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Well, I'm thinking of doing an AAR of my next campaign which I am just starting. Not planning a normal AAR, but rather looking at all of the "things" that I have done. Providing a backdoor commentary of what and how these things have been done. I have pushed the envelope pretty hard with this, in just about everything direction, so a lot of bells and whistles.

Those of you that know me will understand that this will take time. Further, with the ebb and flow of life, it will not be hasty. There are good reasons why I have never done a PBEM (sadly, likely never will), all revolving around outside commitments that (dare I say) supersede even this great game.

I will start by saying that I took a lot of ideas from others, many of which I can no longer remember. I do know which are not mine, and will frequently call those items out along with what I do remember about it. Maybe some memory will return?

Enjoy.

Disclaimer:

As the name suggests, the premise of this alternate reality is that Hirohito instead of being a background figure moves to center stage. As opposed to an 'elected' official, as Emperor, he can do things that are otherwise impossible in Japanese society. None of this happened, and my portrayal of the Emperor is completely fictional. No disrespect is intended, and any cultural errors are all mine. This also applies to a number of other characters that will appear in this mod. Historical names may be used, but the characters and the roles that they play are all fictional. Again, no disrespect intended to anyone.

JHistoryxxx.txt

The Japanese victory over Russia in 1905 established Japan
as one of the world's great powers. By 1910, Japan had
annexed Korea as part of the growing Japanese Empire. The
revolution in China that established a new Republic there
offered Japan the opportunity to further enhance her
military and economic influence in the region. Japanese
imperialism was on the rise.

By 1931, China was becoming unified under the Nationalists
led by Chiang Kai-Shek, with only a small portion of
southeastern China dominated by Mao Tse-tung's communists.
This unification process was alarming to Japan, and a
Chinese boycott of Japanese trade led to conflict between
the two great asian powers, with Manchuria being annexed
by Japan as a condition for peace.

In 1937, however, Chiang and Mao agreed to end the civil
war which had been raging during this period of
unification and began to resist Japanese aggression and
dominance in China. Japan recognized that it had failed
to keep China weak and under foot and opted for war once
again. In July, Japan instigated the "China Incident"
between Chinese and Japanese troops at the Marco Polo
bridge near Peking and a full blown invasion of China
ensued with the conflict lasting through to the end of
the Second World War.

International pressure for Japan to cease it's aggression
in Asia led to a complete trade embargo by the United
States in July 1941. Japanese militarists, although
having heavily influenced policy throughout the thirties, were
officially in power by October with Gen Hideki Tojo
becoming Prime Minister. The Emperor failed to use his
absolute authority to keep the militarists in check.
Events were coming to a head and the need for Japan to
achieve economic independence from foreign resources
decided the issue. Japan would seize the "Southern
Resources Area", long held by Great Britain and The
Netherlands, and not even the American President's
warnings would halt their plans for the future.

Will Japan seize the Northern Resource Area as well?
Will they make subjugation of China a priority?

The seeds of Dec 7th, 1941 were sown.

JDetailsxxx.txt


Hirohito's Honor

Nagumo's First Air Fleet has been at sea since November
26,1941. On the 3rd of December, Nagumo refueled and
the point of no return had been reached. Kido Butai
was committed to the attack...the time for negotiations
had passed. On December 4, the first of the invasion
fleets sortied and sailed toward their objectives. By
now, December 7, the first of two waves of strike
aircraft should be approaching their target, Pearl Harbor.
All there is left to do now is wait...

However, the Junta bungled the DoW and Japanese
honor was besmirched. The Emperor leads a counter revolt
against the Junta and regains control. Too late though; war
with the allies continues unabated ... Japan was
committed. But now, with the Emperor leading, would
Japan's united factions and military be able to wield the
katana to cut through the allies?


As supreme commander of Japan's war machine, you must
seize the "Southern Resources Area" and secure for us the
raw materials we require to pursue our destiny as the
leading Asian nation within the "Greater East Asia
Co-Prosperity Sphere."

Further, you are required to establish a defensive
perimeter of bases with which to repulse any attempt by
the West to reclaim what is rightfully ours. While doing
so, crush all opposition. We must be in a position of
strength to withstand the weight of Western industrial
might sure to be brought to bear once the enemy has
recovered from our initial blows. We must make this
conflict cost prohibitive for the morally weak West and
force the Allied nations to sue for peace, accepting our
territorial gains and our rise as a world power.

