AFB silly questions on Japanese production

[morejeffs]

As I am too clueless to learn how to do the empire economy I only have GC experience
as the Allies (ironically I live in Tokyo)..

So I have a few questions about Japanese production.
A. I know the empire needs the oil of the DEI, but what about resources? Does it have
enough or does it really need the resources from abroad.
B. What causes the empire economy to crash?
C. What are the effects of such a crash?

I do not expect volumes...Just simple commentaries so I can get a general idea.

Thanks.

[Amoral]

Japan neds 80000 resources a day to break even. There is 35000 per day from Hokkaido, and the rest can come from Manchukuo.

[koniu]

ORIGINAL: morejeffs

As I am too clueless to learn how to do the empire economy I only have GC experience
as the Allies (ironically I live in Tokyo)..

So I have a few questions about Japanese production.
A. I know the empire needs the oil of the DEI, but what about resources? Does it have
enough or does it really need the resources from abroad.
B. What causes the empire economy to crash?
C. What are the effects of such a crash?

I do not expect volumes...Just simple commentaries so I can get a general idea.

Thanks.

A: Resources produced in Japan and transported from China, Korea, Manchuria and Sakhalin are enough to run Japan economy. But it is good to transport some of them from DEI. I usually use ships that are returning to Japan from DEI to avoid empty runs

B: To much to fast is wrong. Don`t try do everything in first turn. Don`t need to. Just plan and adjust. Japanese economy is delicate.Expand factories slowly. Expand little check effect and if needed expand again. I am suggesting to read 101 economy guide that can be find in forum.


C: When economy crash You will loose very fast

[morejeffs]

Thank you..
So from an allied view you want the Japan player to make mistakes and also to blow up oil as Japan will not have a problem resource side.

How badly does the IJN need DEI oil? By what time frame is it necessary to have oil flowing?

[morejeffs]

C: When economy crash You will loose very fast

I understand it is not good for Japan, but what actually happens to Japan that is bad?

[Barb]

You will stop producing HI - and once those are on 0 value, you are not building anything - ships, planes, engines, armaments, vehicles, etc.
You still can have some fuel or supplies produced (by refineries and Light industry) - but the number is limited

[koniu]

ORIGINAL: morejeffs

How badly does the IJN need DEI oil? By what time frame is it necessary to have oil flowing?

First: Japan dont need oil as much as fuel. And without fuel from DEI Your economy wil crash before end `42 or at best in beginning of `43

Second: ASAP is good answer. I think most players will agree that capturing Palembang before 31 March is nice(amphibious bonus). Sooner it will happen sooner You will start transporting fuel to HI and risk of Fortress Palembang is smaller.

Note. Common strategy it to transport fuel first and oil when You have extra tanker space. Also If You have let say big empty convoy of cargo ships returning to Japan from DEI You can use it cargo space to load it with fuel.

[morejeffs]

The economy uses both fuel and and oil? I thought it was just oil...

Of course I know the ships need fuel but what part of production needs fuel? Sorry the newbie questions on production

[nashvillen]

Oil is used by refineries and produces for every 10 oil, 1 supply and 9 fuel. Fuel is consumed by HI along with resources to produce HI points which build stuff and supply. Also, fuel is necessary for your ships to move out of port. [;)]

By shipping the fuel you get what is needed to the HI quicker, also, fuel can be put on returning supply ships to keep them hauling stuff instead of just burning fuel.

[morejeffs]

Great...i see...I always thought HI needed oil...My bad...So the oil goes to fuel (which goes to HI)....

Die tankers die is my new motto.

I assume that while Japan does not really need DEI resources, there is not too much oil elsewhere but the DEI....

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Amoral

Japan neds 80000 resources a day to break even. There is 35000 per day from Hokkaido, and the rest can come from Manchukuo.

Close, but not quite:

ORIGINAL: koniu

ORIGINAL: morejeffs

As I am too clueless to learn how to do the empire economy I only have GC experience
as the Allies (ironically I live in Tokyo)..

So I have a few questions about Japanese production.
A. I know the empire needs the oil of the DEI, but what about resources? Does it have
enough or does it really need the resources from abroad.
B. What causes the empire economy to crash?
C. What are the effects of such a crash?

I do not expect volumes...Just simple commentaries so I can get a general idea.

Thanks.

