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

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

I don´t think you are correct in the estimate of Chinese LCUs. In my second game I had lost a horrendous amount of LCUs in China. I was nearing 17k worth of LCU losses. And I still had about a 1/3rd of the Chinese army left (although without supply).

In this game I have suffered 12k worth of losses so far. And I now have all the Chinese LCUs on map again (no more set to respawn besides new units). As you say its hard to put a number on how much the losses are worth in VPs but its way more then 4k of that I´m absolutely certain. At least the double and I would guess its more.

I could probably make a half decent estimate by going through the saves and tracker. I agree 20-25k VPs is probably on the high side though as you say. But 15-20k is probably very close to the actual number.

EDIT: Does anyone have or know of any "quite China" kind of games. What would be really interesting to find is a game (or VP screen) of a game very there has been little to no combat in China but the initial Japanese expansion is over with (Singers/DEI/PI/Burma). That would give us a rough number on how much the Allied LCU losses outside China is worth. You can then very easily calculate a rough number on the Chinese LCU losses for a game (where there hasn´t been much allied LCU losses past the initial expansion outside CHina.)

That's basically what I've got going on in my two games. One is essentially a Quiet China, though it has picked up a little. In the other, I've lost all of China (though pretty much by choice, at least this early).

It's true that Chinese LCU VPs are going to vary a lot, but I don't take replacements in China. It just burns supply that's better spent simply feeding the LCU, IMO. Supply is already short enough as it is. It's also difficult to sort out exactly how much of the LCU VP total was Chinese, but I am guesstimating: the fall of Chungking cost me ~2K, and I had a very large stack of troops there. Almost 100 units, many hundreds of thousands of guys. I actually think my estimate of 4000 might be on the high side, as I didn't lose much other than those units that I committed to Chungking.

I'll compare destroyed Chinese LCU numbers to those I have still alive in about 30 minutes here.

[Lokasenna]

At this computer, my earliest turn loaded into Tracker is 255. Estimation follows. Assumptions and conditions:

1) A 1:1 ratio in Chinese Rifle Squad to Support squads in Chinese units. Since it's impossible to separate losses among different nationalities for Support squads, this is the best estimate I can come up with.

2) Chinese Rifle Squads and Support squads will make up the majority of devices in Chinese units. I will count other Chinese devices if they are so labeled and I can pick them out as not used by other nationalities. Therefore, this will create some fuzziness in the final number.

3) Assuming that by turn 255 (August 18), the siege of Chungking has begun (verified by my Word document) and all losses of Chinese LCUs outside of the city have dropped off to a negligible amount. Granted, a significant number (~1700 Rifle Squads) were lost outside Paoshan in the exodus to India and the units were not actually destroyed. I have a full list of the units that I saved in my AAR. It is rather long...

4) Obviously, lots of Chinese were dead before turn 255, but they would've respawned at Chungking. Given the gaps in the Tracker DB at this computer, they may have respawned and been whittled down or killed again during the gaps.

5) The replacements that I have taken have been outside of combat and they have not been destroyed, so anytime a squad is drawn from the pool I must subtract it from the Active column so as to get a more accurate counting of destroyed squads.

Turn 255
Rifle Squads used from pool: 442
Active Rifle Squads: 21747

Therefore, assuming the 1:1 ratio, there were approximately 43,000 Chinese Rifle/Support squads on 8/18/42.

Turn 421
Rifle Squads used from pool: 3246
Active Rifle Squads: 12020

21747 - 12020 - 3246 = 6481 squads remaining before taking replacements, or roughly 13,000 squads including support. That means about 30,000 squads were destroyed. That's about 2500 VPs, which we'll see in a moment over the real figure. Obviously, there are lots of guns and other devices in the units as well - assume about a 1:4 ratio there, to be generous. That brings the total up to about 3000 VPs, and this includes the exodus from Paoshan.


Now I check in Tracker. I have a gap in turns loaded - 301 to 317 - during which the fall of Chungking occured. Allied LCU VPs jumped from 12498 to 14723, or a change of 2225. So clearly the fall of Chungking was worth somewhere around 2150-2175 VPs (other LCU losses during this timeframe were light).

Next, I am searching in my Word notes for the exodus from Paoshan. This occurs around the end of October, early November. By the time the full exodus is complete in early January, Allied LCU VPs stand at 15277, and almost the entire difference is in Chinese LCUs getting beat up on retreats - a change of about 500 VPs.

