The Gamiest Game in Town - EL (J) vs Rio Bravo (A)

[el lobo]

4/3/42

Here is my latest attempt at R&D. I hope this is close to what we want.

I need a little more time to decide on the George, Jack production

[el lobo]

Here is the latest recordings of Oil and Resources. I am going to cut-back on some of the oil tankers out of Fusan as I am worried about the amount of oil at PA.

It still does not look like we are pulling anything from Singapore.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: el lobo

4/3/42

Here is my latest attempt at R&D. I hope this is close to what we want.

I need a little more time to decide on the George, Jack production

32 models. Quite a few.

Have you worked out which factories you plan to allow to go into production?

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: el lobo

Here is the latest recordings of Oil and Resources. I am going to cut-back on some of the oil tankers out of Fusan as I am worried about the amount of oil at PA.

It still does not look like we are pulling anything from Singapore.

I would only have 2 or 3 of the very smallest TK pulling oil at this time. Just enough so that there is one always loading. And I would be sure it is NOT docked to slow it down further.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: el lobo

Here is the latest recordings of Oil and Resources. I am going to cut-back on some of the oil tankers out of Fusan as I am worried about the amount of oil at PA.

It still does not look like we are pulling anything from Singapore.

Do you know what caused the huge drop of resource at HK in mid-march?

PS: you don't have to manually track this. Tracker has this all for you on the Industry page, Oil and REsource tab. Then find the region you are looking for and then choose resource history button.
If you create your regions carefully, you can have Singers in one, Saigon in another, Hanoi in another, etc. Then easy to see the resource flows.

Based upon what you have here, agreed, not pulling at all from Singers, but clearly it is pulling from Shanghai. Like to see Hanoi and Saigon to see if any movement from there.

Fusan is fully built to max Port and AF? How many ships are based there? While you are pulling from PA, PA is still the 'sink' ... Need to work on getting Fusan to look bigger yet and so that 1.5M resources shift over to Fusan.

[el lobo]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

32 models. Quite a few.

Have you worked out which factories you plan to allow to go into production?

Not specifically but I have a couple of questions.

It seems to me that the problem is not running out of R&D factories (locations) but not having enough production factories (locations).

Premise: If we use thirty-two, and we average three factory locations to produce each line, then I will need ninety-six locations producing a/c. I have twenty-five now so I need another seventy-one a/c factories locations.

Example: The Zero Line: I have two locations producing the M2 and nine R&Ding the M5. I doubt that I need eleven locations producing the Zero, so say I let three go into production and keep six in the R&D pool not letting them upgrade. (Not sure how to do that yet.) So there are six Zero factory locations that I can convert to R&D something else.

The balancing act?: If I do not use those extra Zero R&D location to R&D something else, then at the end of the war I have those six locations doing nothing, which may be OK but the problem is that I may need some more production locations for that a/c or another a/c and not have any.

If I let those six Zero factories go into production but then shut them off, I loose them as potential R&D factories but I can turn then back-on or convert then to produce another type of a/c if necessary.

Correct?

[PaxMondo]

Sort of. The optimal factory size for RnD is 30. There is no optimal size for production, they can be any size. 30 or 330. They are equally efficient in production. There are two reasons to have multiple production factories:
1. You can ramp up production faster. Number of factories is your ramp up rate per day (how fast you can repair)
2. When the allies can bomb Japan, having multiple ensures production longer.

With realistic RnD, the normal issue is that once you convert a factory to production, it cannot convert back. You have permanently lost some ability to research. Lose too much, you may not get some rather important 3rd gen planes in time. Or it may not matter ... a lot depends upon your overall strategy.

Bringing up the Zero .. a key model like the Oscar. You need several production factories, but not all that many.
Why? You have a lot more IJA fighter groups than IJN. Generally, 120 or so monthly is enough for A6M. You'll need over 200/month for Oscar to replace all those Nates and get those groups into action.
Now, 120 could be 4x30 or 2x60. Decisions, Decisions. 4x30 can be done in 30 days, 2x60 will take longer (up to 60 days).

Referring to my comment about 32 RnD. Where might you make a change. Do you need to have an RnD committed to Emily? Why not simply convert the Mavis factory to Emily when it arrives?
I'm not suggesting the change is a good one, just giving you an example of how to look at it.

Again, the difficulty with realistic RnD is that because once you convert, you lose the RnD capability, you can spend a LOT more supply because you change your RnD factories so much more than
a non-realistic game. Since spending that supply is a BAD thing, then it means that you need to RnD fewer models. Your plan has RnD on 32 models, that is more than I would RnD with realistic RnD off.

Just my observations. Use them as you see fit.

