AE, the real game (YH v TS mk IX)

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

3) They can perform their av support functions in any mode

Will this change in a patch?

[Yamato hugger]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

3) They can perform their av support functions in any mode

Will this change in a patch?

Thats kind of like asking what next weeks lottery numbers will be. God only knows.

The next step I take is to gather my ships. I have several "pre-formed" TFs that I use. For example, my 1st battle division consists of (and location):
BB Nagato (Hiroshima)
BB Mutsu (Tokyo)
CA Mogami (TF 11)
CA Aoba (TF 6)
DD Kagero (TF1)
DD Isokaze (TF1)
DD Shiranu (TF1)
DD Urakaze (TF1)
DD Hamakaze (TF1)
DD Tanikaze (TF1)

After I know what ships I want in a given TF, I find all those ships and then pick a centralized, but unlikely, assembly point where all the units can meet up (like Satawal for example). I only use a given location for a single TF. Any TF that is heading to a certain location will form into a single TF. Thats just the way I personally do things. Some of my "pre-formed" TFs are already formed (I have 7 "invasion escort groups" that consist of 2 CLs and 4 Mutsuki or Minekaze class DDs for example) at start but most of my fleet takes a little time to form up. The CL groups are fine vs smaller forces (like PTs) but when I expect heavier resistance (like on a run to Rabul for example) I take a BB division or 2 and supporting carriers.

I click on the "display ships" tab on the top, and go through them 1 type of ship at a time (starting with CVs) and send them where I want. Tedious, but I get the fleet organized the way I want it within a short amount of time. This is also why my first turn takes so long. After the fleet is set up the way I want, I can go from operation to operation seemlessly because I know what I need to do what, and I know where it is.

[Flying Tiger]

24 hours for one turn!!! Are you kidding?

[Yamato hugger]

Once I get through the combat ships (including subs and auxiliaries but not merchies or patrol boats or minelayers), then I start going through ground units. The way I do this is I start at Osaka, and step through the bases 1 at a time (using the buttons circled) and change any ground units prep location, and order it to move or change mode based on where I want it to go. If there is a ground unit there that I plan to move by ship (like the 4th div in this example) I will form the TF to carry it at this time. If the necessary ships arent physically in the hex, I will form the TF elsewhere and send it here.

[Yamato hugger]

ORIGINAL: Flying Tiger

24 hours for one turn!!! Are you kidding?

For the first turn, no Im not. My first turn in WitP takes 12 to 16 hours.

When I get to an area that has troops that arent in a base, I will grab these at that time (so I dont forget later) and do the same with them. Ie assigning modes and movement orders.

I could make factory changes at this time if I wanted to, but I prefer to do that in a 2nd pass later.

[Roughtor]

As much as I'm excited about AE, my greatest fear is (and it's just a personal fear, not a complaint), that it will be "out of reach" for casual gamers, read non-retired, with kids, limited to 3 hours a day kind of player, who doesn't want to spend time away on WITP while the real deal is out... that it will be out of reach for PBEM, unless some kind of 3 vs 3, take care of your theater only kind of setup can be achieved... password deposited to a third party in case of inevitable player replacements. I suppose that's up to players to figure it out. Glad AI got a boost. Still, potentially the most fascinating gaming experience out there.

[Yamato hugger]

ORIGINAL: Akitsuki

As much as I'm excited about AE, my greatest fear is (and it's just a personal fear, not a complaint), that it will be "out of reach" for casual gamers, read non-retired, with kids, limited to 3 hours a day kind of player, who doesn't want to spend time away on WITP while the real deal is out... that it will be out of reach for PBEM, unless some kind of 3 vs 3, take care of your theater only kind of setup can be achieved... password deposited to a third party in case of inevitable player replacements. I suppose that's up to players to figure it out. Glad AI got a boost. Still, potentially the most fascinating gaming experience out there.

Well, you can always leave areas under computer control. I dont, but if a person wanted to they could and that would certainly speed up the process.

[Yamato hugger]

To load a unit, one of the ways I do it is this (there are 2):

Step 1, I form a TF (amphib in this case) with a single ship, and then dock it (new TFs start undocked). I do this so when I add ships later, I know I wont exceed my docking space at the loading port. You CAN load a TF that isnt docked, but its slllllooooooowwwwwwwww. Then click "load troops" on the right. Note if you are loading a transport TF the ground unit must be in strategic mode and if loading an amphib the ground unit must be in combat mode. If it isnt or if the unit is in a restricted command, it will not show up on the list as choices for loading.

Step 2, select the unit and hit "verify load". You can adjust if you want supplies/fuel loaded as well at this time. Sometimes I turn it off (default is on), but not often. I load 1 unit per TF. If you have more than 1, firstly you need more than 1 ship in the initial TF (you need minimum 1 ship per ground/air unit you are trying to load) and secondly when you get to step 3 bad things can happen as I will explain shortly.