So in total, all of my dead Chinese LCUs at Chungking and all of the devices I lost running to India adds up to about 2700 VPs. Well below the estimate at Chungking, heh.


Then we count up bases. Chungking is worth up to 3600 (and -800 for the Allies), and Chengtu is worth up to 1800. So that's 5400, and let's be generous and say all of the *10 bases for Japan can add up to 1000 - so 6400. Then there's Kunming at *50, and that can be worth 600. Tsuyung can be worth 300. Lanchow 800. Sining 500. So 8600 for bases, give or take a couple hundred for the *10 bases.

That's about 11.3K VPs for China. Maybe you lose more Chinese LCUs... even if I lost the entire Chinese army, including all of the replacements I've taken in India, we're only talking about ~30,000 more devices, or about 2.5K VPs.

That's about 14K. 20-25K is far too high. Not that 14K is anything to sneeze at, that's a big chunk of rather cheap VPs. I think people have a tendency to vastly underestimate the number of LCU VPs that come from the SRA. It is many thousands.

[Lowpe]

I wonder how many battles Jocke fought in x3 terrain? I wonder if he didn't in fact defend too far forward?

The Lanchow drive looks awfully tough to defend against, the only thing I could think of is have a small hoard of chinese units try to cut the supply road. Or simply falling back to the mountains.

What was Japan using as ground troops in Burma...seems to me I recall Jocke vacating it without a fight. I think he had the burma road open for quite a while...

Monday morning quarterbacking at its best here. Or backseat driving.[:)] No criticism here of Jocke who was struggling, as we all were, to understand Mr. Kanes goals early on. I wanted Alaska/Canada if you remember!

[Spidery]

In my game, I have 9480 VP for the captured Chinese bases and Chungking and Chengtu are at level 8 so could get another 300.

At end of May, Allied army loss was 8585 and it is now 16740. There would have been some Chinese destroyed before then and I have a few 100 VP left to garner. Other Allied losses in this time have been moderate so roughly balance out suggests about 8000 VP for eliminating the Chinese army. Some corps were eliminated twice and some base forces three times.

So for defeating China and eliminating the Chinese army I think the VP total is about 16K to 18K.

I have a suspicion that, long term, the Japanese can get more VP out of China by maintaining a siege of Chungking. The Chinese units starve, reform and starve again. Keep some artillery there bombarding to help the process. I think I was getting about 10-20 VP a day from this so keep that going for 30 months and could get 14000 VP.

One way to make conquering China harder would be to remove most of the armour and artillery from Manchuko and have it arrive as reinforcements starting mid 1943. With SL, it is the firepower advantage of the armour and artillery that really helps the Japanese against the Chinese.

[JocMeister]

Loka, I see your numbers and I follow your reasoning. But it simply doesn´t add up with any of my games. My games are much closer (if not higher) to Spiderys estimates. You must be missing something somewhere.

Take my game with SqzMyLemon is a good example. I ended up with around 15-16k worth of LCU losses. China was the only place in that game that suffered any land combat after the initial expansion. No ventures into India or Oz was done. In that game I had lost most of the Chinese army but I still had about 1/3rd left. If Chinese LCU losses are only 2700 VPs I wonder where the 12-13k other LCU losses took place? [:)]

I´ve given this some thought today. Shouldn´t be that hard to test really...Might try and set something up in the coming weeks. I still think my estimate of 15-20k is pretty darn close. Seems Spiderys numbers are about the same as mine.

I also think Spidery is correct that it might be more beneficial from a VP perspective to use Chungking as a VP generator. Tom had just started to really get this going and I was losing on average 12 VPs per turn from the bombardments in Chungking. This would have been worse as Tom got more Arty in place and my troops had been killed off the first time. They would then respawn with 30/30 MRL/EXP, 0 Supply and not one gun...

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

I wonder how many battles Jocke fought in x3 terrain? I wonder if he didn't in fact defend too far forward?

The Lanchow drive looks awfully tough to defend against, the only thing I could think of is have a small hoard of chinese units try to cut the supply road. Or simply falling back to the mountains.

What was Japan using as ground troops in Burma...seems to me I recall Jocke vacating it without a fight. I think he had the burma road open for quite a while...

Monday morning quarterbacking at its best here. Or backseat driving.[:)] No criticism here of Jocke who was struggling, as we all were, to understand Mr. Kanes goals early on. I wanted Alaska/Canada if you remember!

