My JA industry died

[Ken Estes]

Greetings. I started playing the WITP campaign [JA side] in Sept06, upgrading to v. 1.8.0.4 a month later. Despite the severe learning curve, after doing the tutor at the Marianas and a few false starts I was well on my way to bringing the eight corners of the world under one roof.

Despite some clear warnings I noted in the forum to not try many changes of the fragile JA industrial set-up, I fell victim to Victory Disease. In Nov42, I made a mistake by trying to turn on max production of aircraft, accelerating shipbuilding and expanding heavy industry and armament production at the same time. Osaka went to 0 fuel and 0 supply next turn and I turned all unneeded aircraft and engine production back off; the supply and fuel slowly restored as did a little of the ship repair capacity, almost zero'd by this ambitious move. On Dec 22nd 1942 I had the first return of fuel supplied at Osaka. But then just some supplies appeared. Although the autoconvoy function does a good job in sending out fuel/supplies to garrisons and JA cities, it utterly fails to distribute resources/oil to industry. So I found that Osaka had 999,999 resource and 1/4 million oil points, yet the industrial cities were near zero. Who knows how many resource pts past 999,999 Osaka received? Anyway, I looked back to the day 1 set-up, and all the big industrial cities have 85-89K in each category. So the JA player is simply up against the clock and it runs out around Jun-Dec42, later for me, as I mostly shut down production of planes I did not want, never really got around to switching/repairing production changes, thus maybe drained less?

As a result, I first began to take control of resource/oil transport, but then shut off all auto-convoy, let the garrisons starve while I restocked industrial cities. I was aided by some accumulation in certain JA cities, Sasebo and several northern ones, where no industries were in play to deplete.

Anyway, by 1Feb43 I finished stocking the big 3 [Nagano, Tokyo, Kiti]industrial cities with 20K each, those with industry 400+ at 10K and lesser with 5K each oil and resource. The initial JA industry was maybe around 1200 and I have revived it to slightly over 500, but without improving much production.

In fact production of aircraft and ships has not come back, and armament/armor production also collapsed. It is now Oct43 and I have not had any new production for a year, and the ship repair remains a paltry 3-5 per major port.

So far I have recorded surplus Hvy Ind as high as 744, but usage seems to be only around 15-1700/day if I am reading the report right. It really seems to be all stopped. I have run out of almost all pool weapons/combat aircraft, have not delivered a new ship since those before DD Teruzuki.

Any ideas??

Sardaukar has helped me a lot and you can read my journal of this campaign at:
http://63.99.108.76/forums/index.php?showtopic=17711

[jwilkerson]

Wen I've gotten myself into trouble with the production system .. I start shutting things down. Basically you want to shut down all the HI consumers ... and in your case probably the HI itself for a couple of turns. Oh, the HI consumers include basically all your factories ... Planes, ships, vehicles, armaments, etc. Shut down everything for a couple of days.

Then turn on some of your Heavy Industry for a couple of turns.

Every turn monitor (in a spreadsheet) the levels of everything, like HI needed, HI Reservers, Resources Needed, Resource Reserves, Oil needed, Oil reservers, same for supply, fuel, armaments, vehicles, manpower, engines, airplanes. In fact I do this monitoring (daily) as a general rule, it helps you spot problems before that get as bad as your are.

Then gradually keep turning up your HI until you start to see your HI reserves climbing. Once those are climbing then start gradually turning on your factories again. keep monitoring the levels. Basically you want everything to be increasing, even if just slight. If something starts decreasing then back off and make corrections. So like if you resources are decreasing, then shut down some HI (of course shut dowm some factories too) and bring in more resources.

I'm never gotten into a situation I couldn't fix - though I'll admit yours sounds worse than any I've faced (so far!)...

I'd be curious how this goes, so let us know.

But the basic process is make changes gradually and monitor your pool levels daily and write em down so you can see the trends. One days levels by themselves are pretty meaningless .. you need to be able to see increases and decreases trending over time.

Oh, also shut down all the "repair" switches on all your factories so they won't be sucking up all your supply. Do that immediately.

[Ken Estes]

Many thanks; I obviously had not gone far enough in shutting down.  I suppose I must shut down industry in captured territories as well. BTW the toggle restart/halt does not work in the case of two captured repair yards in India: Diamond Harbor and Colombo, stuck in halt, with 100+ repair points accumulated in each!

[erstad]

You can't halt repair yards. However, it costs nothing (i.e., no supply, no HI, nothing nothing) for them to accumulate repair points.

It does cost supply to repair a repair yard, and HI to expand a repair yard (and then supply to "repair" the expanded points) but the actual operation of the yard is free.

[Ken Estes]

Well, the results were immediate: the very next move after stopping all HI and production of any kind, the HI rallied, ship repair points zoomed, some sup/fuel appeared at Osaka, some a/c built [using the pool engines] and armament, vehicle production and pool points appeared. Even troop replacements are appearing where none were available before. It's almost like unblocking constipation??  I will post details shortly, but numbers continue to go up [exc shipbuilding, but ship repair points are in the 100s in the bigger ports] after 4 days of halted everything. So I next will start turning HI back on, a few cities at a time??

