterparts. Rabaul has been strangely quiet, other than occasional ineffective air raids on Port Moresby, well defended by USAAF fighters. Stray convoys usually receive a rude response from my land based A-24's and B-26's, or a strike from my three carriers stationed at Noumea. As I figured, the crippling losses to the Japanese merchant marine are progressively making it difficult to move troops or supplies.

In India, the Brits managed to recapture Cox's Bazaar, and am in the process of surrounding and laying siege to Akyab and the 30,000+ troops stationed there. I'm also starting an offensive from Imphal down towards Mandalay and other points east, to see how far the Japanese and my supplies will let me get. I'm also paying a little more attention to what's going on in China (even though I'm playing a Quiet China scenario) and starting to move stuff around there.

Getting the Dutch and Royal Navies out of Singapore and the DEI has paid enormous dividends. Dutch subs in particular are taking a heavy toll of shipping along the Burma coast and in the waters between Medan and the Andamans. Dutch surface forces have also acquitted themselves well in the service of the Royal Australian Navy, and their transports and merchants have been invaluable in moving troops and supplies around in the SW/South Pacific.

One place the Japanese have been causing some harassment lately is along the northern coast, from Broome to Darwin. Darwin was heavily reinforced early on with refugees from the DEI, and is now home to several squadrons of P-40's and Kittyhawks. Trying to turn it into a heavy bomber base so I can strike back and stop some of those pesky air raids.

Overall quite satisfactory, though a bit anticlimatic. I am somewhat disappointed with the reluctance of the Japanese AI to mass their forces and push me hard in areas that I'm weak. Their carrier force is still full strength, lacking only two light carriers (Zuiho and Ryujo) and could still give me problems just about anywhere. For this reason I try not to send my forward based carriers very far outside the umbrella of LBA coverage.

Just my observations so far.

[barkman44]

I'm trying to evacuate the aussie units from singapore.I sent ap's from sumatra,marched units to singapore and placed them on strategic mode but when i hit the load troops button on tf window I et a window showing alot of air units and 2 ground units but not the aussies.
Do I have to change hq's?That cost's 304 pp for one unit.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: barkorn45

I'm trying to evacuate the aussie units from singapore.I sent ap's from sumatra,marched units to singapore and placed them on strategic mode but when i hit the load troops button on tf window I et a window showing alot of air units and 2 ground units but not the aussies.
Do I have to change hq's?That cost's 304 pp for one unit.

Yes the Aussie ground unit in Malaya are attached to a restricted HQ.

[Justus2]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: barkorn45

I'm trying to evacuate the aussie units from singapore.I sent ap's from sumatra,marched units to singapore and placed them on strategic mode but when i hit the load troops button on tf window I et a window showing alot of air units and 2 ground units but not the aussies.
Do I have to change hq's?That cost's 304 pp for one unit.

Yes the Aussie ground unit in Malaya are attached to a restricted HQ.

But switching them to their parent HQ (ABDA Command) is unrestricted, and since it's within the same overall command, it only costs 25% of the points (the interface wont show it, but that is what will be deducted).

[Sardaukar]

I think ABDA in this scenario is also restricted, but not entirely sure. Gotta check.

[barkman44]

I just switched them to abda command and cost was about 25% now their loading.And no abda is not restricted,puzzled as to the difference between displayed cost and actual cost and does this come up on other pp cost considerations involving transfers?

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: barkorn45

I just switched them to abda command and cost was about 25% now their loading.And no abda is not restricted,puzzled as to the difference between displayed cost and actual cost and does this come up on other pp cost considerations involving transfers?

yes, and oddly enough sometimes the interface does show the reduced cost for a transfer within a parent command to an unrestricted subcommand. I think it shows in air squadron transfers IIRC.

[Sardaukar]

Bump!

[ChadS]

At the very least, this post gives me a starting point, to better grasp the various fronts I need to deal with, and what needs to be done! I would never have thought of the need to train pilots--or that this was even viable/possible.

FWIW, I think a doc that only covers the strategy level could be helpful, though this definitely is a must see for beginners. There's a lot of hidden information in this post, and others like it, that could make for a good Wiki or something like that.

[Sardaukar]

Bump!

[wfaherty]

This thread has been a very useful tool to both setup the first turn Allied moves and to understand the essential setups(bases,LCU's,cargo TF's,etc) that you need to do as a Allied player. I have used this AAR in doing the DaBigBabes Dec 7th Campaign(currently on turn 26 Jan 3,1942) ,while it does not exact match the units and places, it gives me a very detailed philosophy of setting up and preserving combat power so that I can look with confidence to turning the tide in mid to late 1942.

[wfaherty]

Speaking of the scenario DaBigBabes Dec 7th one thing I had have done is to setup and move(takes 25-30 turns if lucky) the various floating dry-docks to Australia ASAP (Must!! set this up in First turn.
This helps in repair of the Allied cruisers and destroyers when the fighting over Port Morsby,the Coral Sea and the Solomon Islands begins. Again you must plan ahead 20-30 turns(a lot like chess??)if you want to be able to mount a offensive in mid 1942 that is well provisioned.properly supported and which will succeed.

The one ARD I never thought I would get away with.

[wfaherty]

And the YFD I never thought I would get away with.