WitP mod v903 Ngineer(Japan) vs. Feinder(Allies)

[Feinder]

December 29th, 1942

India/Burma

Citation for conspicuous bravery and sacrifice against all odds. The crew of HMS Salmon is hereby awarded Victoria's Cross (posthumous). Having evaded the IJN for several months, and damaging several vessels in kind, on December 20th, 1942 she was relentlessly pursed by substantial elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy. She is now 6 days overdue to report in, and presumed lost. Her last reported position was 80 miles SSW of Trivandrum, India. Her contribution to the war effort cannot be overstated, as during her brief wartime patrols, she occupied nearly 1/3 of the assets of the entire Japanese Navy for almost 2 months in her pursuit, thus prohibiting their potentially decisive addition/contribution in the distant South Pacific theater.

O Eternal Lord God, who alone spreadest out the heavens, and rulest the
raging of the sea; who has compassed the waters with bounds until day and
night come to an end: Be pleased to receive into thy Almighty and most
gracious protection the persons of us thy servants, and the Fleet which we
serve. Preserve us from the dangers of the sea and of the air, and from the
violence of the enemy; that we may be a safeguard unto our most gracious
Sovereign King George and his Dominions, and a security for such as
pass on the seas upon their lawful occasions; that the inhabitants of our Island
and Commonwealth may in peace and quietness serve thee our God; and that
we may return in safety to enjoy the blessings of the land, with the fruits of our
labours, and with a thankful remembrance of thy mercies to praise and glorify
thy Holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Meanwhile, Indian continental units counter-attacked the IJN Inf-Corps occupying Trivandrum, inflicting heavy casualties. Our forces were then pulled away from the coast, to prevent enemy bombardments.

Japanese Army units, combined again with air-support and naval bombardments, continued to hit hard Chittagong. Our defenders continue to hold. RAF fighters again intercepted IJA aircraft, both RAF and Japan suffering heavy losses. RAF and RIAF squadrons have been withdrawn into the interior, until sufficient replacements are available.

[Feinder]

December 29th, 1942

China

Well, he didn't like my advance in the center (towards the industrial sites). He counter-attacked in Center, driving back my Inf-Corps. I also hit his Inf-Corp in return. Over-all, China suffering greater casualties (about 2:1). He did not mobilize against my advance on Mine on the far west.

In the north, he counter-attacked trying to cut off my advance Chinese Divisions, but I was able to withdraw the salient in good order. I was also pleasantly surprised that he did not renew his attack on Yenen, so my Comm-Chi Inf-Corp took replacements and dug in a little deeper.

[Feinder]

December 29th, 1942

Coral Sea / Solomons

Japanese naval response to my incursion was exactly as expected, but not any less lethal. He counter-attacked with air-strikes from his land-based-air and 4 carriers to damage ships (to 4x SP), to nullify their ZOC. Then attacked with surface ships to finish them off. The toll of his riposte was 4 cruisers and a destroyer (ouch, that was painful!).

My offensive opened with Medium Bombers hitting the airfield at Buna. The attacks also triggered the expected intercepts by IJN CVs (confirming that there was indeed four enemy CVs in the area). Fortunately, my new P-38s had sufficient range to escort, and were able to engage the IJN CV fighters. USAAC B-17s and RAAF Maritime Bombers also added attacks to further draw off Japanese fighters. The actual effects of the land-based bombers were largely ineffective, but their greatest value (along with their escorts), was to pull the Japanese fighters to engage them.

I was very tempted to engage his surface units with my BB/BCs. But again, it would have pushed/left my heavies very far north (eating up their movement points to enter enemy ZOCs). I was reminded of Halsey's decision to chase IJN carriers in Leyte Gulf. "Stay on mission!" was ringing in my ears.

2x USMC-Divs were landed on Guadalcanal. With a (mistaken) pre-emptive attack by the 3rd USMC Div (stupid dbl-click caused them to attack first). The SNLF-Div defenders of Lunga, were then subjected to a bombardment as was never seen in all of the real World War 2. 9x BBs and 2x BCs pounded the defenders. By comparison, there were only 3x BBs involved in Normandy. The garrison greatly reduced, the 2nd USMC-Div attacked and wiped out the remaining defenders. The 4th USMC-Div then landing unopposed. Ugh. That was a nail-biter tho, it took a LOT of shelling to reduce the garrison; I wasn't entirely confident that I would eliminate the defenders (and you can see from the maps, that he would still control the northern port. But success against Lunga, was followed by a subsequent landing on Malaita Island to the east. Marines attacked the bomber squadron there, and the port has been blockaded. I expect him to relocate the bombers next turn, but that will a least prohibit one of his two attacks; and with the port blockaded, I should be able to secure the island.

