RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (Full Version)

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Lowpe -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/10/2014 5:48:43 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: JocMeister
Thinking about it today I realized I can never play "for fun" again. I donīt find the game that fun really.



We are all mentally ill individuals. Sick, I tell you...[:D]




Wuffer -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/10/2014 5:50:23 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Also should take this opportunity to congratulate Tom. [:)] I certainly got the game I was looking for. Tom played the game masterfully using all his advantages to the maximum while exploiting and taking advantage of every allied weaknesses.




This might not be the right time or place, but I just want to thank you for this detailed and interesting AAR, the reader got a very clear picture I think...
On the bright side, you didn't need to hide anything now in front of your growing family :-)

Had been in the same situation. *gg*
And lost big way, too. Too much pressure, simple.




JocMeister -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/10/2014 5:53:41 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wuffer

This might not be the right time or place, but I just want to thank you for this detailed and interesting AAR, the reader got a very clear picture I think...
On the bright side, you didn't need to hide anything now in front of your growing family :-)

Had been in the same situation. *gg*
And lost big way, too. Too much pressure, simple.



Thank you! [:)]

I actually enjoy doing the AAR more then the game... [:D]

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lowpe
We are all mentally ill individuals. Sick, I tell you...[:D]


AE isnīt a game. Its a drug! [:D]



setloz -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/10/2014 6:10:23 PM)

Thank you for this very interesting and well narated AAR! Good luck with your next game!



IdahoNYer -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/10/2014 6:10:38 PM)

I've enjoyed this AAR from the start, and will miss it! Was hoping to see a good Allied comeback in '43!



DanSez -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/10/2014 6:42:44 PM)

Thanks for all the extra effort putting your game out and allowing us to enjoy the ride. Rough one, yes but that means these were interesting times going on (in the old Chinese Curse sorta way...)

And thanks for the whisky recommendations
[sm=00000436.gif]




Richard III -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/10/2014 8:30:58 PM)

Joc, most interesting AAR and hard fought game!



offenseman -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/10/2014 8:55:19 PM)

Great AAR and thanks for letting all of us second guess you ad nauseum. [:)]



churchillhouse -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/10/2014 9:05:53 PM)

Fascinating AAR.

Thanks for all the hard work.



obvert -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/10/2014 9:32:22 PM)

Great AAR Jocke! Sorry to see it ending. Hope to see you play another one soon!!



Barb -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/11/2014 5:50:17 AM)

Hello, I enjoyed this AAR totally. Great struggle. Hope to see you soon in another fight...



BattleMoose -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/11/2014 6:17:45 AM)

Thanks for the AAR, learned heaps.



MrBlizzard -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/11/2014 6:45:27 AM)

Thanks for enterteinment Jocke, I like your AARs.
Take your deserved break now so you can say "I can stop whenever I want" [;)] and see you soon



JocMeister -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/11/2014 5:06:14 PM)

Thanks guys! I will most likely be back in a while. Will definitely play DBB with PDU OFF again. Loved it. [:)]

Not sure about stacking limits though. Lots of pros and cons with it. (IMO and all that) I think SL might actually hurt the Chinese more then it helps...will also add a couple of HRs. Definitively a "no strat bombing in OZ" or something similar. [:D]

Also would like to try and figure China out. I actually enjoyed it (despite being on the loosing end) initially. Tom put a tremendous amount of pressure everywhere and I was throwing everything I had at him. I still had to pull back from Sian which is perfectly fine...but then supply started running out and after that it just went downhill (3rd time it happens to me). And fast. What really bothers me is that when that happens there is NOTHING you can do to stop the Japanese. And the small snowball quickly turns into an unstoppable avalanche. Terrain doesnīt help, number doesnīt help. Your troops even stops building forts in the wilderness.

