Grand-Battleplan is mostly useless as an island-hopping Japan

[Kaosium]

No, what tends to happen if you do that is the invasion forces will reroute to your northern Japan-China land front if you are already on the beach. Tried that to see if it would work as soon as I had one division ashore. I had to catch all my marine divisions at sea as they headed north for Beijing and manually reroute them back south, plus cancel all of the now empty invasion orders. My 5 province landing turned into a one province dogpile into Shanghai.

Heh, I've had my share of debacles learning how to operate something I didn't know if I was doing wrong or it (the mechanism in the game) wasn't working right. For a while it seemed all my naval invasions would do 'instant replays' if I didn't cancel them abruptly once they'd completed, as in they'd do the invasion and then some time later I'd found they hitched a ride back to the originating port and were doing it over again!

It is pretty unnecessary against the ai in general and against Chian even when played by a player. China is just so weak a well-run Japan will smoke them at even odds. China is usually bringing a knife to a gun fight.

I wish they'd start doing better in China like they used to, one thing I really enjoyed about the Sunflower release was how China would play out. If you didn't intervene it would generally fall, and when you did send volunteers sometimes you could pull it out and other times you were bugging out from the Fall of Nanking not knowing how it would all turn out and your five or six little units seeming quite small and lost in the sea of troops around you and helpless against the tide sometimes. Now I sit back and coddle them and hope they grow into a real threat I can someday get some real army experience from but knowing the Chinese are likely to push them back into the sea all by themselves.

 

[Meglok]

Heh, I've had my share of debacles learning how to operate something I didn't know if I was doing wrong or it (the mechanism in the game) wasn't working right. For a while it seemed all my naval invasions would do 'instant replays' if I didn't cancel them abruptly once they'd completed, as in they'd do the invasion and then some time later I'd found they hitched a ride back to the originating port and were doing it over again!

Pretty sure this is a bug. It doesn't happen all the time, but does happen all too frequently. For some reason the planner will not erase the invasion orders after the landing has occurred. It is one reason why you will often see the ai succeed in a landing only to abandon it (the other being the battle planner grabbing troops to plug holes elsewhere). I suspect it is on the @SteelVolt bug list.

I wish they'd start doing better in China like they used to, one thing I really enjoyed about the Sunflower release was how China would play out. If you didn't intervene it would generally fall, and when you did send volunteers sometimes you could pull it out and other times you were bugging out from the Fall of Nanking not knowing how it would all turn out and your five or six little units seeming quite small and lost in the sea of troops around you and helpless against the tide sometimes. Now I sit back and coddle them and hope they grow into a real threat I can someday get some real army experience from but knowing the Chinese are likely to push them back into the sea all by themselves.

Right now ai Japan has significant issues with production due to the new lack of resource penalties and the trade distance malus. Japan's production scripts don't deal well with lack of resources because it needs a little of everything to field it's 3 pronged military. Japan has to field significant land, naval, and air units like the US (and all those carrier planes) with a 3rd of the industry and a lack of resources. I have often seen several MIC lines shut down and the entire list of NIC shut down due to lack of resources when looking at ai Japan.

Japan needs Steel and Aluminum, neither of which are available in Asia and she is reluctant trade in Europe. And no one will go to Japan now for resources so it lacks the CIC it used to get to build more MIC and NIC. I am playing Japan now testing a few things waiting for 1.4 and the lack of Aluminum is just devastating. You literally can't make everything you need because there is no aluminum in Asia. A player is really pushed now to go to Russia to get the needed resources and ignore the southern resource area at first. Hopefully this is something that PDS is looking at, bauxite was mined in large quantities in Manchuria, Malaya, and the NEI by the Japanese, and from Palau in vast quantities from 1938 to 1944 (about 370,000 tons of washed bauxite). I hope @podcat is reevaluating the aluminum resources availability in Asia like the looked at rubber in Africa.

 

[seattle]

Isn't a main benefit of the grand battleplan doctrine that it increases your entrenchment?
That's very powerful for Japan because you not only conquer islands, but you will even more fortify your holdings against invasions. Japan will defend a ton of ports and thus the entrenchment is gold.
Of course the offensive boost isn't that great.

