Taming Expansion of IJ Production (Full Version)

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tsimmonds -> Taming Expansion of IJ Production (12/31/2007 3:22:46 AM)

I just thought of an interesting way to make playing IJ more challenging and perhaps more realistic. Put adjustable brakes on expansion of the IJ economy.

Presently in WitP, if a factory is set to repair="yes", damaged factories in that hex repair one level per turn as long as supplies are present.

This automatic repair could be preceeded by a die roll to determine whether the factory actually would repair or not. There could be a toggle to choose from (say) 80% chance, 60%, 40%, or 20%. Clearly, a lower probability would slow the expansion of IJ production. For PBEM the % would be negotiated at the start along with any house rules.

Supplies would burn only if the roll was successful.

Just an idea. Seems like it could possibly be a simple add. I know that's likely to be the only kind that has any sort of a chance at this point.



tsimmonds -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 2:44:55 AM)

So, 120 hits and no comments? Am I the only one who feels that the IJ economy as modeled in WitP might just possibly be a bit too powerful, too flexible, too easily expanded?[;)]



Mike Scholl -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 3:18:53 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

So, 120 hits and no comments? Am I the only one who feels that the IJ economy as modeled in WitP might just possibly be a bit too powerful, too flexible, too easily expanded?[;)]



No..., I think it's rediculously over-powered as well. Just not sure what the best way would be to "puncture the balloon".



witpqs -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 3:28:05 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

So, 120 hits and no comments? Am I the only one who feels that the IJ economy as modeled in WitP might just possibly be a bit too powerful, too flexible, too easily expanded?[;)]


No, just gone over it before. Holding the Allies to a rigid production scheme when they had even greater flexibility than the Japanese Empire did is ridiculous.



tsimmonds -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 4:22:03 AM)

I was going to say "unfortunate", but yeah, same thing.....[;)]



Reg -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 4:31:51 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

quote:

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

So, 120 hits and no comments? Am I the only one who feels that the IJ economy as modeled in WitP might just possibly be a bit too powerful, too flexible, too easily expanded?[;)]


No..., I think it's rediculously over-powered as well. Just not sure what the best way would be to "puncture the balloon".


ditto...



jwilkerson -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 7:31:55 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: witpqs


quote:

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

So, 120 hits and no comments? Am I the only one who feels that the IJ economy as modeled in WitP might just possibly be a bit too powerful, too flexible, too easily expanded?[;)]


No, just gone over it before. Holding the Allies to a rigid production scheme when they had even greater flexibility than the Japanese Empire did is ridiculous.


Opinion noted - however note the opposing view point of the original designers that the game models the historical Allied effort while offering the Japanese (underdogs) the chance to do better.

You may disagree - but others (such as the original designers) may also disgree with you!




Jim D Burns -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 8:13:47 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson
Opinion noted - however note the opposing view point of the original designers that the game models the historical Allied effort while offering the Japanese (underdogs) the chance to do better.

You may disagree - but others (such as the original designers) may also disgree with you!



Let’s not be intellectually dishonest here. The reason they gave Japan a more powerful industry than the allies wasn’t to explore some plausible what if scenario. Japan could have never out-produced the US in any production area, let alone all the allies combined. The premise that Japan could double or triple allied front line fighter production as we see in game if some tweaking of their historical economy was done first is pure fantasy.

It was done by the designers for game balance reasons pure and simple. Were Japan held to strict historical production and the allies given their historical production instead of being hamstrung severely, it would be a lot harder for Japan to achieve some of these map conquering games we see.

Oil production alone is probably 1000% higher than it should be for Japan. Every single naval move Japan makes should be a struggle over strategic gains vs. severe oil shortages, but we see non-stop naval action by Japan in every game all in the interest of game balance. I’ve never once read a Japanese post complaining about lack of oil.

Personally I would like to see a strictly historical scenario done for once, but I doubt you’d find many Japanese players willing to play it. Even AE is leaning heavily towards a Japanese production bias. The more they limit the allies without limiting the Japanese to the same strict historical limitations the more AE’s scenario will be even more of a fantasy scenario than CHS or stock was.

