Bill Brings Banzai

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: BillBrown
It sure looks like there are Ki-43-Ia factories in scenario 2.
Tracker says there is no upgrade path.

You can always check the next upgrade in the Intelligence screen -> Aircraft replacement pool -> last column

Scenario 2 has a lot of streamlined R&D paths, check them out and use them wisely.

[Korvar]

Is the 'Economic Primer' contained in the forum squeeze document still considered the best intro to industry management? (FYI, the orange 'Scarica Adesso' button in the link is the download button)

[zuluhour]

good luck Bill. As I intend to watch the Allied side of things, I'll check out now and hope to comment.......much later.[:)]

[Korvar]

FYI, apparently there is an updated version of the Japanese Production Primer available in this thread.

[btd64]

Bill, I'm glad that you have a new opponent. I'm going to recommend your AAR to my current opponent to learn from. Good luck....GP

[Miller]

Go get em Bill you old bastard!

[BillBrown]

ORIGINAL: Miller

Go get em Bill you old bastard!

Who are you calling old, I'm only 72.

thanks Brian.

And thank you Kovar, downloaded and I will look at it.

[Chickenboy]

Hi Bill. Congratulations and sympathies are both in order. It's a mighty big fish to fry, but you'll learn a lot. Boy Howdee, you'll learn a lot.

I'm happy to help with any questions you have also. I've several PBEM games in Sc. 2 under my belt as the Japanese.

Tenno Heiko BANZAI!

[Chickenboy]

One point that I would suggest: get your research priorities lined up sooner rather than later. Think of what planes you want in abundance in 1943-1944 and focus on a small handful of the best models available to you. Then work backwards to plan your engine research, airframe research and current production accordingly.

For example, I wouldn't have more than two production lines on the Oscar lineage after January or February 1942. So go ahead and switch one of your -Ia production lines to -Ic lines *now* and expand the -Ic lines as you see fit. The other -Ia factory can go to produce another aircraft altogether at minimal penalty since it's starting small.

Tidbit for today: A vestigial oddity of scenario 2 is that Ha-35 engines are used for the Tojo (Ki-44-IIa/b/c). In scenario 1 it's Ha-34. Being as you will want to produce a whole shedload of these planes over the course of the war, you should bear that in mind with allocation of engine production.

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
Tidbit for today: A vestigial oddity of scenario 2 is that Ha-35 engines are used for the Tojo (Ki-44-IIa/b/c). In scenario 1 it's Ha-34. Being as you will want to produce a whole shedload of these planes over the course of the war, you should bear that in mind with allocation of engine production.

Updated Scenario 2 has Ha-34 for the Tojo.

[larryfulkerson]

I have subscribed to this AAR because I hope to learn a lot from what you try to do. I've been playing the Jap side since I started playing this game and I have been trying out various things and I have some humble advice for you.

You can't do it on T1 but on T2 you might want to turn off the shipbuilding of any ships past about mid-44 or so because odds are you'll never receive them in time to influence the game very much.

At the beginning of T2 you might notice that the vehicles category might suffer a massive drop as the various units are filled in with vehicles from the stockpiles of equipment. It might go from 2,000 points to something very much like 500 or so. I've been known to change one of the Armament factories into a Vehicles factory.

There's a lot of cities in China that have minor damage to their facilities but not enough supply to repair them. You might want to turn off the expansion of their facilities until the repairs are done.

Early in the game there's a lot of units from the "Southern Army" that are parked in the home islands that need to be moved to a port so you can move them to the invasion spots when they are needed.

Don't dilly dally on capturing the main oil spots in the DEI. The home islands are going to need that oil and soon. I like to get RES from the places near the home islands like Hakodate, Fusan, Kiejo, etc. Port Arthur puts out oil just fine but I usually leave that oil alone because PA has a refinery and usually runs out of oil after about 8 months to a year of game time. I've had to ship supplementary loads of oil to PA to keep the refinery going.

I usually land in the PI first out of habit: ( Aparri, Vigen, Iba, etc. ). And after Manila falls I usually ship the troops from the PI to Mersing, Malaya to help the takedown of Singapore. While meanwhile moving into the areas north of Java.

Miri the first oil place I try for because it's convienent to Cam Rahn Bay and puts out oil and fuel which comes in handy until the supply and fuel shipments can start to arrive from the home islands.

Bangkok also has a refinery but it starts to run out of oil after about a year or so and I've had to shut down the refinery almost every game for lack of oil.

I've never played past about June, '42 so I don't know much about what happens after that.

I've shut down the Nates and Oscars and I'm building all the Zeros in the world. That and Bettys and Nells. And a trickle of Babs and Emilys. Concentrating on my best planes for combat and using the obsolete planes as trainers.

I like to replace all the biplane spotters with Jakes. I've been culling all the better trained pilots from the training squadrons and stuffing them into the combat squadrons when they reach about 60 but Brian tells me he trains them until they are about 70 before he puts them into combat. I'll use that cutoff from now on.

A lot of the Jap subs have piss poor leaders....I'd replace them if I were you.

[mind_messing]

A few caveats to what Larry said above:

- Repairing damage in China is generally not worth it IMO. It costs 1000 supply to repair damaged industry. If it is light industry, then that's 1000 days to repair, and halved for heavy industry. Consider if you'll actually hold the base years down the line.

- I'd absolutely not support shutting down Oscar production. Most of the IJA fighter strength use Nates, and the Oscar is a significantly better airframe than the Nate. More importantly, the Oscar needs to tide you over till the Tojo or other mid-war IJA airframes.

- Replacing the riff-raff of floatplanes with Jakes is a great idea, its a real Swiss Army knife for the IJN.

