About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (Full Version)

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Dreamsicle -> About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/3/2016 2:35:56 AM)

So I've played the Guadalcanal and Marianas campaigns and I feel ready enough to go into the grand campaign. I have some questions before I start. Not all of these will be regards to immediate newbie help though.

1) a) I know my immediate objective in China is to keep the Burma open. However once I eliminate enough Japanese units and consolidate enough strength where this becomes trivial, in which direction should I start advancing, Korea or Indochina? Shanghai is going to be a mid-term objective before I start going in either direction.
b) What would be the indicators to ensure going beyond the initial "Keep Burma Objective" is not going to fail?

2) Currently I am using Sardaukar's Newbie AAR in conjunction with the manual to help myself? Are there any other AAR's I can use for learning purposes?

3) On a similar note what are some good AAR's that have very high-level players?

4) What are some good scenarios where the AI won't completely collapse? I know DaBigBabes for an allied player is one. I know PBEM is most preferable but I am not sure I will have the schedule for a sustained Grand Campaign PBEM in the future.

5)I'm thinking of using the Extended Map for this campaign. Does the AI play well on it?



Yaab -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/3/2016 4:46:46 AM)

ad 1)
Just look which new bases will augment your supply production. I wouldn't go north since there is lack of supply producing bases there. In the south, Canton and Hong Kong are obvious choices but are Heavy Urban Hexes with limited land acces to them.Hankow and Wuhan have some LI to conquer. An expansion towards Shangai is always a good thing as you can base US 4es closer to Japan.

You can also grab some good ports so once the US navy arrives in Phillipines it can join with your Chinese forces and land some US infantry in China.


ad 5)
In most historical scenarios (stock, Babes, RHS) the AI will collapse every time if you play against it as if it were a human player. AI is just a bunch of scripts, and you need to house-rule yourself to make AI viable in a long run.Bushpsu started a campaign against AI with some house rules here http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4025937



Dreamsicle -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/3/2016 6:34:21 PM)

Thanks for the help. I actually had my own houserules against the AI which are

1)Let them expand historically. This may eventually be a double edged sword but AFAIK it will stop them from spamming ships and troops to a historically captured area that hasn't been taken yet.

2)Don't make Torpedo Bombers use bombs exclusively to avoid the high dud rate.

I'll take some from that thread although I might not use all of them since I might be able to do a PBEM in the future although at a pace of a turn or 2 per week at worst. I hope a future opponent won't be too impatient.




anarchyintheuk -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/3/2016 8:08:26 PM)

Only do squadron pilot training, i.e. don't train them up then dump them in pools.



jwolf -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/3/2016 8:18:35 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

Only do squadron pilot training, i.e. don't train them up then dump them in pools.


It's hard to follow this rule considering the constant flow of Allied air squadrons that have to be withdrawn. Or what else do you do with the pilots in that situation?



stretch -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/3/2016 8:43:08 PM)


If you do ahistorical things vs the AI in 1942, and stop it from obtaining historical goals, it will pound its head against you repeatedly in bad ways. It will break. If your goal is to win as early as possible so be it but if you want a better more fun game, don't break the AI early.



Yaab -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/4/2016 5:56:53 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dreamsicle


quote:

2) Currently I am using Sardaukar's Newbie AAR in conjunction with the manual to help myself? Are there any other AAR's I can use for learning purposes?

3) On a similar note what are some good AAR's that have very high-level players?


------------------------------------------
ad2) Sardaukar created two introductory AARs: newbie and community effort. As far as I remember, none of them goes into much detail of how things operate in WITP:AE. My impression was that both AARs were aimed at intermediate players, and not novices. I think you will get more info be posting questions or using the forum's search engine.

Alternatively, you can try to find one of Allied AARs by Greyjoy - as a new player he seemed to get much advice from the peanut gallery in his travails.

ad3) Off the top of my head , I would recommend two old AARs told from Japanese perspective: PzB vs AndyMac AAR and Fletcher vs Cantona, where Fletcher was writing very elaborate posts.



anarchyintheuk -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/4/2016 6:57:39 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: jwolf


quote:

ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

Only do squadron pilot training, i.e. don't train them up then dump them in pools.


It's hard to follow this rule considering the constant flow of Allied air squadrons that have to be withdrawn. Or what else do you do with the pilots in that situation?


If the squadron withdraws, the pilots go too.