My CVs then launched many attacks against an enemy CV found at Woodlark Is. After many sorties, we were finally rewarded with confirmation that she had sunk. With only 3 remaining strikes, we turned our attention to the enemy CV at Milne Bay, including bombardments by 2x of our BCs. Interesting to note that, the strikes managed to maul Kaga's airgroup (down to 4x SPs), but did very little against the carrier itself. C'est la vie.

Our DDs then attacked a few subs along the perimeter, successfully driving the off. Having expended huge sums of bombs, and shells, we reformed a perimeter around the CVs. Our CAGs are down to 39x SPs out of 80, with several CVs having no or very few aircraft remaining at all. Our CV strikes were also set to "Bomber", as we had exhausted his intercepts; but we are now exposed without CAP. I do believe that his own airgroups have suffered heavy casualties at this point, so I'm hoping that his follow-up airstrike(s) will be as broken as my own (I have 7x CVs, vs. his 3). We'll see.

I've also pulled the Army Inf-Corps from San Cristobal; they're return to Oz to prep for their next landing. I then moved up a garrison to hold the island; I'll probably put some Fighters there to provide CAP until we can get Lunga operational.

In all, Allies lost a Destroyer and 4x Cruisers. Japan lost a CV, an SNLF-Div, and Lunga. We'll call it hard-fought victory. 4 cruisers is a high price for a CV (and he still has a counter-attack this turn). Lunga liberated!

StratMap also included.

[Feinder]

December 29th, 1942

Admin Stuff

Research, Production, Losses, and Economy

Research - Since US Prod-Tech completed, I re-added another chit, to keep it maxed out.

I'll also call out that, some of the techs are advancing VERY, VERY slowly. I don't if it's a sharing thing, but they seem far out of norm (If I recall 1 chit meant that the technology would advance after "about a year". Lets say that means +/- two or three months? I'll point out that, China in particular seems glacial. Even after buying chits for InfWeaps and LandWarfare on first turn, Inf-Weaps is only at 47% after a year; and Land-Warfare at an anemic 22% after a year. Could be crappy rolls. I don't know enough how it all works, it just seems pitifully slow centered on one country.

** The previous issue with China is addressed in subsequent post.

Production - Was torn between 2x CVLs or 2x CAs. I decided on building 2x CAs, given the fact that I just lost 4 cruisers. On the plus-side, with Production Tech now at Level-3, everything is a little cheaper.

Losses - From a MPP and NatMorale balance, he definitely took this hand. But, I think the liberation of Lunga provides a long-term gain, and I don't think he can replace his CV. Whereas, I just replaced two of the four cruisers lost.

Economy - Holding steady at 722 USA vs. 371 Japan. I hope to erode that 371 a little, if I can keep my Chinese units adjacent to the captured industrial centers. Meanwhile, we're keeping Industrial Tech at 3-chits to eventually bring us more income.

[Elessar2]

Research - Since US Prod-Tech completed, I re-added another chit, to keep it maxed out. I'll also call out that, some of the techs are advancing VERY, VERY slowly. I don't if it's a sharing thing, but they seem far out of norm (If I recall 1 chit meant that the technology would advance after "about a year". Lets say that means +/- two or three months? I'll point out that, China in particular seems glacial. Even after buying chits for InfWeaps and LandWarfare on first turn, Inf-Weaps is only at 47% after a year; and Land-Warfare at an anemic 22% after a year. Could be crappy rolls. I don't know enough how it all works, it just seems pitifully slow centered on one country.

The base chit percentages are 3 2 2 2 1, but you can get at least two maybe three for some. 2 chits here was intended to be equivalent to 1 chit in vanilla (for levels 2-4), so if you only put in 1 for China's techs that explains their slow progression. There's a bit more than 20 turns/player per year, so 3% will give you a level after about a year and a half. 2% will take about 2 years. 4% about a year. [these all assume an average of one breakthrough per level] I gave China 750 MPPs to start with so there was enough to double chit Infantry Weapons at least, tho I grasp how they might need extra units right off the bat. The mouseovers in the tech screen should display a wealth of information along those lines, including specific effects per level.

