Reluctant Admiral Feedback

[JuanG]

Another thing to consider for the next version;

I have a version of the Shokaku with a Taiho style funnel in my mod artwork - this might be more fitting for the "new" Shokaku class than using the same art as for the "old" Shokaku class. It is art numbers 449 and 469.

[John 3rd]

5. A6M2 to A6M5 from Sen Baku Upgrade Path
6. Different Art Work for Sho-Kai

You guys are doing well catching and suggesting all this.

[John 3rd]

FatR--Do you think that upgrade problem is serious? The more I've been thinking about it the more I wonder. The current situation will lead to a number of Groups stuck with the wrong aircraft. Since you handled the aircraft side of the Mod, how do you see it?

[JuanG]

The A6M2 to Sen Baku should not be a major issue as most groups upgrade to other fighters anyway. Indeed, in stock this upgrade takes place too. The only downside is the extra strain placed on the economy if the player decides to convert the A6M2 factories to something else so he doesnt have to wait until the end of the war for the Sen Baku. Changing this would only make things easier economically than in the standard scenarios.

[John 3rd]

That doesn't sound too bad. OK. We'll wait and keep compiling our list before another update.


FatR--How fast are you and Yubari moving in your game?

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

FatR--Do you think that upgrade problem is serious?

You will need to convert facilities to get A6M5 and further at all without it, because A6M3 upgrades to A6M4 and so on. Alternatively, the separate Sen Baku factory should be changed to A6M5, if you think that A6M2->A6M5 upgrade is too good to be true and economical problems should be heavier (I've hard time imagining why anyone might want to mass-produce Sen Baku as their main fighter, as its only impromevement over A6M2 is the ability to carry a 250-kg bomb, and you've expanded A6M2 initial production to 100...).

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
The more I've been thinking about it the more I wonder. The current situation will lead to a number of Groups stuck with the wrong aircraft. Since you handled the aircraft side of the Mod, how do you see it?

Units can get aircraft outside of their current class in the list of upgrades by upgrading to their prerequisites in PDU OFF upgrade tree. For example a few recon airgroups in China can be upgraded to fighters or bombers right at the beginning. So, I don't think any unit is going to be stuck, but the player will need to do some micromanagement.

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

FatR--How fast are you and Yubari moving in your game?

We're on December 11th. I've successfully invaded Mersing, but it will take a few more days to get reinforcements and aircraft support there, so I'm afraid that Yubari will be able to evacuate most of his troops, and the main benefit will be avoiding one month of marching down the peninsula. The cost is one DD, one large xAK and, unfortunately, it seems that LSD also will go down. Yubari lost a ton of planes trying to attack my fleet, covered by Mini-KB from Singapore.

PH raid was disappointing, with only two BBs going down even after the repeat attack, but the losses are relatively low (on the second day I launched only bomb-carrying Kates at 9k).

On Luzon, I've landed at Laoag and Vigan so far. Yubari aggressively moves troops towards my landing sites, so we can expect a clash on the next turn. He also attacked the landing zones with Catalinas and his warships (thankfully, US destroyers got bombed in Manila, so Houston and Boise had no escort). The cost is a large xAK, a xAKL, heavy damage to HIJMS Kuma and light damage to a few warships. The cost to USN is one PG, apparently because my planes were held on the ground/off target by weather when it was a good time to butcher his warships.

My most problematic theater so far is China. I got soundly defeated at Ichang (which seems to be impossible to hold), and the situation south of Nanyang doesn't look good, as I was outmaneuvered. Moreover, Yubari moved at least 2/3rds of AVG there and currently holds air superiority. I don't know where he gets air support to make both them and the entire Chinese bomber force to fly.

Air losses are slightlty in my favor so far. My pilot losses probably are 2-3 times worse. I've sunk 2 old British CLs, 4 TKs and 2 DDs outside of PH attack so far (the rest is small fry). One DD was sunk in Manila, one TK by a sub, the rest by Mini-KB.