GetAssista -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/4/2016 7:17:21 PM)

Dreamsicle,
don't forget to put campaign difficluty to Hard at least. AI does not really manage its limited supplies well and wil burn out in several months w/o this toggle



Dreamsicle -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/4/2016 7:44:27 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

Dreamsicle,
don't forget to put campaign difficluty to Hard at least. AI does not really manage its limited supplies well and wil burn out in several months w/o this toggle

I made sure to do this as well. I've heard so many reports of the AI burning out before 1943 and I wanted to avoid that.

If very hard didn't mess with combat results I would have played at that difficulty.



Numdydar -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/4/2016 10:18:55 PM)

You just need to set it to VH for 3-4 turns in order for the extra supply to get distributed once a month. Then you can go back down to Hard. Some people switch to VH for 2-3 turns every two weeks.

So you can easily 'time' your combats to when you have not upped the difficulty level [:)]



jmalter -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/6/2016 10:23:37 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dreamsicle
1) a) I know my immediate objective in China is to keep the Burma open. However once I eliminate enough Japanese units and consolidate enough strength where this becomes trivial, in which direction should I start advancing, Korea or Indochina? Shanghai is going to be a mid-term objective before I start going in either direction.

I think you've made some bad assumptions re China. Their troops can defend (when fortified) but have *really poor* offensive capability, & the supply level in China will always be marginal, even when the Ledo air-bridge is fully developed. If you are *extremely conservative* in China throughout 1942, you can hold ground & develop a bit of combat power by upgrading the ArtRgts (to 105mm Howitzers) & a half-dozen InfCorps (to Chinese Inf Squad 43).

These guys can do good duty attacking west to Nanning & Hanoi, eventually meeting strong British/Indian LCUs (if they've won through north Thailand & Indochina - that can happen by late '43.

An early Chinese-only offensive to Shanghai won't ever happen. Once you've re-captured Singapore, Indochina & Canton/Hong Kong, you might be able to develop an offensive against Shanghai around mid-'45, *if* you're able to bring supply to China by sea.




PaxMondo -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/7/2016 2:08:53 AM)

No matter what you do, stock GC .vs. AI will not be much of a challenge. Certainly play with difficulty at a minimum to HARD. SEt it to VERY HARD at least 10 days/month. These are minimum to keep a stock scenario AI working.

After a few months though, it will get too easy. If you are unable to play PBEM, then you need to consider Ironman series against the AI.



drw61 -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/7/2016 2:44:17 AM)

You may want to look at using scenario 2, Hakko Ichiu which gives the AI a little extra help or scenario 10, Ironman which gives it even more help.

Daryl



Dreamsicle -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/7/2016 9:36:01 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: jmalter

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dreamsicle
1) a) I know my immediate objective in China is to keep the Burma open. However once I eliminate enough Japanese units and consolidate enough strength where this becomes trivial, in which direction should I start advancing, Korea or Indochina? Shanghai is going to be a mid-term objective before I start going in either direction.

I think you've made some bad assumptions re China. Their troops can defend (when fortified) but have *really poor* offensive capability, & the supply level in China will always be marginal, even when the Ledo air-bridge is fully developed. If you are *extremely conservative* in China throughout 1942, you can hold ground & develop a bit of combat power by upgrading the ArtRgts (to 105mm Howitzers) & a half-dozen InfCorps (to Chinese Inf Squad 43).

These guys can do good duty attacking west to Nanning & Hanoi, eventually meeting strong British/Indian LCUs (if they've won through north Thailand & Indochina - that can happen by late '43.

An early Chinese-only offensive to Shanghai won't ever happen. Once you've re-captured Singapore, Indochina & Canton/Hong Kong, you might be able to develop an offensive against Shanghai around mid-'45, *if* you're able to bring supply to China by sea.



I played a month and a half in during a scen 1 game and my Wuhan offensive was doing fairly well and I even captured Sinyang back by late January 1942. I accomplished this by moving as many units together in a hex which usually had around 2K AV in it. Of course I assume that against a human player this would be suicidal so I'll take a defensive posture for a possible future PBEM.

And to drw61, I've decided to immediately move to scenario 2 just in case the AI runs out of steam faster than I anticipate.



PaxMondo -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/8/2016 3:51:42 AM)

Scen 2 is a minor step up in terms of AI difficulty. Ironman, Scen 10 will represent a decent AI challenge for a new player... Ironman can be played on NORMAL difficulty as some of the supply issues are addressed. You'll want to go to "Hard" though for a few days a month, eventually playing on HARD just to keep a challenge up. Then there is the "Nasty" version of Ironman and the "Nasty, Nasty" version. The latter is a real challenge ... on normal difficulty.