China is probably around 20-25k worth of VPs. With Japanese players regularly clearing it out before 42 is up it suddenly makes AV very attainable. All Tom did for AV was clearing China (and he wasnīt even done with that), hold on to Noumea (to deny the allied a precious 1k VPs) and another 1k VPs from holding Brisbane. He did get 5100 VPs from strat bombing OZ but if I remove those from the calculation and add in Chungking and 3000 more LCU losses (thats counting low) he would still have ended up at 4,3:1.

I would of course be able to gain some VPs before 1/43 which could possibly have made me avoid AV. But its still food for thought. China + Noumea = very close to AV. Very much doubt anyone thought a complete Japanese victory in China by late 42 was possible when the VP system was put in place.







Lowpe -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/11/2014 5:14:45 PM)

Can you post a picture of China at the end, and throw some lines on showing major areas of Japanese advances in China. Like Sian from the east, north above Ankgang and then west into the central plains and such....

I would like to see the overall strategic picture....

Many thanks, and it was a fun, fun aar.[&o]



JocMeister -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/11/2014 5:52:31 PM)

Here you go! :)


[image]local://upfiles/32406/B180CF3EBA454924A27DF2C290C3DA47.jpg[/image]



Lokasenna -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/11/2014 5:54:16 PM)

I think 20-25k is a very high estimate of what China is worth. I actually have a nice point of reference - my two Allied games have been very similar, except that in one of them there has been no movement in China after the initial Hong Kong thrust. My IJ opponent appears to have set up pockets of defense against any Chinese adventures. I've been able to get forts built up in places.

In any case, the VP totals between the games, for the IJ opponent, once accounting for the other territory discrepancies (NW Aus, mostly)... we're looking at a difference of about 11,000 in total between the games. Here are the VP lines: 

        Date      IJ Total | Ally Total     IJ Air | Ally Air     IJ Base | Ally Base     IJ LCU | Ally LCU
Game 1  12/01/42    27,173 | 12,480           3742 | 2194            7912 | 6258            1148 | 12,528
Game 2  01/29/43    38,545 | 13,989           4688 | 3868           14924 | 6137            1756 | 15,320


It's hard to quantify the LCU difference as the LCU losses outside of China have been vastly different in some cases (again, NW Aus), but I'd guesstimate the Chinese LCU losses at worth about 4,000 VPs and the Chinese bases to be worth about 8,000 VPs. Pretty much right in line with my initial gut instinct to say China was worth 10-12K - I was a little low, but not by that much.

Of course, I also have a fair portion of the Chinese army in India now, but I did lose ~10K AV in the fields and at Chungking. Most ENG and all ART type units have been saved.


As for your screenshot... I think MrKane blew it in the south. You have to advance on Kweilin/Liuchow and Changsha as you capture the places north of Hankow, else you won't be catching and destroying any of those Chinese LCUs before they retreat.



JocMeister -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/11/2014 6:05:00 PM)

I donīt think you are correct in the estimate of Chinese LCUs. In my second game I had lost a horrendous amount of LCUs in China. I was nearing 17k worth of LCU losses. And I still had about a 1/3rd of the Chinese army left (although without supply).

In this game I have suffered 12k worth of losses so far. And I now have all the Chinese LCUs on map again (no more set to respawn besides new units). As you say its hard to put a number on how much the losses are worth in VPs but its way more then 4k of that Iīm absolutely certain. At least the double and I would guess its more.

I could probably make a half decent estimate by going through the saves and tracker. I agree 20-25k VPs is probably on the high side though as you say. But 15-20k is probably very close to the actual number.

EDIT: Does anyone have or know of any "quite China" kind of games. What would be really interesting to find is a game (or VP screen) of a game very there has been little to no combat in China but the initial Japanese expansion is over with (Singers/DEI/PI/Burma). That would give us a rough number on how much the Allied LCU losses outside China is worth. You can then very easily calculate a rough number on the Chinese LCU losses for a game (where there hasnīt been much allied LCU losses past the initial expansion outside CHina.)