 

[sterrius]

grandbattleplan have 3 good advantages for japan.

1-> Vs China it will make up for more than enough firepower for you to pierce trough those nasty mountains with less than perfect infantary. Chinese players have a lot of problems (if not impossible) to pierce a good defensive positions made by grand battleplan.

They also have very little tools to resist that 110% planning bonus. It easily makes your inf + artilhary surpass his defense bonus and work like cheap tank divisions.

2-> Grand battleplan give the best breaktrough for naval invasions in the game. (20%). That does help a TON to take heavily fortified positions when you bring 2LT´s to the mix. (36 or 46 plus 20% makes LT very worthwhile as it will offset a little the penalty of the naval invasion by bringing artilhary + LT´s).

Mobile warfare would give better results but only for the tanks. On a division with 5 marines + 2 art (recommend going rocket ASAP for +breaktrough) + 2 lt´s the breaktrough given by the inf + art matters.

3-> Islands defended by a garisson + Some cheap forts + Entrenchment from grand battleplan are very very hard to remove. This kind makes sure japan have little to worry about those islands once the takeover is over.


Also the whole war on asia is very very different from the war on europe. Its a slow war on mountains, hills and jungle. With infantary facing heavy speed penaltys and huge defensive bonus.

SF will face problems once they reach heavy fortified defenses like the chinese river defense line, singapore etc. Just because pure firepower without planning bonus is not enough here and the tanks face too hard of a penalty to really change this. Grand battleplan is the answer for that and allow you to push those LT´s to above average breaktrough lvs and give yourself enough SA to pierce those huge defense bonuses.


Right now grand battleplan is my favorite doctrine by far. I Only use SF as USA. Because USA don´t have the luxury of waiting and making a plan. In europe the amount of terrain you get before germany responds matter and SF helps with that allowing you to strike on plains with a lot of force. But for me SF struggles too much on hard terrain because of the low Breaktrough bonuses and heavy demand on 100% airforce/cas superiority. (Something japan will lack for most of the war vs the allies either by lack of numbers or lack of range).

 

[Alex_brunius]

Isn't a main benefit of the grand battleplan doctrine that it increases your entrenchment?

Speaking generally you get +20% bonus from the doctrines to entrenchment when defending, and +30/60% to max planning depending on branch taken.

And the game is pretty offensively oriented, so boosting attack is more useful then defense.

2-> Grand battleplan give the best breaktrough for naval invasions in the game. (20%). That does help a TON to take heavily fortified positions when you bring 2LT´s to the mix. (36 or 46 plus 20% makes LT very worthwhile as it will offset a little the penalty of the naval invasion by bringing artilhary + LT´s).

Considering that the mobile warfare tree can get +60% breakthrough on the tanks I don't see what to get excieted about here. And if you pick the other branch they don't even get +20% but just 10%.

 

[Theodorian]

Battleplan is just useless overall.

 

[Admiral Piett]

Japan needs Steel and Aluminum, neither of which are available in Asia and she is reluctant trade in Europe. And no one will go to Japan now for resources so it lacks the CIC it used to get to build more MIC and NIC. I am playing Japan now testing a few things waiting for 1.4 and the lack of Aluminum is just devastating. You literally can't make everything you need because there is no aluminum in Asia. A player is really pushed now to go to Russia to get the needed resources and ignore the southern resource area at first. Hopefully this is something that PDS is looking at, bauxite was mined in large quantities in Manchuria, Malaya, and the NEI by the Japanese, and from Palau in vast quantities from 1938 to 1944 (about 370,000 tons of washed bauxite). I hope @podcat is reevaluating the aluminum resources availability in Asia like the looked at rubber in Africa.

This is the big thing at the moment. Even human Japan struggles because there is nowhere near enough Aluminium anywhere in Asia. Even grabbing the moderate supply in eastern Siberia is typically not enough. The only recourse for a human Japan is to trade with Europe and just try and absorb the massive convoy losses as the Allies savage them during the long journey. Without European aluminium, Japan literally can't produce aircraft. AI Japan is completely screwed.

