Are the Japanese now TOO powerful??

[1275psi]

Statement "japan is too powerful" is based on what?

A couple of extreme AARs?

If we had a survey of all the games, especially the PDU games, and games where Japan did not capture all resources intact, wonder what the results would be?

I would love to see how many games have allies actually ahead of the schedule

Crikies -want to use a single example to justify an example - there is an allied player on the forums who boasts of 5 victories proir to mid 42!!!!

Sorry
japan to strong -crap statement based on crap.

[1275psi]

Quote

) Jap CD units are over-rated. The only CD unit that ever did anything notable was the Defense Battallion on Wake at the beginning of the war (a US unit). And that was mainly because the IJN tried to take Wake "on the cheap". Besides that one incident, one might conclude the big (Heavy) CD units in a few major ports also accomplished their mission since nobody ever tried to take them on. As far as the Japanese CD units are concerned, they accomplished next to nothing against the invasions that challenged them - they were suppressed by the USN bombardments (the bombardments might not have knocked out the guns but they pretty much kept them from firing on the invasion forces). The alternative to Jap CDs being over-rated would be that USN bombardments are under-rated (same capabilities as IJN in spite of a much more advanced and developed doctrine).

Sure a lot of dead marines at palua really agree with that.[8|]

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: RETIRED

ORIGINAL: Mogami

The most important question though is

Does the Japanese player what to experiance historical limitations or does he want to play the "Fantasy" Campaign?  WITP allows both types to have fun (if they can find opponents) But the fantasy players will experiance more difficulty with the game engine.

Anyone who thinks it is ok to train pilots using the bypassed base method can forget ever playing me. (If I must explain why then you'll never understand)

AMEN, Mogami, Amen.

Is it acceptable to bomb a bypassed base that has units present? If not why? If so for how long?

I don't have a problem bombing isolated units so that they attrit away quicker...but I do agree about bombing vacant isolated bases.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Przemcio231

Well 3 advices to make the game more Balanced....

1) Cancel 1st turn move bonus to anything else then KB  , Subs and TF's that land and cover ladnigs in Singora and Khota Bahru... this will not allow some lunacy strategy landing everywhere around Pacific , DEI and such this is utter B******t , yes the Allies were inpreapered and such but the japs had to keep catius and not sending to many ships out as this could trigger some response. i can't imagine that on some point allied inteligence founds out that 50% or more of japanse shipping and warships sailed out and they would sit and watch....

Perhaps we should all start playing the Dec 8th Scenario...PH is done historically and there is no move bonus...

[pauk]

ORIGINAL: 1275psi

Crikies -want to use a single example to justify an example - there is an allied player on the forums who boasts of 5 victories proir to mid 42!!!!

Bingo! Acutally i think that one of "Japan too powerful guys "stated that 5 or so his opponents dissapeared in first half of the 1942 when he kicked them.....[:D]... a bit inconsistent, eh?[;)]

[Nikademus]

the turn 1 movement bonus certainly needs to be employed conservatively and should be discussed.

[ctangus]

I'm an AFB (TM) but I also can't agree with the Japanese being too powerful.

With PzB's advantages (particularly, one front being eliminated) PzB should be challenging Andy now, as he is. I'd be disappointed in the game if he wasn't.

A limited sample, but my most advanced game is about to enter Feb 43. My opponent outplayed me early in SoPac/SWPac and I'm behind the historical timeline there. It might be frustrating to me at times, but it seems fair. He also had a failed India invasion & consequently I'm ahead of the historical timeline in Burma. Probably a little frustrating to him, but I'd say again fair.

Worried about China training? Throw CAP against the milk runs occassionally and/or spread Jap assets out by opening a new front or sending a port attack against Singapore.

Worried about production? Cut the oil/resources with subs.

While certainly improvements could still be made, the game seems well-balanced to me now.

[Jim D Burns]

Sigh… this is nuts. All the fanboys come in here and say “no way is Japan too powerful because x, y, z”. Give me a break, Japan is out producing and does out produce the allied fighter production for the entire war. THAT IS A FACT and only a Japanese player who does not know how to manipulate his production fails to achieve this easy task.

That alone is a major problem. The allies will never achieve the needed weight of numbers formula to overcome Japanese numbers because they will never have enough naval pilots or planes to do it. This is a naval warfare sim and without the needed naval pilots and planes the allies will always reach critical mass due to losses like Andy just has.

