State of the game 1.02

[eskuche]

I thought I would do a small write-up based on my observations over 15-20 games, with the caveat that only two have gone into '43, one into '44. There are some balance issues that should probably be addressed either with mods or officially. I am going to give away some gameplay secrets too that probably most people aren't aware of. I won't address bugs, as they will probably get fixed.

Part 2: VP discussion of current VP totals

To get the big elephant out of the way, I don't think good Japanese play can lose given the current VP rules/lack of house rules. India or AUS (or both) are indefensible with appropriate play, even with the advanced timetable of March '42 transports given to the Allies. In my second game vs. YueJin, Japan goofed and took 4-5 turns to take Batavia, so India and AUS were never threatened. However, with the unblockable claiming of the Solomons + Fiji & co. islands, the VP timer is ticking very hard, even with a backdoor Burma play that caught I think 4-5 armies worth of Japanese. In this game, the Allies have the Philippines in mid-'43, probably a mistake, neglecting Operation Cartwheel, as the Japanese were probably too entrenched on the unapproachable abovementioned islands. For what it's worth, I have never lost a Japanese game, even with plenty of mistakes and non-optimization. I think I have enough games under my belt to make some of the following claims that Japan is overpowered in 1.02

What are factors leading to this? Obviously the lack of Allied response capability and small garrison sizes compound to allow the Japanese to land anywhere. Here are a few examples: any Australia city is ripe for taking with one army with a leading 1-2 strength garrison unit to clear the landing zone to prevent invasion effectiveness drop; to surround the garrison with ZoC (since division vs. division ZoC is last come first serve, probably not good for the game); and to add some combat value. Japan can count AUS tokens to see whether there is likely a combined corps or where there are likely only divisions. Cutting the northern ports off in mid-australia is a death blow, basically. India garrisons in Ceylon have the same issue. The Axis player KNOWS everything is weak, and the Allies can't defend everything. Allied garrisons should probably be increased. I just started playing WPE and notice that they are low, but that is supposedly because there is plenty of time to build up. Here, that's not the case. IJN can be knocking on Melbourne's door turn 3, Ceylon turn 2.

Problem 2: IJN landing craft AND transport capability. The first is obvious and is being addressed in stjeand's mod by divvying them out over 8-9 turns. The second is more subtle. Japanese start with 200 (or 180?) transports. This allows chaining of relocation of garrisons within 50 hexes with supreme ease. This also allows invisible floating armies (which currently don't suffer the 5% effectiveness/turn embarked penalty as the manual says) to wait for the perfect opportunity to strike without retaliation. Embarked units count as blockade counters. This should probably be removed, or mixed fleets prohibited from blockading. Early turns, IJN can focus their actual ships on bombardment at key hexes (AUS invasion, Moulmein, Ceylon), while 3 x 1 strength units using 3 transports can blockade ports (!). Toning down either or both of these capacities would likely lead to a more historically plausible game without the super min-maxing that I go through in the early turns WITHOUT having to introduce a complex set of house rules or port suppression rules.

Problem 3: The weather. In conjunction with problem 2, Axis first look at the weather allows them so much. Heavy rain means you can safely engage in surface combat or LBA-free blockading. Less obvious is the fact that you can ALWAYS plan around where the Allies can invade. If you can move around 20 divisions per turn based on the weather (if one were inclined to do so), this gets silly quickly. I don't see a good way around this problem, but removing about half the transports mitigates it a bit.

Problem 4: fleet/raider mode. Fleet mode is basically useless unless you're rocking a 20 stack with 6 full CVs. There is almost zero reason to be in fleet mode unless you are such. Okay, not too big a deal, set everything to raider mode. Besides this taking a lot of decision-making out of the game, it actually increases micromanagement. If you forget to set something to raider mode, the enemy can shop around with a 20 stack and the undo button to sweep in and sweep out. I'm not saying I don't do this because it is in fact the optimal play, but this is silly. The other, less known (only YueJin seems to know about this other than me in the 10+ opponents I've played) feature is that adding a ship to a fleet imparts its characteristics onto the fleet. This includes country (allowing you to refuel with the incoming ship's oilers, but ONLY IF YOU DON'T CLICK OFF THE FLEET, which resets the ship order) AND FLEET/RAIDER MODE. I PM'd Alvaro very, very early, and he said it wasn't a bug. This has huge ramifications, obviously, and unknowing players are extremely disadvantaged not knowing it.

