Return of the Sheep! - JocMeister(A) vs. MrKane(J)

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: JocMeister
Tried that earlier. Found no way through the search. Must have tried 15 different approaches. Managed to get within 20 hexes of the HI and stayed there for 2 turns before being spotted. But that was the best I could do.

Between Marcus and Truk then? So an early raid on the HI would most likely have been spotted...

It's all about the routing... there are way more than 40 hexes between Marcus and the Aleutians, for example...

[JocMeister]

Best I could do was around 20 hexes south of the HI and 10-15 hexes East of the Bonins. Also managed to slide into Philippine sea at one point. Sat there for 10 turns or so but was spotted when I withdrew.

Once Tom realized I was probing he plugged the gaps.

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]VP Score[/font]
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Here is the current score. While this may give the impression I have a shot at avoiding AV its very misleading. Chungking is still in allied hands. When it falls (and it will) it will remove 800 allied VPs and add 1600 Japanese. Add another 1000 for LCUs when it falls and the score will end up around 5:1 instead.

And that is not taking into account another 5000 allied LCU losses for the rest of the Chinese army. When you do I will end up at around 6:1 disadvantage. I would need roughly 10.000 VPs to avoid AV. Losing Chungking will drop me down to 6800. It will be impossible to manage 3200 VPs in just 4 months (800 per month). Up to now I average just over 300 per month. And as I mentioned before VPs from base expansion have already started to drop off as more and more bases become maxed out.

I won´t say congratulations to Tom just yet as there is still a glimmer of hope. But I admit I´ve pretty much given up on avoiding AV and I barely look at the score anymore.

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]VP chart[/font]
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[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]Ship losses[/font]
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Done pretty well so far. Losing Sara was completely out of my control and if there is any justice in the world Tom will lose at least a couple of CVs to subs. Already had multiple (6-8) duds on Kaga and two duds on Hiryu...

PoW and Repulse was a mistake on my part. Overall the Navy is in good shape. Still very short on DDs though...will probably not sort itself out until mid 43 when the Fletchers really start coming.

[Lowpe]

Just one battle of Brisbane where Japan loses 5 carriers is all it will take to turn this puppy around! And you have the Navy to do it...

[Bullwinkle58]

What happened on 4/7? I've never seen a one-day shift like that. Ever.

Edit: never mind. Just saw the date jump.

Edit edit: without the 5000 strat-bombing VPs you would have a fighting chance. With them there's no way.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Just one battle of Brisbane where Japan loses 5 carriers is all it will take to turn this puppy around! And you have the Navy to do it...

Oh, nothing more to it? I´ll get it done in a jiffy! [:D]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

What happened on 4/7? I've never seen a one-day shift like that. Ever.

Edit: never mind. Just saw the date jump.

Edit edit: without the 5000 strat-bombing VPs you would have a fighting chance. With them there's no way.

Yeah, that would mean I would need "only" 2000 VPs or 500 per month. Very, very hard. But not impossible. 800 per month...well. That, sadly is impossible.

Masterly move by Tom. Suspect it will be standard to put in a HR against it from now on.

[Cribtop]

Yeah, strat bombing in Oz is hard to stop. One reason I agreed to no strat bombing until July 43 in my game was to remove the temptation to do this. I'm not saying it's gamey, but I don't see the Allies surrendering because Sydney and Melbourne are getting bombed.

Still, have to say Tom is really an elite player. Very good plan he has executed here.

[paullus99]

He's taking advantage of game mechanics - this, on top of all of the toys that these JFB scenarios give means that you have to acquire a cast-iron stomach to play Allies anymore.....not saying it's wrong, just that it doesn't really give the Allied player the chance to do much of anything in return.

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Best I could do was around 20 hexes south of the HI and 10-15 hexes East of the Bonins. Also managed to slide into Philippine sea at one point. Sat there for 10 turns or so but was spotted when I withdrew.

Once Tom realized I was probing he plugged the gaps.

A possible mistake is sitting there, OK if you wanted to get his attention and draw some frontline units but wrong if you wanted a secret back door.

[topeverest]

Can you post a current world map? Am curious on the properties held mix that creates the auto victory because of the low naval losses.

[JeffroK]

Scrounging to get back VP.

How many points can you get back by recovering all of Queensland, maybe leaving Brisbane for last?

What bases does he hold and how strong?

As you hold Toowoomba, are you able to set up a block there and at Coffs Harbour and swing your mobile units around and pick up Maryborough & Bundaberg as starters. Even attracting his attention might see reinforcement out of Brisbane.

Some of the dot bases in inland Qld are 0(7) airfields, well away from any threat of bombardment.

Only a thought, but you have to start pushing somewhere, you never know what will happen, maybe a CV or BB run over a mine, or a torpedo finally works, MrKane has made mistakes, you might push him into another worth a few points.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Masterly move by Tom. Suspect it will be standard to put in a HR against it from now on.

I don't know. It's not without risk if the Allies respond in a naval manner. It's hard to do so with CAP. (I would gently remind you that you do have an uber-focus on the air portion of the game.)