A: Resources produced in Japan and transported from China, Korea, Manchuria and Sakhalin are enough to run Japan economy. But it is good to transport some of them from DEI. I usually use ships that are returning to Japan from DEI to avoid empty runs

B: To much to fast is wrong. Don`t try do everything in first turn. Don`t need to. Just plan and adjust. Japanese economy is delicate.Expand factories slowly. Expand little check effect and if needed expand again. I am suggesting to read 101 economy guide that can be find in forum.


C: When economy crash You will loose very fast

The raw numbers in Tracker, from the start of the game in Scen 2, anyway: 78200 deficit on Honshu. 34600 can come from Hokkaido and another 9800 from Sakhalin. 15600 from Manchukuo and Korea. 4100 from China. 3200 from Taiwan. That still leaves 10,900 to come from elsewhere. 4200 can come from Indochina (after accounting for the 500 deficit in Thailand). But basically, once you've set up convoys from Hokkaido/Fusan(/Shanghai or Hong Kong if necessary) and are harvesting the Sakhalins/Formosa in some way, you can just use periodic return trips from the rest of the empire. If you open up the Magical Coast Road, enough Resources will flow up from Singapore to China that you'll be well in the black. It's not a bad idea to try to stockpile as many as you can in Japan for later in the war when you might be feeling the sting of USN subs, fewer xAKs, etc.

I think the Scen 1 starting deficit is a bit smaller, around 74000 or so.

But the real crunch is oil/fuel - technically speaking, it's only in Oil. You can produce enough fuel via refineries throughout the empire to match your HI needs (with a surplus, for ship usage), but you will eventually run out of oil unless you turn off refineries. And once you run out of Oil, you'll begin to run out of Fuel. It is important to always be hauling as much Oil as possible, and Fuel as well because eventually you won't be able to safely haul from Palembang, Balikpapan, etc. Drain them dry while you can.


As for crashes...yeah, they're bad. Possibly even catastrophic. But it's possible to get things going again, provided the crash doesn't come too late. It's just costly.

[nashvillen]

Also, save HI as much as you can. That is an important key. Having a couple million in HI in stockpile can save you when the oil/fuel spigot is turned off by the allies. All you will need then is fuel to run the ships, the HI stockpile can keep your factories going for a year or more if you save right. There are many subjects on this here in this board.

[Sieppo]

The tracker also shows nicely how many days the resources will last. It will not be many so you have start early with moving them. Build up the near important ports, Fusan (max the port and airfield ASAP!! There are plenty of engineers in Korea. Set stockpiling on on res, fuel and oil), Ominato, Hakodate, Sapporo (move engineers to Hokkaido), the two in Sakhalin so they will compile res and fuel and docking will be possible and loading and unloading is quicker. You can also move fuel and oil from Fusan to the main islands once it starts pulling it. Before that you can use Keijo and Port Arthur or Shanghai for res and fuel etc.

[Sieppo]

Also invade Palembang with a division asap and secure Singapore for gathering DEI-resources.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Sieppo

The tracker also shows nicely how many days the resources will last. It will not be many so you have start early with moving them. Build up the near important ports, Fusan (max the port and airfield ASAP!! There are plenty of engineers in Korea. Set stockpiling on on res, fuel and oil), Ominato, Hakodate, Sapporo (move engineers to Hokkaido), the two in Sakhalin so they will compile res and fuel and docking will be possible and loading and unloading is quicker. You can also move fuel and oil from Fusan to the main islands once it starts pulling it. Before that you can use Keijo and Port Arthur or Shanghai for res and fuel etc.

A minor quibble: there's no need to max the airfield at Fusan. You only need combined level 9 to avoid spoilage, if you happen to be shipping Fuel out of there, and it's near that at the beginning anyway. Just build up the port.

Keep in mind that sometimes it's better to use a smaller level port if that's where the Oil/Resources happen to be. An example of this is the Sakhalins: Shikuka has a level 4 port but only loads 1600 resources per ship per day and 18750 total resources per day, while Toyohara has a level 3 port and loads 11600 per ship and 21650 total per day. The raw information is in the manual, but check out the CS Cargo Planning tab in the Industry data set in Tracker. It will show you the individual ship load and total port load for the day for various ports, for Resources/Oil/etc. Very valuable to minimizing the time convoys are in port loading/unloading as well as planning for capacity and dock space.

At the beginning, I will ship out from Port Arthur as well as Fusan, but I try to move my "CS Demand" for Resources to Fusan as soon as the port is built up by shifting all convoys from P.A. to Fusan.

