Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: 1EyedJacks

Hi all,

It wasn't my intent to start problems with this thread - I was just looking for general recomendations/guidlines in the China theatre as I've dumped a lot of supplies in the area, tried to use tactics similiar to what I'm familiar with in Stock/CHS/Iron Storm, and was not getting the results I was expecting.

I would again encourage more documentation and some tutorials.

ORIGINAL: goodboyladdie

And a definition of stroppy from a quick Google search, just to prove you do not look when it does not suit you:

adj. Chiefly British., -pi·er, -pi·est.
Easily offended or annoyed; ill-tempered or belligerent.

[Perhaps alteration of OBSTREPEROUS.]

[;)]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

In my brief game against Dice using EEO we have decided to move back those Japanese supply sink reinforcements 60 days to help prevent them showing up in Tokyo. I threw out having some supply sinks coming out as reinforcements vs. at start, but he doesn't feel they are that much of a problem. Thus, we are doing a restart with only this small modification.

I would also recommend more information on the supply sink issue as they seem to be a sticking point for many players.

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: goodboyladdie

And a definition of stroppy from a quick Google search, just to prove you do not look when it does not suit you:

adj. Chiefly British., -pi·er, -pi·est.
Easily offended or annoyed; ill-tempered or belligerent.

[Perhaps alteration of OBSTREPEROUS.]

[;)]

Thanks - it does sound British. And no - I don't look up things in google - never occurred to me it might be a linguistic reference.
I look in things like the OED - being trained long ago - in an era before the web (my child asks if I knew Queen Elizebeth I or II? Or if I wore blue or grey in the US Civil War - - so apparently I am really old indeed).

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

In my brief game against Dice using EEO we have decided to move back those Japanese supply sink reinforcements 60 days to help prevent them showing up in Tokyo. I threw out having some supply sinks coming out as reinforcements vs. at start, but he doesn't feel they are that much of a problem. Thus, we are doing a restart with only this small modification.

I would also recommend more information on the supply sink issue as they seem to be a sticking point for many players.

I don't think supply sinks are an issue in China. In fact, to the extent there are "sucking" effects they probably work to the ADVANTAGE of players in China. But that requires one to think in terms of working with the system.

But in general I am not aware of ANY supply sink probems of PLAYERS - as opposed to theorists. The last report was about Kuala Lumpur - and it was broken up. If there is a CURRENT sink that is a problem ANYWHERE - please start a thread or otherwise advise me about it.

For example - if Japanese sinks show up too soon - we will delay them. I may be taking places too fast - and the sinks need to show up a conservative but reasonable period AFTER the place is taken. So far I have NEVER seen a sink show up in Tokyo- I always take the place sooner.

ORIGINAL: goodboyladdie

Before the last game ended after almost a month I had pink in San Diego, Utah and San Francisco (50-60,000 tons in each) and was red everywhere else, ie under 7,000 tons (except New Orleans and three or four Canadian bases). I had not been too generous sending stuff out either. I was looking at trying to assemble at least 100,000 tons for a Pearl Harbor reinforcement/resupply and had to switch off HI and all the various shipyards across CONUS to try to do this. This was wrong in my opinion. I know I have been spoilt by stock and CHS and all the other mods I have played, but all the aircraft orders/plans and shipbuilding for the next 3-4 years was already planned, with necessary building/upgrades/changes of use underway. It's the one place on the map where it should not be that tight, as the creation of the Arsenal of Freedom was well underway and the US was equipped to supply in increasing volume. As it was I was looking at a very heavy investment in supply for up to three years. I did not need the supply sinks to force me to learn to manage supply/balance priorities.

ORIGINAL: grumbler

I am just getting into RHS (playing the Allies against the AI using scenario 76, the Japan-AI-optimized version of the EOS scenario) and I like a lot of what has been done in RHS.  My problem is that the AI is not conquering territory nearly fast enough, and nothing like what it does in stock or CHS.

REPLY: There is a variation of AIO attempting to help address this: it is MAIO - Modified AIO. AIO was a simple modification of EOS - and it is "AI oriented" only in that it gets rid of things AI cannot use (e.g. active Russians and interior river systems) - and in that it gives AI more pieces on the board to play with (or better pieces). It uses a strategy (Central Pacific offensive) that AI does not implement well. MAIO changes this to a different one slightly more effective with AI. I do not know why AI might be slower than stock is when it has more stuff to play with? AI is slot oriented - and mostly the stuff is the same in the same slots.

