JPN picklist & amphib question

[vic]

hiya,

maybe appropriate for 12/7?

i'm playing a USMC vs. JPN long campaign and a BIG "hats off" to whoever did the latest version of the JPN picklist. the AI is now much tougher as it's not wasting points on those easy-to-kill armored cars and tin can tanks(hated seeing those in the jungle anyway).

the AI is now MUCH tougher when advancing and assaulting as the infantry just comes in waves. i've had to fight hard on a couple of occasions just to get draws. (if this keeps up i may have to resort to ammo units!). I've also experienced much heavier damage to my core units than i have ever experienced before. early on in the campaign the rebuild points are very precious.

i'm getting close to Tarawa (playing 9/43 now) and i'll be curious to see if a few JPN tanks show up there (IIRC they had a few on Tarawa).

i've done a few beach assaults and have a question on amphib units. my core force is all infantry (bn+ strength, 3 Inf coys + wpns) and i usually don't buy tanks. however i do like a few extra landing craft to act as empty pilot craft/gunships (to draw fire from heavier guns, hate seeing those loaded LC's sink.). it seems that when i buy these as supplementals i get correspondingly fewer "auto assigned" LCs when i go to do the deployment. Y/N? if true, is the best way to get the number i want to just purchase as supplementals all the LC's i want to have in total?

also, is there any difference bewteen supplementally purchased and auto assigned LC's when the AI calculates purchase points for its buys?

i did a couple of mobhacks some may find of interest.

1. a DUKW FO vehicle to handle naval gunfire control during beach assaults. regular FO's won't "work" when loaded plus i typically don't have an FO in my core anyway. on the beach assaults the ability to shift fires quickly and minimize drift (reduces friendly fire casualties) is pretty important.

2. fooling around with grenades a bit too. so much of the fighting is close in i'm trying a mod to represent 2 grenades being thrown at once. i made the grenade HE kill 1.5 times larger and cut the number of grenades in half.

3. i am also trying using two individual BARs (wpn 113)rather than the than the "2 BARs" weapon. it costs me a weapons slot in the unit but i'm curious to see what effect it has.

4. another thing i'm trying is moving grenades to a lower numbered weapons slot, e.g. rifle(1), BAR(2), grenade(3), BAR(4) and also rifle(1), grenade(2), BAR(3), BAR(4).
some of these changes make a SMALL difference in unit cost (in some cases no difference) and i'm curious to see what effect it will have on unit performance. e.g. sometimes assaulting JPN units "bounce" (range = 1) from the grenades and less BAR ammo is expended.

4. to smooth the transition to different later-war TOE i have also mobhacked a "placeholder" unit which was added to the 3 squad early-war marine platoon. it's an MG unit with no men and no weapons that can be upgraded to an MMG unit when the gyrenes add MMG's to each rifle platoon. the cost calculator values this unit as a cost of 2 but i adjust that down to 1. if you set it to 0 it appears as 1 in the game anyway.

5. in the same vein, Co. MGs were established in a MG platoon (scout, MG, MG) in '42 that can later be upgraded to a 3 HMG platoon when the TOE changes. i like having all the units in a company "in sequence" as it makes managing things easier.

again, nice job on the picklist!

best,
vic

[Mobhack]

i've done a few beach assaults and have a question on amphib units. my core force is all infantry (bn+ strength, 3 Inf coys + wpns) and i usually don't buy tanks. however i do like a few extra landing craft to act as empty pilot craft/gunships (to draw fire from heavier guns, hate seeing those loaded LC's sink.). it seems that when i buy these as supplementals i get correspondingly fewer "auto assigned" LCs when i go to do the deployment. Y/N? if true, is the best way to get the number i want to just purchase as supplementals all the LC's i want to have in total?

also, is there any difference bewteen supplementally purchased and auto assigned LC's when the AI calculates purchase points for its buys?

You will get less auto-assigned as the first thing the auto-buy code for LC does is load things onto what you have already available as purchased units (including planes if any).

As far as I can see from the code auto-assigned LC (or in some forces up to 40 amphibs for the first few grunts) are free in terms of buy points spent. (Same as for rafts assigned to infantry or barges inside a barge carrier in river assaults). However they will be scored as victory points if killed, and do count towards your points total (force value), which is what the AI calculates its force ratio against.

The code is naturally designed to shoehorn as much as possible into as few as possible landing craft etc as it can (there is a limit to the number of units after all) - which is the opposite of your wants, methinks. If you have the buy points, and want some "empties" (or absolute choice in the floaty thingy department then you probably will need to buy sections of LC or LVT and so on sufficient as to load the main force and then (in your case) leave some spare room over. You may also have to do some re-arranging of units and cross-decking in the deploy screen as well then, to get your desired formations into the right craft for your plan.

But remember - if you have a large number of units - that the limit is 350 for buy as the beach assaulter (this number is I think, non-inclusive of freebie landing craft, but I cannot go firm on that, even digging in the spaghetti/code).

The loading as assaulter for beach, and the assignation of the landing craft is some of the nastiest code in the game, unfortunately, so I cannot give you 100% gen here !. You may need to experiment (save a copy of the game as a scratch version and then try things out so as not to trash your main campaign game).

You may see some minor Japanese tank units at Tarawa onwards, the AI buy is against them if defending, and if fighthing the USA and USMC in defence till I think, 4/44 - and even then, still rare in passive stances.

Cheers
Andy