Proposal for CHS - Remove the Zero bonus. Any opinions?

[witpqs]

Bravo, Dereck.

[witpqs]

BigB,

I thought the Sweep mission type gave some type of a statistical advantage to the attacker (the sweepers, as it were)?

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: pauk

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

Anyone able to help with testing along these lines?

Andrew

Greetings, why not ask people who are playing first few months of campaign to post A2A losses? I think this is a good idea, better than testing - let's see how really look in the game.

Here is mine, if helps.

I'm very careful with my pilots, always tried to achive numerical supperiority. Good leaders are in charge in every group if it is possible. So yes, i can consider myself as a Airforce fanboy. Those who played with me can confirm this (so i'm not a bad player when we talking about Air combat). And my opponent is very skilled.

From screen you can see that actually losses are not near 8-1, not even close. Of course, not that all of my Zeros shot down by enemy fighters (enemy bombers can claim some), but this is what you will get in the game.

To be honest, i easily crushed his AVG because every time i had numerical advantage...

[:)]



EDIT: it is a stock game...

Not a bad idea, I'm running another test currently in which I will use air management as much as possible, with the idea of trying to keep each contest even and opponents fresh so attrition and fatigue will not figure into - as much as possible.

[Black Mamba 1942]

In this, it is not for historical accuracy. I'll be the first to admit that.
It is a question of play balance however.
Since the majority of players DO NOT restrain themsleves in the usage of AK's.[;)]
The only way to stop it, is to take them out for play balance.

Then I hear, but they really have that many merchant ships.
Of course they do.[;)] I'm not disputing that.

Except that all those AK's were not being used to form massive invasion TF's.
Instead they were being used to move supplies and resources.
Except they aren't being used that way in WITP.[;)]
This is the point I'm trying to get across.

My reply then is this. Why does Mogami park 300 AK's in his games?
It's because there are supplies already in place, and he doesn't "feel" that's it's right to use all those extra AK's for amphibious operations. So he puts them in mothball.
It's his way of balancing out the over abundance of transport. It's a good idea.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Black Mamba 1942

In this, it is not for historical accuracy. I'll be the first to admit that.
It is a question of play balance however.
Since the majority of players DO NOT restrain themsleves in the usage of AK's.[;)]
The only way to stop it, is to take them out for play balance.

Then I hear, but they really have that many merchant ships.
Of course they do.[;)] I'm not disputing that.

Except that all those AK's were not being used to form massive invasion TF's.
Instead they were being used to move supplies and resources.
Except they aren't being used that way in WITP.[;)]
This is the point I'm trying to get across.

My reply then is this. Why does Mogami park 300 AK's in his games?
It's because there are supplies already in place, and he doesn't "feel" that's it's right to use all those extra AK's for amphibious operations. So he puts them in mothball.
It's his way of balancing out the over abundance of transport. It's a good idea.

Or you can castrate non military AKs like I did in my Hack Job test mod.[:D] Pretty useless for anything but supply/resource movement. Of course I think I should have left some Japanese civilian AKs with original capacities for amphib ops because they were used in this role, however inefficiently.

Upping the load cost of units and equipment was a bit too severe as well. I like my idea, I just used to big a correction but that was the point.

[tsimmonds]

Comparing the two, pry's mod cuts shipping capacity more, especially AP's. I think the AP's might be cut too much.

No, there's still plenty of AP capacity in Pry's mods; there was enough for me to take Singapore, Kendari, Brunei, Miri, half of Luzon, all of Mindinao, Midway, Wake, Guam, all of New Britain, most of the Solomons, Port Moresby, Lae, Buna, Gili Gili, and Luganville, with ops underway to take Efate, Noumea, Nandi, Suva, Menado, Kendari, Amboina and Timor, all by Feb 1. No shortage of AP capacity, even with the reductions.

Or you can castrate non military AKs like I did in my Hack Job test mod. Pretty useless for anything but supply/resource movement. Of course I think I should have left some Japanese civilian AKs with original capacities for amphib ops because they were used in this role, however inefficiently.

Cutting the AKs hasn't really hurt me so much. In fact it rather helps as they get full of supply faster, and they don't stop loading because of the 10% rule. It is the reduced AP capacity combined with the doubled load costs of LCUs. At the schwerpunkte it's LCUs I'm short of (especially support units), not supply. You want to hurt IJ in the AK department, leave them full-size and get rid of about 2/3s of them.

[Wallymanowar]

ORIGINAL: dereck

ORIGINAL: Black Mamba 1942

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker




How's that?

I've tried Pry's scenarios, and I like them.
It's the quanity of AK's that blows the shipping capability out of proportion.
Cut each sides quanity by 50% across the board for AK's.
The supply issue is "null and void", if you only have limited shipping available to move things.