- IMO you really need to nurture the cadre of pilots that you start with on Dec 7th, especially before your own pilot training programme kicks off. A radical solution I've found is to take all the fighter squadrons using outdated airframes (Nate, Claude) and send all their pilots to the reserve. The pilots are used as replacements for squadrons with competitive fighters (Oscar, Zero) and the squadrons themselves are immediately turned in to training squadrons. This helps jumpstart your pilot training programme while prevents the Allies from getting easy kills with more modern airframes on outdated airframes like the Nate.

- In addition to replacing captains on IJN subs, do a quick review of capital ship leaders. A few CA's have woeful leaders IIRC. Once you have some political points spare you can swap out leaders on DD's and smaller warships, but starting from the top and working down makes sense.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
Tidbit for today: A vestigial oddity of scenario 2 is that Ha-35 engines are used for the Tojo (Ki-44-IIa/b/c). In scenario 1 it's Ha-34. Being as you will want to produce a whole shedload of these planes over the course of the war, you should bear that in mind with allocation of engine production.

Updated Scenario 2 has Ha-34 for the Tojo.

I started a game in December 2018 based upon the latest official patch. My comments were relative to that time frame and are correct for my Sc. 2 'stock' game. Are you referring to a beta patch perhaps or has this 'updated scenario' of which you speak been released in the last 5 months?

ETA: Just checked it again. Confirmed. Ki-44-IIa/b/c on latest official patch use Ha-35.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

- I'd absolutely not support shutting down Oscar production. Most of the IJA fighter strength use Nates, and the Oscar is a significantly better airframe than the Nate. More importantly, the Oscar needs to tide you over till the Tojo or other mid-war IJA airframes.

I wouldn't dedicate more than two factories to Oscar production, like I said. 60 Oscars / month after February 1942 is ample, IMO. True, the Nate is in dire need of replacement, but scenario 2 availability of Oscar Ia, Ib and Ic aircraft (including reserves) can provide that buffer. Don't forget to switch all home islands Oscars to Nates for your training groups. Nates can still serve for a time in China if opposition is minimal.

With scenario 2 expediting of Ki-44-IIa production, you can be in Tojo clover on May 1, 1942. As the Oscar-IIa doesn't come online until August 1942, I'd rather focus on my fighter backbone for my IJAAF in mid-1942-1943. And that's not going to be the Oscar. I still will produce the Oscar IIa, IIb and so on as capable long-distance escort and (later) kamikazes.

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
I started a game in December 2018 based upon the latest official patch. My comments were relative to that time frame and are correct for my Sc. 2 'stock' game. Are you referring to a beta patch perhaps or has this 'updated scenario' of which you speak been released in the last 5 months?

ETA: Just checked it again. Confirmed. Ki-44-IIa/b/c on latest official patch use Ha-35.

I think it's in the later AndyMac's AI fixes. I'm playing Scen 2 now with Ha-34. I surely did not meddle with the editor for the stock scenario but I did DL some of the AndyMac's latest musings. I like the Ha-34 Tojo, Ha-35 was a long-buried mistake

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
I started a game in December 2018 based upon the latest official patch. My comments were relative to that time frame and are correct for my Sc. 2 'stock' game. Are you referring to a beta patch perhaps or has this 'updated scenario' of which you speak been released in the last 5 months?

ETA: Just checked it again. Confirmed. Ki-44-IIa/b/c on latest official patch use Ha-35.

I think it's in the later AndyMac's AI fixes. I'm playing Scen 2 now with Ha-34. I surely did not meddle with the editor for the stock scenario but I did DL some of the AndyMac's latest musings. I like the Ha-34 Tojo, Ha-35 was a long-buried mistake

Right. I don't have AndyMac's AI 'musings'. That's not an official patch, so my guess is that Bill has the Ha-35 setup, as opposed to mods like yours. The Ha-34 would make more sense, but I'm just playing the game (and informing others) the way it came and trying not to post confusing information about non-stock game mods.

[BillBrown]

We are using andymacs updated scenario 2 and the Tojo line uses Nakajima Ha-35 engines.
I have been doing the actual turn so far, not the production. Tomorrow I will really start in on the production.
So far I have looked and I have 70 R&D factories. I probably will be heavily investing in fighter R&D. I am thinking
8 x 6 size 30 R&D factories for fighters. I am not sure which ones, but I am looking at A6, A7, NiK, and J8W1 for the Navy.
Then for the Army I am looking at Ki-43, ki-44, Frank, and Ki-83. Not sure if that is enough, but it is a start. It still
leaves me with 22 more R&D factories for other things.

Comments on that?

[Korvar]

Bill,

I'm working through the updated production primer; hopefully I'll be able to somewhat intelligently comment on 'nuts and bolts' stuff soon. That said, two warnings / words of wisdom that are stressed in the primer:

1. Before touching any production values, always save your game. There's no way to undo changes, and a screw-up means restarting the turn (unless you decide to live with the screw-up).

2. Use the industry screen to make ALL changes - DO NOT use the icons on the base screen. Apparently the base screen will double values. Note - this may have been corrected in a more recent beta update than when this guide was written, so YMMV. Someone with more knowledge of the situation will probably chime in to set the record straight.

[WingCmdr]

Post #52

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4252977&mpage=4&key=

tm.asp?m=2597400&mpage=13&key=


There are many newer sources but this is still similar to Stock 2 so it applies. Share your links.

[Korvar]

The 'Post #52' link has some flow charts which will be helpful for airframe research planning. The third link contains discussion involving the use of the Tracker application. I didn't read in depth yet as I'm still working my way through the production primer document.



Bill,

Are you using Tracker for this game/scenario? If not, it appears to be highly recommended for industry management.


Edit: I re-read post #1 and answered my own question [:D]