The Good The Bad & The Indifferent

[Alfred]

Get Bullwinkle to explain the river crossing rule.  He has a copy of my unposted 101 paper on the subject.
 
Alfred

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Gents, my army crossing the Japanese held hexside did NOT trigger an auto-shock attack. The stack entered the hex without any combat occurring at all.

I take this to mean that as long as the Allies have sufficient units in a contested hex to avoid triggering a shock attack when newly arriving units cross a river, it doesn't matter if the hexside being crossed is friendly- or enemy-controlled.

This is so contrary to my notions of how this worked that I'm likely to forget it soon.

I had the same thing happen at Moulmein. I had flanked it and entered it from due east, which is not a river crossing.
I then had a large army cross the river from the north. Expecting it to trigger a shock attack I shock attacked with the units already in the hex and the large army crossing the river did not participate.
The result was NOT pretty.

[Canoerebel]

Hans and I will be in Alfred's doghouse. [:(]

I suppose most of have a decent but not encyclopedic grasp of the rules. At some point, many of us have to compromise with reality. Not knowing everything, and for the sake of sanity, we proceed and rely on common sense or feel or irrelevance of outcome to get us through the tough times.

By "irrelevance of outcome" I mean that the rule wouldn't alter our decision. With this particular move, for instance, the plan to cross the river and the enemy hexside set off alarms that doing so might trigger an auto-shock attack. I didn't stop to look up the rule or consult with folks who would know for this simple reason: it didn't matter, in this instance. I was determined to claim that hexside even if doing so roughed up a large Chinese army via shock attack.

So I made the move willingly, accepting the risk of not knowing. Sometimes, but not always, this kind of experience cements a rule in my head.

But why is it that every single game I must learn anew that the Allies cannot withdraw ships from Pearl....

....but I've always known that the flight operations of fleet carriers in coastal hexes are not halved unless it's a base hex.

[witpqs]

Bear in mind that there can be bugs: which by definition defy the accurate description of how it works.

As best I remember there have been some bugs whereby a shock attack was expected but did not occur. Can't say if they all got found & fixed.

Trust what Alfred wrote and still be alert for bugs.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Bear in mind that there can be bugs: which by definition defy the accurate description of how it works.

As best I remember there have been some bugs whereby a shock attack was expected but did not occur. Can't say if they all got found & fixed.

Trust what Alfred wrote and still be alert for bugs.

You know what, I almost never find any real bugs. It is usually operator error.

[Canoerebel]

One of the real mysteries in the game of late has been the repeatedly poor performance of the very strong 5th Marine Div. and 5th Indian Div. These units have high experience, big numbers, and good commanders. They teamed up to beat up a decent IJA stack near Foochow. They chased that tattered stack down and attacked again...and had a tough time of it. Finally, they forced that stack to retire in utter shambles. They chased it down again, attacked again, and it again took multiple attacks.

Based on everything I know and "feel" about the game, I'd have put every cent I had on those two units just destroying that opposition every time they encountered it. Why they haven't has really puzzled me. I don't even think it could possibly be dice rolls.

[Lowpe]

Given the picture, why did you think there would be a shock attack?[&:]

Also, you probably could have seen no shock attack off the unit description page.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

One of the real mysteries in the game of late has been the repeatedly poor performance of the very strong 5th Marine Div. and 5th Indian Div. These units have high experience, big numbers, and good commanders. They teamed up to beat up a decent IJA stack near Foochow. They chased that tattered stack down and attacked again...and had a tough time of it. Finally, they forced that stack to retire in utter shambles. They chased it down again, attacked again, and it again took multiple attacks.

Based on everything I know and "feel" about the game, I'd have put every cent I had on those two units just destroying that opposition every time they encountered it. Why they haven't has really puzzled me. I don't even think it could possibly be dice rolls.

You don't give nearly enough information about the units etc.

