ORIGINAL: John 3rd
ORIGINAL: FatR
So, about hindering Japan early...
The thing is, by the very nature of AE, operations in the game tend to unfold very rapidly, compared to RL, and you can't really buy as much time as in RL by trading territory for it. There are three main contributing factors to that:
1)Easy logistics. The RL complexity is reduced to providing fuel and supplies, only supplies to bases that aren't supposed to support fleet operations. And supply equation is such, that players often don't need to bother with secure naval lines of communication in the short term. Both sides also have sealifting capacity well in excess of their needs. Allies, in particular, have rather limited economic needs, and this gives them vast reserves of shipping that can be freely sacrificed to fuel military operations.
I'm not sure if anything can be done with this aspect of the game. A blanket reduction in ship cargo capacity will make feeding military operations in distant theatres more challenging, but also will impact Japanese economics rather hard. Now, I don't mind this aspect of the game to be more challenging, as in the game Japanese happen to have a significant surplus of merchants, instead of their RL constant shortage, but such profound changes are very hard to balance. I'm also not sure if other people really care about playing Transport Tycoon of the Pacific (I know you don't John, and often find micromanaging small convoys annoying myself).
2)Easy base building. Not even talking of extra perks Japanese get here in RA, in Scen 2 I made Tulagi into an airbase capable of launching attack missions (size 2) in about a month, without even a major commitment of construction units. Well, we all know how long it took Japanese to construct an operational airfield there in RL. Of course, this works even better for Allies. They can drop a bunch of troops in dot hexes and turn them into an airfield cluster of doom in a week or two - moves like this are more limited by amphibious capability than base-building one. Constructing an airfied capable of operating unlimited number of aircraft might take only about a month later in the game. This "Instant Base - Just Add Supplies" capability makes offensive operations faster and vastly reduces dependency on existing bases, allowing offensives also to be bolder. It is probably the main factor that makes deeply unrealistic Japanese moves, like early assault on Hawaii or moving into Southern Pacific with Rabaul as the closest forward base quite viable. It's also one of the main factors that allows the classic war-winning Allied gambit of jumping into a currently weakly-developed but strategically important region in force (like Cuttlefish was defeated by Q-Ball; I avoided this fate in my Ocean of Blood game only by destroying Allied carrier fleet).
In certain situations, this can make the game harder for Allies - if they fail to push back until about second half of 1943, they are likely to face the Japanese perimeter that looks like Atlantikwall and Maginot Line combined. But I believe such situation to be just a sympthom of deeper failings on the Allied player's part.
If it is possible to adjust the speed at which engineers work, I don't know how to do this. So, the only way of fixing the situation seems to be going through TOEs and cutting the number of construction troops at least in half for both sides (for Japanese - from their increased number in Scen 70, to keep the intended bonus).
3)Players' greater risk tolerance, loss tolerance and willingness to outright sacrifice troops, ships and planes, compared to RL planners. Affects the Japanese side too, as many players do not mind expending assets that will be useless late in the war anyway, but mostly impacts how the Allies are willing to act, compared to RL.
Nothing really can be done about this aspect, except outsmarting and punishing one's opponent for his aggressiveness[:)].
As a consequence of all this, Japan in AE generally cannot be satisfied with the historical conquests, even with a few additions to complete the defensive perimeter, like Port Moresby. At the very least, the Japanese player must take Northern Australia, to safeguard Eastern DEI, that has a ton of dot bases and therefore is extremely vulnerable to an early, or even not-so-early Allied counterattack. Ideally, he should strike farther, to destroy Allied assets and disrupt their buildup whenever possible, and strike early, before the amphibious bonus will run out, and every Allied base of note will require a month of fighting to seize. Southern Pacific seems to be a rather popular direction for such assault, although after trying this direction for myself I'm not liking it very much. This requires bold advance and swift destruction of Allied forces in Malaya and DEI.
Conversely, a major slowdown in Phase 1 (reaching the historical perimeter) usually spells total disaster for Japanese. Again, see even my own example in Ocean of Blood AAR, Cuttlefish vs. Q-Ball and Aussies vs. Amis examples, heck, even Nemo121's game as an extreme example of what might happens when the Japanese player commits particularly grievous mistakes during the initial expansion phase.
And unless something is done to offset above-mentioned factors (those we can do anything about), I'm quite strongly opposed to make the initial DEI conquest harder. Yes, I know, in RL it was far from almost-sure thing it is in AE. But our goal with RA is to faciliate long-lasting campaigns that remain interesting as long as possible, and in the current metagame introducing small immediate bonuses for Allies at the start can give them an advantage snowballing in importance as the game goes on, and possibly shortening it by a year or two. In particular, significant reinforcement of Palembang, the base any Allied player who feels like hurting the enemy to the best of his ability, should already be reinforcing from Day 1, in hopes of causing severe damage to oil and refineries on capture, is likely to be very harmful for the Japanese in the long term.