As for Grand Battleplan, I have never tried anything else myself. I always go infiltration for role-playing purposes, but I imagine superior firepower might be a better choice.

 

[lazuka12]

From playing Nat.China in MP I have noticed that SF is much better on the defense in general than grand-battleplan. When you get pushed out of your fortified defensive line, which will usually end up happening, SF has a much better capability to counter-attack and because of it's defense boost it has a better ability to slow down your oponents push from the breakthrough point. Having more SA will also inflict higher casualties to your oponents divisions.

That said grand-battleplan's max planning bonus will give a bit more soft attack compared to SF with 50 % boost but at the same time it will give about a 60 % or higher boost to breakthrough compared to SF for all divisions.

Grand battle-plan is a very rigid doctorine as the name would suggest but it´s strong points are in a well planned defense (best entrenchment in the game) and a well planned intial push with no equal (best attacking stats accross the board for all divisions with max bonus from left side of GBP).

 

[Kaosium]

Pretty sure this is a bug. It doesn't happen all the time, but does happen all too frequently. For some reason the planner will not erase the invasion orders after the landing has occurred. It is one reason why you will often see the ai succeed in a landing only to abandon it (the other being the battle planner grabbing troops to plug holes elsewhere). I suspect it is on the @SteelVolt bug list.

Thank you for the information, I wondered about that and just made sure I remembered to erase my plans after completion. If that's causing the AI to abandon invasions then they ought to fix it and it's good news to hear they're working on it. I wonder how often it happens these days though, being as I've seen the Axis conquer the UK a number of times in my last ten or so games with the new patch, it would seem that they're not having as much problem as they used to at least in that regard.

Right now ai Japan has significant issues with production due to the new lack of resource penalties and the trade distance malus. Japan's production scripts don't deal well with lack of resources because it needs a little of everything to field it's 3 pronged military. Japan has to field significant land, naval, and air units like the US (and all those carrier planes) with a 3rd of the industry and a lack of resources. I have often seen several MIC lines shut down and the entire list of NIC shut down due to lack of resources when looking at ai Japan.

Japan needs Steel and Aluminum, neither of which are available in Asia and she is reluctant trade in Europe. And no one will go to Japan now for resources so it lacks the CIC it used to get to build more MIC and NIC. I am playing Japan now testing a few things waiting for 1.4 and the lack of Aluminum is just devastating. You literally can't make everything you need because there is no aluminum in Asia. A player is really pushed now to go to Russia to get the needed resources and ignore the southern resource area at first. Hopefully this is something that PDS is looking at, bauxite was mined in large quantities in Manchuria, Malaya, and the NEI by the Japanese, and from Palau in vast quantities from 1938 to 1944 (about 370,000 tons of washed bauxite). I hope @podcat is reevaluating the aluminum resources availability in Asia like the looked at rubber in Africa.

This would explain their more recent impotence and I think they ought to do something to make them menacing again. I seem to recall from college geology that the ingredients for aluminum are amongst the most common metals on earth and it wouldn't be either realistic or good for gameplay to inhibit the Japanese too much in their building of a military. The fact they faced resource shortfalls may have perhaps been overdone with this most recent fix.

 

[Meglok]

Isn't a main benefit of the grand battleplan doctrine that it increases your entrenchment?
That's very powerful for Japan because you not only conquer islands, but you will even more fortify your holdings against invasions. Japan will defend a ton of ports and thus the entrenchment is gold.
Of course the offensive boost isn't that great.

Unnecessary. Engineers on a 10 regiment INF Division is plenty to stall a landing until either your ships or reinforcements arrive. That doesn't even take into consideration coastal forts which should be covering vital islands and ports by 1942. If you want to get fancy add a heavy tank regiment and force the opponent to counter.

However, if it is an island and you don't have a navy then no amount of defense will save it in the long run if your opponent wants it bad enough and is willing to keep hammering. For Japan the Navy and Air Force is your best island defense. Let the ground troops pin the landing and your navy and planes swoop in and crush it.