[Sieppo]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: Sieppo

The tracker also shows nicely how many days the resources will last. It will not be many so you have start early with moving them. Build up the near important ports, Fusan (max the port and airfield ASAP!! There are plenty of engineers in Korea. Set stockpiling on on res, fuel and oil), Ominato, Hakodate, Sapporo (move engineers to Hokkaido), the two in Sakhalin so they will compile res and fuel and docking will be possible and loading and unloading is quicker. You can also move fuel and oil from Fusan to the main islands once it starts pulling it. Before that you can use Keijo and Port Arthur or Shanghai for res and fuel etc.

A minor quibble: there's no need to max the airfield at Fusan. You only need combined level 9 to avoid spoilage, if you happen to be shipping Fuel out of there, and it's near that at the beginning anyway. Just build up the port.

Ah true! I'm training pilots there also so I did it..

[morejeffs]

Thanks for all the info....So basically...From the allied side...Kill oil/fuel/refineries/tankers....

Assume the empire will get the resources (they have to work a bit for it, but it is not that tough)

[pompack]

And an additional complication:

The Japanese need more supply than they can create with the existing HI and LI, especially in Scen 2 with all the extra goodies. So once you have captured enough oil to make fuel to supply your HI and after you have set up the supply lines to transport the fuel (and Oil) and resources to where they need it, you are still in trouble.

Note that supply is expended just sitting still but also when you fly, fight or move (especially when you fight). So if you want to do those things, you are going to run out of supply NLT mid-44 in Scen 2 unless you increase your supply production (note that you can run out of supply even with several million in the stockpile since you will have substantial amounts of supply sitting in the wrong place or waiting to be shipped, or in transit)

Supply is produced by both LI and HI and it takes a LONG time to produce enough extra supply to pay for the initial increase and repair (1100 supply per new LI or HI point)but it takes twice as long to pay for the LI industry increase (you get two supply points per HI factory but only one per LI factory). LI is better if you think that oil/fuel is the limiting factor (LI needs only resources to produce supply but it does take twice as long to pay for the increase) but if you do that resource production becomes the bottleneck instead of oil very quickly. And every additional point of industrial production means more fuel and/or resources must be found and then transported to wherever you built the new factory.

And if you chose to increase industrial production you must do it early or you will run out of supply before you have generated enough increase to pay for the production increase (remember that an increase of one HI point on 1jul42 will not break even for 550 days or about New Year's day in 1944). And the early months are just when you want to increase a/c production which takes supply that you are already running short of. And don't forget increasing tank production. Or maybe improving naval shipyards. Or increasing merchant shipyards so you can accelerate tankers that arrive just as you start loosing them all to subs. It all takes supply and lots of it.

Life is very hard for the Japanese (but not as hard as it was in real life; Scen 2 is a pipe dream even though it is fun to play)

[Lokasenna]

I haven't had much trouble with supply in Scen 2 against the AI. I've been steadily increasing the global stockpile every turn, a drop at a time. This is including what I've already learned were wasteful attacks and quite honestly, 500+ 2E IJAAF sorties per day in central China over 4-5 months to finally capture Chungking in mid-1943. That burned a lot of supply (simply basing bombers at Chihkiang, Kweiyang increased the required supply to more than 15k each! [X(]). Against a human, I'd never burn that much, and get away with it.

In Scen 1 there's less supply, but there are also fewer units burning it. Not many fewer, but some. And the impossibility of threatening places you can threaten in Scen 2 (Australia, India, etc.) means a lower overall level of combat operations, so less supply burned there as well. Oil is the big hurt.


So yes, to answer the original question at the heart of the thread: as an AFB, you kill Oil/Fuel sources, first and foremost. Including TKs, but even xAKs as they can (and will) be used to carry Fuel.

For Strat bombing, bomb Oil before Refineries, but both are valid targets, and of high value. Don't bother attacking Resources. Try to find places to put your subs that is outside of airborne ASW/Nav Search so they can be effective, but still in likely places to find TKs and AOs. The temptation to use subs in combat operations is high, but they're far more valuable as a strategic weapon - so do a bit of both, but focus on the strategic (anti-merchantman) aspect.

[HexHead]

Lokasenna has been Strat bombing Changsha & Kweilin and a coupla others in our Scen 1 'resurrected' game.

Now I understand why much better.

Every scrap of knowledge about How to Play this Game is a nugget.