Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Mistmatz

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

It was an innocent question about Pearl.

It wasn't my intent to set off a string of bash the Japanese opponent replies.

While I agree completely and a similar episode with an experienced Japanese opponent as a UV newbie is the reason I have refrained from PBEM play in this game, I already have too much of a reputation as a Japanese player basher for me to allow this spate of bashing to fall on my shoulders.

All I did was ask an innocent question about how PBEMers deal with a protracted Pearl strike. [8D]

The japanese player needs all the help he can get and I am happy to be on the receiving end for a week at PH. I can't speak for scenario 2 though.

It's scenario 2 and the fact that the Japanese got way, way more help than they ever needed in scenario 2 that I continue to point out. I'm never going to argue that they don't need help in scenario 1, although sceanrio one is far from the actual imbalance of history as they already have many advantages beyond historical even in scenario 1.

It how far overboard scenario 2 goes in giving them all the help they can get that throws the game in scenario 2 so far out of balance. Japan conquering all of India or Auatralia and even New Zealand and China, expanding to a point and growing to a strength that the historically shackled Allies can never hope to create the kind of turn around and collapse that occured historically, makes for avery fun game for the japanese player, but leaves the Allied player with a bad taste in his mouth at teh end of teh day. As Miller so eloquently put it in another thread "there comes a time when the Japanese player has to drop his shorts and take it up the arse like a man". This is what sceanrio 2 allows the Japanese player to avoid ever having to do. That so few Japanese players seem willing to play anything other than scenario 2 is simply deplorable.

Everytime I try to make this point I get a chorus of Japanese players responding that the scenario enhancements for Japan provide "balance". This I find to be completely comical. It the early imbalance in their favor they are seeking to perpetuate by claiming a balance is needed in the late game. By virtue of the logic they invoke the Allied players should be clamoring for an early game rebalance. If we balanced the early game in the way that they want the late game balanced, there would be no game because Japan would never get to expand in the first place. The entire game is predicated on imbalance. An early imbalance in favor of Japan and a late imbalance in favor of the Allies. I believe Alfred has made light recently of the clamoring for balance with a comment that balance has nothing to do with war.

Sorry for climbing on my soapbox again but this whole "balance" claim is so spurious it gets my goat every time.

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
I don't think that's possible in AE, so the Allies have to go into the DEI in force.

Disagreeing with you is fun! [;)]

I disagree. The Allies don't have to go into the DEI in force to win in this game. GreyJoy is on the right track-everything previous has been leading up to this scenario. He will win this game (eventually), without the slog back through the DEI, Burma, Thailand, China or Papua / New Guinea.

Well, to win this game i need to succesfully land in Japan and create land front...at the moment it's like if the Normandy D-Day has failed and half million allied troops are stuck on Utah, Omaha etc etc...

I would disagree...you have a prime position to bomb Japan into the stone age...I don't think you need to land anymore troops..

As always, it is your game mate. [:)]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter
blah blah blah...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j24nO2iNli8

try there.


@Grey.

Thats the way to go.

Have taken this up in the main area so that this AAR doesn't get hijacked.... its long enough anyway.

Roger

Stop trolling pauk..

ORIGINAL: jeffk3510

Stop trolling pauk..

+1

You know, at this rate you might actually start disrupting on map pilot training if he is using them to cap major cities.

Ser Greyjoy, does anything at all still happen in the rest of the theater outside of N. Japan? Does our LYB friend have all his toys moping about in N Japan? Is there anything left to grab a morsel or tidbit elsewhere to try and draw off some of these infernal pests?

Honestly, I know nothing about WitPAE Japanese production, but the production level of frames/pilots would seem to ridiculously exceed Japan's real abilities even if they had improved their production capacity and techniques. By the time Okinawa rolled round, the Allied air forces had made it difficult for the Japanese to find air frames at all (The Twilight Warriors discusses this in some detail) and Okinawa just about spent what little (relatively) that they had left. The pilot situation was infinitely worse. I realize this is PDU on in Scen 2, but this is really sort of fantasy land....enhance some of our merry crew referencing "Star Wars in the Pacific from time to time, it would seem.

ORIGINAL: pauk

ORIGINAL: HansBolter
blah blah blah...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j24nO2iNli8

try there.


@Grey.