By the date he did this you can have a decent amount of CAP in OZ, mostly US, if you don't overload some islands. You also have working sub torpedoes and lots of places to base them. Again, enough ASes to stick some in smaller south OZ ports and flood the coasts. If he had lost a carrier all of a sudden this doesn't look so cost-free. And as a final option you can save the pre-war CLs and CAs and use them to KB hunt. You might get sunk, but he eats a lot of sorties and has to go away to re-load, giving you more time to get defenses in place.

It's hard though. 5000 in a huge number. Loka has done a little strat bombing in western Oz on me, but nothing like what you saw. OTOH, he took Chungking's supply generation away with strat bombing.

[Lokasenna]

I don't know. For perspective, you gained 700 in the month between 7/13 and 8/13. I don't think AV is set in stone yet. You can still avoid it. It's just right there, on the cusp.

He's pretty much out of VP banks, besides Chungking. Account for that, and he's around 35K at most (once he has the AF at 9). Which means you'll need about 2000. Don't underestimate the LCU VPs you'll gain from the attacks at Chungking - it won't be a lot, but it'll be at least a couple hundred. So now you're down to needing 1900, 1800 or so before 1942 is out...

I think you could amass the forces necessary to jump on Noumea, balls to the wall since AV is on the line, and take it. Same with Brisbane. You'd just need to have all of the pieces in the south seas to begin with - your CVs and APs/AKs already there, with LCUs ready to load up, etc., while your reinforcements trickle in.

[njp72]

I'm not sure that is entirely accurate. Unless I am completely mistaken (happy to be corrected) isn't this scenario the DBB equivalent of Scenario 1?
If anything with PDU off and DBB-B it should be somewhat tougher for the Empire than stock, at least initially anyway.
I think what we are witnessing here is quite special and unique and a great move by a talented opponent.

Still I don't think he will achieve AV because it requires everything to fall perfectly in place for the Empire and historical results show it just does not happen.

Once Joc regains his confidence and starts to fight back hard it will all fall apart for the Empire. I think we are not far from that turning point now.

Besides if a Japanese player can't give an Allied player some degree of fright in 42 then it is going to be a very short war for the Empire.

ORIGINAL: paullus99

He's taking advantage of game mechanics - this, on top of all of the toys that these JFB scenarios give means that you have to acquire a cast-iron stomach to play Allies anymore.....not saying it's wrong, just that it doesn't really give the Allied player the chance to do much of anything in return.

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]Strategic Map[/font]
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As you can see on the map Tom has not yet taken care of all the dot bases on the map. This is something I hope I can take advantage of further into the game.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: paullus99

He's taking advantage of game mechanics - this, on top of all of the toys that these JFB scenarios give means that you have to acquire a cast-iron stomach to play Allies anymore.....not saying it's wrong, just that it doesn't really give the Allied player the chance to do much of anything in return.

As njp72 this scenario contains no extra goodies for Japan. I thought it did until I checked it a couple of minutes ago. I was sure this was it. Good news for me then!

I don´t think he is taking advantage of the mechanics. We had a set piece of agreed rules and he has played within those rules. I knew the rules and had the same map to look at. My own fault for not anticipating what he did!

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

A possible mistake is sitting there, OK if you wanted to get his attention and draw some frontline units but wrong if you wanted a secret back door.

Ah, well the problem with moving around is that you might move into a new search arc. Since I wasn´t being spotted the first few turns and I was in a probable shipping lane I stayed put. Probably a moot point since I was lit up with a 10/10 after a while and I doubt moving around would have helped much! But I get your point. [:)]

I´m currently building forts at Toowomba. I hope level 4-5 forts will allow me to move an ID and some arty towards the North. Have to be very careful though as Tom has at least 3 IDs in OZ. Probably more...Need to make absolutely sure he can´t lounge out from Brisbane and overcome the defenses.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

I don't know. It's not without risk if the Allies respond in a naval manner. It's hard to do so with CAP. (I would gently remind you that you do have an uber-focus on the air portion of the game.)

By the date he did this you can have a decent amount of CAP in OZ, mostly US, if you don't overload some islands. You also have working sub torpedoes and lots of places to base them. Again, enough ASes to stick some in smaller south OZ ports and flood the coasts. If he had lost a carrier all of a sudden this doesn't look so cost-free. And as a final option you can save the pre-war CLs and CAs and use them to KB hunt. You might get sunk, but he eats a lot of sorties and has to go away to re-load, giving you more time to get defenses in place.

It's hard though. 5000 in a huge number. Loka has done a little strat bombing in western Oz on me, but nothing like what you saw. OTOH, he took Chungking's supply generation away with strat bombing.

Ah, I did have the USAAF on station in big numbers. 150 US Fighters + 2 RAF squadrons. He landed in February and even though I moved in the best pilots I had it was just a slaughter. Just checked the AAR and his first sweep cost me 48 fighter and 30 pilots for 6 Zeroes... I did another attempt later on that cost me just as much.

At least I managed to protect the industry in Sydney using what little AA is available. Tom has not destroyed any of the major industry in Sydney or Melbourne. The strat points are mostly from resources scattered around OZ. Broken Hill (500), Clonecurry (400), Newcastle (500) and so on. Its impossible to cover all of the bases. Especially the ones up North like Clonecurry.