Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: BigJ62
the first allied unit must shock attack because the opposing hexside is enemy controled however the second unit does not have to shock attack because hexside control has changed at this point.

Are attackers forced to retreat if they lose this shock attack? If not this rule is wide open to exploitation by sending a small unit ahead of the main body. Attackers should have to win the shock attack in order to establish a bridgehead that negates river penalties for follow up units.

Jim

Yup there is a report telling you which ones and also the unit screen will tell you which these are mandatory you have no control over it (other than in the editor it also applies to some US west coast formations)
 
Off the top of my head
 
Withdrawn
7th Amoured Bde
5th UK Div
 
Disbanded in theatre
267th Armoured Bde
A lot of Bn's that are independent as the TOE's of Div increase to 10 Bn Divs in 43
Several Cavalry Regts
An Indian Motorised Bde
70th British Div -> Chindits
 
The units in question tend to be allocated to India West Coast or NZ Command so you would need to pay PP's to release them and then move them out of the theatre in order to have them committted in Burma (most withdrawals occur in 43 so India and NZ/Australia should be safe by then)
 
Basically before paying the PP's check if a unit is due to leave you or else you could waste a lot of PP's
 
Andy

Good question Jim we are still debating this one

OK guys because I am an evil person and I can I am now off to do another Malaya testing run through .... (its so pretty now) [:D][:D]  because I can.
 
I will be back to answer questions in the morning.

A lot of focus on the AI its high on my list to get it working and hopefully make it more sneaky and unpredictable it is a scripted AI so there will be limitations to what we can achieve but I really want to make it as nasty as I can so we will try.
 
Andy

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac
Re Devices the allies especially are almost always short of devices and even more so now. In the main scenario some nations will get 0 replacements i.e. Dutch although there may be a single timed replacement draft to represent final mobilisation.

The problem with a limited pool for one power and not the other has been discussed over and over on these forums. If you're going to hold one player to historical limitations then both must be.

Currently Japan can produce unlimited devices of any type it has, yet you state the intention of limiting the allies even more than they are in stock. The allies were the guys who out-produced Japan historically by tenfold, if anyone deserves further limiting it’s the Japanese.

Also the allies had the capacity and flexibility to make up for unexpected losses by shifting production if needed. Just because it didn’t happen in the historical fight, doesn’t mean the capacity to make up shortfalls wasn’t there. There should be some capacity to do this if needed and less hard coded restrictions for both players.

By hard coding too few tanks, you virtually guarantee that Japan will always target the allied tank units to try and take them out since they cannot rebuild damage.

Jim

P.S. with a weaker Indian and British command are the Indian Colonial units going to start on map as fixed units to prevent India's early capture? There was a very large Indian home force in India that isn't in the current game.

True to some extent Jim but thats the nature of the beast and its why you get several tank one off timed replacements as well.
 
Most devices will not be a huge problem but some like CW Armour and some squad devices will be heavily restricted and BTW these were never produced in theatre so actually you couldnt divert production in fact as I said we all need to accept that the Allies were fighting a global conflict and the Japanese were not and in reality these devices were restricted hence the disbanding of AA regts to generate Infantry replacements.
 
The fact is a lot of this is still to be tested so its all WIP
 
But if you dont agree do your own scenario its why the editor is so great.
 
 

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: BigJ62
the first allied unit must shock attack because the opposing hexside is enemy controled however the second unit does not have to shock attack because hexside control has changed at this point.

Are attackers forced to retreat if they lose this shock attack? If not this rule is wide open to exploitation by sending a small unit ahead of the main body. Attackers should have to win the shock attack in order to establish a bridgehead that negates river penalties for follow up units.

Jim

Well as Andy stated we are still testing this but if the defender loses wouldn’t that mean it would have to retreat and I might be wrong but I don’t think there are that many units that qualify to change hex-side control and still be very small and if the unit that shock attacks and loses you are going to be wasting valuable av that could be difficult to replace so I don’t see this as viable tactic at least in the long run but still a good question. I strongly suspect a lot of tactics can and will be tried and hopefully testing will weed out any potential flaws.

Yes Peshawar, Punjab and Waziristan Divisions are on map at start as are many of the ISF and Frontier Inf Bns (the Divs are static at lahore, Karachi and I cannot remember the other base)
 
Some are static and some disband in 43 to make up numbers in the new 10 Bn Divisions but in general India is strong defensively and weak offensively in 42 and early 43.
 
Assuming no rescues and rebuilds which are now very difficult to afford India will be able to produce 4 or 5 Divisons for offensive ops byt he time of the historic Arakan Offensive but the experience levels will be low.
 

BigJ62...you are going to need to change your signature!

How accurate are the current OOBs for the Japanese Divisions?  It always seemed a bit odd to me that the standard Japanese division was more powerful than a US Marine division.  Any changes to the land OOBs in the form of modifying the TOEs?

p.s. Jim more of the Inidan home forces are in stock than you may realise 10 base FOrces each with an attached Bn several coastal fortresses also with attached forces
 
Broadly garrisons attached to base forces are now compnay size and the seperate Bns and in three cases Divs are shown.
 
Please wait and see I hope you will be happy with the fine line we are walking.
 