[PaxMondo]

Last Economic Thoughts

Economies crash when they run out of supply. Over building factories is the usual reason this occurs. Not only does the factory expansion eat up a lot of supply, but players forget that extra devices eat more supply every day. The combination kills.

Economies lose when they run out of HI in the end game and can no longer produce devices. This happens either from lack of fuel for the HI factories OR lack of HI pool when the fuel runs out.

General goals of mine are 4M HI pool by 6/44 when I plan to cede control of the DEI and cannot transport further fuel or oil. I plan to run out of fuel in early '45 with +4M HI in the pool. Enough by my calcs to last through 6/46 and produce the planes that I need (~50,000 AC). This means I am not building huge AC factories for my 1st and 2nd gen AC. I build really large capacity for my 3rd Gen AC... +2000/month.

[FeurerKrieg]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Last Economic Thoughts

Economies crash when they run out of supply. Over building factories is the usual reason this occurs. Not only does the factory expansion eat up a lot of supply, but players forget that extra devices eat more supply every day. The combination kills.

Economies lose when they run out of HI in the end game and can no longer produce devices. This happens either from lack of fuel for the HI factories OR lack of HI pool when the fuel runs out. General goals of mine are 4M HI pool by 6/44 when I plan to cede control of the DEI and cannot transport further fuel or oil. I plan to run out of fuel in early '45 with +4M HI in the pool. Enough by my calcs to last through 6/46 and produce the planes that I need (~50,000 AC). This means I am not building huge AC factories for my 1st and 2nd gen AC. I build really large capacity for my 3rd Gen AC... +2000/month.

I agree, you shouldn't put a lot of production on the 1st or even 2nd gen AC. Often you have lulls during 42-43 in which a size 30 factory or two can produce all the planes you need of a given model. Better to wait and see when the air war really picks up and save the supply for expansion at that point.

[el lobo]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo
(~50,000 AC). [X(] [X(]

[el lobo]

Fantastic information again guys. Thanks.

I agree that I need to cull some a/c but if we work on the next year for now it will give me some time to work on the rest. Here is the plan, as always, subject to change.

You will notice that out of the thirty-one R&D factory locations, only five move to production. Also every factory repair later than a year is set to “off” until I have a chance to look at them more closely.

Next month (42/5) the G3M3 Nell and the Ki-45 Kla Nick finish R&D. They have one location each. I will leave the Nell in R&D and convert the G3M2 location which is in production to produce the M3. I will let the Nick location go into production

In 42/6 I will leave the H6K4 Mavis which is in R&D there and convert the H6K4 which is in production to the K5.

Also in June the Tojos finish R&D and I will let three go into production and move the other three locations to R&D the IIc.

In 42/7 the H8K1 Emily finishes R&D and I will let one go into production and move the other two to R&D the K2.

In 42/8 the Oscar IIa finishes R&D and will move up the line to R&D the IIb while the current production locations (3) convert to produce the IIa.

In 42/9 the Ki-49 IIa Helen finishes and will move them all to R&D the Ki-49-IIb and convert the Sally location to produce the IIa.

In 42/11 or prior, the Ki-61-1a Tony should fully repair and I will move it to R&D the Ki-100, or maybe not.

In 43/1 or prior, the six D4Y1 Judy R&D locations will finish and I will move them up to R&D the Y2. I will convert the Val plant which is in production to produce the Y1.

Same thing as the Judy with the Jill and Kate in 43/3.

[el lobo]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Do you know what caused the huge drop of resource at HK in mid-march?

PS: you don't have to manually track this. Tracker has this all for you on the Industry page, Oil and REsource tab. Then find the region you are looking for and then choose resource history button.
If you create your regions carefully, you can have Singers in one, Saigon in another, Hanoi in another, etc. Then easy to see the resource flows.

Based upon what you have here, agreed, not pulling at all from Singers, but clearly it is pulling from Shanghai. Like to see Hanoi and Saigon to see if any movement from there.

Fusan is fully built to max Port and AF? How many ships are based there? While you are pulling from PA, PA is still the 'sink' ... Need to work on getting Fusan to look bigger yet and so that 1.5M resources shift over to Fusan.

If you are talking about March 12, I can only surmise that it had to do with the big jump in resources at PA and Fusan. I have nothing going in or coming out of HK and just the brown water navy and some ships in the yards there.

If have the Kull regions loaded in Tracker and they do as you suggest and I use it all the time especially for HI. This chart does not take long to record this every-other turn, a blink of the eye compared to the time spent on R&D, and I like seeing the big picture. Hopefully we won't have to do it much longer.

I think you are getting your wish, it looks like PA is finally letting-go of it's resources. I still do not like the drop in oil at PA but maybe this will help pull from Singapore. I have one ship loading oil at Fusan.

