Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

Reg, HFP has already promised us that aircraft attrition is going to be higher in AE, at least in that fewer aircraft will be ready for use on any day. I realize that just putting 200 aircraft into the pool makes it too easy to get them to the front, but it's just as easy for either player to get replacement aircraft to the front.

quote:

ORIGINAL: herwin
Sounds like you're already doing something in the direction I'm suggesting. The only reason I'm suggesting that you use the kth root of the product of k factors is that it allows you to model substitutability without having to worry about modelling the economy in hideous detail.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

Everything is heavily documented, so when this puppy hits the street, I can shoot you my specs and my math if you want. We can happily argue over the shape of the model; always looking for new and intelligent solutions. Ciao.

quote:

ORIGINAL: msieving1

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE
Everything is heavily documented, so when this puppy hits the street, I can shoot you my specs and my math if you want. We can happily argue over the shape of the model; always looking for new and intelligent solutions. Ciao.

This could be the biggest improvement of all. From discussions I've seen in the past, it seemed that nobody really knew how the programming worked in the current versions of the game.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

First; the reason the average Jap player does much better than his historical counterpart is because he knows from hindsight not to do certain things/do certain things...

...With all that the added industry, resources, manpower who can really argue that it would be impossible for the Japs to produce more than they did in history?

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE


I mention all this just to let you know that we, too, are thinking, and thinking very deeply.

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ORIGINAL: treespider

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

I mention all this just to let you know that we, too, are thinking, and thinking very deeply.

All I could think of was ..."Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy"

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

quote:

ORIGINAL: herwin
Sounds like you're already doing something in the direction I'm suggesting. The only reason I'm suggesting that you use the kth root of the product of k factors is that it allows you to model substitutability without having to worry about modelling the economy in hideous detail.

Spot on, herwin ! No, we’re using neither Cutler, nor Kraus, nor Greenspan; the internal velocities of the Japanese economy are irrelevant. It won’t poop if it ain’t fed.

This reduces to 3 relatively simple matricies of input coefficients. How hard would it be to get self-consistent sets of determinants?? But that was the easy part.

The harder part was to express the input parameters as a function of the ‘shipping’ capabilities on the one hand, and bound the ‘shipping’ capabilities, by operational requirements, on the other. Even worse, ship tonnage and capacity (different) have substantial and different effects on things like the ability to dock at certain ports, carry troops (or not), repair/upgrade/convert requirements, woof!

I’m looking at a 5 dimension vector space, so don’t be surprised if the Huflungpoo Maru does not have the exact tonnage and cargo capacity she did in IRL.. Almost all the vessels are “tweaked” to fit within the many, and often conflicting, requirements of the code. If anybody tries to “improve” things by using IRL numbers, I hope I live far enuf away from the blast.

I mention all this just to let you know that we, too, are thinking, and thinking very deeply. Everything is heavily documented, so when this puppy hits the street, I can shoot you my specs and my math if you want. We can happily argue over the shape of the model; always looking for new and intelligent solutions. Ciao.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

First; the reason the average Jap player does much better than his historical counterpart is because he knows from hindsight not to do certain things/do certain things. There is no real consequence of doing something wrong. Let KB hang around Pearl a week or two and bomb the base to bits. If you screw up and lose a CV or two, a new game is just a restart away. There is no IJA/IJN conflict, the supply system is abstracted enough to let you reload 16 inch-shells from any random base on the map you captured two days ago. Aircraft magically appears on a remote jungle base simply by clicking on a button. Etc etc etc. Production comes very low on this list of why the Japs do better than historically.

Second; the idea to cripple the Japanese industry by putting a limit on the production is ridiculous. That is like claiming that it was physically impossible for an industrial nation with millions of citizens to build more than 1000 aircraft a month. Thats just stupid. Does anyone in here really believe that if the Japs had had enough resources, factories, manpower, oil, infrastructure etc, they wouldnt have been able to build more aircraft than they did in real life? The US would always be able to produce more, yes, but that is a different kettle of fish entirely. Then your beef is with the US production system and not the Jap production system. A far better solution would be, then, to increase US production if Jap production reaches a certain threshold. For example, if Japanese aircraft production gets higher than 1000 aircraft per month, then the US production doubles. If it gets higher than 2000 aircraft per month, then the US production is quadrupled.