Possible changes: raider mode has only one OP the next turn, thresholds for engaging on fleet mode (although this can obviously be gamed too), more oil usage for raider mode.

Problem 5: less of a problem, but advancements seem to have a 95% correct choice. There is no reason to take anti-tank. Even as the IJA, you start with '42 assault and '39 anti-tank, which means that even if you wanted to defend islands later on, you're never going to catch up. Escort fighters are almost certainly the only feasible choice with the supremely increased range. Interceptors have only one more attack factor (something from 6 or 10 vs. 5 or 9 of escorts). Interceptors should get another point or two bumped up. Fighter bombers MAY possibly be worth getting if the ground attack was bumped up 2 or 3 more points, allowing attritional strafing with low oil cost, and this could allow a Chinese air force to be something to actually consider.

For air, we know there is the naval air bug already, as well as a non-advancement from '44 to '45. I am sorry to say that I don't see strategic bombing ever being a feasible game plan. Unless you are able to mass right outside the home islands (in which case you've already won), there is no chance you can bomb the stuff that really matters, aka, production, and even then, you're likely better off actually destroying the units with ground support or fishing for hits on ships. I use strategic bombing advancement simply for the range increase on tac/ground groups. Ground attack advancement only adds 1 or 2 points to the already high 7 points of the ground attack unit type. It's probably 70% of the time better to stick them on '39 and just pump out more instead of upgrading. The anti-air in infantry advancements outpace this increase and should probably be revisited.

Going along with the assumption that a trade war is useless because of the VP distribution (and no bonus for actually destroying, say, all of Japan's shipping), there is no reason to upgrade subs at all. The capacity of the IJN should never be dependent on subs destroying it, since subs operate in wolfpacks and never as lone assassins. Subs are most useful for spamming to blockade important targets and thus are best kept at the cheapest. I would rather have 4 x '39 subs than 3 x '42 subs with slightly more defense. Since naval damage is a huge crapshoot, taking the guaranteed extra counter is 95% of the time better.

Tanks/motorized can be a good surprise when the opponent isn't expecting the 9 OP. I got thrashed by this once so don't see a need to change it.

Problem 6: specialties. Half of them are NEVER the pick. In my long game vs. YueJin, I took ~6 anti-air specialists on BBs but still came out worse for wear on almost every even-at-worst battle with LBA superiority. It's entirely possible that it's confirmation bias and low sample size, but here we are. Same for torpedo or tactician: if we don't have battle reports with the stats, all of these are what-ifs that are again 95% of the time inferior to just taking elite on a corps and calling it a day. I don't have good experiences with infiltrator trying to fish for surrenders with probably 50-70 less than 3:1 attacks (expected value of 2-3 retreats at least, with none observed). Anti-tank is similarly 95% of the time never going to used. Engineer and artillery are fine (artillery is probably better than you think, mathematically), although engineers doesn't let airfield building across different countries.

That's all I have off the top of my head. Feel free to tell me why I'm horrendously wrong

[eskuche]

Possible changes to specialties: bump up Japan specialty points a bit. Having only 1-5 the entire duration of a game is a little unfun for the player. Tactician/AA/infiltrator/maybe Ace bump up to double the current amount, infiltrator takes double damage.

Cannon and AT: remove. Replace with possibly 10-15% ground attack for the former and logistics (1 OP) for the latter. Another option: maneuver = ignores enemy ZOC AND projects ZOC superiority over other enemy units of the same size. Winter fighting can probably be removed too. I forgot it even exists.

[YueJin]

I agree with large parts of this although I would say that the game is slightly more winnable from the allied side than you've described. Fiji, New Caledonia and Ceylon are totally indefensible in almost all games and New Zealand is pretty much impossible to preserve against a good opponent as well. The Australia invasion feels like a really poor choice. I've never had it succeed against me and would say going all in on India is always the better choice. I do agree that all India/Aus garrisons should be raised to at least 7/10 strength at game start to make these far reaching targets more challenging and forcing the Japanese to really go all in on a target to have a chance of succeeding. Once 1943 arrives and India hasn't surrendered I do think South East Asia is indefensible for the Japanese and can potentially cripple them if they overinvest in trying to hold it. You can absolutely attrition all Japanese production there against someone who's not careful.


