Starving the japanese out of oil

[Jones377]

Hello everyone. New Guy here. First let me say what a great game this is. Very simple but still realistic enough to force the players into the some of the same historical decisions that the leaders of the time did. With that in mind, I have one concern regarding oil.

Has anyone accomplished this feat with the allies in a reasonable amount of time? Unless I am doing something terrible wrong, it just doesn't seem possible. With the +2 monthly addition to the oil stockpile Japan gets once it has captured Singapore, Borneo and Java it quickly builds up a massive stockpile in the 6-12 months before the allies can effectively intervene that launching a full scale assault on the oil fields becomes pointless. This would starve them but not before the Bomb ends the war.

By going after the Philippines instead I can achieve the same result on the Japanese oil supply but then I usually win by strategic bombardment WAY sooner than I would starve them out. I have also tried raiding Singapore and Java early with the RN out of Ceylon and this is having some effect but not enough it seems.

From a historical perspective (I'm a bit of a WWII buff) the allies managed to create a huge shortage on the Japanese oil supply by interdicting the Japanese supply lines using subs without actually recapturing the oil fields themselves. There is also the issue that while the Japanese got some oil from the east indies, their continuing naval operations also used up a lot of oil. This isn't represented in the game unfortunately.

I have even tried modding the game. First by removing the +1 oil from Singapore and then to add an oil interdiction value to Port Darwin to represent subs interdicting supply lines. This seemed to change the behavior of the Japanese AI where for the first time it actually ignored Singapore early on and captured Port Darwin instead. That had never happened in ANY unmodded game before, not even a raid on Darwin. Which was great and totally unexpected but didn't really solve the oil problem as the situation remained Status Que.

This post got a little longer than I expected and I'm sorry about that But does anyone have any tips, strategy or modding, that would allow me to finally get a realistic oil victory?

I'm gonna try adding an additional interdiction value to Hawaii and increasing the Japanese oil supply to 12 months and see what happens. Cheers.

[tombom]

One time I managed to starve them out of oil sometime earlyish 1943 by using a lot of bombardment and pretty much putting everything into stopping them capturing the oil locations early. It was mostly luck, but it's definitely possible.

[Jones377]

I was finally able to starve them out by Feb 1944. I sent most of my USN carriers and battleships along with some escorts and all early marines to Ceylon/Brisbane. I initially conducted raids on Java and Singapore to keep their oil surplus under check and essentially fighting a war of attrition which grinded down their navy. Twice they sent a large cruiser formation against my carriers and battleships and got utterly destroyed.

Then I invaded Java, Singapore and Borneo in stages. The Essex and Independence carriers slowly reinforced my fleet in the west and by the time it was over I had managed to take up to Iwo Jima and Marianas. They had the Philippines, Formosa, Okinawa left.

Against a human opponent this strategy would never have worked. If the Japanese had massed all their carriers against me at Ceylon I would have been toast. As it was now, I even caught a lone unescorted carrier or two with a battleship fleet because they refused to retreat allowing me to close to main gun range.

Perhaps the AI needs a little tweaking in that regard? One carrier isn't enough to fend off several battleships as it's unable to cause any significant damage before it's caught under the guns. Better to retreat in that case.

[Timothy]

I found in the few games that I have played so far, that unfortunately the ai would often send carriers out alone without any other supporting ships. Needless to say, that these ai carriers would often get slaughtered since there were no other ships around to help either put up some AA defense or to absorb some of the bomb/torpedo damage. Sending out carriers without supporting ships is very unrealistic. I hope that a future patch will fix this.

[MarkL]

I have been able to win by starving the Japanese of oil, but have not tried with the latest patch. It used to be my favourite strategy playing the USA in the Beta period.

I found I had to start quiet early and throw every yhring I had at the oil Islands. I even left my main bases open for attacks that would have given me patrol requirements if the JPN had attacked. I had some almighty battles when the JPN through everyhting at me. Hard to do early in the game against the JPN. But you have to get an advantage early or the JPN buid up too much oil. But only ever won about half of these battles using this strategy. But that is good as I would not like to play something that you could win all the time.

