Return of the Sheep! - JocMeister(A) vs. MrKane(J)

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Can you put some theater pictures up?

Hopefully tomorrow. Just arrived at the hospital. [:(]

The SOPAC/OZ area I think you are all pretty familiar with as I posted lots of screens.
I own all bases in NOPAC but only have troops on a couple of bases
Tom has only token forces in CENTPAC. Rowboats corps has taken most of the bases for him. He has Wake.
He has all of Burma including the Adamans.
China is toast. I might be able to hang on to the three mountain bases. But its unlikely if he really wants them.
I have the line islands.
I have all of India including the island in the IO and Ceylon.

Lower DEI, Burma I was primarily interested in.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe
Lower DEI, Burma I was primarily interested in.

Well, he has it all. [:)]

[Lowpe]

Darwin?

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Darwin?

Still in allied control but cut off and isolated.

[Lowpe]

Beer or Prayer.[:)]

I guess a lot depends if you plan on stopping if AV is achieved or not.

If yes you will concede, then you are free to try any hare brained scheme to get victory points.

[krishub1492]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Watching your American subs until 1/43 can put a big stress on your heart. You never know if they are actually going to do their job. [:(] I guess the best thing to do is have a frame of mind that anything they actually damage or sink is a bonus until '43.

Even the reduction in the dud rate on 1/1/43 is too low. And 1942 is simply fantasy. JFBs have no, none, zero fear of USN subs in 1942. In reality, in JANAC records (post-war assessment using Japanese records; far lower than in-war CO claims), USN (no Dutch or RN) subs sank 133.5 Japanese ships in 1942 for 552, 472 tons. Of that total, 14 of those ships were sunk by S-class subs. The rest were fleet boats. Can anybody come close to matching that in the game?

How many times has a Japan economic primer said "Immediately turn off all merchant construction. You already have plenty."?

By the time subs actually work, in late 1943, JFBs have huge HI stocks, big Arms and Vehicle stocks, and are using the Magic Highway across Asia to avoid having to drive tankers all the way home.

Nerfing subs makes the game skew hard to an air war game, and not a naval game as it should be. I doubt the devs, or GG, had any idea JFBs would be as inventive as they have become. But leaving the dud rate at 12/7/41 levels for thirteen months is wrong, and it has big effects. Same as the very high escort-targeting rate versus targeting the merchants primarily, which was also the case in RL. And the sub war, except for the initial dud rate, is buried in the EXE, including the dates of dud rate reduction.

It's sad that so many people play this game and come away with the idea it was all about airplanes.

Rhetorical question.

Would it work better to use the "Reliable USN Torpedoes" option but edit the scenario to reduce the number of US fleet boats that are available early in the game? You could add them later as reinforcements to bring the sub OB up to historical values sometime in 1943.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Beer or Prayer.[:)]

I guess a lot depends if you plan on stopping if AV is achieved or not.

If yes you will concede, then you are free to try any hare brained scheme to get victory points.

I´m probably not going to play on if Tom wins by AV. And looking at the numbers I´m kind of thinking it might be time to hoist the white flag now rather then face the inevitable in 6 months.

Need to take a good look at the map when I get home.

[Lokasenna]

Is it too late to run for the hills in China?

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Is it too late to run for the hills in China?

I´ve already done that with most of the troops. I only have small rear guard around Changsha and around 1500 AV at Chungking. Most of the troops there are respawns.

Problem is I´m not going to be able to hold him in the mountains. He shocked across the river East of Chegthe (?) with minimal losses and is now causing 300-600 casualties per day with bombardments.

Turns out troops don´t dig forts without supply and I don´t need to tell you the supply situation! [:D]

[Barb]

Sorry for the Sara - just two torpedoes? Hell of a bad luck there!

Well you have some options - to continue playing regardless of AV, to surrender at AV, or throw in the towel... I personally would like to see you carry on.

At least if you think you are going to throw in the towel, you can arrange an enormous "all-in" battle in the South Pacific. You can loose your fleet, but it would be at least a spectacular "last-ditch" effort [;)]

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Beer or Prayer.[:)]

I guess a lot depends if you plan on stopping if AV is achieved or not.

If yes you will concede, then you are free to try any hare brained scheme to get victory points.

I´m probably not going to play on if Tom wins by AV. And looking at the numbers I´m kind of thinking it might be time to hoist the white flag now rather then face the inevitable in 6 months.

Need to take a good look at the map when I get home.

You had this feeling three times when we played, yet you played on. I hope you agree that it was worth it then. I thin it will be in this game too. Stick it out! [:)]

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Is it too late to run for the hills in China?

I´ve already done that with most of the troops. I only have small rear guard around Changsha and around 1500 AV at Chungking. Most of the troops there are respawns.

Problem is I´m not going to be able to hold him in the mountains. He shocked across the river East of Chegthe (?) with minimal losses and is now causing 300-600 casualties per day with bombardments.

Turns out troops don´t dig forts without supply and I don´t need to tell you the supply situation! [:D]

Why stop at the mountains? Run them all the way to India - the Promised Land of Plentiful Supply! He won't be able to stop them all. And even if Chinese infantry are crap, there's still a certain weight to their numbers. Not to mention that they can be used to garrison the cities while your Indian units go off to fight...

