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LP Index So at this point I assume you all know how this goes. Anyone who doesn’t feel free to ask, but Grey has done such a good job LPing this game over the years I think most of you are familiar with the basic mechanics of the game. So what’s different about this LP? Well first and foremost it is a pvp LP, between our very own Alikchi and me (no poo poo). We have been plotting this for over 18 months now, and it almost came to fruition a couple of months ago, only it turns out we are both deeply, almost offensively stupid people and know very little about how this game we are playing works. So far so predictable you might say. Ahh, but you see we have been designing and implementing (well Alikchi has while I bombard him with stupid ideas on discord, the majority of which he has been foolish enough to adopt) a mod. Neither of us find the vanilla experience fresh anymore, but we were agreed that mods like Reluctant Admiral tend to go too far, and/or not buff the Allies enough in compensation for Japan's new toys. But surely we could do better! And so far from what we have played, we do indeed seem to have done better. Except for a little hiccup with reducing the complexity of Japanese R&D which as stated set us back a little, and resulted in us missing the Dec 7th deadline. Originally I wasn’t aiming for that particularly, thinking I would accumulate a year of posts as a good buffer and launch the LP on the 80th anniversary, but we are playing so fast and I am having so much fun that I’m going to  At the current rate of going we should be caught up to the right date in around 2-3 weeks, and after that can proceed day by day. But didn’t you have an LP before and promptly abandon it? Yes.  However! Previously I have tried to do retrospective LPs for a number of reasons, and that hasn’t worked for me. I made an attempt at doing an SS lp that I don’t think I even posted because I felt it was taking me too long, and then I tried a video LP that I abandoned because I felt no one was watching. Which, to be fair I wouldn’t watch a video WitP LP either. This time however I am playing and writing up 2+ turns a day while having a blast, so as long as Alikchi keeps sending me saves I will keep posting days. Here is a giant map of the whole game, if anyone finds it helpful to place actions in the greater context. SO, as Grey would say, without further adieu:  The Strike We are going for a conventional Pearl attack. A follow up strike may or may not be ordered, we will wait and see how the first goes and judge the potential of the Enemy to put up an effective cap on day 2.  With this in mind all fighters in the Kido Butai are ordered to strike the airfields. The default orders are for the Zeros to strafe at 100 feet, however even with the turn 1 handicap this almost always results in them taking heavy casualties and not achieving much. Instead they will bomb from 10,000 feet where they may or may not achieve much but at least they shouldn’t die too plentifully.  All of the Vals are ordered to strike the ships in port. I don’t see the point of attacking the airfield with bombs that could be dropped on ships.  Yes Kaga has Mabels still, I’m not quite sure how that happened because I don’t think it’s in vanilla but thankfully everyone else has Kates, and for this particular purpose it probably doesn’t make much difference anyway. All torpedoes are of course aimed for battleship row. A few will probably end up hitting stray PT boats instead but what can you do.  Meanwhile Tone & Chikuma are ordered to send their floatplanes in at dawn to determine targets. This is a risky move but the decadent westernist dogs will surely be asleep at their stations. So why am I going so heavy on the fields whilst only using half my strike planes on the critical battleships? Quite simple, said critical battleships tend to bounce 250kg bombs like they were pebbles, and whilst the systems & fire damage can add up most of the Vals bombs will end up being wasted. Meanwhile by hitting the airfield hard we are setting up for a day 2 strike on the port with little opposition, and at that point everyone is dropping bombs, as the torpedoes on port strike is a special hardcoded rule for turn 1 and not otherwise possible. It is also noticeable that the USN is critically short of Catalinas for most of the war really, and there’s a few dozen on easy offer here, as well as some nearly irreplaceable B17s. Gouging out your opponent’s eyes is always a pro tactic, imho. The other strikes At the major base of Takao in western Formosa amidst much secrecy: a sentai of the latest and heaviest bomber in service has arrived to ensure the initial hammer falls as hard as possible.  Tomorrow 54 of these beauties will be delivering 3 tons of bombs each on the submarines anchored pier side at Cavite naval base, joined by large numbers of the older but probably more practical Bettys & Nells, as well as a token presence from the IJAAF.  In total over 200 strike craft are lined up with the armourers at frantic work in their bellies.  And their accompanying escorts. The Nates will have to wait until we have seized a forward base to see action.  A daring paradrop at extreme range is ordered on the Philippine port of Naga. This is done to clear the road for an assault coming up from Legaspi, normally when you attack even an undefended base you need to wait one turn for it to flip before you can move on. Using paratroopers like this to open up a road is therefore a big time saver in areas of the map that are dense with bases. With rumors of a RN carrier being seen in Singapore it is decided that the navy planes ear marked for keeping the RN honest off Malaya will instead be used to form the main strike against Clark Field, the critical lynch point of the defence of the Philippines.  Here we must hope to achieve 2 things, to destroy as many fighters on the ground as possible and to suppress the airfield such that the engineers have no time after repairs to fortify against a ground assault.  With the IJNAF focusing exclusively on the Philippines it is up to the army to lead the air offensive over Malaya, with strikes lined up for George Town & Alor Star.  As well as providing at extreme range cover for a landing force at Kuantan. Securing Kuantan will net us a decent airfield in range of Singapore with which to begin grinding down the RAF and enabling our advance down the Malayan peninsula, as well as being a good place from which to cover a potential future landing at Mersing.  In Canton a mishmash of mostly obsolete types has been assembled to hit the shipping docked in Victoria Harbour. The Surface Navy  A destroyer sentai is sent to blockade Hong Kong to catch any Allied shipping attempting to flee.    Heavy bombardments are ordered on costal airstrips, the aim here is twofold, to clear landing sites at Kuantan & Kota Bharu whilst grounding as many planes as possible where they cannot be evacuated before the airfields are overrun. Iba is simply a target of opportunity to destroy as many planes as possible, the main landings will be happening next door at Lingayen. The Invasions With a heavy RN presence at Singapore, the first phase of the invasion of Malaya will simply seek to seize forward air bases whilst waiting for the bulk of the invasion forces to arrive overland through Siam.  Kota Bharu  Patani  And Kuantan In the Philippines the main goal of the invasion will be to drive straight inland and capture the critical Clark Field. It is important this happens before the defenders can dig in, as the mountainous jungle offers a heavy defensive advantage. Once Clark falls Manilla & Bataan will be easy.  Therefore we are landing at Lingayen, rather than further north.  Although we will be seizing the believed to be undefended field at Vigan, in order to forward deploy our short ranged aircraft.  In the Pacific an invasion force for Wake is ordered to depart Kwajalein atoll, escorted by the venerable but thoroughly modernised Settsu. They will lurk far to the west of Wake until the carriers returning from Pearl are in a position to cover them.  A small force of elite SNLF are on their way to Kavieng, meanwhile a larger invasion of SNLF from Kwajalein and support troops from Truk is being assembled for Rabaul.  Modernised Ise & Hyuga should prove more than a match for anything the Australians could conceivably scramble into the area on such a short notice. Submarines  Submarines are set to patrol south and east of Wake in anticipation of a response to our landings.  All possible approaches to Pearl are covered, distantly where possible. To the west and south however I want to be closer in to catch carriers returning by weird routes, whilst between Pearl and the USA routes are hopefully more predictable and thus mid transit intercepts might be possible, far from any help. Other lower priority patrol zones are around Fiji, the eastern approaches to the Solomons and the coast of New South Wales.  