Glory for his Majesty the Emperor and victory for the
Empire of the Sun!

Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!


(Designer's note: Production is 'on' for this scenario,
Alternate maps are available for purchase, Allies can
divert European reinforcements for a price.)

I am REALLY looking forward to this, Pax!

Mike! Long time no see/hear!! Very glad you could stop by.

Given that we have a great number of new players, I'm going to walk through my game setup a bit. Dinosaurs can skip across this ...
Fog Of War - Big deal to have on. Only off for your initial learning curve, but get this on ASAP.

Advanced Weather Effects - Big deal to have on. Only off for your initial learning curve, but get this on ASAP.

Allied Damage Control - This is about the allies having focused/trained on damage control. Without this, it a big bonus to the IJ. Big deal to have on. Only off for your initial learning curve, but get this on ASAP.

Player Defined Upgrades - My Opinion here. Only play with this off if you want to REALLY penalize the IJ player AND the IJ player is ok with it. As a JFB, I never play with this on. It wipes out half of the game to me. It basically forces you to make all of the mistakes that the IJ did historically with their aircraft development and production, which for me kinda defeats the purpose of the game. My opinion.

Historical First Turn - An option to limit the ability for the IJ to abuse the first turn. Here, a big deal to have off. Only on for your initial learning curve, but get this off ASAP.

December 7th Surprise - Similar to the Historical First Turn option above, but an opposite effect. If this is off, it will limit the ability for the IJ to abuse the first turn by having the allies react FAR better than they actually did historically. This is generally on for my AI games.

Reliable USN Torpedoes - Turning this on gives the USN reliable torpedoes from the start, an obvious penalty to IJ. I generally have this off (historical USN torpedoes).

Realistic RnD - A misnomer obvious to anyone who has been involved with product development. It forces the IJ to use RnD facilities for RnD at the start and if they ever move to production, they stay that way. It is a way to limit the IJ RnD ability slightly. In my opinion, all it does is complicate the IJ RnD even more than it is, no real limitation except by accident. I rarely ever play with this due to the hassle factor.

No unit withdrawals - In a stock game, the allies have a GREAT number of units that come and go; the IJ only a very few. Having this on gives the allies a HUGE advantage in a stock game. In a mod, it would depend upon the mod design. I leave this off to keep the allies "historical" in their movements of units to the European theatre and/or the training/maintenance rotation schedules that these rotating units represent. A big deal to have this off ....

Reinforcement - for stock games this allows you to "shake things up" a bit. Useful in both AI and PBEM games using stock and mod scenarios alike.

**** "a big deal" is my personal code-speak for you wanna being doing this, because it is a big part of the game ....

Game Options:
Combat Reports - Generate combat reports. You want these.

Auto Sub Ops - when you are first learning, you may wish to ignore subs. Don't do that for long, you want to control these carefully. Get this off.

TF move radius - Player choice. It may create too much clutter for you. F4 toggles this on/off in game. I do this a lot, but I start with it on.

Plane move radius - Player choice like above. F3 is the toggle for this one. I do this a lot, but I start with it on.

Set all facilities to expand at start - for the IJ, this is a killer, never have this on as you will burn supply that you can never recover. As the allies, you may wish to have this one when you start to learn. Then later as the allies, you will figure out whether it is easier to start with them all on or all off to get to where you want to be.

Automatic upgrade ships and air groups - Even when learning, I would not have this on. You don't want a ship to go into upgrade when you get to port and you still need it. Air groups, you only get so many new aircraft and you want to choose a front line group to upgrade from those lousy Nates to Franks. So, this should be off. Always.

Accept air and ground replacements - not quite the killer that the upgrade above is, but still do not recommend using it. Again, you get limited replacements and you don't want those going to rear echelon units while your front line units are getting depleted.