Don’t misunderstand, I applauded and am grateful for all the effort that has gone into AE. But I am dismayed by the apparent lack of concern over Japan’s huge production bias. Allied pools are getting slimmed down even more than they did in CHS, but not a peep about Japan’s over-production issues. Again I think it’s due to game balance reasons.

Everyone seems to assume because the allies out-produced Japan historically that it’s ok to scale back the allies as much as you want in game. But no one seems to realize that the allies DO NOT out-produce Japan in game, in fact it’s the exact opposite, they are way out-produced by Japan in almost every area.

Jim



witpqs -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 9:00:49 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

Opinion noted - however note the opposing view point of the original designers that the game models the historical Allied effort while offering the Japanese (underdogs) the chance to do better.


I've understood that from the very beginning (and said so inthe past IIRC) - it was done for play balance.

quote:


... others ... may ... disagree with you!


Oh, you're such a kidder! For a minute there I thought you were serious. [:D]



okami -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 9:32:07 AM)


The following I posted in the air thread but was ignored. It goes to the meat of your complaint. Note I have only played Japanese in PBEM games and still I see what you are complaining about.


I have a suggestion I wonder if it could be implemented. I have run tests on Japanese Aircraft Research and I have found the following to be true. Aircraft marked rd do not cost supplies as they increase. I placed an Ki44rd factory at a base and made sure it never had 10,000 supplies, as the turns went by the number of aircraft increased even with this lack of supply. When the Ki44 finally came on line 9 days early the factory was producing at 100%. Here is my suggestion: Could the count on the aircraft factory be reset to 1 or 10% or and appropriate value when the factory first comes online and then the factory could ramp up at the usual cost of 1000 supply/airframe?

_____________________________



Reg -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 10:16:50 AM)

This is pretty much why I put a general question to the Interesting Statistics from the AAR SubForum thread as to how many games have Japanese players doing way better than their historical counterparts. (This is the largest repository of published game results).

I may be proven wrong (someone please...) but look at a random sample of about five AARs which I follow occasionally (chosen randomly by no more than that their title piqued my interest at the time - except for Cuttlefish's which was recommended.)

'In Cuttlefish's AAR, I'm not sure of the territorial status due to lack of description but he has a huge lead in carrier losses, John the 3rd is in Perth in more than one AAR (more was possible in at least one of these AAR but I won't reveal plans here), Mandrake was the other side of one of John the 3rd's games and finally for my random sample, Raver lost all of Australia in one of his games.

I am aware that in all of these cases the Allies have started to claw their way back from these setbacks but the fact remains that in 100% of my random sample, the Japanese 'high water mark' was much more extensive than in reality. In Ravers case it was a game winning auto victory though they chose to play on. In all cases I believe the Allied counter offensives are behind the historical schedule. A more in depth analysis might be very enlightening as to wider trends if someone were to look at all the AARs.

I'll go with Jim Burns here and say that the Japanese ran their economy/military production so poorly (in hindsight) that it has became a standard 'what if' that the player can 'fix it up' to show what could be achieved if they had done it properly. A lot of the limiting factors that prevented this from happening IRL are just not simulated.

Unfortunately, it seems (to me) that the players are able to use the economic model too well and can routinely produce results way beyond what was historically achievable. (IRL if they could have replaced all of their Nates before mid 1943, wouldn't they have done so??) In comparison a lot of Allied players are still ahistorically fielding P-35s in mid '43 due to an early war shortage of fighters*. In other words, the Japanese are able to gain the benefit of game mechanics whilst the Allies are impeded by every historical limitation.

The end result I think, is a game totally driven by the Japanese player. If the Japanese player gets it right and tweaks production correctly, the Allied player had better batten down the hatches as there is nothing that he will be able to do to prevent a game with the difficulty level biased against him. If the Japanese player doesn't know what they are doing then they will have a much easier game regardless of what they do.