Our older subs are being used to sneak mines into critical choke points in the Southern Resource Area, the islands off Singapore, Bataan and the Sunda strait between Java & Sumatra.  I-164 is volunteered to patrol the approach to Soerabaja from points north, but most of our subs are sent to patrol in the deeper waters north of Sumatra and in the Celebes Sea, where they will be much safer from depth charges. And that’s it folks! Strap in, cross your fingers and hope your favourite ship doesn’t blow up just yet, because this is going to get bloody :gettin: Although posting this from the future I will be avoiding all spoilers except to say tht it would appear neither Alikchi nor I are interested in avoiding fights. Expect shocking rates of losses for both sides for the foreseeable future. Alikchi is also doing some kind of LP on twitter: https://twitter.com/alikchi_/status/1337658535296036866 Speaking of which, as per tradition, lucky ships! Here. Sheet is free edit so take your picks, feel free to have one each side if you want. And feel free to update fate & kills, I will try my best but might well miss things. If you want a mod ship, then, um I don’t think we have a list anywhere so feel free to change as they appear. Off the top of my head cool ships: Allies: New Zealand: Tiger class BC Australia: Lion class BC Constellation: Constellation class BC Constitution: Constellation class BC (or maybe the other way round) Caledonia: N3 Battlecruiser/ship Invincible: “ “ Hood: Admiral class BC Lion: Lion class Battleship Temeraire: “ “” Malta: Malta Class Fleet carrier Africa: “ “ Gibraltar: “ “ Montana: Montana Class Battleship Ohio: “ “ New Hampshire: “ “ Louisiana: “ “ Lyon: Lyon class BB (< Pro as hell pick) Kortenaer: Dutch Dunkerque class BC Canada: Canada class BB Vanguard: Vanguard class BB (not spoiling what makes her special, wait and see) Hamilton: Hamilton class flight deck BC Scourge: “ “ Conqueror: An abomination in the eyes of man & god Algérie: Algérie class CA South Carolina: South Carolina (modernised) Japan: Amagi: Amagi class BC Atago: “ “ Inaba: Inaba class BB Harima: “ “ Settsu: Kawachi class (modernised) Tango: Tango class BC Owari: “ “ Shinano: Yamato++ class BB Kuruho: Zuiho class CVL Hiho: “ “ Tairyu: Tairyu class CV Donryu: “ “ Chuho: Taiho class CV Put it like that and I look rather hosed. However only really the RN & French/Dutch stuff is additions, the US lineup is just much more battleship focused than reality, losing several Essexs to build them, whereas most of my stuff is additions, plus maybe almost enough extra HI & oil to build them. Hopefully. I desperately want to see Shinano throw down with a couple of Montanas. Pharnakes fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Dec 23, 2020 |
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Dec 19, 2020 23:26
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I am very excited for this
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Dec 19, 2020 23:41
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Two WiTP LPs at once! We're spoiled. Good luck to the both of you!
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Dec 19, 2020 23:55
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Plans for the Tokai to show up in the skies above the seas of Japan?
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Dec 20, 2020 00:50
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Plans for the Tokai to show up in the skies above the seas of Japan? The problem is that the way the game models aircraft stats, it sucks. The number one most important stat for an effective ASW platform is range, since the game cuts range in half for ASW patrol missions. Low speed long endurance planes that are excellent for the task in real life therefore get butchered because they don't have a high absolute range. See also the USN blimps that are essentially pointless in game despite being quite effective in real life. Pharnakes fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Dec 23, 2020 |
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Dec 20, 2020 01:50
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Pharnakes posted:The problem is that the way the game models aircraft stats, it sucks. The number one most important stat for an effective ASW platform is range, since the game cuts range in half for ASW patrol missions. Low speed long endurance planes that are excellent for the task in real life therefore get butchered because they don't have a high absolute range. See also the USN blimps that are essentially pointless in game despite being quite effective in real life. Sounds like you need to double their Range 
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Dec 20, 2020 02:41
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Ground floor
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Dec 20, 2020 05:32
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  The midget submarines are launched, but none succeed in penetrating the harbour. Oh well.  Here we go boys.     Nothing outright sunk but a good spread of damage across most of the battleships. Hopefully we can push a few under tomorrow. The Zeros on the other hand have truly excelled themselves, consistently hitting targets with their 60kg bombs even from 10,000ft.  We sweep over GeorgeTown, and find, Floatfires?? Very weird.  The handful of Mohawks fling over Manila are easily pushed aside.  At the critical Clark Airfield, lynchpin of the defence of the Philippines there is but a single allied aircraft aloft.    Fifty four G5N2 “liz” in flawless formation sail in with clear skies and flatten the area. Again we don’t get many outright sunk ships but a lot of these subs should be too damage to leave port, and thus stuck here to be bombed at our leisure.  Planes from Ryujo bomb the field at Cagayan and destroy a B-17, although a sharp eyed gunner manages to down a Zero.  We heavily strafe GeorgeTown to good effect. “AV Gannet”, presumably this is where the Floatfires live. This is a mod addition, thankfully Floatfires don’t seem very dangerous.  Some light army bombers have a go at Clark but don’t achieve anything of significance.   A kitchen sink of assorted obsolete airplanes attacks the shipping anchored in Victoria Harbour, and gets solid results.  Poor Penguin, she never lasts more than a day or two.  Another of these AVs! And more Floatfires.  Betties sink a bunch of HDMLs at Rangoon, but also hit some more important stuff.  Our Nells bomb Wake Island and achieve a favourable exchange.  By the afternoon the Americans have woken up enough to put some CAP over Clark. They mostly get shot down for no losses though.  A similar story over GeorgeTown.  Some beauforts are scrambled into a desperate attempt to disrupt our landings at Kota Bharu, but no hits are scored.  Wave after wave trickles in, but fair no better. Although one escort does manage to down an Oscar.  The Amagis thoroughly flatten Iba.  As the Kongos do at Kota Bharu.  We even have a go at Midway, but don’t manage to hit any of the Catalinas sadly.  We are landing at Kota Bharu  Cagayan  Kuantan  Vigan  And Miri.  The SNLF land at Naga, and, finding no resistance, chase the shipping out the harbour and make preparations for a temporary forward base.  OK well that went pretty decent on the whole.   More losses in the air than I would like, but we hammered them. 16 Catalinas, that’s a fantastic haul.  Nothing to see here yet.  Not many orders to enter really, just a little tweaking. Day one went very well, so the KB is ordered into position for day two strikes. Hopefully nobody will suspect that we will steam directly towards America, just incase they feel like making a sally.  With the successful Rangoon strike and reports of a much larger ship than expected in the harbour at Port Blair, the Bangkok planes are retasked to try and sink it. First the Zeros will sweep then Sallys will go in again with Oscars for cover. Meanwhile the Betties are ready if there are any reports of her making for the open sea, if there aren’t they will try an afternoon attack on the port.  At Roi Namur the Nells are put on naval strike, now that the marines on Wake are alert the unescorted Nells would just be feeding the yankees free aces.  Where we have landed in good order (i.e. everywhere  ) the troops are ordered to storm inland with shock attacks. Hopefully at Kota Bharu we will capture some RAF planes on the ground to damaged to escape, unfortunately something went wrong with the schedule issued to the cruisers due to bombard Kuantan and they are still at sea. At least the bombardment orders can now be canceled and we will inherit the airfield in perfect condition since we have more than enough troops to win here without needing naval support. Troops waiting in IndoChina are ordered on to the railway to travel through Siam and down to Malaya. No, don't ask me why this wasn’t done yesterday.  