Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: castor troy

There´s absolutely no reason to garrison all the cities which require a garrison. I don´t think you need that many DIVISIONS to garrison a few cities. Look at France, I don´t think the German placed a division in the 10 biggest cities of the occupied territory.

Well, in fact Germany had always between 20 and 50 divisions in France during WWII, depending of the time. Part of them were keeping the coast, the other were training and occupying cities at the same time. And partisan warfare started in earnest only after D-Day.

My own home rule is that every road/rail hex used by the Japanese should be kept by a Japanese unit with some ASS value (roughly a SNLF). I bring back all Mong Cav Div from Manchoukuo and divide them in 3 and then use all troops with exp between 45 and 55, especially brigades starting with 50% of their TOE, for such garnison duty. Big cities are occupied by full divisions, brigades or regiments that will train until they are good enough to go to the line. All cities have their requirement met or are evacuated by the Japanese, that is possible only on the frontline (and I will tell it to my opponent). Then a depleted unit of the frontline will come replace them.

That leaves me with a dozen INF Div, two Tk Rgts and some INF Bdes, all with exp at 60 or above to man the frontline. Enough to hold but not enough to conquer China, and that was exactly the position on the IJN. And any advance (for example to Yenen) will need more garnisons as there will be road/rail hexes between my base and my target.

The result is rather historical to me. To have enough troops to invade a Chinese city usually requires to retire from another area, so simulating the 'rice offensives' done by the Japanese in real WWII.

My fist move in the game is to scatter troops to cover all occupied China. In day two there is a "solid supply line" from Peking to Chentgsin so I started towards Yenen with 3 DIV and a Bde (to hold the road after being split in two). When the Mongols arrived from Manchoukuo, more troops will be available to join the fray at Yenen. But this is more a raid to draw Chinese forces here than a real attempt to take the city.

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, I think when a base gets above 50 percent damage it should give birth to a Chinese Corps and revert to Chinese control.

Agree completely (I've made similar suggestions myself).

I'd agree with this as well. Some "wiggle room" is necessary while the Japanese
shuffle forces around to meet the needed levels (Odd that the opening set up doesn't
meet the garrison requirements)---but to just ignore it over time should have more
significant penalties.

Now I leave a city ungarrisoned. I surround the city with detachments of mongol cav. Up pops a chinese corps. My division moves in and kills it. Gain 100 VP. Gain experience. Repeat.

How does a Chinese corp pop up a couple hundred miles behind the lines? Where does it get its heavy weapons? Perhaps you could create a gurrilla division with individual weapons only and maybe some morters. Then it will just be easier to kill.

Freeing up a few extra SNLF's and independent brigades is not going to make that much difference. And even if you add a new rule Jap players will just transfer in a couple southern area units to cover the requirements so it will change very little.

There are much bigger problems with the games ground combat system than this in my opinion.

Moses,

The point is that you have to surround the city with something. Right now you don't you are sending that mongol cav to fight Chinese units. Your right your getting experience but you are trading for it, experience in exchange for units away from the front. According to Mr Frag many players find the trade of units at the front in exchange for red cities to be a very good trade and that is a problem if we are looking for a game that contains some degree of historical accuracy.

Sorry the first part of my post was to suggest that by changing this you just get a different set of exploits.

My real point is that it makes very little difference. You can free up some small units at low cost but these units have very little impact. If you leave big cities like Shanghie unguarded you will pay a very high cost in supplies and lost production so it is not an option that a good player would accept.

So the current rules work just fine especially in light of a quite suspect land combat model in which quite a bit else needs major work.

ORIGINAL: Djordje

Speaking of Hanoi border crossing, has anyone got more than 2 militia divisions there? I've had at least 3 border crossings with two or more chinese units, then a few movings inside Thailand, and all I got were two militia divisions (one in Hanoi and other in the base next to Hanoi).
Manual says there should be 4 militia divisions, but I've checked everywhere, all the bases, sorted list of all land based units, and those two more are nowhere to be found.

Yes. I have recieved all 4 during a PBEM game before. All 4 divisions appear at different bases, so check the other Thailand bases.

Xargun

I ignore the garrison requirement on any base with nothing important in it (HI, oil, resources) AND that is off the supply line.. All bases on the the rail line are garrisoned to allow supplies to pass through them.

Xargun

ORIGINAL: Xargun

ORIGINAL: Djordje

Speaking of Hanoi border crossing, has anyone got more than 2 militia divisions there? I've had at least 3 border crossings with two or more chinese units, then a few movings inside Thailand, and all I got were two militia divisions (one in Hanoi and other in the base next to Hanoi).
Manual says there should be 4 militia divisions, but I've checked everywhere, all the bases, sorted list of all land based units, and those two more are nowhere to be found.

Yes. I have recieved all 4 during a PBEM game before. All 4 divisions appear at different bases, so check the other Thailand bases.

Xargun

I did cross the border once, to see where the militia divisions appear: 1 in Hanoi, 1 in Haiphong (port south of it), 1 in Hue (the AF middle of Indochina) and 1 in the base N of Hanoi, where a Japanese HQ is located at start, probably Luang Prabang.
It seems to me there are very low value troops anyway, even worst than Chinese.