 

[seattle]

Speaking generally you get +20% bonus from the doctrines to entrenchment when defending, and +30/60% to max planning depending on branch taken.

And the game is pretty offensively oriented, so boosting attack is more useful then defense.

How is the game oriented toward offense? France's main duty is defence, Japan can fight defensively after taking out China and blitzing some islands.
As a minor on expansion course, I often fight stronger enemies in prepared defensive lines. It's common to get 10:1 kill ratios when you're dug-in with a few forts. Once the enemy depletes it's stockpiles, the weaker army can move in for the kill along with netting in tons of xp.

 

[seattle]

3-> Islands defended by a garisson + Some cheap forts + Entrenchment from grand battleplan are very very hard to remove. This kind makes sure japan have little to worry about those islands once the takeover is over.

That's exactly my point. Japan will have more key locations to defend statically than most other nations.

But for me SF struggles too much on hard terrain because of the low Breaktrough bonuses and heavy demand on 100% airforce/cas superiority. (Something japan will lack for most of the war vs the allies either by lack of numbers or lack of range).

Interesting point! However, is that always the case for Japan? I would assume that Japan can get air supremacy over most of her holdings, especially the Pacific if you control most islands. Against China you obviously have 100% air superiority and should you go north, then I'd reckon you get the same against the Soviets (if you wait until Barb).

 

[Alex_brunius]

How is the game oriented toward offense? France's main duty is defence, Japan can fight defensively after taking out China and blitzing some islands.
As a minor on expansion course, I often fight stronger enemies in prepared defensive lines. It's common to get 10:1 kill ratios when you're dug-in with a few forts. Once the enemy depletes it's stockpiles, the weaker army can move in for the kill along with netting in tons of xp.

The attacker has a number of advantages like:

• Battleplan planning bonuses scale from +50% to +120% (offense only) while dug in scales from +10% to +50% (defense only)
• Dug in only counts the first combat, while the planning bonus sticks around for many weeks.
• The attacker only needs a single breakthrough of a well fortified line to start encircling and/or rolling up the line
• The best way to defend is having your own tanks behind the lines and counterattacking to encircle their spearhead ( So attack is best defense ).
• When your attacking across a supply zone border then all damage from combat is done to the defenders infrastructure lowering their supply, none of it is done to your own.
• When attacking you can ignore supply limits the first 2 weeks since penalties don't become worse then how much more you gain from overloading the area with tanks/artillery
• The attacker can choose where, when and how to attack, and battles between good designed divisions don't last long enough for it being feasible for the defender to circle in more units in the defense unless we are talking either the Soviet NKVD reinforce bonus, or some extremely bad terrain / high forts slowing down the battle progress.
• Cycling in units for defense is not that useful anyways since they arrive without dug in and can't use the trenches other units have prepared. If the attacker cycles in reinforcements they can get full planning bonus.
• Attack = move means that the attacking units keep moving while in combat, while the defenders only get to start their retreat move after the combat is concluded giving them a disadvantage.
• Attacking units still regain org while they are moving into enemy provinces ( and only 1 division takes a small org hit when capturing the province ), so unless the defender got several lines of defense the following attacks will just be a repeat of the first.
• Static defense where you can't cycle in more units (Gibraltar for example) is impossible even with lvl 10 forts, due to quick org regain the attacking side simply can keep alternating attacking units until whatever little damage the units or CAS does kills

I'm talking about multiplayer game balance here, not versus the AI where they will mindlessly and repeatedly send single divisions of badly suited infantry into your defensive lines for years until they bleed themself dry like it's WW1.


I do agree that Naval invasions is an exception where the attacker is denied most of the things which give them an advantage.

 

[sterrius]

That's exactly my point. Japan will have more key locations to defend statically than most other nations.


Interesting point! However, is that always the case for Japan? I would assume that Japan can get air supremacy over most of her holdings, especially the Pacific if you control most islands. Against China you obviously have 100% air superiority and should you go north, then I'd reckon you get the same against the Soviets (if you wait until Barb).

As japan you have 2 air choices. Both are valid but bring problems.