With the imminent fall of Kuantan the 22nd Air Flotilla is ordered aboard a hastily assembled… flotilla. From Kuantan Betties will be able to shut down all traffic around Singapore while fighters can begin eroding the defenders.  The spent battleships are to return to Cam Ranh to rearm in the large naval base there (Thanks France!).  After the heroic assault at Naga, it is decided to capitalise by using more transports to bring up the whole of the 3rd SNLF, and also a company of aviation engineers. From here we can then drop paratroopers on the known seaplane bases at Davao & Puerto Princesa, and then have either reinforced the airfield or left long before the Philippine army can respond.  Meanwhile a second battalion of navy paratroopers are boarding a converted liner to be shipped to Chumphon, from where they will march to Victoria Point, and then be dropped on Port Blair, hopefully before it can be reinforced. The rather anemic results of the Philippines strikes presents a dilemma. We need to continue sinking submarines at Cavite, whilst also pounding Clark Field hard enough to prevent forts being built whilst also maintaining air superiority over both bases and providing coordinated escorts to paper thin bombers flying in from 2 totally different directions 1000 miles away from each other.   After much deliberation it is decided the heavy bombers will hit Clark field from maximum altitude unescorted. This is hopefully less risky than it sounds given the P40s feeble performance at altitude and the relatively heavy defensive armament the Liz carries. Hopefully. Meanwhile everyone else will continue pounding Manilla bay, with the Zeros focusing their escort efforts there.
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Dec 20, 2020 10:06
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Setting yourself up for the classic, Allied player has healthy enough battleships he sends them back to san fransico for repairs and they run into the sneaky kido butai in the middle of the night and suddenly japan has Aircraft carriers getting shot at by battleships.
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Dec 20, 2020 10:52
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Can you summarise the changes you've made to the base game, or is it something you're leaving as a surprise, to be shown off as we see them for the first time? Noted the new ships and bombers already.
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Dec 20, 2020 20:04
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There is a post on the way, awaiting Alikchi's additions and comments
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Dec 20, 2020 22:53
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I'm also curious at some point to hear your strategy as Japan on supply/industry/aircraft factory management.
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Dec 20, 2020 23:00
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  The landings proceed as planned with only minor casualties.  The shipping in Hong Kong is making a break for it.  To nobody’s great surprise they don’t make it.  It seems they have dispersed in the hopes of some slipping through. This doesn’t work, just imagine above screen x lots.  Sailing together doesn’t help either.  Even the PT boats are trying to escape to, somewhere. All they are going to do is run out of fuel in the middle of the SCS.  In the confusion the destroyers did manage to slip through apparently, but they get caught in the gulf of Lingayen before they can get up to mischief.   Force Z has sallied!  So far this is definitely going our way, but now they are through the screen and free to molest the convoys.  Daylight and an unlucky tanker stumbles into Ryujo’s escorts.  Houston emerges from the FoW to obliterate the Miri landing ships. The troops are all safely ashore but the loss of that AV in particular is painful.  At Pearl Zeros are sweeping the skies clear in advance of the strike. That is significant opposition though.  The elite pilots of the KB rip straight through the still disorganised defenders however.  The sky is far from clear as the main raid arrives but most opposition has already been removed.  Losses are taken all the same. The D3A in particular is just obsolete and horribly vulnerable to any attackers who make it through the escort.  Was this worth the losses? Probably. A day 3 strike however is not going to be viable. Hopefully at least Nevada & Pennsylvania have been doomed.  At Kuantan the RAF try their luck but are seen off by our long range CAP flying from southern IndoChina. The concern however is subsequent waves will simply run us out of ammo and the torpedo bombers can come in and wreak havoc. On the other hand every ship there is probably dead already as soon as Repulse turns up   Sure enough here come the swordfish and there simply aren’t enough bullets to shoot them all down despite the lack of escort.  It’s only a matter of time before they try for the cruisers, Mogami has a bad time of it. Somehow I forgot to screenshot this ingame so have a combat reporter report instead.  Planes from Ryujo hit a convoy trying to escape the Philippines.  Our destroyers returning from Midway have been found by an American carrier! Frantic dodging saves them and now we know where one carrier is.  Betties from Bangkok hit some shipping in the straits of Malacca.  Some plucky B17s try to bomb Takao but are driven off by some even pluckier Nates.  Ryujo has another go in the afternoon.  With good results.  At Kuantan the attack does not go as well as hoped. It will surely fall tomorrow but in the meantime there is no harbour to hide the convoys in.  Kota Bharu goes very well, though I could really have done with those results being swapped   Cagayan also has a less than brilliant result.  Miri at least is easily carried despite the loss of the ships.   So that could have been a lot worse. I really didn’t think he would dare send in Force Z as far as Kuantan even under dark, but thanks to some heroic long lance action the damage was limited. Starting to bully the Allies on the ground which is a nice source of VP early on.    A bloody day in the air allround, but any day we come out on top while running an offensive is a good one. Losses for the KB are really starting to mount though and it is time to retire, covering the Wake landings on the way home now we know there is a carrier sniffing around. At least a decent chunk of the losses are OP losses though where hopefully the pilots survive. Also noticeable is apparently 12 floatfires lost, somewhere??? If that AV at Port Blair burnt out from a single bomb hit I am a happy camper since that is the sort of thing that usually happens to us, not the allies. Overall our losses are manageable and we are doing a good job of degrading the USAAF, both in the Philippines and at Pearl. 10 P 50s is a result, those things are beasts.  Seriously, look at this fucker. And this isn’t even their final form.  All shipping at Kuantan is ordered to cease unloading and flee back to IndoChina.  Mikuma and Suzuaya are still fighting fit and will cover the withdrawal.   Mogmai & Kumano on the other hand are a bit banged up, but it shouldn’t be anything fatal, Kumao is half way home already even. All in all not bad for an encounter with 2 battleships and being torpedoed by 20 planes.  With the RN out to play every available sub in the area is scrambled at full speed to lurk outside Singapore. This is very dangerous in shallow waters with destroyers hardened from the battle of the Atlantic around, but it’s worth it for a potential hit on Ark Royal or a second torpedo in PoW.  Myoko & Haguro are split off from escorting Ruyjo to help things along a bit at Cagayan. With Houston known to be 500 miles away this should be safe enough.  With the carrier spotted near Wake the submarines are adjusted to patrol what is considered the likeliest approaches, while the destroyers take the longway home.  On the off chance the carrier wanders into the escort range of the Zero from Roi Namur planes are shuffled around the Marshalls to facilitate a strike. The insane transfer range of the Zero when fitted with drop tanks is a massive strategic asset for this kind of reactive situation, 24 Zeros flew in from Tinian over 1500 miles away. And only 5 of them crashed on landing.  The KB is ordered to adopt an anti carrier stance and steam due west at full speed to try and cut this spotted carrier off. By moving at full speed through the night we can hopefully disappear completely from US detection. Or maybe we will run smack into some battlecruisers I don’t know about from the mod in the dark  As some of you may have noticed the unescorted Liz raid didn't happen, this is probably why. I decide to stand the Liz down for now in light of their mediocre performance thus far, and tidy up all airgroups that aren’t actually directly useful, with priority going to keeping the offensive sweeps going.
