Japanese grand strategy

[Tophat]

ORIGINAL: moses

Cool example. The key point you left out is how did the Japanese supply the operation. You might operate fighters for a couple days off captured fuel but within a day or two you better be bringing in some supplies. Crazy things do happen in war. Sometimes all the defenders just run away as in the example. Sometime supply depots are just handed over to the enemy intact. But I think in a game you have to assume that the defenders will put up a little resistance and that they at least try and destroy any useful supplies.

In your games you play very conservativly and place a bunch of your ships in port to portray those needed for commercial shipping. (If I understand your past posts correctly) In games I have played and many many games viewed by AAR's it is fairly easy to secure the SRA well ahead of scheduale and using only a fraction of available Japanese shipping. I'm talking about games that do not use first turn exploits) Of course results in this theater can be easily disrupted by an adverse navel action but the fact still remains that it is very easy to supply operations in the game.

Long ago it was said that it would be extremely difficult to take Pearl Harbor and hold it due to the difficulty of supplying it. Lo and behold WITP_Dude does it and supply was not much problem. Just look at all the transport ships he lost. Oh my God!! And yet he can still turn around and invade New Zealand!!!! The invasion failed but not for lack of supply. Why is it that supply is not the constraint in the game that it was IRL?

Why is it possible to even consider an invasion of India? Primarily its because it is possible to take a base which contains and produces large amounts of supplies and then operate off of that supply base. Secondarily it is because Japan has more transport capability allocated to the military than IRL (I'm basing this one on your past posts). Thirdly when you get to India your forces will not suffer any casualties so you won't need to worry about replacements.

Love the game. I really do, it was money well spent. But don't you think that a few changes should be made to address these problems.[:)]

Jap ImperialGuard vs Indian 12th Div on the Slim river line north of Singapore. The 12th holds for a night,is out flanked and sent running back abandoning again "LARGE STOCKS of Supplies"! Infact Gen Yamashita tells his officers: "Depend on the enemy for rations"!
Seems this is a recurrent theme throught the malay penninsula. Also happened with the dutch at Kendari,so it just doesn't seem anyone can write this off as "incidents in history".
The fact is the Japanese "SUPPILED" themselves to a significant extent from their enemies. The supply they got from their enemies also helped quicken the japanese conquest.

[Rossj]

Agree that russia knew japan wouldn't attack, but the title of the thread is grand strategy...it seems obvious that japan's stategy was capture SRA, hold the allies at bay, keep their industry going and finish off china. What if midway didn't occur or was a stalemate...arguably they could have concentrated on china, possibly win in some fasion by the end of 1943. Then taking on the soviets isn't so far fetched.

One of my original suggestions was during scenario 15 startup have a have the option screen...
1) Non aggression treaty with soviets active: soviet oob remains about the same and japan can't invade unless they have knocked china out of the war (all cities or chungking and western china)
2) No nonaggression treaty: soviet oob beefed up, Kwangtung garrisson requiremnets increased by the number of AV of soviet OOB increase. Japan gets victory points equal to the value of the additional OOB if it had been killed.

make the wester most russian city and karachi off limits to IJA/IJN attacks to simulate off map staging areas...also, make them supply and reinforement hubs.

[mogami]

Hi, 1943 would be a terrible year to attack Soviets. By 1943 the Germans have lost the war in the East. (AGC collapse occurs in 1943)
In 1943 the Soviet Union is in no danger from Germans.
(After the 1942 German summer offensive the Soviets are in no danger from Germans. Remember the 42 offensive runs into 1,000,000 ,more Soviets then the Germans even knew existed) By this I mean the Germans began 1942 thinking the Soviet Army was smaller then it had been in 1941 when it fact is was larger by over 1,000,000 men then it had been in 1941.

[Rossj]

You're right we shouldn't mess with captured supply...that isn't the problem IMO. The land game needs some work...flow of supplies, movement and manuever, combat resolution...

I suspect there is little chance that there will be WITP II, but there should be some work done on the possibility of an asian land war. I really believe if japan had the resources they would have gone into china bigger than they already did and depending on their success in china and the pacific an invasion of russia and india are possibilities.

[Rossj]

I agree that an invasion in 1943 would be incredibly tough...but imagine if japan had conqured china (not the far western region, just china proper) and could put 40 plus divisions into the soviet far east...it's entirely possible the japanese could have done well and changed the outcome of the russo-german conflict.

