82nd/giacomo vs Casus/Rufus WaW33d

[82ndtrooper]

I just sent it to russia today (giacomo)

[03_walk_alot]

Turn to Krauts.

[Casus_Belli]

Turn to Japan

[RufusTFirefly]

During winter in China the Japanese army needs large amounts of supply. Although no capacities are left to send reinforcements to the front the army groups try to encircle the Chinese units in the north and south.

Meanwhile landing operations in Java and Sumatra continued.

[RufusTFirefly]

Turn May42 send to US.
 
While playing Japan in WAW for the second time, I would like to make a remark:
In this scenario Japan should be played together with Germany as China should be played together with Russia. Taking only Japan is not useful, I think. Japan is to weak to get more than a first minor success and then go down as soon as US has build up enough naval forces to strike back in the western pacific area.
 
Maybe I am making a mistake that I dont see, so anyone who is of different oppinion is wellcome to post his experiances here; thanks [:)]

[Grymme]

I would like to disagree actually,
 
I am playing Japan in a game right now. We are in the middle of 1942 and i have taken most of China. The northern city, the capitol and i am standing outside the last remaining city.
 
As for the allies i have taken the Phillipines, Borneo and on a good way to take Singapore. Have not taken NEI and Singapore yet because i sacrificed a little to get to China.
 
Am also at war with russia, which i have beaten back. But that is mainly because germany is doing poorly in this game. However i think Russia has taken on more than they can chew when my armies in china turn against him. 
 
I have a pretty good strategy of taking out china quickly in each game. But that i will keep to myself. for now

[RufusTFirefly]

@ Grymme:
 
Thanks for the reply. So I see that it is possible to do better and be more sucessful fighting against China than I did. But i guess it takes an expert, while I am none.
 
The main problem is that large groups of Chinese rifle units and the mountian area make it difficult to attack. The problems with terrain are as well not easy to handle when trying to conquer Indochine, Malaya and some of the islands between Asia and Australia. My units can hardly move and are often unable to attack due to lack of AP in the mountians, swamps, or jungle. Having no roads and changing from one difficult terrain to another one makes movement very slow, while USA gets time to build up a strong force and strike back heavily.
 
I have not attacked Russia. I was told that it is not very kind to attack them in case the developper has not had this in mind and therefore has not created an action card for this. Anyway, the situation might be different when Germany has a lot of trouble and needs help. But in this game Germany is doing good I think.

[henri51]

ORIGINAL: Grymme

Am also at war with russia, which i have beaten back. But that is mainly because germany is doing poorly in this game. However i think Russia has taken on more than they can chew when my armies in china turn against him. 

I would think twice about going after Russia with Japan: except for Vladivostok, there is essentially nothing in Russian East before a VERY long trek across Siberia, and unless the USA is doing nothing, you shouldn't have the troops to spare (in the recent versions, the factories will be heavily garrisonned)...[:'(]

And there is always the possibility that you will arrive at the Ural factories only to find out that the Germans are already there.[X(]

Henri

[RufusTFirefly]

Japanese at the Ural is as strange as German invaders in Australia [:D]
 
Talking about attacking Russia was meant in reply to Grymme´s remark that he did it. And it would make sense only to put some pressure on Russia to help Germany, to profit from the supply center, and to have some land battles instead of sitting face to face to the Chinese without being able to do something.

[Grymme]

I have to be humble and admitt that the axis just surrendered in the game i was talking about.

It was actually Russia that was attacking me in early 1942. But i was going to do it anyhow because Germany was pushed back. I conquered China, Vladivostok, Phillipines, Borneo and Singapore. Never took NEI. Germany didnt take Denmark, lost Hamburg early and got nowhere in Barbarossa. West could focuss pretty much on me, upgraded to battleshipIII, airforceIII etc early and took Tokyo unopposed in a surprise raid. Killed of 30 000 supply and any chances of me playing on. Misplayed the Tokyo thing but played pretty ok otherwise.

But i think the game could have gone better if the West hadnt been able to fully focus on me together with the russians.

I agre that helping the Germans is the pretty much only reason to attack Russia.

As for taking China. Build levelbombers, artillery and mortars. Complement with some horses and engineers.

[hatemf90]

It was inexperience, was my first large scale scenario, give me a break [:'(]

The reason which I couldnt fight back russia is the landings/paradrops, which I directed most of my production to.