Some people might be quite happy with this though I applaud the Japanese players who elect for 'PDU's off' to maintain a historical ratio of the less effective aircraft to recreate a more realistic simulation.

I think the Japanese player should have some flexibility in their production which adds interest to the game but there needs to be a limit to how historically 'over the top' it all gets. How to achieve this, I'm not real sure as I'm not familiar enough with the subtleties of the model but I hope some (rational and considerate) discussion might bring out ideas.

((* See my thread P-40 replacements in Dec'41 to Jan'42 where I tender the theory that this is because the early deliveries of P-40s were destroyed before being effectively deployed in fall of the SRA resulting in the historical campaign characterised by a shortage of fighters. The game designers have recreated this characteristic of the campaign by simply not including them in the game. In effect they destroy the entire historical delivery of nearly 200 P-40 fighters to the SRA in this six week period without the Japanese player having to lift a finger, resulting in a shortage affecting the Allied Player for nearly 18 months afterward.))



spence -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 4:35:53 PM)

Frankly I am completely turned off by the Japanese production model...not because I can recognize any particular problems (other than it seems it produces too much) but rather cause I just don't get much enjoyment from playing with that sort of thing (I'd play Japan more if I could just click "Historical Production ON"). As an uninformed suggestion perhaps the answer lies in increasing the manpower requirements for everything and limiting the manpower useable for units/weapons to just that available in the Home Islands.



Chad Harrison -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 5:55:40 PM)

Joe and AE team, are we going to see more realistic fighter production values for the US in AE? I poseted this question in the Air thread and it got passed over. As has been mentioned above, having the Japanease out produce the US (let alone the Allies) in fighter production could have never happened, not even remotely close, not matter what 'what if' scenario you throw at reality.



crsutton -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 6:03:46 PM)

I want the Japanese player to have options that will allow him to achieve better than historical results. If the Japanese are so restricted that the can only do what they did historically, then the game will quickly become boring and we will have fewer players willing to take the Japanese side. That said, I really don't want to see Japan overunning OZ or knocking India, China or Russia out of the war.

I think the real limiting factor should be oil production and supply. The Japanese had plenty of oil. The problem was their inability to refine it and deliver it. A very simple balance system would be to have optional choices that will affect fuel production. Levels can be set on a percent basis with 0% being the historical amount. I think this would offer an elegant and simple way to handicap the game, with better players offering weaker players higher oil and fuel output-thus increased production options. This can help in choosing sides in competitive situations with both bidding the production level and the lower level bid plays the Japanese.

I actually think playing the Japanese side and having to worry about fuel supplies for each operation would be very interesting and challenging. As it is, fuel supplies as the IJN player have never been an issue in either UV or WITP, and it really should be.



Mike Scholl -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 6:38:21 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: spence

Frankly I am completely turned off by the Japanese production model...not because I can recognize any particular problems (other than it seems it produces too much) but rather cause I just don't get much enjoyment from playing with that sort of thing (I'd play Japan more if I could just click "Historical Production ON"). As an uninformed suggestion perhaps the answer lies in increasing the manpower requirements for everything and limiting the manpower useable for units/weapons to just that available in the Home Islands.



I'm with you, Spence. Why the Devil 2by3 couldn't have put the whole thing on a spreadsheet remains a mystery to me. But having "clicked" my way all over the Pacific Basin while working my way through all the units and orders and such; the notion of having to do it all again hunting down the various scattered pieces of the Production System is just more than I want to deal with.



pad152 -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 8:07:42 PM)

I just hope they fix two things.

1. Update the totals, when you turn off a engine or aircraft factory the totals stay the same, BUG!!

2. Stop the computer from changing aircraft factories, put the player in control, allow Japan to keep old aircraft models in productions.

Wish list, let the player see that's going on!!!

