Japanese in RHS

[herwin]

I've been playing the Japanese in an experimental variant of RHS 7 (PBEM). Since this is the first time I've played the Japanese, I've messed up royally, but there are some things I've noticed and checked by running the scenario in computer-versus-computer. The Allied defenses in Malaya, Hong Kong, and Wake seem too strong, and I could probably say the same about Lingayen and Manila if the computer-versus-computer run hadn't rapidly retreated the entirety of the Luzon defence force into the Bataan perimeter. In the computer-versus-computer run, it's January, and the Japanese are still trying to take Hong Kong, Wake and Khota Baru. Are other people seeing this as well?

[keeferon01]

I too am playing one pbem and a game against the AI Ver7 RHSRPO I am the allies on the AI Game, Wake seems always to be a problem for the computer to take the first few opening moves, I have seen it shock attack and get the Island a few times though, just do what I did in the editor and add another 16 rifle squads to the IJN Maizuru NGF , the AI always takes the island by the third day now, which is good. Hong Kong always falls about the 15th dec in all my games and Singapore lasts in early Feb normally about right again I think , The ai gets really bogged down in the Philippines now, doesn't seem to get that bogged down in stock.

[Dili]

When i last played CVO v5 supply sinks disrupted any chance you can use historical level forces to conquer most places. I dont know if that was much changed.

[m10bob]

As far as Wake is concerned, I blame that blasted die roll..I have seen it last forever(never fall), and have seen it fall on the first day, (which it should'nt..)

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Ron James

I too am playing one pbem and a game against the AI Ver7 RHSRPO I am the allies on the AI Game, Wake seems always to be a problem for the computer to take the first few opening moves, I have seen it shock attack and get the Island a few times though, just do what I did in the editor and add another 16 rifle squads to the IJN Maizuru NGF , the AI always takes the island by the third day now, which is good. Hong Kong always falls about the 15th dec in all my games and Singapore lasts in early Feb normally about right again I think , The ai gets really bogged down in the Philippines now, doesn't seem to get that bogged down in stock.

In the strictly historical senarios (CVO and BBO families) Wake SHOULD BE hard to take with the ASSIGNED forces. Because IRL they were inadequate to the mission - failed - and a second attempt was required with a stronger force. In EOS family scenarios, this is not the case - the stronger force is tasked from the start.

Note that a HUMAN is permitted to change the forces attacking. AI is, well you know - "intelligent" is the wrong word.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Dili

When i last played CVO v5 supply sinks disrupted any chance you can use historical level forces to conquer most places. I dont know if that was much changed.

A good deal has changed, to the point I have made no effort whatever to weaken supply sinks in a long time (many months real time). Indeed, it is the other way around: I have strengthened a couple of them - and I am not happy there is not more destruction wroght by their reduction at critical points (e.g. many oil facilities were at zero production due to civilian worker intervention - we are not seeing anything like that anywhere - ever). Note also that Japanese forces have been steadily gaining in nominal firepower (to the extent this matters - the model seems not to use firepower as much as one would expect). But it is true that you have to work the system intelligently and not play without regard for various things: for some reason code won't give you as much power on the first day - so it is smart to spend one day doing bombardment before you actually assault for example; you should be reducing the defenses by air strikes even before that first day bombardment attack - that means attack the land units with aircraft in strength repeatedly and do not give them any time to recover; isolating a position that isn't isolated (say on Malaya) helps dramatically - they don't suck supplies from other places.

To be specific, I am taking the typical major point in 2 or 3 days in Malaya. Luzon is a much tougher nut to crack.
And no one has yet noticed it becomes VERY tough IF you defend the North! Baguio City is MOUNTAINS, it is malaria free, it has lots of supplies, because all that is quite true. IF you retreat there, you might STILL be there when the Americans come back. But that isn't wrong - it is the way it really was. The first time I road a bus up the Naguilion Road from Boang on the coast to Baguio, I was impressed by the swift rivers and ever growing ridge lines. When I crested the last one, and witnessed the gigantic valley, with the road clinging to the side of the mountains, I realized that Mac was a near total fool. He could have closed Manila Bay for upwards of a year by simply stocking Fort Drum with food - and put his Army with its back to the rice terraces of the Ilicano country - just as Yamashita did in 1945. We decided it was too much work to defeat Yamashita - and we honored his demand for written orders from the Emperor - because it was against Japanese law for him to surrender otherwise. And Nakano School agents were left behind - for decades. The very last one to come out did NOT surrender either - he was ordered out by the government of Japan. He had waited all those years for orders which never came - to raid something. This is country rich in rice, it has no malaria or dengue fever, and it holds not only gold mines, but the largest copper mine in Asia. It could and should be the heart of the defense - and it might never fall unless a big army closes in and deprives the Americans of supplies.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

As far as Wake is concerned, I blame that blasted die roll..I have seen it last forever(never fall), and have seen it fall on the first day, (which it should'nt..)

Quite right - except for the shouldn't part. It is always possible to screw up - and if surprise had been achieved - it might have fallen. There were more guns than the Marines could man - deliberately - a strange organization. Wake was set up to prevent raids like Germans mounted in WWI in the Pacific - with landing parties. But if it had been foggy - perhaps the approach would not be noticed.

[herwin]

In other words, what I'm seeing is the scenario working as designed.

[TulliusDetritus]

When this game came out on 2004, I remember the heated debates about the fast pace of the operations. Almost everyone agreed. In a sense, RHS is correcting this. If the Japanese need to reduce the fortresses then they obviously cannot start ahistorical adventures: India on december 1941, etc.

The same applies to allies (we do not have an astronomical quantity of supplies on the first months of the war).

Intended or not, I don't know, but this seems to be the correct picture. And for sure this avoids the heated and vitriolic debates about "the fast, way too fast pace of game, operations. Fix this problem!!"...

