Matrix Games Forums

August 27th, 1945

Research, Production, Losses, Income

Research - Heavy Bombers level 4 completed. That's icing on the cake I suppose.

Production - Doesn't really matter at this point.

Losses - More dead ground units.

Income - Japan is down to 100mpp.

September 14th, 1945

Indochina, Japan, National Morale, StratMap

Indochina and Elsewhere - UK and Canadian forces attack the IJA HQ north of Saigon. Last IJA Inf-Div in the north holds for one more turn. Chinese forces continue to capture territory in Hainan and Formosa. Australian and New Zealand forces clean up some of the bases in New Guinea.

Japan - The vise gets tighter.

National Morale - Japan NM is down to 6%. Let's see if Japan capitulates when Tokyo falls.

StratMap - The US looks like maggots on a corpse.

September 14th, 1945

Research, Production, Losses, Income

Research - Completed Ground Attack (3). That's good.

Production - Yeah whatever.

Losses - Japan fighting to the last.

Income - Yeah whatever.

October 2nd, 1945

(doing this slide first, since the final pic seems more fitting)

Research, Production, Losses, Income

Research - Whatever.

Production - Whatever.

Losses - The last Banzai Charge is done.

Income - Yeah whatever.

October 2nd, 1945

Indochina, Japan, and Finish.

Indochina - We killed the HQ north of Saigon.

Japan - Basically, we bombed the crap out of everything. Strat-Bmbrs. Med-Bmbrs. Tac-Bmbrs. Fighters. And lots of CVs. I did have to fight my way into the Tokyo. Included attacks along the eastern fortifications by Marines, Paras dropping to clear a AAA-Div that had interposed itself. And finally a US Mech-Div moved into Tokyo and broke the spine of a remaining IJA Inf-Corps to prevent any counter-attack.

And Japan surrenders!

Hat's off to my worthy opponent, Ngineer!

At long last, here is the man behind the curtain! *Nginear takes a bow as roses are thrown on stage*

Having gotten caught up on this AAR, I'll try to give my side of the events along with recommendations.
First, I would like to thank Elessar for building such a fine scenario. I found the naval aspect in vanilla simply boring...and Japan seems more of a bumper cushion than anything. So, I was thrilled when I found this mod. This mod is far more engaging and tactical! Excellent job Elessar and thank you sucking 5 months of my life away lol.

Second, thank you to Feinder my ever-worthy opponent. As are all our games, this has been entertaining and I'm glad we were able to run this through all the way to provide feedback. I'm sure we will argue about this for the rest of time, but I'm still claiming victory haha (once I realized Japan had no realistic goals to win, I told him he had until Japan's IRL surrender date 9/2/45 to capture Tokyo. He was about 2 weeks late).

I'll break these next few parts down into a short and an expanded section based on the interest level for those that are following this AAR. I'm not going to spend a great deal of time editing my analysis, so I apologize in advance if I repeat myself or some ideas may be out of order. At this point I'm just trying to get all my ideas written down! I will try to underline bold important high points.


Evaluation (short): This mod is in the ballpark for simulating a historical mod on Japan's expansion and contraction. Japan will rapidly expand along the historical accounts and I have proved that Japan can hold out until the real-life surrender. However, the victory conditions of the campaign do need to be better defined for each side. "Ultimate Victory" is simply not achievable for Japan.

My strategy (short): Thinking this was a bit more sandboxish, I decided from the outset I wanted to grab the 2 nearby Chinese mines, conquer the historical Pacific countries, and then attack India. India looked like easiest to conquer because 1) it is furthest from Allies and 2) can only be reinforced through one access point in a timely manner. However, once I invaded India, I realized I had NO chance to actually reach the capital. It is simply too much ground to hold and I firmly believe there is presently NO WAY for Japan to conquer India. Even if I landed troops and marched unopposed across the continent it would still take 6-12 months to capture both capitals. And of course, being unopposed for 6-12 months is simply not going to happen. Meanwhile in China, I threw all my extra garrisons to hold back the partisans so I could capture key cities and go for Communist China. By late '42, we had our big Solomon Sea battle and the IJN got funding priority. Thus, I ran out of gas at the doorstep of Communist China (I also ran a hotseat game and found the Comm China wouldn't have given me mpps anyways). India/Solomon Sea battle/Comm China all happened about the same time and the Japanese economy wasn't going to support all of it. And so started the contraction of my carefully built empire. But I still held out longer than Tokyo did in real life!!!