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Dec 20, 2020 23:39
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Grumio posted:Can you summarise the changes you've made to the base game, or is it something you're leaving as a surprise, to be shown off as we see them for the first time? Noted the new ships and bombers already. I'm presuming the absence of any China commentary at all implies that's a handshake quiet theatre.
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Dec 21, 2020 01:02
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Looks fun so far! The alternate ship lists are interesting. I’ve claimed Lyon as a lucky ship—does it give anything away if you hint at when she might appear?
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Dec 21, 2020 11:26
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Pirate Radar posted:Looks fun so far! The alternate ship lists are interesting. I’ve claimed Lyon as a lucky ship—does it give anything away if you hint at when she might appear? pthighs posted:I'm also curious at some point to hear your strategy as Japan on supply/industry/aircraft factory management. Alchenar posted:I'm presuming the absence of any China commentary at all implies that's a handshake quiet theatre. This will all be addressed when Alikchi signs off on the post about our mod.
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Dec 21, 2020 13:57
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Scenario 27: a brief and intentionally vague alt-historical timeline Early 1918: WWI ends just a little bit early, leaving the belligerents in a slightly better financial position. 1922: It’s still a pretty bad situation, so the Washington Naval Treaty happens, halting most capital ship construction around the world and setting limits on naval armaments. Some ships already under construction, though, are kept, particularly the major powers’ battlecruisers: *The UK gets to complete two of their G3s as Invincible and Caledonia. Additionally, Australia, Canada and New Zealand are allotted one older (ex-Royal Navy) capital ship apiece. [Nelson and Rodney don’t exist.] *The US gets to complete two of their Lexington-class battlecruisers,commissioned as Constellation and Constitution. Lex & Saratoga are converted to carriers as usual. *Japan gets to complete two of its Amagi-class BCs: Amagi and Atago. Akagi & Kaga converted to carriers as usual. *Italy completes two Francesco Caracciolo-class battleships and France commissions two Lyon-class battleships. 1931-37: The treaty system begins to break down with Japan’s announcement of the beginning of work on Inaba and Harima, two modern fast battleships with 41cm guns. The US responds with a pair of 16”-gunned hybrid battlecarriers, Hamilton and Scourge, that quickly become the USN’s great white elephants. The UK somehow convinces the US to go back to 14” guns for its next battleship line, the North Carolinas (matching the RN’s King George V class), in a bid for moral superiority over the Japanese. This is shortly abandoned in favor of firepower superiority (in the form of the wartime South Dakota & Lion classes). 1938-39: A string of unexpected Japanese victories in central China leads to a group of Chiang Kai-Shek’s generals assassinating him, then immediately collapsing into infighting. Though there is no formal surrender, and rump Nationalist, Communist, and various warlord factions persist, Japan declares victory, and fighting, though brutal, is sporadic and low-intensity. Japan still has to expend significant resources garrisoning China, but its puppet government is shouldering some of the burden. Meanwhile, Japanese engineers discover a major oil field in Manchuria. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daqing_Oil_Field ] Also in the late 30s, the Dutch government reaches a deal with France to build two Dunkerque-class battlecruisers. One, the Kortenaer, is in the East Indies on 12/7/41. There is a commensurate investment in defence generally - a few more subs and destroyers, a pair of extra cruisers, more and better Fokkers instead of Buffalos. 1940-41: Bismarck is badly damaged by Hood and Caledonia in the Denmark Strait before Swordfish from Ark Royal finish her off a few days later. Hood, also roughly handled, goes in for an extensive reconstruction. Ark Royal joins Prince of Wales and Repulse as Force Z. Ok, so what were Alikchi and I trying to do with this mod? Well it started over 18 months ago when we agreed to play a game. Alikchi had at the time “an almost complete” mod that just “needed a little tweaking” to play it. Then about a year later we actually started (well Alikchi did) implementing said tweaks. So what we wanted to do was add a bunch of cool stuff for the Allies, and compensate the Japanese appropriately. Most mods do this by giving Japan more sledge hammers in the form of carriers and battleships, which tends to result in Japan’s historical advantage in the opening months just snowballing into total dominance before the Allied toys can even show up. So instead we have tried to make Japan more competitive through a diverse selection of screw drivers. Japan receives a handful of battleships and carriers, but more importantly we get CVEs, DDs, more and better CLs, floatplane tenders of all kinds, extra tankers, oilers, a broad assortment of “soft” power, which in total adds up to a significant buff to Japan without just letting me blob 15 carriers around the map in 1943. We also wanted to fix, as best we could, various perceived flaws with the game itself. Neither of us enjoy manual pilot training so we set all pilots to spawn with 65xp (the allies don’t get this until 42 so I will still enjoy a significant pilot advantage early on). The other big one is the clusterfuck that is managing Japanese production. We had two aims here: simplify production of aircraft and simplify research. For the former we genericised Japanese engines into “early” and “late” models. This means there is still a decision for me to make about when and even if I go all in on late war planes and abandon all the old factories, without having to juggle a dozen different engine types. A knock on effect of this is to screw with R&D, since as Japan if you have stockpiled 500 of an engine for every 3 months you do so every plane to use said engine has its arrival time moved forward by a month. To address this we just stripped the R&D system out entirely, thereby also achieving goal #2. Now obviously this is a massive nerf to Japan, so instead every