I wanted to give more flexibility as well as modeling the ramping up effect-years ago in previous game engines you could buy upwards of 5 chits!

However, the 22% for China's Land Warfare is weird, esp. if the Russians are at 92%! Unless there is some weirdness in the code, that can only be chalked up to insanely bad luck on the part of Chiang.

[Feinder]

Thanks for the explanation Ellissar. I did see the comments about 3-2-2-2-1. But frankly, I had no idea what you meant. I thought it meant something about diminishing returns. I do more-or-less get what you're saying, so just going off of 1-chit = 18 months, is good enough for me.

And I actually have all the screen-caps archived by date. So pulled all the research shots in order, and watched China... And the issue was between the Chair and Keyboard. Careful inspection of the (current) tech-level of China's Infantry Warfare shows that it is... a "1". It starts at "0". I had dbl-chitted Inf-Warfare on 12-16, and it went from 0 to 1 on June 14 (also shown in this thread). The 22% at present, is the carry-over of the second chit (still active).

So it's good to at least understand what was going on.

You do have a lot of excellent notes. I would say include a version that says,
"1 chit in a technology will advance in about 18 months"
"2 chits in a technology will advance in about 12 months"
"3 chits in a technology will advance in about 9 months" (or whatever your formula works out to be).

[Elessar2]

Good idea. Note vanilla doesn't even tell you what % your chits get you, you have to dig into the editor to find out. There should be a note in the first tech for the chit %'s.

Quick aside: I use 80% as my target to get a new level. That assumes exactly one breakthrough per level, which averages +20%-you of course might get 2 or even more, or none at all. Divide 80 by the total chit percentage, so:

80 / 2 = 40 turns, 2 years

80 / 3 = 26 turns, 1 1/3 years

80 / 4 = 20 turns, 1 year

80 / 6 = 13.3 turns, 2/3 of a year (I made L1 3% to give a quick boost to countries which are behind, for play balance).

[Feinder]

January 16th, 1943

India/Burma

He continues to attack at Chittagong, with infantry assault, and LBA. Chittagong holds, not sure how long. I have to pull back one of my Inf-Div on the flank, leaving the northern border exposed (no defenders).

In the of India, bombarded my Inf-Div that was still on the coast, and more air-strikes. Landed another Inf-Corps, and subsequently deleted another Indian Inf-Div. He then ran several missions into the interior of India. My guess is, he's scouting the East coast of India for possible invasion points. Suffice to say, there are plenty.

I really need to get the convoy of Oz/Kiwi troops to India, but at this rate, I wont be able to afford much escort, and he'd slaughter them. Dunno we'll see.

RAF fighters took replacements, and will deploy to south to try to intercept some of the Japanese airstrikes.

[Feinder]

January 16th, 1943

India/Burma

He continued to hit the Nat-Chi / Comm-Chi joint flank. Eliminated a Nat-Chi Inf-Gar and Inf-Div. I tried counter-attacking out of Yenen, and did manage to maul his IJN Inf-Corps (down to 2sp). But no kill.

Central and South China are relatively quiet. The mine in the far west continues to degrade (ref small loss in his MPPs) this turn. I'll take what I can get.

"Quiet in the Central and South..." He's obviously shifting units to hitting India, and pulled LBA into the Solomons (next post).

[Feinder]

January 16th, 1943

The Solomons

Ugh. He's moved consibly more LBA into the Solomons. Now with 2x Fighters, 2x Med-Bmbrs, 2x Tac-Bmbr, and 2x Mari-Bmbrs. He hit my fleet hard. Sank 2x CVs with just 3-strikes each. Also sank 2x DDs. He says he had "good intel". Ok. I'll come back to that.

My repost had my CVs throwing marsh-mallows. Seven Strikes by my own CVs, did only 2xSP damage to the CV parked in Milne Bay. (I'll come back to that too). My surface units were able to chase off some of his sub screen (including one kill), and sank a BB and DD to assuage my frustration. Further attempts to bombard the ported CV by 4x BBs and 2x CA, ended up being a complete waste of ammo, doing nothing at all. I consider my loss of 2x DD vs. his loss of 1x DD + 1x SS a wash. So I lost 2x CVs vs. 1x BB for him. Poor trade. And he'll be counter-attacking still.