[mogami]

Hi, The problem the Japanese (and Germans) discovered was that taking an area did not free up troops but instead placed a demand for more.
Japan (and Germany) only controlled conquered areas if they had troops remain in them.
In China if Japan completely conquered all the on map areas they would need a further 1,000,000 troops to maintain control. (Or they would need to remove the Chinese population from these areas which would render taking them useless)

Germany and Japan both over extended themselves. Japan was already over extended in China and Manchuria before the Pacific War. There are very few further troops available. During the rest of the war Japan does not (did not) raise enough combat formations to ever hope to both conquer China and fight the Soviets. (Let alone India)

I relaize there are those who think India would rise against the British. However I point out that they did not and the Indian Army fighting in Africa and Asia was an all volunteer Army.

[Rossj]

I agree large garrisons would be required in any captured area...that's why I keep harping on an expansion of garrisson requirements...that way if the IJA player can pull off the conquest, maintain garrisson requirements, then why not redeploy what troops that can be spared and go for india or russia...My whole point all along is that this grand decision making should be part of the game...right now its absurdly easy to conquer and garrisson these areas, but I don't believe the solution is to have make capricious changes to make it harder...it should be changed to be realistic.

[medicff]

ORIGINAL: moses

Thank you. At least someone understands the direction I'm coming from.

Here are some simple changes: I know nothings simple but here's something to argue about anyway.

1.) At the end of any deliberate or shock attack, 5% of disabled attackers are killed. No effect on the defender. Now the attacker will have someone killed and it will not be so smart to attack when large numbers of your troops are disabled(i.e. you have to rest on occasion or pay a price)

2.) Reduce the retreat lossed to 10% vs current 25%. Defender gets creamed anyway the massive retreat penalty makes it very difficult to fight a delaying action.

3.) When a base is captured 90% of enemy supplies are destroyed. (Your opponent burned the supply dump, its been looted, you don't know where it is, bullits don't fit in your guns etc.)

4.) When you take a base all production facilities are shut down and you have to pay 5000-10000 SP to get them going again.

With 3 and 4 you cannot fund your operations off enemy supply as is so easy. Take Kendari and boom you have 40,000 supplies just sitting there ready to let you keep your offensive going. Plus you have to pay to get the factories going again. Now its not so easy to invade India. You can't just capture one resourse center with 30,000 stored supply sitting on the ground and go from there. Plus now that you have a few squads getting killed to actually need supply for replacements.

5.) Remove the ships from the OOB that Japan needed for commercial traffic. I think Mogami says he keeps like 1,000,000 capacity out of play??

Alll these things will slow the attacker and prevent Japan from doing things so easily. Japan may still be able to take China, Russia, India, Pearl Harbor etc. but he will pay a heavy price.

There now someone call me a Jap fanboy again.[:@][:D]

These changes will also slow the allies realistically when they start their offensives later in the game.

I agree completely to slow the advance to somewhat realistic. I like #2 to reduce the retreat losses from 25% to 10%.

Or another option is to give a second defender option of hold or delay. Hold the defender would fight longer trying to maintain the ground and receive higher odds to dislodge and more losses if retreated. Delay is less odds to retreat but then the bulk of your forces would still be intact ready to fight in the next hex if needed to.

Not every battle resulted in defender rout, some were orderly retreats. Beats trying to time a 10 turn move from one hex to the next at 6mi /turn. [:D]

[Tophat]

Lowering retreat loss to 10% is a good idea!

Also having a variable to the amount of supply destroyed.say between 25%-90% would also be good.

[moses]

1.)Some captured supply is fine thats why I said 90% destruction. We can argue over the exact number but certainly not all enemy supply that exists in a base is going to remain in useable form for the attacker. Some will be destoyed, some will be carted away, some will be of no use to the attacker. 20000 SP represents in the game 10 months of combat supply for a whole Jap division. Your not normally just going to find that much abandoned. Maybe 50 to 90% should be randomly destroyed. That would account for the occasion where the losser totally fails to burn his warehouses.

2.) All this concern about the russia theater is probably misplaced. This is the easiest to fix. All you have to do is let the russian player move if only from city to city. In my russia only game I had to bring in 10 outside divisions to win. Even then the only reason that I could defeat the russians is because I was able to mass my forces and defeat a critical part of his army before he had any ability to react. Take that oportunity away from me and the russia theater is fixed.