1. A new screen the shows all production centers and which ones are damages/expanding & turned on/off.

2. Accounting style spread sheet that shows that is really going on, totals with plus/minus (whats added, whats subtacted to/from totals for supplies/oil/fuel/resources/HI/men/equipment/etc.






herwin -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 9:27:22 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: pad152

I just hope they fix two things.

1. Update the totals, when you turn off a engine or aircraft factory the totals stay the same, BUG!!

2. Stop the computer from changing aircraft factories, put the player in control, allow Japan to keep old aircraft models in productions.

Wish list, let the player see that's going on!!!

1. A new screen the shows all production centers and which ones are damages/expanding & turned on/off.

2. Accounting style spread sheet that shows that is really going on, totals with plus/minus (whats added, whats subtacted to/from totals for supplies/oil/fuel/resources/HI/men/equipment/etc.






Why not put together a macroeconomic model? The player establishes the fraction of production going into each area (including supply, fuel, and plant investment), and the game calculates the total production available to be spread. The model doesn't have to be very detailed--assuming a certain degree of substitutability--multiply the factors of production and take the kth root of the result, where k is the number of important factors in the model, including plant, labour, steel, coal, oil, and minor minerals (the last for El Cid). If you can double *everything*, you double your production. You can even let the players micromanage their economies within that overall constraint, and still get something that doesn't require turn-to-turn tweaking.



JWE -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 10:21:14 PM)

Actually, herwin, why play with the factory machine. Shoot, there’s almost always “enuf” – caves, women, wood, ingenuity. Why not dictate tempo by the inputs. You can always put a factory in a hapa by a hill, but … aluminum, woof !

Seems to me, a smart way to apply limitations would be to limit what comes in. We are dealing with this on a very serious level in AE; it applies in a 7 way matrix (to production, transport, construction, ship conversion, military logistics, you name it. The math is extensive, and a real bitch in application, but it’s working extremely down to early ’44.

Imagine … your choice as Yamaherwin, is to keep boats as transports, or maybe convert them to tankers, or maybe ammo carriers, or maybe you already screwed yourself by converting them to ASs, or AVs, or maybe you let some convert to Army landing ship carriers. You got pooploads of options, early war, just like Tojo. You get fancy, you get squat, later war, just like Tojo. The more you convert early to support ops tempo, the less you have later to support production tempo. Oh, you definitely have type options for the boys on the building skids, but which option do you choose ??

This works fairly well. It took me almost a month to develop a complete set of coefficients, so’s the determinants of the various matricies reduce to the limits. Now, all I gotta do is skew up or down on one set, and just watch the tilts on the others. I really think you will like the results in AE.



Jutland13 -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 10:29:18 PM)