Dreamsicle -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/8/2016 5:19:26 AM)

I still don't feel confident enough to go that far. In spite of my relative success in China in Scenario 1, I've gotten the Saratoga sunk in a raid on the Gilberts, Force Z sunk in spite of moving them south, and a whole bunch of merchant vessels sunk by surface action fleets I don't remember sending out. Currently I feel that Scenario 2 on Hard should suffice for my current skill level. If I find it too easy (primary benchmark being establishing a foothold on Honshu before 1945), I'll probably move on to Ironman Nasty Nasty and after that potentially a (very very slow) PBEM. I do have a couple more questions based on my limited GC experience though.

1) I almost succeeded in moving all the units for the 8th AUS Division to Darwin with the exception of some Lark Battalion units (marked as Lark Bn /1 IIRC). If that subunit of the Battalion is wiped out, can I still form the division?

2) What is the difference between sending pilots to reserves vs TRACOM? Similarly, does the USN get reserve pilots automatically or would I have to send pilots there manually? I am asking this as I infer the USN has no reserves as indicated by Reserve in red and I am worried about having to fill my depleted airwings with complete rookies.

3) Where is a link for Ironman Nasty Nasty? I can only find one for Ironman Nasty.

EDIT: 4) How does LCU training work? I found a thread (can't post links yet so just search "lcu training war in the pacific" should be the first result) stating details which if I'm interpreting it right is LCUs only gain experience once the set future objective value is at 100 regardless of OpMode. Has this changed in the 6 years since that thread or is it still the same?

Thank you everyone so far! [:D]



Yaab -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/8/2016 5:48:51 AM)

ad 4) One of the patches changed that. Units with higher experience will retain some of their preparation points when chaning objectives. Say, a unit is 100% prepped for Suva and you change its objective to Pago-Pago. With high experience, the unit may end up with 25% preparation for Pago-Pago.




Dreamsicle -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/8/2016 5:58:00 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Yaab

ad 4) One of the patches changed that. Units with higher experience will retain some of their preparation points when chaning objectives. Say, a unit is 100% prepped for Suva and you change its objective to Pago-Pago. With high experience, the unit may end up with 25% preparation for Pago-Pago.



When referring to experience, I meant the experience value on the left column of the LCU. Sorry if I was too vague.



Yaab -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/8/2016 6:17:38 AM)

Your post is perfecly clear, it is my mind which is foggy today.

Some patch changed that. Now units have a random chance of gaining experience even though their prepartion level is less than 100%. It can be observed in Tracker when you view your Chinese units in late December 1941 - they gain an extra exp point here and there even if their prepping level is in 30-40% range.




drw61 -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/8/2016 7:08:09 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Dreamsicle

3) Where is a link for Ironman Nasty Nasty? I can only find one for Ironman Nasty.

Thank you everyone so far! [:D]


I think this is it

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3352052



GetAssista -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/8/2016 7:24:33 AM)

1) You can combine LCU components as soon as all of them are at the same place, same move mode and same upgrade status if devices are in different components. Destroyed components do not count and do not obstruct combining.
2) TRACOM accepts only 81+ xp pilots so you can use it as a special ace reserve. Also helps by speeding up off map training. Not really as useful for Allies as it is for Japanese
4) LCUs can gain experience when idle but only up to a threshold, around 50 for Jap, maybe slightly different for other nations. After that it's combat. Massive battles with lots disabled and few destroyed squads help the most.



BBfanboy -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/8/2016 9:47:34 PM)

Early in the game when there are a lot of LCUs with low experience scores, simply marching them from one base to another helps the experience gain. That only works for so long, and then you just leave them in "Rest/Training" mode to gain training experience. The cap on training experience for US units this way seems to be around 65 points. It takes a long time to get from 60 to 65. It may be possible to go to 70 but presumably that would take even longer.

There isn't always an opportunity but if the enemy leaves a small unit in an exposed position (like an SNLF alone on Baker Island) you can gather up a bunch of LCUs you want to give experience and do a landing with massive overkill. They should all gain some combat experience and amphib landing points from the operation. Just make sure the troops are well covered by your fleet during their time aboard ship.



rustysi -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/8/2016 10:38:06 PM)

quote:

The following table details the maximum level a unit may train to, based on its Nationality:
IJ Army 55 IJ Navy 50
US Navy 50 US Army 60
US Marines 65 Australian 65
New Zealand 55 British 55
French 55 Dutch 50
Chinese 45 Soviet 60
Indian 55 Commonwealth 55
Philippines 45 Canada 50


From page 187 of the manual.



m10bob -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/9/2016 2:13:19 PM)

Nice to see you are playing with China active as well.Some folks avoid China altogether.
China can retake their entire country but they must pool their forces and retake one city at a time and not try to place forces in 3 or more cities at once.
China does not need many airfields so don't build too many.
Do build airfields from Chittagong to Akyab and keep them supplied by ship.
Base scads of air cargo planes on those fields and fly the "hump" to supply China as soon as the planes become available.
(Ledo, Mandalay and Kowloon are good midway points for those cargo routes.)