[Sardaukar]

Sounds like a good plan.

[jwilkerson]

Yup, daily monitor of your industry screen. I key these data into a spreadsheet .. with the various categories across the top (every single category, from the top to the bottom of that screen .. from SUPPLY all the way through Airframes). One row for each day. Well, sometimes I miss a day, but only when I know things are in pretty good shape. As I said earlier, in general, you want EVERYTHING climbing just a little bit (well once you get things turned back on). If something is going down, you want to "be in control" and know why you made the adjustment that is sending it down. But, since I've started my (near) daily monitoring (and writing it down) I have not had stoppages.

But like in my game with Moses, I have about 50K HI reserve and I'm consuming about 14K HI per day, so I have a 3 day reserve. That's why it needs to be daily monitoring, until you get a better feel for things.

[histgamer]

Just curious how much did you expand? I as japan am in my first game i was told the home islands need like 200k oil and resources per year? does it matter where you put them? i thought rails take care of distributing it?
 
 
I hope i am not on my way to a total collapse.[:(]

[jwilkerson]

Not sure whether who you're asking - but if you're asking me. In my game with Moses, how much did I expand my industry?

HI very little so far, in fact I think the "increases" have all been captures. It is 1 Mar 42 and deliveries from the SRA in terms of Oil and Resources are just starting to arrive regularly in large quantities, so thus far Resources and oil are still dropping ... in fact I've shut down some production (HI consumers) that are not critically needed - to conserve HI - so I can ramp up production of certain specific aircraft - currently Betty and Sally as those are the two main bomber types I'm using.

Once the resources and oil reserves start climbing, I will decide how much to increase HI. But really is not much point in spending supply to have HI that you can't really use because you can't get the resources/oil to drive it. And I want resource and oil reserves to be steadily climbing the entire war, so there is a big reserve at the end, so I can eat on the reserve alone for the last months, if necessary. At that point HI would only be turned on to build a few critical items and of course to make supply. Without supply, your defense will collapse fast. But given the constraints, you do want to build your HI up as much as you can support and still have resources and oil generally still building up.

[Ken Estes]

My experience was that autoconvoy did excellent distr of sup/fuel among all bases selected; but it brought all res/oil to Osaka (usually tasking convoys after they delivered sup/fuel to overseas bases).  I have no tracking data, but Osaka ended up glutted with oil/res and the JA industrial cities ran out. So I suspect overland redistr is nil.
 
Back on my problem, I have to go back three days and resume again, restarting HI of only a few cities at a time. 4 was OK, but doing 12 seemed to overtax, bog down.

[histgamer]

WAit you didnt have the rail lines automatically transfer supplies from base to base?

[Ken Estes]

I guess not. Is there something I missed? I saw no controls over rail lines, esp. for xfr of res/oil.

[jwilkerson]

The AI does a good job of moving supply, fuel, resoures and oil around in Japan - automatically. The exception to this general rule is the situation where there are insufficient amounts of supply, fuel, resources or oil. When shortages occur, the AI gets a bit wierd. Another reason to avoid shortages, and they can be avoided. But except for the situations where I've carelessly allowed shortages to happen, I haven't seen the AI struggle to move items around in the Home Islands.

But I can't speak for the auto-convoy system. Certainly the "AI" is stuck with it. But very few forum players use it - and I never have.

As far as unloading goes ... I spread it around a bit, mostly because I don't won't to get into a situation where I "have" to go somewhere or avoid somewhere. If a place is approaching 999,999 for either resources or oil then certainly avoid it as a resources/oil unloading site.

[Ken Estes]

Autoconvoy did real well for me in distributing supplies/fuel to the outlying bases, was just a labor saving device. The interior position of JA allows autorouting of convoys without running into well defended enemy air bases, which is why the Allied AI convoys are so well-savaged if IJN seizes Pago and the outer island perimeter. Because I left Singapore alone for months while seizing outer islands and the weak NW coast cities of Oz, the Karachi-based convoys offered themselves up to CA/DD kill squadrons in Malacca, as well as LB air from W coast of Malaya, killing off dozens of AK/TK at a time, not to mention the reinforcement attempts.
 
Now that the Allied SS have good torpedos, and I am also in shortages, my convoys are all manual. I run the largest possible ones, with strong escort, breaking them up on arrival for different destinations.