I quiet like picking a strategy and going for broke and only just scraping through at the end. (I'm not much of a strategest I suppose)

You have to pick which battles to fight and withdraw.

I lost sometimes by fighting when I should have withdrawn and also when the withdrawal did not work. It plays out differently each time even if you have the same tactics I found. The outcome for me was decided by only a few large battles, or seemed to at least.

I will give this a go again on my next attempt as the USA on the weekend.

Cheers MarkL

[bssybeep]

hmmm, my first two games playing the "after the Infamy" scenario as the allies were won by starving the Japanese of oil. 1st game was won by Oct 1943, second by Sept 1942.

My strategy is a slow fighting reteeat of Borneo, Singapore, and Java using mostly British units and reinforcing the airfields. I withdraw a few critical Brit units such as the carriers and some CA's.

Then I slowly build my hammer blow fleet of all available US carriers, CAs, some CLs, and only fast BBs. I raid Wake, Kwajalein, Truk, and Marianas Is to give me some buffer.

By then, I'll probably only have Java left and lost most of the Brit units. But I'll have my main US fleet of 5-8 carriers, fast BBs, and 20+ CAs/CLs.

I'll raid Singapore, Borneo, Leyte, and Luzon with my main fleet and within a month or so I've won the game by an oil victory.

Worked twice now.

Note:I'd like to try some of the other victory conditions (invasions) but in both games I never received any landing forces/marines. Is there something I need to do to trigger there production?

[jmw]

I've been able to beat the AI several times by starving Japan of oil. Basically try to harass Japan when they take the Phillipines and Borneo, then pile everything into Singapore and hold on for dear life. Sent all supply convoys to Singapore also. One time I didn't have enough surface vessels patrolling Singapore and the IJN sunk most of my carriers, but the AI wasn't very aggressive subsequently and I was able to hold Singapore, but had to wait for the Essex carriers to finish Japan off.

[Skanvak]

I have to make research on the effect of the submarine on oil supply. Point is that the effect have a much more important impact on production (ie less indsutrial production)because electricity was oil dependent too and taht is a fixed factor in the game.

I wonder how to put the submarine warfare in the game, that could be fun.

Though the japan navy was able to sail, same for the aircraft, until the end of the war. So I guess that oil shortage was more a threat at the start and that Japan could have made a huge reserve during it successful time (historical result is win by strategic bombing).

Thought giving more strategic impact on some bases can be fun but remember that Japan is already at a great disavantage and stand, normaly, nearly no chance of winning as it is.

[JMHawkins]

Towards the end of 1944 Japan was having some oil troubles and had started basing some larger, more oil hungry ships, out of ports in the East Indies to be closer to the oil supply. But they never did run completely out.

One of the design questions that would have to be answered to include subs is how to reflect doctrine. The US favored commerce interdiction and used most of its subs to sink merchants. This was a very effective doctrine. Japanese doctrine on the other and viewed subs as part of a war of attrition on the US fleet as it battled its way west. They used their subs to hunt and attack warships, and though they did score some kills, overal it was not a very effective doctine.

So, if subs were included in a future rev of the game, would you prefer they be limited to historical doctrine, or would you like to allow players to experiment with other options?

Thanks,
John Hawkins
KE Studios

[Skanvak]

Without the posibility to manage production, I don't know how making a Japanese commerce raiding efficient? There are too much variable and uncertity on this front so I guess that keeping to hisotical doctrine should be kept with the actual game focus.

Second, I said that submarine where interesting true. But how to keep the game simple with the submarine? Actualy the game assumme the sbmarine are as successful as they were historically. On which aspect (beside OIl supply that can be refine for that) will you impact submarine? Will you play submarine as bonus unit or would the players (or only the US) have to deploy them on the map to plan its campaign?