Don't worry about the Zero bonus, this issue is more important in determining the pace of the game.[;)]

The only problem with this "revisionism" is that the Americans DID have that many cargo ships. They also were on average twice the capacity of Japanese cargo ships which averaged between 2,500-3,500 tons. The Americans also had the ability as early as early 1942 to load and unload cargo vessels twice as fast as the Japanese even in combat zones.

The problem isn't with the amount of ships or the amount of supply but with people's STYLES of play. You conduct blitzes all across the Pacific because you don't have the same state of mind as real commanders (on ALL sides) did during the war and in which they were CAUTIOUS. You don't wait to build up bases, supplies, intelligence, etc because you know what's out there already and don't have the same level of concern over your cyber-ships, cyber-soldiers, cyber-airmen and cyber-sailors as the real life commanders. If you screw up it's just a game but if they screwed up the results would be devestating.

I'm playing the AI and I'm playing pretty conservatively much like the real life commanders. I build up my logistics, my bases and gather my troops as well as repair ships and things haven't gone too fast. The only thing I did a-historically was to invade Iwo Jima in November 1944 to have a fighter base close to Japan since night bombing wasn't doing squat.

You're trying to change the game -- and at the same time say it's for historical sake (hypocracy) -- when the real problem are the play styles used.

[&o][&o][&o]

I couldn't agree with you more.

This whole arguement about getting rid of the Zero Bonus is a great example of this. The Bonus is there to compensate for the various styles of play that players use precisely because they know more about the capabilities of the Zero than the Allied commanders of the time knew. If you dumb down the Zero to erase the Bonus or just get rid of the Bonus then you are giving your AI pilots an advantage over the Zero that pilots of the time didn't have. The tactics of Allied pilots of that period were based on their experiences of the time - what they faced when the Zeros came upon them was a complete rethinking of the tactics that they already knew and it took them up to a year to adjust.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Comparing the two, pry's mod cuts shipping capacity more, especially AP's. I think the AP's might be cut too much.

No, there's still plenty of AP capacity in Pry's mods; there was enough for me to take Singapore, Kendari, Brunei, Miri, half of Luzon, all of Mindinao, Midway, Wake, Guam, all of New Britain, most of the Solomons, Port Moresby, Lae, Buna, Gili Gili, and Luganville, with ops underway to take Efate, Noumea, Nandi, Suva, Menado, Kendari, Amboina and Timor, all by Feb 1. No shortage of AP capacity, even with the reductions.

Or you can castrate non military AKs like I did in my Hack Job test mod. Pretty useless for anything but supply/resource movement. Of course I think I should have left some Japanese civilian AKs with original capacities for amphib ops because they were used in this role, however inefficiently.

Cutting the AKs hasn't really hurt me so much. In fact it rather helps as they get full of supply faster, and they don't stop loading because of the 10% rule. It is the reduced AP capacity combined with the doubled load costs of LCUs. At the schwerpunkte it's LCUs I'm short of (especially support units), not supply. You want to hurt IJ in the AK department, leave them full-size and get rid of about 2/3s of them.

The APs were not reduced in this hack job, just civilian AKs. What you are seeing are the various types of APs Japan had, many of which were sort of small and ratty, that CHS put in (at the universal reduced Caps as per CHS and Pry's scenarios). The device load cost increases are also playing havoc with the caps, even though Japan's device increases were smaller than those applied to the Allies.

[Big B]

The latest test result posted below under the same conditions as previous:
Japanese flying at 10,000' from Tainan to Manila
P40s Cap 90% at 15,000'
I was careful to manage air crews so no combat was on consecutive days, no fatigue over 10%. Combat odds maintained at as close to 1 to 1 as I could arrange (occasionally 1.5 or 2 to 1 -beyond my control).

End result 133 to 34 in favor of the Zero. These tests have been run under conditions of maximum advantage to the P40 groups, the next batch I will arrange for the Zero units to operate out of Aparri, and the P40 units to sweep them from Clark from Dec 7 till Jan1, with no advantage in numbers or Alt., This is as even as I can think of.

For those tired of this subject, all I can say is "we all might learn something, you may change your mind or I may become it's biggest advocate" - keep an open mind.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Comparing the two, pry's mod cuts shipping capacity more, especially AP's. I think the AP's might be cut too much.

No, there's still plenty of AP capacity in Pry's mods; there was enough for me to take Singapore, Kendari, Brunei, Miri, half of Luzon, all of Mindinao, Midway, Wake, Guam, all of New Britain, most of the Solomons, Port Moresby, Lae, Buna, Gili Gili, and Luganville, with ops underway to take Efate, Noumea, Nandi, Suva, Menado, Kendari, Amboina and Timor, all by Feb 1. No shortage of AP capacity, even with the reductions.

Sorry for being unclear - I meant Allied (USA) AP's cut down too much.