Step 3, Click "add a ship" 1 at a time until you get to 100%. If you want additional supplies you can either exit this screen and add ships to the TF, or you can hit this "add a ship" a time or 2 (depending on how much you want to add). Now if you are loading more than 1 unit at the same time (say a division and a base force for example), the division will need more ships than the base will (like say 9 ships for the division and 2 for the base force. The way this routine works is as you add ships to the TF, it will allocate them to each unit. That is to say the 3rd ship will load part of the division and the 4th will load the base, and the 5th the division and the 6th the base (even though there are already enough ships to load the base already) so what you will end up with in the end is a division on 9 ships and a base unit on 8 or 9 ships. Thats why I load a single unit per TF.

Step 4, hit "accept". Now you will NOT be able to merge 2 amphibs together the first turn of their loading, so dont worry about that. You CAN merge them the 2nd turn. This is so you can go back and undo your move if you want. Note, when you order a TF to load, instead of fully loading like it does in WitP, in AE it only loads 1 squad or device as a placeholder. The actual loading takes place during the turn.



Now, as an alternate method to the above (using the above, you have no control over what ships the computer will add to a TF) you CAN pick all the ships you want (say 5 ships of the same class for example), and load the unit. I often do this. In fact I probably do it more than with the method above. Now the way I do this is pretty much the same initially as above, I pick 1 ship and dock it, and select the unit to load (to see how much space it takes up).

Then (if you look at the 2nd pic) instead of hitting "verify load", I hit the "loading" on the unit to deselect it and hit back (if you dont hit the "loading" and just hit back, it will load the unit. You can go back and reset it if you make an error though (I think I drove Don nuts making this work. He couldnt figure out how I screwed it up so badly [:D]). After you hit "back" you can add ships as you see fit, hit load troops again, see how much more you need to add, ect. Takes more time, but YOU control what ships get put in the TF.

The computer will make no distinction for speed of the TF or the remaining size of a unit when you hit add ships (I have seen the computer select a large AP for a few squads and I have seen it select a damaged AK when undamaged ships were available. Word to the wise.

After I have the TF the way I want it and loading, I add escorts after. I dont do that right off to insure I have enough port room to load. I can always assign escorts to follow this TF or I can hold it in port for a turn if I feel they have to have their escorts right away and I dont have enough dock space to add them.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

ORIGINAL: Flying Tiger

24 hours for one turn!!! Are you kidding?

For the first turn, no Im not. My first turn in WitP takes 12 to 16 hours.

When I get to an area that has troops that arent in a base, I will grab these at that time (so I dont forget later) and do the same with them. Ie assigning modes and movement orders.

I could make factory changes at this time if I wanted to, but I prefer to do that in a 2nd pass later.

Speaking of first turn settings Ive always thought a good way to create a more challenging AI for this game would be to give it similiar turn settings that most humans use such as 100% search (for floatplanes) or 100% naval attack (for bombers/torpedo planes) etc... Was this ever considered in improving the AI or does the AI still have the same old settings?

[stuman]

Very interesting, thanks for taking the time to walk through like this.

[Yamato hugger]

ORIGINAL: stuman

Very interesting, thanks for taking the time to walk through like this.

No problem.

As for AI questions, I cant answer that. I have nothing to do with the AI development or testing.

Thought I would include this. This is one of my ASW patrols. It is based at Takao, it will proceed up to Shanghai (refueling there), then to Samah on Hainan (SE of Haiphong), and then back to the Pescadores. Basically patrolling the south and south eastern China coastal waters. I have around a dozen of these patrols in various areas.



ASW TFs are limited in size to 4 ships. This patrol will go on forever if I never change its orders. The "linger" time is useful for similar sub patrols.

[Local Yokel]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

Note, when you order a TF to load, instead of fully loading like it does in WitP, in AE it only loads 1 squad or device as a placeholder. The actual loading takes place during the turn.

My apologies if I have got the wrong end of the stick here, but this suggests to me that the loading arrangements in AE will be, in certain respects, a great deal less flexible than those of the existing game.

As the game now stands, you can commit yourself to loading troops and take the immediate expenditure of ops points. This may or may not have the effect of loading the entire unit. In any case, you can then cancel the loading operation and configure the task force to go on its way, confident that it will make some progress away from the port of embarkation, and carrying a respectable contingent of troops.

In AE it appears that whilst your ships load they are obliged to remain in port for a full turn at least - during which they may be exposed to enemy air attack, probably whilst docked and therefore all the more vulnerable. It looks as though this will be the case unless you have committed sufficient ships to the TF to load the unit and make their getaway in under a turn's duration.