plane was moved forward from vanilla dates by one month per year, starting in ‘42. So every plane that arrives in ‘42 arrives one month earlier, in ‘43 two, ect. On top of this I was allowed to pick planes to receive double this bonus, 2 in ‘42, 3 in ‘43, ect. This effect was also agreed to propagate down the development lines, so by picking the A6M3 to receive an extra month in ‘42, every subsequent Zero is also moved forward and extra month. I picked the following planes to focus on:  I sincerely hope this will give me a balanced mix of the best in every category. Finally we dislike land combat, since it sucks. So we decided the invasion of China never bogged down and a total victory was achieved in mid ‘38. All of the north, south and central plains are occupied with the rest of China being an anarchic hellhole not even the IJA leadership is mad enough to go near. This also provides partial justification for the extra capacity of Japan’s war industry. Japan’s puppet Chinese government is slightly stronger as well, freeing up IJA forces for other operations. Now I want to avoid spoilers to mod additions until it would be reasonable for members of Japanese high command to be familiar with their particulars. So I will post the stats of Allied equipment as we encounter it, especially if people ask for details of specific models. As to our line up, a lot of what we are building remains top secret and will do so until deployment or even afterwards, however for ships that are already in service:  Of the venerable Kawachi class; Settsu. FItted with modern 31cm guns in her centerline and forward wing turrets, and otherwise fitted to carry as many 12.7cm guns as the designers could fit on her, as well as a modern powerplant and deck armour. An all round excellent invasion support ship,we will get a lot of use out of her I hope.  Ise & Hyuga, modernised into fast battleships by the removal of the two amidships turrets, allowing much larger engines to be fitted.  Inaba & Harima, laid down 1930. A highly, possibly overly optimised design featuring 41cm guns and a truly modern DP battery without surface only secondary guns. Compromising by not being a true fast battleship at 26kts and a little light on the belt. Boasts impressive range however. These are the [url=https://frm-wows-eu.wgcdn.co/wows_forum_eu/monthly_2018_02/E492D995-DCC7-4DCB-8C6A-947126B97D6F.png.253d9b26c031336097d35d51b1e0f88c.png / https://www.deviantart.com/tzoli/art/Final-Kongo-Replacement-35K-Design-X-809674819Hiraga “Design X”[/url] of 1930:  Amagi & Atago. Built under the 8-8 Naval bill that also produced the converted carriers Akagi and Kaga. A more cautious design using the proven 40cm gun in typical Japanese 5 double turrets, and a conventional split purpose secondary battery. Still, at 30kts and with a main belt only 20mm lighter than the Inabas these are our best CV escorts. 1000lb SAPs are likely to pose a threat to a 95mm deck however. Finally, as she will be shortly joining us we can at last reveal the drawings of the great hope of our Nation: Yamato.  Projected to be in service by the end of March, we have a true, modern fast battleship. At 28kts she can match in speed the latest being built by the British and Americans, whilst having either more or bigger guns, and unlike our rivals she does so without compromise, being a truly balanced design. She also benefits from a COSAD power plant, giving her impressive range and, more importantly, fuel efficiency for a ship her size. With the speed to keep up with carriers, then range to cross the Pacific and back on a reasonable amount of fuel and the power to defeat any ship afloat or building with a comfortable margin she and her sister will be at the forefront of our victory. No rusting in Truk for this lady. Basically like this A-140I design but with 41cm guns. Allied ships.  Invincible & Caledonia. G3 class “battlecruisers” (though they are really the first fast battleships). These two ladies are legitimately loving terrifying. Our attempts to answer them by building the Amagis were not successful. Only possible weakness is their split secondary battery, but they compensate for that by being smothered in medium and light AA. Do not want to meet. Currently blockading Tirpitz. No wonder Bismark got her poo poo pushed in.  OK on paper but we all know what is likely to happen to her. Unlike her successors above, still definitely a BC, just a BC with a thick belt. Believed to be undergoing repairs & probable modernisation after heavy damage in the Battle of Denmark Straits.  Speaking of battlecruiser; a great ship for Jutland, nothing to get excited about now. Most famous for landing the fatal blow on Graf Spee off Montevideo, received a more recent reconstruction than Australia. Active in Pacific.  The most beautiful dreadnought ever, according to some. She is certainly very pretty but despite being more capable than New Zealand is not a major concern. Last reported in the Mediterranean, lobbing shells at Italian heavy cruisers. Current whereabouts unknown.  Canada definitely got the short end of the ANZAC stick. Presumably somewhere near Vancouver but honestly who gives a poo poo.  Present at Singapore and a major threat to our invasion of Malaya. Thankfully relies on biplanes for her strike and half her fighters are the atrocious Fulmar while the other half are the very short ranged Sea Hurricane. Still a major threat.  Constellation & Constitution. 43,000tons. 57mm deck.  Not seen at Pearl, presumed operating with USN CVs. Hamilton & Scourge. Stop USN. My sides can’t take it. Notable for being the only “CV” to carry more torpedoes than planes. (last reported to be ~15 F2F Buffalo and ~10 SB2U-3 Vindicator (Vindicators can’t use torpedoes)). Presumably the crew are intended to push them over the side manually once she has maneuvered within aerial torpedo range of a target. Based out of Norfolk yards, Virginia.  We modernised Settsu so of course they had to modernise something. Somehow forgot to make her good in the process. Normally employed on training cruises, Gulf of Mexico.  Dunkerque class built for the Dutch. Solid battlecruiser, if a little slow. Nasty DP battery. Presumed around Java, likely to be rendezvousing with Force Z.  Has twenty guns. The French apparently interpreted “all big guns” to mean “all the big guns”. Otherwise unremarkable, RIP her if she meets a modern battleship. On the other hand, RIP any cruiser who lets her get in gun range. Known to have defected to the Free French, whereabouts unknown.