I garrison all of the Chines bases except for 4 small bases that are not on my supply path. I usually pull troops out of Anking(10), Kuiking(10), Paotang(10), Haichow(30). Most or these are all out in the boondocks at the end of some dirt trail and dont really matter. If I take Yunan I'll pull the troops out of Tatung(10) as well. If they are empty they don't draw supplies.

I see there's worry of where the JA fanboy sits on this issue, but I can see the Allied fanboy response as well, and that of course is forcing the JA player to garrison them all.

Quite simply as the rules are wrote, if I'm not mistaken, there is no provision for supply going around cities you may give up in this manner.

Personally I garrison the coastal ones in particular and the ones that have something to lose. There's far too many bases totally unoccupied at game's start to force this on the JA player right away. Seems to me if the historic JA are properly assigned, and it's thought the JA did well to keep those areas, then you should be able to hold off garrisoning them all until reinforcements come (I mean regular reinforcements to that theatre, not drawing them out from elsewhere). I also think ships and planes ought to count as well, because I don't think they do (Yamato in your dock? Uh - let's not uprise!).

Hi, What Japanese base in China begins the game ungarrisioned? How many have too small a garrison?

In France, the Germans did not garrison every town and village. They kept their combat troops near the invasion zones and major cities. They used speciality units such as their military police and Gestapo forces to maintain control in those areas that didn't warrant a significant defensive force. The Germans controlled the outlaying areas through terror. I don't remember the name of the village in France but the SS rounded up everyone, shoved them in a church and set it on fire in retaliation for a Resistance attack that killed some SS men. This was after D-Day. Events like these are double-sided. They serve to inflame the populace and produce more individuals willing to join the resistance but they also cower the general population making them less willing to support the resistance for fear of reprisal.

Organizing an effective paramilitary force capable of taking on combat units was impossible. Even the vaunted Resistance wasn't militarily active until D-Day. Prior to that they were primarily used to gather intelligence. To generate a paramilitary force in China with any degree of effectiveness is impossible. They might be able to live off the land but obtaining military supplies in sufficient quantity to sustain combat effectiveness would be impossible, not too mention no training or heavy weaponry.

Using front-line troops to garrison rear areas just doesn't make sense. The game doesn't model military police units and maybe it should if this is a concern for some. If a town in China is left ungarrisoned for any length of time then changing the ZOC from Japanese to Allied reflects active resistance forces and cuts off supply. Damage to industry is also a factor. But to say that Chinese peasants are going to rise in revolt and magically produce effective military units capable of defending a hex to any degree is nuts. The moment a Japanese army unit appears, the Chinese would probably cut and run, melting back into the countryside. If they stood there ground, they would be streamrolled.

Chez

Hi, The new unit would not be farmers with pitchforks.
With no Japanese garrison the Chinese would infiltrate regulars in.

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, I think when a base gets above 50 percent damage it should give birth to a Chinese Corps and revert to Chinese control.

agree! ungarrisoned bases should definitely revert back to chinese partisians! this is the reason they were garrisoned. to keep the bases and supply in japanese control!

Also remember that Japan had a very small military police organization.
One of the reasons Japan changed from square to triangle divisions IRL was to free a regiment for LOC duties in China.

Mike

Well that's general knowledge isn't it (at work anyway)? There was a good number of them with the patch prior to V1.30. I can't say for sure they're that way now, but they were prior to V1.30 like I said. Maybe when I get home I'll give another look and let you know.

Would a big Political Points penalty for ungarrisoned bases help?

That would mean you couldn't move the units to other theaters as easily (although you could pay the costs for lots of units one turn and then vacate the bases the next and go deeply negative on PPs).

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, What Japanese base in China begins the game ungarrisioned? How many have too small a garrison?

ungarrisoned:

Pakhoi
Haichow

not enough garrison:

Shanghai
Tientsin
Chengting

I garrison all bases to the amount needed and no more. Units may need to be divided to cover the most area for the least amount of assault strength. The China force is strapped for supplies to begin with so I don't need a black hole sucking up what I have. If there was a way to turn off the auto repair (Read: Supply sucking) function at damaged bases I would consider pulling out of stategically unimportant bases but since there is not I think it is a bad idea to do so.

That being said, I do pull several of the units without assault points (HQ, ART, and ENG) out of the theater and send them to the front. I don't consider this gamey since the combat units and not the support units would be the ones doing the garrisoning anyway.

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

I have noticed a disturbing trend in save games that I get.

Curious just how many folks playing Japan ignore the Garrison Requirements in the China area and constantly run with locations in the red freeing up troops for action that really should be busy baby sitting.

It is possible that the penalty imposed is not severe enough to deter this type of play.

well this poll might not actually show the problem. a lot of people garrison these bases because of self-imposed house rules on themselves and what not and will vote that they do garrison the base. not because they feel they have too. therein lies the problem. we should have to garrison or suffer the consequences as the japananese did. the poll should more likely be do you think the consequences are tough enough or not. and i think most people would agree that they are not.