Agreed that Japan should begin with fewer transports, perhaps 3/4 of what they have now and reduced further if necessary. Unescorted transports should also be more vunerable targets in my opinion, I've had a transport fleet in a high reconnaissance hex soak up 12+ air strikes from close support aircraft and 10 naval attacks by a mixed DD/BB group without taking damage. They got sunk by a group of three subs eventually.

Regards advancement I've turned them all off as Japan in my recent games apart from Escort fighters, Assault, Carrier ops, Heavy Armour and Naval invasion (since it doesn't cost PP). Everything else is a total waste of PP to upgrade the units. Agree they should be more impactful or cheaper to build/upgrade.

The raider mode exploit should be more widely known if it's meant to be intentional (I probably should have written something about it a while ago[8|]). Having the ability to launch a carrier strike then change to raider is absolutely invaluable for both sides and completely changes threat ranges.

There is actually a very sizable bonus to destroying Japan's merchant marine. It's not so much the oil which Japan should never have a problem with as long as Palembang is held until mid '44 but they do lose around 100 PP when down to 50 MM so it's somewhat worthwhile if you can start early enough.

Specialities are interesting. Ace is obvious on air units as you should be COMINT'ing any targets worth bombing making navigator fairly irrelevant. Elite, engineer or artillery all have some relevance on ground units. Tactician seems obvious on all naval units but I've been experimenting some more with torpedo after one game where the Nachi sunk 4/5 battleships using the pre engagement rolls and it feels pretty good. Sticking tactician on everything may be better but it's a possibility. Having one ship in the fleet with the resupply one can be ok for the USA.

[stjeand]

To update what you have...

Problem 1:

In current state I agree. Any Japanese player that want to just win will invaded India with 2 armies on turn 4 and India will collapse.
I have been trying to come up with a good method requiring a lot of ports to be taken and Indian and Australian ports to be suppressed until they are all taken.
The flow works BUT it created a major issue. Taking 15 ports and holding them is impossible once the US can start landing with Marines. So the Japanese have to garrison 30 or so ports, which they don't have the troops for and if one calls...the suppression activates thus starving the Japanese troops in those locations.
I have come up with a better method for the US...and may implement something like it for the Japanese where they have to take and hold one of 3 ports and that keeps the supply chain going. BUT that will require time to address.
Sadly the editor / event file lack a few things that would be really nice...say events that occur < or > a specific date and the ability to check if a flag is true or false, as well as seeing the state of the country, how many PP they have, how many transports they have...With those scripting would be much easier but I will need to work in the current bounds.

Problem 2:

I am working on this. It is difficult to slow the Japanese down but if they start the game with 200 LC they basically take Aus and India out of the game within 5 turns. Phasing in the LC slows them considerably and makes it tough to drop armies anywhere since they take 30 and the Japanese receive approximately 20 per turn until they get their 200.
I am thinking about phasing in the transports for the Japanese also. Taking away 100 would be a HUGE blow since I expect many to get sunk as time progresses and the PP totals 1000 which is 7 Japanese turns, add to that the 6 months to build them. Just want to find the "balance" to start and phase in 10 per month say until the end of 42. Perhaps they start with 80...then get 10 per month in 1942? Will have to test that once I can figure out the port suppression thing.

Problem 3:

I am not as concerned about the weather...I thought I saw somewhere this could be changed but don't see it now.
I guess it is a pain for the Allies but if not them then the Axis would be complaining.

Problem 4:

My biggest issue with this is fleets blockading. One game I had 4 ports being blockaded and they were in HIGH Recon but I sent in 6 fleets and only succeeding in finding 1 of the fleets.
I believe in blockading units should have to be in fleet mode but in my eyes there needs to be a third mode...fleet mode without attack. I don't want my 3 DD blockading and attacking the stack of 7 BBs that come searching for them. I want them to just defend if attacked.
Not sure that is even possible but a need I see.