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Dec 21, 2020 19:34
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  There is some sub action off the coast of Luzon but Mk 14 torpedoes and Japanese depth charges ensures nothing much happens.  The MTBs from Hong Kong have somehow managed to make it out into the middle of the south china sea without running out of fuel, and they score a couple of nasty hits.  Harima bullies some Dutch auxiliaries near Tarakan.  One of our destroyer groups manages to make contact with the RN destroyers hanging out in the gulf of Lingayen and thoroughly screwing up our invasion schedule. Seriously, we should be ashore by now but all the invasion fleets turned back again because of these 3 fuckers.  No damage is inflicted though, hopefully we get another shot later tonight or tomorrow in daylight.  At Patani a Dutch sub is over confident and maybe actually takes some significant damage? Have I mentioned shallow water is death for submarines.  Myoko & Haguro sent to support the Cagayan invasion decide it would be more fun to do a war crime instead and bombard the city. They do at least manage to hit the hospital and kill a few orderlies.  Kota Bharu and a Dutch captain presses in to more effect. At least it was the escort and not that shiny xAP.  Speaking of xAPs Inaba catches a couple of juicy ones trying to sneak through the Celebes Sea.  KXI comes in again but thankfully misses this time. These large xAKs are precious.  What is he thinking??? The carrier is by herself and within strike range of the Marshalls. Only 4 Nells in this wave but watch this space.  Only 3 make it through the cap…  And unsurprisingly achieve nothing. But the road is clear now. Also a potential second carrier is spotted east and south of the first.  The game decides this would be a good time to resolve the Manila raid. Bloody in the air for both sides but little damage done to the submarines.  As per SOP the sweep arrives after the main raid to score some easy kills. Sweeping up the remains, that’s what it means right?   Confirmed! A second carrier is in the area and raiding Maloelap.  Happily there’s nothing much for them to hit there and we down a couple of dauntlesses for their trouble.  Afternoon, and we are at it again in the Marshalls. I would really appreciate it if they bought more Nells but at least there’s not much cap left   A big fat nothing so far.  At George Town some betties at least score a hit on something.  The landings begin at Lingayen. Sadly this means there will be no more air raids today and Lexington gets off scot free.  Today Kuantan falls easily. A day later than I had hoped but we still catch a few planes too damaged to fly away, and now we have an airstrip in comfortable range of Singapore we can start to turn the heat up.  The invasion of Cagayan on the other hand has definitively failed. We are going to need to bring in reinforcements.  An ill conceived attempt at lingayen to drive us back with artillery backfires badly on the poorly trained Philippine army. Also they are horribly outnumbered of course.   Shame about the carriers but maybe we can catch them in a pincer movement with the KB now.  Not too bad, one of those submarines might even be genuine.    Not so great in the air. loving up the raid schedule over Manila is really painful for us. So, first step. How do we catch these carriers. Unfortunately a quick check reveals the KB still has 10/10 detection so no sneaking up on them. I have 2 choices basically, either charge at them to drive them off the Marshalls, or else ignore them and take Wake while they are distracted. Whatever the KB does is going to have to be done at normal speed sadly, they just don’t have the fuel for another sprint.   In the end I decide to go for a hybrid. The invasion force will turn towards Wake where they should be spotted tomorrow and put some pressure on his decision making, while the KB will continue to steam west at best speed. On the whole I suspect he is moving in to raid Kwajalein, where there are some very valuable auxiliaries parked. After that he probably intends to swing north and chase anything I have sniffing around Wake off, albeit he might not choose to do that when he can see my carriers south of Wake if much to far east currently.  If I was him I would be aiming for around here, but I would also be keeping my carriers in mutual support range. I’ve never played a game against Alikchi yet, so I’m not really in his head yet, which makes me nervous.  On the basis that whatever else he might want to do, he surely wants to sink my precious, precious oilers and submarine tenders the contents of Kwajalein lagoon are ordered to steam 100 miles north west and hide at Ebadon for now.  I consider emptying the field at Roi Namur back to Truk, but decide instead to just take the bombers out and put up the best cap I can manage to hopefully degrade his CAGs as much as possible. And that’s all we can do really but sit back and pucker up. Well and hope he gets over confident and the KB can catch him somehow. For that to have any chance though we will need to be hidden from his search for at least 2 turns.  Now that we have Kuantan and its airfield intact, a CAP is set up, while sweeps and recon flights over Singapore can begin.  With plenty of troops ashore we are going to shock attack. Soon we will be overrunning Clark Field!  I stand down all bombers at Takao while ordering all fighters to sweep Manila. Tomorrow we will switch to a maximum effort raid on Clark for hopefully the last time to prevent any forts from being built.
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Dec 21, 2020 23:51
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No sign of Force Z that day?
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Dec 22, 2020 06:00
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I was going to take the Shokaku as my lucky ship but then I remembered the Boise exists (or at least existed IRL? Maybe Pharnakes can let me know if it's still deployed in-game in the Philippines in this mod). Live fast die young.
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Dec 22, 2020 09:39
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Following with interest
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Dec 22, 2020 09:48
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Pirate Radar posted:No sign of Force Z that day? PoW taking a torpedo seems to have curbed their enthusiasm for now. sum posted:I was going to take the Shokaku as my lucky ship but then I remembered the Boise exists (or at least existed IRL? Maybe Pharnakes can let me know if it's still deployed in-game in the Philippines in this mod). Live fast die young. Boise has her historical start, yes. We've heard from Houston but what Boise is up to we don't know. Pharnakes fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Dec 22, 2020 |
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Dec 22, 2020 10:07
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  The shore batteries at Lingayen shell a couple of light freighters before being suppressed. Few casualties are suffered though.  This is mildly annoying, his torpedoes aren’t supposed to work damnit. Maybe it means he’s used all his mark 14 luck for this turn up on a pretty small target though.  Adelaide is very rude to the Kaiveng landing force, but that was always a side show. We know where the US carriers are so there can’t possibly be anything at Rabaul that could oppose Ise & Hyuga.  And what do we have here? Harima has found the Kortenaer, in the Makassar strait.  Nothing much happens though, in this bout at least. I am now starting to get nervous Ark Royal might be in the area, which would be Bad.  These dutch subs are really loving annoying.  Extremely loving annoying. Fortunately I think this turn everything should be unloaded and we can stop hanging our merchant dick out in obvious places. I might look into mine fields as well.  Haruna & Kongo move in to decisively shut up the batteries at Lingayen.  Oh yes oh yes, oh gently caress YES.  Our hard work on turn one setting all those subs to mid ocean patrols is paying off.  The Lexingtons are tough ladies unfortunately, but hopefully it will keep her in port for a month or so at least. And now we know where she is, it’s wolfpack time :gettin: https://lpix.org/3905957/ad2.gif Adelaide comes back to finish the job. No matter what I try I cannot get this image to embed, sorry.  I-154 surfaces to shell a tramp freighter. A bold move 20 miles outside Singapore.  Then I-155 turns up to snipe the kill. Nam Yong is really not having a good day.  Marry me I-26   Now this is what we like to see. Fuel storage explosion and 1000 miles from a port. Also I’ve just now noticed, no escort???   What was I saying about wolfpacks?  That pretty much settles it. Anything after this is just squabbling over who can claim the kill. And we have sinking noises!  Some Kittyhawks sweep over Pattani.  And we sweep Rangoon to rather brutal effect.  Oh please please please. Two carriers in one day would just be perfect. A little light on the escort but that’s a decent chunk of Nells.  38 Nells are through the cap but it turns out it’s actually Repulse.  But we’ll take it!  Oh yes that will do us just nicely thank you. You were asking what Force Z was up to?   