[Ken Estes]

OK, after 2 tries, I have sustained a moderate rate of restarting the JA industry: Starting with everything placed on 'halt' 7 Oct 43, I have managed to produce the below [selected] list by the 15th: I restarted the 4 biggest HI on 11 Oct, added 3-4 more each day to the 15th [half of the HI in JA now restarted, none in colonies]. On the 14th, I restarted one each naval and merchant shipbuilding site and also 4 Nakajima plants. All the aircraft assembly is w/o restarting any factories, just using the existing engine pools, 156 used in Nakajima alone. Ship repair rebounded right away, now in several hundred credits in each of the major ports. 3 MLEs completed and CL Agano advanced one day, all w/o shipyards restarted. Osaka produced some supplies but no additional fuel after 10 October [??]. To me it is amazing how putting everything on 'halt' resulted in a big jump in ship repair, HI and 1-3/day/type startup in a/c delivery, which had been dormant, as was armament and vehicles....  So, all ahead slow-crawl and I hope to save my dumb ass after all. This is just in time, as all fighters were w/o reserves as were Helens; Kate reserves were also approaching nil. I have also lost almost a year in shipbuilding deliveries.
 





7-15Oct

 


2000+

Ship repair pts avail


4650/2880

Osaka suppl/fuel


 

 


 

 


73537

Heavy Industry pts


 0-2/day

Naval Shipbld


 0-8/day

Merchant Shipbld


4344

Armament pts


426

Vehicle pts


56

G4M2


22

Oscar II


14

Tony


14

Helen


9

Kate


64

A6M5


11

Val


7

Type 3 Med Tank


-1

Agano days to complete


-156

Nakajima Eng Pool


120 in 4 days

47mm AT gun


 

 

[Ken Estes]

JW, you gave excellent advice and I have applied it, but maybe still too rushed. I shut off all industry/production/repair on 7Oct43, experienced an immediate surge in a/c assembly [using pooled engines], industry, ship repair, and other factors. The problems remain perhaps in how long/slowly you bring things on line once you have achieved a more healthy production, and I have probably screwed the pooch. As I restarted industry/production by increments after the 10th, I was still experiencing 1000+ pooled heavy industr/3300 used on the 19th, but it has flattened to 500/2000 most days. But ship repair is very strong, saving me from one crisis, replacement squads are up and quite a few aircraft were produced until the Nakajima pool ran out. No new engines are yet built, and perhaps I restarted those factories too late after HI flattened [priorities??]. Warship building has not surged either, just delivering some merchants and MSWs, and DD Teruzuki has remained 1 day from completion just as over a dozen MSWs delivered, CVL Ryuho has advanced 8 days and CL Agano 2 days...WTF? Cheers, Ken

[jwilkerson]

Well basically you need to make sure HI (Heavy Industry) is always increasing ... now this isn't 100% absolute ... but in your case it should be .. at least until you're for sure out of the woods. So I'd let HI build up to at least 30,000 before turning anything on. Then I'd gradually turn on HI consumers a few at a time and keep watching the HI. You want the HI to keep going up. So keep turning things on and keep watching the HI .. as long as it is still climbing .. from 30,000 to 40,000 to 50,000 ... then you can keep turning things on. If it every stops climbing, even for one day, then you'll have to start shutting things down again. And keep shutting them down until the HI starts climbing again.

If ultimately you don't have enough HI, then you'll either have to run with some things shut down all the time or build more HI. But of course there is no point in building HI unless you can sustain the importing of the resources/oil to support the new HI.

But for me, for instance, in my current game with Moses (see AAR) .. I have a bit of "excess" capabity in aircraft/engine production. But I do this on purpose to facilitate ramps to new types. But this means I usually have some of the capacity shut down. I also have a lot of ships "halted" .. this is to enable maximum production of somethings I want more badly, like certain air types and some special merchant ships.

But the key is to keep the HI reserve growing slightly every turn, that ensures that it won't nose dive on you.

[Ken Estes]

OK, back to the drawing [or shut down] board! Many thanks.

[Ken Estes]

Well, you have made me a believer for sure, JW. The HI immediately surged on this shutdown to 2234 surplus/13000 used and is continuing to grow slowly for the next three days. The naval shipbuilding pool went from 9 to 1000 and now is an incredible 3245 and warships are advancing and delivering. Aircraft are also delivering, even though no Nakajima engines enter the pool [used at once?].
My Q now is, does the HI really respond to the toggle halt/restart, or is it always 'on' as was remarked above on ship repair? Do I really have to restart it, or shall I do nothing but accept these gifts with a dormant production [most ships are halted, all production at halt] until the surplus HI hits the 30K range as you suggest?? Ken

[jwilkerson]

Well, maybe it is time for pictures.

Here are the Heavy Industry Factories in Tokyo in my game with Moses.

There is no "Expand" option here, so the factories at Tokyo are max'ed out, I can't build anymore Heavy Industry Factories here.

The "Halt" button is showing, so this means the factories are all running. They are consuming and producing the items that they consume and produce.

The "No" button is showing so this means I am not repairing the factories here, but there are none damaged. I have this set to no as a default. If these factories really get damaged, I might decide to turn this on, but I want to make that call I don't want it to start sucking up my supply without me making the decision.