Guys I agree the Production System is powerful when utilized by a good Japanese oponnent, howver there are so mny things that affect a game as much or more:
1) Players get to replay history and the game over and over, neither Japan nor the allies had this opportunity, so both are going to learn from history and past games to innovate and improve.
2) While Production affects the game the most dramatic is comand and contol. While Japan gets to bridge the gap between IJA & IJN is this area, the allies are immediately able to implement and coordiant at an impossible level the actions of all allied powers towards victory from Dec 8 onward! This is the most unrealistic and impossible representation that the game creates. All allied production, ground forces, airforces, troop deployments, supplies, sharing of equipment, etc and etc from Dec 8 onward with one vision coordinated at an impossible level to the defeat of Japan. The production system is minor in contrast.
3) Everyone who plays the game as the Allies and does not perform well, never accepts responsibility for their fate, they all want to achieve historical or better results. When they do not they blame the system or some game features etc. There are many historical flaws, but each side receives advantages and disadvantages. Players seem to want to achieve a result no matter how they play the game. Lets face it, some players are better than others and some are just not very good, my self likely included, but how often have you ever heard a player blame themselves instead of the game!?
4) Playing the game is not just about recreating history, but having a chance to improve on it. I actually like it when the game goes beyond history, it increases the challlenge and gives me something new. I have read extensively on the Pacific War, I know who won, how and how it ended. Sorry but I do not want to spend 1+yrs in PBEM replaying in a game to historical levels. If so the wars becomes a bore for Japan by Jan 43 and a merciless bullying onslaught for the Allies by mid-43. I espscially do not want this to occur just to appease an Allied player, no matter how he plays and no matter how I play!
5) The fact is production can be a real frustration for Japan even at present levels, without a lot of extra attention to that area by Japan, which likely did not occur historically.
6)Anyhow, it is a game, should be fun, challenging, offer something more than a historical rerun of events and can never be all things to everyone. I loved WITP, despite things I did not believe accurate, but the key was to understand the game and it mechanics and play according to those not history.
7)A decent allied player will always beat a good Japanese player! Nobody ever accepts that they are less than genious from what I can read from the AARs. I know I am not.
7) Baseball the great American passtime has very clear and strict rules. Is monitored by the media, cameras, fans and offficials and manages stats at an unheard of level, yet players still find a way to work outside the rules and the game. There is always the human component which is the most significant, no game system will ever fully compensate for this fact.
8) Lastly, just because we believe certain aspects to be untrue or incorrect does not make them so. Japan never really should have been able to accomplish all that she did originally, but she did. Maybe, just maybe she could have done much more. We all buy into a lot of old history, politics and propaganda that has existed and still finds its way into much of what we read about how corrupt and inefficient Japan was and how overwhelming and all powerful the Allies were. I hope the creaters are objective and do the best they can and do not fall prey to creating an expansion that is design to produce a specific result in gameplay, but instead an even more dynamnic gameplay experience.

Really lastly, I do not mean to insult or be condescending. I realize the interest, the posts and debate are from those that really, I trust all want the same thing, but disagree often on how to get there. Regards.

Darren



witpqs -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/4/2008 11:36:10 PM)

Jutland13,

I agree with much of what you wrote. I think maybe a lot fewer Allied players look for blame to explain away lost games than you say, but I'm sure some do. The degree of increased coordination among the components of both sides is of course much greater, but probably a wash overall.

Most of all I want historical capabilities at the component level. I do not want someone rigging things so that Japan can only achieve what was done in history - I want the Japanese player to have all the building blocks and be able to conquer and hold New Zealand if they can pull it off in a given game.

I am also fine with variable production. I just object to the degree to which it can go without any adjustment by the Allies, because I think that is an unrealistic capability. At some point the Allies would have either a) produced more (the US cut back on airplane production long before the end), b) diverted some from Europe, or even both in extreme circumstances.

I think in a baseline scenario 'play balance' should be achieved through victory conditions, even if they are just agreed between the players and not built into the code. In mods, of course, anything goes within whatever the scenario is for the mod, including perhaps further variations on production.



Andy Mac -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/5/2008 12:31:32 AM)

OK I dont think we are in anyway close to having an answer to this one I certainly don't believe it is our intent to take away some flexibility of production for the Japanese because frankly that would be boring.

Whether there will be some none or total limits compared to stock I honestly couldnt say yet my guess at present is probably none but that is a guess.

We have a lot of things to test and we need to make sure the implications of combat. the new air model etc etc are accomodated.

I think I am probably one of the ones setting hares running in this area by my comments in the land thread about limiting allied device (squads ) production and that is certainly something we are doing in some cases - whether on testing some of those are increased will be a matter of testing.

Until we get some tests running over multi months and can asses the actual rate of loss in the new A2A model, the effectiveness of devices pools, the impact of the new resource/LI model and the needs of the AI etc etc I dont see how we hope to make a call on this one.

What I am basically saying is at present we have no plans to change the fundamental fact that the allies dont control production and the Japanese do. Whether limits are added to the Japanese I dont know but my suspicion is no if anything the compensation will be in other MODDABLE areas by increasing availability of allied devices.

We are partly compensating for this certainly in the land devices by having geographic replacements and reinforcements i.e. if the Japanese succeed there will now be a limited allied reaction e.g. India invaded north of Delhi triggers large one off device injections for allied types (tanks, inf and arty) and several new formations.