I will say Japanese, and when there is no valid supply path, are just really hard to kill if in good terrain. Given the situation in China, I would try very hard to put my troops in such a position to buy time.

edit: I went back a page and found the 5th Marine, I suspect there is no valid retreat path for the Japanese there anymore. This is something I warned about previously to watch out for, but you get so many posts it is easy to miss.

[Canoerebel]

For each attack there was a valid retreat path, including the most recent. The two Fifths are chasing that stack again because it's right in the best line of advance, which suits me.

I didn't give more details because I'm not trying to figure it out. Within the overall workings and scope of the game it's not a real issue. I'm sure it's on the Bell curve of probable outcomes, even if unusual. It's a curiosity I'm watching but not worried about enough to really delve into.

[Canoerebel]

11/28/44

Fancy Pants: Good day in China as the Chinese take Kweilin, several beleaguered IJ stakes take heavy losses, and the Chinese army enters Changsha in numbers.

The most interesting aspect of the game is whether John will try anything else, either targeting Death Star or the Ningpo forces. He's tried once and took a pretty tough repulse. But this could be the last crack he'll get at key Allied concentrations spread far apart.

[Xilana]

Can we see a VP screen; curious to see how the land loss equation is shaping up.

THX

[palioboy2]

What are your total B29 loses? And what is the break down of A2A/FLAK/OPS?

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Bear in mind that there can be bugs: which by definition defy the accurate description of how it works.

As best I remember there have been some bugs whereby a shock attack was expected but did not occur. Can't say if they all got found & fixed.

Trust what Alfred wrote and still be alert for bugs.

There is a calculation done on the "fly" separately on each unit to determine the ratios. The computed result is not visible to the player. As it is a dynamic environment handled under the hood it is very easy for a player to mistakenly believe a bug exists.

Alfred

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Bear in mind that there can be bugs: which by definition defy the accurate description of how it works.

As best I remember there have been some bugs whereby a shock attack was expected but did not occur. Can't say if they all got found & fixed.

Trust what Alfred wrote and still be alert for bugs.

There is a calculation done on the "fly" separately on each unit to determine the ratios. The computed result is not visible to the player. As it is a dynamic environment handled under the hood it is very easy for a player to mistakenly believe a bug exists.

Alfred

At the relevant point during the turn the AV needed comparison might have:

a) met the threshold (no shock attack by the units crossing) but later when the player saw the AV it did not meet the threshold resulting in mistaken belief a bug was witnessed;

or

b) not met the threshold (shock attack by the units crossing) but later when the player saw the AV it did meet the threshold resulting in mistaken belief a bug was witnessed.

Or of course the other two cases where the AV seen by the player mirrored the behavior so no bug was believed to be seen.

[Canoerebel]

11/29/44

Per request, here is the Intel Screen.

[Canoerebel]

11/29/44

Superfort Losses

[Canoerebel]

11/29/44

Points Comparison: Big changes between mid January 1944 and late November 1944. That should be the case, of course.

Closing on the Home Islands in order to initiate strategic bombing is probably the highest priority in the game for the Allies. Strategic bombing is foremost way to score points efficiently.

[Rusty1961]

I noticed in a previous screen you posted the Exp/Air of one of your better B29 groups. To reduce your Op losses you need Air ratings that are in the 60s to 70s and your AIR ratings were around 20.

[Canoerebel]

I've never heard of that before. I thought Air was air-to-air combat skills important to fighter pilots. If it's important to bomber pilots, that's news to me. It makes sense that Experience, Nav (or whatever) Bombing skill and Defense skill would be important to a bomber pilot, but not Air.

I don't have enough time left to train up bomber pilots, so that kind of info (assuming it's accurate) will have to wait for next game.

[Rusty1961]

Hmmmm....I thought Exp was used in A2A. If I have it backwards, than you are either flying many missions at extended range and/or bad weather. My B24D losses are very small and I have large EXP/AIR ratings and I've been flying them for going on 8 months. I think I've lost fewer than 10 in A2A and a paltry number in OPS. I'll post it later. Good game.