Thats the way to go.

at some point I will remember you as the one guy that never played WITP but made all those comments, can't remember his name... you will be the AE version of him...[:'(]

From CR
If this game were modeled on real life, there would be several ways to bring Japan to its knees:  (1) Air War:  Destroy Japan's ability to defend itself, eventually allowing nearly uncontested attacks on the Home Islands; (2) War at Sea:  Destroy Japan's navy, thus allowing the Allies to close on Japan proper and impose a blockade; (3) Ground War: Destroy Japan's army so that it cannot defend itself; and (4) Economy:  Destroy Japan's economy, thus negating the other three.  Each of these is interrelated, of course, so that the Allies will be actually workign on all four, but as the game develops, a player will often begin to focus on one or two as he begins to experience some success.
I feel in this game GJ has moved to number 3 without achieving 1,2 & 4.
Given the scenario, I dont know that 1 can be achieved, despite tens of thousands of losses, the IJAAF & IJNAF are still capable of putting hundreds of aircraft into offensive missions.
Number 2 should be achievable, and raders Navy is a skeleton force BUT still has KB in place and therefore always a threat to any invasion and a force which must be defended against. Maybe a serious offensive should be put in to find and sink the Bismark, whoops, KB
Number 3 is a task that should have taken place outside of the Home islands, cutting off and destroying the Divisions while at the end of a long LOC would be much easier than trying to do so in Honshu.
4 appears to be a forlorn task as given the strength of the IJAAF and certain agreements you can bash away but losses are too high and the japanese can rebuild. In other battles areas such as the DEI are taken or under threat which then upsets the flow of oil and resources to the HI.

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

GreyJoy's game has taught me something about the game as a whole that I hadn't realized before, though I had wondered.

If this game were modeled on real life, there would be several ways to bring Japan to its knees:  (1) Air War:  Destroy Japan's ability to defend itself, eventually allowing nearly uncontested attacks on the Home Islands; (2) War at Sea:  Destroy Japan's navy, thus allowing the Allies to close on Japan proper and impose a blockade; (3) Ground War: Destroy Japan's army so that it cannot defend itself; and (4) Economy:  Destroy Japan's economy, thus negating the other three.  Each of these is interrelated, of course, so that the Allies will be actually workign on all four, but as the game develops, a player will often begin to focus on one or two as he begins to experience some success.

In AE, the third option (Ground War) really isn't available.  Japan's army is too big.  The first isn't an option either, which comes as a surprise since the air war was such a decisvie Allied victory.  The Allies can win the air war in AE, but they can't destroy Japan's air force.  Oh, there might be one game in a hundred in which an elite Allied player might bring Japan to its knees, but those will be very few.  GJ has simply eaten - and continues to eat - Japan's airforce in this game, but the airforce is still there in huge numbers causing major problems.

That leaves combat ships and the economy as Japan's weak points.  Destroying an economy will take time, unless Japan self destructs, but the navy is another matter.  That is a finite resource that can be destroyed.

Kind of agree. However, you probably can defeat Japanese air in scen #2 but only if you take out the oil in the DEI. Sooner or later this will affect production. It is just going to be later than you think.

Ground war is not an option if you are unable to interdict the flow of reinforcements and supply. Do than and you can win any fight. Greyjoy's circumstances are unusual but he really could not disrupt Rader's sea lanes in spite of his excellent postion in the North.

Which leads to the sea. Yes, best thing is to kill Japanese ships. Control of the sea gives opportunities to do all of the above.

No matter what. I don't think any Allied player should be making plans without some sort of contingency for shutting off the flow of oil. GJ has a good chance to do it without having done this, but heck, you should just go ahead and make your life easier.

One thing is if I commit to scen #2 again, there will be a HR about the maximum number of months any fighter can be advanced.....[:-]

No matter what. I don't think any Allied player should be making plans without some sort of contingency for shutting off the flow of oil. GJ has a good chance to do it without having done this, but heck, you should just go ahead and make your life easier.
It would at least put some movement back in the game, I was waiting for Douglas Haig to lead the next assault at Hachinoe.

