Situation Evaluation

[Sarganto]

I am at the moment playing my first Full WitP campaign with the Allies vs. AI.
It's the 6.April 1942 and I think I might have already won...well at least almost.
I would like you veterans to evaluate my situation.

Let's start counterclockwise viewing at the map. I don't control China, don't care about that.
Malaya is of course lost and I got trapped in Rangoon with quite a few troops, but also managed to get some to flee to Mandalay. I am now holding there with 450 AV behind a lvl 7 fort vs. approx. 650 Jap. AV. Both sides are bombing the battlefield with Aircraft, but none is making real progress. Any ideas here? Don't know how I could bring in more troops or if this is even necessary. I'm also supplying my troops there by Dakotas.

At Sumatra, I am still holding Teloekbetong and Kuala, while retreating some troops from the lost Palembang to Padang, to eventually evacuate or even reload them to Teloekbetong. At Kuala, I'm only waiting for some more troops to arrive and then evacuate them. I have a massive fleet stationed there, with almost everything the Brits have in the Indian Ocean by that time, including 2 CVs and a CVL. The Base is in a nice position, as only Nells and Bettys can reach it and they are repelled by my Carrier-CAP.

I am still holding everything at Java except Merak. The AI landed ~11 units there with ~11k men, but without any airsupport. An assload of transporters got slaughtered by massive air-attacks from Batavia and Soerabaja. The AI is unable to close my Airfield at Batavia, because of using Nates as escort *cough*

In addition to that, I am still holding most of south Borneo, except Tarakan. Sulawesi is still completely mine. I am bombing the shit out of transportfleets from Menado, Balikpapan and Samarinda.
In the Philippines, I've lost Bataan recently. Still holding out at Manila with 870 AV, but only ~5000 supplies left. I keep doing artillery bombardments there, but don't know if that makes any sense at all or only consumes supplies.

Rabaul, the area around Lae and some of the Solomons have been taken, but I'm making a really good hold at Port Moresby. I have around 150 fighters defending my airfield from being closed and more air-support will be shipped in, in the next one or two months.

Midway and Wake are mine. I've set up a Sub-Base with an AS at Wake. Pretty useful.

And now the big fish:
I have already taken the Marshall Islands. Eniwetok and Maloelap were taken swiftly and I closed the airfield of Kwajalein. From then on, I kept bombing Kwajalein with a massive airforce from Maloelap and brought in 2 Divs, 3 RCTs and and ARM. Had an TF of 100 ships unloading them

Next goal could be Truk, to cut of the massive Japanese Surface Fleet, that is sitting at Rabaul.

But more important is, that the Kido Butai ceased to exist, as we all know it.
Soryu(CV), Akagi(CV), Ryujo(CVL), Shosho(CVL) are already sunk. I lost zero CVs, only have the Enterprise sitting in Frisco with ~50 Sys-Damage. All others are operative and afloat.
I also managed to sink 10 CLs and the Haruna (BB). The Japs also lost around 45 DDs until now. But more cripplig it seems, is the MASSIVE loss of hauling power for the Japs. Subtracting the other losses, they will surely have lost 300 to 400 AK/AP/TK until now.

The attack at Merak was the last major haul the IJN made in the last month. I'm not even sure, the IJN is capable of any major offensives in the near future. They surely still have some CVs sitting around, but they seem to have split up, as I saw 1 CV in Singapore and one driving towards the Home Islands.

Now tell me, do I have already won the war or is the IJN (and the AI, remember!) still capable of causing trouble?

[scott64]

Just wait until the AI counter attacks or tackle up a human opponent. [:'(][X(][:D]

[Mynok]

The Japs have lots of transport. You haven't dented it yet.

[hbrsvl]

Sarganto-What is your Victory Point score? Iirc, you need 4 times the victory points of the Japanese to score a "decisive victory" in 1942. I.e., you would need 40,000 VP if they had 10,000.

There are other levels of victory. I suggest you consult your manual for details. See the manual section 16.xxxx for details.

Happy hunting!!!

Hugh Browne

[rockmedic109]

Mynok's right about the Japanese transports.  And you haven't really started to learn how to use the allied juggernaut of landing craft yet.  Reality is the Japanese cannot win IRL anymore than the AI can win in the game.  Begin to write down moves that you made that the admirals and generals at the time might not have done.  Write down the little gamey moves you may have or think you have used.  Then when you have gotten a good list, start a new game with these house rules set up. 
 
I think you are right about bombardment attacks in the Philippines just using up too much supplies.  I kept the AI out of Manila {next game I will abandon Manila like MacA did} for a year.  They finally ran out of supplies.  I also may have made this worse by setting everything american in the philippines to "no Replacements".  But I thought {and still do} that that was an appropriate setting given the fact that nothing is getting to them. 

[Oldguard1970]

Hi Sargento,
 
I'd suggest you put fog of war "on" and difficulty to "very hard".  Then play the AI again, but try to restrain your use of knowledge about what the AI does.  (It can still surprise you a few times, and that helps you to learn.)  You can make it even more challenging by developing some "house rules" to restrict your flexibility as Rockmedic suggested.
 
Use this game to ensure you understand the bulk of the game mechanics. (No one knows all of them!) Then find out what happens against a human.
 