Edit: While operating around India, I was constantly afraid my small fleet would be ambushed by a much larger fleet. So I constantly had to account for that with LBA eyes and some ships in a half way point. After I withdrew from India, I set up a picket line to make sure he didn't try to amphib into Rangoon or DEI with his leftover units in India. This did tie up quite a few small ships. Perhaps my greatest failure in the game was not intercepting his transports to India. In the end, I don't think it would have extended the game that long as there was no way for me to march across India.



Evaluation (long): A decision needs to be made on a goal for Japan: "how long can you last" (historical) OR "can Japan grow large enough to get the Allies to sue for peace" (sandboxish).

Imagine two circles, one drawn around the other. Japan's income and its ability to support itself is based on the smaller, inside circle of conquered Pacific countries. Once I expanded outside of that smaller circle (think China and India), and I did not know it at the time, but I never received any mpps for conquered territory... My mpp natural income never went above 371, despite me conquering 3 additional mines, cities, etc. Yes, I know about occupancy efficiency and all that, but it seems to me that you would only get income if the entire country fell. Which makes it 'bout near impossible for Japan to expand outside of the “inner circle” because those countries are massively huge (and severe manpower limits added to it). This is fine if the goal is to turtle yourself after the initial successes (although turtling isn't much fun IMO).

Based off my mpp income, I produced very few new units until late in the game (in other words, until I had no navy lol): a few Maritime Bombers, a few Destroyer escorts, max garrisons, a probably about 5 other ground units. I MAY have built one destroyer, but nothing larger than that. After the beginning spending spree (I bought a Thai HQ, thinking I would need it for invading India through Burma. Turned out not so useful), I usually only had enough leftover mpp to invest in technology after receiving plunder from a country. I rarely ever operated air units, and conducting any large scale amphibious assault was out of the question. Once a tech upgrade was available, actually spending it on units was a very, very slow process: 1-3 units or ships a turn was all I could afford. Some units simply would never be upgraded the entire game. The MPP squeeze was constant and very real. There was almost no point in going to level 2 techs for AA or ASW because I could not afford to upgrade (and by then Allies were dominating anyway). This actually does make for quite a historical feel and technological outcome, but the Japanese will never be able to expand outside the inner circle. Over half of mpps were always spent on replacements (rebuilding a 2 str air group easily ~130 mpps), some transporting, and very little upgrading. Lost units were rarely rebuilt. Japan’s mpp situation can be summed up by “Pick two each turn:” tech, replenish, upgrade, operate, transport, or build new. Hint: replenish isn’t actually optional….


Once the Japanese fleet is inevitably no longer a threat, battleships are king. I like how they deentrench, but I think I see why vanilla does not allow it. Single islands hexes especially are impossible to defend. Taking (losing in my case) an island became a familiar story: battleships bombard and demoralize, carriers bomb, and maybe one amphib attack to finish off. Even forts couldn't hold out more than two turns.

Also, interesting to note is the magnificent comeback that China executed. In '42 I was on a roll and Feinder was crying. India was invaded, China was a hollow shell and I was one hex away from Communist China's capital. However, the partisans were keeping me on lockdown as I could produce no more garrisons and only a couple more divisions (but not enough mpp to build them). I concentrated on India and pulled a dozen units from China. 1943 was a relatively quiet year for China. During that year, China literally rebuilt everything AND upgraded! IN ONE YEAR. AND with an income of only 70 mpp!! In 1944, Japan was in full retreat everywhere. And no way to stop China. If I did not invade India and decided to turtle, I believe I could have kept China under control until late '44 or early '45 but it would still have collapsed.

My best suggestion for balanced gameplay victory conditions is: give Japan enough to go for one major country and make the Allies sweat. If the Allies hold, then Japan needs to be on the defensive and the Allies have to rush to conquer Tokyo. Before Sept' 45 is Major Allied Victory, December '45 minor victory. If Japan holds into 1946, then Axis minor victory. Major Axis victory if Japan conquers China, India, or Oz.



Recommendations (not in order):

Recommendation #1: The partisans in China are a good idea! But I would have the majority of them as supply partisans. By end of game, the Chinese army was actually bigger than when it started, in small part due to spawned partisans. I think it is a bit much for China to fully rebuild, research tech, upgrade, AND get partisans. China either needs to be conquerable with a big Japanese commitment, or it needs to be purely defensive. If I can conquer China, then partisans should play a HUGE role in slowing down the Japs. If I cannot conquer China, then giving enough mpps for gradual improvements to their army would keep the Jap player constantly on the defensive. Either way is fine - but it should be clear to the player so they do not waste their time pushing inland.