Problem 5:

I like choices, and this is the same in WPE. Each country only researches a few things so for me this is normal.
I like Escort fighters too but Interceptors will beat them every time.


Problem 6:

Interesting...anti air on the BBs...I put anti-air on my carriers so they don't have to travel always with BBs...Oil savings
I suspect later the Japanese may use kamikazes...I would like to see them to see what they can do at some point but few games get there. In all honesty a LBA dive bombers should be close to as powerful as two or 3 carrier due to the number of aircraft in them.

[eskuche]

Our game is probably winnable for the Allies, but it is an outlier with the Java opening, and I tend to be more conservative in my estimates of attack capabilities [:D]

ORIGINAL: YueJin
There is actually a very sizable bonus to destroying Japan's merchant marine. It's not so much the oil which Japan should never have a problem with as long as Palembang is held until mid '44 but they do lose around 100 PP when down to 50 MM so it's somewhat worthwhile if you can start early enough.

Yeah, I'm crunching the numbers in our game again. I think if I went all in on raiding as soon as I held PHI in mid-'43 it could have been devastating enough. Unsure now and unsure whether you can simply shut down the oil pipelines.

ORIGINAL: YueJin
Specialities are interesting. Ace is obvious on air units as you should be COMINT'ing any targets worth bombing making navigator fairly irrelevant.

Interesting data point. My counter for these possible pros is (aside from the obvious opportunity costs) is that the variance in naval combat is so high you're likely to lose your investment much more easily than on an air or ground unit.

[eskuche]

ORIGINAL: stjeand
Problem 2:

I am working on this. It is difficult to slow the Japanese down but if they start the game with 200 LC they basically take Aus and India out of the game within 5 turns. Phasing in the LC slows them considerably and makes it tough to drop armies anywhere since they take 30 and the Japanese receive approximately 20 per turn until they get their 200.
I am thinking about phasing in the transports for the Japanese also. Taking away 100 would be a HUGE blow since I expect many to get sunk as time progresses and the PP totals 1000 which is 7 Japanese turns, add to that the 6 months to build them. Just want to find the "balance" to start and phase in 10 per month say until the end of 42. Perhaps they start with 80...then get 10 per month in 1942? Will have to test that once I can figure out the port suppression thing.

In my experience you should never be losing transports. I always test for interdiction with a DD first at max range and in rain if possible. If a unit can stay afloat during the enemy turn, it can do so in a very low recon hex or by landing at a nearby port temporarily.

ORIGINAL: stjeand
Problem 4:

My biggest issue with this is fleets blockading. One game I had 4 ports being blockaded and they were in HIGH Recon but I sent in 6 fleets and only succeeding in finding 1 of the fleets.
I believe in blockading units should have to be in fleet mode but in my eyes there needs to be a third mode...fleet mode without attack. I don't want my 3 DD blockading and attacking the stack of 7 BBs that come searching for them. I want them to just defend if attacked.
Not sure that is even possible but a need I see.

High recon, according to the manual, is either 38% or 65% chance to spot, so not that unlikely. You should always blow a COMINT for major naval engagement to ensure very high recon. Don't forget that time you sniped 2 CV in my 20 stack in low recon with one attack, either [:D]

ORIGINAL: stjeand
Problem 6:

Interesting...anti air on the BBs...I put anti-air on my carriers so they don't have to travel always with BBs...Oil savings
I suspect later the Japanese may use kamikazes...I would like to see them to see what they can do at some point but few games get there. In all honesty a LBA dive bombers should be close to as powerful as two or 3 carrier due to the number of aircraft in them.

When I checked to make this decision, BB had higher base anti-air than carriers by far, and since the specialty purportedly multiplies AA, I leave it on the BBs.

[stjeand]

In my experience you should never be losing transports. I always test for interdiction with a DD first at max range and in rain if possible. If a unit can stay afloat during the enemy turn, it can do so in a very low recon hex or by landing at a nearby port temporarily.

Yes for me this is a bit of a exploit / bug but works.
You should never lose them...but you never know.

It is easy to lose a full unit if caught at sea.