Having cleared out out sub(s) I was able to land an Inf-Corps at Munda, and damaged his heavy-cruiser for 3x SP (over-land attacks seem to work). I then operated in two fresh USAAC Fighter squadrons, and an RAF Fighter squadron. So they can provide some air cover (hopefully).

[rant]
My current issue(s) with the situation
1. Losing two undamaged CVs in 6 strikes (3 hits each), vs. 7x strikes by my CVs against his parked CV, and doing only 2x SPs. Seriously?
2. Bombarding the CV (in port), with 4x BBs and 2x CA, yielded nothing. Attack on Mers-el-Kébir anyone? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-Kébir
3. On intel... Ok. So evidently, one can tell the Supply-Readiness-Morale of enemy units, by scrolling over them. I'm not talking about adjacent. I move units adjacent to an enemy units, because I DON'T know things like how many SPs they have, and Supply-Readiness-Morale. All of which is important. Did you know that you can get Supply-Readiness-Morale info, simply by rolling over a spotted units (no matter the range). Evidently the counter shows a gray hyphen, if less than 50%, and thus is prime target for attack. Did you know that? I had no idea. I suppose if one knows that little tidbit, it's VERY, VERY useful. I'll file that away (altho I've already submitted the next turn, before it was mentioned, so I'm in for another drubbing). Regardless of "now I know, I can use that little trick too..." I feel like that being able to discern that info on a remote unit, is something that should NOT be revealed. Adjacent, yes. But that ability gather positive or negative readiness/morale info any unit on the board that is spotted, not matter if it's 400 miles away. I'm glad that I know that "trick" now. But it seems like a "trick" none-the-less (regardless of it's usefulness). I can't seem to reconcile that level of intel on a unit, esp by WW2 standards.
4. Which, while I'm glad that I have been shown (posthumously) this potentially huge tid-bit; it also reflects upon the ability to hide in port. As in, now it (within the mechanism of the game engine) makes sense that my seven air-strikes were nothing but throwing nerf-bombs at him. By sortie, strike, end in port, his supply-readiness-morale is not diminished. From an engine stand-point (which I realize the modders have no control over), it would seem that that there should be some advantage to the attacker when bombing/bombarding ships in port. Yes, major ports had costal guns to defend. I actually have no problem with the current damage done to attacking ships. What I do have a problem with is, the fact that attacking ships most often do very little or no damage when hitting ships in port.
[/rant]

That being said, the band played on.

[Feinder]

January 16th, 1943

Admin Stuff

Research, Production, Losses, and Economy

Research - We succeeded in USA Range-2 (yay!), and Soviets got Inf-Weaps-2 (useful in about 2 years). But no knew funding spent on research.

Production - Well. I lost 2x CVs. I bought 2x CVs. They'll be here in mid-44, but they'll be coming back eventually. I also bought the Solomons garrison. It's obvious that I'm going to have to invade every island to push out his LBA and port-sheltering strategy. Since I need the USMC and Army units to invade, the Garrisons will help keep from counter-invasions.

Losses - I've pretty much gone over the losses. My only consolation/hope is that I can attrit him before my National Morale crumbles.

Economy - On the plus-side, I pulled away by +1 MPP.

(oops, I just noticed that I forgot to upload the screen-caps)

[Elessar2]

1. Losing two undamaged CVs in 6 strikes (3 hits each), vs. 7x strikes by my CVs against his parked CV, and doing only 2x SPs. Seriously?
2. Bombarding the CV (in port), with 4x BBs and 2x CA, yielded nothing. Attack on Mers-el-Kébir anyone? -

I'll need both his and your NM levels BEFORE the battles, as well as the readiness data for both sides (since you said you were able to deduce the enemy's). Welcome to my world-a mere 20-30% (or even 40%) difference in NM levels (esp. if 110 to 80 say) should NOT translate to such yawning differences in outcomes. Yeah if he still is 1 up on your NW, along with the experience boost for the 4 veteran members of Kido Butai, that will help him sure. In addition, did I read correctly upthread that you guys agreed to have carriers on either Mixed or Naval, and not full CAP? That was a House Rule that OCB & I used (light carriers tho could be set to full CAP).