Mike McCreery -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/11/2014 6:12:00 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

I donīt think you are correct in the estimate of Chinese LCUs. In my second game I had lost a horrendous amount of LCUs in China. I was nearing 17k worth of LCU losses. And I still had about a 1/3rd of the Chinese army left (although without supply).

In this game I have suffered 12k worth of losses so far. And I now have all the Chinese LCUs on map again (no more set to respawn besides new units). As you say its hard to put a number on how much the losses are worth in VPs but its way more then 4k of that Iīm absolutely certain. At least the double and I would guess its more.

I could probably make a half decent estimate by going through the saves and tracker. I agree 20-25k VPs is probably on the high side though as you say. But 15-20k is probably very close to the actual number.

EDIT: Does anyone have or know of any "quite China" kind of games. What would be really interesting to find is a game (or VP screen) of a game very there has been little to no combat in China but the initial Japanese expansion is over with (Singers/DEI/PI/Burma). That would give us a rough number on how much the Allied LCU losses outside China is worth. You can then very easily calculate a rough number on the Chinese LCU losses for a game (where there hasnīt been much allied LCU losses past the initial expansion outside CHina.)



No 2 games would yield the same amount of victory points as you can add in replacement units and squads, equipment, etc.



JocMeister -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/11/2014 6:22:07 PM)

Just looked through tracker. By early April Tom had finished up most of the allied strongholds. He had only the lower DEI left to take and there was only some shattered units on Java left. After this I suffered very few LCU losses outside China. On the 7th of April Tom had gained 5951 VPs from LCU losses.

At the end of the game he had 11213 VPs. Most of those are from China. Thats roughly 5k VPs.

And I still have around 100 Chinese corps left in China that is waiting to be destroyed. Most of those have AV. Roughly 80% of them have over 100 AV = an insane number of squads waiting to be destroyed. And that is not taking into account all the HQ and BFs sitting around waiting to be killed...and disabled squads. I would say thats easily 5000 VPs more.



Lokasenna -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/11/2014 7:27:41 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

I donīt think you are correct in the estimate of Chinese LCUs. In my second game I had lost a horrendous amount of LCUs in China. I was nearing 17k worth of LCU losses. And I still had about a 1/3rd of the Chinese army left (although without supply).

In this game I have suffered 12k worth of losses so far. And I now have all the Chinese LCUs on map again (no more set to respawn besides new units). As you say its hard to put a number on how much the losses are worth in VPs but its way more then 4k of that Iīm absolutely certain. At least the double and I would guess its more.

I could probably make a half decent estimate by going through the saves and tracker. I agree 20-25k VPs is probably on the high side though as you say. But 15-20k is probably very close to the actual number.

EDIT: Does anyone have or know of any "quite China" kind of games. What would be really interesting to find is a game (or VP screen) of a game very there has been little to no combat in China but the initial Japanese expansion is over with (Singers/DEI/PI/Burma). That would give us a rough number on how much the Allied LCU losses outside China is worth. You can then very easily calculate a rough number on the Chinese LCU losses for a game (where there hasnīt been much allied LCU losses past the initial expansion outside CHina.)



That's basically what I've got going on in my two games. One is essentially a Quiet China, though it has picked up a little. In the other, I've lost all of China (though pretty much by choice, at least this early).

It's true that Chinese LCU VPs are going to vary a lot, but I don't take replacements in China. It just burns supply that's better spent simply feeding the LCU, IMO. Supply is already short enough as it is. It's also difficult to sort out exactly how much of the LCU VP total was Chinese, but I am guesstimating: the fall of Chungking cost me ~2K, and I had a very large stack of troops there. Almost 100 units, many hundreds of thousands of guys. I actually think my estimate of 4000 might be on the high side, as I didn't lose much other than those units that I committed to Chungking.

I'll compare destroyed Chinese LCU numbers to those I have still alive in about 30 minutes here.