Honestly you should not need a commint if a fleet is blockading a port and ships come to attack those ships.
But that is in my eyes...others may see it differently. You have to be sitting close to the port so there is NO where to hide unlike the open seas. If you are blockading it is likely that the troops on shore can see your ships so spotting them should be 100%...
And who reads a manual?

As for the screen specialty it just adds +3 anti air...no multiple as I can see so I will keep it on my carriers since I need the BBs for other things. BUT might be nice on the Yamato or Musashi if they are kept with the carriers.

[eskuche]

ORIGINAL: stjeand

Yes for me this is a bit of a exploit / bug but works.
You should never lose them...but you never know.

It is easy to lose a full unit if caught at sea.

Sure, but the point is that Japan has such a huge buffer for this so as not to care. If you lose transports as the Allies, including with the bug, it can derail your entire game because of the longer transit times and lack of hopping.

ORIGINAL: stjeand
And who reads a manual?

As for the screen specialty it just adds +3 anti air...no multiple as I can see so I will keep it on my carriers since I need the BBs for other things. BUT might be nice on the Yamato or Musashi if they are kept with the carriers.

I will just leave this here.

[stjeand]

Interesting...I read the manual...guess that was a mistake.

SEE MY POINT???

[:-]

[AlvaroSousa]

The new patch is already in the works. It has some changes like port restrictions for the Japanese and invasions. It's a slow process of balancing so the game doesn't get over balanced.

WPE took time. So will this.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: AlvaroSousa

WPE took time. So will this.

Agree. WPE is quite nice now and we still have some debate. The important thing is that Alvaro is listening to us.
He doesn't always agree with us, but the game is moving in the right direction.

It will be the same with WPP. It takes a lot of games to tell whether WPE/WPP is balanced or not.

[eskuche]

ORIGINAL: AlvaroSousa

The new patch is already in the works. It has some changes like port restrictions for the Japanese and invasions. It's a slow process of balancing so the game doesn't get over balanced.

WPE took time. So will this.

Excellent, thanks. Obviously, we all want to see the game at its peak.

[Christolos]

Problem 4: fleet/raider mode. If you forget to set something to raider mode, the enemy can shop around with a 20 stack and the undo button to sweep in and sweep out. I'm not saying I don't do this because it is in fact the optimal play, but this is silly.

This seems gamey to me. Perhaps the undo feature should not be so readily available in this situation...but I don't see how this could be implemented.

It would seem that setting transports to raider mode would also effectively render them more difficult to engage...and i suppose this is what evrybody does, but this too seems a little silly/gamey...

C

[YueJin]

All ships should be in raider all of the time excepting 6 stack CV fleets for the side that has a naval advantage. Just make it the default setting for ships and remove the malus it gives to recon in my opinion. Alternatively, make blockading and naval bombardment require fleet mode to activate.

[eskuche]

I've lost at least 4 capital ships in our game because I'm too lazy to check every single one for fleet mode every single turn.
[>:]

[Numdydar]

Thank you for this post eskuche.

It has been a while since I have been on these forums and I just stopped in to check on the state of the game. Sad to see not much has changed since the last time I was here.

I have no idea where Alvaro is getting his numbers for Japan's capabilities in '41, but they are no where near correct as I have pointed out several times. To me, that is the issue with the '41 start, the data for Japan is wrong.

Not sure why he is so reluctant to change the data in the game to better reflect the historical record. It is NOT a question of balance, it is a question of historical accuracy.

If the game starts off with ahistorical data for Japan, then we are playing a fantasy version of the Pacific war. But apparently that is what people want since this ahistorical data still has not been changed. And I do not have much hope it ever will.

[eskuche]

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

Thank you for this post eskuche.

It has been a while since I have been on these forums and I just stopped in to check on the state of the game. Sad to see not much has changed since the last time I was here.

I have no idea where Alvaro is getting his numbers for Japan's capabilities in '41, but they are no where near correct as I have pointed out several times. To me, that is the issue with the '41 start, the data for Japan is wrong.

Not sure why he is so reluctant to change the data in the game to better reflect the historical record. It is NOT a question of balance, it is a question of historical accuracy.

