Japanese Economy Advice

[Speedysteve]

Hi All,

Haven't been around much of late due to a lack of time because of RL (work!) I still have 2 x AE games going though (Allies vs apbarog and Japanese vs my Dad). Hope all the regulars on here are doing well.

I'm looking for some advice on my Japanese game economy as it's the first one I've played to this date (May 43).

The context for the advice is over the past month I started to run out of Oil in Japan! I've rectified this by shipping more of it in but it made me think "hmm. Maybe my economy is not doing that great. I should check in". I do have many convoys going back and forth with Oil, Fuel and Resources as an FYI utilising depot points etc etc.

So any thoughts or tips?

I've been around here a long time so have read Mike's and Numydar's posts in the past for example. I've used Tracker too but it stopped working a few months back (error messages). I posted in the tracker topic but no one was sure what it could be/could help.

Some thoughts my end:

1.) Could it be the amount of R&R I've done? I was originally R&Ding all of my target planes with fac size of 30's (either researching or repairing). At the end of 42 though I decided to stop R&Ding the transport, recon and NF (no night bombing HR) types though.

2.) I've been quite aggressive with KB (mainly around SoPac). They're still down there counter-invading Tarawa for example and soon Terapo for example = excessive fuel use?

3.) HI pools look too low?

Would it appreciate any advice.

Thanks All.

[Jorge_Stanbury]

Did you increase refineries? heavy industry?

In my (early) game, I have a lot less refineries;

[Speedysteve]

Not that I can remember in either case. It's been 2 years since game start mind you! From memory I only increased Tokyo's repair yard, some armaments and engines/R&D

[Jorge_Stanbury]

Did you let the refineries of Miri and Palembang to repair?
did you repair the oil wells?

it looks like you have a big imbalance between oil and refinery, at the source, basically all the oil is getting consumed by the local refineries.. so nothing available to ship to HI

You might simply need to ship more fuel to the HI and/ or shut down the refineries at the source as to allow oil stockpiling. If you are playing stock, then refineries will generate supply, and thereby you might want to send oil to the HI, assuming of course your SRA troops are well supplied

[Speedysteve]

Palembang was undamaged but yes I repaired the 150 at Miri. Thanks.

Supply and resources are not a problem (when are resources ever!)

Any other thoughts on rest of my pools, advice etc?

[Lowpe]

How about a few more pictures...pretty please. Love talking about the economy.[:)]

Also, are you letting the oil stockpile anywhere to the point you stop producing?

Where is a all the supply?

Does your opponent read this thread?[8|]

[USSAmerica]

I know absolutely nothing about the Japanese economy, but I just wanted to pop in and say Hi Speedy! [:)]

[Speedysteve]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

How about a few more pictures...pretty please. Love talking about the economy.[:)]

Also, are you letting the oil stockpile anywhere to the point you stop producing?

Where is a all the supply?

Does your opponent read this thread?[8|]

Thanks. Let me know what else you need as there's tonnes I can show.

No I'm not letting the oil stockpile. I'm transferring what I can along with fuel back to the HI.

Here's the supply status.

I normally transfer SRA supply requirements from either Sing or the oil producing centre's. Tokyo goes to Truk to fuel SoPac and CentPac comes from Tokyo directly.

No Dad is not on the forum so all good[8D]

[Speedysteve]

Fuel. Main SRA hub is Singapore then back to HI.

[Speedysteve]

Oil:

[Speedysteve]

ORIGINAL: USS America

I know absolutely nothing about the Japanese economy, but I just wanted to pop in and say Hi Speedy! [:)]

Hey Mike. Good to see you. Hope all is well?[8D]

[Lowpe]

How about The industry screen from the top menu please both in total and with only oil selected.

Please.[:)]

[GetAssista]

So strange to not see Tokyo in the list of biggest oil/fuel stockpiles... 4k fuel + 23k oil??
Looks like one of your big problems is that you are not shipping enough liquids to HI to make healthy stockpiles there. When Allies start seriously chewing up your tanker capabilities, you risk running your economy into the ground quickly enough to feel it in 1944 already.

[Speedysteve]

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

So strange to not see Tokyo in the list of biggest oil/fuel stockpiles... 4k fuel + 23k oil??
Looks like one of your big problems is that you are not shipping enough liquids to HI to make healthy stockpiles there. When Allies start seriously chewing up your tanker capabilities, you risk running your economy into the ground quickly enough to feel it in 1944 already.

Yup exactly. Hence the reason for this topic. The lack of Tracker is frustrating to say the least but despite that I want to try and understand where the oil and fuel has gone. I don't millions of barrels of oil siting around after all[:(]

[Speedysteve]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

How about The industry screen from the top menu please both in total and with only oil selected.

Please.[:)]

No probs. Appreciate your time:

[Speedysteve]

Oil:

[Encircled]

Quick look suggests that you over-extended early on.

You've got a lot of supply in the DEI, so turning off the refineries there would be a start.

You've got plenty of fuel, so you could turn off some refineries in the HI as well.

You'd need tracker back up and running really, but you can't have the fleet charging around a lot to keep the economy ticking over (I think either Pax or Mike said something like 12 days a month?)

I've never gone past where you are as well, so you need some expert advice!

I was cutting oil use down to the absolute minimum in my last game, and tracker estimated that I'd run out by Jun'44 so there clearly is more than I know to cut it down even lower.

[rustysi]

First off I'm not the resident expert on the Japanese economy here, but I have been at it for some time now. My last game v the AI I went out to 18/12/42. So we're at a slightly different point in the game. I'll give my observations and philosophies, take them with a grain of salt.

