Matrix Games Forums

Gentlemen,

the game continues – actually I could have explained the delay myself, as Nemo had announced he was going to be on holiday. I just forgot, probably because I was also under the impression the game against Damian was proceeding during this time. Anyway, this is what I would like to say about the latest combat events (June 17 => June 18, 1942):
Actually, I would like to point out two major failures – one for each side:

a)I tried to get a few hits on ships at Noumea (cursor intel suggests there are about 250 in port, I thought maybe I hit one for which Nemo has scheduled an important mission) and more or less wrecked my B19 force doing that. See for yourself:

[font="Courier New"]Day Air attack on Noumea [New Cal] , at 66,117

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zeke x 77
A6M2-N Rufe-FF x 24

Allied aircraft
B-19A x 21

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zeke: 5 destroyed, 2 damaged
A6M2-N Rufe-FF: 1 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
B-19A: 16 destroyed[/font]

Unfortunately, I have to blame this disaster on me. I had wanted to run this attack last turn in combination with my B17at max alt. Unfortunately, last turn only the B17 flew and encountered about 60 planes on CAP. I probably should have stood down the B19 this turn, but well, I did not, and that’s what I got from it.

b) Nemo went after Okha with the imperial shock division. Not a mini invasion this time…

[font="Courier New"]Ground combat at Okha [Sakhalin I]
Japanese Shock attack

Attacking force 2753 troops, 47 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 88
Defending force 3464 troops, 19 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 81

Japanese max assault: 52 - adjusted assault: 34
Allied max defense: 82 - adjusted defense: 119

Japanese assault odds: 0 to 1 (fort level 0)

Japanese ground losses:
106 casualties reported
Guns lost 6

Allied ground losses:
32 casualties reported
Guns lost 2[/font]

Actually, not the disaster I would have liked to see resultwise, but Nemo did not bring enough to take the base and a 0-1 is always unpleasant for the attacker. Or perhaps he wanted to bring enough, but there was CAP covering the base… The screen was active with messages that Mavis ans Ki264-L were intercepted for a while during the combat replay.

Actually, I got a question relating to that: What does the “intercepted” message mean exactly ? Just that the plane turns back and does not deliver its load, or is it also indicative for a plane loss ? At least the tracker did not show many lost Mavis and Ki264-L, and I assume it sees every loss, does it not ?

Anyway, naturally I like this development – I think the imperial shock division may be in process of being blunted a bit, and if that can be made to happen, it’s a good thing. However, first let's see what Nemo has up the sleeve as second Echelon.

Now, based on this development you may of course add another twist to the discussion of the comment relating to attrition in the air war.

According to cursor intel (assuming I did not miss a production site), Nemo currently produces about 250 A6M2 per month (Kyoto 58(3); Ise 25(36)+35(26); Gumma 79(42)+49(12)) and about 100 Mikes per month. Since I took over with the June 1st turn, I think he has lost almost 200 A6M2 and about 100 Mikes. Total A6M2 losses amount to 936. Actually, in view of these numbers I don’t think he has too much of a A6M2 reserve available.

Of course, one may speculate now that he warned me away from attrition assuming that I would work out that it may not necessarily be a bad thing for me in order to make me focus on Sovetskaya Gavan (which was not attacked today) rather than CAPping other places.

As always, thanks for your interest

Hartwig

Gentlemen,

add 61 Zeros/month produced at Tokio to the above list, which I somehow did not see at first. This addition does effect the balance a bit, because it's a factory which starts the game at that size.

Other than that, I sent the turn back on Tuesday. Maybe I'll motivate myself to provide some more info during the next few days, but don't count on it. I tend to be motivated to post by the turns...

Regards

Hartwig

Gentlemen,

as some of you may have noticed in the AE forums, now I have picked up an AE game as well. I pointed out to my new opponent that this game is still important for me (which it is, it has lost nothing of its fascination for me) and I will also keep this thread updated whenever I get a turn. But I would like to devote some of the time while I am waiting on turns from my opponent in this game - like now- to playing as well.

