Notes from a Small Island

[RangerJoe]

He could walk with braces and two canes or with help. It was very tiring for him but he tried to keep his wheelchair use to a minimum at public events.

[aleajactaest10044]

Beware JFB...The NEW British Spitfires are coming soon ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hirwnpe ... irwnpeugNM

[aleajactaest10044]

On those silly notes...chill...it's a game...both sides have non-historic features

[Bif1961]

I have been playing VITPAE since it came out in 2009 and VITP before then and also Uncommon Valor before that. I see there are still some exploits I don't know about but when I learn of them I avoid using them. However, somethings are beyond the players control and just have to be accepted as part of the game and both sides realize this.

[Canoerebel]

My email to Erik:

Erik,

Three forumites have shown up in my thread, raising cane because of my tactic of landing troops to trigger auto-bombardments. One in particular has been nasty, but he has a long history of doing that.

As far as I know, you and I are fine with everything going on in the game. It’s a tough, brutal knife fight at close range. It’s 1945 and you still have a serious lead and a mighty air force that is making things awfully tough on me. I’m making some progress, but it’s pulling teeth progress.

I don’t think you have any issues with what’s going on, because you’d likely have said so if you did. Let me know if you do.

Dan

[Canoerebel]

Erik's reply:

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the note on this. I’m sorry you’re taking some flak for the tactic. I’ve probably voiced my frustration in the AAR, but my that is centred on the game forcing my hand rather than you choosing to do it. I do understand your position, and having found something that works in the late game, I don’t blame you for using it. It does set my troops back in a way I can’t control or prepare for so it does for me take some fun out of the game, but I’m sure you’ve found things I use that do similar things.

We all find our own methods. My research has been focused on the air war for a while because I realised early on in this one that I didn’t have a naval advantage from day 2 onward. I’ve probably neglected some other things.

In this case the auto-bombardments have become somewhat catastrophic! I know there is a distinct advantage in firepower and number of arty tubes, etc for the Allies in Kushiro. It’s more of a SL problem for me though, and the landing auto-bombardment rule wouldn’t be as much a problem if it’s a 70k limit. After the first DA the disablements, fatigue and disruption for the Allies would have have gone through the roof with this many troops in hex, and supply would have gone to zero fast. You would likely only have landed with a 25-30% overstack, and that would have been much more manageable in spite of the auto-bombardments.

So. Long story short. I don’t like not being able to control my troops, but you’re just playing the game as designed.

Been a gruelling few days here. Got into our new temp house okay but had some adjustments. Fireworks for Guy Fawkes night aren’t helping sleep as it ramps up tot he weekend.

Best,
Erik

[Canoerebel]

In many cases, triggering an auto-bombardment wouldn't be advantageous, because the enemy artillery would do more damage to me than my guys would do to him. That's happened many time in this game, especially in the long, still-ongoing stalemate in Burma.

But Erik chose a course of action here that neutered his ability to fight back effectively. He elected to garrison Kushiro with just infantry - no armor or artillery. I landed with 3x troops and heavy concentrations of armor and artillery. Thus, the bombardments are deadly to his guys. And they should be. He chose to defend forward and to rely on rail transport to cover Kushiro. He made a miscalculation and is now paying for it. But he's doing so quietly, unlike certain folks given to histrionics and personal insults that go far beyond a game environment.

As for the massive armies employed, Erik has used the exact tactic in Burma, stalemating the Allies for 11 months.

These are just features of the game.

As for ardbrunner's comment that I'm landing a just tiny cadres of men, that isn't true. I'm landing 37th Div. troops. I've basically used all the combat squads from that division now, and they've suffered about 90% disruption. Each landing involves 2 to 5 APDs full of infantry.

[Canoerebel]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Now that you have units at Bihoro (sp?) his units in the clear hex are trapped if you control all hexsides. Their only relief is from the the West or Northwest as long as you keep units at Bihoro. I think that their distance moved also gets reset to 0. Very sneaky. [;)]

The unit that just arrived at Bihoro was one that I lost track of and that I wish hadn't arrived there. It was part of a large stack moving from the SE and which I had expected to take at least a week to arrive. I forgot to allow for the fact that this is a tank destroyer unit that can make good time. So it's "naked" and won't be reinforced for many days, if at all (I'm still not sure I'm going to carry through with this move, and never have been). Erik will destroy this unit momentarily. And I don't think the arrival of the unit in any way affected the progress of his stack in the contested inland hex.

[Lokasenna]

Y'all know that participation in auto-bombardments can be stopped by putting the units in Reserve, right?

Yes, this has its own slight downside... but if Erik wanted to avoid auto-bombardment, he could.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

But Erik chose a course of action here that neutered his ability to fight back effectively. He elected to garrison Kushiro with just infantry - no armor or artillery. I landed with 3x troops and heavy concentrations of armor and artillery. Thus, the bombardments are deadly to his guys. And they should be.