1-> CAS -> Cas will be ok vs china and will most likely win 100% air supremacy due to lack of chinese planes and limited russia plane help, but after china its a very problematic plane choice as most regions like the ones in singapore and the sea zones are way above the Range of a CAS I or II. Even with 5 upgrades in range. This heavily impacts the amount of Air Superiority you can get so even a little contest from the allies is usually enough to bring your air superiority bonus down enough to stop SF japan from taking heavily fortified positions.

And without air superiority bonus plus planning SF lacks the strenght to breach the defense of a good division. With or without tanks.

2-> TAC´s -> TAC´s are right now my weapon of choice. They fix the range problem, being enough for china and help a lot your navy vs the US navy. IC wise usually they are better to achieve air supremacy as CAS face huge range problems. Dmg wise you will end up losing some damage potential mid/late game.

Also 1940 you can get the 20% reliability and you don´t lose more planes to atrittion that way.

Bad part is that you lose the Ship hit mission without ships to help. Usually easily fixed by a group or 2 of 5 DD´s. The moment they enter battle the TAC´s will join and destroy the opponents.


Fighters usually face same problems as the CAS. Unless you go heavy Fighters. While perfect solution for the range problem hard to pull off right now with H.Fighters being nerfed in 1.3.3 (As fighters got buffed) making the 1940 and 44 versions mostly useless vs their lighter versions. So fighters face the same problems as CAS.


If you go SF also you usually forget about planning. Going Shock & Awe will give you quite a army boost to dmg (15%) but usually its not enough to break a good infantary division defending on the jungle or mountains as those regions give penaltys much bigger than that. (Working like natural lv2 forts). Add that singapore and india will usually have lv5 forts and you have a "lv7" fort to break.

When i play japan i usually play around USA/India/Singapore. Because lets be honest
For China anything works as long you are up to date with the chinese on doctrines. They will spam rifles and get more from russia + Some planes and you have artilhary or tanks (or both). AS long your production strategy is ok and your micro is on par with your adversary china will eventually fall.

So the real question is the after china phase. Breaching india Mountain lv5 forts (Bhurma line) and Singapore lv5 Coastal + Land Fort.
Also how to neutralize australia + NZ quick enough to avoid them coming back from europe.

 

[Lt UlyssesGrant]

To add on @sterrius 's comments, I would argue that Japan's job in an semi-historical MP scenario (after disposing of China) should be to in order of importance:

1. Grab the Malay peninsula (Singapour) and try to secure the rubber supplies for the Axis in a bid to win the airwar.
2. Capitulate the RAJ
3. Capitulate (Australia and New-Zealand)

Achieving these objectives will usually ensure an Axis victory.

The island hoping campaign, while interesting, is certainly not going to win the war for the Axis. Going for the islands is a waste of time for the most part unless you want some good immersion. It is very hard to emulate in game what Japan tried to do in history by making an impregnable island chain to protect Japan. In my experience though, the best way to storm an island is to have high breakthrought units (40 width marines including 4 arty and 2 light tanks or 3 fit the job very well), shore bombardment and 2 old CVs full of CAS and some BBs for shore bombardment. GBP actually helps a lot taking islands because of the added breakthrought on your units. Allowing them to stay in battle longer and thus have the CAS pummel the enemy garisson longer.

So, how does Japan defeat the "Dacca line of lvl 5 forts" in RAJ and break Singapour?

To me, no other doctrine than GBP left branch can provide a more adequate answer.

20% army wide breakthrought and the highest offensive stats at the cost of some fexibility, which can mostly be taken care of using signal companies.
Couple the above with Japan's fort lvl 3 fort buster which you can train up to level 6-7 in China and most fortifications will fall before your infantry army.
Might I add that no other doctrine than GBP will allow you to counterattack with that much gusto. Counterattacking with 110% planning bonus is devastating!