The betties go after some more cargo ships at George Town to good effect.  The dutch make some half assed attempt to bomb Harima. With the Seacanes reported at Singapore I am now more relaxed about Harima’s forward position. Shame she didn’t manage to bring Kortenaer to a decisive daylight action but oh well, she is now free to head home under cover from Ruyjo.  This could have been bad, I’d forgotten I’d set Ruyjo’s Zeros to join in the merchant carnage. Those SAP bombs would hurt on a poor little CVL.  Three little Wirraways wander into the turbo CAP at Kuantan.  The smallest violin.  In a minor setback the Nells decide to suicide into the CAP above Repulse’s escort.  In compensation some Wildebeest try to raid Kota Bharu and are obliterated.  Seriously, stop it already!  We launch our assault at Hong Kong and make good progress for the first day.   Lingayen is of course a forgone conclusion.  We have a solid first day at Guam as well.  They try a counter attack at Cagayan, but somehow we hold on despite our troop’s exhaustion.  And at Davao we run into some unexpected defenders.   Look at that VP jump.  Ok now the game is being very weird. Not a good day to be on board TM-10 though.  Lets try it this way then. “Lexington”. “Unkown device” Repulse doesn’t show in the list at all, I think she is muddled up with PoW which intel is still insisting was sunk by that one torpedo two days ago.     Nicely ahead here despite the great Nell slaughter, and nice confirmation that Saratoga really is gone. Still, 25 Zeros and 34 Nells   Kumano has made it back to Saigon and is hauled down for some temporary repairs before heading for a drydock, which will probably be Hong Kong once we’ve captured it. The E you can see in the estuary is Mogami, so she will be in port and safe at nightfall.  At some point I-172 has taken a beating so she will be returning to Truk and the floating drydock there.   With the carriers running away to the south without a fight the tenders are returning to Kwajalein, meanwhile the Wake invasion is going ahead without support from the KB which is steaming straight for Truk and a resupply. Chasing his carriers is tempting but we are low on fuel, torpedoes & dive bombers. We can also see from how far the carriers moved that they must have done a full speed sprint, so they are probably heading for Pago Pago to refuel. Alternately they might be planing to hook round the Gilberts and come to defend Rabaul, but they are already too late for that, as you can see the invasion flotillas are only a couple days away from landing. I do kick them up to full speed though just to be on the safe side.  I spend the 1 political point to start rebuilding the naval guard unit drowned off Kavieng.  Myoko & Haguro are rearmed and heading out to hunt allied shipping fleeing Manila.  With the resistance encountered at Davao I move some Tinas to Babeldaob and have them start picking up the SNLF from Naga, which we are going to abandon for now. The SNLF will instead be used to drop on Ternate & Sorong.  With the troops all ashore at Patani, we will start marching down the road to George Town. It is not anticipated we will encounter much resistance as most troops will probably be being railed back to Singapore, leaving maybe some Malayan militia as roadblocks. Pharnakes fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Dec 22, 2020 |
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Dec 22, 2020 19:23
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Holy crap, congrats to the I-26.
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Dec 23, 2020 00:22
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Saints alive, that was brutal.
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Dec 23, 2020 01:51
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Goddamn, off to a good start 
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Dec 23, 2020 02:52
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Hell yes this is a good thread. In on the ground floor, and the I-26 is never going to have to buy drinks for themselves ever again.
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Dec 23, 2020 10:37
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I-26 wouldn’t be a bad pick for lucky ship, it seems.
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Dec 23, 2020 11:14
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I-26 can have a little Saratoga, as a treat
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Dec 23, 2020 12:53
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If anyone is thinking about following Alikchi's Twitter LP of this game I highly recommend it. Sometimes he remembers to add dates to updates so you can try and work out what's going on.
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Dec 23, 2020 13:06
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Alchenar posted:If anyone is thinking about following Alikchi's Twitter LP of this game I highly recommend it. I checked and it looks like he’s jumping ahead from here so I didn’t want to “spoil” myself on certain things. It’s worth following for those who don’t mind that though!
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Dec 23, 2020 13:25
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The Alikchi Twitter is like random radio intercepts and news flashes that you try to make sense of, its great.
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Dec 23, 2020 15:35
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Good work with Saratoga! It’s interesting to hear your views on the Reluctant Admiral and similar mods; there’s clearly a problem with trying to balance the enormous and untouchable US industry with giving Japan too much of an early lead. But my impression from the last game was that the P-60s and such were giving better than they got early, but I could be misremembering. It didn’t seem like Japan was unstoppable at all, at least. With that said, I’ve never gotten far enough into a game to know how much better Japanese plane research can get given enough factories, but it seems like your compromise is pretty limiting. I know I’ve seen people with Ki-84s in ‘44, for example. Do you get to save the required industry to make up for it?
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Dec 23, 2020 20:44
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It sounds like the major goals of the mod were to add cool fictional units, as well as simplify some game management on the Japanese side. What was the goal as far as power balance and difficulty? Was it to keep it the same as the base game, i.e. Japan can't win the war but can do better than historically?
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Dec 23, 2020 20:50
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Velius posted:Good work with Saratoga! It’s interesting to hear your views on the Reluctant Admiral and similar mods; there’s clearly a problem with trying to balance the enormous and untouchable US industry with giving Japan too much of an early lead. But my impression from the last game was that the P-60s and such were giving better than they got early, but I could be misremembering. It didn’t seem like Japan was unstoppable at all, at least. The Frank seems a weird example, since it is 4/44 in vanilla, with our rules I will receive it in January, had I chose it as one of my focus planes I could have had it in October 43! I did not do so because I'm a t34 kind of guy and consider that service rating is the king of all stats for airplanes. SR 3 is just not acceptable for a single engine fighter. Now I am giving up a some flexibility and the opportunity to surprise Alikchi, yes. But really I'm not concerned as there's really only a few viable research paths anyway, and all he needs to do is press "d" to see which planes are good, in the unlikely event he doesn't know already. What might effect balance much more is that with no R&D factories I am down several hundred of potential plane production that would normally convert over to production factories. I will now have to build all these factories the hard way, paying the HI and supply cost. On the other hand though my R&D program is now immune to all bombing damage. Although you could well argue that if that becomes relevant I've already lost. My view on RA is purely anecdotal, I've played I think 4 games with it as Japan and won everyone by Valentines by sinking 80% of active allied capital ships. Mind you I also played a game as Allies where I drove my opponent to quit before Christmas, so maybe I'm just toxic to play with pthighs posted:It sounds like the major goals of the mod were to add cool fictional units, as well as simplify some game management on the Japanese side. The goal is absolutely to add cool stuff, and make Japan more accessible. Balance wise we wanted Japan to have more of a chance, but for me to win will require some pretty major fuckups on his part. The proportionate balance is definitely skewed my way, but the Allies still get a lot more stuff than I do. Balance in witp is all guess work anyway, with a game this complex you'd have to play at least dozens of games through to '46 to be able to make informed decisions on balance, and nobody has time for that. And then of course you would need to test your tweaks... 