I did however at the start of Barbarossa push half way to Moscow (5/6 hexes away from it)

Then winter came, I got a nice penalty for winter war. I failed to repair the bridges, supplies and new units were not reaching the front due to huge transport penalty, together with russia's units getting stronger it was retreat from there...

I admit, I was blinded at first by the victory in France and the fast fall of the Balkans.
I think the only thing to be proud of is beating the landings attempted by the west...

Sorry to post in your AAR, but wanted to explain my situation, and hope the axis here are in better shape.

[Casus_Belli]

I'm about ready to concede this game , and I'm SO keen to start another one [:D]. I see it all now! Spain was a terrible mistake. Should have put much more effort into Scandinavia...etc...etc...etc...

[Casus_Belli]

Mind you, on reflection, I'm not quite ready to concede. The question is: do air units have land anti-supply points. If so, there may be some hope.

[RufusTFirefly]

Hello guys,
 
I quit. Game over for Japan.
 
This turn I have lost a third of my fleet with no chance to strike back effectively with the rest of my navy. Some transporters with troops have already been sunk, the others will be sunk next turn. So, the islands will get lost quickly.
 
Russia has started an attack from Manchuria and has taken the supply base Mukden. My units on the Asian continent will soon be crushed by the attacks of Russia from the east and China from the west. I guess it will take two or three turns, til my froces are eliminated. In Japan the defensive forces are too weak to stand a serious attack.
 
Resuming this game (and the one I did before playing Japan) I want to recommend that in the new version of WAW there should be the advice that it makes no sense to play Japan as a single part due to minimal possibilities to play an active role in tis scenario (unless a player might be a real expert and manage the different difficulties of this nation in this game).

[Casus_Belli]

Well that's that. The allies win. Who would like another game? I'd love to try Germany again, but maybe Giacomo could play Japan and Rufus take Russia or the West. Just a thought. I'm keen to start again as Germany ASAP.
 
Thanks for the game everyone. I had a great time, despite the result.

[RufusTFirefly]

I would like to start another game. Russia or West would be great.
Casus_Belli, why dont you like to take Japan together with Germany?

[82ndtrooper]

Its was a lot of fun and very interesting for my first game against people instead of the AI.

Thanks to all of you for a fun game  I really enjoyed it.

In the new version by Explorer2 we are testing we have added something special to assist Japan but since its explorer doing all the work I wont say anything until he does but I think it will have a nice effect on the game and people will really like it.

Now being a military man I am going to do a debriefing.

First please understand that my comments are not to critisize anyone at all but are just intended to help us all learn from our mistakes. This was the first game for Casus and myself and only the second game for Rufus so there is no reason to get disheartened by a loss because we all have plenty of room to learn  
Giacomo is a vetran player and he and I were talking all the time via email passing intell and discussing strategy.  This gave our team a edge.

ok lets start

Rufus ill start with you since I know from our emails that you are a little frustrated with Japan.
we have already talked about what Japan can do in the ground war with china and I think that after that your war in china started going better. If you had a little more time I think you would have eventually taken it.
The war with Russia you could have stopped by playing the action card that would have cost you 20PP.

You did very well in your conquest of the west Indies. your tactics and execution where very sound and well played. You went through my defenses like a hot knife through butter untill you got to Singapore. 

this is where I noticed your first mistake.

Your fleets by the time you got them to Singapore where out of supply and their readiness was so low that your shore bombardments had no effect on my defenders.
This is why you couldnt break my defenses.
also when i destroyed your fleet last turn you had moved it back near borneo and it was still out of supply and its readiness was only about 20. This allowed my fleets to destroy it without a single loss.

You need to dock your fleets frequently to keep them supplied. take one of the little islands close by that has no production or defenders and use it as a supply dock.
if you dock your fleets for a turn the game will automatically send them supply while they are docked.  Rotate your fleets to and from this supply dock untill you can take and repair the Philliphenes or Borneo or another thats closer. (you dont want to dock them in a place thats been attacked and is damaged because that will hurt their readiness)

I was able to capture Siagon with 5 partisains because there was no defenders there.
I also killed several troop transports loaded with troops that you where moving to areas that you didnt really need to move them via transport. you could have stategically transferred them there much quicker and easier with no risk of losing them on a transport.

for example with Saigon you could have just created a new unit there and transferred 10 or 20 troops from IJN to that new unit directly and you would have had a little garrison of defenders and not lost it. I do this every time I capture a city.
Japan is very challenging to play and to succeed you have to build the correct units and get them in the right places from the very start, there is little room for mistakes. You also have to be very aggressive in china and attack without regard for losses. Speed if very important so that you can maintain your supply.

which brings me to the single biggest problem of the game for Japan.