Recommendation #2: There needs to be a better balance to build nukes. Feinder was obviously able to beat me without them by building extra carriers instead. He simply had zero need for nukes! By the end of the game, 5 carriers on bomber mode were enough to fully destroy almost any Japanese unit in clear conditions. This could be helped by limiting CV ground unit attack to 0, or at most 1 (Feinder had attack of 2 vs ground units). I personally would like to see Nukes as a tech category using the Recon Airship. 1 chit with a large cost will increase the range, attack, and bombing value of a Recon Airship incrementally. At a range of 17, you can attack Kyoto from Iwo Jima. The advantage of this is that spending on Nukes is done on the player's timetable, not a decision event that affects you the rest of the game.

Recommendation #3: If I had known that Jap planes had a ground attack of .5/1.5, I would have invested in Ground Attack tech to get the 0.5 increase. It is clear my air power in Japan was key to success in pushing China back even without ground attack tech. Adding ground attack would have been devastating in China! Also, while talking China, I was never a fan of the decision events. Burma road is 1:1 mpp. Ok. But flying supplies over the Hump is horribly inefficient. I always thought it should be 1:2 loss ratio.

Recommendation #4: Feinder is right about American convoys - there was no need for them. Oz and India can't really be conquered, so not much need to send them mpps. If America doesn't need nukes, doesn't need to send convoys, and can win by air power and battleships, then maybe America is a bit overpowered? This doesn't necessarily make for a bad game with my suggested victory conditions, but it would be nice for the Allied player to balance those things instead of America does everything. Perhaps an incentive to convoys is a 2:1 gain ratio? I asked the devs if convoys can raise NM and they said no. Too bad! That would be have been a great incentive. What if UK had almost no income and it was completely reliant on convoys? Now that I write that, I think that would be a really good solution!

Recommendation #5: I know NM is a sensitive issue. But without massive reworking of it, here are two observations. First, India and Oz had been at war for years. They should not start with NM of 100%. I don't know what a "fair" % would be, but if you are going to even think about conquering them, they need a lower NM. Second, as Feinder recorded, Japan was taking massive NM hits which made them extremely combat ineffective. VERY ineffective - as in 3 corps could only do 5 damage to an unentrenched Marine Division while taking massive losses. When it comes time to invade Japan, they still be able to put up a fight - which is where the Nukes come in.

Recommendation #6: The whole idea of Japan being in Guadalcanal is pointless - no negative consequences for the Allies (except for losing 3 mpps by convoy). One dev told me when Japan is in Guad in vanilla, it has a 10% chance of activating economic hits on Oz...which is pretty pointless too. The Allies felt it was important to scramble there first, so I think it should be a bit more consequential for the Japs to sit on Guad.

Recommendation #7: Of course, I'm going to lean on the side of "make Japan harder to conquer." I think Coastal Guns are underrated in vanilla and I hate the fact you cannot add them outside the home country. Adding supplied forts (since you cannot build them in game) on Okinawa and Iwo Jima is a start, maybe with Coastal Guns too? Adding non-supply forts in the editor underneath Coastal Guns outside Tokyo would also be beneficial. Once Japanese air power is undercut, battleships are king and they basically blast everything. Coastal Guns should have the same visibility as their range. Maybe add a tech for Japan "Home Guard" where it increases the number of CGs? Speaking of Home Guard, can you at least spawn them with all tech upgrades? They came in at 3 or 5 strength and no upgrades...not very effective if invasion is imminent.

Recommendation #8: I never liked how air power needed two techs: Advanced Fighters and Long-Range Aircraft. In almost every case, a new fighter came with better range. If you combined these techs, that would open up a new slot for you. Also, intercept range was usually far shorter than strike range. In 1942, both sides carrier CAPs only intercepted to about 30 miles but would strike at 200 miles. Radar increased Allies' effective CAP to about 80 miles by 1945.

Recommendation #9: Kamikazes need to be drastically improved and cheaper. IRL one kamikaze would often sink an entire destroyer. The largest victim was a CVE. The one chance I had to fire at anything, it was only 0:2 odds on most naval units. They also need morale that is higher than everyone else’s.