I do have a bunch of ships based at Fusan. I think I will base them else-where for awhile.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: el lobo


If you are talking about March 12, I can only surmise that it had to do with the big jump in resources at PA and Fusan. I have nothing going in or coming out of HK and just the brown water navy and some ships in the yards there.

If have the Kull regions loaded in Tracker and they do as you suggest and I use it all the time especially for HI. This chart does not take long to record this every-other turn, a blink of the eye compared to the time spent on R&D, and I like seeing the big picture. Hopefully we won't have to do it much longer.

I think you are getting your wish, it looks like PA is finally letting-go of it's resources. I still do not like the drop in oil at PA but maybe this will help pull from Singapore. I have one ship loading oil at Fusan.

I do have a bunch of ships based at Fusan. I think I will base them else-where for awhile.

Thanks for confirming HK, I agree, they moved to PA, a very good thing. Means flow in that direction.

The more ships based at Fusan, the bigger Fusan looks in terms of draw. They don't have to be there, just have to call Fusan home.

You now want to see if Saigon/Hanoi are flowing to PA/Fusan or towards Singers. Check your Tracker history and see if you can tell.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: el lobo

Fantastic information again guys. Thanks.

I agree that I need to cull some a/c but if we work on the next year for now it will give me some time to work on the rest. Here is the plan, as always, subject to change.

You will notice that out of the thirty-one R&D factory locations, only five move to production. Also every factory repair later than a year is set to “off” until I have a chance to look at them more closely.

Next month (42/5) the G3M3 Nell and the Ki-45 Kla Nick finish R&D. They have one location each. I will leave the Nell in R&D and convert the G3M2 location which is in production to produce the M3. I will let the Nick location go into production

In 42/6 I will leave the H6K4 Mavis which is in R&D there and convert the H6K4 which is in production to the K5.

Also in June the Tojos finish R&D and I will let three go into production and move the other three locations to R&D the IIc.

In 42/7 the H8K1 Emily finishes R&D and I will let one go into production and move the other two to R&D the K2.

In 42/8 the Oscar IIa finishes R&D and will move up the line to R&D the IIb while the current production locations (3) convert to produce the IIa.

In 42/9 the Ki-49 IIa Helen finishes and will move them all to R&D the Ki-49-IIb and convert the Sally location to produce the IIa.

In 42/11 or prior, the Ki-61-1a Tony should fully repair and I will move it to R&D the Ki-100, or maybe not.

In 43/1 or prior, the six D4Y1 Judy R&D locations will finish and I will move them up to R&D the Y2. I will convert the Val plant which is in production to produce the Y1.

Same thing as the Judy with the Jill and Kate in 43/3.

You've got a plan. Excellent. Watch your supply levels empire wide. At this point you should start growing supply everywhere. Not much, but between now and 9/1/42 you want to see a definite trend where your supply overall,
and particularly in the HI is growing. Something like 1 - 4K/day. And of course, you can't starve your units when you do this ... you grow supply by NOT expanding factories and bases and not putting too many air groups into training ... again, tough choices.

Your HI should be growing now too, at a good clip. Likely you have turned off a bunch of MSY by now. You want to be saving at least 2K, better the closer to 5K/day you can get. Again, you have a few months to get this in place.

[el lobo]

Here is something else at which we can look. Singapore picked and the "5" key hit. I don't know how well this will show.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: el lobo

Here is something else at which we can look. Singapore picked and the "5" key hit. I don't know how well this will show.

Yes, but not entirely relevant (although, very much partially relevant) for what we are attempting to do. Why? Because supply/resources move between bases, one base at a time. however, in a turn, resources can travel a chain of bases so that it appears that it moves between say Singers and Saigon. The frequency and the amount is dependent upon the base size and the link.
This shows the link only. We can manually inspect the bases for size. We also know that the AI responds to demand on any of its constituent materials: supply, oil, fuel, and resource.

That's about all though. The rest of the resource/supply movement AI is 'under the hood' and invisible to us.

As I stated up front to you, given the late start that you had on this, I gave you only about 50/50 chance to get this to work from Singers*. However, that doesn't mean it won't, and we still don't know.
Further, even if it doesn't work from Singers, we may get it to work from Saigon which is still both very viable in terms of drop point and a large savings in terms of TK tramsport fuel and capacity.

* My testing, and others have corroborated, shows that Michael coded up a pretty simple PID algorithm, or at least a PI controller algorithm. The catch here is that the "I" component looks to be pretty strong, meaning once the AI gets a historical 'picture' of supply/demand it really doesn't like to change that.
I'm sure he did that to attenuate 'bounce' in his controller given that there are so many nodes; it is how any instrument engineer would set it up. Thus, you have to start early in the game to get this in place. After a while, there is so much history and the balance you are trying to achieve is so delicate that
you just can't quite get there before your economy forces your hand and you have to start getting more material to the HI; '43 arrives and you have millions of tons of material in Singers and the allies are wresting control of Burma from you. At that point, you have to ship it out. However, you might be able to ship it to
Saigon or Hanoi or HK instead of all the way to the HI. Shorter trips = less fuel and more ship cycles = faster depletion of the material in Singers.


