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

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister
Thinking about it today I realized I can never play "for fun" again. I don´t find the game that fun really.

We are all mentally ill individuals. Sick, I tell you...[:D]

[Wuffer]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Also should take this opportunity to congratulate Tom. [:)] I certainly got the game I was looking for. Tom played the game masterfully using all his advantages to the maximum while exploiting and taking advantage of every allied weaknesses.

This might not be the right time or place, but I just want to thank you for this detailed and interesting AAR, the reader got a very clear picture I think...
On the bright side, you didn't need to hide anything now in front of your growing family

Had been in the same situation. *gg*
And lost big way, too. Too much pressure, simple.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Wuffer

This might not be the right time or place, but I just want to thank you for this detailed and interesting AAR, the reader got a very clear picture I think...
On the bright side, you didn't need to hide anything now in front of your growing family

Had been in the same situation. *gg*
And lost big way, too. Too much pressure, simple.

Thank you! [:)]

I actually enjoy doing the AAR more then the game... [:D]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe
We are all mentally ill individuals. Sick, I tell you...[:D]

AE isn´t a game. Its a drug! [:D]

[setloz]

Thank you for this very interesting and well narated AAR! Good luck with your next game!

[IdahoNYer]

I've enjoyed this AAR from the start, and will miss it! Was hoping to see a good Allied comeback in '43!

[DanSez]

Thanks for all the extra effort putting your game out and allowing us to enjoy the ride. Rough one, yes but that means these were interesting times going on (in the old Chinese Curse sorta way...)

And thanks for the whisky recommendations

[Richard III]

Joc, most interesting AAR and hard fought game!

[offenseman]

Great AAR and thanks for letting all of us second guess you ad nauseum. [:)]

[churchillhouse]

Fascinating AAR.

Thanks for all the hard work.

[obvert]

Great AAR Jocke! Sorry to see it ending. Hope to see you play another one soon!!

[Barb]

Hello, I enjoyed this AAR totally. Great struggle. Hope to see you soon in another fight...

[BattleMoose]

Thanks for the AAR, learned heaps.

[MrBlizzard]

Thanks for enterteinment Jocke, I like your AARs.
Take your deserved break now so you can say "I can stop whenever I want" [;)] and see you soon

[JocMeister]

Thanks guys! I will most likely be back in a while. Will definitely play DBB with PDU OFF again. Loved it. [:)]

Not sure about stacking limits though. Lots of pros and cons with it. (IMO and all that) I think SL might actually hurt the Chinese more then it helps...will also add a couple of HRs. Definitively a "no strat bombing in OZ" or something similar. [:D]

Also would like to try and figure China out. I actually enjoyed it (despite being on the loosing end) initially. Tom put a tremendous amount of pressure everywhere and I was throwing everything I had at him. I still had to pull back from Sian which is perfectly fine...but then supply started running out and after that it just went downhill (3rd time it happens to me). And fast. What really bothers me is that when that happens there is NOTHING you can do to stop the Japanese. And the small snowball quickly turns into an unstoppable avalanche. Terrain doesn´t help, number doesn´t help. Your troops even stops building forts in the wilderness.

China is probably around 20-25k worth of VPs. With Japanese players regularly clearing it out before 42 is up it suddenly makes AV very attainable. All Tom did for AV was clearing China (and he wasn´t even done with that), hold on to Noumea (to deny the allied a precious 1k VPs) and another 1k VPs from holding Brisbane. He did get 5100 VPs from strat bombing OZ but if I remove those from the calculation and add in Chungking and 3000 more LCU losses (thats counting low) he would still have ended up at 4,3:1.

I would of course be able to gain some VPs before 1/43 which could possibly have made me avoid AV. But its still food for thought. China + Noumea = very close to AV. Very much doubt anyone thought a complete Japanese victory in China by late 42 was possible when the VP system was put in place.

[Lowpe]

Can you post a picture of China at the end, and throw some lines on showing major areas of Japanese advances in China. Like Sian from the east, north above Ankgang and then west into the central plains and such....

I would like to see the overall strategic picture....

Many thanks, and it was a fun, fun aar.[&o]

[JocMeister]

Here you go!

[Lokasenna]

I think 20-25k is a very high estimate of what China is worth. I actually have a nice point of reference - my two Allied games have been very similar, except that in one of them there has been no movement in China after the initial Hong Kong thrust. My IJ opponent appears to have set up pockets of defense against any Chinese adventures. I've been able to get forts built up in places.