Lokasenna -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/11/2014 9:07:09 PM)

At this computer, my earliest turn loaded into Tracker is 255. Estimation follows. Assumptions and conditions:

1) A 1:1 ratio in Chinese Rifle Squad to Support squads in Chinese units. Since it's impossible to separate losses among different nationalities for Support squads, this is the best estimate I can come up with.

2) Chinese Rifle Squads and Support squads will make up the majority of devices in Chinese units. I will count other Chinese devices if they are so labeled and I can pick them out as not used by other nationalities. Therefore, this will create some fuzziness in the final number.

3) Assuming that by turn 255 (August 18), the siege of Chungking has begun (verified by my Word document) and all losses of Chinese LCUs outside of the city have dropped off to a negligible amount. Granted, a significant number (~1700 Rifle Squads) were lost outside Paoshan in the exodus to India and the units were not actually destroyed. I have a full list of the units that I saved in my AAR. It is rather long...

4) Obviously, lots of Chinese were dead before turn 255, but they would've respawned at Chungking. Given the gaps in the Tracker DB at this computer, they may have respawned and been whittled down or killed again during the gaps.

5) The replacements that I have taken have been outside of combat and they have not been destroyed, so anytime a squad is drawn from the pool I must subtract it from the Active column so as to get a more accurate counting of destroyed squads.

Turn 255
Rifle Squads used from pool: 442
Active Rifle Squads: 21747

Therefore, assuming the 1:1 ratio, there were approximately 43,000 Chinese Rifle/Support squads on 8/18/42.

Turn 421
Rifle Squads used from pool: 3246
Active Rifle Squads: 12020

21747 - 12020 - 3246 = 6481 squads remaining before taking replacements, or roughly 13,000 squads including support. That means about 30,000 squads were destroyed. That's about 2500 VPs, which we'll see in a moment over the real figure. Obviously, there are lots of guns and other devices in the units as well - assume about a 1:4 ratio there, to be generous. That brings the total up to about 3000 VPs, and this includes the exodus from Paoshan.


Now I check in Tracker. I have a gap in turns loaded - 301 to 317 - during which the fall of Chungking occured. Allied LCU VPs jumped from 12498 to 14723, or a change of 2225. So clearly the fall of Chungking was worth somewhere around 2150-2175 VPs (other LCU losses during this timeframe were light).

Next, I am searching in my Word notes for the exodus from Paoshan. This occurs around the end of October, early November. By the time the full exodus is complete in early January, Allied LCU VPs stand at 15277, and almost the entire difference is in Chinese LCUs getting beat up on retreats - a change of about 500 VPs.

So in total, all of my dead Chinese LCUs at Chungking and all of the devices I lost running to India adds up to about 2700 VPs. Well below the estimate at Chungking, heh.


Then we count up bases. Chungking is worth up to 3600 (and -800 for the Allies), and Chengtu is worth up to 1800. So that's 5400, and let's be generous and say all of the *10 bases for Japan can add up to 1000 - so 6400. Then there's Kunming at *50, and that can be worth 600. Tsuyung can be worth 300. Lanchow 800. Sining 500. So 8600 for bases, give or take a couple hundred for the *10 bases.

That's about 11.3K VPs for China. Maybe you lose more Chinese LCUs... even if I lost the entire Chinese army, including all of the replacements I've taken in India, we're only talking about ~30,000 more devices, or about 2.5K VPs.

That's about 14K. 20-25K is far too high. Not that 14K is anything to sneeze at, that's a big chunk of rather cheap VPs. I think people have a tendency to vastly underestimate the number of LCU VPs that come from the SRA. It is many thousands.



Lowpe -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/11/2014 9:25:12 PM)

I wonder how many battles Jocke fought in x3 terrain? I wonder if he didn't in fact defend too far forward?