Recommendation #10: The Japanese were very industrious at digging. Fortifications need to be more prominent in the game! They should have a tech that allows increased max entrenchment, or at very least have those supply forts that I mentioned previously. Also, the Engineer has the same time frame to build a fort as vanilla. This needs to be shortened. 180 days to build a 5-sided fort, means the engineer will only build a maximum of 6 large fortifications in the whole theater (and with Allies at your heels, I wouldn't commit to 180 fortifications past 1942). I know AA is the only tech allowed on fortifications, but you could have it upgrade the naval defense of a fortification too.

Recommendation #11: Fortunately for Feinder, it didn't occur to me to sit around for a second strike on Pearl Harbor. Naval tech 2 vs 0 on battleships is a very lopsided engagement. I believe I could have stuck around, launched a second strike against literally anything still nearby, for minimal losses. I recommend starting KB at a reduced supply level so they are forced to turn back after PH.

Recommendation #12: Just like fighter tech, I don't like the idea of all naval ships upgrading their main attack and defense with Naval Weapons. I know this is from vanilla, but it just turns it into a completely different ship. Long Lances on a destroyer simulated by naval tech 2 vs a plain USN destroyer, ok. But making WW1 battleships upgraded to the same level as an Iowa is silly.


And there you have it folks. I look forward to seeing others enjoy this mod!

Feinder wrote: Wed Nov 08, 2023 2:00 amI was going to bombard that Coastal Gun just south of Tokyo, but evidently, I'm not allowed to. Oh well.

Please elaborate. In the previous build I tried giving coastal guns a large ZOC penalty, but of course it only applied to land units not ships, and people couldn't move land units adjacent to the things until they were knocked below 5 strength (by air natch). Could you move ships next to them but not fire, or couldn't even move adjacent to them in the first place?

Good news-SIPRES is working on adding counter set 10 to his counters here for me (originally used for Crispy's Fall Weiss scenarios), so I'll be able to switch Russia to red from the current grey German ones.



Congrats on your victory Feinder. I'll be switching work from 20K to this for the remainder of the month.

And the end of game feedback is definitely appreciated Nginear. [I also appreciate you hunting down some more bugs in the main code for the devs to squash. ] Just a few quick notes:

Yeah I hadn't worked much on the victory conditions-frankly I needed more full games to draw on, but you guys' is only the 2nd that I am aware of. The first would likely have been a minor Japanese victory-they held Chungking and Tokyo at the end IIRC.

I remain deeply puzzled by your reports that Chinese conquests never gave you a single cent-this will have to be playtested, alas (or territory given to Japan in the editor then tested). If there is a bug in the core code that may explain it; I've never seen such in any vanilla or even user-mod games.

I appreciate the perspective on single island defense-I made the changes there (bombardment et al.) precisely because I was worried that they would prove to be too tough to crack. The outcomes you witnessed seemed historical, however; several of these invasions got a lot of press for how bloody they were, but most were over pretty quickly. There really isn't any capability in the code for two units to keep on slugging it out for several turns on end for control of such an isle. Iwo Jima took 5 weeks, which would be 3 turns in the scenario. Okinawa

The Chinese counteroffensive is again due to engine limitations; in SC a country just keeps on getting MPPs whether it is using them in an active campaign, or not [There is an AAR for one of Lothos' scenarios going on where Vichy France has been made a major, and has a very healthy army despite a very low income-but in 2-3 years that can all add up.] My best bet would be to lower China's base builds and force them to invest in Army Mobilization if they want to go on the offensive; since there is a lag in that (or any) tech, they won't be able to build up very quickly, even at 3 chits (and can they afford to spring for those 3 chits if you go quiet for awhile, but then go all-in again?).

OK, I'll switch some partisan spawn hexes to event ones, maybe delete some spawns in the south more like. But as said I am wary of taking away too many of those, because that was the situation the IJA faced-any time they abandoned an area a warlord would pop up. Warlords aren't doable in the base code of course so I have to make do with partisans.

I'll just note the other AAR had Japan manage to conquer a solid chunk of China, through Chungking as I said at the very least, so he managed to find sufficient garrisons, or simply let the partisans spawn then tied them up (they can't spawn again if they control a hex). Japan may simply have to allow the little buggers to pop up in certain non-key areas if they are determined to take out Chiang (if not Mao), which again is what happened.

