Are you saying that you can keep your commitment level set to "high" by constantly sending back your ships in a 100% commitment game? As you described it above?
Hi, Most of the time it remains high. Around the time I start saving for an operation it might drop down to moderate. (but after the op when I send ships back it goes back to high. As Allies around May 43 is when level stays at moderate. As Japan I spend a lot of time at moderate. (but as long as it is not low ships will be arriving. You have to decide what to keep and what to send back based on your future plans. Why keep ships that do not fit into your plan?
I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a different direction!
Originally posted by Mogami Hi, Most of the time it remains high. Around the time I start saving for an operation it might drop down to moderate. (but after the op when I send ships back it goes back to high. As Allies around May 43 is when level stays at moderate. As Japan I spend a lot of time at moderate. (but as long as it is not low ships will be arriving. You have to decide what to keep and what to send back based on your future plans. Why keep ships that do not fit into your plan?
Mog, you did not answer the entire question. If the game setting is set at 100% for Japan, are you saying you still manage to keep your chance for reinforcement moderate to high? I rarely have settings over 100% for either side as I'm into the "less is more" approach (if I want to play a mass unit shoot'em up, I'll dabble with "Total Annihilation") and have yet to see anything other than a "LOW" level for the IJN past Aug 1942.
Yammas from The Apo-Tiki Lounge. Future site of WITP AE benders! And then the s--t hit the fan
Originally posted by Ron Saueracker Mog, you did not answer the entire question. If the game setting is set at 100% for Japan, are you saying you still manage to keep your chance for reinforcement moderate to high? I rarely have settings over 100% for either side as I'm into the "less is more" approach (if I want to play a mass unit shoot'em up, I'll dabble with "Total Annihilation") and have yet to see anything other than a "LOW" level for the IJN past Aug 1942.
Hi, Then you must have a lot of ships on map. It is not a random chance what the level is.
Add all the ships VP value. I think Japan bottoms at 7k (the lowest value Japan uses. It starts low, goes high, and then drops.
7k/10k/7k (not the actual number. I have no idea what it is) High would be less then 5k on map. Moderete less then 6k on map and low when over 7k or close to it.
Japanese CV are 250-300 points. (so those 10 CV/CVL TF's are often 2.5k just in CV )BB 160-200 CA 35-55 Does not take many ships to use up the points. Thats why it's so important to only keep healthly ships and only keep ships you are going to use in the near future (I forget what the turn around time for Japan is (been so long since I was Japan) For the US the turn around time is 38 days. So any ship not needed in next 38-60 days gets sent home.
I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a different direction!
Originally posted by Mogami Hi, Then you must have a lot of ships on map. It is not a random chance what the level is.
Add all the ships VP value. I think Japan bottoms at 7k (the lowest value Japan uses. It starts low, goes high, and then drops.
7k/10k/7k (not the actual number. I have no idea what it is) High would be less then 5k on map. Moderete less then 6k on map and low when over 7k or close to it.
Japanese CV are 250-300 points. (so those 10 CV/CVL TF's are often 2.5k just in CV )BB 160-200 CA 35-55 Does not take many ships to use up the points. Thats why it's so important to only keep healthly ships and only keep ships you are going to use in the near future (I forget what the turn around time for Japan is (been so long since I was Japan) For the US the turn around time is 38 days. So any ship not needed in next 38-60 days gets sent home.
All right, Mog. Thanks.
Yammas from The Apo-Tiki Lounge. Future site of WITP AE benders! And then the s--t hit the fan
Hi Mogami, I have a question and some comments for you in a related, but slightly different vein. I recently completed a scenario 17 game as the Japanese against the computer (mostly) but since this was my first long game, I regularly checked the Allied side to see what was going on and what the response and tactics of the computer were.
My overall approach was to send back only very badly damaged CV, BB and CA (+50) and only the CS, CL and DD's that were damaged to the point where their speed dropped below 17-18 mph (nauts?). These latter vessels were committed to full time raiding of the shipping lanes between PM and Bris/Townsville and Luganville/Noumea, in conjunction with all my subs and periodic carrier hit-and-run raids. This approach was adopted early in the game after the Lex and the Yorktown were sunk with all their aircraft, giving me an early advantage. The convoy-attack tactics sunk a lot of transports (in total about 60-70, I think)with relatively few losses in either ships or planes (Kates are marvelous against unescorted transports and CL/DD use torpedoes like mad when they're not being shot at by the big guys).
An autovictory resulted at the begining of '43. During the entire game I sent back about twenty ships including 2 CVs, 2CVLs, 1 BB and about 6 CAs. The only ships I received (other than the June/July build) were an empty CVE and 5 DDs (in mid December). At the time of the attack on Luganville, all my CVs, BBs and CAs had Sys damage between 20 and 35. The CVs were jammed with aircraft from the carriers that had been sent home, though. They were slow but they packed a punch.