Turn Cycle: this is all about the player. PBEM is generally 1 day turns, but there are a couple of AAR's with 2 day turns. If you play the AI, increasing this above 1 day is a serious advantage to the AI; the AI will adjust each turn and you less frequently. This mod is designed for 1 day turns. If you play a stock scenario against the AI, then you will need to use this. Scen 1 and 2 day turns at VH gives a pretty good game to start. Then about Feb 1 go to 3 day turns and May 1 or so go to 4 day turns. Not only does the game go MUCH faster, but it forces you to think ahead which is great prep for PBEM.

AI Difficulty - Per the dev at VH the game is as balanced as possible for the AI vs Human. Anything lower and the human is playing with SIGNIFICANT advantages. I only, always, play at VH. For learning, start at normal and work up. Don't wait too long to increase this or you will develop some rather poor playing habits that will hurt you. Then either get a PBEM partner (preferred) or move to mods (and/or turn cycle) to increase the difficulty of the game.

Preferences
These delays all really are just that. I have them all set to the minimum to maximize the turn speed. Slow any of these down to see details. In a PBEM you can fiddle with these for your replay to get just what you want. Here in this AI game, I've got enough experience to pretty much be able to impute the details from the reports.

Initially, I recommend setting these about 2 secs AND showing the animations (below).

Combat Animations - I have these off to start. These can be toggled with F5 and you want to use this often. The animations give you the maximum detail on the combat, far more than the reports. When you are learning, you want to watch these and use them to refine your tactics. Very useful in PBEM playback. Against the AI, you don't have the playback feature so you have to decide how long your turn will take to run .vs. missing a critical factor in a combat.

Show Combat Summaries - Rarely have this on as you can read them all at the end of the turn. However, when starting out, having the summary at each battle will help.

Show Clouds - The toggle for this is F7 and I use it a lot. Generally off for most of my turn work until I get to the air units. Then the weather makes a big difference. Check what it is and what the forecast is. Overlooking this and having an air attack grounded due to weather is your fault.

Volume - all player choices. I have my own music in the background.

Good Luck Sir. Good to see BOTH of you still around and Posting.

John,

thanks for stopping in. Hopefully this will provide some entertainment for you.

FOW

How much FOW is there really in the game? Here's a couple of ScreenShots from the first turn in the game (not my actual game, but some test runs from an earlier game; prolly v1126). BTW this game is run under v1127.

Here's the IJ: Here's the allies: So your LCU and Air losses are consistent. Where the FOW really comes into play are the ships. Not even close. But, the scores are accurate. So, how do you get the real ships number? As the IJ, back into the ship loss points:
Japan Score - IJ Base pts - Allied AC pts lost - Allied Army Loss pts = Points for Sunk Allied Ships
2869 - 1415 - 293 - 15 = 1146

You still don't know the mix or which ships exactly, but you can make some guesses. With game time, the losses get admitted to and the ship loss scores start to close up.

How close do the combat reports tally to the Intelligence Scores? I'll be generous and say that the combat reports "suggest" what the true losses are. It takes a lot of experience to correlate the losses in combat reports to what actually gets reported as VP's. What that means is from the Intelligence Screen, you need to look at:

Aircraft Losses
List Top Pilots (daily and total pilot losses at bottom)
Ships Sunk
Ground units Destroyed

These will tell you what you really lost as compared to what the combat reports implied. Discrepancies come from many areas. Think of the combat reports as the initial reports with the Intelligence Screen as the subsequent final reports.

For Aircraft, Ops losses are rarely reported in the combat reports, but you will find them in the (surprise!!) Operations report. Depending upon how well you are managing your air groups, these can be really high. Even with good management, long range attacks will generate more ops losses due to battle damage. Return flight losses as opposed to landing losses will generally cost you the pilot as well (MIA which mostly convert to KIA).

Hirohito’s Honor Mod

Preamble:
This is a “what-if” scenario for the Empire of Japan. ‘Is there anything that could have been done to improve this situation?’ Many others have also created these what-ifs and all do so by “bending” history (and to some extent reality) in some fashion. For example, Reluctant Admiral is a mod where Yamamoto is given reins in the mid-30’s to better prepare Japan for the upcoming war.

This mod takes a different perspective: one in which Hirohito is able to take control and actively direct the nation in the war. It is postulated here that if the Emperor, as opposed to “in his name”, directly appealed to the citizens of Japan would have had a more profound impact and would have been able to overcome many deep-seated factions. So while Japan’s starting point is irretrievably fixed, going forward her abilities are unharnessed maybe to the bane of her enemies. This is the key assumption for this mod. Its probability is moot in that it did not happen. However, as an alternate reality it is somewhat appealing to speculate on.