[vettim89]

When I read FatR's post my immediate thought was the same as his: "Where is he getting Av Support in central China?" Has that been altered in this mod?

[FatR]

Allied air activity over China was much lesser on 12th, hopefully that was an one-time burst. Also, I've invaded Palembang. My battleship cover sank four more tankers on the way. With extra carriers on hand and battleships deployed forwards, there is little reason to advance under LBA cover, particularly now, when most of British torpedo bombers were shot down. My vanguard of the Palembang invasion is rather weak, with only one infantry batallion, but it seems Yubari did not expect this move so soon and Palembang has only the initial garrizon, so I believe I have a chance of routing low-experience Dutch troops right away.

Note, that getting to Palembang as early as possible should, IMO, be the cornerstone of any Japanese DEI strategy. More the Allies are allowed to reinforce, more oil wells will be ruined when you finally take it. And Allies, for their part, should put there every base force they can scrounge. In stock, unfortunately, Japanese cannot safely move there until the middle of January at the earliest.

[John 3rd]

FatR--I completely concur regarding your commentary on Palembang. I've landed at Kuching and Singakawang and plan to hit Palembang by December 20th. Will have Tarakan tomorrow (12/15) and Balikpapan will get invaded in two days. Thus, by December 25th, I should have ALL the major Oil Centers except Java.

Stan--Do you like the forward deployment as I arranged it? What do you think of that?

[yubari]

I have been playing against FatR with this mod and we have reached the 12th December and from an Allied point of view, this mod is absolutely brutal, there is precious little an allied player can do when the mini KB is around Palembang on the 9th of December and an invasion force lands there a couple of turns later! It has however made for an incredibly exciting and violent opening few turns, some of the most exciting that I have played in this game. The extra naval units that Japan gets plus the improved fighters should mean that Japan is far more competitive until a lot later in the war, which is something I welcome. However the decreased supply and fuel at the start of the game, combined with the greater resource and fuel requirements that the Japanese have due to their increased amount of industry should make it a bit harder for the Japanese player to run their economy and gives more reason for the allied player to try to attack the resource and oil convoys.

Another thing to note is that China is vastly more powerful than in scenario 1. A typical Chinese corps starts out with 100 percent of its TOE with about 50 percent of that being disabled whereas in scenario 1 a typical Chinese unit starts a lot weaker. Where did I get the aviation support from? All of the Chinese base forces start with most of their 24 aviation support squads active, enough to fly missions for maybe one or two turns.

A great mod and thanks to everyone who made it.

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Stan--Do you like the forward deployment as I arranged it? What do you think of that?

What's not to like for a Japanese player? Japan can advance almost at will in the opening phase due to having more carrier fighter power in DEI than the entire British/Dutch airforce can overwhelm in December and enough battleships to feel reasonably protected from Force Z. Yubari delivered some stinging blows to my forces so far, mostly by subs, but the fast advance is still worth it.

As about China, Chinese still have relatively limited infantry squad replacements (and must hold all industry centers or face a supply crisis, like the one that now plagues mostly-intact Chinese army in my second PBEM. It should be harder for Japanese to rampage through China in 1941-early 42 (also, surrendering the initiative to Chinese at the beginning is almost certain to cause a major Japanese defeat), but with persistent application of force, they should be able to eventually grind the Chinese army down, as historical, or, with PP investments and superior leadership, earlier. Of course, this will be much costlier for Japanese in terms of supply and troops expended, than in Scen 1. As it should be.

[John 3rd]

I designed the Fleet deployment to provide more CV flexibility for the Japanese player:
1. Having the KB START in two Move Bonus TF at the start opens up possibilities.
2. The 3rd CVL (Shoho) helps when hooked up with Ryujo and Zuiho. Those 3 carriers really carry some Zero punch.
3. The pair of CVEs don't carry many planes but it is enough to use if the player wants to.