The Lanchow drive looks awfully tough to defend against, the only thing I could think of is have a small hoard of chinese units try to cut the supply road. Or simply falling back to the mountains.

What was Japan using as ground troops in Burma...seems to me I recall Jocke vacating it without a fight. I think he had the burma road open for quite a while...

Monday morning quarterbacking at its best here. Or backseat driving.[:)] No criticism here of Jocke who was struggling, as we all were, to understand Mr. Kanes goals early on. I wanted Alaska/Canada if you remember![sm=crazy.gif]






Spidery -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/12/2014 6:45:33 AM)

In my game, I have 9480 VP for the captured Chinese bases and Chungking and Chengtu are at level 8 so could get another 300.

At end of May, Allied army loss was 8585 and it is now 16740. There would have been some Chinese destroyed before then and I have a few 100 VP left to garner. Other Allied losses in this time have been moderate so roughly balance out suggests about 8000 VP for eliminating the Chinese army. Some corps were eliminated twice and some base forces three times.

So for defeating China and eliminating the Chinese army I think the VP total is about 16K to 18K.

I have a suspicion that, long term, the Japanese can get more VP out of China by maintaining a siege of Chungking. The Chinese units starve, reform and starve again. Keep some artillery there bombarding to help the process. I think I was getting about 10-20 VP a day from this so keep that going for 30 months and could get 14000 VP.

One way to make conquering China harder would be to remove most of the armour and artillery from Manchuko and have it arrive as reinforcements starting mid 1943. With SL, it is the firepower advantage of the armour and artillery that really helps the Japanese against the Chinese.



JocMeister -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/12/2014 2:25:49 PM)

Loka, I see your numbers and I follow your reasoning. But it simply doesnīt add up with any of my games. My games are much closer (if not higher) to Spiderys estimates. You must be missing something somewhere.

Take my game with SqzMyLemon is a good example. I ended up with around 15-16k worth of LCU losses. China was the only place in that game that suffered any land combat after the initial expansion. No ventures into India or Oz was done. In that game I had lost most of the Chinese army but I still had about 1/3rd left. If Chinese LCU losses are only 2700 VPs I wonder where the 12-13k other LCU losses took place? [:)]

Iīve given this some thought today. Shouldnīt be that hard to test really...Might try and set something up in the coming weeks. I still think my estimate of 15-20k is pretty darn close. Seems Spiderys numbers are about the same as mine.

I also think Spidery is correct that it might be more beneficial from a VP perspective to use Chungking as a VP generator. Tom had just started to really get this going and I was losing on average 12 VPs per turn from the bombardments in Chungking. This would have been worse as Tom got more Arty in place and my troops had been killed off the first time. They would then respawn with 30/30 MRL/EXP, 0 Supply and not one gun...



JocMeister -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/12/2014 2:30:19 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

I wonder how many battles Jocke fought in x3 terrain? I wonder if he didn't in fact defend too far forward?

The Lanchow drive looks awfully tough to defend against, the only thing I could think of is have a small hoard of chinese units try to cut the supply road. Or simply falling back to the mountains.

What was Japan using as ground troops in Burma...seems to me I recall Jocke vacating it without a fight. I think he had the burma road open for quite a while...

Monday morning quarterbacking at its best here. Or backseat driving.[:)] No criticism here of Jocke who was struggling, as we all were, to understand Mr. Kanes goals early on. I wanted Alaska/Canada if you remember![sm=crazy.gif]


I fought in x3 terrain as much as possible. The difference between x3 and x2 was huge. But only place I managed to hold Tom for long was south of Sian. That roadblock held out for 3 months. But its very hard to rotate troops in and out due to SLs and the fact that they leave there forts as soon as they start moving.

All other roadblocks he blew through in a couple of weeks. 1-2 IDs, tanks, and a crapload of arty. Bombard every day, mix in deliberate attacks, add bombings from the air. Any troops I tried to rotate out was blasted into smithereens the second they started moving. Tom on the other hand could rotate in and out at leisure.