I fought in x3 terrain as much as possible. The difference between x3 and x2 was huge. But only place I managed to hold Tom for long was south of Sian. That roadblock held out for 3 months. But its very hard to rotate troops in and out due to SLs and the fact that they leave there forts as soon as they start moving.

All other roadblocks he blew through in a couple of weeks. 1-2 IDs, tanks, and a crapload of arty. Bombard every day, mix in deliberate attacks, add bombings from the air. Any troops I tried to rotate out was blasted into smithereens the second they started moving. Tom on the other hand could rotate in and out at leisure.

Burma road was open very long as Tom didn´t send any troops into Burma until very late. Still supply only lasted until March/April.

[JocMeister]

PS, whats the switch for continuous turns?

Nm. Found it!

[Lokasenna]

I really think that a lot of the LCU losses being reported from these other games is coming from the SRA. Those Dutch and British/Commonwealth units are worth a lot of VPs. Not to mention all the US Army/USMC stuff on Luzon.

EDIT:

I have a Computer Both Sides game going right now, it's up to 3/21/42. There are 5600 Allied LCU losses so far. As we all know, the AI doesn't do a whole lot in China, in either direction - whether it's Quiet China or not. Changsha, Kukong, Nanning, Amoy (!), Foochow, etc. remain unconquered. Only Chuhsien has fallen. Chengchow was auto-occupied, and Loyang remains in Chinese hands. So, not much in the way of Chinese casualties here.

What's fallen:
Hong Kong
Manila
Clark Field
All of Mindanao
90% of Borneo
The Celebes
Singapore

Bataan remains with 45K Allied troops.
Sumatra and Java haven't even been touched yet.

So at least 5,000 VPs just from Malaya, Borneo, and most of Luzon. There are a LOT more to be had in Java, and this doesn't include the 44th/45th Indian Brigades or the 18th British Division (I checked the destroyed LCUs).

I'd wager that ~8000 VPs from LCUs is in the SRA alone. Do I need to go back to game's start and count up all the devices? [:D]

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

I really think that a lot of the LCU losses being reported from these other games is coming from the SRA. Those Dutch and British/Commonwealth units are worth a lot of VPs. Not to mention all the US Army/USMC stuff on Luzon.

EDIT:

I have a Computer Both Sides game going right now, it's up to 3/21/42. There are 5600 Allied LCU losses so far. As we all know, the AI doesn't do a whole lot in China, in either direction - whether it's Quiet China or not. Changsha, Kukong, Nanning, Amoy (!), Foochow, etc. remain unconquered. Only Chuhsien has fallen. Chengchow was auto-occupied, and Loyang remains in Chinese hands. So, not much in the way of Chinese casualties here.

What's fallen:
Hong Kong
Manila
Clark Field
All of Mindanao
90% of Borneo
The Celebes
Singapore

Bataan remains with 45K Allied troops.
Sumatra and Java haven't even been touched yet.

So at least 5,000 VPs just from Malaya, Borneo, and most of Luzon. There are a LOT more to be had in Java, and this doesn't include the 44th/45th Indian Brigades or the 18th British Division (I checked the destroyed LCUs).

I'd wager that ~8000 VPs from LCUs is in the SRA alone. Do I need to go back to game's start and count up all the devices? [:D]

I might be able to give an exact number on how much VPs China is worth. Hopefully before the weekend is up! [:)]

Wanna bet? [:D]

[Sangeli]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

I might be able to give an exact number on how much VPs China is worth. Hopefully before the weekend is up! [:)]

Wanna bet? [:D]

It's hard to get a good value for the VPs in China because it isn't fixed. Whenever a corps respawns it creates new VPs out of nothing that Japan can take. So it makes sense to me that a human could lose more VPs than the AI by being more aggressive in defense and thus able to lose the same corps multiple times.

But rather than focusing on how many VPs you would have lost in that game had it continued, maybe try to figure out what you could have done differently to defend China. Looking back at your maps now (which are very informative because of the notes you wrote on there) I see you made a good deal of mistakes early on in the north which compounded into the collapse of China. Tom did a good job...but you could have done better. And hopefully next time you will! After all, there's more to China than just defending 3x terrain (although that's probably like half of it).