Andy did not launch 20 extra raids in his game because of India, no he launched the same raids any allied player would launch in any game whether India is Japanese controlled or not. And now it’s July 1944 and he’s reverting back to F4F air frames because he’s out of F6F air frames and his new pilots are all 30 exp ones because he’s out of trained pilots too.

Nothing can justify this production model and if you can’t see that then you are a biased and unfair player.

Quit trying to justify a broken engine and lets find a way to either fix it or make it work with what we have.

Both players need copious amounts of equipment to feed the monster the way things are right now. Japan has that equipment and the allies do not. We need to up production across the board for the allies and tweak the Japanese production up a bit too to make up for the extra losses more allied equipment will generate for them.

That or we need to severely limit Japans current unlimited production model by reverting them to a fixed pool as the allies have.

Jim

[spence]

Sure a lot of dead marines at palua really agree with that

 
 
Sure, there were a lot of marines killed at Palau and elsewhere by mortars and machine guns and light direct fire guns that engaged them within 1000 yards of the beach or so.  They were not slaughtered while embarking from their transports 5 miles offshore.  The CD guns that could reach that far were suppressed by the Allied bombardment. 
 
There are two landing phases more or less...the one where the CDs get to engage the ships and the one where the land units engage the troops which are landing.  In the first of the two phases the Japanese CDs outperform their real life counterparts by several orders of magnitude on a routine basis.  I have no problem whatever with what occurs in the second of those two phases...that seems relatively realistic; but the results the CD obtain are absurd.

[Sardonic]

I dont see it. Every game I play the allies shoot down ratios are so lopsided that building more planes only allows the
Allied pilots more aces.

Also where the hell are you guys getting all this supply?

Mogami is NOT wrong. Supply is hard to come by.

So if you have enough to fly all these planes, how did you do it?
Please enlighten us.


I have a hard time keeping my starting planes supplied

[Andy Mac]

OK guys I appreciate the thought but with the exception of a few very specific points I would argue not to rely on my game v PZB too much as a guideline for this as it is an outlier.
 
1. In that particular game I am unable to interdict Chinese training which means PZB has more trained pilots and I am unable to interfere. This is a result of PZB's conquest of India so no complaints from me on this one. (In every other game I play my number 1 strategic objective for the Chinese theatre is to interfere with that training)
2. Hellcat production as I have said several times is 30% of what it should be and this has hamstrung me.
 
These are not points of Japan being to strong but of the allies being under represented.
 
1. is an outlier and 2 is a genuine allied complaint.
 
Now a few points.
 
As I think I have made clear as the allies I have a philosophical objection to rear area training and I refuse to do it so yes I will be committing 30xp pilots to the front and I expect to lose several carriers as a result to kamikazes thats just the way it is. (I will be forced to use Marines on Carriers in Corsairs soon as well - PZB is aware of this neither of us is happy with it but its the way it is)
 
In that particular game I have not committed to carrier operations beyond those the allies undertook IRL although I was unable to follow through in the Marianas however I have in the last 4 months destroyed KB twice and I think its a sad day when sinking five fleet carriers is not worth the 200 pilots lost (I would question whether Japanese repair is to good as those carriers were repaired damned quick after the first beating but thats another issue)
 
If I was to recommend anything it would be 1. fix allied hellcat production and stop those dammed nightfighter variants. 2. USN pilot xp when thepool is empty should be at a floor of 50xp not 30 to reflect trained pilots from the Army or Marines being transferred in and given flight deck training in this way the Japanese still get a benefit from attriting thre USN pool (less 70xp pilots) but the USN does not go into the fight with 30xp pilots.
 
The example PZB used above I lost 140 USN pilots in one fight so I LOST that engagment. Thats 3 months pilots in one engagement !!!!
 
I will leave you with a warning in any game where PDU's are ON I do not see how with the current pilot numbers and hellcat production schedule and with the ability of the Japanese to produce tonies and franks to replace oscars and georges and jacks to replace land based zekes how any allied player will be able to avoid using Corsairs on every carrier in 44 from the start of 44 and using Marine pilots to assist with the massive losses the USN will take when it faces 1000 1st class interceptors rather than the dross PZB has been throwing at me.
 