But I am deeply puzzled (and share your frustration) by your inability to do any damage to that ship in the port since I deliberately made sure to bump up the chance of such damage from vanilla's piddly 10% to the current 40% (and that can yes be increased by levels of Naval Weapons, +10% per level, and you said you now have L1). To have done NO damage in 6 strikes would be a 1.5% chance-I think we can chalk that up to the Random Number Gods, tho I certainly can bump the base default to 50%.

[Feinder]

I'll see to get screen caps of the NM when i get the tun back. FWIW its not -me- that can read readiness and morale. Ngineer said when you hover over any spotted unit, if the target is not adjacent you can still tell if ready or morale is less than 50% because the hypen will be gray. Of course, i've already submitted the turn, so more drubbing to follow.

I,ve been playing this game for 3 years and never knew that little trick. I dont know if its "by design" or "by accident". But thats some massive/crucial info being provided but only to the player who actually knows to look for it.

[Feinder]

"I deliberately made sure to bump up the chance of such damage from vanilla's piddly 10% to the current 40% " - Ellissar...

And to be fair here... Would that increase also increase the chance to damage all units (Naval, Air, and Ground)? I would concur with the increase percentage to damage a ship.

And ideally, planes suffer additional damage as well - USMC and USAAC squadrons were regularly mauled by IJN bombardments at Guadalcanal (at night). I would say "less so" (than naval), because not all bombardments are at night, and thus planes would have the opportunity to scramble.

For Ground units, I would actually like to see the impact of naval bombardment slightly lessened. I say that knowing full well that I'm going to NEED heavy bombardments to as I (hopefully) move onto the offensive in the game. I don't know if there's a way to have naval bombardments reduce forts, cause ready/morale loss, but actually do FEWER step losses. As in, a Ground unit under bombardment might have the odds to suffer 2 or maybe 3 SPs, but would suffer substantial loss to readiness and morale. (I feel rather the same about LBA actually). I don't think one should be able to delete Ground units with Bombardments or Bombs. All of the great offensives have proven that massive bombardments still only create actual casualties of maybe 20%. It actually takes assault troops to capture ground.

So the prior paragraph(s) are to say, "Can a change that would increase the odds of damaging ships (in port) be accomplished on a different level than doing damage to ground units?" If the "percent to damage a target SP during bombardment" applies equally Naval/Air/Ground units, it's worth considering the ramifications on the other unit types.

[Elessar2]

And to be fair here... Would that increase also increase the chance to damage all units (Naval, Air, and Ground)? I would concur with the increase percentage to damage a ship.

No way to differentiate, alas...

So the prior paragraph(s) are to say, "Can a change that would increase the odds of damaging ships (in port) be accomplished on a different level than doing damage to ground units?" If the "percent to damage a target SP during bombardment" applies equally Naval/Air/Ground units, it's worth considering the ramifications on the other unit types.

As said, nope.

Yes, I upped the damage side of shore bombardments precisely because of the change c. 10 patches ago which eliminated extra attacks while at sea for Amphibs. Without that it may prove to be very difficult to take out single hex islands; carriers won't have the punch, and you'd need to be in range of LBA to get a few hits there. Otherwise anybody planning such an invasion would need c. 3 amphibs to take out one such target. Note vanilla's direct SB damage was extremely meager. We'll see how it plays out for you before promising any changes.

Note I have been otherwise fully and philosophically in favor of more morale hits and fewer strength point hits. Given the rain attacks for LBA I will thus do what I had already planned for my Euro map, and reduce direct damage for planes (tho there isn't much room for that in the defaults, just -0.5 across the board).

[Feinder]

Just got the turn back. Lost another CV, a BB, and 2x DDs. Ugh.
Anyway, done is done. I'll be pulling my fleet back this turn.

Ellissar -

Current National Moral percentages are

UK - 86
US - 73
USSR - 63
China - 63
India - 93
Oz - 95
Japan - 106

From those number, I'd guess they are very close from last turn. As in, losing a USN CV and BB, isn't going to drop the US NatMorale down by 2 full percentage points (which is where the breakpoint is for NM affects). Same for Japan. It's at 106, it's below the threshold for the next bonus at 110.

From the manual:
If National Morale < 40% then Unit Morale is multiplied by 0.85.
If National Morale < 75% then Unit Morale is multiplied by 0.90. USA would be here
If National Morale < 95% then Unit Morale is multiplied by 0.95.
If National Morale > 110% then Unit Morale is multiplied by 1.10.