In many of the AARs where the Jap player has huge production numbers, the Jap player has also captured large parts of China, sometimes even India or Australia. With all that the added industry, resources, manpower who can really argue that it would be impossible for the Japs to produce more than they did in history?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

First; the reason the average Jap player does much better than his historical counterpart is because he knows from hindsight not to do certain things/do certain things. There is no real consequence of doing something wrong. Let KB hang around Pearl a week or two and bomb the base to bits. If you screw up and lose a CV or two, a new game is just a restart away. There is no IJA/IJN conflict, the supply system is abstracted enough to let you reload 16 inch-shells from any random base on the map you captured two days ago. Aircraft magically appears on a remote jungle base simply by clicking on a button. Etc etc etc. Production comes very low on this list of why the Japs do better than historically.

Second; the idea to cripple the Japanese industry by putting a limit on the production is ridiculous. That is like claiming that it was physically impossible for an industrial nation with millions of citizens to build more than 1000 aircraft a month. Thats just stupid. Does anyone in here really believe that if the Japs had had enough resources, factories, manpower, oil, infrastructure etc, they wouldnt have been able to build more aircraft than they did in real life? The US would always be able to produce more, yes, but that is a different kettle of fish entirely. Then your beef is with the US production system and not the Jap production system. A far better solution would be, then, to increase US production if Jap production reaches a certain threshold. For example, if Japanese aircraft production gets higher than 1000 aircraft per month, then the US production doubles. If it gets higher than 2000 aircraft per month, then the US production is quadrupled.

In many of the AARs where the Jap player has huge production numbers, the Jap player has also captured large parts of China, sometimes even India or Australia. With all that the added industry, resources, manpower who can really argue that it would be impossible for the Japs to produce more than they did in history?

While I agree there are many factors that can be attributed to the average Japanese player achieving far greater success in most games than was done historically, MASSIVE over-production is the dominate reason.

Here’s the overall Japanese air frame production numbers given in John Ellis’ book, World War II: A Statistical Survey. Transport air frames are unknown, but I think that’s because most Japanese transport aircraft doubled as bombers so are tabulated in bomber production.


………………. Fighters………. Bombers………. Recon………. Trans………. Trainers
1941………. 1,080…………… 1,461.............. 639…………… unk…………. 1,489
1942………. 2,935…………… 2,433.............. 967…………… unk…………. 2,171
1943………. 7,147…………… 4,189.............. 1,046………… unk…………. 2,871
1944………. 13,811………… 5,100.............. 2,147………… unk…………. 6,147
1945………. 5,474…………… 1,934.............. 855…………… unk…………. 2,523

I’m not going to list the allies as they massively out-produced the Japanese in all areas, but as a comparison, the US alone produced 4,416 fighters in 1941 which is almost 100% pre-war production levels. They built 10,769 in 42, 23,988 in 43, 38,873 in 44 and 20,742 in 45.

The UK more than doubled Japanese fighter production until 1944 when they actually were out-produced by Japan by a few thousand, but by then they depended on the US for the majority of their fighter production.

So for 1942 the Japanese averaged 245 fighters a month of ALL types. Japan typically produces more than 300 zeroes a month in game and hundreds more other types. I seriously doubt Japan could ever have achieved such levels of fighter production historically no matter how much its economy was tweaked.

At its highest point in 1944 Japan only produced 1150 fighters a month of ALL types, Japan beats even that production figure in game from the first few months of the war on. I think I read one AAR where Japan's in-game economy was building 3,000+ fighters a month in 42 or 43 with no reported shortages to other areas of the games economy.

This is just fighter production, Japan only produced 13,350 artillery guns (including AAA and AT tubes) for the entire war. Heck just the AAA upgrades to its ships probably accounts for more than half these historical tubes, I bet Japan builds 10-20 times as many artillery tubes in game as they did historically.

Over-production for the Japanese is a huge game imbalance when it comes to historical accuracy and capabilities. And it is the main reason the Japanese can achieve so much more in game, not some historical hindsight on the players part. Hindsight helps, but isn’t as big an issue as you might think, since both players have that advantage so it negates out a lot of the advantage.

Jim

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
While I agree there are many factors that can be attributed to the average Japanese player achieving far greater success in most games than was done historically, MASSIVE over-production is the dominate reason.

Here’s the overall Japanese air frame production numbers given in John Ellis’ book, World War II: A Statistical Survey. Transport air frames are unknown, but I think that’s because most Japanese transport aircraft doubled as bombers so are tabulated in bomber production.