At the time of the invasion the supply situation was critical at both Luganville and PM. There were no supplies (except for those inherent to the units) at Luganville and only about 10 K at PM. There were 250 planes at Luganville and 300+ at Efate. After the initial day's bombing and bombardment, the Luganville planes were interdicted using only unescorted Bettys and Nels from Lunga, leaving only Efate and Noumea for the carriers to deal with. This wasn't because of airfield damage (at least not entirely). There was a lot of damage but not enough to ground the planes, so the supply situation must have had something to do with it.
The base fell in about a week even though it was relatively well garrisoned (two Rgts of the Americal and a total of +25K troops, with a fort level of 7, I think). I noticed that where a deliberate attack might be expected to bag 50-200 well supplied troops, losses climbed to about 1000 a turn for unsupplied troops. The AI tryed to re-supply/reinforce with FT and C-47s. The FT got through, but it was too little, too late. The C-47s were intercepted.
At PM the massive bomber horde was kept in check because of the supply-related penalties. Long range bomber raids on Woodlark (my forward base in the area) were limited to about 50 Forts and Marauders (presumably because of the double supply rule). Raids of that size can be softened substantially by a strong cap. At games-end, Woodlark had only been shut down for a total of two days and about 50 Fortresses had been destroyed, mostly through operational losses.
Now, I realize that many of these tactics will not be nearly as successful against a human opponent (convoys will be harder to intercept, DDs will be added to the convoys, supplies won't be allowed to drop so low, bombing will be held until the P38s are available for long-range escort, etc., etc.) but given the fact that I only received 6 relatively useless ships in the entire game, isn't it worth keeping damaged, low-value combat vessels for such things as raiding, short-range FT, convoy protection, etc.? Even if you just force the allies to divert DDs to protect convoys, you've accomplished something. The Japanese will be hard pressed to deal with either the quantity, or later on, the quality of US ships, in any case. If you go after combat vessels you'll lose too many planes (to flak) and small ships to be able to mount any kind of defense later on, even if you are relatively successful against ships. Once your fighter pool is gone you may as well go to bed and pull the covers over your head.
Attacking the other major Allied advantage (logistics) seems to be a better use of Japan's very limited resources. If he can't reach you, he can't hurt you. It may not be in the samarai spirit, but it may save the homeland.
Originally posted by DJAndrews Pity. I would have enjoyed your comments or thoughts.
Hi, I mean I can't find anything not answered in earlier post.
If you keep everyship you get. You will eventually reach the ship limit. Once this is attained no matter how many ships are waiting no new ship can arrive. This being the case you should not keep ships you don't need or ones that are damaged to where they will not be repaired in less time then it takes a new ship to arrive.
I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a different direction!
I restarted a game versus the AI that I had quit because I was wiping the floor with the AI Allies.
When I restarted the game, it was mid-July, in a game with 120% commitment for the Japanese and variable reinforcement entry. Commitment liklihood had just fallen from "moderate" to "low" before I stopped the game previously.
I got back on and immediately started sending ships back to Japan. By the end of July, I had sent back the following:
2 Haruna class BBs (270 vps)
CVL Zuiho, kept the air wing (135 vps)
2 damaged CAs (107 vps)
Tenryu, Tatsuta, one damaged CL (53 vps)
6-8 damaged or old model destroyers (50 vps approx.)
55-60 medium cargo capacity APs (560 vps approx.)
4-5 damaged small APs (20 VPs approx.)
One CS (64 vps)
4-5 PGs (20 vps approx)
Despite the fact that the commitment level had just dropped to moderate, it did not go back up to moderate, even after I sent this pretty good-sized fleet back to Tokyo. After sending everything back, I played the game until about August 10, and the commitment level is still at low.
However, despite the level still being at low, Tokyo is sending me some new ships after I sent all of the above back to Tokyo. On the way from Japan is:
CVE Unyo (89 vps)
3 new model destroyers (35 vps approx.)
2 APs (20 vps approx)
1 sub (11 vps)
1 minelayer (3 vps)
One AV (15 vps)
A couple small escorts (5 vps approx)
So the commitment level dropped to low, I sent back nearly 1300 victory points worth of shipping, and the net result is that so far the commitment level is still low, and Tokyo has sent me back about 175 vps worth of new shipping.
I'll see if the commitment strategy you suggested works in my latest PBEM game, where we are just ending May now. However, in the game versus the AI, the results are pretty disappointing so far.
Hi, Be advised the Japanese commitment levels are not constant throughout a scenario. In the long ones they start low go high and then drop. So if your return of ships matches the point where total points allowed drop you will not see many new ships.
