Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: crsutton

You have traded six for four. Congratulations you are winning the game...Carry on.

^^ What he said!

In a 3x2 game that is into late 1942 and we have decimated each other's carrier forces. That is a win for the allies, although they can't do much without LBA covering until the shiny new stuff comes out in the middle of 1943.

Of course, the IJN FanBoy in me is happy if I can sink that many without losing more than one CVL...

ORIGINAL: crsutton

You have traded six for four. Congratulations you are winning the game...Carry on.

+1

Especially if any of the 4 are from Akagi, Kaga, Shok, Zuik, or Hiryu. The IJ gets only one CV with capacity over 70 after game start ...

ORIGINAL: wdolson


You lost one more British carrier than they did historically, but that's not going to tip the balance of power in any significant way.

Bill

Yeah the Saratoga, Enterprise and Formidable were lost because I forgot to give them orders to withdraw and stayed in dangerous waters for too long. I guess admirals and generals have forgotten about their deployed units in the field and forgot about them

But yeah no reload.. regardless. Keep calm and carry (hehe) on.

I just want to say that I extremely admire that you won't restart against the AI. In my games against the AI I have restarted only once or twice and that was because they were the first games I had played and I vowed since day 1 to NEVER reload. Since then, its April of '42 and entire KB is still kicking... I call that a good campaign so far for noobish me[:D] But I will admit right now that facing the AI and playing a PBEM are two different beasts entirely. The AI sometimes does a really cool thing that I never thought it would do (for me it was raiding convoys north of the home islands and doing a port attack on Truk in early '42) but playing against a human is so much more challenging and unpredictable.

Once in a while you might want to save the game, reload, try something different, and then go back to the original save once you're done experimenting. That way you'll learn better tactics.

Cheers,
CC

I only once reloaded an AI turn.... this was because a huge SF fleet with 2 BBs, 5-6 cruisers and a dozen DDs "reacted" into the Soerabaya hex....half of the fleet was sunk by mines and coast guns. Seems not singel ship escaped without any damage. Guess that was a bit "over the top" Firstly I did not know they would react this way and did not want them to do this and b) The mines and a not to great amount of coast guns seemed to be way to deadly compared to reality...


@ OP: can you describe the battles a bit how you lost those ships to the AI ? It seems it concetrated a lot of stuff and did good strikes then?

Use the orphaned air groups from the sunk carriers to assist in putting your naval air training in overdrive.

+1. You never have enough pilot training squadrons or trained pilots. Until you don't need more trained pilots, you don't have enough of them.

ORIGINAL: wneumann

Use the orphaned air groups from the sunk carriers to assist in putting your naval air training in overdrive.

+1. You never have enough pilot training squadrons or trained pilots. Until you don't need more trained pilots, you don't have enough of them.

Reloads vs the AI seems to a common theme in this thread now...

As BBF esquire adroitly pointed out you can re-load at any time without hurting its feelings; PBEM human partners of course have different opinions.

--

I would argue that the spirit of a 'no reload challenge' is clearly a harder game because simply you must remain focused on the tactical details as CINCPAC; it makes it harder to recover from mistakes or the mistakes may delays plans.

"No reload challenge" is a very simple method to give the AI the benefit of a slight edge given it must think in linear terms; Is condition XX fulfilled Y/N then if Y = this action then if N = this action.

At the end of the day "No Re-Load challenges" really comes down to "your own house rules":

1) Pure no re-load no matter what

2) Reload due to omission of orders that had no bearing on the results ... i.e. that is I reloaded because I intended to get a CVE TF supporting supply ships TF on route to Suva and there was no impact in any combat missions with any of these ships... its simple over site.

3) Reload due to omission of order that had bearing on results of combat. i.e. I intended this LBA sq to provide LRCAP forgot to order it up. Changes results i.e. damage to ships.

--

After reading the manual, reading the newbie FAQ, reading a number of AARs and playing the tutorials... in my first GC I intended to select #1..

I thought it was the best approach to get a fair historical result and the damned consequences were on me.

I ended up playing #2.

Some players may choose #3.

Simply its a game and a hobby; I realized that striving to be perfect is not required unless <my / your> OCD shines through [8D]

'Grinding through' a self imposed house rule would have built up inside of me till I scrapped the game and re-started.

I would have never progressed - I would have been in perpetual re-start mode because I didn't 'optimize' my moves.

Perhaps that is what causes a lot of new players to drop out or loose traction in this game??

It is a long game full of patience and my personal OCD is tested every turn I fire up....