In any case, the VP totals between the games, for the IJ opponent, once accounting for the other territory discrepancies (NW Aus, mostly)... we're looking at a difference of about 11,000 in total between the games. Here are the VP lines:

Code: Select all

         Date      IJ Total | Ally Total     IJ Air | Ally Air     IJ Base | Ally Base     IJ LCU | Ally LCU
 Game 1  12/01/42    27,173 | 12,480           3742 | 2194            7912 | 6258            1148 | 12,528
 Game 2  01/29/43    38,545 | 13,989           4688 | 3868           14924 | 6137            1756 | 15,320
 

It's hard to quantify the LCU difference as the LCU losses outside of China have been vastly different in some cases (again, NW Aus), but I'd guesstimate the Chinese LCU losses at worth about 4,000 VPs and the Chinese bases to be worth about 8,000 VPs. Pretty much right in line with my initial gut instinct to say China was worth 10-12K - I was a little low, but not by that much.

Of course, I also have a fair portion of the Chinese army in India now, but I did lose ~10K AV in the fields and at Chungking. Most ENG and all ART type units have been saved.


As for your screenshot... I think MrKane blew it in the south. You have to advance on Kweilin/Liuchow and Changsha as you capture the places north of Hankow, else you won't be catching and destroying any of those Chinese LCUs before they retreat.

[JocMeister]

I don´t think you are correct in the estimate of Chinese LCUs. In my second game I had lost a horrendous amount of LCUs in China. I was nearing 17k worth of LCU losses. And I still had about a 1/3rd of the Chinese army left (although without supply).

In this game I have suffered 12k worth of losses so far. And I now have all the Chinese LCUs on map again (no more set to respawn besides new units). As you say its hard to put a number on how much the losses are worth in VPs but its way more then 4k of that I´m absolutely certain. At least the double and I would guess its more.

I could probably make a half decent estimate by going through the saves and tracker. I agree 20-25k VPs is probably on the high side though as you say. But 15-20k is probably very close to the actual number.

EDIT: Does anyone have or know of any "quite China" kind of games. What would be really interesting to find is a game (or VP screen) of a game very there has been little to no combat in China but the initial Japanese expansion is over with (Singers/DEI/PI/Burma). That would give us a rough number on how much the Allied LCU losses outside China is worth. You can then very easily calculate a rough number on the Chinese LCU losses for a game (where there hasn´t been much allied LCU losses past the initial expansion outside CHina.)

[Mike McCreery]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

I don´t think you are correct in the estimate of Chinese LCUs. In my second game I had lost a horrendous amount of LCUs in China. I was nearing 17k worth of LCU losses. And I still had about a 1/3rd of the Chinese army left (although without supply).

In this game I have suffered 12k worth of losses so far. And I now have all the Chinese LCUs on map again (no more set to respawn besides new units). As you say its hard to put a number on how much the losses are worth in VPs but its way more then 4k of that I´m absolutely certain. At least the double and I would guess its more.

I could probably make a half decent estimate by going through the saves and tracker. I agree 20-25k VPs is probably on the high side though as you say. But 15-20k is probably very close to the actual number.

EDIT: Does anyone have or know of any "quite China" kind of games. What would be really interesting to find is a game (or VP screen) of a game very there has been little to no combat in China but the initial Japanese expansion is over with (Singers/DEI/PI/Burma). That would give us a rough number on how much the Allied LCU losses outside China is worth. You can then very easily calculate a rough number on the Chinese LCU losses for a game (where there hasn´t been much allied LCU losses past the initial expansion outside CHina.)

No 2 games would yield the same amount of victory points as you can add in replacement units and squads, equipment, etc.

[JocMeister]

Just looked through tracker. By early April Tom had finished up most of the allied strongholds. He had only the lower DEI left to take and there was only some shattered units on Java left. After this I suffered very few LCU losses outside China. On the 7th of April Tom had gained 5951 VPs from LCU losses.

At the end of the game he had 11213 VPs. Most of those are from China. Thats roughly 5k VPs.

And I still have around 100 Chinese corps left in China that is waiting to be destroyed. Most of those have AV. Roughly 80% of them have over 100 AV = an insane number of squads waiting to be destroyed. And that is not taking into account all the HQ and BFs sitting around waiting to be killed...and disabled squads. I would say thats easily 5000 VPs more.