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Barb

Sorry for the Sara - just two torpedoes? Hell of a bad luck there!

Well you have some options - to continue playing regardless of AV, to surrender at AV, or throw in the towel... I personally would like to see you carry on.

At least if you think you are going to throw in the towel, you can arrange an enormous "all-in" battle in the South Pacific. You can loose your fleet, but it would be at least a spectacular "last-ditch" effort [;)]

Thanks, I´m not sure what to think. I mean if we play on but Tom has burnt himself out achieving AV whats the point? He must have used an incredible amount of fuel operating like he has in SOPAC.

Perhaps its time to talk to him.

ORIGINAL: obvert
You had this feeling three times when we played, yet you played on. I hope you agree that it was worth it then. I thin it will be in this game too. Stick it out! [:)]

Ah, but this is a little bit different. [:)] We never played for VPs. I don´t for a second doubt my ability to "win the war" eventually. But I don´t think there is any hope of avoiding AV on 1/1/43.

And I´m not sure I want to continue playing when/if Tom achieves AV. I mean if he does he has won and I´m not sure I see the point in playing on. We already know how it will end eventually. [:)]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
Why stop at the mountains? Run them all the way to India - the Promised Land of Plentiful Supply! He won't be able to stop them all. And even if Chinese infantry are crap, there's still a certain weight to their numbers. Not to mention that they can be used to garrison the cities while your Indian units go off to fight...

PPs to cross border...Only a fraction of the Chinese units are not perm restricted. If I could have moved them all to India I would have done so on day 1. [:)]

[aztez]

A good reminder why I do not play for "points". Those things will become more importnat than the game itself and just cloud your judgement! [:)]

You really should still throw all the LBA, mass surface assets and carriers in all out of attack againts IJN if you guys are going forfeit the game. Who knows with good dice rolls you might come victorious.

Anyway.. if you heart is not in the game than best to discuss with your opponent. Next time forget the Autovictory points etc. Those things will do no good for fighting spirit and just the opposite. Good luck whatever you two deciede...

[boajack]

Keep fighting. As allies you can not lose.

[JocMeister]

Talked a bit to Tom this morning. He says he wants to continue playing despite the looming AV and that his economy havn´t suffered unduly because of the AV objective.

I guess we will play on for now. But I´m going to shift focus from gaining VPs to winning the war. Two very different things. I think I have some interesting stuff planned. Time to make Tom pay for going "all in" in SOPAC and not guarding the back door properly. [:)]

[paullus99]

Good idea - though I'm not sure about his talk about not going for AV, when all of his actions at this point (including burning down the Australian industry) have been nothing but aimed at increasing his point total for AV.....weird.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: paullus99

Good idea - though I'm not sure about his talk about not going for AV, when all of his actions at this point (including burning down the Australian industry) have been nothing but aimed at increasing his point total for AV.....weird.

Ah, Tom has never said he is not going for AV. He has been going for AV from day 1 just as I have been trying to avoid it. I think he succeeded and I failed. If he didn´t want to play on after a potential AV I would have considering surrendering so not to waste 6 months on a lost cause. But since Tom wants to play on we might as well play on and see where this ends.

There is still a very slim chance I can avoid AV although its very unlikely. But I´m not going to gut myself trying to avoid it. Instead I´m going to do something that will gain me very little VPs but could shorten the war by a year or even more. From a VP perspective its a stupid move though. [:)]

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]First draft[/font]
______________________________________________________________________________

This is sort of first rough draft on an operation. I have yet to make a real OOB for operation and go into details of it.

This is kind of a foolish operation but if I can smash PB the war will be over very shortly. I wouldn´t even consider this under any normal circumstances but Toms insane investment in SOPAC with all the navy and the bulk of Japanese IDs deep in SOPAC gives me a decent chance of success. From SIGINT it actually looks like he will try to counterinvade Fiji! [X(]

Once the KB starts moving from Noumea/Fiji I should have at least 10-15 days before they arrive around Sumatra. And depending on the situation in SOPAC he may not be able to move the KB out without stranding the IDs needed for Sumatra. It might be weeks before he can even move the KB out as he may need it to extract troops from the area. If I can time this with him counter landing on Fiji it could buy me 2-4 weeks while he lifts the troops out under KB cover. If he don´t he will lose the troops.

I think speed will be key here. I already sent the fleet on their way. They will refuel, meet up with the AP/AKs and head for the IO. First troops have started prepping and moving for extraction. I´m a bit worried about lift capacity. I would like to land with possible as much as 6 IDs + armor in the first days.

Very optimistic estimate will be 60 days. More realistic 100 days. And to make things clear: I´m not counting on getting the troops out. If I can thats great. But I´ll probably end up loosing them all unless the can survive on their own for a year or two... So i´m going to use USMC, USA and Indian troops primarily.

[paullus99]

Well, I certainly admire your guts here. If you're going to commit, you need to go all in & don't hesitate. Once those troops hit the ground, you need to hit fast, hard and just keep going....if you don't succeed, the game is over anyway - so why not go for the hail-mary.

At least it'll be exciting, right?