For instance, it is mid-March, and the AI has moved about 65,000 troops into the Singapore hex, but has nowhere near the strength to take it, even though they have been there for a month.  I made the Japanese side temporarily human-controlled to try to figure out what was happening, and found no additional troops prepping for Singapore (in fact, the AI was pulling troop out of Malaya and sending them back to IndoChina) and nothing prepping for anywhere in the DEI except Tarakan (which the Japanese took early and then stalled at).

REPLY: This is easier to understand. AI has a simple "strategy" - "enter the hex, kill local production, starve the enemy for months, then attack with fresh troops" - and this is exactly the same in stock too. It may be the Allies are stronger for some reason - but that is how AI takes everything of any size. More likely the Japanese are weaker logistically - I took out half the AKs - and AI is a horrible shipping manager. It wastes 5/6 of ship capacity doing stupid things: running empty, running almost empty, running with no fuel at 1 hex per day, going where it is not needed.

Is this scenario simply broken?  That would be perfectly understandable, but I would like to try to play some AI games before some human games, just so I and my usual opponent can run a head-to-head PBEM game without being bitten by the dreaded repeated-restart bug.  I am even willing to work on the AI Japan scenario to fix it, if I can figure out what if anything is broken.

Love the mod otherwise, and look forward to playing it HTH when we figure it out.

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: goodboyladdie

Before the last game ended after almost a month I had pink in San Diego, Utah and San Francisco (50-60,000 tons in each) and was red everywhere else, ie under 7,000 tons (except New Orleans and three or four Canadian bases). I had not been too generous sending stuff out either. I was looking at trying to assemble at least 100,000 tons for a Pearl Harbor reinforcement/resupply and had to switch off HI and all the various shipyards across CONUS to try to do this. This was wrong in my opinion. I know I have been spoilt by stock and CHS and all the other mods I have played, but all the aircraft orders/plans and shipbuilding for the next 3-4 years was already planned, with necessary building/upgrades/changes of use underway. It's the one place on the map where it should not be that tight, as the creation of the Arsenal of Freedom was well underway and the US was equipped to supply in increasing volume. As it was I was looking at a very heavy investment in supply for up to three years. I did not need the supply sinks to force me to learn to manage supply/balance priorities.

The basic problem is we are not doing a clean design from scratch - and code has peculiar variations just for the US/Canadian West Coast area. In fact - it appears that land units do not move properly on the extreme map edge at all - and I have not found a workaround for this either. In supply terms - the pinkness does not have the same meaning it has in other places:

1) Normally - a location is in the pink IF it has less than twice the supplies it needs for a month

2) US West coast is in the pink if it has less than 60000 plus twice the supplies it needs for a month

That means that you can safely use the supplies. The code does this as a way to "suck" supplies out of "United States" etc.

Someone in the Forum asked for a complication - and it is a great idea - but it IS a complication: he (AK dreemer? WITPQS?) wanted supplies to grow over time. He suggested using damaged centers to make this happen. It works - BUT it is NOT automatic. I have no way to turn off anything - the player must manage it. And every time anything grows one level it eats 1000 supply points. S0 if it has a huge damaged level - 1000 or so - turn it on - and it grows for 3 years. If NOT - turn it off - and it can be turned on later when you are in the black there.

IF you follow my suggestions - this works great. Over time the supplies and fuel and HI and so on will grow to as much as 3 or 4 times initial levels. Further - the amount you "lose" paying for future growth shrinks - so late in the war you get to use almost all of it.

Note that plane and ship and unit production are NOT affected (as they would be on the other side) - these things just happen for free for the Allies. HI centers more or less matter because they make supplies and fuel - not because they make HI points - for the Allies (unless HI points are used for something). But supplies and fuel DO matter. The RHS system lets them grow - you neither must start with horribly too much - nor do you get no growth - but you do have to learn how to manage it.