Similar rules will exist for NZ, South Aus and West Coast.

Again a principal we are trying to follow in setting it up this way is that it will be moddable I dont want hidden hard coded stuf that no one but the programmers can change

Andy



tsimmonds -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/5/2008 3:42:29 AM)

It's just has always seemed to me like both sides had too much of everything. Replacements, spare a/c, supplies, fuel. That the game might actually be more interesting if you took away from the side that has too much, instead of adding to the side that has too little by comparison; both already can put military power at the Schwerpunkte far more effectively and efficiently than was possible IRL.



Reg -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/5/2008 4:31:42 AM)

There appears to be two issues under discussion here, play balance and production. The trouble is that Japanese production is so influential on play balance it may be impossible to separate the two.

The tempo of operations in the game has been brought up in other threads with both sides advancing too fast during their expansion phases but this doesn't explain any increased extent of the initial Japanese advance (if you rule out that the increased tempo causes Allied reinforcements to arrive too late for effective intervention). Using the excuse that the Japanese must advance further to extend the time of the Allied counter offensive just exposes a weakness in game balance if it is necessary in every game to achieve a historical end date.

The issue here is the Japanese player has the capability to fill the skies with larger than historically achievable numbers of aircraft in an ahistoric mix of types (generally the most powerful type in game terms - not the historically most appropriate type). This puts the Allied player in a difficult position who is limited to a TOE designed to engage the historical Japanese forces. Playing with PDUs on doesn't help as there is still a fixed number of Allied aircraft types available and allows the Japanese player to totally dispense with his less effective types and fill his Sentai's with the increased output from the new factories.

If we can quote a success, I suppose it is in ship production. If the Japanese player is doing well, ship production can be accelerated to launch additional ships but fixed shipbuilding list means there is still a realistic limit to what can be achieved by the shipyard industry. There have been complaints posted by players that they ran out of ships to build so the mind boggles as to what fantasy navy would have emerged had there been no limits...

Unfortunately I can't offer any solutions as I am not familiar enough with the very complex and interactive model but just want to stress that evidence appears to be that we do have an problem.

quote:

ORIGINAL: crsutton

I want the Japanese player to have options that will allow him to achieve better than historical results.


Believe it or not, so do I. A good player needs to be rewarded for his efforts. The issue here is that a good Allied player should be rewarded also.

Subject to a full analysis, the published AARs seem to indicate that this isn't happening and the Japanese always do better than historical. (Another caveat here is the AARs are almost exclusively early war. We need some more late war AAR to see the full effects).

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jutland13

7)A decent allied player will always beat a good Japanese player! Nobody ever accepts that they are less than genius from what I can read from the AARs. I know I am not.


Nobody is arguing that the Allies will win the war. Realistically the only victory the Japanese player can ever achieve is to do better than his historical counterparts (there have been numerous threads on this topic). Eventually the weight of numbers will steamroller the Japanese back to the Home Islands and the inevitable result.

Just look at Raver's game. He lost all of Australia but is now on the comeback trail and has recovered much of what he has lost. Another example is that John the 3rd seems to be able to take large portions of Australia at will. The only question being how long he can delay (beyond the historical dates) before he is overwhelmed by the rising Allied tide. Once again this observation is not based on any one game but on several against various opponents.

What is the issue it is that the Japanese consistently advance much further and it takes the Allies much longer to recover territory than was the historical case which assist the Japanese player to achieve victory in the game.

In any statistical analysis of multiple examples, any exceptional results one way should be matched with examples of results in the opposite direction. Any consistent trend toward any one outcome can be considered bias.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jutland13

3) Everyone who plays the game as the Allies and does not perform well, never accepts responsibility for their fate, they all want to achieve historical or better results.