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

I really think that a lot of the LCU losses being reported from these other games is coming from the SRA. Those Dutch and British/Commonwealth units are worth a lot of VPs. Not to mention all the US Army/USMC stuff on Luzon.

EDIT:

I have a Computer Both Sides game going right now, it's up to 3/21/42. There are 5600 Allied LCU losses so far. As we all know, the AI doesn't do a whole lot in China, in either direction - whether it's Quiet China or not. Changsha, Kukong, Nanning, Amoy (!), Foochow, etc. remain unconquered. Only Chuhsien has fallen. Chengchow was auto-occupied, and Loyang remains in Chinese hands. So, not much in the way of Chinese casualties here.

What's fallen:
Hong Kong
Manila
Clark Field
All of Mindanao
90% of Borneo
The Celebes
Singapore

Bataan remains with 45K Allied troops.
Sumatra and Java haven't even been touched yet.

So at least 5,000 VPs just from Malaya, Borneo, and most of Luzon. There are a LOT more to be had in Java, and this doesn't include the 44th/45th Indian Brigades or the 18th British Division (I checked the destroyed LCUs).

I'd wager that ~8000 VPs from LCUs is in the SRA alone. Do I need to go back to game's start and count up all the devices? [:D]

I might be able to give an exact number on how much VPs China is worth. Hopefully before the weekend is up! [:)]

Wanna bet? [:D]

It's going to be slightly variable depending on replacements. I think the smart thing is to do it with no replacements. You can easily add up all the bases, which will also vary from game to game, depending on how high the Japan player built them up.

I'm already adding up device totals [;)]. Wouldn't be fair to bet with insider information!

[JocMeister]

Replacements off. No counting respawns. No base expansion. [:)]

As you say the base VPs are easy to count. What I´m looking at are LCU losses.

We will see. I still think I´m closer to the truth. But then again many Chinese LCUs get killed off and cut off in the first few weeks. So in any normal game many LCUs will be killed off multiple times. But at least this will provide a good base line. [:)]

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Replacements off. No counting respawns. No base expansion. [:)]

As you say the base VPs are easy to count. What I´m looking at are LCU losses.

We will see. I still think I´m closer to the truth. But then again many Chinese LCUs get killed off and cut off in the first few weeks. So in any normal game many LCUs will be killed off multiple times. But at least this will provide a good base line. [:)]

Just finished. See attached. I used Tracker and exported the LCU names to .CSV, and then I went through unit by unit and added up the total devices.

6763 VPs starting on the board for Chinese LCUs, not counting the AVG Ground Echelon which is in Burma.

See attached if you like. Obvious this total goes down, the more LCUs you save. It goes up the more that respawn at Chungking, but not by THAT much as only Rifle Squads, Cav Squads, and Support respawn with the unit and at 1/3 TOE.

You will need to change the file extension to .xlsx from .txt.

[Lokasenna]

And here's a version where I've counted up all the Dutch LCUs, including the ones that come in within 3 months.

2569 VPs just for them. I told you there's a ton of LCU VPs in the SRA [;)]. The key thing is that the Chinese are only worth 1/12 each, while the Dutch, Brits, Aussies, and Indians are worth 1/3.

EDIT: This version of the file now includes -

Luzon
Mindanao
Philippine reinforcements
Malaysia

It totals up to 5903-5904 VPs just for those. That's the bulk of them. All that would be left to count is US reinforcements to Luzon (not as easy to separate via Tracker), and the British stuff on Borneo.

And then there's the Aussies, Indians, and Brits that are preset to travel to Singapore or Java... plus any reinforcements that arrive in Java/Malaysia themselves. I think there might be some other Commonwealth units that arrive there, but I didn't sort them out.

[JocMeister]

Damn, you beat me to it! [:D]

Will still run my test and see if our numbers add up. Can´t check the files now as I´m on my phone. But when you say "It totals up to 5903-5904 VPs just for those" do you mean WITH the SRA troops or excluding them?

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Damn, you beat me to it! [:D]

Will still run my test and see if our numbers add up. Can´t check the files now as I´m on my phone. But when you say "It totals up to 5903-5904 VPs just for those" do you mean WITH the SRA troops or excluding them?

5900 for all of the SRA except: Brits on Borneo, American reinforcements in the PI, and any incoming reinforcements (such as 18th Brit ID, Indian Brigades, Aussie Brigades).