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Dec 23, 2020 21:45
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   We have a productive night hunting in the Philippines.  I-17 makes a nice kill. Not even the allies have a surplus of tankers.If I can kill ~20% of them it can have a significant effect on his ability to prosecute the war. I’m never going to shut it down of course but I can make fuel shortages in Australia a real thing.  I love how aggressive my submarine captains are being, firing torpedoes like there’s no tomorrow is how you get kills. Captains who just take a punt with 2 torpedoes are so frustrating. Incidentally it now appears that all shipping between the West Coast and Pearl is unescorted. This is going to be a wild week or so until he sorts this out. What the hell an experienced player like Alikchi is thinking doing this I really don’t know.  As expected there is a stiff CAP over Singapore. What is less expected is to lose 2 planes for no kills, normally the aggressor is favoured in these engagements. Ideally I would be using Zeros but I’ve already emptied the replacement pool so the IJAAF is going to have to start pulling its weight too.  At Manila the marine pilots show us how it’s done. Although it is also true that the British have some better planes available than the Americans, they are also saddled with the truly atrocious export version of the Buffalo.  A few stragglers find the skies empty. This is a promising result today, there can’t be many more fighters available in the Philippines.   A second wave at Singapore catches the RAF as they are landing to rearm and scores some nice kills.  Two Dutch bombers come at Ruyjo, but today we have CAP and they are both downed. Remember air reports tend to be ~50% of real for whatever weird reason.  Catalinas at Rabaul make a desperate effort to stave off the inevitable.  For some reason the RAF has been bombing rice paddies at Chiang Mai so I send some LRCAP from Bangkok to collect some easy kills.  Bombing with fighters from 11,000ft Let's hope he does it tomorrow and I can have some CAP waiting. Unless of course this is deliberate bait to get me to CAP up so then he can bring in some P50s and sweep… Zuiho is almost to Cam Ranh, some unescorted B10s try for her. Most turn back when they see the CAP but a couple come on and pay for it.  A flight of Zeros finds no opposition over Rangoon. I should probably swap these out with the older Oscars at Kuantan if there’s nothing for them to fight here.  The Dutch bombers conga line over to Ruyjo and get slaughtered two by two. Turns out having CAP over your carriers is pretty cool.  Afternoon and the Catalinas try again. This time one of them eats flak for their trouble.  The B10s decide that perhaps bombing transports is more fun than carriers. They still don’t hit poo poo of course.  After sinking some irrelevant Dutch auxiliaries in the morning Ryujo’s Mabels find a nice big British tanker for their afternoon tea and set her thoroughly on fire.  Steady progress at Hong Kong. Two more days, three at the outside should see them surrendering.  Guam falls. Japanese boots are on fully American soil for the first time, since the Philippines are “independent”.   Points creeping up across the board.  The two tankers aren’t showing up yet, and apparently Perch settled at her moorings in Subic bay today. Intel continues to insist it was Lexington not Saratoga that sank yesterday, and that they have no idea how it happened. What do these guys smoke.     A nice solid 2:1 in the air today. And for once the Zeros didn’t take the brunt of our losses. Rather quiet day but no disasters and some nice kills, I’ll take it.  The 22nd Air Flotilla has successfully braved submarines, bombers and whatever is left of Force Z to arrive at dusk off Kuantan. By tomorrow they will have unloaded and as the HQ already has torpedoes I can move Betties in today to fly torpedo strikes next turn, which should shut down all shipping in the western half of the SRA. Beating down the CAP over Singapore is now a critical issue, and I am going to draft in any Zero I can find to make it happen.   With this in mind I tweak my H6K squadrons a little to ensure that everywhere I expect allied shipping is thoroughly covered. I have so many more H6Ks in this than I do in vanilla and it’s kind of great. I can’t wait for the H8K and it’s absurd 25 range to become available. You can also see that we have some mines now in the Sunda Strait and that our tanks are roaring down the road from Patani.  Luzon and our “tanks”, if you can call them that, have arrived at Clark Field. I consider ordering them to attack but decide with the airwar swinging our way we can wait for the infantry and artillery. Recon also reports 4k men at Cabanatuan marching north. I’m not sure that’s really right but let’s hope so, the only hex in the Philippines that really matters is Clark with its 4x defence modifier. Crack that and it’s just mop up. I queue up one final maximum effort raid on Clark to knock fort progress back, and then after that it should be a moot point with us swarming whatever trenches they can dig overnight. I also move some Nates up to Vigan where they will fly CAP over Lingayen in case he exposes his airforce again, and if it was a trap then oh well it’s only Nates that need to be used up anyway.  I completely forgot about these things. Normally they are a liability due to their cost, but right now I know where all his carriers are and they are unspotted so I think I’ll send them to sniff around South West of Pearl in case there’s a convoy going for Sydney.  We start the game with 2 decent naval guard units set to land at Tarwa & Nauru. I didn't send them in because there's no opposition at either that justifies this kind of force, so I was planning to just drop paratroops since this mod gives me some at Kwajalein. THey have now been sent in transports to attack Rabaul though, but with his carriers here I can’t take these islands anyway, and I don't want to leave them at Jalauit incase he decides to move his carriers a little north on their, presumed, way to Rabaul. Instead I decide to punt them at Johnston & Midway. This is ridiculously aggressive but with his carriers all accounted for I don’t think he can actually stop me The Wake invasion was supposed to happen today, but for some reason they decided they’d rather not and set sail for home. The cowards are told to turn right back round and get on with it.  The KB is set to refuel at Kwaj instead of Truk in order to save time. Since this will almost certainly drain all the fuel there a small tanker convoy is assembled at Truk. Kwajalein is on a more or less straight line between the KB’s position & Rabaul, the current assumed destination of the American CVs. As you know the heavy escorts actually arrived at Rabaul today, despite, I could swear, being on orders to follow the invasion force which is still a day out. Either way we should have enough time to unload, have the battleships & convoy escape to the north west and then swing the KB in behind his carriers - I’m hoping he thinks I went/will go to Truk to refuel and that he thus has a day or two of safety to raid Rabaul. He knows there are BBs there now and the invasion flotilla, although still unspotted is a juicy target he can surely guess is nearby. This could end the war almost before it even starts, or it could end in 2 dead battleships and half a division drowned if it turns out he did have enough fuel in his carrier groups for a sprint.
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Dec 24, 2020 00:23
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Pharnakes posted:
Pharnakes posted:
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Dec 24, 2020 01:30
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I feel for Alki. In my vanilla game I had the yorktown torpedoed outside of San Diego with five escorting destroyers. She went down with with 3 torpedoes in her.
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Dec 24, 2020 02:19
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 20:50 |
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Uhh excuse me it quite clearly says I bombed at 10, not 11. Plus I was wildly successful and he hit dick all so clearly I'm a tactical genius and he is a silly dumb dumb poo poo head.
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Dec 24, 2020 10:24
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