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rader -> RE: Caging the Tiger~ Rader (J) vs. GreyJoy (A) (12/3/2011 5:59:53 PM)
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And the big news that probably everyone knows by now judging by the number of recent posts in Greyjoy's AAR is that a couple weeks ago game time, the Allies mounted a surprise invasion of Hokkaido and the Southern Kuriles. Boy, was that a bolt from the blue!
The allies now have a pretty firm lodgement (see map). The KB was out of position expecting an allied landing in the Solomons, and this was probably the one area where we were totally unprepared. I made a conscious effort to build up the bases in Hokkaido, with the activity elsewhere on the map, I never quite got around to adequately garrisoning here. I think an email I sent to Greyjoy sums up my view on this, so I'll paste it here (long):
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"I certainly should have put more in Hokkaido/Kuriles, but I'm not convinced there is much I could have reasonably done to stop your invasion given the information I had. I am very concious of where you have "visible" activity like recon, and here I had none (intentionally, it seems). I could/should have made it more painful for you, but by this time in the game, an Allied invasion force of that size can take pretty much anything it wants. The Allies have to go somewhere, and unless it is exactly where Japan expects, they will almost certainly succeed by 1944. If I had less than 3-4 divisions in Hokkaido and less than a division in each of those Kurile islands (I had only 1 div plus a couple support units in Hokkaido), you still would have succeeded. I sort of think you ought to be able to move General defense forces to Hokkaido across the Ominato strait by rail/land move. Otherwise, it is completely undefended unless you put a lot of your discretionary forces. Only 1 division arrives there as a reinforcement until now (actually 2 more were slotted to arrive in the next month or so, so your timing was impecable).
And yes, I could have put more troops there, but then where do I leave empty? I have to put my units where I see your big armies (NG/Solomons/India) or else you will just cut through them like a knife through butter like you did here. Although it is true that the Allies cutting through Hokkaido is much worse than cutting through the Solomons. I just thought you were suffering from a bit of tunnel vision and were trying to fight your way gradually forward. This is what jzanes did - he never made a major cross-sea invasion and he still made tremendously rapid progress. I think in that game I was more wary of such a thing, so I defended the rear better. But all my rear defensive positions were a waste and I should have put more up front, especially in the DEI in that game. Turns out I was the one with tunnel vision.
I have pretty much come to the conclusion that with all the material the allies have by the second half of 1944 (and we aren't even there yet!), Japan is going to lose the war/game almost no matter what they do, unless the Allies are stupid enough to commit and lose their carriers early. Once the Allied CV/army/4E Death Stars are complete, the allies will win every encounter. The trick to playing Japan late is just to accept it and have fun while losing, and try to strike back where you can. The only chances a Japanese player has to win the game IMO are: 1. Autovictory, with Australia being by far the best path to this. But autovictory just seems silly to me. 2. Find yourself a really agressive opponent who wants to mount major allies offensives in 1942-1943 before the allies are really ready.
What this game really needs to represent the historical situation are better political rules. It's almost crazy that the game has such detail and well-developed naval/air/ground interactions and rules, but basically no political restrictions at all (appart from a neutral Soviet Union until a fixed date). It seems trivial to add some basic political rules that would set realistic objectives and dissencentives for the Allies to sit back and "do nothing" until 1944, represent army-air-national friction for both sides, etc. Maybe a "high water mark", or accumulation of victory points over time? Also, logistics are way too easy for both sides, and this makes the pace of operations at least double and probably more as fast as real life. This helps both sides, but works to the Allied benefit for a longer period of time in the endgame.
That being said, this is a fantastic game and so much fun. I want to play out both my current games. But it is such a time suck on real life and I feel like I've explored the potentials and possibilities sufficiently that I probably won't start a new game. Not only am I concerned by the time committment which is extreme (I spend an average of ~3 hours per day, which is currently around 20% of my waking time and almost all my discretionary time), but I would be concered about an opponent quitting after a major defeat. I've been incredibly lucky to find two opponents who are very reliable, committed, and fun to play with. I want to return the favour and play both games out, pretty much until the end or at least until they are satisfied with the outcome.
On the Multan bottleneck, that is probably true that I could have held out longer, but it is a very far forward exposed situation and you had a LOT of troops in a position to threaten the retreat path. All it would take is for you to bring a massive invasion (which considering events you obviously were capable of) to Burma and the Andaman islands, and I could have lost the whole army. If I lose those units it's game over, even more then now with Hokkaido. I have to play cautiously. I just wish I had been even more cautious and moved some of those troops back to Japan and the Kuriles sooner... now I definitely think falling back from Multan was the right thing to do. I probably waited too long if anything."
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[image]local://upfiles/14041/7436A88B226C47F6BEB3652DBB89CEE7.jpg[/image]
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