As I stated above, I am not talking about any individual game but an overview of the outcomes of a number of games (which includes some by very experienced players)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jutland13

8) Lastly, just because we believe certain aspects to be untrue or incorrect does not make them so. Japan never really should have been able to accomplish all that she did originally, but she did. Maybe, just maybe she could have done much more. We all buy into a lot of old history, politics and propaganda that has existed and still finds its way into much of what we read about how corrupt and inefficient Japan was and how overwhelming and all powerful the Allies were.


I totally agree with this also. However, more and more published works are coming out to re-evaluate the lessons of history and are attempting to uncover to real factors that produced the events of history. By creating a game where the Japanese player consistently does better than historical, aren't we doing a disservice to history by creating an interactive work that perpetrates the myth (just to placitate players of one side of a game) that the Japanese were more powerful than they actually were as opposed to what they could/should have been. The ultimate benchmark being what they actually achieved!

If you want a 'what if', that's what Mods are for and there is no shortage of people willing to do them!! Alternatively a variable difficulty game setting affecting production might also be the way to go.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

We are partly compensating for this certainly in the land devices by having geographic replacements and reinforcements i.e. if the Japanese succeed there will now be a limited allied reaction e.g. India invaded north of Delhi triggers large one off device injections for allied types (tanks, inf and arty) and several new formations.


I love this approach. No rules, only consequences!!!
It gives flexibility and leaves options open but makes the players pause to consider whether they can deal with the consequences of that action (much like the real commanders..)

Edit: Grammar...



bradfordkay -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/5/2008 5:56:18 AM)

Reg wrote:
"(* See my thread P-40 replacements in Dec'41 to Jan'42 where I tender the theory that this is because the early deliveries of P-40s were destroyed before being effectively deployed in fall of the SRA resulting in the historical campaign characterised by a shortage of fighters. The game designers have recreated this characteristic of the campaign by simply not including them in the game. In effect they destroy the entire historical delivery of nearly 200 P-40 fighters to the SRA in this six week period without the Japanese player having to lift a finger, resulting in a shortage affecting the Allied Player for nearly 18 months afterward.))"

This is something that I would seriously like to see corrected. If those aircraft were shipped from the US to the Pacific theatre and do not show up in the game then there is a serious imbalance here.



Reg -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/5/2008 9:37:32 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

This is something that I would seriously like to see corrected. If those aircraft were shipped from the US to the Pacific theatre and do not show up in the game then there is a serious imbalance here.


Bradfordkay, This will be a tricky one to address. If you read the thread (and I see one of your posts on it) there are other factors involved such as attrition due to transfers across vast distances with minimal infrastructure to assist the pilots.

Very few people realise how undeveloped Australia was at the time.
My Grandfather drove a truck with his family in the back down from Townsville to Brisbane and it took over a week and generated may adventures for a journey that only takes about 12 hours now. The road down the Queensland coast was only a track and the rail line was the only reliable link. The Air route across the outback to Darwin and beyond was even worse and was quite literally in the middle of nowhere.

As I stated in the thread, I think that to address these missing fighters we need to include them in the game and introduce the attrition hazards associated with primitive infrastructure which eliminated them as effective force in the SRA campaign.

The other factors such as the port being overrun and the aircraft loaded on the Seawitch being dumped into the harbour before they were uncrated is a very specific historical circumstance related to the speed of the Japanese advance and may not actually happen in a game. Similarly the Langley may not stumble into a hostile Task force and those aircraft could be available to the Allied player as well. The rest of the losses appear to be transfer attrition related and should be simulated somehow.

It really will be a judgement call how the designers want to recreate these unfortunate circumstances and still maintain the 'flavour' of the campaign. I only brought this issue up to highlight that the Allies are constrained by history and the Japanese were free to take advantage of game mechanics.



herwin -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/5/2008 9:49:27 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

Actually, herwin, why play with the factory machine. Shoot, there’s almost always “enuf” – caves, women, wood, ingenuity. Why not dictate tempo by the inputs. You can always put a factory in a hapa by a hill, but … aluminum, woof !