One thing that matters is local production from HI centers: look at HI, resources and supply (say at Seattle). If you do NOT have TWICE the oil you do HI - there is NO production by the factories. It is the opposite in New Orleans - you will be resource short so badly that you only produce one day in three. The idea is this: IF you EXPORT resources (I want you to do that from Australia - New Zealand - New Caledonia and India - but you can do it from the US West Coast) to New Orleans you can TRIPLE local production. Similarly, if you import oil from NEI or New Orleans to US West Coast points like Seattle - you will cause local production to occur every day. This forces you to use ships for long haul transport between Australia and New Orleans - or rear area between US West coast and Gulf Coast - justifying the extra ships you got in Level 7 for exactly such cargo. YOU decide if they carry military cargo or economic cargo - or both (one in one direction - the other in the reverse direction)? But you do NOT get the production if you don't move the oil and resources where it is needed.

Note that Australia and New Zealand and India need oil - and If you send it THEY will produce from local HI plants. One player even sent oil to Manila (which starts with it in storage) - and he will NEVER lose Luzon - because it generates local resources and supplies (some of them from HI at Manila).

Note that vast amounts of supply (fuel, oil, resources) appear at the map edge - no where more than in the US West coast area (which includes New Orleans, Colon Panama, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Cagary Alberta Canada). You get thousands of them per day per location- although you don't get every one at every location. This represents off map production entering the map area. We also turned Spokane and Boise into ports - in spite of not being on water - because AI sends more to them that way - and they become useful air bases and so on. What this means is that if there is NO local production at all a vast amount of supply appears in this area: it is just not vast compared to what you need - particularly later in the war. The supply situation must be managed - and involves loading cargo every day - deciding where to turn things on or off every few days - etc. If done well you can export all the time and you will grow the economy hundreds of per cent. If done without regard for what works (sending resources to New Orleans works - sending oil to Seattle works) - you not only won't export much from several locations - you won't grow either. This is realistic. There were requirements for shipping for the US economy. And the Allies did a good job of sending ships with wholly different cargos on different legs of their voyages (Japan did badly - mostly ships went empty half the time). The Allies also did a lot of "triangle routing" - troops on one leg - resources on the next leg - and supplies or fuel on the final leg. You are allowed to do such things - greatly increasing your shipping efficiency - and resulting in more of what you need where you need it. The trade offs of this ship at that speed over that distance for such and such a cargo set - are all yours to manage.

ORIGINAL: el cid again

One thing that matters is local production from HI centers: look at HI, resources and supply (say at Seattle). If you do NOT have TWICE the oil you do HI - there is NO production by the factories. It is the opposite in New Orleans - you will be resource short so badly that you only produce one day in three. The idea is this: IF you EXPORT resources (I want you to do that from Australia - New Zealand - New Caledonia and India - but you can do it from the US West Coast) to New Orleans you can TRIPLE local production. Similarly, if you import oil from NEI or New Orleans to US West Coast points like Seattle - you will cause local production to occur every day. This forces you to use ships for long haul transport between Australia and New Orleans - or rear area between US West coast and Gulf Coast - justifying the extra ships you got in Level 7 for exactly such cargo. YOU decide if they carry military cargo or economic cargo - or both (one in one direction - the other in the reverse direction)? But you do NOT get the production if you don't move the oil and resources where it is needed.

Note that Australia and New Zealand and India need oil - and If you send it THEY will produce from local HI plants.

ORIGINAL: goodboyladdie

I was doing all that Cid, and enjoying the challenge. My point is the US industrial ramp up should be smooth and you should not have to switch off and switch on. I am well aware that production is unaffected. My point in mentioning it was to emphasize that this smooth planned ramp up was going on historically. The main issue is whether CONUS supply sinks are necessary and whether the three year builds are already eating up the necessary "excess" supply. Are you hitting the Allied player in the pocket twice? My feeling from playing was that this was so. I loved the dynamism of the economic model and, as mentioned, was really enjoying the extra work/challenge, but I also felt I was paying a hidden tax.

ORIGINAL: goodboyladdie

Once again, are you making the Allied player pay twice? He is already paying ramp up costs well into the war, so are the supply sinks necessary? The above reply did not seem to answer...

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Cid you may be wrong on how New Orleans works. With 100 Manpower there, it eats 1000 out of the 1200 "free" Resources per day. Thus, you don't get any significant HI production until you start shipping in massive amount of resources.

In regards to the West Coast bases, another issue is what base (I'm planning to "try" to use San Fran) can you be pretty assured to have over twice the minimum supply level so your LCU can accept replacements and/or repair damaged squads. With the way the Pacific Northwest operates as various bases have Resources and other things repaired, it doesn't ensure that Seattle will stay out of the pink to allow LCU fill out.