(A) Fulkerson vs Jap AI vers 7.0

[larryfulkerson]

So um........hey you guys......I just downloaded and installed the new Beta version of WITP-AE and I thought I'd try it out playing against
the Jap AI. And doing an AAR about it. Is there any interest in that kind of thing? I can't tell if anybody would bother to read an AAR
if it's against the Jap AI. At any rate I thought I'd use the RA 4.2 scenario about "Quiet China" as the platform and use historical
difficulty. I've already started the scenario and I've already suffered the Pearl Harbour strike and everything. and now it's 8Dec41.

[MAurelius]

isn't the RA stuff usually somewhere at scen 70?

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: MAurelius
isn't the RA stuff usually somewhere at scen 70?

Right you are......I stand corrected, it's not an RA 4.2 scenario it's the stock Quiet China scenario. Good catch dude.

A lot of the Allied industry has failed on this early date. The reason is mostly lack of resources. There's an oil refinery in the Soviet
union that I may as well turn off since it has no oil input(s). I'm pretty sure most of these failures will clear up after a couple of turns as
the resources start spilling into the coffers.

[moore4807]

Hey I'll read this one! If I'm allowed <grin>
I promise to read it only AFTER I've sent you the turn in our game...
I want to do the update too, just both copies of the game are currently in use...
I've read a lot of good things about it from the Tech forum. Just wish it was adaptable to older games.

[John 3rd]

I was looking at the Title for the AAR and said...DID WE DO a quiet China??? Sorry---it made me laugh.

Hope you have a good time with your game Sir!

[MAurelius]

have fun nonetheless... was surprised about that one too

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: moore4807
Hey I'll read this one! If I'm allowed <grin>

Yeah, of course you're allowed. Please post your every thought.

ORIGINAL: moore4807
I promise to read it only AFTER I've sent you the turn in our game...

Good man.

ORIGINAL: moore4807
I want to do the update too, just both copies of the game are currently in use...
I've read a lot of good things about it from the Tech forum. Just wish it was adaptable to older games.

Um.......you can do the update w/o a problem since it writes to a "beta2" directory and that directory holds the "exe" that represents the beta. You can create a shortcut to it and call it the 1.0.7.0 version or something. I did. I'm running either the official patch or the
new beta by chosing which shortcut to click on to start it. In fact you can run BOTH at the same time if you have enough memory for
both of the running tasks. I've done it.

And that part about it being adaptable to older games...........um......I don't see a problem w/ loading older game saves w/ the newer
version. Does that cause a problem that you already know about? I'm not aware of any problem. I've heard that Tracker has a
problem with some dll that's in the Tracker directory.......that you need to replace it with a different one from somewhere. That what you mean?

[larryfulkerson]

So um....I started this thing and now I haven't posted stuff to it in a while and it's crept down the list and is near the bottom of the first
page of AAR's now. I'm not stalling I'm working on Jim's moves and posting stuff in that AAR because he promised to do his moves for
our game before he reads this AAR so I owe him to do my moves first too. Long story short: stay tuned I'll be back to this AAR in about
6 hours or so.

[larryfulkerson]

Okay........it's Wed. 19:37 and I'm finally through w/ Jim's moves and can work on this game. It's looking to me that all the aircraft R&D
is being done at Los Angeles. I'm playing as the Jap player in my game w/ Jim and to find this out now is a revelation but I'll be
dad-gummed if I can figure out what in the world the Jap player can do about it even knowing it. I'm not sure it would be a good idea to
launch a sea-borne raid on LA just to damage the R&D going on there. The results might tend to favor not doing such a thing. Has any
Allied player had a real-live human opponent do a raid on the west coast? I haven't been keeping up with all the AAR's and so on but I'm
thinking it's rare to have done so.

Also, I'm wondering if any human Allied player has done the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo. I think that was in April or May of '42 so
I'll see if I can't put something together and do some sort of raid on Tokyo w/ some token planes to represent the B-25 raid. That would
be cool.

[larryfulkerson]

I've got several things to say about this next image ( below ). Um......I turned off the repair at EVERY base first of all and then went throu
the list turning on only specific things so in the upper left of the image you'll find a list of the cities ( bases ) where there was something I
thought worth repairing. The Repair column is two columns to the right and is the only "yes"-es in the list.