Herwin, to answer your question (I already did that in another thread though): yes, the fortresses are a nightmare [:)]

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

When this game came out on 2004, I remember the heated debates about the fast pace of the operations. Almost everyone agreed. In a sense, RHS is correcting this. If the Japanese need to reduce the fortresses then they obviously cannot start ahistorical adventures: India on december 1941, etc.

The same applies to allies (we do not have an astronomical quantity of supplies on the first months of the war).

Intended or not, I don't know, but this seems to be the correct picture. And for sure this avoids the heated and vitriolic debates about "the fast, way too fast pace of game, operations. Fix this problem!!"...

Herwin, to answer your question (I already did that in another thread though): yes, the fortresses are a nightmare [:)]

OK, it does two things--encourages an even higher tempo in the opening, and makes low tempo attritive operations a necessity. Unfortunately, the game doesn't permit players to do the things they would do in reality--like delaying actions, breaking contact, retreating, passage of lines, reducing the density of troops in the front line during defensive operations, organising and planning set-piece attacks, etc.

My biggest criticisms of the game system are:

Air units should generate sorties, not fly as a whole. Sorties should be allocated to various missions. Air commanders may order a surge, but at a longer turn cost. Sorties based in a front-line hex or with a local mission should be particularly effective in supporting that hex. Search effectiveness should reflect search rate generated by the allocated sorties divided by the area being searched. Finally, active air units should have a chance of exiting a base when it is captured.

Naval units should move 2-3 times a day, and their paths should be defined in terms of way points, which may or may not be scheduled. Surface TFs should be able to react to TFs at a 3-hex distance at night. That was the reason carrier TFs kept their distance (a minimum of 200 nm) from enemy gunships. It also implies carrier TFs should react *away* from surface TFs that could reach them at night.

Land areas should be occupied in part--i.e., percentage control. Various hexes should have various land areas. Note this affects both the defensive depth available and the vulnerability of bases to bombardment.

Land units should have the flexibility of being able to take up various deployments and support various types of operations.

Bases should have variable fragility, depending on the local infrastructure. A size-3 base on an atoll was not equivalent to a size-3 base on a large land mass--it was much easier to shut down. Refitting, resupply, and refueling should be much slower in a naval base under continuous air attack.

[el cid again]

These comments should not be directed at RHS. They are, mainly, matters of Matrix design philosphy as actually implemented in code.

To some extent, these comments are unfair/incorrect. You can do many things that were attempted or done IRL, and for such a simple system, it is astonishing how much you can do. But ALL simulations are simplifications of reality - lest we must reinact the war with real infantry and airplanes (etc) - and ALL simulations do not permit every last thing to be done as it was done/could have been done. The art of game design is ultimately the art of compromise - modders are just a subset group who work INSIDE the basic game design. SOMETIMES we can add features not intended by the designers - and RHS has more of these than you will find in any other game system I bet. But MOST of the time you are restricted to the possible. Compromise involves many factors, incuding the time to do it, and for a company the cost of that time.
You may dream of more - and indeed we all do - but the cost of much more than Matrix gave us is so high we could not have ANYTHING at all. So bear that in mind. The moment the detail you demand makes the product impossible to market, the project dies.

Now if you have some specific idea about how to add some capability not present, or better model something already present - I am all ears. But I think most of that must await more extensive human use - we have gone as far as we can with AI vs AI play, or me vs AI play, and we need to know what happens when players do this or that?

As for the basic questions, yes - this system is working approximately as intended. The fall of Malaya in 100 days was very marginal - Yamashita was within 24 hours of suspending offensive operations when the British surrendered (talk about close). It should not be falling in 30 - which it used to do. We have moved in the right direction - but it is not taking anything like 100 days even so. The Philippines should hold out much longer - partly because it did - and partly because it should have held out longer still with competent generalship. I regard Manila, Clark, Baguio and Bataan as "the center four squares of the chessboard" - objected mightily to the absense of Baguio - and fixed it. 3 of these are malaria free - and the fourth has major forts (as indeed does Manila). One is mountains. 3 are productive, and there is more production in the Iligan valley NE of Baguio, and some other production in other neighboring hexes. Defended intelligently, falling back on the mountains instead of the one malarial hex, this place is a mini-economy in its own right, and can last a long time UNLESS Japan invades with major forces. The REAL invasion was 2 divisions and a brigade - wow - vs 12 divisions; they sucked the divisions out again for operations further South as well - at one point there was only a single brigade holding TWO CORPS in the Bataan bottle - and still the Japanese felt the commander had failed to do his job well. They sent an artillery command (division? brigade?) and more infantry to break the enemy - after letting him starve and waste away (100% of troops on Bataan had both malaria and dengue fever) - and that was what ended the campaign: the initial forces did NOT take the place rapidly - so I object if in the game an unreinforced force can do that. I set out to change it - and I think we got there.

[herwin]

Take the complement. I don't criticise RHS, but I do criticise the problems with the game engine and provide my recommendations for the next game.

At least I'm able to fix the problems with the model my lab is developing...

[keeferon01]

ORIGINAL: herwin

Take the complement. I don't criticise RHS, but I do criticise the problems with the game engine and provide my recommendations for the next game.

At least I'm able to fix the problems with the model my lab is developing...

well please tell more of this model in your lab, very interested

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: Ron James

ORIGINAL: herwin

Take the complement. I don't criticise RHS, but I do criticise the problems with the game engine and provide my recommendations for the next game.

At least I'm able to fix the problems with the model my lab is developing...

well please tell more of this model in your lab, very interested

See <http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/%7Eh ... ryResearch>.

My previous postdoc took a teaching post last July, and I'm in the middle of reviewing and correcting his models.