Hartwig

Hartwig,
I knew you picked up a game with AE, who are you playing and is there to be an AAR ? I'm still not sure I want to play a stock game and probably don't have time anyway with Tracker development/RL and other upcoming projects... so I'll wait until something juicy comes along. But will chime in with any titbits I can think of to keep the wheels of industry rolling along.

Good luck mate [;)]
Damian

Damian,

thanks for your interest in the new game as well and your willingness to provide some input (which will definitely be helpful). Your comments (and EXCEL spreadsheets [8D]) are always helpful.

My new opponent's nickname is Rattovolante (he actually started an AAR). I picked him up by pm via the "opponent wanted" section in the AE forums. Don't know much about him as of yet (I don't think he was very active in the WitP forums, but that does not mean much), what attracted me was the number of turns/week he was aiming at (I can't take on someone who wants to do one or more turns/day) and the opportunity to dive into the cold deep waters of AE to get a hands on understanding of the new mechanisms. I feel the differences are significant, one has to relearn a few things.

We did a historical start and did the first turn after that, I already have the .001 file, which shows that he may have some interesting ideas/approaches (even though I am not sure whether all of them are good ideas in AE I think a lot of the things he did would have made a lot of sense in WitP). But then, who am I to judge, especially on this basis.

As to the question of whether or not there will be an AAR - well, that depends, mainly on how this game continues (once again, still waiting for the turn - not complaining about that, real life intervenes with my gaming ambitions frequently). This game is actually the one which is more important to me - I have learned a lot from playing Nemo, but there still is a LOT to be learned from him for me, also but not just on the psy-war-battlefield.

I was actually hesitant to pick up a new game in AE because of the fact that this game was that slow already. For the same reason, I am hesitant to start an AAR of it - even more time to invest, and I usually am a person who feels obliged by the things he starts. At the same time, AAR-writing definitely is fun, and Rattovolante has indicated that he will need till the weekend to do the turn, so maybe I'll start writing one. Anyone else out there who would read my rambles even if the opponent is not as renowned as the one in this game and the topic is fooling around with AE rather than being fooled by Nemo ? As I said above, it's easy to make me feel obliged [;)].

Ok, enough said for now. Thanks again for your continued interest

Hartwig

Feel obliged[:D]
 
I certainly would read an AE AAR although I would refrain from posting until I had acquired a patched up AE and gained some direct personal experience with it.
 
Re this AAR, I have this suspicion that the slowness of the game is perhaps tied up with you proving too strong a player and consequently your opponent losing some interest as a result of not being able to overwhelm you.  In reality, the strong your play is, the greater interest your opponent should display.
 
Alfred

Alfred,

thanks for the obligation [;)]- I'll see what I manage to do. Maybe an occasional post every now and then. Right now, I am quite busy with playing, as there were two turns in my inbox yesterday evening.

Relating to your suspicion, whereas I think that there are opponents for which it may be applicable, in this case it implies the assumption that two conditions are met which I do not believe to be met in reality.

First of all, there is no doubt for me that Nemo can overwhelm me - as of yet, I do not play this game sufficiently well. Looking back from my present level of knowledge, the way I messed up the opportunity to make Calcutta close to impregnable was truly stupid; and also relating to Russia I am aware of mistakes I did. But (hopefully) I have learned a bit from these mistakes. Nemo could probably enter his commands after applying a lot of Guiness to tune down his competence and still beat me with ease. I'm not saying that I assume this would be true for all opponents I play against and I hope that it gets more tedious for him, but right now I most surely do not classify as "dangerous opponent" for him.

Secondly and more importantly, looking for easy prey does not fit into my hypothesis regarding his psychological profile. I think that he is more likely to react on a challenge with a show of strength then turning away from it (potentially, Hailar may be indicative of that - I do ask myself what he gained by picking up the gauntlet there). Of course, if I could read him better I would do better against him, so the fact that I don't outplay him may hint towards my not judging him correctly.