I have toyed with giving Japan a more "pie in the sky" setup, specifically with ships. A guy named John 3rd in the Grigsby WitP-AE forums has devised several IJN mods which give them a LOT more naval assets, but historically they are ultimately fantasies (fun as they may be). My extra carrier DE at the start of the game was designed to give Japan a realistic shot a more useful lineup, but there's no way they could get extra carriers AND battleships. I could still devise something like that if there is interest, however.

As I said in my scenario thread, I tried making Rockets into Nukes, but hardcoded algorithms prevented them from doing much damage even upgraded (plus the things can't be loaded onto transports, requiring DE's in any event). I'm not sure a Blimp will be any better since unlike Rockets they don't attack resources. I could phase 2-3 DE's for the nukes, allowing the Allied player to terminate the Manhattan Project at each juncture. But the entire effort WAS hugely expensive, and could have arguably been used for other purposes. I'll just note that the game would have ended a turn or two earlier if he had gone for nukes.

Again, giving balance to units when there's all these tech levels floating around can be very tricky. 3 levels of ground attack via Naval Weapons, even @ +0.5 per level, can indeed add up. I can just give them a base of 1, no tech increases, or revert to vanilla's starting values of zero across the board (again I felt they needed punch vs. island garrisons).

I have tried to provide a LOT more specific detail than vanilla does for each tech, but yeah those pesky 1/2 points aren't visible in-game otherwise, sigh... [note those are the vanilla values, tech too] I would have thought that an all-in on China would have meant an automatic investment in ground attack, however.

I'll check the Burma Road/Hump incomes-I thought there already was a penalty for the latter.

The only way then to prioritize Lend-Lease to Oz/India would be to pork their base incomes further. I felt during my games as the Allies that I cut them off at their peril (their base incomes seemed pretty low to me), because it would be too late to restart the convoys if there was a massive push for either, so better safe than sorry. Again I am reluctant to make drastic changes based on just one data point here...

There is inherently a cost-benefit tradeoff for ANY island conquests. Japan needs a sizable-enough perimeter to delay the Allies' counteroffensive, but each "ring" they take simply means more units to defend them, farther distances for her navy to sail to defend them, etc. Income is a secondary consideration at best, and indeed leaving the Solomons alone is a viable alternative.

Militias since they are emergency units arguably should spawn with upgrades, if just for playability purposes. I can beef up Coastal Guns here and there (maybe give them 1 movement point so they are transportable by ship?).

Counter/hex size vs. CAP/intercept distances are again a game engine limitation, only amenable by expanding the map (if it weren't for my work on 20K I would be far into crafting an expanded halved-scale Pacific map by now most likely). Usually range was increased by larger drop tanks.

Kamis were already on my list.

Forts: Note I have long wanted cities/towns/etc. to be fortifiable by engineers, but the devs so far have disagreed with me. Certainly key hexes can be made fortified towns. The time frame can indeed be lowered.

I think I'll stick with the current PH/Kido Butai setup, since the 3rd strike was a major point of contention for the IJN, fearing that any nearby US carriers could come in afterwards and ding them up (and there are indeed 3 of them running around nearby).

I have indeed toyed with Naval Weapons vs. the heavies, but there are other techs which go into that other than just gun caliber (delayed fuses, optics, etc.)-Radar tech can be made to improve their attack, perhaps by removing one level of NW. Just don't want the Iowas to become easy meat for a few cruisers. There are always tradeoffs if not unintended consequences (c.f. Murphy's Law).

Thank you again, gentlemen. I'll provide a preliminary changelog in the scenario thread once I have a chance to take a look at things this weekend.

Feinder, did you want to provide your own feedback? You indicated you wanted to comment on the Mobilization techs, which I had noted you made very little investments into.

Nginear, I just did a bunch of testing on incomes, and after accounting for everything this is the basic in's and out's:

As said, I've Normalized income from a base turn length of 9 to 28 days. This means all base income is 32% of what it should be, on map. THEN the Occupational Efficiency knocks another 20% off of that ( x 80%). And that is all after the lower occupied supply levels take a chunk out of each resource (this is the number you see if you hover the mouse over them).

See the thread I just started in Tech:

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 7&t=399680

But there's a third whammy in there-actually a fourth, that escapes my calculations. For the Japanese Home Islands, they benefit from their Industrial Modifier, which is base 125% + 20% for the first level they have, 145%, and this replaces the OE.