I appreciate that the retort may be that the kind of partial loading operation I've described is wholly unrealistic, given the nature of the embarkation operation itself and, often, the limitations imposed by the port's cargo handling facilities. But what I've described amounts to an evacuation operation that may have to be accomplished under the threat of hostile airpower - "We sail tonight, regardless of what we've managed to load." I can do this now in WitP. Will I still be able to do so in AE?

[Terminus]

Not less flexible, but more realistic. You're not going to load a division of troops in a single day anyway.

[Yamato hugger]

Well in the case of these 2 ships (granted I am using extremes here) the first ship may take days to load, the 2nd probably hours (or minutes depending on port size). Loading times are all about port size and how much nav support you have there. The 2 ships shown below will not sit in port for the full day if they take less than a day to load. They will move based on how many op points they chewed up loading.

Now if the question is "can I tell ship X to only load for 4 hours and leave" then the answer is no, you cant. If at the start of a turn you are still sitting there loading, then at that point you can say "stop loading and leave".

AE isnt terribly friendly to evacuations under fire. And I for 1 certainly am not going to try to defend that position [;)]

[Dili]

As much as I'm excited about AE, my greatest fear is (and it's just a personal fear, not a complaint), that it will be "out of reach" for casual gamers, read non-retired, with kids, limited to 3 hours a day kind of player, who doesn't want to spend time away on WITP while the real deal is out... that it will be out of reach for PBEM, unless some kind of 3 vs 3, take care of your theater only kind of setup can be achieved... password deposited to a third party in case of inevitable player replacements. I suppose that's up to players to figure it out. Glad AI got a boost. Still, potentially the most fascinating gaming experience out there.

I could play a turn in 1 hour or less, except when there were invasions and combats and if the automatic supply was reliable even less. With AE i think the first turn will be bigger because you start setting up waypoints for submarines and patrol ships and search sectors for airplanes but with advantage that you don't need to manage so much the ships in future.

[Terminus]

Correct.

[Local Yokel]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

Now if the question is "can I tell ship X to only load for 4 hours and leave" then the answer is no, you cant. If at the start of a turn you are still sitting there loading, then at that point you can say "stop loading and leave".

AE isnt terribly friendly to evacuations under fire. And I for 1 certainly am not going to try to defend that position [;)]

Much as I feared [:(]. An evacuation within range of enemy bombers is, and should be, a hazardous operation. In the game as it stands your ships will be exposed to air attack during the turn on which they arrive in the pick-up port. They can part-load and get away during the following turn. Evidently in AE they must be exposed to two days' air attacks. An unwarranted reduction in your tactical options?

<edit>
Just to put this in context, take a look at the Lancastria disaster. Lancastria dropped anchor at about 0600 on 17 June 1940 in the Charpentier Roads, about 3 miles offshore from St Nazaire. Between that time and the 1545 strike by I/KG 30 that sank her (9.75 hours), it is estimated that perhaps as many as 9000 souls were embarked in her by smaller ships acting as ferries from the port.

Two hours earlier, at 1348, the Luftwaffe had bombed and hit nearby liner Oronsay, and this gave rise to discussions amongst Lancastria's officers as to whether they should take this as their cue to leave. Unable to obtain a response to signals to nearby destroyers that might potentially have escorted Lancastria, her captain's decision was to wait with a view to remaining in company with Oronsay.

My point is that in desperate circumstances you can get a lot of people aboard a ship in a matter of hours, even without being tied up alongside a wharf. Lancastria was already heavily laden with troops two hours before she was attacked, and had different decisions been made might have got under way (albeit with a lesser load) within a few hours of her arrival. I have no quarrel with an improvised evacuation task force being exposed to air attack for at least one turn, but stretching that exposure to a second day strikes me as being artificial.

In any case, thank you for the explanation of the loading procedure!
</edit>

[Terminus]

No, that's not correct. For an evacuation, you use the Evacuation TF, which doesn't work the same way.

[Local Yokel]

Well, in the game as it exists you can only give a Fast Transport TF orders to evacuate. Only a limited range of ship types can go into such a TF. In AE, can you put whatever ships you like into this kind of TF? If not, your options may be unduly limited.

[Grotius]

Great AAR, YH! A couple questions of my own.

1. In WITP, it's often advantageous to use many more ships than are strictly speaking required to carry, say, a division. I typically choose 3-4x the "load cost". So I might use 40+ transports, with say a total of 100,000 capacity, to carry a division with load cost of 25,000. Doing that allows one to load/unload in a day. Concededly this is unrealistic. In AE, having "extra" ships won't make the TF load any faster?

2. Earlier you were asked about your ground units sitting in trains in Malaya. Why aren't you worried that the enemy will bomb your guys sitting in trains? Do you routinely set CAP over each such collection of vulnerable troops?