Reluctant Admiral Feedback

[FatR]

I'm in late August of 1942, and I'm throwing all might of Japanese air force against Allies at Andamans, who conveniently are up to the challenge ever since bigred took over. Economic situation is good, as DEI was taken with minimal damage. I'm not going wild with plane production, but pilots are more important limiting factor anyway. I'm benefitting slightly from the fighter speed bonus that slipped into the early version of the Scen 70 I'm still using.

[John 3rd]

Michael is working to help me with getting my resource and oil TF running with FAR BETTER efficiency. My economy was limping along and I barely had enough resources to keep Honshu going with only TWO days of reserve. Am sure he can and/or WILL throw something into my AAR! [8|]

Have you guys found issue with the lower starting supplies/resources/oil/fuel? This is something we purposely lowered to 'pay' for the changes in RA. Am curious as to how everyone else is doing in that area.

Additionally, following what FatR said earlier, what do people think of Points A and C in my Post that also talked about Allied plane expansion/changes?

[Mac Linehan]

John 3rd,

Have just started to study and give your mod the attention it deserves; have been immersed elsewhere and am taking a break to catch up. Really is a different approach, am finding this thread a very interesting "what if" line of thought.

Will search for and follow the Reluctant Admiral AAR's - I know it will be worth while.

My sincere respect to you and your Team for the time and effort that you have put into the mod, it really shows.

Mac

P.S. -

AND, the fact that you are from Colorado means you are already ahead of the Game... <grin>

[Mac Linehan]

ORIGINAL: 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.

Well, Gents, I am seriously behind the power curve with your mod. After studying the first two pages of the thread, all I can say is OhMyGosh!

Really really like what you have done.

FatR - your remarks, highlighted above, while very obvious to most, are a clear indicator for the newbs like me. I do appreciate your insight.

Mac

[Mac Linehan]

ORIGINAL: 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.

Well. I'm hooked.

Mac

[FatR]

Note, that since then I changed my mind about Palembang. To heck with safety, storm it as soon as light carriers and battleships from Home Islans reach the theatre at the latest. Which means within 10 days after start of hostilities (took it on 17th in my second ongoing PBEM - Scen 2 vs. Itdepends). As a bonus, this will dislodge the entire Allied defense. With a historical first turn, Force Z hopefully won't be a factor. With a non-historical first turn you can land at Kuching at once, with one of the smaller warp drive TFs. Then use the next week to grab Singkawang, so Japanese LBA will be able to provide a modicum for support for the main thrust.
Well, at least in Scen 2 this all is quite doable. Scen 1 might pose a greater risk.

[gajdacs zsolt]

For me the lowered stockpile is a big limiting factor. Before I only played on scenario 2 and that is in a whole different league....

I have to be very careful about supply consumption, transportation of resources, building stuff....it's not simple, but I like it . I can more than bare this price for all the toys I get .

It definiately slows my pace!

[John 3rd]

Thank you guys for the feedback and good comments. We have tried to follow a serious rationale for RA that dictates our choices for Japan and the Allies.

For those just starting, welcome to the Mod.

Please keep up questions and comments here so we can gain a better understanding of how things play out and help wherever we can! Obviously we are looking to do a revamp but not immediately...

[FatR]

About the resource stockpiles: they certainly force more cautious expenditure at the beginning. Also, if SRA is taken with severe damage, Combined Fleet will not not have reserves to conduct major offensive operations, without jeopardizing the economy. In the long term, their importance wanes compared to smooth takeover and safe possession of SRA.

[John 3rd]

FatR is spot-on with his commentary. As Michael would attest, I did a rapid expansion at the beginning of the war and worked on the premise of a regular scenario. BIG MISTAKE! Darned near ran dry on resources and am struggling to get a stockpile rebuild right now.

Just got my last 1942 CVL and now have to wait for Sho-Kai's. Going to be long spell without a new flattop! I've got the first Sho-Kai coming in at the normal time and have accelerated number 3 to come in with number 2 at the same time. This should work pretty well getting a PAIR of heavy carriers on the same day.