I look at HI as currency in the game, buy this and you don't have it for that later. Your HI pools do seem low, but then again you are producing somewhat less than I was in my game. My pool was at 649k when I restarted my game. I built my HI up to ~7500 through conquests and expanding. At this point in your game I wouldn't increase any production as you'll not see any return. Now I didn't make that number up, I got it from reading Mile Sollis' AAR and mimicked his level. On the other hand your armaments and vehicle pools are high, so you spent your 'cash' (HI) 'buying' those items. I think you could turn most of those items off for a while. What I've read is v=15k in pool, and a=100k in pool. I feel those are a bit low and others may chime in here. I tried to maintain 25k and 150k respectively. During my game I could barely keep my vehicle pool at 25k with a production rate of 200. At any rate turning those down/off should help bring up your HI levels. In my game I had almost all armaments turned off. Then again your supply level is quite high by my standard. My level was 3,338,898.

Our A/C production is almost identical, but my engine production was about 50% greater than yours. I had the Ha-45 in production and was trying to ramp it up to 500 to get the engine bonus when the Frank's and George's R&D got up there. That may be why.

As to oil Japan will run out eventually no matter what you do. The empire simply has more refining capacity than oil. Unless a lot of refineries were damaged. I don't repair any refining capacity. I repair all oil damage, at least initially. The lone exception would be Magwe as its just too vulnerable. In my game I had just under 2M, and it was going down slowly. The big difference I see is your fuel level. At 3M that seems low, in my game I was at 4.9M. Then again I husband my fuel stocks very jealously, and I'm playing the AI, which can't really do things to force you to use excess fuel.

All that being said, with your fuel total being that low I don't see much that you can do. Try to reduce your usage, and I believe turning down/off vehicle/armaments production should help your HI pool to rise.

Of course the above is JMHO, and others will hopefully have more to add.

Ciao

[Speedysteve]

ORIGINAL: Encircled

Quick look suggests that you over-extended early on.

You've got a lot of supply in the DEI, so turning off the refineries there would be a start.

You've got plenty of fuel, so you could turn off some refineries in the HI as well.

You'd need tracker back up and running really, but you can't have the fleet charging around a lot to keep the economy ticking over (I think either Pax or Mike said something like 12 days a month?)

I've never gone past where you are as well, so you need some expert advice!

I was cutting oil use down to the absolute minimum in my last game, and tracker estimated that I'd run out by Jun'44 so there clearly is more than I know to cut it down even lower.

Thanks a lot. Appreciate your input. I wish I could get Tracker back up and running but I started receiving error messages and no one on the tracker topic could figure it out [:(]

I'd need to curb my fleet movements in that case as they're almost out for 2/3 of each covering, defending, counter-attacking etc.

Having said that score wise I feel I'm doing ok as I'm up 35.4K to 15.1K in VP's

[Speedysteve]

ORIGINAL: rustysi

First off I'm not the resident expert on the Japanese economy here, but I have been at it for some time now. My last game v the AI I went out to 18/12/42. So we're at a slightly different point in the game. I'll give my observations and philosophies, take them with a grain of salt.

Thanks. Every game is different after all[8D]

ORIGINAL: rustysi

I look at HI as currency in the game, buy this and you don't have it for that later. Your HI pools do seem low, but then again you are producing somewhat less than I was in my game. My pool was at 649k when I restarted my game. I built my HI up to ~7500 through conquests and expanding. At this point in your game I wouldn't increase any production as you'll not see any return. Now I didn't make that number up, I got it from reading Mile Sollis' AAR and mimicked his level. On the other hand your armaments and vehicle pools are high, so you spent your 'cash' (HI) 'buying' those items. I think you could turn most of those items off for a while. What I've read is v=15k in pool, and a=100k in pool. I feel those are a bit low and others may chime in here. I tried to maintain 25k and 150k respectively. During my game I could barely keep my vehicle pool at 25k with a production rate of 200. At any rate turning those down/off should help bring up your HI levels. In my game I had almost all armaments turned off. Then again your supply level is quite high by my standard. My level was 3,338,898.

I was aiming for 300K ARM to keep me going for the future and then turning off and keeping an eye on it (obv easier with Tracker!)

Maybe (also as per Encircled's thoughts) I will turn off SRA refineries to 'prevent' local supply produce and to enable transfer of this oil back to HI in that case.

ORIGINAL: rustysi

Our A/C production is almost identical, but my engine production was about 50% greater than yours. I had the Ha-45 in production and was trying to ramp it up to 500 to get the engine bonus when the Frank's and George's R&D got up there. That may be why.

As to oil Japan will run out eventually no matter what you do. The empire simply has more refining capacity than oil. Unless a lot of refineries were damaged. I don't repair any refining capacity. I repair all oil damage, at least initially. The lone exception would be Magwe as its just too vulnerable. In my game I had just under 2M, and it was going down slowly. The big difference I see is your fuel level. At 3M that seems low, in my game I was at 4.9M. Then again I husband my fuel stocks very jealously, and I'm playing the AI, which can't really do things to force you to use excess fuel.

All that being said, with your fuel total being that low I don't see much that you can do. Try to reduce your usage, and I believe turning down/off vehicle/armaments production should help your HI pool to rise.

Of course the above is JMHO, and others will hopefully have more to add.

Ciao

Thanks. Yes. I should try and post a little on my R&D. It's always a very interesting par of the Economy and can produce a lot of variety. I've posted my Engine production below as an FYI.

Agreed on Magwe. It's too exposed which is why I've not repaired my damaged there (the intense battles I have near Mandalay with 4K Jap AV vs 3K Allied AV) exemplifies that decision even more.

My aim is to re-take PM/Terapo and Arorae which have been recently re-taken then rest for a few months to upgrade and conserve fuel. I'm hoping these battles would allow me to do that.

Thanks again.