The issue is that Japan gets an additional hidden bonus from somewhere, giving it (in the base scenario) about 30 more MPPs per turn than what I get with my calculator, a 30% boost.

So the upshot is that in Chinese occupied territory a given resource-say a Major City or yes a Mine- gets a small percentage of what the same resource does in the Home Islands, even smaller than I had suspected. This is why your conquests didn't seem to add much to your total.

My current brainstorm is to reduce the Normalization period down to say 22 days, while adjusting the Indian and Aussie IM's down to match what their incomes are now, thus making those Lend Lease convoys more critical. I was amazed at how quickly your entire empire crumbled, actually, when even historical Japan could afford to splurge on say the Unryu's late in the war. But the US will also get more income (prelim. plan is to reduce starting build levels thus also favoring investments in the Mobilization techs thus prolonging a bit their comeback phase).

Ok. My feedback, starting with Victory Conditions. There’s the pull of (Red vs. Blue) or (Historic). In most games, those are two very different agendas. I prefer Historic games, I generally do not care for Red vs. Blue. “Historically”, Japan lost WW2 the moment the first “release” switch was pulled on that sleepy Sunday morning over Pearl Harbor in December 7th, 1941. Japan never stood a chance. For me, playing a game that has a historic feel, is perfectly fine, even if you know that your last moments will be spent dying a corridor of the Imperial Palace in 1945. I’m find with that result.

Conversely for Red vs. Blue players, the option to invade India, or Australia, or even California is part of the draw of that “balanced” version. Neither war itself, nor history is “balanced”. Nobody starts a war because they expect “balance”. They start a war because they believe they have the upper hand and will obtain some long-term gain before they lose that advantage. A Japanese full invasion of India was never logistically possible, for many of the same constraints that kept it mired in China. A delusion of some sort of amphibious invasion to conquer Australia, let alone one that crosses thousands of miles to California; are also ludicrous. But, if you want to appeal to Red vs. Blue, those options are essentially necessary to provide some “balance”. The reality of history was that, those options were NOT reality, and history is NOT balanced.

Generally speaking, whenever you try to “balance” a game for Red vs. Blue, you break Historic game-play. And if you provide a Historic game-play, you alienate the Red vs. Blue players. My solution to that is, to provide two very different scenarios, with very different capabilities, and very different victory conditions. For this mod, if/when/before making changes, decide if the agenda is to be “Historic” or “Red vs. Blue”. Make the choice, and own it without apology. It’s certainly possible to make two different scenarios and play them on the same map.

This was a game against an opponent, not co-op. People like to either claim victory, or make some measurement of success or failure. The immutable mechanism of the Strategic Command engine that determines victory is National Morale. I absolutely loathe National Morale for many reasons, and we’ll get back to that as a whole much later. But suffice to say, the current constraint to determine victory in Strategic Command is National Morale = 0. I will not deign a reply to Ngineer’s self-asserted victory condition. I will simply offer some numbers on the objectives vs. NM vs. history.

Restating that, within Strategic Command, National Morale must be reduced to zero for a Primary Nation to surrender. Within the mechanics as provided by this scenario, I was able to reduce Japan’s National Morale to zero, only after capturing all National Morale objective hexes. By the litmus test of History, Japan surrendered in August 1945, after the following NM objectives were captured (Tarawa, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Manila, Davao, Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Peleliu, Babelthuap, and Iwo Jima), plus dropping two atomic bombs. Within this scenario, that equates to a drop in Japanese National Morale of -35,000. Note that, historically the Allies never recaptured Singapore, Batavia, Truk, or any of the NM hexes in China. Using the current mechanism of NM in this mod, the Japanese ended the war in August 1945, with approximately 65,000 national morale. Should the Japanese surrender then at 65,000 National Morale? I think not, but I simply make the point that, the constraint of the engine and national morale prohibits the capacity to apply historic victory conditions.

I have traditionally pretty much remained firmly on the Historic side as far as that goes. As said tho, I am also open to a more balanced if fantasy scenario. And share your disdain with the NM mechanic, tho did you factor in the 3 atomic bombs into that? [-30,000 total or about half of your estimate). I think that, absent the A.B., and given your sizable number of conquests, Japan surrendered at precisely the appropriate time.

While I'll be tweaking this as we go forward (along with my work on 20K), the next release candidate won't come out until after the next dev patch and I can see what they have cooking there.

My math was to apply the mechanics of NM vs historic surrender. The cities listed, and two atomic bombs. Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.