Even if you were just landing supply and it was triggering it... the mismatch in forces here is a "Yep" from me.

[savelius2]

Well, I’m glad this has turned out to be a mountain of a molehill situation. You and Obvert have put on a hell of a game for us and it’s nice that you’re still on the same page and the game isn’t in jeopardy. Sorry if my comments came off as overly critical!

[Lecivius]

As I said, Play On [;)]

[RangerJoe]

The unit that just arrived at Bihoro was one that I lost track of and that I wish hadn't arrived there. . .

But still effective. You can try to save it by evacuating some of it by air and the rest by an evacuation TF.

[Canoerebel]

My final (I hope) word back to Erik on the matter:

Thanks, Erik. It helps to know your thoughts.

The game is wonky with things that can hurt both ways or that may affect one side disproportionately. Sometimes the “bias” can change during the course of the game.

Both sides can make use of the auto-bombardment feature against the other, but at this point in the war it affects you disproportionately.

Similarly, the carrier sortie model affects both of us, but it is especially harmful to me at this point. The threat of CAP traps (especially with a massively upgraded Japanese fighter corps) almost neuters Allied carriers. It is possible to work out attack scenarios, but they are risky. Lord help if I happen to leave strike aircraft set to a range in which they blunder into enemy CAP. I end up losing 200 1EB in exchange for one miss against a Japanese APD.

You and I are so experienced now that we mostly learn to live with wonkiness and just play the game. And the model can’t be too bad if we’re mired in a match in which the Allies are “losing” in February 1945 and the Japanese air force is a beast beyond measure.

[mind_messing]

To be blunt, the fuss about the auto-bombardment routine is a candle-sized fire in the middle of the conflagration that is the late war Japanese empire. It's annoying, but it's 1945 and the IJA's going to be getting trounced if it's fighting on anything like equal terms, auto-bombardment or not.

As for the hyperbole around the massive IJ fighter hordes: everything has a cost. How much supply is he expending daily on CAP? The numbers look intimidating, but what's that costing in supply?

Regarding the loss of 100 1EB, open the reinforcement panel and look at what you get after 5/45 and you'll be less fussed about 100 1EB's.

The late-war tends to see a lot of tempers run high due to the investment of time and effort. It's always helpful to actually think it through in the grand scheme of things if the issues being discussed actually matter in the long run.

[RangerJoe]

As for the hyperbole around the massive IJ fighter hordes: everything has a cost. How much supply is he expending daily on CAP? The numbers look intimidating, but what's that costing in supply?

Not just supply but also Heavy Industry. The cost of training pilots, especially when he loses aircraft offensively over your bases/fleets, and also the replacement air frames, and engines. Plus the cost of fuel for the HI.

[JohnDillworth]

As for the hyperbole around the massive IJ fighter hordes: everything has a cost. How much supply is he expending daily on CAP? The numbers look intimidating, but what's that costing in supply?

Supply is probably not an issue because there has been little intervention in the flow of supply from the DEI. Part of this is Dan's sub doctrine but part of it is that Japans ASW is massively overpowered in the game. Another , unrealistic and non historical aspect of the game.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

To be blunt, the fuss about the auto-bombardment routine is a candle-sized fire in the middle of the conflagration that is the late war Japanese empire. It's annoying, but it's 1945 and the IJA's going to be getting trounced if it's fighting on anything like equal terms, auto-bombardment or not.

As for the hyperbole around the massive IJ fighter hordes: everything has a cost. How much supply is he expending daily on CAP? The numbers look intimidating, but what's that costing in supply?

Regarding the loss of 100 1EB, open the reinforcement panel and look at what you get after 5/45 and you'll be less fussed about 100 1EB's.

The late-war tends to see a lot of tempers run high due to the investment of time and effort. It's always helpful to actually think it through in the grand scheme of things if the issues being discussed actually matter in the long run.

I think Dan's issue is with the naval pilot pools more than the aircraft available to replace.

[Canoerebel]

Pilots and points!

I get the feeling that few players pay attention to victory points. It adds immense richness to the game, for both sides.

If I lose 200 SBDs, I can replace them easily (the pools are huge). But that's the equivalent of 400 points in the auto victory calculation.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Pilots and points!

I get the feeling that few players pay attention to victory points. It adds immense richness to the game, for both sides.

If I lose 200 SBDs, I can replace them easily (the pools are huge). But that's the equivalent of 400 points in the auto victory calculation.

I get the opposite impression.

I try to think of airframe losses as investments. It's transactional. All assets, really - what did I get for spending that?

It's really the sole reason behind that time recently when I was really annoyed, because I got essentially nothing for a lot.