3.) Shouldn't overreact in China either. As is, under 1.4, I believe an expert Chinese player can stop the Japanese army. With a few more small changes to correct the attacker/defender imbalance I think the average player will have no problem holding. It would also help to have another 300 supply.

4.) I do not believe that the game is broken or unplayable in any way. Its a fun game and the best simulation of the pacific war that has ever existed. Everyone involved with its development should be proud. I hope I haven't upset anyone too much by recommending changes that I think would improve the game.

[Tophat]

Naw,
I don't think anyone said it was unplayable.....and it does need afew tweaks.

Letting the Russians move sounds like the easiest thing to implement,I can't see anyone objecting to that<watch it'll turn into a firestorm of controversy>we shall see.

Mogami,
About you're OOB fixes....I think on review alot of the units you are counting on ading were stripped of manpower for the west. Tanks and equitment stayed inplace,but the trained tank crews the Russians needed were largly strippedout!

[mogami]

Hi, TopHat, I agree. But it was done becasue the Soviets were certain the Japanese were not going to attack.
We do this is a lot of areas. We allow one side to change historic action but hold the other side to their historic actions which were a result of the historic enemy action we allow to change.
Retricted HQ should all be done away with if the reasons for restrictiong them are ignored..
The Soviet OB should be expanded to reflect what would have occured if that front had been active.
(I don't see Stalin giving up anything without a fight)

Create a new base in far left hand corner. Size 10/10 and place Commonwealth units that were historically located in Middle East and other areas that could have been moved to Pacific. But make no mistake here. If we introduce these units they will be used.

I've always been in favor of just limiting WITP (by player consent) however that seems impossible. I'd prefer to wait for a game that covers the entire war. In old board games if you had rules that said "You can't do that" it was not done but it seems in computer games you need code preventing everything but then this limits what you want to be allowed.
Anyone can already change the OB so that is not really an issue with me. I haven't found the captured supply issue important enough to worry about. I find it is more a factor of the level of oppositon that determines my speed in WITP. I send enough supply and fuel to do what I want regardless of what I capture.

[moses]

THE RULES

If the Japanese player moves a unit into the Soviet Union or Mongolia, or in any way attacks a Soviet unit or base, the Soviet Union is immediately activated.

The rules explicitly allow Japan the option of attacking Russia. There's a whole section in the rules that discuss it. The code in the game clearly allows it. It certainly appears to be the clear intent of the designer that Japan can attack Russia if he chooses.

So any claim that the game is not really supposed to be about these areas is just wrong.

Now I think attacking Russia should be a pretty stupid idea for Japan. But its easy for reasons I've described. So this should be fixed in any of a multitude of ways.

I just do not understand why it is considered wrong or gamey for players to try alternative strategies.

[scout1]

Now I think attacking Russia should be a pretty stupid idea for Japan. But its easy for reasons I've described. So this should be fixed in any of a multitude of ways.

I just do not understand why it is considered wrong or gamey for players to try alternative strategies.

I agree with you on this one and I'll quote Mogami ......
"In boardgames, if there was a rule that said don't do that you didn't. However in a computer game that does seem to apply" (soory if I misquoted). But, there is NO rule against this. Personally, I think to allow an attack iwth only a partial map of the area and no ability for the Allies to react to ahistorical Japanese actions does infact beg for
a) make a rule
b) alter the area restrictions to allow the Allies to react to it
c) build a mpa of the rest of the world and lets play WWII in it's entirety, then attack
anywhere you can get to

[mogami]

Hi, Please don't use me for the offical spokes person for designers intent. (I tested according to my understanding)

I speak for the players who want what we consider a more resonable game. I don't need to be told or shown by the game that Japan could not conquer the entire map.
I don't need to be told or have rules that prevent Japan from attacking the Soviets.

The game allows it. And where I get fidgity is when players do it and then say it was too fast or too slow. I don't even really want to talk about it since my first response is "Don't do it" I'm not a good person to respond to alot of this since I am rolling my eyes or scratching my head most of the time not only trying to figure how players are doing some of this but why.

So the offical stand is
If you can then do. It's simple

My stand is
If you do, don't complain

If you don't you won't have a reason to complain and everyone will be happy.

Where you want to and are unhappy change the OOB, Use house rules (you can use house rules against the AI too) Or stop doing what makes you unhappy.

As you learn more of the history you will develop new ideas and understanding. If the game does that and gives you fun then nothing else matters.

