Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

I know there is a fundimental conflict built into any game, that is the human desire to win, and no rule can ever really correct that tendency. Given a path that results in a win, 95% of folks will go down that path. The remaining 5% will argue that you shouldn't be able to win like that. It is very difficult to convince 95% with 5%.

Actually the best way to win the game is to ignore 95% of it and concentrate only on Asia. The only thing you have to do with your IJN fleet is to sink Allied ships going you way and try to sink Allied CVs available in 1942.

My own point of view is that the land battle are not enough bloody... and land logistics are too easy. China is a minor point of view in my own opinion as :

1) players playing PBEM usually agree some home rules in China (no Kwantung armies)
2) people playing AI games with Japan may easily win by conquering China. So they will be happy.
3) people playing AI games with Allied will not be crushed in China, as the Ai do nothing here. So they will be happy.

When I play PBEM, I'm not trying to win a game, I'm trying to do the best as I can with what I have. PBEM games will take so much time that I use to play even when I am losing (never reach in a WITP PBEM the way someone is the clear victor, but I did several times in UV), but is not impotent and so both players enjoyed the game.

But I find that every land battle in the game is too fast (except atoll fighting) and that is a problem. If gives unrealistic results in 1942 to the advantage of Japan and will latter give unrealistic advantage to the Allied side.

Yes I know. The key to defending Changsa is to shock attack on the turn the enemy gets there. Under 1.3 it was easy to retreat the Jap forces unless they massed their entire force. Under 1.4 I have around 10 units with 100 prep so I really don't think a direct ausault is possible. You can try but if I retreat 10 Jap divisions in one battle its a whole new war.

Japan has to use a more indirect route and try to envelope the base and various tactics can be used to combat this option. Most allied players don't know about the effectness of chinese shock attacks but those who do can be very dangerous.

Oh no my China only opponent is on this thread. I Better stop talking tactics.

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

I am seeing a trend here that counter attacking is a key part of conducting a successful defense. My fight in China is going pretty well and I have launched an number of deliberate attacks as well as many bombardment attacks.

According to your AAR, your opponent attacked Wuchow and Yenan at the same time. This a big no-no. Wuchow is far to the south while Yenan is way up north. Such a divided strategy is doomed to failure.

ORIGINAL: moses

Yes I know. The key to defending Changsa is to shock attack on the turn the enemy gets there. Under 1.3 it was easy to retreat the Jap forces unless they massed their entire force. Under 1.4 I have around 10 units with 100 prep so I really don't think a direct ausault is possible. You can try but if I retreat 10 Jap divisions in one battle its a whole new war.

Japan has to use a more indirect route and try to envelope the base and various tactics can be used to combat this option. Most allied players don't know about the effectness of chinese shock attacks but those who do can be very dangerous.

I think China is a lot easier to defend under one day turns. In my two day PBEMs China gets crushed. In my one day PBEMs China does a lot better. It seems the units always arrive on the first day of two day turns thus you can not shock until the third day troops are there.

One or two day turns don't matter much. In one day turns both sides can have more control over their attacks and moves so it's a wash.

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, Your not fooling me. It is not that you must go to China to win. (or are you saying that you admit you have lost the Pacific war but still want to weasel a victory from the game.)
There are points in the Pacific just like in China only the game is designed to make you fight for them.
Should the easy way be the correct way to win the game? Can you lose the battles with the USA and still win the game?
If you think so we disagree.

Chunking is worth how much? Noumea is worth how much? One objective actually is in the Pacific and will preserve the Empire the other is meaningless. (Of course you might lose the battle. Thats what the game is all about. If you can win and not fight the USA and win don't you think something is wrong with how you are winning?)

It's not meaningless at all. If the Japs take Chungking the Allies are going to have a hell of a time taking it back. It's effectively points in the bag. And its all about points, points > victory.

I think Zeta is correct. It is important to attack as quickly as possible. You have to retreat them and once they dig in even to level 1 forts it becomes much more difficult. Plus they often have more fatigue and when crossing rivers much more disruption on the first turn. One last thing is that often only a couple of Japans units move at first and the rest follow the next turn. So on the first turn Japan cannot launch much of a bombardment attack. On the second turn his huge bombardment comes in before the shock attack.

Its also sometimes hard for japan to coordinate attacks from multiple hexes so never discount the possibility that the Japanese player will just flat screw up and get only half his force into the hex with the rest to follow in two days.