 

[Sourlol]

Then don't do it with that group. I disagree, with planning bonus available to front-line units that are part of a plan (whether you ever intend to use it at all) there's no reason to exclude Marines (or Paratroopers for that matter), you just have to ensure you have the proper facilities, notably an airport or naval base that's on a border. That's achievable for most if not all nations of any impact in the war. Perhaps your group feels morally and intellectually superior because they don't do it and want to micromanage the play of others, but it's also possible that says more about them than it does the ones they denigrate as 'cheesy'.



I come from a place where cheese (the food) is considered something of an art form and a staple of some portions of the economy, it's not considered a bad thing.

I can't help but wonder though, you've the opportunity to ask the developers whose minds you are attempting to read as to whether or not something works as intended, what was their response?

The mechanic needed to get invading marines and paratroopers planning bonus is objectively not working as intended. I think we can all agree it is unlikely an intentional decision by pdx to require players to use these unintuitive methods to get planning bonus on those units.

There is a work around that doesn't offer a benefit above and beyond how we all believe it SHOULD be working. The only discussion is does the specific group want to allow for this high skill/knowledge cap play.

Cheese is dropping a pylon and cannon in the enemy base 2 min into the game. This take a high degree of skill/knowledge about the game to pull off as compared to not doing it. Cheese is invading netherlands as Germany in 1936--a low skill cap, game breakingly unbalanced play (but not an exploit).

Research Juggling is an exploit. It clearly goes against the intent of the mechanic.

Planning bonus for marines/para reads like a workaround/high skill cap play to me.

The real question is where on the scale does division deletion for army XP come in? I argue it is Cheese edging close to exploit. Army xp can be gained via NF, exercise, LL, Volunteers. To delete all but one division for more xp is counter intuitive, makes no sense in a simulation sense, and hase very limited drawback* in current MP rulesets as compared to exercise, volunteers, LL or NF.

*As wars cannot be declared until 1938-9 there is ample time to retrain divisions.

 

[astec]

To add on @sterrius 's comments, I would argue that Japan's job in an semi-historical MP scenario (after disposing of China) should be to in order of importance:

1. Grab the Malay peninsula (Singapour) and try to secure the rubber supplies for the Axis in a bid to win the airwar.
2. Capitulate the RAJ
3. Capitulate (Australia and New-Zealand)

Achieving these objectives will usually ensure an Axis victory.

The island hoping campaign, while interesting, is certainly not going to win the war for the Axis. Going for the islands is a waste of time for the most part unless you want some good immersion. It is very hard to emulate in game what Japan tried to do in history by making an impregnable island chain to protect Japan. In my experience though, the best way to storm an island is to have high breakthrought units (40 width marines including 4 arty and 2 light tanks or 3 fit the job very well), shore bombardment and 2 old CVs full of CAS and some BBs for shore bombardment. GBP actually helps a lot taking islands because of the added breakthrought on your units. Allowing them to stay in battle longer and thus have the CAS pummel the enemy garisson longer.

So, how does Japan defeat the "Dacca line of lvl 5 forts" in RAJ and break Singapour?

To me, no other doctrine than GBP left branch can provide a more adequate answer.

20% army wide breakthrought and the highest offensive stats at the cost of some fexibility, which can mostly be taken care of using signal companies.
Couple the above with Japan's fort lvl 3 fort buster which you can train up to level 6-7 in China and most fortifications will fall before your infantry army.
Might I add that no other doctrine than GBP will allow you to counterattack with that much gusto. Counterattacking with 110% planning bonus is devastating!

I think I ought to have clarified on this, but the main goal of allowing grand battleplan to affect naval invasions is to facilitate the invasion of a heavily fortified and manned phillipines and Singapore.

In MP taking the Philippines ESPECIALLY when PFU gives them a focus and they are a player, grants Japan an enormous boost to effective industry. Singapore has a few factories as well as the crucial rubber (not as crucially anymore because of synthetics, but is more necessary for the tungsten). A skilled player USA will fortify the phillipines with a plentiful amount of 40 width marines, especially on the flanks of ports, making successful landings anything but possible.