Um.....as to the differences in Max Production and Actual Production........um........there's about 720 refineries turned off for one reason
or another, probably those belonging to the Soviet Union, so that oil can begin to pile up there to make a big enough pile to run the sinks
of those oil refineries, ....to make it viable and worthwhile. Like three days-worth of consequtive production or something.

EDIT: and another thing. Armament, Vehicle, Engines, NavSY and MerSY are all zeroed out for the Allied player.
There's no HI being spent in any of those categories and you get what you get from the reinforcements that are
dolled out by the game engine periodically. And you don't have to handle the industry associated with those
categories. Either. So on the one hand it's easier and more fun perhaps to some players, but then there are
those of us who LIKE being in charge of production. Just in case you want to skew the strategic picture if you
can. Make the combatants work for their money or be more laid-back and play for the fun of it. Some players
really like being the Jap player because of the production freedom(s) you get that are denied to the Allied dude.

[larryfulkerson]

If you filter out everything except for the Resources and sort them w/ biggest producer at the top you'll find that Salt Lake City and
Takhoma are the biggest two and consequently I'm guessing a lot of resources will leave the west coast via Takhoma. So we'll need
to see to it that Takhoma has some shipping engineers and about three TF's of ASW to clear a lane for all the traffic that's going to be
seen in that part of the world. I checked out Seattle and it said something like low double digits on resources ( 11 as I recall ) and so
maybe we should set the stockpilling of resources "on" at Seattle and we can use that port too.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's me turning on the Resource Storage at Seattle. I turned it on at Takhoma as well. Most of them are coming down the highway
from Salt Lake City so I'm guessing maybe San Francisco will eventually start to feel a flow of resources as well maybe. So maybe I
should turn on stockpilling at SFO as well? I guess I'll leave it "off" for now just to see what happens.

[larryfulkerson]

I want to do a comparison of the levels of fuel/oil/supplies/resources......the goodies.......at the various bases near Salt Lake City. Just
to see how the flow is working out. So I'll store this picture here by posting it and then game time tomorrow I'll take another picture like
this one and we'll compare the levels to get an idea of the flow of goodies. I'm hoping it's flowing west to the coast. If not I may have to
turn on stockpiling everywhere on the west coast or something.

[larryfulkerson]

I guess it should come as no surprise that San Francisco, Pearl, and Las Angeles should be the top fuel levels so far. Fortunately, all
three are on or in the water even though they are far apart. It's no surprise either that Pearl is going to be the source for most if not all
the goodies flowing west so it in turn, is going to be needing to be resupplied from the west coast. A known traffic route that MUST flow
is the submariner's dream so I need to start putting together some escorting policies and enforce them religiously. Oops, I made a
promise to myself not to talk about religion.

EDIT: I'm putting together a plan of action about the routing of TF's sailing between Pearl and the west coast. I'm thinking of putting
some ASW teams together for the port areas and escorts for the rest of it. I'm thinking of designating one major route between Pearl
and a point some 100+ miles from the west coast ports so that the differentiation of destinations of the task forces is made close to the
coast. Relatively speaking. So that all the westbound traffic will leave their port and enter the funnel that is designed to get all the TF's
to use one major route to and from Pearl except for around the ports. I'll see if I can't scrape together some float plane tenders to sit
on the route somewhere and maybe provide some rudimentary air support or ASW.

[larryfulkerson]

I haven't started forming any TF's yet. I'm hoping to be able to use the lower TF numbers for the more important TF's and the highest
numbers for the inconsequential ships, like the AM's that will minesweep locally, that sort of thing. So I'm hatching a plan to find all the
capital ships and form TF's for them first, then everything else leaving the port oilers, local minesweepers, etc. for last.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the situation near Pearl right now:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the situation near Pearl right now:

EDIT: I of course mean, slide southeast with them.

[larryfulkerson]

The Saratoga is still sitting parked at San Diego, but I'm going to get her cranked up and sail her out to join the other two carriers. I've
given Sara's planes missions already, naval search, except for the fighters which are escort. As soon as we sight something juicy we can
adjust the missions as necessary.

[larryfulkerson]

Another, smaller, carrier that I have at my disposal is the Hermes near Colombo. I had a hard time getting the KV's to join into my air
combat TF consisting of a CVL and a CA. I had to change it from air combat to escort and join it to the other escort TF I had which was
the four KV's and voila it automatically turned into an Air Combat TF. Okay it worked, whatever.

[larryfulkerson]

A report on the broken ships at Pearl: