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FatR -> RE: Das U-Boat (2/3/2011 12:49:10 AM)
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So, about hindering Japan early...
The thing is, by the very nature of AE, operations in the game tend to unfold very rapidly, compared to RL, and you can't really buy as much time as in RL by trading territory for it. There are three main contributing factors to that:
1)Easy logistics. The RL complexity is reduced to providing fuel and supplies, only supplies to bases that aren't supposed to support fleet operations. And supply equation is such, that players often don't need to bother with secure naval lines of communication in the short term. Both sides also have sealifting capacity well in excess of their needs. Allies, in particular, have rather limited economic needs, and this gives them vast reserves of shipping that can be freely sacrificed to fuel military operations.
I'm not sure if anything can be done with this aspect of the game. A blanket reduction in ship cargo capacity will make feeding military operations in distant theatres more challenging, but also will impact Japanese economics rather hard. Now, I don't mind this aspect of the game to be more challenging, as in the game Japanese happen to have a significant surplus of merchants, instead of their RL constant shortage, but such profound changes are very hard to balance. I'm also not sure if other people really care about playing Transport Tycoon of the Pacific (I know you don't John, and often find micromanaging small convoys annoying myself).
2)Easy base building. Not even talking of extra perks Japanese get here in RA, in Scen 2 I made Tulagi into an airbase capable of launching attack missions (size 2) in about a month, without even a major commitment of construction units. Well, we all know how long it took Japanese to construct an operational airfield there in RL. Of course, this works even better for Allies. They can drop a bunch of troops in dot hexes and turn them into an airfield cluster of doom in a week or two - moves like this are more limited by amphibious capability than base-building one. Constructing an airfied capable of operating unlimited number of aircraft might take only about a month later in the game. This "Instant Base - Just Add Supplies" capability makes offensive operations faster and vastly reduces dependency on existing bases, allowing offensives also to be bolder. It is probably the main factor that makes deeply unrealistic Japanese moves, like early assault on Hawaii or moving into Southern Pacific with Rabaul as the closest forward base quite viable. It's also one of the main factors that allows the classic war-winning Allied gambit of jumping into a currently weakly-developed but strategically important region in force (like Cuttlefish was defeated by Q-Ball; I avoided this fate in my Ocean of Blood game only by destroying Allied carrier fleet).
In certain situations, this can make the game harder for Allies - if they fail to push back until about second half of 1943, they are likely to face the Japanese perimeter that looks like Atlantikwall and Maginot Line combined. But I believe such situation to be just a sympthom of deeper failings on the Allied player's part.
If it is possible to adjust the speed at which engineers work, I don't know how to do this. So, the only way of fixing the situation seems to be going through TOEs and cutting the number of construction troops at least in half for both sides (for Japanese - from their increased number in Scen 70, to keep the intended bonus).
3)Players' greater risk tolerance, loss tolerance and willingness to outright sacrifice troops, ships and planes, compared to RL planners. Affects the Japanese side too, as many players do not mind expending assets that will be useless late in the war anyway, but mostly impacts how the Allies are willing to act, compared to RL.
Nothing really can be done about this aspect, except outsmarting and punishing one's opponent for his aggressiveness[:)].
As a consequence of all this, Japan in AE generally cannot be satisfied with the historical conquests, even with a few additions to complete the defensive perimeter, like Port Moresby. At the very least, the Japanese player must take Northern Australia, to safeguard Eastern DEI, that has a ton of dot bases and therefore is extremely vulnerable to an early, or even not-so-early Allied counterattack. Ideally, he should strike farther, to destroy Allied assets and disrupt their buildup whenever possible, and strike early, before the amphibious bonus will run out, and every Allied base of note will require a month of fighting to seize. Southern Pacific seems to be a rather popular direction for such assault, although after trying this direction for myself I'm not liking it very much. This requires bold advance and swift destruction of Allied forces in Malaya and DEI.
Conversely, a major slowdown in Phase 1 (reaching the historical perimeter) usually spells total disaster for Japanese. Again, see even my own example in Ocean of Blood AAR, Cuttlefish vs. Q-Ball and Aussies vs. Amis examples, heck, even Nemo121's game as an extreme example of what might happens when the Japanese player commits particularly grievous mistakes during the initial expansion phase.
And unless something is done to offset above-mentioned factors (those we can do anything about), I'm quite strongly opposed to make the initial DEI conquest harder. Yes, I know, in RL it was far from almost-sure thing it is in AE. But our goal with RA is to faciliate long-lasting campaigns that remain interesting as long as possible, and in the current metagame introducing small immediate bonuses for Allies at the start can give them an advantage snowballing in importance as the game goes on, and possibly shortening it by a year or two. In particular, significant reinforcement of Palembang, the base any Allied player who feels like hurting the enemy to the best of his ability, should already be reinforcing from Day 1, in hopes of causing severe damage to oil and refineries on capture, is likely to be very harmful for the Japanese in the long term.
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