ORIGINAL: obvert
ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
ORIGINAL: obvert
The expenditure in HI will be negligible. Not even a blip on the total. Just don't manufacture a few ships and the divisions are filled out.
However, I wouldn't fill them out at all. In a focus on the economic macro vision of what this move could cost you may have neglected to look at the OOB for Japan at this stage. There are few to no units coming before 44 to fill out defenses in very necessary locations. This is something players who only play the Allies may not realize. japan's defenses in 43 are paper thin. Buying out fully fleshed out divisions from Manchuria or the HI is expensive. These newly released troops on the other hand come at 65% TOE, so 65% the cost. They're likely around 1200-1300 PP instead of 1850 PP.
You've just given him great defensive troops for the inner perimeter at a bargain price, and he can turn off replacements and simply wait for PPs to buy them ALL out. I'd say without taking the base, this is a BIG win for Japan.
if he's really worried about HI points in 45, which I doubt he will be unless he doesn't stockpile correctly or overbuilds, he can just not fill out a few of the plethora of troops that arrive in the Home Islands then.
The primary reason I did it is to force supply use. The HI for arms and vehicle points is secondary. I don't think those are a blip, but I haven't done the math. If he waits that's fine too. HI is HI. But they have to eat even standing still. Until he pays the PPs they can't be used for anything that bothers me, but they eat. Lokasenna has said several times that supply is his real bottleneck as we're playing non-historic R&D, Scen 2 (more mouths again), and he's expanded past historic bounds.
As we're playing no-HRs there is no PP cost to Manchuria. These divisions mostly have PP cost unless he air-lifts, and that's even more supply and lost planes to ops loss and thus HI. As Alfred pointed out if he puts them on islands he has to supply them there, and that's more fuel and ship risk to subs. And more VPs for me when the island falls. Or a waste of supply if it's bypassed.
If I ever get to the HI it's almost certainly going to be with Soviets. In that case it won't matter if he has these units, if they're filled out, or anything else. They're going to be mush.
I see what you're saying, and that all of these things have a cost the Allied player can take advantage of later. What I'm hoping to point out is that due to the OOB of the Japanese, a) these troops are simply a cheaper version of troops he'd have to buy out from somewhere to put on islands and b) you would have all of the above benefits regardless of this move (he's not simply going to leave critical bases unguarded), but he'd have to pay a third more PPs to buy out the units.
The one thing this move does show is that he's got to have decent troops on all of the inner perimeter; the Ryukyus, the Bonins, the Kuriles, Hokkaido, Formosa and the islands off of it. Those are a lot of places to cover, and for the Japanese that's tough. It requires buying out a ton of units. There are NO free ones until 44, at least in Scen 1, other than Naval Guards. Even then, most of what arrives are mediocre brigades.
Ok, more good points, most of which I had not thought of.
But in the context of this game and this opponent I still would have done the Chevy. The key reason is the time factor. Yes, he gets crap in-fill LCUs in the later war that he'd have to pay PPs for as well as Arm and Vehicle points to fill out. The difference here is I forced ten divisions' worth of LCU on him in June 1942, well before he needs them for island defense. He has to feed them starting yesterday, but he doesn't need them yet. He has massive numbers of troops on the Asia landmass already due to Scen 2 and no-PPs to leave Manchuria. He's going to take all of China and the whole Irrawaddy Valley without these depot divisions.
OTOH, Lokasenna is a very quantitative player, which I did not know when we set up the game parameters. He keeps spreadsheets, he keeps Word docs, he keeps notebooks. He analyzes his R&D and aircraft to the Nth degree. On Friday he was amusing himself in researching supply usage round-off error! He has mentioned he will be disbanding some smaller LCUs for supply reasons in the near term. He has also mentioned he might have been a bit too aggressive with his R&D and factory moves early given the non-historical R&D joy. And I know for a fact he has studied your own AAR for lessons on Big Air Force, Low Supply late-war operations.
I have done what little I could in strat bombing his supply generators in China. I can't sink a lot of merchants yet, but I'm doing what I can. Supply is the Achilles Heel in this game for him. For me it's time and VPs once Chungking falls. (He has strat bombed Chungking supply generation to -100%. How many Japan players are brave enough to do that?)
If I have to deal with these ten divs on islands later then I do. But I have to get to that era first.
I'd add Lokasenna to the list with Mr. Kane of Very Dangerous Japan Players. I'm getting schooled.