(Thats why it is important right from the start to not keep uneeded/damaged ships) If you can pin point the date the allowable lowers you would want to stop sending ships back right at the turn around time. (If it takes 20 days for new ship to move from Japan, you stop sending ships back 20 days prior to limit going lower. The Allies start low and jump up and stay high for much longer. The Japanese have to pay more attention.
If it's not too much trouble can you count the total on map for Japanese ships? Send ships back untill the level goes up one (from low to moderate) and count ships, and then send back to get to high? (I plan on doing this test one of these days but WITP is keeping me busy)
I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a different direction!
While thinking about playability, historical accuracy and other improvements on the WITP development forum, I found myself wondering why ships are not treated much like other units, with morale, fatigue and crew combat rating (-) modifiers (ships crews were constantly stripped bare of veterans to man new construction so their combat day/night experience should go down with each refit) which affect their performance.
I also found myself trying to figure out how to limit players from using ships beyond their historical operational limits, and just throwing them around like unmanned robots. Anyone play a game where both sides don't have massive shipping losses? Anyone play a game where player fleets are simply too huge? Didn't think so.
Conclusions for UV and possible inclusion in future ammendment.
Commitment levels are possibly too high which results in totally ahistorical shipping losses. Reduce the amount available to players at any given time.
Have players suffer for losses accrued, not rewarded with an endless string of reinforcements by a very forgiving high command. Perhaps include a percentage (10%?) of the value of a sunk ship's VP value in the formula for commitment levels. This will possibly make players think twice about gamey or overly risky use of ships (decoy strategies, ramming large numbers of APs into CAP-less ports in the face of overwhelming enemy airpower in the hopes of "getting some supplies through" etc...please don't quote Operation Pedestal etc as these were heavily escorted convoys).
Greatly increase the VP value of ships. I'm sorry, but a Cimmaron class AO should be worth more than 7 VPs (seven A6M2s!!!), or a 10000 ton cruiser should be worth more than 40 VPs etc. Most ships were expensive and time consuming to build, and required a lot of manpower to operate. They should be given higher VP values as a result.
Any thoughts?
:p
Yammas from The Apo-Tiki Lounge. Future site of WITP AE benders! And then the s--t hit the fan
Ron,
I like where you're going with that... I'm one of the guilty parties that uses the ships in an ahistorical manner. I'll send solo AKs on CS missions to Lunga or wherever a few days apart. After all, it's only one ship and I'll get more if she gets caught, right?
I worry about upping the VP totals, because then you risk having ships become more valuable than land bases, which I don't like. I don't know how hard it is to program in a percentage like you suggested, but maybe thats a better option.
I'm kind of rambling, but this is a good idea I think and we should all hash it out some more...
"The Paraguayan Air Force's request for spraying subsidies was not as Paraguayan as it were..."
So totally not a programmer, so if this is not possible, understand the source
I don't have a lot of experience playing UV, but I did read that Task Forces with more than 15 ships suffer penalties in defending from an air attack, etc.
What about going the other way and have ships that historically didn't travel alone not be able to?
1. Require convoys of APs and AKs to have a minimum number of escorts.
2. Have minimum ship limit levels for convoys with penalties akin to the "over 15" rule mentioned earlier.
3. Variable VPs. This I'm not sure about, but can the VPs be adjusted as to the time the ship is sunk? For example, is sinking a IJN tanker late in the war going to have the same effect as sinking it later in the war when the IJN was typically on the defensive (I think of tankers as offensive support weapons)?
UV now allows subs to surface (with much greater torpedo accuracy - in my albeit limited experience) attack unescorted convoys, but that too has the possibility of damaging the sub.
Finally, a note about wargaming in general that may help. A game that begins with a historical platform such as WWII, etc. has its appeal in the possibility that, given relatively the same conditions (or maybe the "what if"of scenario 19), the player can receive some gratification of doing better than history. And that's pretty neat (do they still say neat anymore?)
"Shouldn't we be leading the shark into shore...instead him leading us out to sea?"
Some ships were as or more important than land bases and should be treated as such. This is especially true if one adopts some form of stacking limit to bases. No base should have unlimited stacking rights as this was impossible realistically.
Ports should have limits on ship capacity, both in size of ships and total tonnage. Rabaul, for example, at its peak had a capacity for 300,000 tons of shipping. This is acceptable for a size 9 port. Port capacity could therefore be deduced by port size and be a % of the 300,000 ton max, maybe 10%/port size. (ie size 1 = 30,000 tons; size 2 = 60,000 tons; size 3 = 90,000 tons etc.) Perhaps capital ships cannot be docked at bases smaller than size 3, the size which allows disbandment of TFs.