To throw in my 2c, if it is agreed that some type of change needs to be made in the China, then I agree with some of the points made by others:

• Make it harder to move units out of Manchukuo by land. This is simply closing a loophole in the game mechanics.
• Change the game so that if a Chinese city is under-garrisoned by the Japanese then it may eventually revert to Chinese control with a free partisan/militia unit appearing there as well.
• Add large STATIC units to many Chinese cities, to represent private armies and/or forces that would be raised and committed to the defence of the interior of China. They should be static to avoid the unrealistic possibility of the China player using these forces to roll Japanese forces into the sea.
• Add a small amount of daily supply to more Chinese cities to offset the increased OOB (static units).

The first two changes require modification to the game code. The other changes can be achieved by game modders. I have not addressed innacuracies in the combat model - I leave that to others who have more game playing experience than myself.

The edge of the map theory cuts both ways. Perhaps the Germans weren't goihg to invade Great Britiain by 1942. So what? They were a stones throw from defeating Russia in January 1942. A Japanese knife in the Russians back would likely have changed the course of that part of the war. The bulk of Zhukov's counteratttacking forces in early 1942 had been withdrawn from the far east. Furthermore, the Japanese didn't push very hard in China, why penalize a player who does? Why is it legit to invade the U.S., but not to defeat China? If you want partisans to tie down Japanese forces put them into the game. Finally, the concept that the game accurately portraits the airwar in dec 1941 - mid 1942 is goofy. Chinese fighters regularly whacking the Japanese airforce is ahistorical. B-17's carpet bombing in mar 1942 is ahistorical. Zeroes that can't hold their own against P-40's is ahistorical. B-17E's had an effective range of 500 nm (Freeman, B-17 Flying Fortress at War), they put non-self-sealing tanks in the bomb bay to extend the range out to 700+ miles.

My two cents:

1. Mogami/Frag, is Moses right that ground combat generally tends to favor the attacker (by merely disrupting the attacker while actually killing retreating defenders)? Is that working as designed? Could the game either impose more losses instead of disruptions on the attacker -- or make retreats less costly for the defender? Or is it too late for changes to the ground combat code?

2. Wouldn't very high garrison requirements satisfy Mogami's concern about map edges? Couldn't these be used in India too? Couldn't they extend to naval forces as well as ground forces in India, reflecting Japan's need to fight off British naval forces that would surge toward India? Or should India have something like the "spawning USA divisions" rule for Japanese incursions into US territory?

3. Is it too easy for Japan to move supply deep into China? Perhaps Japan could suffer accelerating supply penalties as it gets in deeper? For all its faults, Hearts of Iron 2 makes an attempt to simulate this.

4. Perhaps Japan's VP values for some Chinese cities are too high? One might consider reducing these and inserting static Chinese defenses, to simulate command-level paralysis/inertia among the Chinese. By reducing VPs for cities, this might alleviate Frag's concern about Japan racking up more VPs by killing more of the static defenders.

It's all about supply Grotius, it always is. He who has it wins, he who doesn't looses.

It's not about right or wrong ... if you want to take your supply there and play, you will beat out the other guy who doesn't.

A PBEM player who plays China and brings his supply in and doesn't burn supply on useless efforts (as it it needed for troop building) will beat out Japan eventually.

ORIGINAL: BoerWar

The edge of the map theory cuts both ways. Perhaps the Germans weren't goihg to invade Great Britiain by 1942. So what? They were a stones throw from defeating Russia in January 1942. A Japanese knife in the Russians back would likely have changed the course of that part of the war. The bulk of Zhukov's counteratttacking forces in early 1942 had been withdrawn from the far east. Furthermore, the Japanese didn't push very hard in China, why penalize a player who does? Why is it legit to invade the U.S., but not to defeat China? If you want partisans to tie down Japanese forces put them into the game. Finally, the concept that the game accurately portraits the airwar in dec 1941 - mid 1942 is goofy. Chinese fighters regularly whacking the Japanese airforce is ahistorical. B-17's carpet bombing in mar 1942 is ahistorical. Zeroes that can't hold their own against P-40's is ahistorical. B-17E's had an effective range of 500 nm (Freeman, B-17 Flying Fortress at War), they put non-self-sealing tanks in the bomb bay to extend the range out to 700+ miles.