If the game starts off with ahistorical data for Japan, then we are playing a fantasy version of the Pacific war. But apparently that is what people want since this ahistorical data still has not been changed. And I do not have much hope it ever will.

No problem. It's headed in the right direction, and stjeand is making mods. I have some more ideas to essay out maybe tomorrow, mostly cheap, fast changes to apply as a band-aid while the formal patch cycles go vroom.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: eskuche

The other, less known (only YueJin seems to know about this other than me in the 10+ opponents I've played) feature is that adding a ship to a fleet imparts its characteristics onto the fleet. This includes country (allowing you to refuel with the incoming ship's oilers, but ONLY IF YOU DON'T CLICK OFF THE FLEET, which resets the ship order) AND FLEET/RAIDER MODE. I PM'd Alvaro very, very early, and he said it wasn't a bug. This has huge ramifications, obviously, and unknowing players are extremely disadvantaged not knowing it.

I am not sure to understand what you are saying here. Is it the same than the bug found in this thread?
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5036063

Or, is it another problem?

Thanks

[eskuche]

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

ORIGINAL: eskuche

The other, less known (only YueJin seems to know about this other than me in the 10+ opponents I've played) feature is that adding a ship to a fleet imparts its characteristics onto the fleet. This includes country (allowing you to refuel with the incoming ship's oilers, but ONLY IF YOU DON'T CLICK OFF THE FLEET, which resets the ship order) AND FLEET/RAIDER MODE. I PM'd Alvaro very, very early, and he said it wasn't a bug. This has huge ramifications, obviously, and unknowing players are extremely disadvantaged not knowing it.

I am not sure to understand what you are saying here. Is it the same than the bug found in this thread?
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5036063

Or, is it another problem?

Thanks

It's a similar mechanic but a different aspect of it. Say for example you have a smaller carrier strike force attacking a blockade. This requires fleet mode. Attaching ANY raider mode unit to it afterwards converts it to raider mode, making it avoid costly interdiction of stronger forces.

[eskuche]

This next section details VP balance for the games that do manage to last that long. I'm tackling this first because it directly impacts my game. Sources are my one long, not-one-sided Allied game, the following historical progression (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_1rzp2YVxQ), my Axis games, and the game's VP total. This following assumes that the Japanese take Moresby turn 2-3 and Fiji/Noumea etc. turn 3-4 by force or by starvation, which I have been able to pull off every single game.

The status of my game is June '44. The Japanese were thwarted at Batavia for a few turns and held at Calcutta but progressed in the Pacific as above. A mid/late '42 amphibious landing at Rangoon cut off the Japanese line and nabbed 5 army-equivalents. Indochina except the Malay peninsula was completed conquered by Allies by early-mid '44, with another ~6 army equivalents dying falling. Allies had ~100 units worth of botched/distraction landings, and carrier trades favored IJN by 3:2 or 3:1 throughout the game. Allies ventured into the Celebes by '43 and held the Philippines since mid '43 but did not progress in the Solomons. Current mid '44 VPs are about 1600 Japanese vs. 950 Allies. Total VPs are 3720, so the Allies basically can not win at this point despite much higher than historic totals. With ~30 turns remaining, the Allies who are at a +2 VP per turn parity need a whopping +22 differential, meaning Japan needs to hold just home islands, Manchuria, Peking, and two other VP. I am not sure conquering the home islands is ever possible if the Japanese just bring back everything there and sit.

Here is the excerpt from the VP documentation in the '41 campaign, with a total of 98 turns.

Code: Select all

Japan held till 1945 10 X 98 = 980
 changsha +27
 Manchuria +96
 manila +85
 rangoon +82
 singapore +91
 wewak +52
 rabaul +95
 Saipan +66
 marshalls +56
 iow jima +84
 lae+56
 hong kong +98
 TOTAL = 1868
 
 Western Allies guarantee 16 X 98 = 1568
 UK 7 X 98 = 686
 USA 4 X 98 = 392
 USSR 2 X 98 = 196
 China 3 X 98 = 294
 manchuria +2 - USSR
 changsha +71 - CHINA
 manila +13 - USA
 rangoon +16 - UK
 singapore +7 - UK
 wewak UK=+14 USA=+32
 rabaul +3 - UK
 Saipan +32 - USA
 marshalls +42 - USA
 iow jima +14 - USA
 lae +42  UK=+12 USA=+30
 TOTAL = 1819
 