Therefore, I guess Nemo is just busy (maybe he will port his mod to AE after all ? That would be nice !), and after all I am slow to return a turn at times as well.

Actually, I do like AE a lot - that comes a as a bit of a surprise to me, because I was a bit sceptical whether the increased logistical aspects would be fun to do during execution of turns. But it is very interesting to play. Relating to your always most stimulating comments or your announcement to be silent for a while, I think that the strategic aspects that you provide will remain helpful independent of the game mechanics. I even believe that AE stresses the importance of these aspects even more than WitP did.

Thanks again for your input and continued interest. I'll probably update this thread with what has happened in the last turn by the beginning of next week, after processing the turn and try to start the new thread after that if my time allows.

Hartwig

Gentlemen,

This morning, I found a response to the turn I had sent to Nemo yesterday in my mailbox, thus my reports will be short.

This post relates to the AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 06/18/42. All in all, not a real bad day for the Allies, even though the overall situation still looks quite grim.

In India, I was thrilled to see Karachi fend off another attack.

[font="Courier New"]Ground combat at Karachi [Pakistan]
Japanese Shock attack

Attacking force 69816 troops, 1047 guns, 425 vehicles, Assault Value = 1726
Defending force 10428 troops, 301 guns, 19 vehicles, Assault Value = 113

Japanese max assault: 1208 - adjusted assault: 1242
Allied max defense: 113 - adjusted defense: 841

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 1 (fort level 5)
Japanese Assault reduces fortifications to 4

Japanese ground losses:
1146 casualties reported
Guns lost 21

Allied ground losses:
137 casualties reported
Guns lost 12[/font]

But as you see, he got a 1:1 (I am amazed that it did not get worse than that) and the forts are cracking down (there’s quite a number of combat engineers participating in the siege now). I guess he will be able to attack again soon, maybe even tomorrow, but more likely in a day or two (some of his units crossed the river this turn). The spirits of the defenders are still high, but I think that Karachi will not last much longer. But in any case, it lasted longer than I expected anyway.

In other news from India, the main thing to report is that Nemo has now started to reduce Delhi airfield (which I used to rotate level bombers in from and out to Aden and to provide some occasional ground support to the defenders of Karachi) systematically, the intensity is now sufficient to accumulate damage over time because my engineers can’t keep up any more. I had sent a base force north to Peshawar (sp?) (lvl3 AF) a number of turns ago, which has arrived there by now, I can use that base for ground support purposes for a while, but the air is getting thin. Also, he is in process of closing Diamond harbor AF, leaving Dacca as the only operational AF which is really close to Karachi.

The second theatre in which there are things to report is Russia. I’m not sure when I posted the last map of that battlefield, so I attach one below. Note the tank unit at Ulan Ude. I currently lack the strength to push it out of that hex and may not attack it from the air, whereas he is too weak to take me on as well.

The red circles show where parts of Nemo’s para division are presently known to be located (probably there are some more at Yakutsk, but that should be only a few and they may have been moved back to Aldan, as in this mod one of the pioneering nations in parachute attacks (Russia) does not have any paratroopers there is no need to guard the rear for Japan in this theater).

The fragment near Tamsag is small and was forced out of the hex. At Okha, Nemo tried to reinforce (or move out ? I think that’s not possible), but lots of transports were intercepted or damaged by AAA. Unfortunately, again there do not seem to be many lost transport planes according to the tracker (is that plane loss list complete, Damian ?), wouldn’t it have been nice to really cripple his transport planes? Well, I guess it was not to be this time.

But the attackers decided to try to get back to a Russian base and left Okha. I was actually surprised that this happened without any combat taking place, but so be it. In any case, significant parts of Nemo’s para division are not doing well. A third, possibly also not unsignificant part is at Aldan. I’ll know better next turn, because a fragment of 101 Mountain division (about 100 AV) which was 15 miles from Aldan when the base was taken will finally attack then.