 

[bradfordkay]

I've always hated the way that computer games use "cheats" on the harder AI settings - allowing the AI to do things that the player cannot.

Instead, I prefer to play against the AI on historical setting, but always after at least one evening cocktail... I figure that helps even things out... [;)]

[engineer]

I think you've built up a heck of a lead and have pretty clear sailing to an auto victory no later than 1943.  One path is to restart, as suggested above.  Rockmedic is also right about the learning curve on the game.  Observations:
 
1)  You're still only one defeat from losing a good number of carriers with the Zeros and Betty's that the IJN probably still has in their OOB.  As a tactical problem, do you have a cunning plan that can take Truk without getting your a** handed to you? 
 
2)  You probably haven't conducted a strategic bombing campaign yet.  That's an interesting tactical exercise in it's own right. 
 
3)  Have you been kicking down the door with your invasions and overwhelming the IJN with brute force?  As time goes on, the IJN will be digging in and you'll need combined arms with a variety of TF's in different roles to take the Japanese islands.  Amphib invasions are an art form in themselves.
 
4)  If you hold Mandalay you can fight a nice battle of encirclement against the AI with the Commonwealth troops.  By Christmas you could be back sipping Slings at Raffles Bar in Singapore. 
 

[Sarganto]

ORIGINAL: engineer

I think you've built up a heck of a lead and have pretty clear sailing to an auto victory no later than 1943.  One path is to restart, as suggested above.  Rockmedic is also right about the learning curve on the game.  Observations:

1)  You're still only one defeat from losing a good number of carriers with the Zeros and Betty's that the IJN probably still has in their OOB.  As a tactical problem, do you have a cunning plan that can take Truk without getting your a** handed to you? 

2)  You probably haven't conducted a strategic bombing campaign yet.  That's an interesting tactical exercise in it's own right. 

3)  Have you been kicking down the door with your invasions and overwhelming the IJN with brute force?  As time goes on, the IJN will be digging in and you'll need combined arms with a variety of TF's in different roles to take the Japanese islands.  Amphib invasions are an art form in themselves.

4)  If you hold Mandalay you can fight a nice battle of encirclement against the AI with the Commonwealth troops.  By Christmas you could be back sipping Slings at Raffles Bar in Singapore. 

I actually managed to shut down the Airfield at Truk at 24.April 1942 with my 4 CVs and a TF full with BBs. I was lucky enough, that my CAP was only overcome at one day and the bombs barely scratched my CVs and BBs. After that, there were only some Bettys flying from Rabaul, but were repelled by my CAP. I managed to sink 6 Subs, destroy a lot of Planes on the airfield. More important was that I was able to sink a lot of transports with 3 other Surface Combat Fleets between Truk, Guam and Markus Island, because of the missing aircover from Truk. After a week of bombing Truk, I pulled back to let my fleet rest for the first time and get their upgrades done. Meanwhile I have started several convois to Lunga, to build up that airfield and forbid the Japanese to do so. Port Moresby will receive an AirHQ and +300 Aviation-Support, so I can finally add bombers to my 150 fighters, defending the base.

[stuman]

I am curious, to accumulate the allied firepower you are using  that early in the war, did you actually pay all of the political points required to move the various units around ? I spent some time looking at the pps needed in order to move all N. and C. Pacific units to whereever I wanted to, and I decided that there is no way to use all avaiable unts in any theatre one wishes. It makes a BIG difference if you leave units in their respective theatres until you can actually " pay " for them.

[stuman]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

I've always hated the way that computer games use "cheats" on the harder AI settings - allowing the AI to do things that the player cannot.

Instead, I prefer to play against the AI on historical setting, but always after at least one evening cocktail... I figure that helps even things out... [;)]

Hehe, I have been using that method some as well. By the third cocktail I tend to forget exactlly what I was trying to do. Talk about fog of war.

[Nemo121]

Play a human. To call the AI lobotomised is to be unkind to those who have been lobotomised.

[Sarganto]

ORIGINAL: stuman

I am curious, to accumulate the allied firepower you are using  that early in the war, did you actually pay all of the political points required to move the various units around ? I spent some time looking at the pps needed in order to move all N. and C. Pacific units to whereever I wanted to, and I decided that there is no way to use all avaiable unts in any theatre one wishes. It makes a BIG difference if you leave units in their respective theatres until you can actually " pay " for them.

I don't care too much about what theatres the units belong to. I don't want to have the historical results. I can read them at Wikipedia or 349583486 books.
This time, I am the Commander in Chief and I send those guys to fight, where I want them to fight.
Taking Kwajalein and Eniwetok and then shutting down Truk was all done with 4 CVs, 6 BBs, a dozen CA/CLs and a lot of DDs.
Then I used 2 Divs and 2 RCT and as I am looking at them, I see that they are all attached to Central Pacific HQ, which is sitting at...whoops Kwajalein
I hope this game will get a little bit more exciting, when the Japanese CVs are all repaired, because they still have a LOT of BBs and other badass stuff sitting at Rabaul, which did a very fast bombardement run at my unloading AKs at Lunga and sunk quite a bunch of them in the last turn.

I will keep playing this game and eventually try the Japanese side. There, the Allies at least have enough material to throw it at me.