The other change is having all four BC with KB and the six BB forward deployed. The Japanese start with more firepower and flexibility on Dec 7th. It can be devastating!

CHINA: It should be noted that I did not touch China in ANY way. Sort of puzzles me with what Yubari and FatR have to say on that.

FatR--Which 2nd Generation Army Fighter do you plan to bank on at start?

[FatR]

Tojo. Nothing really changed about that. Ki-61 still is available too late, still is crippled by service rating, still has an unique engine, and still doesn't offer enough combat capability to compensate for these flaws.

[John 3rd]

That is what I thought. Tojo is what I've already begun to expand. Wish we could bring MISTER Frank in about 6 months early!

Stan and Other Mod players--have you noticed how quickly you get a pair of CVs in the que? Junyo and Nisshin come in within a week of each other. Didn't really notice that when I was working on the ship-building. They will add nearly 100 aircraft to the KB near the end of February/early-March. Cannot complain about that...

[gajdacs zsolt]

Hi,

I was checking out the scenario to see your changes in detail, and I noticed two things that might be a problem:

CL Tenryu's 44/7 upgrade changes the main guns from the 10/65 gun to the 12.7/40 gun. I assume this is not intentional.

I also checked out the new aircrafts and i noticed the the G8N's and G3M4-Q's top view does not appear properly in the plane&weapon database. Also the a6m3 and the a6m4 appear to have a second pair of 20mm guns. (screenshot attached)

I didn't find any mention of these in this thread, so i hope this will be helpful.


Somthing else: I'm thinking about starting a PBEM on this scenario. Is there anyone lurking here who'd be willing to take the allied side? This would be my second PBEM (other one is in early '43), I'm not very experienced, but I'm eager to learn . Anyway, this is just preliminary, i'm just curious if there is someone interested.

[John 3rd]

Thank you for the observations. Those are things we'll have to look at and fix. Time to add them to the list for things to change/fix.

[John 3rd]

I need help regarding upgrades. Must be doing something stupid. Michael is able to pull up the full menu of plane choices while I can only pull up one. Does any of the other Mod Japanese player have this issue?

Here is the screen shot. Does anyone have an idea as to what might be wrong?

[FatR]

No, I don't have any issue with upgrade menu. I'm clicking on the plane's name and everything happens as it should.


A few more thoughts:

Now I regret that I replaced a few plane slots in the mod (certain Zero versions) with new models. Writing new planes into new slots would have allowed to use the same set of planetops for this mod and Juan's mods, without any glitches. If Red Lancer is willing to tinker with planetop roster, I'm willing to redo the planedata for Reluctant Admiral 2.0, so that new planes do not take bitmap slots of the old ones.

I think that as this mod gives Japan pretty powerful advantages, Allies might benefit from less squadron and ship withdrawal mid-game, reflecting greater effort demanded by fighting stronger Japan.

[John 3rd]

Interesting thoughts FatR. Perhaps an RA 2.0 is good to start seriously chatting about now that we have several campaigns rolling.

Questions:
1. Red Lancer--You interested in this project that Stan alludes to?

2. Stan--I like the idea of looking at the withdrawal schedule. Might give more of a lure for the Allied player. Do you have any constructive thoughts about this right now?

We could throw that question out to the current Allied players playing RA. Anyone have some proposals?

3. On the Allied side did anyone like having that little TF surprise down at Pago Pago for Turn 1? Michael and I chatted about it and I thought it was a great idea. There was some talk for other starting game ideas such as:

a. A Brit CV makes the deployment with Force Z. We add a CV and 3-4 DD to what starts in Singapore.
b. Have a NZ or Aussie Brigade at sea when the war starts. Imagine it somewhere NE of Brisbane with the ANZAC cruisers already concentrated...
c. An American RCT (Troops, Base Force, and 10,000 Supply) is at sea coming from Panama and has just entered the map. An American CV TF could be protecting this important convoy...

Comments and/or ideas?