Snowballing through defence with stacking limits

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Whilst Allied players continue to employ the wrong strategy and tactics in China, they will continue to get these results with or without stacking limits.

Alfred

Well, of course, that is the solution. Right in front of our eyes the whole time.

[crsutton]

I would say that now after watching my opponent clear the road between Kweiyang and Paoshan in about one months game time, just blowing me out of hex after hex, that stacking limits are a total fail and actually does the reverse of what stacking limits were intended to do. I should have held out in that terrain for months if not indefinitely but he was able to blow through (and kill tens of thousands of Chinese in the process) with about two to three divisions on each end and some tank units with heavy air support. The defeated Chinese retreated onto good order Chinese stacks-leaving an over stacked mess in the hex. Disorganized units could not either move or recover due to the complete suck up of supply. Air bombing attacks in good terrain would kill hundreds of men due to over stacking, disruption would not recover and the eventual attack would defeat the stack kill thousands more men and push the mess up the road onto the next stack. I rate it as totally screwed and would not advise an Allied player to accept stacking limits without some sort of serious agreement in China.

[KenchiSulla]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Whilst Allied players continue to employ the wrong strategy and tactics in China, they will continue to get these results with or without stacking limits.

Alfred

Fight where you can win, outflank the enemy advance and cut off supply routes with small units.... And hang on to those precious, defend-able places that give you supply....

[LargeSlowTarget]

Can the stacking limits be edited by ordinary mortals? Or is this reserved for devs only?

[SqzMyLemon]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Whilst Allied players continue to employ the wrong strategy and tactics in China, they will continue to get these results with or without stacking limits.

Alfred

Does this statement presume there is no Japanese counter to China played the right way? I would hazard a guess there is. If the Allies would play China differently, it begs the question, wouldn't the Japanese too?

[wdolson]

The values are embedded in the PWHEXE file. If you know the format of the file it would be very tough to tweak. I'm not sure if the values in PWHEXE are type codes or the actual stacking limits. I haven't looked at the code and haven't been coding AE since 2010.

I think there is a format primer somewhere here on the forum. You could also look in a non stacking PWHEXE and a stacking PWHEXE and compare.

Bill

[HansBolter]

Offered up an idea in another thread.

Having retreating units continue to retreat through a hex if stopping in that hex would cause overstacking would seem to be a good solution.

In order to keep the retereating side from getting away scot free with no detrimental effect, perhaps it could cause a morale drop on the units in the hex being retreated through.

This would mean the defender would still be able to effectively bolster his front line by having a second line that doesn't cause disaster when the defeated units in the front line are forced to retreat.

This would also turn a second line into a safety net for the front line, allowing the shattered units to retreat to a screened position to recover.

It would give a real meaning to a second line.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Offered up an idea in another thread.

Having retreating units continue to retreat through a hex if stopping in that hex would cause overstacking would seem to be a good solution.

In order to keep the retereating side from getting away scot free with no detrimental effect, perhaps it could cause a morale drop on the units in the hex being retreated through.

This would mean the defender would still be able to effectively bolster his front line by having a second line that doesn't cause disaster when the defeated units in the front line are forced to retreat.

This would also turn a second line into a safety net for the front line, allowing the shattered units to retreat to a screened position to recover.

It would give a real meaning to a second line.

Well, some good ideas Hans but I am not sure that it would prove to be a solution. The terrain in Western China is very limited as far as stacking goes and then tendency is to defend in depth-especially with stacking limits. The issue is the road which is critical to hold and the route that retreating units tend to take. In this case, I could see a defeated unit retreated through multiple hexes. It might just create other issues.

I am venting about one frustrating aspect of stacking limits but the guys that made DaBabes Mod and incorporated stacking limits basically have made a good game much better. So, I doubt I would want to go back to stock. I don't know that they would want to devote a great amount of time on something that may end of being a major fix and then might present problems of its own. Fighting in China has always had its issues and this just adds another. Perhaps there is an easier solution such as adding higher garrison requirements for Japan or finding a way for Chinese units to always have a trickle of supply to reflect living off the land.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Whilst Allied players continue to employ the wrong strategy and tactics in China, they will continue to get these results with or without stacking limits.

Alfred

Does this statement presume there is no Japanese counter to China played the right way? I would hazard a guess there is. If the Allies would play China differently, it begs the question, wouldn't the Japanese too?

No, there is always a counter.

What this thread and the other concurrent one on the oft raised "how do we fix China (insert for an Allied player)" issue is focussed on structural considerations.

My point, which I have made a few times in AARs and in the concurrent thread, is that almost all Allied players adopt the totally wrong dynamic which is impossible to be supported by any structural arrangements which attempt to still retain any connection with the historical situation.

Without exception, every Allied player who complains about Japanese ahistorical advances in China is confronted with an opponent who is using an unhistorical force posture.

There are two fundamental problems with these Allied complaints.

(a) what is so strange to expect a Japanese player to achieve unhistorical results if deploying an unhistorical strategy with the requisite assets to carry it out successfully, and

(b) Allied players do not, I repeat do not, use the historical Chinese strategy which helped to discourage the Japanese employing in 1942-43 the ahistorical strategy which Japanese AE players commonly adopt

Both of the above are dynamic, not structural, issues.