Because the historical flow is no longer assumed, a great number of options are now open to the IJ. On the Allied side, they do not taper off their build plans in ’44. Instead, the allied powerhouse continues to expand throughout ’45. Further, as the situation in Asia deteriorates so significantly, Roosevelt is forced to delay the Europe buildup and divert resources to the Pacific with all the associated impact. So, lots of nice goodies will appear for the allies.

The underlying philosophy in this mod is: Hirohito is in charge and is trying to extract the maximum he can as an omnipotent ruler. AKA “If I were King … ”.

Acknowledgements
First, and foremost, this is a mod on WitPAE. To everyone involved in the original efforts, thanks for a great game. Next to the Reluctant Admiral team. I have borrowed copiously from them on a number of items, in particular aircraft design. To Andy Mac for developing his Ironman mods. The allied side for this AI version begins with the Nasty, Nasty, Nasty version that he developed in response to the “anticipated” successes of the IJ forces. To JWE and the Da Babes team from whom I have also “borrowed” many ideas. Finally, to all of those whom I have borrowed from, but have lost track of: if you recognize something you did, please let me know so that I can credit you.

Just to let you know, the V1128 reverted to the old map with some changes. There were also errors found on the old maps. I think that either v1126 or v1128 would be best. You know how to copy the .exe and move it.

As a point, the weather aspect does make a difference for the PT Boats and MTBs. Even if the weather shows a higher moonlight level, bad weather which includes overcast can drastically lower the visibility which benefits those boats. This can make a big difference for the NW coast of Luzon when the Japanese invasion task forces show up and/or their follow up forces arrive there. I just love it when those little boats show up and the Japanese play what I call "Bumper Ships" and run into each other!

RangerJoe wrote: Sat Jun 14, 2025 1:24 am Just to let you know, the V1128 reverted to the old map with some changes. There were also errors found on the old maps. I think that either v1126 or v1128 would be best. You know how to copy the .exe and move it.

I'm confused, I'm using v1127.

I know about v1128 issues. v1127 is v1126 with just a few fixes, the biggest being the Port 0(0) fix for Naval Support. v1126 still has the Port 0(0) issue in it. Is this all correct?

If v1128 reverted back to the original stock map, isn't that just back to v1127?

PS: I've been fixing the pwhexe file as the errors are identified. Yeah, been a LOT of those, but mostly off in areas where I've never moved a unit to. Still, I fixed them.

Mod Overview

What are given are options for expansion if, and while, the empire is doing well. All of these options have their normal costs, so the player is going to have to determine which of the many options he will choose to fund. The game economy has NOT been changed, so there is a finite quantity of oil and resources on the board, and this puts a very real cap on the size of the IJ economy. The IJ player has FAR more ships, air units, and LCU’s to choose to build (or build out) than the economy will ever allow for. As opposed to stock, you will have to put many ships on hold, not just a few. You will have to decide whether you can afford to enable an LCU TOE upgrade or whether you can afford to fully staff a new LCU or airgroup.

Upgrades, particularly for ships, are available based upon device date availability. These will not be the historical dates as this mod does not assume Midway will occur. In fact, it is a prime assumption in this mod that history subsequent to Dec 7, 1941 is yet to be written. While it may seem that this is a “perk” for the IJN, in reality it isn’t. It might be great to have every ship get early radar in March ’42, but how many ships can you afford to put into dry dock during your time of expansion? This was the historical question that the IJN had to face. They chose not to put a ship into dock for any upgrade (at least in ’42), Thus, ships only got upgraded during repair. If not for Coral Sea, Shokaku and Zuikaku would not have gotten radar until late ’42. or maybe even ’43.

Finally, many new and additional LCU’s and Air Groups are available, but they come into the game as shells only that will have to be built up consuming precious supply and then increasing the overall empire daily supply requirement.

