Some encouragement to Allied players to try out Japan side

[pbiggar]

I am sure there are many players who have never played the Japanese side of this great game. I was one of those people for many years mostly because of the steep learning curve for industry, resource gathering, economic management and sheer amount of input required to get all those invasions underway on Day 2.

I would never of attempted to try the Japanese side if it was not for Kull's set up sheet. It boggles the mind how long it must have taken him to make it. I have just completed inputting all of the instructions on Day 2 (Historical First Day start, Scenario 2, PDU on, Realistic R&D off) after the PH attack (Set up choices to make it easier for first time Japan players). I am guessing it took me a few hours a day over 3 weeks to get it all done. I am keeping a copy of the Day 2 set up so in the future I can go back and start another game against the AI and avoid weeks of data input and adjust orders to try out different early war strategies. I would have gladly used someone else's starter file if there was one available so that is why I am sharing this one.

Here is a link to Day2 file so that if anyone wants to try out the Japan side they can jump in on Day 2 and avoid the work to gather up transports, set up training squadrons, optimize invasion forces etc. You still need to learn about these topics, and form the convoys when the ships arrive in port etc., but you can avoid the tedious work it make it happen that is required on Day2.
Kull's strategy is built around a quick Singapore conquest, followed by Java and Philippines, but it is still possible to tweak these orders on Day 2 to follow a different path.

NOTE: This set up up still requires input on Day 3-5 to finish off the air group resizing activity on Kull's sheet plus some follow on activities from his comments in red. My only significant variation from Kull's sheet was to choose my own airplane builds and R&D. With PDU ON and Realistic R&D Off on it gives the learning Japanese player greater flexibility in choices and focus on fewer plane types.

Save game file
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-3DGWx ... sp=sharing

Kull's set up sheet with highlights of orders input
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... ue&sd=true

[rsallen64]

Thank you for doing this. I have been contemplating going for a game from the Japanese side and this is an even greater incentive, on top of Kull's speadsheet. Very much appreciated!

[GetAssista]

Good job, pbiggar! Will certainly be useful for new players. Japan game is a different mentality, it should be quite interesting to explore if one only played Allied side before.

I for one have a long term save file for turn one on my PC that I use to start all my AI games, with all the reversible actions (TFs, unit and base orders) done for Japan. Problem with full Kull-style save is that some of the decisions there are costly to reverse if you decide to pursue a slightly different way - like R&D and industry expansions.

[testarossa]

Thank you for providing the file. I personally had the same idea for scen 17 on the stock map, but after finishing China got stuck on home islands. Just too much, can't do more than an hour per day. Forming convoys especially is wearing me out.

I also left the industry changes for Day 3, after supply comes in and also to have a baseline for any different R&D variants.

BTW, if it's a scen 2, why does it need a different map file on load? I presume it wants the extended map.
Edit: I think i know why, I have an updated map data file for the stock game. 04/02/22 version. It updates the save on load.

Cheers.

[pbiggar]

Hello testarossa,

Regarding the map, I forgot that I updated my map a long time ago. I remember playing the allies and I found an ARD stuck in Portland that could not get down river to deploy that required a map update. (it might have been an ironman scenario?). I hope that does not cause anyone else an issue. If so I can share map data too.

[testarossa]

It's all good man.

Looks like any save just gets patched with a new map data file. All the updates to stock file are just fixes for errors, like you mentioned.

BTW, does your save have the updated AI scripts?

[pbiggar]

Regarding the updated AI files - I have not thought about that for years as I have not played against the AI for some time. I remember doing an update to the AI files a couple of years ago, but I cannot say for certain the installation I used to create this file contained them. The version I am running is 1.811.26b - Sept 17 2016.

Is there a quick way to check if the AI updates are applied? When I view the scenario choices there is nothing there to indicate an update.

Edit - I checked the files in The SCEN folder and it looks like I only updated the AI files for Ironman scenario (010). The aei002-0x files have a modified date of July 31, 2010 so I assume no update to the AI scripts have been applied.

[Maallon]

As someone who also played the Allied side for a long time and just recently started a game as Japan I can also definitely recommend to try it out. Even if one should stay with the Allies in subsequent games, the gained experience will likely make for a better player. Especially because knowing the actual capabilities of Japan and what challenges Japan faces during a game, will help a lot in decision making.
I know that I had largely overestimated the industrial capabilities of Japan, when I was playing as the Allies in my last games.

I actually never took a look into Kulls spreadsheets until now, though I can see how much time and effort he must have spent on these. If someone wants to take a shot at it without his spreadsheets I can give the following general advice:
- Save often and in different slots so you can go back to previous states without the need to set up everything from scratch if you screw up somewhere.
- Don't try to do everything at once, look at every theatre/problem one at a time. I would recommend doing logistics and industry last. Industrial demands may change, once you figure out your plans for the game.
- Use Tracker, not only does it help a lot in industry, it also has a tab for convoy planning which shows you what and how many ships you can use on a specific route and many other very useful features.
- For the first game, I would recommend to not do anything "crazy", e.g. landing in Pearl Harbor in Dec 41. Sticking with the original plans with some deviations is better for learning.
- Don't overproduce stuff that can get obsolete during the game, e.g. air planes. You can produce thousands A6M2s, but it is likely not a fighter you want to fly in '43. Armament points on the other hand don't get obsolete so there is actually no reason not to build a stockpile from the start.

Also one big topic that can be hard to understand at first but is vital for Japan is the R&D system.
The following threads helped me a lot in grasping the topic, especially the posts by "InfiniteMonkey" are gold:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 2#p4184252
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 0#p4179160
You can actually make an excel sheet and calculate estimated arrival dates of planes yourself, if you get the math behind it.
I made one myself, but even though the numbers are plausible, I sill need to test them in my current game to be sure.
Though one important thing to note here is that there is a good amount of randomness involved, so everything is only an estimation.
What planes to research is a whole different topic of itself and if you ask 10 different players you will likely get 11 different answers. There is no gold standard and I would recommend just reading the forum on different takes.
Also Tracker has a handy aircraft comparison tool....use Tracker!

[jiajia1]

I play IJ side. It gives you much more space to think and generate great ideas or deep questions of the whole strategy. I ended up spend much time discovering the real history why japs did not go all out capture the whole China but to attack US like a suicide. They did have a good chance at that time to build a Greater East Asia and there won't be me.