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Canoerebel -> RE: The Good The Bad & The Indifferent (8/3/2017 9:42:29 PM)
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This is a game of Victory Points, and the trend favors the Allies. My lead has grown to 14,000 points, roughly 20% of the way to auto victory. Half of that lead (7,000 points) has come from strategic bombing. Roughly 3/4ths of the strategic bombing points have accrued in the past week. As hoped, the arrival of supply and B-29s on Formosa increased the pace of operations and the harvesting of victory points. That enhanced level should be maintained for awhile. Then, when Ningpo is taken and the airfield built out, there may be another bump in pace as the B-24Js enter the strategic bombing war.
The Allies pulled even in points around August 2, 1944. As of October 20, they have a lead of 14k points. At that rate, victory would take around 12 months. But, as noted, the rate is expected to increase.
But this is a game of victory points and John still has lots of teeth. If a massive kamikaze raid penetrates Death Star's CAP and sinks 20 CVEs one day, my job gets more difficult. On the flip side, John is indeed running out of sea room. I expect the pace of sinking of enemy ships will increase too.
It's not over but the trend is clear. It's satisfying because it supports a lot of the decisions and predictions made long ago. The three-fold Allied strategy of attritioning the Japanese navy, interdicting Japan's LOC to the DEI, and obtaining big airfields from which to bomb the Home Islands has worked out just about perfectly. And my reasoning why Sumatra was a major Allied victory has proven accurate, despite the great guffaws and doubts of some readers way back then (it didn't have to be that way; it shouldn't have been that way; but I was right that I knew my opponent and how things were likely to play out).
John designed this scenario. Recently, he has commented in the Mods thread that it was later dialed back considerably because Japan had too many advantages. None of the dialing back was retroactive, though, so we're still using the original version. We also had two house rules that really benefitted him: (1) no 4EB attacks against ground troops outside base hexes and (2) no strategic bombing prior to 1944. Despite all that and the weirdly catastrophically victorious Sumatra campaign defeat, Japan has been pushed to the brink quickly and pretty darn smoothly.
I didn't set out to achieve auto victory on 1/1/45. I don't know if that's feasible at this point. I am shooting for the 2:1 AV ratio, and I'll take a measure of satisfaction if and when it is achieved. But if John wishes to play on, I'll gladly do so. I'm not sure he'll wish to, given the daily pounding he endures. I think, but I'm not sure, he'll be ready to move on to a new game.
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