Dreamsicle -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/11/2016 5:28:43 PM)

So I'm currently a month and a half in my current game and the Japanese have surprised me by taking Lunganville and some of the Phoenix Islands. Obviously this is going hurt the Japanese in the long run, but I'm worried about future Japanese expansion into Efate and perhaps the Line Islands, the former of which is undefended as I can't find any surplus base units. What can I do to stop future expansion in the direction of Efate (carriers should be close enough to save the Line Islands) and how can I counter this if a PBEM player was to do this?



GetAssista -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/11/2016 5:50:26 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dreamsicle
What can I do to stop future expansion in the direction of Efate (carriers should be close enough to save the Line Islands) and how can I counter this if a PBEM player was to do this?

Search and SCTF raids. AI is poor at covering its invasions, but persistent in securing the scripted objectives.
In PBEM Japan can take just about anything in SoPac if it commits carriers and stuff. You can't stop it in the first months of the war, but you can make Japan expend a lot of fuel with offering some resistance (not carriers though unless 100% safe).
Not a big deal of you lose some islands, they are future POW camps and supply/fuel hogs before that. Australia is very hard to cut off because Allies would just reroute convoys southward together with taking Capetown route.



HansBolter -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/11/2016 7:13:09 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: jmalter

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dreamsicle
1) a) I know my immediate objective in China is to keep the Burma open. However once I eliminate enough Japanese units and consolidate enough strength where this becomes trivial, in which direction should I start advancing, Korea or Indochina? Shanghai is going to be a mid-term objective before I start going in either direction.

I think you've made some bad assumptions re China. Their troops can defend (when fortified) but have *really poor* offensive capability, & the supply level in China will always be marginal, even when the Ledo air-bridge is fully developed. If you are *extremely conservative* in China throughout 1942, you can hold ground & develop a bit of combat power by upgrading the ArtRgts (to 105mm Howitzers) & a half-dozen InfCorps (to Chinese Inf Squad 43).

These guys can do good duty attacking west to Nanning & Hanoi, eventually meeting strong British/Indian LCUs (if they've won through north Thailand & Indochina - that can happen by late '43.

An early Chinese-only offensive to Shanghai won't ever happen. Once you've re-captured Singapore, Indochina & Canton/Hong Kong, you might be able to develop an offensive against Shanghai around mid-'45, *if* you're able to bring supply to China by sea.





You must have never played the AI. I routinely liberate all of China against the AI by the end of '42.

It is indeed easy to liberate Shanghai long before making a move on Canton and Hong Kong.

The AI comes at you with a mega death star stack, it takes everything in its path, but garrisons nothing in its wake.

Its easy to predict where along the line of its advance you can get sufficient AV into its path to bog it down into a siege.

Once stymied, the Chinese army, like an amoeba, simply swarms around it isolating it until it can be reduced.

The AI will quickly lose its entire army in China this way.

Defeating the AI in China in '42 is child's play.



Sun Tempest -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/15/2016 10:42:33 PM)

As I like playing the japs, I complied a tentative list of houserules for games against Allied AI:
- reliable US torpedoes ON
- no hunt for Force Z
- only A5M Claude and B4Y Jean used on CVEs
- only Glens for subs
- no dive bombers on CVLs
- separate IJA si IJN operations (as much as possible)
- shipping of fuel solely by TK/AO

Any other ideas to give an extra chance to the AI?

Thanks,
M



GetAssista -> RE: About to start my first Grand Campaign, have some questions (3/16/2016 8:44:04 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Sun Tempest
Any other ideas to give an extra chance to the AI?

1. Play historically in DEI and Burma - try to not offer excess resistance and force concentration.
It is easy to make stand against AI in Singers/Moulmein/Java that would bloody AI enough to ruin his game, since AI will not pursue next objectives unless previous on the list are secured.

2. Do not bomb his oil, he can't defend it :)

3. Play on Very Hard, or Hard but switching to Very hard for some days each month to load AI up on supplies.

4. Play Nasty scenarios from Andy!



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