Sorry guys...busy days... we've done few more turns...
The news are:
 
- the battle for Sadogashima seems to be over for the while. Rader halted his air and naval activities against it and, with 500 Engineers and 4 AA units and 80,000 supplies i can say that the base has been secured.
- Sadogashima already reached level 3 AF and 3 forts...not bad [8D]
- We started back the strat bombing campaign cause the Ki.201 is scheldued to arrive on the 1st Jan 1945 [X(]...so we are trying to burn its production...in 2 days we destroyed 120 KI-201 industries losing 34 bombers and 50 fighters....not bad.
- Operation "Incidentally Hairy" on the go....stay connected [:D]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
If this game were modeled on real life, there would be several ways to bring Japan to its knees:  (1) Air War:  Destroy Japan's ability to defend itself, eventually allowing nearly uncontested attacks on the Home Islands; (2) War at Sea:  Destroy Japan's navy, thus allowing the Allies to close on Japan proper and impose a blockade; (3) Ground War: Destroy Japan's army so that it cannot defend itself; and (4) Economy:  Destroy Japan's economy, thus negating the other three.  Each of these is interrelated, of course, so that the Allies will be actually workign on all four, but as the game develops, a player will often begin to focus on one or two as he begins to experience some success.

In AE, the third option (Ground War) really isn't available.  Japan's army is too big.  The first isn't an option either, which comes as a surprise since the air war was such a decisvie Allied victory.  The Allies can win the air war in AE, but they can't destroy Japan's air force.  Oh, there might be one game in a hundred in which an elite Allied player might bring Japan to its knees, but those will be very few.  GJ has simply eaten - and continues to eat - Japan's airforce in this game, but the airforce is still there in huge numbers causing major problems.

That leaves combat ships and the economy as Japan's weak points.  Destroying an economy will take time, unless Japan self destructs, but the navy is another matter.  That is a finite resource that can be destroyed.

(1) I would argue is only true due to the house rules in effect in Greyjoys game. He has been completely hamstrung IMHO, for his own enjoyment at that as he wants an interesting and hard fight rather than a rubblebouncing exercise. Really if I was him, free of house rules, I'd be night bombing Japan from 8000 feet with everything I've got, which Greyjoy is not allowed to do due to house rules. In fact you can see rader on the tech support forum arguing that if Greyjoy did this Japan would be down for the count in a few months. Somewhat over the top I think but... give it six or nine months not a few, and it would work.

(2) Definitely the weak point IMO so agree there. Sunk ships dont come back.

(3) Broadly agree here. Depends if China is in the fray. I think with an Allied Burma and a supplied China it may be possible, but the IJA is enormous, so I think until the USSR gets involved the IJA is probably too big. But I've seen AARs where China goes on a rampage and has the IJA being pushed back so seems to be in theory possible if that happens.

(4) From what I've heard from experts at Factory Manager in the Pacific, it seems not even Palembang is all that important. Thats why I hope from my PoV that your game continues. You supposedly have Japan by the throat in this game. I'm curious what that actually means. The assertion that Japan is toast without oil is well known and I dont really disagree but I'm very curious how long Japan can keep kicking before total shutdown. I'm inclined to think that with someone good at optimising their economy and doing ruthless management, like cutting all shipbuilding for example say, you would find that Japan can keep on kicking for a hell of a lot longer than anybody might anticipate.

ORIGINAL: JeffK
It would at least put some movement back in the game, I was waiting for Douglas Haig to lead the next assault at Hachinoe.

[:D][:D][:D]

Incidentally hairy:
 
so, i know the idea is a bit crazy but....
 
We will try to sink the Kido Butai with one single shot...
 
Turn sent... heart's beating....

so tomorrow, if everything goes well and Murphy doesn't come in, 350 Torpedo Bombers, escorted by 200 fighters will attack the Kido Butai while at anchor at Kobe.
The CAP is supposed to be at 20k in order to defend against our strategic bombing (that's why i started them back again), while our bombers will approach at 1000 feet.
I'm not looking to sink all his CVs, obviously, but to damage a lot of them, forcing them in port for some months.
Sadogashima is the starting base. 7 hexes of distance.
at least 600 enemy fighters are expected to be on CAP.
We are VERY overstacked there so it is very possible that we will suffer some penalty in coordination.
It's a risky mission...but the prize is so important and the value of the assets invested so low that we can efford a fiasco.
 
Finger crossed.

Are you using Torpedo squadrons from your destroyed carriers?  Or were these shore-based/existing carrier squadrons?
 
Mike
 

ORIGINAL: Panther Bait

Are you using Torpedo squadrons from your destroyed carriers?  Or were these shore-based/existing carrier squadrons?

Mike

A mix of them

Why? Does it change something?

Here is hoping that his CAP is asleep....