[AmiralLaurent]

About Ron's post of the problems in simulation in WITP, I think the problem is that you have to fix a limit between playability and simulation. In WITP case, they prefered the first to the second IMOO. And (again IMOO) WITP is the best wargame I ever played but certainly not a serious simulation of the Pacific War.

A serious simulation should be called LNITP (Logistical Nightmare In The Pacific) and get rid of the supplies used in the super WITP supply changer that may change a bomb into a tank into corned beef into a Marine squad into a Corsair into a 380 mm into aviation gasoline and so on....
The opposite will be to have to load each transport with 152 boots, 800 pairs of socks, 25000 rations (including 1000 casher), 2000 grenades, 500 smoke grenades, 300 rifle cleaning kits, and so on.... Rather boring, isn't it ? Actually people has to do this in the real war but even the worst grognard will get fed up quickly.
In fact everybody that has a long experience in the military will know that in most cases when the Army will be able to deliver to you a tootbrush, it will have no toothpaste and vice-versa. More probably the brush will be in a base, the paste in another and you in a third.
Actually most people that spend the war in the Pacific suffered of some king of malnutrition at one time or another. I'm speaking here of American soldiers.

My own acceptable level of management would be to have several kinds of supplies: one generic (food, clothes and so on, used to keep the troops fed and in good mood) that will be produced by manpower points everywhere on the map and that may be used by both sides. That implies that manpower center will be present almost in every base. These produced points will be lost (consumed by the local population) if the base is not occupied by troops. And then one kind of supply per each arm/nation, that is one for US Army, one for USAAF, one for USN, one for USMC, one for RAF, and so on (with five for Japan: Army ground and air, Navy sea, ground and air)... All these supplies will be created by factories only, and these factories will be specialized. When enemy supplies are captured, the generic supply may be used but the specialized will be converted into corresponding friendly supply and divived by 5. So no more Betties finding torpedoes in Singapore, or B-17E using Chinese bombs, fuel and spare parts, and so on.

Another problem with shipping in my own opinion is that the railway system is too good. In RL life a lot of Japanese ships were busy between Japanese, Chinese and Korean ports. And same off Australia or West Coast or India. Because shipping was (and still is) by far the cheapest and more efficient way to move men and goods. Not showing the "civilian" shipping was a design choice another time to simplify the game, but in RL this shipping was a target and so needs protection and so diverts a part of the military capacities that may be used in the game.

The fact that ressource centers create supplies is a problem, in that it just negates the number one difficulty in this kind of war. In my current PBEM vs Pomphat, I invaded PH and is now advancing in the Pacific with a huge force. In this area there is no ressources and no oil and I have logistical problems and shortages.... but nothing compared to what will be the Japanese problems in the same case. Because at the same time I can almost ignore the (bigger) Army fighting in PI, DEI and Burma as it is (almost) self sufficient.

I think Mogami gave the best explanation to this. WITP is supposed to be played IN THE PACIFIC. But the problem is that it is far more easiest to play in the other parts of the map, for the reasons I give above. And so most games are played here. Actually in WITP it is easier to invade India in mid-1942 than Noumea.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Big B

The latest test result posted below under the same conditions as previous:
Japanese flying at 10,000' from Tainan to Manila
P40s Cap 90% at 15,000'
I was careful to manage air crews so no combat was on consecutive days, no fatigue over 10%. Combat odds maintained at as close to 1 to 1 as I could arrange (occasionally 1.5 or 2 to 1 -beyond my control).

Thanks again for the testing, but for a comparison against the figures quoted for combat in the DEI, the conditions need to be as similar as possible to the conditions in the DEI. I am no expert, but I assume this would include no radar at the Allied bases, little or no CAP, and no altitude advantage. Perhaps those who know more about the details of the quoted air combats involving the Zero in the DEI can provide some information.

Overall game stats are less useful as I was only interested in the combat vs Zeros in the DEI, which is what the figures quoted earlier (the 8 to 1 loss rate) were derived from. I would test this myself but I don't have the time to do so.

Andrew

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: Big B

The latest test result posted below under the same conditions as previous:
Japanese flying at 10,000' from Tainan to Manila
P40s Cap 90% at 15,000'
I was careful to manage air crews so no combat was on consecutive days, no fatigue over 10%. Combat odds maintained at as close to 1 to 1 as I could arrange (occasionally 1.5 or 2 to 1 -beyond my control).

Thanks again for the testing, but for a comparison against the figures quoted for combat in the DEI, the conditions need to be as similar as possible to the conditions in the DEI. I am no expert, but I assume this would include no radar at the Allied bases, little or no CAP, and no altitude advantage. Perhaps those who know more about the details of the quoted air combats involving the Zero in the DEI can provide some information.

Overall game stats are less useful as I was only interested in the combat vs Zeros in the DEI, which is what the figures quoted earlier (the 8 to 1 loss rate) were derived from. I would test this myself but I don't have the time to do so.