Have also been working to bring the late-Unryu's forward too, however, this has been a little slower since I want to get Musashi completed and open up a bunch of shipyard points.

Has anyone got any commentary regarding the 1942 warships produced:
1. Does the CVs coming in slightly early really help?

2. How about the improved Agano's? They seem pretty good to me! At least they have a bit of a punch now.

3. My DD construction has outpaced my losses to this point and that is nice.

[stuman]

name trolling

I just made that up !

[FatR]

John, I got your preliminary changes file, will take a look when I have the time.

About Aganos, I believe I commented on them on my AAR. They are great investment of naval points now. Not nearly as good as Brooklyns, Helenas and Clevelands, but better than all the other CLs in the game.

I also ran about a week of Downfall in AI-vs-AI mode (mostly to save time). Comments on late-war stuff will follow soon.

[John 3rd]

Come to think of it--you did mention it in your AAR. Solida ships now.

Just so people are aware regarding what Stanislav is speaking, I took what we have written about in the last page or two and did a retooling of the Scenario with changes to pilot experience, ship placement, LCU placement, and slight changes in the American Dec 7th dispositions of their TF. Hadn't planned to mention that since I wanted Michaal and Stanislav to take a look.

Should note that I've asked Michael if he would be willing to add the German U-Boats and AMC into the database so they are accurately placed into the war as they should be. Want to thank Ironman Mod for that.

Am curious to your impressions of Downfall when you get the chance FatR!

[FatR]

Okay, about late-war stuff.

1)Japanese ASW. Holy shit. You can't believe it until you see it. The best result I noticed was kaibokan No.205 sinking one sub and near-sinking (damage into 80s) another in one phase. In the deep water She ran out of DCs for the main array too, otherwise it would have been two clear sinkings in one phase. And that with crew EXP less than 50. While American boats are quite accurate with their attacks, they don't seem to have much of advantage in avoiding detection, compared to early war. And if you get spotted by one of these E-class monsters, you are toast.
Now, I'm all for giving JFBs the ability to conduct an effective ASW campaign, if they invest appropriate effort and approach the whole thing meticulously. But "Just send your E-class ships to sea!" strikes me as an unsatisfyingly simplistic solution[:(].

What can we do about it? We don't know how chances for detecting a sub are determined, so I propose reducing the accuracy of Type 2 DCs to 8 overall (other ships that carry them aren't as lethal as kaibokans, but still can sink subs even in deep water more often that I like) and introducing a subset of Type 2 DCs specifically for E-class escorts, that has accuracy further reduced to 7, to reflect that simple increase in the number of devices does not give an arithmetic increase in effectiveness. I mean, air combat suffers from this problem too, for certain planes, but at least there the problem doesn't break the whole equation.

2)Night interception. There doesn't seem to be a meaningful difference between high-end nightfighters, like S1A1, with experienced crews, and trash manned by green pilots. In both cases they shoot down anything only as a fluke. Granted, this is stock, where S1A1 is shafted by carrying horrible 37-mm cannons, and fighting B-29s might skew the picture... Still, I think dedicated nightfighters (on both sides) need a bit more muscle, where it can be added without making them unrecognizable as historical planes.

3)Allied flak seemed a bit anemic, but I haven't seen it in action much, Japanese AI is not good at sneaking planes past CAP. Japanese land-based flak was not effective, but this might be due to lack of proper concentration.