(If we ever get the Invasion stuff done for a patch a lot of the frontier forces would be removed and appear as invasion reinforcements - this my original intent putting them on map and making them static works but is slightly in elegant)
 
Andy

Knavey yes lots
 
Japanese and CW Divison still tend to have higher AV's than US Divs because a typical Brit 41Div has 36 Squad Bns x 9 (x 10 in 43) whereas US forces tend to have I think its 27 squad Bns -(US not my area I will dig out someone to answer in more detail)
 
BUT the firepower for Japanese and CW squads is anemic compared to US squads so it all evens out (typical US Squads even in 42 have >50% the firepower of a 10 man CW squad or 13 or I think its 18 man Jap squad).
 
Japanese Divs will have > BASE AV than US Div
 
More testing required but it looks good so far
 
 

p.s. you have to believe we have spent a lot of time on comparative TOE and device analysis we think we have it right we just need to check that the game implicatios are what we intended and that it actually hangs tyogether

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac
Re Devices the allies especially are almost always short of devices and even more so now. In the main scenario some nations will get 0 replacements i.e. Dutch although there may be a single timed replacement draft to represent final mobilisation.

The problem with a limited pool for one power and not the other has been discussed over and over on these forums. If you're going to hold one player to historical limitations then both must be.

Currently Japan can produce unlimited devices of any type it has, yet you state the intention of limiting the allies even more than they are in stock. The allies were the guys who out-produced Japan historically by tenfold, if anyone deserves further limiting it’s the Japanese.

Also the allies had the capacity and flexibility to make up for unexpected losses by shifting production if needed. Just because it didn’t happen in the historical fight, doesn’t mean the capacity to make up shortfalls wasn’t there. There should be some capacity to do this if needed and less hard coded restrictions for both players.

By hard coding too few tanks, you virtually guarantee that Japan will always target the allied tank units to try and take them out since they cannot rebuild damage.

Jim

P.S. with a weaker Indian and British command are the Indian Colonial units going to start on map as fixed units to prevent India's early capture? There was a very large Indian home force in India that isn't in the current game.

All LCUs have a built in replacement delay. Both sides will have historical OOBs. I do not fear the allies will be short of what they should have nor do I see the Japanese getting anymore than they should have but I could be wrong.

Don/Andrew might be able to shed some light on production and logistics and how replacements work.

OK Its 4.30 am I am off to sleep now I am sure there will be more awaiting me in the morning ----- oh bugger its mornign already where has the night went,.

ORIGINAL: Knavey

How accurate are the current OOBs for the Japanese Divisions?  It always seemed a bit odd to me that the standard Japanese division was more powerful than a US Marine division.  Any changes to the land OOBs in the form of modifying the TOEs?

We will get JWE engaged - he is our "device man" for LCUs. Basically there are two kinds of "powerful" in the current engine and also carry over to "AE" ... Assault Value powerful and Firepower powerful. We will see a greater dicotomy of these two factors in AE. I ask JWE to explain further.

Current stock IJA OOBs are not so far off in general. There are some abstractions in the "stock" TOEs. We remove some of these abstractions and our IJA OOB will be more accurate, but it is not drastically different in game terms. I'd like to get Kereguelen engaged on that aspect. He and I have been working for years (in CHS days and now in AE days) to build a better IJA LCU OOB (and IJN LCU too). But making the real world fit into the game format is not easy. The IJA IER (Independent Engineer Regiments) being a case in point. We still agonize about this. The real world just won't fit into the engine!

We have eliminated many duplicate and triplicate representations of IJA and IJN LCUs and this fact by itself results in a reduction of overall IJA/IJN LCU power. But individual units are not as different in power.

But much more testing needs to be done to ensure that the OOB changes for IJA/IJN and CW and USA/USMC all "match up" and "feel right" and this still lies before us. But we are looking forward to it. Having the OOB pieces and parts ready is one thing. Testing them all out to make sure the correct balances are still maintained is part of making this product "Matrix Ready". And that is where we are.

ORIGINAL: Brady

Well as long as they can put  torps into as many war ships as the PT's did in the Pacific I will be happy.[:)]

I'll go along with you on this Brady. Patrol Torpedo Boats were as worthless as midget subs in their designed "torpedo" role. Fortunately they were able to find a usefull role as Motor Gun Boats for barge interdiction and patrol.

True-barge busting-but in game their a freeak of nature. I think perhaps if they were teathered to a base force or a tender as they were in real life it might make them more realistic, they were more like planes I think in terms of wear and tear and maintance, those three alisons, and all, realy midgets used much the same infastructure to operate, even the ones launched from sub's were more akin to a glen in some way's, except that most launched did not come back...

ORIGINAL: Brady

True-barge busting-but in game their a freeak of nature. I think perhaps if they were teathered to a base force or a tender as they were in real life it might make them more realistic, they were more like planes I think in terms of wear and tear and maintance, those three alisons, and all, realy midgets used much the same infastructure to operate, even the ones launched from sub's were more akin to a glen in some way's, except that most launched did not come back...

Not really a bad notion. "Teathering" PT's to a Tender or a Base in the same manner as a carrier air group. No idea if it will be that way in AE though.