I will say it again, the attempt to establish a MLR in China will always fail. There was no historical MLR in China, so on what objective historical basis do Allied players expect to be able to establish and successfully maintain in China a WWI Western Front MLR. If they want to play a game which very successfully captures the historical essence of the capabilities of the time, then it is time to stop thinking they are entitled to approach the Chinese theatre as if it were an American theatre of operations.

Structurally China can never be made to resemble a 1943 Kharkov with it's 5-7 heavily fortified lines of defence in depth. It cannot replicate the Heinrici planned response to Zhukov's pending attack on Berlin with an orderly redeployment within his 3 lines of defence stretching back to the Seelowe Heights festung.

In all of this, there is a substantial opportunity cost to Japan when it pursues an unhistorical strategy in China. Part of adopting an appropriate Allied response to this is to exploit this opportunity cost. A Chinese MLR does zilch in terms of exploiting this opportunity cost.

So next time an Allied player demands China be "fixed" by tinkering with structural factors, there is a very simple question to be put to them;

"How exactly does a China with every single city under Japanese ownership by September 1942 and solely as a result of that ahistorical outcome, prevent an Allied player who outplays his opponent from achieving a decisive victory as detailed in chapter 17 of the manual?"

Alfred

[SqzMyLemon]

Thanks for taking the time to flesh that out Alfred.

I agree, I don't think a traditional MLR defence will work for the Allies in China. However, I just don't think any other strategy will work either under the current supply limitations for the Chinese. Without supply the Chinese have no staying power to implement any effective strategy, be that fighting or relying on LOC infiltration, unless their Japanese opponent lets them. I don't know, the threat of leaving China to fester just isn't possible for Japan and is why you see the ahistorical pursuit of knocking it out game after game. I understand the cost to Japan to completely take China out of the war, as Pax and yourself have alluded to, but is there an alternative? It seems to me Japan has to pursue China aggressively otherwise the risk of not doing so is extremely dangerous, but I'd personally like to see lack of supply not be the primary reason for a Chinese collapse in game after game.

Perhaps Francois will school me on how it's done in our PBEM.

[el cid again]

Actually, this is only true in stock. Mods have made considerable strides toward developing the power of China.
Mifune put me on to Treespider's ideas years ago - and I partially adopted some of these for RHS. Every mod
and stock should add the huge number of missing units, aircraft, devices, etc. Every mod and stock also should
not allow planning fields to be zero for units that have long been in the area, nor locations to be unfortified
when they have ancient and/or modern forts in them. Nor are the general values for morale or disruption valid -
use them when and where appropriate vice universally. Many locations of great logistical importance are missing,
and many locations lack their historical industry. What is the point of an oil refinery without an oilfield to
feed it? Virtually every oilfield (of the period) is missing. Add all that is missing and any mod (or stock)
will cease to be a walkover.

RHS (since WITP days) has devised a way for guerilla units to be somewhat independent of supply lines - it works -
and it means that these units can undertake missions to cut enemy supply lines, just as IRL.

China's air force is woeful enough IRL without imposing on it the omission of significant types and units.
China's air force can be useful and a problem for the enemy if you simply put it all in the game AND IF you
give realistic values to base forces. AVG could fly in - use LOCAL support - fly a mission - and hurt the enemy
badly even very early in the war. But you cannot do that in stock because the base forces are (a) too few and
(b) much too small in terms of air support squads.

China had a real riverine navy. It dominated the upper Yellow River and it never lost control of the Upper Yangtze
River - although it did lose control of the Pearl River (the third great river system) and the Lower Yellow River.
In RHS we have fully developed river systems (with seasonal effects which matter in China)- and we have given China
its historical coast defense units as well as significant riverine minelaying capability (using mainly small Russian
"Rybka" river mines). And we also added the Chinese Marines, which are not restricted, and so they can move by naval
units. Some of the British and US gunboats retreated upriver to Chunking and were turned over to the ROCN. ROCN
also had some of its own, and it devised ways to convert River Steamers and Junks to gunboats, landing craft,
minesweepers, minelayers, and other useful vessels. By giving player these historical options to convert craft,
the ROCN can make what it needs given current losses - so it retains a range of options.

China is not some sideshow. China is the SUBJECT of the Pacific War. The Allied embargo was intended to force Japan
to change its China policy - and to withdraw substantially from China. If Japan was willing to accept that,
and also to accept the Allies could dictate ALL policy from then on (having learned the embargo worked, why would
they stop demanding things?) - there would have been no attack on the SRA.

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: witpqs

I agree. I think it better reflects the problems that defenders face in such a situation. Are the retreating troops really just left to starve, and so on?

It does make certain things more difficult, but I still like it.

Ditto.

The game has always been a cakewalk in China for the Japanese.
Stacking limits makes the game more realistic in many ways and eliminates DeathStar stack gaming.
Just because it didn't fix China, whose problems far eclipse stacking, doesn't make it a failure.