4)Not much conclusions can be drawn about air combat. Different experience levels skew the picture alot, and AI flies its planes at low altitude. I dread to see what Thunderbolts can do, when ordered to fly stratosweeps. Will need a controlled testing.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: FatR
1)Japanese ASW. Holy shit. You can't believe it until you see it. The best result I noticed was kaibokan No.205 sinking one sub and near-sinking (damage into 80s) another in one phase. In the deep water She ran out of DCs for the main array too, otherwise it would have been two clear sinkings in one phase. And that with crew EXP less than 50. While American boats are quite accurate with their attacks, they don't seem to have much of advantage in avoiding detection, compared to early war. And if you get spotted by one of these E-class monsters, you are toast.
Now, I'm all for giving JFBs the ability to conduct an effective ASW campaign, if they invest appropriate effort and approach the whole thing meticulously. But "Just send your E-class ships to sea!" strikes me as an unsatisfyingly simplistic solution[:(].

What can we do about it? We don't know how chances for detecting a sub are determined, so I propose reducing the accuracy of Type 2 DCs to 8 overall (other ships that carry them aren't as lethal as kaibokans, but still can sink subs even in deep water more often that I like) and introducing a subset of Type 2 DCs specifically for E-class escorts, that has accuracy further reduced to 7, to reflect that simple increase in the number of devices does not give an arithmetic increase in effectiveness. I mean, air combat suffers from this problem too, for certain planes, but at least there the problem doesn't break the whole equation.

There's a three part answer to this. Unfortunately, all the parts have to play together, so it's not simple, but it is doable with some thought. It's a combination of a math thing and an engine/data interaction thing.

1) math thing - yes, lots of launchers show a power law result in the chance to hit. The more launchers, the more times the hit routine is called, so the waaaay better chance that one of them will get a hit. In DaBabes, we reduced the # of launchers from 12 to 6 for the late war C and D 'E'-types. Indeed, they had 12 launchers historically, and they were pretty bad juju, but as far as we can determine, they popped those off in salvos of 6 (right half, or left half, or front half-both sides, or back half-both sides). So we cut the launchers in half, but doubled the ammo. So they get exactly what they had in terms of total DCs, but the sequential hit probability is now based on a smaller number - makes it better, lots better, but still doesn't quite get to the brass ring.

2) engine/data interaction thing - you may have noticed the 'messages' that say 'so-and-so sub dives deep and escapes'. Ok, cool; it happened. But there is an interaction between the "depth" of a DC (the DC Range parameter) and the "depth" a sub can go (10x its Durability parameter). Now, in stock, later war Japanese DCs (like the Type-2) have "Depths" of 475', while the best US subs can only dive deep to 300'. In DaBabes, the later war US subs can dive deep to 410', while the Type-2 DC bottoms out at 357'. That doesn't mean those subs are immune, it just means that if they can avoid the first stonk, they have a better chance of avoiding the rest. They are still vulnerable to the first stonk, which is why we decreased the launcher numbers to compensate.

3) accuracy thing - the simplest, but also the hardest to dink with. Accuracy is a small number, so when you roll dice against it the values converge rather quickly. When you divide by 2 and take an integer, there's not much difference between 2 and 5; and 1 (Exp)4 is still 1. Probably best to leave accuracy alone, in this case.

Now, I understand that what I'm saying is a bit vague, and does not answer the question specifically. I'm skating on some thin ice about not revealing algorithms here, but the hints are a synopsis of what a good math person could eventually figure out, so why not provide a short cut.

Hope these comments are helpful. Ciao.

[John 3rd]

Michael emailed me with the Scenario file that now includes the German U-Boats and Commerce Raiders! I like getting these in to improve historical accuracy!

Thanks Michael...

[ny59giants]

The Japanese get 2 of those U-Boats at start. They start at a good place to cause trouble and with crew experience at 90/90, they will be a PITA.

[FatR]

Thanks, JWE. Your solution for DaBabes seem to be close optimal, and I'll try to convince others to use it.

John, can you send the scenario files with added German stuff to me, so I can take a look?

[traskott]

SS with 90/90 exp ?? Oh, my... It could be funny (except for Allied player...)

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

The Japanese get 2 of those U-Boats at start. They start at a good place to cause trouble and with crew experience at 90/90, they will be a PITA.

Star Trek...[8|]