Intellectus Ex Nihilo (Wal-Mart on Ice)

[BBfanboy]

Congrats on taking Singers back! Very efficiently done! I hope you had a chance to clear the mines before your transports come in.
Not sure where you get the figure of 106K for remaining defenders. The combat report says 73K before the battle with 5K losses, so ~ 68K left. That's about 2/3rds of the 106K. One possibility is that the AI counts the squads and multiplies by the number of men in that type of squad to get the figure for remaining troops (on IJA stack rollover) while the Combat Report has accurate info which takes into account squads that have men missing.


EDIT: I have seen this squad/men overcount before when looking at a unit I am about to load on ships. The figure for actual numbers of men in the upper center part of the LCU screen is often less than the personnel load cost at the lower left.

[Canoerebel]

I got the figure from mouseover of the base. Is mouseover more reliable than Combat Report or vice versa? I dunno.

[Canoerebel]

3/19/45

Prosecuting the End Game: Full credit for points at Singers and an effective nighttime raid on Tokyo yields a couple thousand points. Just 5.5k needed for auto victory now. That'll have to come from strategic bombing. I think that's viable. Allied raids are scoring well with minimal losses. The real problem seems to be absence of flak. I bet the AA units are defending the forward key bases.

[ITAKLinus]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I got the figure from mouseover of the base. Is mouseover more reliable than Combat Report or vice versa? I dunno.

From my experience , I'd say combat report. I usually get somehow consistent numbers in it.

Mouseover lies to me continuosly.



Maybe I simply have a peculiarly fraudulent mouseover, but my rule of thumb is: "never ever trust mouseover for troops numbers, but believe to it for LCU numbers".

I tend to trust it relatively much for the number of planes in carrier TFs, though.

[jwolf]

The real problem [for the Japanese] seems to be absence of flak. I bet the AA units are defending the forward key bases.

Sounds plausible, and an ironic problem for the Japanese player to have. Your rapid advance caught him flat-footed on this point.

[Anachro]

Mouseover can be very inaccurate, esp with bad DL. The numbers in the combat report are 100% accurate for the troops involved, but not necessarily all troops in a hex might be attacking.

[Canoerebel]

3/20/45

Galloping to Victory? The Allies need just 4.5k to achieve auto victory. If there's a bunch of "unconfirmed" sunk ships (and I think there are), it could be considerably less than that.

These are the "happy days" for the strategic bombers. Juicy bases within range without adequate defenses.

[BBfanboy]

With DS gone south for a few days, I think Dave's best move would be to assemble all the surface combat vessels he can in a flock of small TFs and send them to bombard Aparri with KB covering. Knocking out your B--29 base would stop the hemorrhage of VPs for a while.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

This isn't the game with Obvert, Pax.

Here's its Dave/Fabertong/The Penguin. He's only had to deal with one opponent.

And, yes, Obvert has played magnificently. I don't think playing three opponents has hindered him in the least, and in some ways its probably benefited him. Like Fibertong, Obvert is a real gentleman, easy going, and as terrific an opponent as you could hope to find. He's not nearly as fast as Dave, but to my knowledge Dave only has one game going while Obvert for some reason is handling three. Masochism.

Oops! Sorry, got lost in all of the games you have going. [X(][X(][X(]

[Canoerebel]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

With DS gone south for a few days, I think Dave's best move would be to assemble all the surface combat vessels he can in a flock of small TFs and send them to bombard Aparri with KB covering. Knocking out your B--29 base would stop the hemorrhage of VPs for a while.

That's what I figured. So Aparri is armed to the teeth. It has about eight nice combat TFs (DDs up to CAs; no lunky BBs) with tons of mines, PT boats, subs, fighters, and 1EB. I think the defenses are sufficient to cost him far more than he can gain.

He tried a bunch of raids early, lost three CLs and roughly 10 DDs, and hasn't been back.

[Canoerebel]

3/21/45 to 3/22/45

Galloping to Victory: 3,500 points to auto victory. The total is dropping by about 500 points per turn. It's possible the game will end in March.

[BBfanboy]

I guess it doesn't matter how many troops are in the count at Singers - you get points for destroyed squad devices, whether they were fully manned or not.

[CaptBeefheart]

I was going to ask if you have that base to the southwest of Aparri built up, but it doesn't matter if you have a bunch of surface forces protecting the base.

Well played. Would be interesting to see this one continue to a Downfall stage.

Cheers,
CB

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

3/21/45 to 3/22/45

Galloping to Victory: 3,500 points to auto victory. The total is dropping by about 500 points per turn. It's possible the game will end in March.

I was very interested in this game's later stages after your initial diagnosis that it's not to the Japanese players advantage to be less aggressive in the early to mid-game. The prevailing wisdom used to be that an active game with lots of attrition was good for the Allies, but it seems a quiet game with little 1:1 attrition is not good for the Japanese!

In getting very close to 2:1 already in March 45 you've shown that the Japanese permanent VPs need to be much higher before entering 45 to stand a chance against Strat bombing, base recovery points, and air/troop loss points that swing in the Allied favour during late 44-45.