Bottom line: the Japan economy is nowhere near big enough to build more than about 30% of what is offered even in the most optimistic situation. The reason for the large availability is to give the player the choices and ability to react to the course of the war. Without, or until, a Midway type disaster, the player may decide to build up their ASW forces as opposed to accelerating more CV’s. Additional Capital ships can be laid down, but without accelerating, they don’t arrive until ’46. Is it worth it? Or maybe more screening vessels? Or maybe more mine sweeping/laying capacity? Particularly with small ships, the player can now build out his forces almost as he pleases. With respect to Merchant forces, do you want many smaller, less fuel efficient ships (thereby mitigating losses), or fewer, larger, more fuel efficient ships?

To summarize the Allied AI, the basics are:
• Andy Mac’s Nasty, Nasty, Nasty Ironman as the base.
• Significantly increased the number and type of device for invasion reactions.
• Added a significant number of Aircraft to the invasion reactions.
• Allied build up does not plateau in ’44 as it did historically. It continues ramping up. A lot of Easter Eggs for the allies here.
• The P-40 series was able to stay in production for most of the war as it was competitive against the IJ fighters it was opposing. If that had not been true, it would have been replaced. Thus the P-51 Mustang models will appear earlier and in greater numbers to be able to counter anticipated successful IJ RnD efforts.
• Several other surprises for the IJ to deal with ...

PaxMondo wrote: Sun Jun 15, 2025 3:04 am

RangerJoe wrote: Sat Jun 14, 2025 1:24 am Just to let you know, the V1128 reverted to the old map with some changes. There were also errors found on the old maps. I think that either v1126 or v1128 would be best. You know how to copy the .exe and move it.

I'm confused, I'm using v1127.

I know about v1128 issues. v1127 is v1126 with just a few fixes, the biggest being the Port 0(0) fix for Naval Support. v1126 still has the Port 0(0) issue in it. Is this all correct?

If v1128 reverted back to the original stock map, isn't that just back to v1127?

PS: I've been fixing the pwhexe file as the errors are identified. Yeah, been a LOT of those, but mostly off in areas where I've never moved a unit to. Still, I fixed them.

v1127 had Jamaica and the bases in Egypt. Jamaica could not supply itself for me, I had to ship supplies there.

Then the bases in the middle USA as well as other places that actually needed supplies to be built up so the Allied player was extremely limited as to how much in supplies that could be shipped out and still keep the initial switch from peacetime to wartime production continuing. Not that was a bad thing but it can cause problems.

But those are things that I remember now, I did NOT keep track of the issues that I found or if I did, they are buried in a folder somewhere.

I am sure that there are change logs out there somewhere . . .

There are some changes that I would like to industry make in a mod but that might just be for myself.


Personally, I will share one change that I had made. I have mentioned this change to others as well. Reduce the cost of building the IJ submarines, the submarines should not be so expensive that a player could build 3 or 4 destroyers for 1 submarine. To do that, reduce the durability of the submarine but then have a 0 day upgrade to bring to durability up to what it should be.

RangerJoe wrote: Sun Jun 15, 2025 10:32 am
v1127 had Jamaica and the bases in Egypt. Jamaica could not supply itself for me, I had to ship supplies there.

Here is the link to v1127: https://forums.matrixgames.com/viewtopi ... 9#p5019309

Here is the changelog provided: For new areas to be added, there would had to have been a pwhexe file (there isn't, just .exe and .dll files), so I don't know what to say ...

Technically it is 1127b ... he released 1127 and then had an error found and fixed it within 48 hours with a re-release. You can read the thread for a refresh .... now if 1128 was re-released (I didn't know that) to work with the original stock map, then 1128 and 1127b should be approx if not exactly the same?

Help me here ... I'm not too far into my new game. I hate to start over, but if I have a faulty .exe .... Thanks!
(I was initially with 1126b, but I really needed/wanted the NS at Port 0[0] fix as it always hits me.

If you are using the 1127 .exe with the 1126 files, then you are fine. It was the map that messed people up with 1127 by adding the Egypt area, Jamaica, the lower mid-USA such as Louisiana including New Orleans, along with other bases. Then the industry was also damaged. The new map with 1128 added a lot of small bases on the regular map to help the AI, it added LI and Resources in a lot of the smaller bases including the islands in Oceania.

RangerJoe wrote: Sun Jun 15, 2025 4:09 pm If you are using the 1127 .exe with the 1126 files, then you are fine.

Whew