No More Red Dots: A Mini CHS AI AAR

[Chad Harrison]

Like many others, I have been finding things to do while waiting for AE. Around Christmans my long time PBEM opponent called our game which ended my sole WitP PBEM. Wanting to still play WitP, I thought I would give CHS a whirl as up to that point I had only ever played stock. I did not want to start a new PBEM with AE coming so soon, so I thought that once again I would play against the AI. Kind of funny to think that I avoided a new PBEM seven months ago because AE was about to come out any day [:D] (Keep up the great work though you guys! Much rather wait for the game than wait for patches to fix the game!)

This CHS game would mark my fourth grand campaign against the AI as the Allies. The first three all saw the Japanease AI get his KB sunk around June 1942 by land based planes. It was so consistent that I thought maybe the Battle of Midway disaster was coded in; boy, the JFB's would love that one! [X(] I could only play for so long after that point, so each game was ended very, very early due to lack of challenge.

Anyways, after my PBEM ended I was curious about CHS. I had yet to try CHS, and the more I read about it, the more it sounded like AE (for obvious reasons) so I thought I play it to completion as a mini AE preview. This would be my first AI game after playing PBEM and from reading on these forums, I knew that it would not be pretty. The vanilla WitP AI is a great way to cut your teeth with a new game, but once you have, it lacks . . . challenge? As a side note, I am very much so looking forward to what Andy has scripted in surprise for us in AE.

Knowing that the AI lacked any real challenge at this point for me, especially as the Allies, I decided from the start that not only would I play to completion, but to increase the challenge my goal would be:

Clear the *entire* map of all Japanease units! Not only that, but as quickly as possible.

So before I start posting some screenshots, I am curious:

Has anyone else ever tried/done this before? As the Allies? As the Japanease?

Thanks

Chad

[Chad Harrison]

Now, this is an after the fact AAR; ie. the game is already over and has been for a few months actually. But this is the first time I have had enough time to get this up here. Since it is an after the fact AAR, obviously some of the finer details are gone forever, and knowing that that would be the case by the time the game was over, I created a save game file on the 1st of every year. That way I can go back and see the general progression of things.

Also, by no stretch of the imagination is this AAR being put up here to serve my ego. I am doing this for two reasons:

1. To share my general experiences and the result of my experiment (ie. clearing the map).
2. To see if anyone else has tried this, and if so, their results. I am especially curious to see if a Japanease player has been able to clear the map of all Allies.

As such, I am not going to go into great detail. If anyone wants additional detail, obviously I would be more than happy to share. Otherwise, as the name of the thread implies, this is going to be a short AAR.

With that out of the way, lets get to it . . .

[Chad Harrison]

First off, hats off to the CHS team. Going from stock to CHS is a very pleasant surprise. All that extra detail is a great treat! I can only imagine how it will feel to go from vanilla WitP to AE . . .

From my previous games against the AI (all as the Allies) and my PBEM (again, as the Allies), I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do. Again, not only did I know that I wanted to clear the entire map, but I wanted to do it as quickly as possible. Even though this goal was 100% impossible in reality for numerous reasons, I would not play entirely gamey. In other words, I had a self rule of keeping realistic defenses where appropriate. In other words, I never once released an Indian division, Australia always had a number of divisions defending it, the West Coast was well defended and so was Pearl. You can push gamey tactics pretty far in WitP without restraint and move very, very quickly in my opinion. But I wanted to be atleast somewhat realistic in my approach and attempt to clear the map.

However, having played the AI three times before I knew beforehand what the Japanease AI would try to do in general, where the majority of his forces would be located at start, where he would try to expand to in the first six months. As you can imagine, no matter how hard I tried to avoid being 'gamey', this gave me a tremendous advantage. But it is no different that the JFB's knowing the exact OOB with locations at game start which allow them to plan their conquests with much greater ease than their historical counterparts. Anyways, the end point is that I tried my best to keep a certain level of realism in my game.