[JocMeister]

I got 6912 Chinese LCU losses. Thats everything in China except some of the small BDEs in the far north. No respawns, no replacements.

Kind of interesting since it shows I lost almost the entire Chinese army 2 times in my second game...Not that strange though when you consider it. Respawns come back at 30/30 having only rifle squads. That makes them extremely fragile so I figure once you start using "respawns" on the front line losses will rise tremendously.

So that would mean my estimate of 15-20k VPs is actually pretty spot on. Going by Spiderys Base VPs (9500) + our Chinese LCU losses = almost 17k VPs. And that is if NO replacements or respawns are lost. And I think its safe to assume that at least some respawns will be used. Going by my second game I lost around 10k worth of Chinese LCU losses. If you add that its around 20k VPs for China...A huge number. And relatively easy to grab for a competent Japanese player. Most definitively a huge factor in any games being played for VPs.

[Spidery]

Respawned units come back at 1/3 of TOE, since most of the Chinese corps start at 50% or less of strength the VP value the second time round is something like 50% of the first time - works out about 40 VP for each large Chinese Corps and 2 or 3 VP for HQ and Base forces.

How many VP does Japan directly lose taking China? Air losses from CAP traps and a few bad combat moves mean I guess it cost me about 1500-2000 VP but I expect with more competence this could be reduced to 1000 or so.

Indirectly, it does use a lot of supply, lots of PP if paying PP to cross boundaries, and keeps a fair number of fighters in China.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Spidery

Respawned units come back at 1/3 of TOE, since most of the Chinese corps start at 50% or less of strength the VP value the second time round is something like 50% of the first time - works out about 40 VP for each large Chinese Corps and 2 or 3 VP for HQ and Base forces.

How many VP does Japan directly lose taking China? Air losses from CAP traps and a few bad combat moves mean I guess it cost me about 1500-2000 VP but I expect with more competence this could be reduced to 1000 or so.

Indirectly, it does use a lot of supply, lots of PP if paying PP to cross boundaries, and keeps a fair number of fighters in China.

Tom lost 816 Japanese LCU losses in total. About 500 of those are from China. In turn around 200 of those were from shock attacking into Chungking to close the hex sides. So only around 300 VPs lost for Tom to regular combat in China.

Japan suffer very few actual losses in China. I would say something like 90-95% of Toms losses were disablements. These can quickly and easily be recovered. Obviously no VPs are awarded the Allied player for this. Overuse of heavy artillery and Tanks cause massive casualties to Chinese troops while almost none to the attacking Japanese troops.

I have nothing to back it up but I would estimate around 80% of the losses I took in China were to artillery. Interestingly enough Tom seemed to have opted to rely on artillery rather then aerial attacks in our game. Seemed to work well. He did use concentrated bombings at stubborn roadblocks but for the most part it was the heavy artillery doing all the work.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

I got 6912 Chinese LCU losses. Thats everything in China except some of the small BDEs in the far north. No respawns, no replacements.

Kind of interesting since it shows I lost almost the entire Chinese army 2 times in my second game...Not that strange though when you consider it. Respawns come back at 30/30 having only rifle squads. That makes them extremely fragile so I figure once you start using "respawns" on the front line losses will rise tremendously.

So that would mean my estimate of 15-20k VPs is actually pretty spot on. Going by Spiderys Base VPs (9500) + our Chinese LCU losses = almost 17k VPs. And that is if NO replacements or respawns are lost. And I think its safe to assume that at least some respawns will be used. Going by my second game I lost around 10k worth of Chinese LCU losses. If you add that its around 20k VPs for China...A huge number. And relatively easy to grab for a competent Japanese player. Most definitively a huge factor in any games being played for VPs.

I don't understand how 6900 VPs, respawned at 1/3 of TOE and killed again, becomes 15-20K VPs. What are they teaching you in those Swedish math classes? [:'(] Kidding!

The base VPs... I exported the bases from Tracker into a CSV and had Excel add it up for me. If every Chinese base is built to maximum, it's 15822 VPs for Japan. [X(] There are lots of potential level 9 AFs that have *10 multipliers. 49 bases in total have *10 or higher for Japan, and all together they are worth 14810. 31 of those are potential level 9 AFs, and 3 of those 31 have ports as well.

I would say that this is a very large, almost un-counterable VP bank for Japan...except that in order to build all of those up, Japan needs to commit a lot of engineers for years. That would leave forts weaker elsewhere.