 Historical goals
 UK = 724 +10
 US = 555 +10
 USSR = 198 +1
 China = 365 +10
 
 Total 3720

The Allies "guarantee" represent I guess the estimated historically held turns for each of the locations. For the UK 7, Delhi and Canberra are probably the only guarantees barring exceptional Japanese play. Ceylon is blockaded turn 5 with no reprieve under current rules. Wellington and Ledo are 25/75% tossups in either direction, so let's call it even. Fiji definitely falls. I am unsure what the 7th is. With this calculation, UK guaranteed points are really only (roughly) 300, as opposed to 700. US/USSR/China are okay. Changsha should fall relatively quickly and be very hard to take back, with the 71/27 Allied split in reality being reversed in the game. This is a 450 VP swap (for 900 total differential) from historical and represented 25% of total victory points. I will leave the reader to draw their own conclusions vs. the historical, where the Allies have just the Philippines and eastern New Guinea.

Some of this was bad play on my part, of course, not going for South Pacific VPs, so caveat emptor.

What can be done about this?
We assume that the game should be FUN, and this is tricky in WW2 games where the initiative swings both ways because a reason to play must continue for the historically losing player. In WPE, which I like less, there are also winter sitting months, similarly for Gary Grigsby games during the winter, which devolve to the end turn fest. Thankfully, WPP's vastly different weather zones mitigates that a lot. Note the following assume a game of even skill level.
1. The game shouldn't be decided in the opening moves without the input of another player, as it is currently for high level Axis play. This is not just a matter of fun but also of balance. Most WitE games ended before mud, either due to good Russian play (much more likely inept German play) or due to utter collapse. Out of my 10+ games, only one even reached the winter! In the current situation, I just started counting VPs in '43 and realized there was no way to win. If I forfeit, that's one fewer game with late game balance.

2. VP bonuses for accomplishing things. I saw that in WPE, surrendering the French broke the Maginot line down into rewards. Here, there is actually very little purpose to many historical objectives. Example 1: conquering Indochina. There is only ONE VP (Saigon) for my year-long campaign destroying almost a dozen Japanese armies. Perhaps my sneaky opponent baited me there into an offensive, but currently, if the Japanese hold a line at Burma, the only thing the Allied player gets is 10 PP (2-3 strength points) for China per turn if they demolish this advance.

Possible changes: the tricky part here is, again, placing VP such that the Japanese can't control them so early so as to make advance possible. An elegant solution in WitP is to make VP worth different amounts for player. For example, if Saigon and Rangoon are worth 3/turn to the Allies but only 1 for the Japanese, there becomes more impetus to pursue a Burma campaign instead of letting it stagnate and suck Japanese forces.

There is currently little incentive to go for the trade chokehold. Unless IJN has been profligate in oil use AND the Allies knockout all of IJN merchant marines by early '44 (countered by just turning off the oil trade routes), Sumatra and Java have neither organic nor VP reasons to pursue. What if Allies were awarded a bulk VP boost for liberating countries? Thailand, "Indochina," DEI, Philippines, etc. 50-100 VP in bulk would add an incentive to pursue these historically strategic but in-game non-issue objectives.

Finally, there can be, like in board games and WitP, be VP accounting based on casualties. While we probably don't want bean counting for individual strength points, destroying most of the Allied/IJN navies should net a 50-100 bonus, and dropping Japan strength points for example below 1000 is a hard enough accomplishment to warrant some reward.

And of course, the VP thresholds for players can simply be changed, but I suspect Alvaro wants to keep the historical thresholds. As the game stands, however, the Allies are railroaded into a Solomons campaign, including a costly recovery of Fiji/Noumea which is VERY hard to pursue with no island footholds, as Moresby is inevitably destroyed (historically kept under Allied control per the video. I am not a Pacific history buff). This means that the savvy Japanese players just has to load up the Solomons with air/infantry and enjoy their free win. Again, feel free to discuss, but this is my experience with the game.