Gee Boer..., the way you put it the Axis must have won WWII. As I recall it, General Winter and Marshall Zhukov already had
the Germans falling back before December 7th. And the Japanese were no more prepared to wage offensive warfare in Siberia
in mid-winter than the Germans had been. You'll note that none of their earlier military attempts in this theatre were made in
the winter..., and they were still stomped flat.

And "the Japanese didn't push very hard in China"? Wow! Makes you wonder what they had been doing there since 1937? Of
course these efforts had to weaken when they decided to take on the rest of the world in December 1941...., the Japanese Econ-
omy simply couldn't support that kind of effort. But one of the major reasons the Japanese cite for wanting to expand their war
was to cut the Chinese off from outside aide----which they blamed for their growing lack of success against China during 1940-41.
Chinese fighters did enjoy success against unescorted Japanese bombers during the Sino-Japanese War, which was one of the
reasons longer range was a design requirement for the Zero. And with the advent of a wider war, the Chinese airforce was left
facing Nates and Claudes---neither of which were outstanding.

While I would agree that "carpet bombing" was not a feature of the Pacific Campaign's earlier years, I can't say I remember
there being anything like the hundreds of 4-engined "heavies" available at this time to conduct a "carpet bombing" effort either.
And how well any fighter does against any other has a lot to do with readiness, morale, training, and positional advantage.
Blanket statements that "this" should always beat "that" are meaningless out of context.

Reply to Grotius:

Notice that you did not get a straight answer to #1. They know I'm dead right so they try and change the subject.

The army loss victory pts don't lie. Each Japan army loss VP equals exactly 6 items (tanks, arty, squads, etc). Each Chinese VP equals 12. Just watch your army loss VP's as Japan. You can fight battles every day and you'll lose only a couple VP's each day. Meanwhile your opponent will be losing tons with each retreat. (of course surrenders are even better but not the point here). Watch what happens if you screw up and suffer a retreat. Have a couple divisions retreated and you will suffer a couple hundred losses in one pop.

Don't reley on me. Just watch your VP's and you'll understand how the system works

Hi, Don't make it out to be a conspiracy.

I've lost 200 VP in China in 1 game. More in another.

We also don't agree on how China should act. I don't let the Japanese fight battles I know they are going to win when I am China.

I think my position is well known. I think the Japanese could have cleared the RR (They never did in the war before 1944) but I don't have a cow about it being done in 1942 instead.
As Japan I let the CHinese player decide when to start fighting.
I don't let the CHinese push me around. I'll bring whatever force I need to win there. (I just pay the PP) I've even used SAA units in China when China tried a major effort.

I appears to me you want the combat system changed to produce more loss for the attacker. But you also still want the Japanese to be capable of outright defeat of China.

Did you pay the political points to move those SAA units into China?

The question was very specific. Under the current combat system it is normal that the attacker will lose very few actual casualties. The numbers in the casualty reports being covered by disrupted units and not actual kills. The big killer in the game is retreats and their associated effects such as units having over 50 % of their element disrupted, all supply lost etc.

I'll be more specific. As long as I as the attacker ensure that my units have under 50% of elements disrupted (very easy in most cases) and that I am not reteated, I will suffer negligible casualties. In contrast my opponent who suffers retreats will lose heavy casualties.

Simple case: Set up a situation where 10 fresh Japanese divisions deliberate attack and cause to retreat a force of 10 fresh Chinese divisions. What do you think the loss ratio will be? I can make a pretty good estimate that China will take between 60 and 100 VP losses. I'll bet Japan will take 1 or 2 if that much. Am I in the ballpark?

I don't think there is a conspiricy I just think there is an unwillingness to address what seems to me an obvious and fixable problem. It's quite possible that I'm just full of it but the longer people keep evading the specific issue of the land combat model the more I think that my analysis is correct.

Don't take it personally because I certainly don't. I like nothing better than to debate things like this and I have a great time testing out my ideas. I think WITP is the greatest wargame ever made. I've easily goten my money's worth. That said is anyone going to defend the land combat system? If not then maybe a tweak or two is in order.

Stupid question: whats SAA?

moses, under the current combat system, the side with supplies doesn't hurt ... when both sides have supplies, losses are small to both. when one side has supplies and the other doesn't, it gets seriously hurt.

It is *always* about supplies.

SAA = Southern Area Army