Initial Comment: Damn.
This is well thought out and insightful Sir. I had to read it two or three times to really wrap my mind around your commentary. It is excellent.
OK.
1. Easy Logistics--Working in this area is a can or worms.
I personally like the idea of reducing carrying capacity of AKs/TKs/AKLs/etc...but it would be a NIGHTMARE to work on. To a certain extent the developers have already moved in this direction. Remember the original WitP?!!
Of course in RA we've already thrown a major handicap at the Japanese by making things tougher with a reduced fuel/supply stockpile. You are correct in that I truly HATE this side of the war but it is a necessity.
2. Easy Base-Building---This is more workable:
a. One could go through and reduce the engineers as described above. This could be done. Be a lot of work but do-able for someone who is methodic. I like this idea as the most simple solution.
b. A second thought would be to reduce those dot hexes and lower base possibilities. This would mean serious map work and might be quite difficult as well.
Your summation of what a Japanese player MUST do to simply secure the perimeter is spot-on. I feel that I must (by May 42) have Aleutians, South Pacific including PM, NW Australia, and ALL of Burma. Could the Japanese have done this IRL? NO. Simple as that but nearly all JFB feel they have do to simply forestall an early Allied counter.
I wish there would be some form of negative VP allowed for NOT fighting for locations. Something like if Soerabaja falls Feb 1, 1942--lose 200 VP, Soer falls Feb 15th lose 100 VP. This frustration goes to the Sir Robin defense. The Allied Player KNOWS the Japanese most be offensive in the extreme so many don't put up a real fight.
Anyone who has played the Japanese knows this is the exact opposite route one should take because the Japanese cannot replace early losses. An Allied player can lose a couple of CVs, BBs, and support ships because THEY WILL BE REPLACED. Not so the Japanese...
This could turn into a rant so I'll stop.
Got to say you really got the juices flowing with this Posting FatR!
This reply is directed to FatR, John 3rd, JWE and whoever and is Rant of sorts.
Here is a post I recently made in the Naval Issues thread, but given the issues ya'll (that's for you JWE since your now from Bama) I thought it may fit in here[/b]:
A friend of mine suggested that a portion of Japan's existing merchant fleet, at the start of the war, were left out of the game to represent those ships dedicated to domestic purposes as opposed to those in the game towards the "war effort". I don't ever recall seeing this. Does it sound familiar?
"Say it is not so Joe" ,but while it may not be true it seems by some of what you are saying, it is appropriate because of the "games" already over capacity of supply/merchant ships.
I have no doubt that it's true game wise and you guy collectively are a group of pretty "fart smellers" (as my uncle would say) and this comment in no way is disrespectful towards you.
Sort of seems like we have come full circle back to issue with stock WITP. It was recognized by many and pursued with gusto by EdCid (among others). Recall the reconfiguration and reduction of Allied AKs to cut in half the vessels and reduce their capacities. ElCid went farther and created "supply sinks" and damaged supply centers in the US to cut down on the initial over capacity of the US production and the begining of the war.
So what's my rant. Well here we are some 3 years later with our dream game and its sameo, sameo. In fact it seems we have even more supply than in WITP. And then there are the other issues you guys surface (and rightfully so). I visioned this game at least as representing "RL" data and was extremely delighted with the Mod expansion to DaBabes Lite and then the Biggy, bringing more and better toys to the party, Don's approach to the ship inventory, if it was there, put it in got my 68 year old heart beating faster. Now I am learning that it just adds to playability issues.
Why is my re-post germane. Well I have been on a 6 month or more long project to bring the shipping on both sides in line with RL (including capacities and armament, with concentration on the Japanese merchant ships for over a month. In a couple of PMs between Don he seemed to be interested in the results I might come up with, but maybe only just as a curiosity.
I have spent countless hours researching the Internet, buying an online subscription and purchasing several books to this end and then there's the entering of the data for maybe 150 to 200 (or more) additional Japanese merchants (large and small). Hey nobody told me to do it but it seemed to be one of the themes of the overall DaBabes project and I was excited. And now we don't even need or want more ships.
Well guess what folks, you've heard it before "the game is broken" and I guess needs to be adjusted/dumbed down to non-real equipment "shootem-up beer and pretzel fantasy fun game like Grand Fleet" to make it work of sorts. Ok it will never be that but I am a worn out old fart that is pretty disillusioned at this point.
I appreciate all that the developers and you modders have tried or are trying to do for this game but it appears it has turned out to be truly expensive "Mission Impossible"
I'll still be lurking around (not that any of you should care) but with a hell of a lot less enthusiasm.
Buck
Don Bowen, if you are still interested in the additional Japanese merchants I found (to date), just ask.
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