Seems to me, a smart way to apply limitations would be to limit what comes in. We are dealing with this on a very serious level in AE; it applies in a 7 way matrix (to production, transport, construction, ship conversion, military logistics, you name it. The math is extensive, and a real bitch in application, but it’s working extremely down to early ’44.

Imagine … your choice as Yamaherwin, is to keep boats as transports, or maybe convert them to tankers, or maybe ammo carriers, or maybe you already screwed yourself by converting them to ASs, or AVs, or maybe you let some convert to Army landing ship carriers. You got pooploads of options, early war, just like Tojo. You get fancy, you get squat, later war, just like Tojo. The more you convert early to support ops tempo, the less you have later to support production tempo. Oh, you definitely have type options for the boys on the building skids, but which option do you choose ??

This works fairly well. It took me almost a month to develop a complete set of coefficients, so’s the determinants of the various matricies reduce to the limits. Now, all I gotta do is skew up or down on one set, and just watch the tilts on the others. I really think you will like the results in AE.



Sounds like you're already doing something in the direction I'm suggesting. The only reason I'm suggesting that you use the kth root of the product of k factors is that it allows you to model substitutability without having to worry about modelling the economy in hideous detail.



Ron Saueracker -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/5/2008 10:19:08 AM)

Personally, I'd rather have the player control of production be removed from the game all together! What is this, Age of Empires or Total Annihilation? The only thing the player should have control of is getting the supplies and resources needed for the economy to the necessary points...none of this fantasy crap.[8D]



bradfordkay -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/5/2008 10:21:00 AM)

Reg, HFP has already promised us that aircraft attrition is going to be higher in AE, at least in that fewer aircraft will be ready for use on any day. I realize that just putting 200 aircraft into the pool makes it too easy to get them to the front, but it's just as easy for either player to get replacement aircraft to the front.

As far as the loss of the aircraft aboard the ships, most of us have found some way to replicate the experience of the Langley in the early going. I don't think that forcing either player into having to experience a monumental historical foulup is very fair. We are, after all, trying to simulate history, not replicate it.

Just my opinion...



Ron Saueracker -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/5/2008 10:22:48 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

It's just has always seemed to me like both sides had too much of everything. Replacements, spare a/c, supplies, fuel. That the game might actually be more interesting if you took away from the side that has too much, instead of adding to the side that has too little by comparison; both already can put military power at the Schwerpunkte far more effectively and efficiently than was possible IRL.


Bang on...[:)]



Hortlund -> RE: Taming Expansion of IJ Production (1/5/2008 1:12:16 PM)

First; the reason the average Jap player does much better than his historical counterpart is because he knows from hindsight not to do certain things/do certain things. There is no real consequence of doing something wrong. Let KB hang around Pearl a week or two and bomb the base to bits. If you screw up and lose a CV or two, a new game is just a restart away. There is no IJA/IJN conflict, the supply system is abstracted enough to let you reload 16 inch-shells from any random base on the map you captured two days ago. Aircraft magically appears on a remote jungle base simply by clicking on a button. Etc etc etc. Production comes very low on this list of why the Japs do better than historically.

Second; the idea to cripple the Japanese industry by putting a limit on the production is ridiculous. That is like claiming that it was physically impossible for an industrial nation with millions of citizens to build more than 1000 aircraft a month. Thats just stupid. Does anyone in here really believe that if the Japs had had enough resources, factories, manpower, oil, infrastructure etc, they wouldnt have been able to build more aircraft than they did in real life? The US would always be able to produce more, yes, but that is a different kettle of fish entirely. Then your beef is with the US production system and not the Jap production system. A far better solution would be, then, to increase US production if Jap production reaches a certain threshold. For example, if Japanese aircraft production gets higher than 1000 aircraft per month, then the US production doubles. If it gets higher than 2000 aircraft per month, then the US production is quadrupled.

In many of the AARs where the Jap player has huge production numbers, the Jap player has also captured large parts of China, sometimes even India or Australia. With all that the added industry, resources, manpower who can really argue that it would be impossible for the Japs to produce more than they did in history?



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