This is the grand logic. If you like I can also translate this into real world analogies as well. [;)]

[Lowpe]

Ok, I realize it is early, but seeing as this is the first time playing Japan...I would

-not kill myself trying to get the magic highway flowing from Singers. A better goal, given the late start, is to get it flowing from Hong Kong, and then perhaps Cam Ranh Bay. You have plenty of shipping so it won't set you back...the important thing is to get the fuel back into Port Arthur and Fusan.

-go for the Jack. This for the simple reason the later versions of the plane come before 45 and the engine is available now (get 500). The J2M3 is an excellent plane with an SR2. Keep what you have and make the George too, but put the emphasis on the Jack -- expand those current factories to 30 now! Plan on building 150 immediately of the J2M2 and bump the other factories up to the J2M3. I realize this flies opposite the wisdom of Pax, but he isn't slugging it out against a person (no offense) and getting a decent fighter early is really, really, important and the Jack is the easiest to get early, all three versions of it.

-Scrap the Kikka factory and put it into the Frank a. I would be tempted to scrap the Ki83 factory and put it into the Frank a, too as that plane is horrendously expensive.

Your plan is good as far as it goes, but once 43 hits with Corsairs and more Lightnings you are going to be hurting to counter that until the George, Jack or Frank comes along.

Also....you might think about expanding your Nick A production when it starts. Early on you can sweep with Nick, and they are your only Army bomber killers until you get better Army fighters. You should have 4 squadrons that can upgrade to the Nick that are not restricted, and it will make a great base protection fighter all the way into 44. In addition, you can convert over most Light Bomber squadrons to the Nick.

Koniu once told me that you should eventually have at least 9 factories going after the Frank a. It is that important of a plane...you don't need all 9 right away, but you want to work to it as supplies allow.

One last thing, you have Harbin going after the Tojo at 15/15. Convert it and make it into a huge fighter plant. Your choice the Frank a (which I would do) or the Jack. Personally, I think you have more than enough research factories allocated to Navy fighters. I would start it off at size 60.

Very early thoughts on kamikazes, I would simply be looking at Judies and Jills. Dedicate one squadron now to training kamikazes (train naval, alt 1000) to start generating a pool of pilots for the end days.

Just my thoughts.

[el lobo]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

This is the grand logic. If you like I can also translate this into real world analogies as well. [;)]

Google is my friend. [:)]

I'm not giving up on it yet, because, if you look back you will see that I did not start as late as you imply (I'm trying so say this in the nicest way but the synonyms are not coming to me at the moment.) I moved all the engineers in Korea and Manchukuo to Fusan and built ports and air asap and I also moved a boat load of ships there day-one also.

My big mistake as you pointed-out was pulling fuel and not so much oil and resources. Regardless, it appears that Fusan is pulling them now and PA is going to have to pull, pull-back, or go nearly dry. If PA is a natural sink then it still may do its job. Fingers crossed.

You mentioned that you wondered if Singapore was a sink so I have shut-off all shipments to there for awhile to see if the cargo still increases. I also have the KB and over one-hundred other ships there creating an artificial demand (not for that purpose) so I will “home-port” them else-where. (Did someone say invasion?)

Also I will add BKK, Saigon, CRB and Hanoi into the chart.

Again Pax, I really appreciate all of you input.

[el lobo]

Lowpe, thanks for the input.

I will give the “highway” a couple of more months and if it does not work by then, then your logic is the same a Pax's, Saigon, CRB, or HK is better than nothing.

Your post is timely as I have started working on a/c production and naturally that raises many questions.

I want to preface all of the production talk with a little of my strategy but later for that.

A quick (real newbie) question re the Jack, which pertains to other a/c as well, if you do not mind. Looking at tracker I only see one air group arriving with the Jack (J2M3) in 858 days (from 4/5/42) so where do you get the groups in which to place the Jack? The only source I see for that are to upgrade from some Zero groups.

Also re Harbin. I have had very bad luck with that place. I converted a factory there to Oscars and it never repaired. I finally just shut it off and put it somewhere else. There is never enough supply there.

[PaxMondo]

Ach, lost a long detailed reply and have to go.

Gist: Yes, you are correct. Keep trying, final verdict not in. Odds have improved due to HK drawing once. Wait to see how Hanoi/Saigon look ...