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I am currently reviewing my Jap production. My partner and I are 5 months into an RA senario.
Production mistakes I have made so far:
1. Did NOT insure every production base had over 10000supply until 15 turns ago.
2. Overproduced the Ki-27.
3. Lack of supply at every base caused all plane (oscars) production to stop except at major bases.
4. looking at this chart, how much heavy industry does japan need later in the war. I am thinking about turning off heavy industry for a while.
5. I note the -16000 HI every thirty days. Suspect this is the once a month pilot training charge.

Don't turn off the Heavy Industry factories!  If you want to conserve HI, turn off your light industry factories.  They are less economical.

1 HI factory consumes 2 fuel and 20 resources and produces 2 supply and 2 HI.
1 LI factory consumes 15 resources and produces 1 supply.

My goal is a million HI for late game.  (That's unlikely, but ya gotta have a goal, right?)  Remember that your war machine runs on HI and fuel, and your combat units run on fuel and supply.  Turn off your HI factories and you save fuel, but lose supply and HI.  In the late game, when the Allies control the sea lanes, you have to survive on what you saved.  If you run out of HI, your economy comes to a screeching halt.  So does you military.  Remember that whatever off map pools you have, the Allies can't touch (HI, aircraft, engines, to name a few).  They can keep your war machine running after your merchant fleet can't.

So my HI is accumulating at 5000+ per day. Say 800 more days at 5000HI per day =4000000. maybe too much?

I don't think you can have too much HI in your pool.

Also, keep in mind that later in the war (can't remember exactly when) you begin to get a lot more pilots every month in training.  At 5 HI per month, that'll take a nice chunk out of your surplus HI.

This seems to be a very good chart. Got it from this link. Credit to Damian. I do not feel organized. Currently I watch tracker, look for downward trends, then adjust upwards. I recognize not being "planned out' will cause me future problems.

tm.asp?m=2593906

-Master this diagram first ...
-Use witpTracker (or do the JWilkerson manual approach)
-Organise your production inputs and outputs
-Organise the transportation of raw materials
-Oversee the development & repair of production possiblities
-Have good stewardship of the Macro and Micro.

Mike has some very good points. +1 with them.

At the most basic, Mike is telling you that you need to macro plan the size of your economy, including the amount of stockpiling you want to achieve. within those limits, you set your production. the game will allow you to grossly overexpand. Do so only if you know why you are doing so and what you are giving up. It is not wrong to over expand if you know how, why, and when you will utilize such assets. If you dont, it is a very common fatal error.

China oil: I am fairly sure this oil is sitting at Urumchi, which Japan did capture. Is there anything I should undertake to help this oil move to the coast?

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

My goal is a million HI for late game.  (That's unlikely, but ya gotta have a goal, right?)  Remember that your war machine runs on HI and fuel, and your combat units run on fuel and supply.  Turn off your HI factories and you save fuel, but lose supply and HI.  In the late game, when the Allies control the sea lanes, you have to survive on what you saved.  If you run out of HI, your economy comes to a screeching halt.  So does you military.  Remember that whatever off map pools you have, the Allies can't touch (HI, aircraft, engines, to name a few).  They can keep your war machine running after your merchant fleet can't.

1 million? I would shoot for something more than that. It is easy enough to get to 1 million by early 1943.

Also, HI is not the be all and end all you make it out to be. HI is important because it makes stuff. It is the stuff and the ability to use it that is important. Most importantly, there is a trade off between feeding industry and feeding the fleet. If you produce lots of HI and use it to make every ship you possibly can, but don't have any fuel to move those ships around, all that HI will have been wasted. So keep in mind you need to consider the balance between HI production and fuel consumption by the fleet.

ORIGINAL: bigred

China oil: I am fairly sure this oil is sitting at Urumchi, which Japan did capture. Is there anything I should undertake to help this oil move to the coast?

There's nothing you can do to actively move oil (or resources or fuel). I have noticed that if you pull out a commodity, the AI sometimes replaces it if there's a surplus out there somewhere. In this case, however, just let it go. The oil will eventually migrate to Pt. Arthur, where the refinery is.

Bigred,

fuel moves automatically overland by specific routine. As far as I know you cant affect it directly. The routine will pull it over time if there is a need and means to transport it (unblocked roads / rails.) You can create some pull demand in many cases by pulling out the resourecs or oil or fuel in a port linked to the source reasonable close and 'faking' usage that pushes more to that base. Is an art form you have to play with. Best to see if the computer will push it automatically first.

In seven days the Yamato arrives. Strategically I must figure what to do w/ the 233 ship building points no longer needed by the Yamato. My naval build program is on track( I am comfortable) to where I am thinking about reducing naval shipbuilding and use the 233SPx3=699HI for something else. Does the game code auto que another few ships which I must then stop to reduce ship building?

Also note in this jpeg the accelerated cve's. I had alot of extra merchant points so I burned them off accelerating some merchies. Was this a mistake?

Engine overproduction:

[quote]ORIGINAL: bigred

Engine overproduction: Should I convert the hitachi engine factory to something else?
Some of these planes on this list appear to be antiquanted. So I am thinking about converting the frame plants also. Not sure what is best other than stopping production on all.

Here's what the Hitachi (early) is used for. I'd recomend turning that off.

ORIGINAL: bigred

In seven days the Yamato arrives. Strategically I must figure what to do w/ the 233 ship building points no longer needed by the Yamato. My naval build program is on track( I am comfortable) to where I am thinking about reducing naval shipbuilding and use the 233SPx3=699HI for something else. Does the game code auto que another few ships which I must then stop to reduce ship building?

Also note in this jpeg the accelerated cve's. I had alot of extra merchant points so I burned them off accelerating some merchies. Was this a mistake?

People have different views on merchant points. Early in the war you use far less than you produce. Some people accelerate ships, and some don't. I don't because later in the war you'll use up that surplus. If I was going to accelerate something, it would be TKs. CVEs, while they have their uses, are very fragile. It doesn't take much to sink one.

Naval build points, on the other hand, are always in short supply. I like to accelerate DDs and CVs. Just my thoughts though. I recommend you decide on a plan and stick with it. If you jump around and change what you accelerate, you'll never succeed.

And here's what the Hitachi Amakaze is used for. I'd shut that one off too.

Are you playing with PDU on or off?

Wow. What do I do w/ the unused engine plants? PDU is on. This is where as a newbie jap player I can make some critical mistakes. Changing those plants is alot of supply and I am using alot inoperations currently, so I may have to wait until I establish my perimiters.

Note: In the first 7 days of the game I changed the Ida plants to Oscars. Then I did notkeep supply in the bases of those changed plants above 10000. So the plants where not converting which in turn caused an Oscar shortage. This shortage has caused me to investigate the issues. probably a good thing for me as I am becoming educated on production.

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Here's what the Hitachi (early) is used for. I'd recomend turning that off.