[Chad Harrison]

1942

As it turned out, this was the only challenging year. As we all know, the AI is very aggressive the first 6 months of the game. So I wanted to stop the AI's advance at Singapore, Manila, Rabual and the DEI.

Manila and Singapore: Its too easy to do, but it works well: move all your forces back to Manila and Singapore. For both cities, the AI recognized the sheer number of troops in each and never even tried to enter the city. This made the only challenge getting adequate supplies to each city so that forts could be built and the troops could replenish their depleted numbers. The US troops in Manila were too isolated to really be able to reinforce enough to take back Luzon, but it was very easy to get a number of divisions with support into Singapore. It went so well that by Jaunuary 1943, these troops (without a single division from India) pushed the Japanease all the way back into China, and even took Hong Kong.

DEI: Having saved the Prince of Wales and Repulse from Betty/Nell death, this entire theatre became a death trap for invading Japanease shipping. I have no idea how much Japanease shipping was lost trying to land and supply their troops here, but it is easily 1/2 to 2/3 of Japans ship losses thus far. Not only that, but almost to the day of historic Midway, the AI puts the KB through the Java Sea. I tell you, its coded in or something, because as with my previous three AI games, the entire KB was lost once again to land based aircraft in June 1942.

Rabual: The last tricky defense was Rabual. Much like the DEI though, I just kept a number of surface ships (CA/CL's) on station to repel any invaders. With the KB sunk, Rabual was never in any real danger as my cruisers kept the enemy at bay for the entire year sinking dozens of ships.

About midway through 1942, with everything going well, I wanted to get the CENPAC drive underway. Just as I expected, the Marianas and Bonin islands were only lightly defended. With elements of SOPAC, SWPAC and CENPAC driving through this area, it was complete overkill and no island defense lasted over a few days. I was now setup for my 1943 drive to the Home Islands.

Also, at this point in the game, the question of whether or not you can clear the map had been answered. In my opinion, it is not only possible, but actually quite easy with all the advantages you have playing this game a number of times against the AI. The only question that now remained was how quickly it could be done.

[Chad Harrison]

Here is the intel screen from January 1st, 1943. Nearly all the Japanease shipping loses came from the DEI, Rabual, and bomber raids on AK/AP's sitting in ports about to be overrun by ground troops in Asia.

[Chad Harrison]

Auto victory on January 1st, 1943 for the Allies. But the goal is not reached yet, there are still red dots on the map . . .

[wdolson]

Last time I played the grand campaign against the AI, I conquered every hex on the map.  The result was a little anti climatic.  The turns kept processing even when the Japanese had nothing left to process.  As I closed in on Japan, the AI took less and less time processing turns, which did allow me to get in more turns in an evening.

I think I finally wiped out the last unit around May or June 1943.

Bill

[Chad Harrison]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

Last time I played the grand campaign against the AI, I conquered every hex on the map.  The result was a little anti climatic.  The turns kept processing even when the Japanese had nothing left to process.  As I closed in on Japan, the AI took less and less time processing turns, which did allow me to get in more turns in an evening.

I think I finally wiped out the last unit around May or June 1943.

Bill

I went through the same thing. As the game went on, I stopped using subs (I only actually used them the first month or so of the game), stopped using fighters, had no need for carriers and so on.

Its funny, the biggest challenge that I had was keeping interest in continuing to play. I started and stopped a number of times . . .

June 1943? You did it a lot faster than I did, no wonder the AE team snaged you [:D]

[wdolson]

It may have been later in 43.  I don't recall now.  In the original game, if you break the back of the AI, things go downhill pretty quickly.

Bill

[Chad Harrison]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

It may have been later in 43.  I don't recall now.  In the original game, if you break the back of the AI, things go downhill pretty quickly.

Bill

That was my experience in all of my AI games, whether CHS or stock. The AI is very effective and aggresive the first six months. But, if you can set a trap for the KB in those six months and hold onto Singapore and Manila, the push back is very, very easy.

Not that I need to list the things about AE that I am excited about, but the new scripted AI is definately one of bigger ones. From the sounds of it, the AI will remain atleast active until the end of the war. Great news indeed!