Spectra
Posts: 19
Joined: 9/20/2002 From: Ottawa Status: offline
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First off, many thanks to Xargun for consolidating all the scattered production threads in once place... This encouraged me to sit down last night with the game on my main machine, and Excel in my laptop, and do some serious data entry... I entered every resource & production site in the game (circa Dec.7 1941), and grouped them broadly into three categories. 1) Owned at start. 2) In the target region for conquest 3) Extra (India, OZ, USSR, distant China) I think sat back and thought deep thoughts... I've come to a couple of conclusions... Managing the Japanese economy may not be so hard as I though, as you have a lot less flexibility than I though you would. Oil is the key (shocking, I know, but listen on). Japan + nearby conquests (DEI, close China, Burma) has about: 24,000 resources available, 16500 Oil points (Oil x 6), and 13,500 HI (counting 50% damage from conquests). About 8000 resources are used to fund Japan's manpower production, bringing resources & oil together around 16500. Japan's existing industries already use 13500, which means at most you could increase your economy by 22% over the war, given enough time to build up extra Oil, and assuming no losses to American subs (yah, right!). It seems to me that that 22% is mostly safety margin, so what you have will be running at full blast with the friction of war. Ok, so Japan can't really increase significantly her industrial production, just distribute it differently (more or less of different types of planes, switch between merchant & Warships, vechicles or armaments). So the roving eye of Japan looks to expand the conquest zone, to get the resources & oil needed to really make a stab at producing enought to survive the American onslaught. Here is where the trouble beings... Ignore Russa (more trouble than its worth). Far China, India, & Austrialia all could be potential conquests, if your dice are lucky. The problem is, while all three have lots of resource production, none of the three have significant oil production. And you need the Oil to match with the resouces to get your HI working. So attacking these places is a *BAD IDEA*, from a prodcution point of view, as you spend energy to do it, and get litterarly nothing in terms of production... The only area that looks even vaguely appealing is the north part of Far China, but it won't be easy and adds only 200 Oil ( = 1200 HI, not that much ). So, the scary part is that from a Production POV, it seems best to seize the DEI, Burma, and easy targets in China, and then dig in to defend them... Only problem is, this is what they did historically, and we all know how well that worked!!! But I can see what Japan did, why they did it, and I can't see any alternative to what they did..... Help!!! Any ideas?? Spectra (Japanese Production Fanboy = Enjoys blows to head with large blocks of wood)
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