Airbases stacking should be governed by size as well. Perhaps giving a stacking value to a base equal to its airfield size. Therefore 9 squadrons can base on a size 9 airfield. This of course seems light, so the type of air unit should have a value as well, with 4E and 2E bombers having a value of one and single engine aircraft having a value of 1/2. Therefore, a size nine base has capacity for 9 2E or 4E bomber squadrons or 18 1E bomber or pursuit squadrons, or any mix in between. This would not rule out operating limitations based on size of AF and aircraft type, it is just a "capacity" guideline.
Rabaul at it's peak crammed in 100,000 men with all equipment and supplies. I'm not sure if an LCU stacking limit is an historically viable aim, but in game terms I think it may be desireable.
Yammas from The Apo-Tiki Lounge. Future site of WITP AE benders! And then the s--t hit the fan
I also found myself trying to figure out how to limit players from using ships beyond their historical operational limits, and just throwing them around like unmanned robots. Anyone play a game where both sides don't have massive shipping losses? Anyone play a game where player fleets are simply too huge? Didn't think so.
I think there has to be more negative repercussions before players will take tanker/transport losses more seriously. Raise the VP values of ships is a good idea. The ships weren't abused in reality like they are in the game, because it's a game and lives aren't on the line. As someone posted above, we have the luxury of saying 'It's only one ship, if it gets caught, we'll replace it.' Which is the kind of attitude that would have gotten a naval officer sacked in a heart beat.
3. Variable VPs. This I'm not sure about, but can the VPs be adjusted as to the time the ship is sunk? For example, is sinking a IJN tanker late in the war going to have the same effect as sinking it later in the war when the IJN was typically on the defensive (I think of tankers as offensive support weapons)?
I've brought up the idea of VPs values increasing as time goes on for kills against Allied units, because it becomes more difficult for the Japanese to achieve even minor successes. Tankers remain critically important for the Japanese throughout the game because they need them to transport fuel back to the home islands from the NEI.
Airbases stacking should be governed by size as well. Perhaps giving a stacking value to a base equal to its airfield size. Therefore 9 squadrons can base on a size 9 airfield.
I think air units have it too easy with 50 planes per level of airfield, I think that it should be 25 or 30 planes per level for levels 1-5, and then 50 per level for 6-10 as the bases become more elaborate.
As far as limiting ships in a port, I have a little problem with that. It seems that all the ships located at a base wouldn't be docked the whole time, they would just be anchored...unless they were being repaired or something that requires them being docked or drydocked. You aren't really going to run out of room for anchorages, are you? How many ships can be anchored within reach of the coastal defenses, sub nets, etc which are set up to form the naval base? Maybe the answer is just revisiting the maximum base sizes on the map and making sure only the harbors which really had the capacity can be built up to level 9.
Rabaul at it's peak crammed in 100,000 men with all equipment and supplies. I'm not sure if an LCU stacking limit is an historically viable aim, but in game terms I think it may be desireable.
I think the way to limit ground units is the way it works now, how many troops you can supply. Rabaul was just a volcanic rock with nothing there as far as facilities, food supplies, etc when the Japanese arrived and they managed to base 120,000 troops there. The only problem that arose was getting food to them, not if they had a comfortable place to sleep and enough elbow room in their barracks.
"Money doesnt talk, it swears. Obscenities, who really cares?" -Bob Dylan
"Habit is the balast that chains a dog to it's vomit." -Samuel Becket
"He has weapons of mass destruction- the world's deadliest weapons- which pose a direct threat to the
IIRC the base at PM actually had three airbases in it's 30 mile "hex" - wouldn't that increase the capacity of the "base" in the thirty mile hex? I'd be curious just where all of the Allies air reinforcements would go to if Noumea, or Brisbane, both level 9 airfields were "full".
Just a thought...
"Shouldn't we be leading the shark into shore...instead him leading us out to sea?"
Greatly increase the VP value of ships. I'm sorry, but a Cimmaron class AO should be worth more than 7 VPs (seven A6M2s!!!), or a 10000 ton cruiser should be worth more than 40 VPs etc. Most ships were expensive and time consuming to build, and required a lot of manpower to operate. They should be given higher VP values as a result.
I agree. 7 fighters for 1 AO is something most WW2 Admirals would trade for. The capital investment in the ship is far more than 7 fighters. I think that the VP's need to be ajusted either planes should be less or ships should be worth more.
I also found myself trying to figure out how to limit players from using ships beyond their historical operational limits, and just throwing them around like unmanned robots.
Very simple fix to this really. Increase SYS damage and increase repair rates in size 6/7/8/9 ports. Ships would burn out quicker, but a high proportion with always be in for repairs, forcing you to plan for those major operations by holding back ship use to keep them in shape for the big attacks.
Personally, there just always seems to be way too many transports available to me. Other ships are right, but transports are overboard. It might be historical, but it certainly doesn't play right.