I genuinely believe it is impossible unless the allies say sod it not going to attack through SWPAC or CENTPAC and go via Burma/Malaya where they can advance under a cloud of LBA - I think in PDU environment all allied player will decide (as I have that the poor nature of Hellcat production and USN pilot pool vulnerability.) that any other course is a waste of time which will get dammed boring for the Japanese players as the Allies dont take risky naval invasions but instead play land war in Asia 100% of the time.
 
I guess what I am saying is fix the dammed hellcats and either increase USN pilot numbers or increase the floor for untrained pilots or alternatively slow down xp gain and CAP it form supply missions for bombers and ground attack for fighters hard cap it at 55 like other training and slow down the rate of gain!!!
 
Anyway back to the war

[Andy Mac]

p.s. none of the above will stop me form being in Tokyo before the dammed Soviets Churchill would never forgive me.....I will adapt and overcome (somehow)

[Andy Mac]

p.p.s I have 2 other games approacing mid to late 43 so I will let you all know if I hit the same issue in those games. Although I suspect not SPrior doesnt use pilot training in that way and in my other game the USN is an irrelevance after the way they crushed the USN in 42/43 [:D][:D][:D]
 

[dtravel]

ORIGINAL: Feurer Krieg
If Japan IRL had taken over India and Burma and was receiving no pressure from the west, then shouldn't they have pretty decent production of airframes and training schools?

No, because in real life the Japanese did not have the culture or industrial capacity to do so. They literally could not truely conceive of the need for mass production or how to accomplish it. They have obviously since learned, but that took the complete destruction of what industrial capacity they had (starting from scratch is easier than trying to retool existing industries) and a catastrophic shock to their worldview.

Also, the game makes it way too easy to expand industry. Japan would have had to produce the machine tools to make the machine tools that would have made the armaments. The US already had a godawfully huge industrial base to begin with (we were already mass producing the machine tools to make armaments) and an industrially oriented culture and it took us five years to get up to speed.

[SamCole]

I would agree dtravel, but I would say it took less than three years to come up to speed. Starting at 12/41, by sometime about 6/44 the US was out producing all other countries combined.

[dtravel]

ORIGINAL: SamCole

I would agree dtravel, but I would say it took less than three years to come up to speed. Starting at 12/41, by sometime about 12/43 the US was out producing all other countries combined.

The ramp up to full war production began in early 1940. It accelerated after Pearl Harbor but was already underway. And while we were outproducing everyone else by the end of '43, US production continued to climb thru '44 and '45.

[Sardonic]

Then possibly, simply increaseing the allied plane production is enough of a kludge.

[Nemo121]

Jim D Burns,
 
I'd be happy to wager you that with PDU on Allied fighter numbers would greatly exceed what PzB is producing. Sure some of the fighters being produced would be a little older but they'd still be serviceable.
 
 

Nothing can justify this production model and if you can’t see that then you are a biased and unfair player.

 
Nothing like relying on hyperbole and labelling to end a discussion is there?
 
 
What IS needed rather than an all or nothing approach at one or two points is a fundamental re-appreciation of the linkages in the game and on the impacts various items have on eachother. Once that is done and an undertaking to add some code is given then a new, more responsive model can be implemented.
 
The key problem here isn't that there's too much or too little. If you actually READ what everyone is saying instead of just pushing a position you'll see that it boils down to RESPONSIVENESS...
 
How would the US respond if China fell, if India fell, if day fighter losses climbed but night fighters remained almost untouched, if navy pilot pools were running low but there were a lot of USMC pilots etc.  What needs to be done is to figure out all the varied triggers and then figure out reasonable responses. With that done the programmers can put in the necessary code and implement the appropriate interactions between triggers and responses.
 
Obviously though, that won't happen and this is all just wasted breath. If anything does happen it will be a simple point fix which doesn't deal with the root causes at all.
 

[SamCole]

One way to address it is to give the US MASSIVE amounts of aircraft and pilots. If they are not needed there is no real advantage given. If, as in the PzB - Andy Mac game, one of the pools gets used a lot it will not go to zero. Certainly, if the USN needed more F6Fs and/or pilots, they would have been available. Just my thoughts. Just realized, I was talking about late models of aircraft like F6Fs and such. There really should not be much of a restriction on them, and the stock senarios really do not give enough out.

[Andrew Brown]

It is true that F6F (day fighter) build rate is too low in the stock scenarios. It was Andy's problems in his game with PzB that led me to review it and, eventually, resulted in the F6F build rate being increased in CHS.

Andrew