Recommendation and Questions about Bottlenecks scenario

[joliverlay]

I highly recommend bottlenecks in the Pacific. I am getting trashed by an excellent Japanese player, its June 1942 and I've almost lost all of Oz. (He did not finish off the DEI and was able to invade the Oz west coast with a massive force and then follow up on the south side of Oz cutting the rails. I had lost 2 CVs defending Hawaii convoys and could not interfere, plus I was not expecting him to leave much of Java in my hands and invade Oz.

Here are my questions about that scenario if anyone knows.

1. I am having to move MASSIVE amounts of resources to keep the US/UK industry running, going from India/Africa and the Carribean to US and UK (maybe 50+ AKs moving resources) and I can't keep up. And my industry is largely damaged at start, so the deficit will only get worse. Anyone know if that is intended. Should I put 100 AKs or more on resource convoys?

2. I spend a major amount of effort on the chrome, moving nurses, civilians, and code breakers around in the game. Does anyone know if there is any penalty (except for the VPs) for losing these units.

3. Since this is a modified DBB scenario, does anyone know if there is an Ai that might be compatible with it? It would be oh so nice if the Andy Mac Nasty quick ported for DBBs AI could be used in the Bottlenecks scenario, but I'm guessing that would not work as the maps are quite different.

Now the other part of my recommendation. The map around NE India is so much better in Bottlenecks. The rail line is broken by the rivers/floods, and the small transports are very useful, but this completely changes the Burma/India game, and the small units added to this scenario are just great.

[RangerJoe]

I suggest that you ask the person who made the scenario these questions.

[M Peaston]

1. Yes, I believe it is intended. I haven’t gotten as far as you in ‘Bottlenecks’ (I’m only as far as April) but what I thought of as my well-oiled logistics machine is coming apart at the seams, to mix a couple of metaphors. I don’t want to give my opponent succour by giving too much information away, but I’m running more than 50 cargo ships (I haven’t counted but it could be as many as 100 or more) from the USA/UK to Cape Town with supply, and they’re back-hauling resources. I started expanding (repairing) Light Industry in the US slowly (a few sites a month), and was careful to also repair resource centres on a one-for-one basis. I don’t as yet have any problems with resources in the US, although I haven’t been monitoring the resource stockpiles so they could be falling rapidly as far as I know. Please don’t ask me about oil at Los Angeles! In the UK production has improved from non-existent to intermittent but added to the organic supply generation has been sufficient to keep the supply convoys fed. It all takes a lot of ships. LST could explain more than me, but I think part of his design philosophy was that you won’t have sufficient shipping to do all the things that you really ought to be doing, at least early-war.

2. As far as I know, aside from the VP loss the only penalty is the overwhelming feelings of guilt at having left those poor civilians to their fate….

3. I’m not best placed to answer this question, but I would guess there is no compatible AI for ‘Bottlenecks’.


It makes me feel much better to think that my opponent's logistical difficulties are probably a lot worse than mine.

Ah well, it's all part of the fun!

[LargeSlowTarget]

Hi, short answers:

#1 Fully intentional, see mod notes for more details on the mod design. Shipping capacity was a historic bottleneck, and production in the US needed time to convert to a war economy. There is a ot of idle shipping in stock scenarios, in Bottlenecks there isn't.

#2 No other penalties than VPs loss, except maybe a bad conscience for having abandoned non-combatants to face a cruel fate at the hands of the Japanese.

#3 I have no idea about modding AI files so I have made no attempt. You can do head to head against yourself, great for learning and you can play both sides with half the time investment compared to two single-side games.

[RangerJoe]

2. I spend a major amount of effort on the chrome, moving nurses, civilians, and code breakers around in the game. Does anyone know if there is any penalty (except for the VPs) for losing these units.

For more information on this, read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Came_Home_(book)

or watch:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Came_Home

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hAtzDU3TnA

https://archive.org/details/kvinnor-bakom-taggtrad

I have read the book, I have yet to see the movie. The movie is supposed to be in the public domain.