Germany failed to maintain the garrison with SU and allowed the war with the west to start in 1940 instead of dec 1941 or spring of 1942.

this cost japan 12 or more turns that you needed to build up your forces, it also brought the west's production into the game way to early.

This can be an effective tactic for Germany but its very hard on Japan.

in fact in this game it worked great for germany at the start Casus creamed me early on and I was in very bad shape untill this happened and boston came online for me.

Rufus you played well and I would have you on my team anytime. I would suggest that next game you play someone different from Japan.  Its not your ability at all its just that you need more experiance with how some of the game mechanics work. 

Casus,
Your initial blitz was brilliant, as i have already said before you caught me completely offgaurd and had me in a very bad posistion,but then things seemed to just stop. If boston hadnt come online so early you could have invaded england and caught me with all my forces struggling to stay supplied and at extremely low readiness. I would have been very hard put to have stopped you at that point in the game.

you where too aggresive with your german fleet and I was able to take it out of the game early on, this allowed me the freedom of moving my fleets to the med to help defend there with no worry of an invasion on England.  The biggest value of the german fleet is the threat of what it can do if its still around more than trying to use it to early.
the same thing with your italian fleet, i was able to take it out way to early and once again I could move my fleets with out any worry of attack.

I also noticed 5 or 6 production centers that you built. I wonder why you spent so much PP on them ? I saw no increase at all in the size of your army, with all that extra production you should have had a huge army but i never saw it.
This also hurt you on your tech, you spent so much PP on those production centers that I was able to keep up with your tech easily and send tons of PP and supply to russia and china. You never had the technology edge that you should of had.

I did notice that you kept rebuilding your fleet but that wasnt much help since you lost your starting fleet so early, if you hadnt lost that you would have built a very nice fleet that would have given me a lot of trouble. This is a strategy that very well might have worked.
But i think that once that starting fleet was lost it was a matter of closing the barn door after the horse had already gotten out. You could have used that production to build a LOT of subs instead which would have given me a lot more trouble. ( the trick about fighting with subs is to use them on the attack they are sitting ducks if they are attacked first but extremely deadly if they attack first).

as for not keeping the garrison up with SU, was this a mistake or did you not realise that it would start the war with the west so soon ?
I ask because overall I think that your strategy was brilliant and it very well could have succeded if you had been able to keep up your momentum, I know that you had both myself and Giacomo extremely worried and in a very bad situation that you could have exploited to your advantage, but the expected attacks on us both never materialised.

also if you hadnt lost your fleet so early you could have fought much harder for scandinavia and most likely kept me from retaking it, which was very important to me because of a major mistake that I made.

my whole dunkirk manuver was a big mistake I saved all those troops and tanks and couldnt keep them supplied for 10 turns or more, I had to have scandinavia or i would have had to destroy troops to survive. (once again this is where Boston coming online so early really helped me) there was 10 turns or so that England was extremely vunerable, I couldnt get my readiness above 60%.

I should have fought for france and bled you as much as I could.

final thoughts,
it was the early introduction of the west into the game that turned the tide. I was able to turtle up (as the west) and send all the PP and supply I could to russia and china that kept us in the game but there was a period of time that the game could have gone either way.

Casus I learned a few things from your blitz and I think it has a lot of promise as a viable strategy, I would love to discuss it with you and see if we could make it work.

/cheers guys
and thanks again for a fun game [:)]

[Casus_Belli]

Well thanks a lot 82nd, for your comments, which I agree with, by and large. Indeed I would have liked to keep the Russians out of the fight for much longer and put a lot more effort into scandinavia. Yes, it was a mistake, I wasn't sure about the increases, but I'm not making any excuses. I apologise to Rufus for bringing Uncle Joe into the war so early. You are absolutely correct about the navy - both navies - And I would certainly do it differently now.
Probably Rufus and I could have coordinated out strategy better, but really I don't see much I could have done for him. I was struggling myself.
I'd love to have another go at Germany, but I think someone else should play Japan. I reckon you need at least four players.
Thanks again to everyone for a most interesting and enjoyable game.

[82ndtrooper]

I would love to play another game but i have to leave for 6 weeks for my new job and my new alienware laptop wont be here untill after i leave.
 
after those 6 weeks ill be back online and can play then.

[Casus_Belli]

I've started another game as Germany. I could play Japan as well, Rufus could play Russia/China and Giacomo the West.