………………. Fighters………. Bombers………. Recon………. Trans………. Trainers
1941………. 1,080…………… 1,461.............. 639…………… unk…………. 1,489
1942………. 2,935…………… 2,433.............. 967…………… unk…………. 2,171
1943………. 7,147…………… 4,189.............. 1,046………… unk…………. 2,871
1944………. 13,811………… 5,100.............. 2,147………… unk…………. 6,147
1945………. 5,474…………… 1,934.............. 855…………… unk…………. 2,523

I’m not going to list the allies as they massively out-produced the Japanese in all areas, but as a comparison, the US alone produced 4,416 fighters in 1941 which is almost 100% pre-war production levels. They built 10,769 in 42, 23,988 in 43, 38,873 in 44 and 20,742 in 45.

The UK more than doubled Japanese fighter production until 1944 when they actually were out-produced by Japan by a few thousand, but by then they depended on the US for the majority of their fighter production.

So for 1942 the Japanese averaged 245 fighters a month of ALL types. Japan typically produces more than 300 zeroes a month in game and hundreds more other types. I seriously doubt Japan could ever have achieved such levels of fighter production historically no matter how much its economy was tweaked.

At its highest point in 1944 Japan only produced 1150 fighters a month of ALL types, Japan beats even that production figure in game from the first few months of the war on. I think I read one AAR where Japan's in-game economy was building 3,000+ fighters a month in 42 or 43 with no reported shortages to other areas of the games economy.

This is just fighter production, Japan only produced 13,350 artillery guns (including AAA and AT tubes) for the entire war. Heck just the AAA upgrades to its ships probably accounts for more than half these historical tubes, I bet Japan builds 10-20 times as many artillery tubes in game as they did historically.

Over-production for the Japanese is a huge game imbalance when it comes to historical accuracy and capabilities. And it is the main reason the Japanese can achieve so much more in game, not some historical hindsight on the players part. Hindsight helps, but isn’t as big an issue as you might think, since both players have that advantage so it negates out a lot of the advantage.

Jim

• there is hardly any limit on how much factories can be expanded, and
  
• once expanded, the new capacity comes online far too quickly
  

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

Again, your beef seems to be with the US production, not the allied production. According to those figures, the Japs managed an 100% production increase per year from 41-44. I see no reason why they should not have been able to produce 1943-level figures in 1942 if they had the resources, manpower, and leadership. You seem completely hung up on the fact that the US production figures in the game is too low compared to the the Jap figures. That is a US issue, not a Jap issue. Take your compaints to the US production model then, not the Jap production model.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac
Doing this without double counting is tough but we are looking at it in relation to squads in particular.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Jim its a fact that one side controls production and the other doesnt that is a matter of game spec and is not going to change.

Equally we must in some way restrict espeically British Infantry replacements to reflect the severe shortage in 44/45 otherwise this isnt WITP.

So it is a balancing act I have two solution for allied squads and combat engineers but we dont know if it works yet.

(I am not at all concerned about other devices because frankly they were restricted and should remain restricted i.e. Lewis AAMG's were NOT all replaced by Bren AAMG's, Grants had not fully replaced Matildas in Armoured Regts, Rolls Royce AC's were still inuse despite Humbers and Daimlers being around and 2 pounder AT guns were still around despite 6 pounders and 17 pounders being around)

But Squads where the manapower is the same and its small arms changes these I agree we need to do something about

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
P.S. One of Japan’s biggest advantages in the land game is Japan can easily upgrade most of its on-map forces to late model squads, while the allies usually don't have sufficient replacement levels to upgrade more than a brigade or division or so a year. And that's only if combat losses aren't so high they soak up all the replacements. So the allies are stuck fighting with early war equipment for most of the game.

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ORIGINAL: Reg
Has anyone got some actual Japanese production figures from a real game (over a fairly long period) so we can do some meaningful analysis of how big an issue we have here.

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ORIGINAL: Reg

So far we can quote what historical production was and the Allied production is fixed. However, statements of as how big Japanese production can actually get are very generalised.

Has anyone got some actual Japanese production figures from a real game (over a fairly long period) so we can do some meaningful analysis of how big an issue we have here.

My personal impression of anything with a expandable economy (those EEE -Explore, Expand, Exploit type games) are that the economies tend to be exponential in nature, ie they start off slow but when things get going they really take off and the sky is the limit... Maybe we need a model that tends to produce a law of diminishing returns???

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Personally, I'd rather have the player control of production be removed from the game all together! What is this, Age of Empires or Total Annihilation? The only thing the player should have control of is getting the supplies and resources needed for the economy to the necessary points...none of this fantasy crap.

Yammas from The Apo-Tiki Lounge. Future site of WITP AE benders! And then the s--t hit the fan