[Canoerebel]

The Denominator is the most important gauge of progress in the game. It is critical for the Japanese player to push it up; it is vital that the Allied player do what he can to minimize the increases.

The game is very counter-intuitive for the Allied player; or at least, for me. When I started playing 3000 years ago, I knew enough about the war to know that attrition "favored" the Allies. Time was in my favor, as lots of reinforcements were coming. So keep fighting no matter what, even if the outcome was 1:1 in the air, at sea, whatever. In reality, that was the worst thing I could have been doing. Production allowed Japan to shrug off such losses, and the Denominator Effect was brutal for Allied victory hopes.

There are certainly times to fight 1:1 (or even less) battles, such as destroying key enemy assets or targets. Sometimes hard fighting weakens Japan in the long run. But hard fighting just for the sake of fighting is playing into Japan's strong suit. Fuggedaboutit.

[Canoerebel]

3/23/45 to 3/26/45

Galloping to Victory: Just 2k points to auto-victory now. That's four decent Strat Bombing raids, if no important negatives take place. This turn the target was Osaka; tomorrow its Nagasaki. I'm pushing my Superforts pretty hard, but with victory this close it seems like the right approach.

[Canoerebel]

3/27/45

Galloping to Victory: 1,800 points away from AV. Effective nighttime raid vs. Nagasaki Light Industry scores well. Tomorrow, the nighttime bombers mostly rest while the daytime shift takes a stab at Oita Resources.

Manila: Probing attack drops forts to 7, results in pretty hefty Allied losses, and doesn't indicate a supply malus. That's probably going to be the final attack of the war, unless something unexpected happens.

Indochina: Major landings at Soc Trang tomorrow, covered by LBA and one big CVE TF. Since the CVEs will be separated from the CVs, there is some risk. It's the last risky venture contemplated within the expected time frame of the contest.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The Denominator is the most important gauge of progress in the game. It is critical for the Japanese player to push it up; it is vital that the Allied player do what he can to minimize the increases.

The game is very counter-intuitive for the Allied player; or at least, for me. When I started playing 3000 years ago, I knew enough about the war to know that attrition "favored" the Allies. Time was in my favor, as lots of reinforcements were coming. So keep fighting no matter what, even if the outcome was 1:1 in the air, at sea, whatever. In reality, that was the worst thing I could have been doing. Production allowed Japan to shrug off such losses, and the Denominator Effect was brutal for Allied victory hopes.

There are certainly times to fight 1:1 (or even less) battles, such as destroying key enemy assets or targets. Sometimes hard fighting weakens Japan in the long run. But hard fighting just for the sake of fighting is playing into Japan's strong suit. Fuggedaboutit.

What you say is focused on aircraft losses early on, and as you say the Japanese can build replacements. What it appears they have not been able to keep up with is pilot losses. The abilities of his pilots seem to have declined rapidly after the first big air battles. You also played defensively a lot so his pilots were lost away from his bases while yours were shot down over your bases or over seas where you had ships/subs to rescue them.

The difference in pilot quality led to every increasing air losses for the Japanese which has contributed heavily to the Allied numerator. So it may be that the Japanese should have conserved pilots early by not being too aggressive with air strikes at long range or into heavy opposition. Maybe in your next game with John III you could ask him not to be aggressive with his aircraft ....[:'(]

[Canoerebel]

3/28/45 and 3/29/45

Galloping to Victory: The spread to AV declined over these two days, first to 1,500 points and then to 800. Very close now.

Indochina: The enemy hasn't opposed Allied landings at Soc Trang. If the game continues, either by agreement or because I've totally miscalcuated the 1945 AV requirements so that it's actually 3:1 or 18:1 or something, then the Allies will be prepared to attend to Indochina/Thailand (and from there, China). And the reduction of Manila should be complete in 4-6 weeks.

I think I'm looking forward to a bit of a breath, once the game ends. It's been a crazy pace for a long, long time. I think I need and want a breather. But I suspect I'll go through withdrawal symptoms immediately. I won't know what to do without the tremendous anticipation of the next turn. Crack.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

3/28/45 and 3/29/45

Galloping to Victory: The spread to AV declined over these two days, first to 1,500 points and then to 800. Very close now.

Indochina: The enemy hasn't opposed Allied landings at Soc Trang. If the game continues, either by agreement or because I've totally miscalcuated the 1945 AV requirements so that it's actually 3:1 or 18:1 or something, then the Allies will be prepared to attend to Indochina/Thailand (and from there, China). And the reduction of Manila should be complete in 4-6 weeks.

I think I'm looking forward to a bit of a breath, once the game ends. It's been a crazy pace for a long, long time. I think I need and want a breather. But I suspect I'll go through withdrawal symptoms immediately. I won't know what to do without the tremendous anticipation of the next turn. Crack.

I'm amazed at how quickly you've played this one. I know I have three going, but some days I only have one turn to play still, and you've played three and a half years in game in one year of real time!! That's astounding!

You should take a bit of a break. Read a book!