[If National Morale >= 95% and National Morale <= 110%] then Unit Morale is multiplied by 1 (no change). Japan would be here.

I would say that "tactically" the National Morale was of minimal impact on this engagement. To give Ngineer his due credit, he REALLY knows the numbers of this game. He pointed out that, he singles out my units that were show the gray hyphen, meaning that they are low on Readiness-Morale-Supply. And he is correct, at this point, even my surviving CVs, morale-ready is in the 40s.

I think what is REALLY going on here is that,
1. My CVs (and fleet) have been in action for about 4 turns now. Their ready-morale-supply is indeed low.
2. His ships start their turn in port, sortie, attack, return to port. I honestly don't know how much ready-morale-supply is lost and recovered by ending the turn in port, but I expect his units remain fairly well topped off since the start and end their turn in port hexes.
3. Thus my units attack with an every decreasing capability, while his is effectively unchanged.
4. It would be compounded(?) by the fact that, when I hit is ships in port
a. My airstrikes attack the port, and lesser(?) to the ships actually in port. Further reduced by own ready-morale status.
b. In the case of bombardments, my ships having only a 40% chance to do a single step of damage vs the "natural odds" of him engaging me in open-water (thus offering far greater damage potential).

That is my assessment.

I'm really NOT liking the port-sortie-port mechanic. I say mechanic, because it's obviously a constraint of the game engine. Now being the wiser, I'm welcome to use the same "tactics". I hate to legitimize it by calling it a "tactic" though, as the real-world scenario would be completely ludicrous (to be able to shelter EoT with minimal opportunity for reprisal). I've actually got it in my head that, the port-sortie-port mechanic has been complained about before in either WiE or WaW. But I also can't see much that can be done about it.

Ok, here's a question... How does the Peal Harbor attack on work? Japan when attacking the US ships on DoW turn at Pearl, routinely do 4-6 SPs of damage on each hit to the USN targets there.

And for the bombardments, I don't know that I have a solution for that. I think you'd need to KEEP the 40% chance to damage a unit for bombardment, because you need it to be able to damage ground-units esp on islands. When targeting the naval units, the issue is partly the difficulty in doing damage (40%), but also the fact that you're not really going to do much damage anyway (1sp). So for bombardments, while it is very frustrating, my feed-back would be to "keep it where it is", since changing the impact for Naval units affects all types of units.

I think the real issue is, "is there anything that can be done about port-sortie-port"?

[Feinder]

Ellissar, possibly a map(?) issue with Lunga/Guadalcanal/Tulagi ...?

See screen cap.

1. The ports are all showing Axis control, including the two ports for Lunga. Shouldn't I own them? Do/Did they not convert because they're somehow "attached" to Tulagi?
2. I can't invade Tulagi, because I can't get to the hex, because all of the entry hexes are blocked by Axis controlled ports. I tried attacking/moving over-land Tulagi from Lunga, but I'm unable to do so (I don't expect that I should be able to, but I thought I'd try it, considering that I seem to be blocked otherwise).
3. Other than paras, is there some other way to invade Tulagi? I'll get Paras in like, May, but that's a long time to wait.
4. It further exacerbates the situation that
a. I cannot transport my units OFF of Lunga, since I don't own the ports.
b. I can only amphib transport units onto Lunga.
c. Because Axis "owns" the ports, my forces on the two adjacent islands are also known.
d. If I remove any units from Lunga (from amphib transport for example), he is able to replace units via Transport.

[Feinder]

Ok. And here's an example of the "intel" on non-adjacent units.
I had to hunt around, but I found a non-adjacent bad-guy with gray indicators.

Frankly, in 3 years, I never noticed this. I had no idea that this info was available. It certainly explains a lot of very painful hits (if your opponent can tell where to strike by looking for gray). I'm not sure I agree with this "feature", but it's obviously a part of the game. Would have been useful to have known this years ago.

So anyway. I know there are quite a few folks following this thread. I learned something about a very subtle bit of the game. I hope it's useful for you as well.

[Elessar2]

I believe I can decrease any port defense bonuses, that might help if you catch a unit in there. But again subs would get an edge that they shouldn't have (despite the few daring port raids that they historically pulled off), while the big gun tubs might not get the damage boost they arguably deserve.