Even if you manage to bring 100 or so (from efficiency) CAS and naval bombardment, it still won't be enough to overcome their 1000+ defense level. (Your soft attack is ABYSMAL)

That is why I believe that planning bonus should apply to naval invasions. It would add a whole nother dimension to pacific warfare making defense in depth of singapore/Philippines or any other navally invaded country put more thought into setting a mobile, elastic defense rather than the all or nothing shore defense (that historically was mostly a failure). Compare the invasions of okinawa and Iwo Jima to that of peleliu for example.

 

[sterrius]

Its possible astec but i talked a lot about this with lt ulysses and taking a heavily defended island is really close to impossible because the reality is that the game is still very far from having a good naval invasion mechanic.

A very good example is making a naval fort lv5+. The amount of resources, time and preparation you will need to take a position like this from a single 40 width pure infantary will be close to a D-Day. Demanding carriers, BB´s, Multiple air superiority and very specific marine divisions.

The 1940 and 44 naval invasion tech does try to do that but the +15% defense bonus is not enough to balance this gigantic difference of power.

Also there are other problems like being able to make naval invasions to japan from Los Angeles, etc.

Hope one day PDX will work more on naval invasions/defenses as that is totally a essential part of the pacific war. The only thing they did for now was a nerf on the ship ranges, that helped but still is far from being the only thing necessary to make japan and USA behave more or less like history. (fighting for islands in the middle of nowhere ).

 

[astec]

Its possible astec but i talked a lot about this with lt ulysses and taking a heavily defended island is really close to impossible because the reality is that the game is still very far from having a good naval invasion mechanic.

A very good example is making a naval fort lv5+. The amount of resources, time and preparation you will need to take a position like this from a single 40 width pure infantary will be close to a D-Day. Demanding carriers, BB´s, Multiple air superiority and very specific marine divisions.

The 1940 and 44 naval invasion tech does try to do that but the +15% defense bonus is not enough to balance this gigantic difference of power.

Also there are other problems like being able to make naval invasions to japan from Los Angeles, etc.

Hope one day PDX will work more on naval invasions/defenses as that is totally a essential part of the pacific war. The only thing they did for now was a nerf on the ship ranges, that helped but still is far from being the only thing necessary to make japan and USA behave more or less like history. (fighting for islands in the middle of nowhere ).

The real problem is the fact that you cannot convoy raid to starve islands of their supplies. Supplies somehow just magically appear, making naval superiority trivial. If I as Japan could somehow blockade the supply of the islands, I could ensure a successful landing. Unfortunately, Paradox still uses a convoluted supply convoy system that is almost invulnerable to interception. The only case where I have seen a successful supply blockade is when the sea tile surrounds the entire island enabling you to somehow "physically block" the convoys similar to how a fleet in the bosphorous prevents a crossing from Istanbul.

 

[astec]

The mechanic needed to get invading marines and paratroopers planning bonus is objectively not working as intended. I think we can all agree it is unlikely an intentional decision by pdx to require players to use these unintuitive methods to get planning bonus on those units.

There is a work around that doesn't offer a benefit above and beyond how we all believe it SHOULD be working. The only discussion is does the specific group want to allow for this high skill/knowledge cap play.

Cheese is dropping a pylon and cannon in the enemy base 2 min into the game. This take a high degree of skill/knowledge about the game to pull off as compared to not doing it. Cheese is invading netherlands as Germany in 1936--a low skill cap, game breakingly unbalanced play (but not an exploit).

Research Juggling is an exploit. It clearly goes against the intent of the mechanic.

Planning bonus for marines/para reads like a workaround/high skill cap play to me.

The real question is where on the scale does division deletion for army XP come in? I argue it is Cheese edging close to exploit. Army xp can be gained via NF, exercise, LL, Volunteers. To delete all but one division for more xp is counter intuitive, makes no sense in a simulation sense, and hase very limited drawback* in current MP rulesets as compared to exercise, volunteers, LL or NF.

*As wars cannot be declared until 1938-9 there is ample time to retrain divisions.

Unfortunately Paradox has put in place several game mechanics which are obviously not working as intended. The army xp thing (which could be solved by simply giving major countries, ESPECIALLY Japan some more XP in their focuses) as well as the fact that Naval Invasions do not have planning bonus when they SHOULD