Andrew

Andrew, I was just attempting to see the Zero Bonus at its 'least' effective situations to see if it brought an overwhelmingly large number of kills in situations least favorable to Zeros.

I will look into duplicating the conditions from Admiral Laurents quote from Shore's book about FEB 42 in the DEI - but the problem so far is he has not related what those circumstances were, so it will be difficult to duplicate them for a test...

[Halsey]

ORIGINAL: irrelevantNo, there's still plenty of AP capacity in Pry's mods; there was enough for me to take Singapore, Kendari, Brunei, Miri, half of Luzon, all of Mindinao, Midway, Wake, Guam, all of New Britain, most of the Solomons, Port Moresby, Lae, Buna, Gili Gili, and Luganville, with ops underway to take Efate, Noumea, Nandi, Suva, Menado, Kendari, Amboina and Timor, all by Feb 1. No shortage of AP capacity, even with the reductions.

Irrelevants impressive use of his naval assets in that game finished WITP for me.
In two months he was able to accomplish almost all of the Japanese historical operations.
In addition he was able to start swarming into the SE Pacific. All before the end of 2/42.

Now, does anyone REALLY believe the Japanese had the capability to do all of this.
All during the same time frame. I don't, and I'll never believe that they could've.
I haven't played WITP since, and it'll probably be a long time before I even consider playing it again.

It was a masterful use of his assets, and a brilliant use of the games mechanics.
It proved to me that WITP is really AOE WITP expansion.
Nothing historical about it. Except maybe the names of ships and such.[;)]

My new name for this title is now WTFITP![:D]

Good luck to all of you gamers! Give em ell!

[pasternakski]

BUT BUT BUT Halsey! You're a pessimist! You are religiously criticizing WitP! We could go on forever debating whether P-39s should have been called P-thirtycrimes!

You, in short, are a "naysayer," you b@stard. This is a game, it's not supposed to be "historical." We all love it, and we love everybody responsible for it. I have fun playing it, and that's enough (I don't care if I never get any real sex, masturbation all over glossy porn is fine for me).

As far as your comments that there is something wrong with this game, you have no business saying anything of the kind. The "Oleg Mastruko" principle says that a savior from an as-yet-unidentified foreign land will come along and make everything right. He will have a gun that turns all critics into solid ice. We will call him "Freezus."

[tsimmonds]

About Ron's post of the problems in simulation in WITP, I think the problem is that you have to fix a limit between playability and simulation. In WITP case, they prefered the first to the second IMOO. And (again IMOO) WITP is the best wargame I ever played but certainly not a serious simulation of the Pacific War.

A trade off between playability and simulation does not have to also be a trade off between playability and realistic results. Playability does not necessarily imply that a player is basically unfettered in his actions. A few small changes (unfortunately beyond the editor's scope) could move realism streets ahead without impinging on playability in the slightest degree.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

About Ron's post of the problems in simulation in WITP, I think the problem is that you have to fix a limit between playability and simulation. In WITP case, they prefered the first to the second IMOO. And (again IMOO) WITP is the best wargame I ever played but certainly not a serious simulation of the Pacific War.

A trade off between playability and simulation does not have to also be a trade off between playability and realistic results. Playability does not necessarily imply that a player is basically unfettered in his actions. A few small changes (unfortunately beyond the editor's scope) could move realism streets ahead without impinging on playability in the slightest degree.

Hear hear.[&o]

[tsimmonds]

Irrelevants impressive use of his naval assets in that game finished WITP for me.
In two months he was able to accomplish almost all of the Japanese historical operations.
In addition he was able to start swarming into the SE Pacific. All before the end of 2/42.

Now, does anyone REALLY believe the Japanese had the capability to do all of this.
All during the same time frame. I don't, and I'll never believe that they could've.
I haven't played WITP since, and it'll probably be a long time before I even consider playing it again.

It was a masterful use of his assets, and a brilliant use of the games mechanics.
It proved to me that WITP is really AOE WITP expansion.
Nothing historical about it. Except maybe the names of ships and such.

And I thought I was showing considerable restraint. All I wanted to do was establish a credible buffer before the 4E onslaught began. Just another example of the bind that the game forces us into.

[Ron Saueracker]

Irrelevant,,,you and Halsey are old gaming buds for years. What was your favourite game to play between the two of you?

[tsimmonds]

What was your favourite game to play between the two of you?

In no particular order:

1) East Front II, which we played for probably two years during which I lost to him in scenario after scenario as the Sovs. Never could figure out a way to beat him.

2) Wellington's Victory

3) SPI's War in the Pacific, and then UV/WTFITP!

4) La Bataille de la Moskova, and later HPS's Borodino

5) Seapower II using 1:1200 miniatures

6) Campaign for North Africa

I've probably forgotten something that I really liked....