Slitherine

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Again true, but HOW are you producing enough HI, fuel and supply to have any war and production at the same time? I'm BARELY keeping Maebashi supplied from Tokyo by air to produce 56 A6M2's each month and the HI demands are more than I can keep up with, I'm paying repair points to expand HI first which will EVENTUALLY allow me to make more supply. What are your Shipyards, Armaments, and Vehicles doing?

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ORIGINAL: brotherbaldrick

Hmm, I think maybe because I've always played Hakko Ichiu I get extra supply and fuel at the beginning of the game? I start with 4.8M supply and 4.2M Fuel. That aside I see from your screen shot you've got 85000 HI accumulated!? Also why do you need to keep Maebashi supplied by air???

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ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Here's the comparison between Jim and me and Jim and TommyG's game:

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ORIGINAL: Kitakami

One thing I do is to trim merchant shipyards to the level needed, maybe a few points more, but not more than that. This, coupled with stopping all the smaller cargo ships, should give you a nice level of savings. But then I do not run unescorted convoys, and I convert all ships I can to PB's (those that are not needed as minefield tenders, that is). I did need to increase naval shipyards a few points though.

Regarding Armament factories I turned off some 270 right from the start, but I did increase vehicle production to 210. My idea is to have an increaso of both every turn, even if small, just like what I want with HI.

Just my 2 cents :)

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ORIGINAL: FatR

Personally I prefer to keep both armament and vehicles around 200 producing factories. Seems to be sufficient. Merchant shipyard production starts excessive then goes into massive deficit in 1943. Japan starts with a huge surplus of merchant shipping, of course, so if one can prevent massive losses to sub warfare, you don't need more xAKs, probably just more tankers, more to cover unexpected convoy destructions by enemy raids, than anything. To minimize the sub threat, convert every hull you can to PBs or mine warfare ships, convert a significant number of Yusen/Kyushu xAKs to AV for stationary or escort air ASW duty (airgroups can be provided by removing secondary floatplane groups from cruisers and expanding them), dedicate some army airgroups to ASW, train all dive bomber pilots in ASW as a secondary skill.

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ORIGINAL: Kitakami

If I were you, I'd heed FatR's advice over mine. I am actually quite rust after a long time of not playing, and RA is taking a bit to get used to.
Take it as a compliment from a noob, but your suggestions are dead on with my thinking, I've played enough (vs AI) to understand its the economy, not the warmaking that determines how far you get as Japan...

Yet, here is what I think...
1. Merchant shipyards. You have 7143 points stored, with a surplus of 228. I'd reduce it by 200 and adjust it upwards as build requirements increase. But that is just me. I prefer to hoard HI than Merchant points.
Agreed - this is stock so far with only adjustments were turning OFF "E" class ships and half of the barges. This probably where the surplus came from.

2. Naval shipyards. You have 195 points stored, with a surplus of 55. I'd reduce the surplus to 0, but if you want to accelerate something, then turn on what you need to have a surplus of 5 a turn or so.
OK Do you have any suggestions? I was looking at BB Musashi due in Dec.42 for accelerating but its a LOT of points!

3. Vehicle factories. Yes, I'd increase the total to 200. That is 16 more points. Do it in the factories that have either nothing to repair, or the smallest number of repairs to do. That way, you get those vehicles faster.
Got it.

4. Armaments. I'd turn off 200 factory points or so, and see what happens. That is a savings of 1200 HI per turn.
I was thinking I'd like to eliminate as many Non-port or Non base factories first, Maebashi is a good example where production is eating up supply faster than it can move from Tokyo next door...

5. HI construction depends on many factors. Location is one of the most critical ones. I would NOT build more HI until you know how you will stand long term, meaning not until after you conquer Singapore, Java and Sumatra. You need fuel and resources to feed the HI, and the resource situation of Japan is not in the best of shapes in the beginning. In fact, depending on your supply situation, I would turn ON the DO NOT REPAIR switch for the HI you have already ordered. They repair at the rate of 1/turn, by the way, as long as you have enough supply present (10K) consumming 1K supplies per repair in the process.
Good point, I was thinking that Balikpapan was uncontested - no damages, Miri was half damaged & I dumped 5 construction units to speed up repair there, everything else on the island fell without any appreciable damage... Actually Balikpapan already has fuel spoilage since my TK TF's are still enroute there! I'm actually trying to make HI to GET the supply up, but I get your point.

6. An AV supporting 20-24 land-based float planes on ASW with pilots trained to the 70-level in ASW will do wonders to keep enemy subs submerged and away from your ships. I like to disband them in strategic locations where they can cover up to 20 hexes of a convoy's route. But you can also have the AVs join the convoys with a (smaller, 4-9 plane) air group onboard, doing exactly the same .
Right now my three main hub shipping lines are;
1) Tokyo - Davao/Babelbobs - Rabaul.
2) Osaka - Takao/Hong Kong - Saigon.
3) Tokyo - Sapporo (Home Is. resources to Tokyo)
a Fourth line is probably going to be fuel/oil related Balikpapan - Miri - Nagasaki
ALL of these shipping lines hubs have at least one ASW Betty or Nell group. I have Babs along all three routes doing Naval searches, and thinking about spending PP to free up Home Defense A/C, but havent had to yet. The "spoke" AK/AKL's are the only unprotected TF ships so far. The idea is to get in and out of the smaller bases in a day with supply. Comments?

Those are a few, personal, and imperfect thoughts. They are NOT the ultimate solution to Japan's woes in RA, but they should help keep you on track. The ultimate solution is to grab resources, oil and refineries intact, preferably along with a good number of HI. But the intact part is the one that is difficult to achieve :)

AMEN Brother Kitikami! ... Actually I'm feeling pretty good about my Japanese game after reading your comments... Larry is doing VERY WELL against me playing as the Japanese, We both notice how much different (better!) our game is than against the AI. The RA mod just turns up the heat on you to get your economics in order playing as the Japanese, but they also do put a carrot on the end of this stick!!!

Again thanks for your input and advice!

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ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

I've found that Hakodate has a small fortune in Resources and it's really close to the home islands and relatively safe for convoys so I'm
planning on making a lot of runs in and out of there.

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ORIGINAL: Kitakami

But then again, that is the perfect place to cover with 4x SC in each port (in an ASW TF), and one decently trained air unit on ASW. Add to that 2-4 PB's per cargo TF, and losses should be light... at least until the US torpedoes get fixed :S

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ORIGINAL: Kitakami

You have a very valid point there. The IJN does not have enough SC's to patrol every important port. That is why converting as many merchantmen to PB's, and training as amany air units in ASW is so important. But choke points lihe Ominato/Hakodate and Fusan/Shimonoseki need to be patrolled heavily, or losses may go beyond acceptable levels.