You may indeed have been below the magic 75% mark, which likely didn't help. Again we are running into issues with the core game engine when it comes to that port dancing stuff. I wish only MAJOR ports got your supply maxed out, with minor ports only allowing a max of 8, with perhaps Logistics influencing all of that. In terms of fleet logisitical tails the IJN early on could only dream of the kind of fleet train that the USN later perfected, but again I cannot model that here in any way, supply will be maxed out upon every port entry, end of story. This is just one of many reasons why I had stopped work on this mod, because I kept running into hard limits which would keep me from doing the necessary design work to make a certain feature work in a historical fashion.

The port thing is, likewise, a long-term bedeviling issue around port control in the game engine. While there is a kludge to allow you to put a port on a full sea space, I can't always make it work and thus need to find a tiny land space so that the game engine will allow me to plop down a port there. The devs warned me about having a coast with a port on it which is not directly connected to the mainland tile (even if the "mainland" is just a one-hex island), which will negatively affect supply, so in an earlier build I fixed all of those. One trick I've often used to do that is to put a tiny island there, which you can see to the SE of Honaria. But the port to the north should have flipped once you invaded since it is connected directly to Honaria. We've run into this kind of funky weirdness with port control in many many threads over the years.

Devs, care to chime in?

[Feinder]

February 3rd, 1943

India-Burma

Well, India is about to have serious problems. He attacked in South India, drove back my HQ, moved past my Tank-Div, and occupied the city. He now has 2 ports in Southern India.

We was also "scouting" the Indian Coast with a CVL and CV (moving along the coast-line). That can't be good. He's got to stripping units from China, but there really isn't anything China can do to take advantage, because everything in China is beat up pretty bad, and Comm-Chi still teaters on the brink of capitulation.

He continues to attack at Chittagong. Ground attack, bombardment, LBA, and CV strikes. The "usual" at this point. He's definitely thinking of landing near (Calcutta or Dacca) and Vizagapatam at this point. I just don't have anything else to throw in front of him at this point.

I do have convoy from Oz ready to go India. It's a nice package, 2x Inf-Corp, 2x Inf-Div, 1x HQ (if memory serves). But it's got to have escorts, because I obviously can't afford to lose it.

I'll be very interested to see how his inevitable invasion of India plays out (and whether I can get anybody there to help stop the bleeding at this point).

In hindsight however, I would NOT have done anything differently. The "only" thing I really did was to move out the Royal Navy to assist the USN. I do think it's proved it's worth in SoPac, and I do think he would have simply crushed it with what he has in the the theater anyway (2x CV, 2x CVL, 4x BB/BC/DN). I also think that shutting down the convoys made little difference: Leaving the at-start convoys is (Oz -> India[+50] ->UK[+47]). That's a net of +3mpp per turn to India, assuming that none of it is interdicted by raiders. At 4mpp/turn x 23 turns, that 92mpp to date (which would have come from the US thru Oz). 92mpp would have bought me an Inf-Div. yes, I could really use an Inf-Div. But I could REALLY use about 6x Inf-Corps at this point.

Honestly, and neither of us knew this at the start, but India is obviously the weakest link.
USA - Ok. You could invade USA, but that probably triggers a bunch of nasty stuff. And neither of us has really thought that thru, so let's just not go there for now.
UK - You can't invade UK, there's no way to get there anyway.
USSR - No need to poke "The Bear" early.
Oz - While it's true that there aren't many Oz defenders, one is probably going to park US troops in Oz anyway, to launch offensives in SoPac, CentPac, or possibly the DEI. US troops can defend Oz (assuming that the IJA isn't in San Francisco).
China - Ok, it does make sense that China is a sick step-child, but it is true that the prolific population and plethora of Partisans, DOES slow him down. Alliteration is fun.
India - On a replay, if I was Japan, I'd seriously consider just putting a stalling force in China. And throw whatever I could against India. The "real" victory points are MPPs. There's way more MPPs to be had in India, defended by fewer troops, and only handful of Partisans to make trouble. With that in mind, if we do another play thru, the first thing I'd do is send the US troops to Oz, and pile all the Oz/Kiwi troops and send them to India. Just sayin'.

See how I made a "long" India map? Pretty cool, aye? Altho, on second thought, it wish I didn't have to.