[scout1]

Sorry if offended. Not intended. [8|]

Frankly, I do agree with your comments. Personally, if I was the developer, I wouldn't have allowed it and still force the Japanese to garrison the area.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: moses
I just do not understand why it is considered wrong or gamey for players to try alternative strategies.

MOSES.....You are absolutely correct.....Trying something different should be one of
the joys of playing an historical simulation.....The problem arises when the game/ simulation's designers have not risen to the occasion and considered EVERY SINGLE
WILD POSSIBILITY a thousand various gamers might come up with.

Yes, I was being facecious.....The problem is that no-one can consider every wierd
and wonderous idea someone who's only thinking about "winning" will come up with.
So decisions made in the design to handle various historical problems may end up
allowing completely idiotic results when applied to non-historic situations.....When
folks start trying alternative strategies they soon expose any "not quite as brilliant
as they thought" designer errors and oversights.

"Gamey" enters into the equasion when "game players" find one of these "loopholes"
and shove an Army Group through it claiming "it's perfectly legal in the rules" instead
of turning to the design team and saying "you guys really blew this one---I have a
few ideas how you can fix it".

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: moses

THE RULES

If the Japanese player moves a unit into the Soviet Union or Mongolia, or in any way attacks a Soviet unit or base, the Soviet Union is immediately activated.

The rules explicitly allow Japan the option of attacking Russia. There's a whole section in the rules that discuss it. The code in the game clearly allows it. It certainly appears to be the clear intent of the designer that Japan can attack Russia if he chooses.

So any claim that the game is not really supposed to be about these areas is just wrong.

Now I think attacking Russia should be a pretty stupid idea for Japan. But its easy for reasons I've described. So this should be fixed in any of a multitude of ways.

I just do not understand why it is considered wrong or gamey for players to try alternative strategies.

I guess my 2 comments would be

1. The real Japanese were smart enough not to attack the Soviet Union for a reason. And that reason is that they were both busy elsewhere and afraid they'd get their butts kicked as they had on 2 previous attempts.

2. If the game was designed to represent a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union ( and I'd hope that it wasn't )...then the designers did blow it. You'd need virtually a global representation to provide all the input needed by the SOviet player to decide where to move his troops...and we don't have that in the game. And allowing the IJA to position itself for a "cheap shot" is hopefully, clear evidence of lack of serious intent to represent a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union.

IMHO discussions of Japanese Grand Strategy in WTIP should focus on how to take and defend the SRA for the longest possible time.

[moses]

Mogami:

Now refering to me as a gamey is just not fair and truly insulting. In truth it is just an excuse that allows you to ignore problems that you don't want to address.

I have said repeatedly that the issue is not Russia or China but the imbalance of the game in favor of the attacker that exist in every courner of the game. Russia and China are just two proofs of this imbalance. The ease of invading Burma is another. The ability to successfully invade India another. The ease with which Pearl Harbor was taken another. The speed with which the SRA can be secured is another.

Apparently you think that there is only one valid strategy. Take the SRA and hold. Anything apart from that is gamey.

I have not done anything gamey in any game I have played or in any AAR I have posted. I have not been looking for loopholes in the rules. If so these are pretty huge loopholes. Here the are the obvious strategies: Invade Russia, Invade China, Invade India, Invade Austrailia, Invade the west coast, Invade PH. These are not the wierd and wonderous ideas of someone trying to game the system. These are the obvious possible strategies that should occur as possibilities to any player.

If you fix the attacker/defender imbalance all of these can work. Instead you just wish to insult players who differ from you're view of what the game is about.

[moses]

Mike Scholl:

"Gamey" enters into the equasion when "game players" find one of these "loopholes"
and shove an Army Group through it claiming "it's perfectly legal in the rules" instead
of turning to the design team and saying "you guys really blew this one---I have a
few ideas how you can fix it".

I think I've provided a few ideas. But frankly it is almost impossible to even get anyone to discuss the issue. The all purpose answer "thats not what the game is supposed to be about" allows everything to be swept under the rug.

Its quite possible that one post from someone willing to address my central claim might well convince me that I was just wrong. Apparently any discussion of anything that might require the combat model to be looked at is just off limits.

Here is the central claim once more: The entire model is biased in favor of the side that is on the offensive. The attacker can sustain long-term offensives without taking significant casualties and without incurring supply difficulties as would occur historically. I don't mean to be tautalogical here. Obviously the superior side should be able to win I just believe that he is able to do so a too little cost. Therefore some changes should be made to the model which favor the weaker side.

Agree or disagree.