<<thanks to the regulars here - you can find so many tidbits of wisdom. The Naval Pilot training suggestion above is another way to optimize your results which appeals to the OCD behavior in me....but I would have never thought of myself >>

There is a fourth reason to consider reloads - you intended to learn something by giving a particular set of orders and you wanted to test an alternate set of orders. The idea is not to keep the best outcome, but to learn how the game works in all its wonderful complexity. I have been at it for years and still find things to experiment with. e.g. I worked out that Chinese troops need a 10:1 raw AV advantage over Japanese infantry to have any chance of success. If the terrain or forts favour the Japanese, an even higher ratio is needed. If the Japanese have tanks and the Chinese have no A/T guns - fuggeddabouttit.

There is a fourth reason to consider reloads - you intended to learn something by giving a particular set of orders and you wanted to test an alternate set of orders. The idea is not to keep the best outcome, but to learn how the game works in all its wonderful complexity.

+1

That is why I played a frw of the scenarios. My personal goal was to at least have a draw with them before starting the big game. I thought that was enough tactical and strategic training.

I also think I will feel more pride and satisfactiion to know I managed to recover (hopefully) from serious mistakes and blows and win it in the end when the year 1946 comes.

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

There is a fourth reason to consider reloads - you intended to learn something by giving a particular set of orders and you wanted to test an alternate set of orders. The idea is not to keep the best outcome, but to learn how the game works in all its wonderful complexity. I have been at it for years and still find things to experiment with. e.g. I worked out that Chinese troops need a 10:1 raw AV advantage over Japanese infantry to have any chance of success. If the terrain or forts favour the Japanese, an even higher ratio is needed. If the Japanese have tanks and the Chinese have no A/T guns - fuggeddabouttit.

I haven't found that to be true. The AI Japanese can easily be overcome in China with 1.5 to one odds or even less.

Not by attacking, but by moving into base hexes with more than the AI can dislodge.

It will attack and attack and attack until it kills itself off.

In my current game I moved 3200 AV into Hankow with an IJA stack of 23 units occupying it with an AV of 2700.

After weeks of doing nothing but bombarding I now have 3100 AV to the enemies 700 AV.

Every time the Japanese recover to about 900-1100 AV they attack again reducing themselves to 500 AV.

The AI simply doesn't know how to conduct land warfare.

Soon I'll make the attack that takes the hex.

Hey, dude, I feel sad about your loss. But I think my situation is even worse. It's only mid 1942, and I've lost all carriers I currently get. The Japs took Moresby, Philippine and singapore. On the good side, I have all obsolete battleships survived in the pearl harbor attack, and 3 battleships were sent to Australia to protect the supply line. But, with no carriers(I do have 3 British carriers in port Blair, but they were used to protect India), I can barely defend Australia and central pacific.

Doc, you were right, then how can I fight this disease

The solution is as follows:

For Allied players - Open reinforcements screen, filter to CV/CVL/CVE

For Japanese players - Face the Imperial Palace, swear that your superior fighting spirits will break the Allied will.

ORIGINAL: HansBolter


Every time the Japanese recover to about 900-1100 AV they attack again reducing themselves to 500 AV.

The AI simply doesn't know how to conduct land warfare.

Its a script. You're taking advantage of it, but it's your game.

The AI knows what it knows. The game is both complex, covers a VERY broad area, and a very long time frame.

There are a number of ways to address the Hankow script, but it takes a fair amount of time to write those scripts. Given that only one person is writing everything, he can't possibly address every loophole.

I try not to exploit holes in the scripts. I'm even working on plugging the gaps. I'm not nearly as good as Andy, but the new editor is a HUGE help. Every game gets better...

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

The solution is as follows:

For Allied players - Open reinforcements screen, filter to CV/CVL/CVE

For Japanese players - Face the Imperial Palace, swear that your superior fighting spirits will break the Allied will.

For Jap players - convert every merchant ship into a kamkikaze ship. You think a Montana class BB can handle a Tonan Whaler laden with long lances?

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: HansBolter


Every time the Japanese recover to about 900-1100 AV they attack again reducing themselves to 500 AV.

The AI simply doesn't know how to conduct land warfare.

Its a script. You're taking advantage of it, but it's your game.

The AI knows what it knows. The game is both complex, covers a VERY broad area, and a very long time frame.

There are a number of ways to address the Hankow script, but it takes a fair amount of time to write those scripts. Given that only one person is writing everything, he can't possibly address every loophole.

I try not to exploit holes in the scripts. I'm even working on plugging the gaps. I'm not nearly as good as Andy, but the new editor is a HUGE help. Every game gets better...

This is similar results to what you will get if you manage to capture Noumea early in the war as the IJN. The AI will continue following its obsolete script that says move X,Y, and Z troop units to Noumea. You can virtually sink the entire allied amphibious fleet if you want to because the AI doesn't know to stop. So your only solution as an IJN player is to not try to capture Noumea in 1942 against the AI.

exactly ... OR move on to another objective to supercede that script OR lose Noumea and take it back OR ....