The green and blue circles are units trying to cut me off at some more places. Unfortunately, I may attack only the ones in the blue circles from the air. The green circle reportedly contains one unit, the more northern of the blue circles right now contains a single unit, the other one 7 (according to cursor intel). Fortunately, I can guard the river crossing using troops from Mogocha. But getting more units out of Kuysyshevka back to safety is getting more and more difficult.

For the record: It looks as if fragments of units whose parent unit suffers a bombardment attack in another hex cannot be moved (at least if there are other units present in the hex they originate from).

Other actions in Russia involved a Pe 2-attack…
[font="Courier New"]Day Air attack on Shikuka [Sakhalin] , at 74,31
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zeke x 31
A6M2-N Rufe-FF x 2

Allied aircraft
Pe-2 x 26
R-12 x 3

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zeke: 5 destroyed, 6 damaged
A6M2-N Rufe-FF: 1 destroyed
L2D2 Tabby: 3 destroyed
Ki-21-II Sally: 3 destroyed
G4M1 Betty: 2 destroyed
B5N2 Kate: 2 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
Pe-2: 4 damaged
R-12: 1 destroyed

Airbase hits 10
Runway hits 14[/font]

The wonder weapon is effective once again and turns the air loss tables in my favour – 51 Japanese AC downed vs. 37 Allied.

Ok, that’s the update. Now, I can start looking at the next turn…

Thanks for your interest
Hartwig

Gentlemen,

just to keep you informed: We did another turn already, the AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 06/19/42 are the basis for this post (and the ball is back in Nemo's court since yesterday evening). I can comment a little less than usual, as Nemo did not include the .001 file but only the combat results, but I don't think that matters much.

At Aldan, I got a 0:1 result, even though I had more AV and my troops received air to ground support (out of the first coastal russian base from which level bombers can operate - this is the one where I had expected Nemo's hammer to fall, not Okha, which is still lvl 1- which makes this allowable.). In addition, I had believed that the fragment moved there would be short on support troops. But the fatigue of my attackers was considerable, so I guess I can't really complain abput the electronic dice.

In India, I did the first successful march through an enemy unit. It really would have been so easy to add some units from Delhi to Calcutta's defense force, but the finesse of ground movement creating this opportunity was not know to me. Well, now it is. (Speaking of finesse of ground movement - I am currently completely lost with respect to that aspect in AE )

In general, air losses were 27:23 in my favor (courtesy of Pe2, of course). I like the ratio, but would prefer higher totals. Working on that.

One good thing is that the tracker showed 7 Ki264-L lost this turn due to op losses. Maybe that's the ones which were intercepted at Okha two turns ago. I like it when Nemo loses expensive planes.

Ok, I think that's about all I want to say right now. Let's see whether we'll be able to maintain our current speed...

Thanks for your continued interest

Hartwig

Gentlemen,

I sent the last turn to Nemo >4 weeks ago and received no answer, even though I triggered /resent about two weeks ago. Thus I assume this was it... a pity, because it was a thrilling experience to play as good a player as Nemo. I would like to thank him very much for devoting time to my utter deconstruction [:)] and tolerating my feeble attempts to resist. After all, I believe I may even have achieved a thing or two, even though I have blundered much more often.

I'm sorry that I was not a suitable opponent to keep this game interesting for him. The only thing I can say as an apology is that I mentioned all my drawbacks right from the start.

I hope that in spite of the fragmentary nature of my AAR I was able to entertain my appreciated readers a bit.

Thanks for your interest - maybe some of you will continue to show it occasionally on my occasional AE AAR.

Hartwig

Sorry to see this end Hartwig, this was a lot of fun to watch.

Ditto as per pat.casey.
 
Your opponent has found a new toy, EDBTR, where he has started an AAR.  However even that AAR has slowed down considerably so there are likely to be other factors than your own play which would explain the demise of this AAR.
 
Alfred