Burma road was open very long as Tom didnīt send any troops into Burma until very late. Still supply only lasted until March/April.








JocMeister -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/12/2014 4:01:11 PM)

PS, whats the switch for continuous turns?

Nm. Found it!



Lokasenna -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/12/2014 6:22:46 PM)

I really think that a lot of the LCU losses being reported from these other games is coming from the SRA. Those Dutch and British/Commonwealth units are worth a lot of VPs. Not to mention all the US Army/USMC stuff on Luzon.

EDIT:

I have a Computer Both Sides game going right now, it's up to 3/21/42. There are 5600 Allied LCU losses so far. As we all know, the AI doesn't do a whole lot in China, in either direction - whether it's Quiet China or not. Changsha, Kukong, Nanning, Amoy (!), Foochow, etc. remain unconquered. Only Chuhsien has fallen. Chengchow was auto-occupied, and Loyang remains in Chinese hands. So, not much in the way of Chinese casualties here.

What's fallen:
Hong Kong
Manila
Clark Field
All of Mindanao
90% of Borneo
The Celebes
Singapore

Bataan remains with 45K Allied troops.
Sumatra and Java haven't even been touched yet.

So at least 5,000 VPs just from Malaya, Borneo, and most of Luzon. There are a LOT more to be had in Java, and this doesn't include the 44th/45th Indian Brigades or the 18th British Division (I checked the destroyed LCUs).

I'd wager that ~8000 VPs from LCUs is in the SRA alone. Do I need to go back to game's start and count up all the devices? [:D]



JocMeister -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/12/2014 6:35:17 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

I really think that a lot of the LCU losses being reported from these other games is coming from the SRA. Those Dutch and British/Commonwealth units are worth a lot of VPs. Not to mention all the US Army/USMC stuff on Luzon.

EDIT:

I have a Computer Both Sides game going right now, it's up to 3/21/42. There are 5600 Allied LCU losses so far. As we all know, the AI doesn't do a whole lot in China, in either direction - whether it's Quiet China or not. Changsha, Kukong, Nanning, Amoy (!), Foochow, etc. remain unconquered. Only Chuhsien has fallen. Chengchow was auto-occupied, and Loyang remains in Chinese hands. So, not much in the way of Chinese casualties here.

What's fallen:
Hong Kong
Manila
Clark Field
All of Mindanao
90% of Borneo
The Celebes
Singapore

Bataan remains with 45K Allied troops.
Sumatra and Java haven't even been touched yet.

So at least 5,000 VPs just from Malaya, Borneo, and most of Luzon. There are a LOT more to be had in Java, and this doesn't include the 44th/45th Indian Brigades or the 18th British Division (I checked the destroyed LCUs).

I'd wager that ~8000 VPs from LCUs is in the SRA alone. Do I need to go back to game's start and count up all the devices? [:D]


I might be able to give an exact number on how much VPs China is worth. Hopefully before the weekend is up! [:)]

Wanna bet? [:D]



Sangeli -> RE: Japanese land in OZ!! (9/12/2014 7:06:38 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

I might be able to give an exact number on how much VPs China is worth. Hopefully before the weekend is up! [:)]

Wanna bet? [:D]


It's hard to get a good value for the VPs in China because it isn't fixed. Whenever a corps respawns it creates new VPs out of nothing that Japan can take. So it makes sense to me that a human could lose more VPs than the AI by being more aggressive in defense and thus able to lose the same corps multiple times.

But rather than focusing on how many VPs you would have lost in that game had it continued, maybe try to figure out what you could have done differently to defend China. Looking back at your maps now (which are very informative because of the notes you wrote on there) I see you made a good deal of mistakes early on in the north which compounded into the collapse of China. Tom did a good job...but you could have done better. And hopefully next time you will! After all, there's more to China than just defending 3x terrain (although that's probably like half of it).



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