Beta 3 Historical Route

[aoffen]

So rather than try and break the game, I have been more or less trying to replicate what happened historically and see if that can work.

The Phillipines and Singapore both fell in January 41 (early but not ridiculous).
Rangoon is about to fall (early but not ridiculous).
Borneo, Wake, Tarawa, Lae, Rabaul and Guadalcanal have all been occupied.

So far so good, but as of 1 Feb 42 as I was lining up to invade Java and Palembang the Japanese have run out of oil. 20/25 of the oil on Borneo is hitting the convoy routes. Not quite sure why the last 5 is not but that is only enough for upkeep and none is available for movement. Japanese initial oil stocks are only 160 points. Is that sufficient for the initial surge?

[aoffen]

Cannot get the oil in hex next to Tarakan to flow. All others, no problem. Very curious.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: aoffen

Cannot get the oil in hex next to Tarakan to flow. All others, no problem. Very curious.

Do you have a screenshot of the area?

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: aoffen

So rather than try and break the game, I have been more or less trying to replicate what happened historically and see if that can work.

The Phillipines and Singapore both fell in January 41 (early but not ridiculous).
Rangoon is about to fall (early but not ridiculous).
Borneo, Wake, Tarawa, Lae, Rabaul and Guadalcanal have all been occupied.

So far so good, but as of 1 Feb 42 as I was lining up to invade Java and Palembang the Japanese have run out of oil. 20/25 of the oil on Borneo is hitting the convoy routes. Not quite sure why the last 5 is not but that is only enough for upkeep and none is available for movement. Japanese initial oil stocks are only 160 points. Is that sufficient for the initial surge?

Philippines and Malaya could be harder indeed. But after, will the A.I. catch up with a human for doing these invasions?
But, if they are harder, I agree with you that Japanese probably needs more oil.

[aoffen]

screen shot

[aoffen]

sorry it was a bit big!!!

[aoffen]

So it seems if Japan runs out oil before taking Palembang, the war is over. In this game, Japan has captured 27 oil wells and starts with 3 for 32 total, but I can only get 27 oil flowing - for some reason the 5 point Tarakan oil field won't flow. With all of that being sucked up for just upkeep, nothing is left for movement of ships and a February invasion of the DEI is impossible.

Can't help but feel Japan needs more stock at start as the historical flow of the campaign becomes impossible to replicate.

[kennonlightfoot]

The game is definitely oriented toward forcing the Japanese to take Palembang oil fields and a port to get it out with as soon as possible. The Borneo oil fields buy them a little time but not much. So Japan probably needs additional oil to compensate. Maybe an event based draw on the Japanese Strategic reserves like the Historical scenario did.

[ncc1701e]

Who owns Philippines when your screenshot was taken? Axis or Allies?

[AlvaroSousa]

In every single game I have ever played the Japanese player ALWAYS takes DEI first. They have hindsight. If they don't the Allies rush in reinforcements. It's what I would do.

[aoffen]

ORIGINAL: AlvaroSousa

In every single game I have ever played the Japanese player ALWAYS takes DEI first. They have hindsight. If they don't the Allies rush in reinforcements. It's what I would do.

While that makes sense, is it not a problem that following the historical path will lead Japan to point where the game is over before it begins? Surely a historical simulation need to at least allow history to be simulated.

[aoffen]

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

Who owns Philippines when your screenshot was taken? Axis or Allies?

Captured in January by Japanese

[aoffen]

Ok. At the risk of being a pain in the arse…..

Data :
Japanese had 5,000,000 tons of crude and refined oil reserves at the start of the war
Palembang produces 30 points of oil per turn which equates to (30x26) 780 points of oil per year
Palembangs annual production in 1941 was approx 4,000,000 tons per annum.

So using the Palembang numbers that equates to 5,000 tons of oil per oil point. (4,000,000 / 780)
In the historical scenario Japan’s oil stockpile is only 160 points, so using the Palembang standard - that means 800,000 tons (vs 5,000,000 actual).

Something doesn’t add up.

Source : http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/O/i/Oil.htm

[aoffen]

Some further research.

The oil standard for production in the game is quite consistent across all the oil resource hexes. 1 point of oil reseource is around 1mt pa of crude oil produced. This calculates back to approx 5,000 t of crude oil per oil point produced per turn.

If we use crude oil as the marker (not refined) Japan had approx 1,700,00 t in stock which equals 340 points of oil.

On top of that they had about 600 points of refined products in stock.

So as a minimum, I would suggest we should double Japans at start stocks (if not actually quite a bit more). This would at least allow a historical flow of operations to take place.

[kennonlightfoot]

ORIGINAL: AlvaroSousa
In every single game I have ever played the Japanese player ALWAYS takes DEI first. They have hindsight. If they don't the Allies rush in reinforcements. It's what I would do.

There may be a problem here with Oil. The 160 the Japanese start with just barely gets them to the point where they can take DEI. A little bad luck with weather an the Japanese could find themselves out of oil before they can take Batavia and the oil fields. I am not sure two Japanese armies without battleships and air support can take the city.

For example in my screenshot attached, I was barely able to get enough force next to Palembang to take it on this turn. It took two 4:1 attacks to force the defender to retreat. But this was a clear weather turn. That only happens 50% of the time and it has to occur when you have units in place to move and make the attack.

If the attack had failed due to rain or just bad luck I am not sure the Japanese would have enough oil to support its fleets next turn. This turn they were already down to 26 stockpile with production of 27. The upkeep is only 28 this turn because there were almost no ships at sea except the Manila and Noumea blockades.

The Feb 1st turn required quite a few ships at sea since the Japanese deployed battleships to support taking Singapore and Manila this turn.

Since the Japanese player can't afford to lose the game in February, with current situation they would need to commit a full army to moving and taking Palembang so weather couldn't become a major factor. That probably means that Batavia can't be taken until Feb 15 turn or maybe even March since it will take time to bring that army back or add a third army.

It will definitely keep Japan out of India. They need those armies plus the Indian Independent one to mount a major offensive against India.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: aoffen

Cannot get the oil in hex next to Tarakan to flow. All others, no problem. Very curious.

Even with Philippines and DEI still in Allies hand, I receive oil from Tarakan. Are you able to reproduce 100% of the time?

[ncc1701e]

Nevermind, I have find out.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: kennonlightfoot

For example in my screenshot attached, I was barely able to get enough force next to Palembang to take it on this turn. It took two 4:1 attacks to force the defender to retreat. But this was a clear weather turn. That only happens 50% of the time and it has to occur when you have units in place to move and make the attack.

Are you using shore bombardment?

[AlvaroSousa]

You should also be invading Borneo right away.

I have no oil issues. I have enough to do things but I have to strategize.
My partner Hadros (mirror game) is fine with oil.

With proper management the Axis should have enough oil to do things but I can't run everything everywhere all at once.
The Allies can't do it either early on. Later.... different story.

[aoffen]

I still am not comfortable with the Japanese being forced to pursue a completely ahistorical strategy for their initial offensive, not because of a fear of what an informed Allied player can do, but because of a fear of running out of oil. Once the oil is gone, and Palembang is not captured it’s all over for Japan. The para unit that was actually instrumental in capturing the oil fields is not even available to drop until at least turn 3, although with no Japanese supply trucks, it may be longer as they have to move to Sarawak and wait for their efficiency to increase to 100%. All seems rather forced when the root cause is an artificially low Japanese initial oil stock.