Japan neglects Home Isles defence?

[mib]

OK, so in 1946 I dropped my first 2 nukes on Japan.

Japan is still holding Indonesia, some Pacific islands, and Darwin. it has lost Philippines, Malaya, Sarawak, Okinawa and Amami to me, and some Pacific islands and Hokkaido to the Americans. My NAVs have torn up the IJN. There are 20 Japanese divisions in Darwin, 30+ in Indonesia, and 30 in the Home Isles. I thought, I'd stop my NAV naval strikes for a while to get them to empty Indonesia and return Darwin to the Aussies. Nope, didn't happen. Even when Japan proper is in grave danger from a combined American and Chinese naval landing, they still neglect to defend the Home Isles. It wasn't like this in vanilla HOI2. In vanilla they'd be at least 90 divisions in Japan defending, but now there's only 30. Many of them are GAR. It was the most anticlimatic invasion of Japan EVER. My 7 divisions (6 1945 INF, 1 1943 HQ) chewed through the divisions defending Kyushu, landed 3 1939 CAV in Hiroshima, obliterated the 25 or so Japanese divisions still on the Home Isles, advancing past the nuclear wastelands of Osaka and Tokyo, tossing them aside like paper dolls. Bushido was nowhere in sight. I even stopped my 12 STR bombers bombarding Japan to get a better fight from them... but no. Nothing like vanilla HOI2, where the 30 or so Japanese divisions in one province would sometimes inflict more than 20% casualties on my 12 or so divisions, then counterattacking with another 30 divisions, necessitating the transfer of yet more divisions from my Pacific islands to Japan...

PS. Basic nukes do puny damages now... It took Tokyo from 20 industry to 12, and 100% infra to 60%... killing 25% of troop strength from 100 to 75.

 

[Alexander Seil]

The question is, could they even transport those divisions back to Japan? Wouldn't in that situation transporting divisions back to Japan be terribly suicidal? As a player versus the AI, with an almost destroyed IJN, I wouldn't risk transporting 30 divisions anywhere, quite frankly.

 

[Acheron]

I never played vanilla HOI2, yet could it be that there the Japs let too many precious men sit on their home islands that were needed in China?

My guess would be that this got fixed in DD, and that this now has the unforseen consequence of the Japanese leaving their home island undefended.

I remember playing as Japan that when I created Menguko, my troops there got kicked into the tranprot pool. So it is possible to get units back to the home islands via such an event, right?

My suggestion would be yet another event (I am kidna fond of them, I must say), "Home Island perimeter breached". When this event fires, ti gives you the option to abandon certain outlieing holdings, the troops getting into the transport pool and therefor readily available on the home islands. The event would be triggered by an enemy force getting into a seazone too close to Japan with at least X ships. Or, when an enemy lands on the Japanese home islands, make an event to spawn some (early) militia units to make it a little less anti-climatic.

Or fix the AI, whatever

 

[Alexander Seil]

If Japan did well early on (as indicated by the fact that they hold Darwin), it makes sense that they overextended. After a certain point, evacuating those divisions back to the mainland is MORE suicidal that having only 30 divisions in the Home Islands, because they will all end up on the bottom of the sea (it's not like the AI knows that you will let those transports pass!).

As for events and the notorious puppeting bug, the former are ought to be used only in the most extreme situations (not just troop redeployment) and the latter is now fixed.

 

[mib]

I loaded an autosave as Japan and they did have transports, as well as some destroyers and heavy cruisers. It certainly is possible that Japan decided that transporting troops back from Indonesia and Australia (which does not necessarily mean they did well, only that Australia sucked) would be too dangerous. BUT, I let the Japanese Home Isles sit for about a year because I wanted to get some nukes, and also the Russkies are making a comeback so troops are needed in the west. You would think that after one loss of their overseas holdings after another the AI would decide to prioritise to build some infantry divisions in their home isles, which they had a year to do.

What Acheron said is very possible. I had a tougher fight in DD than usual (HOI2), so I was expecting enhanced AI for Home Isle defence. I encircled and destroyed almost 150 divisions in China, meaning most of the IJA was overseas.

As for the puppeting bug, I didn't experience them when I created Korea, Indochina, Philippines, Malaysia, nor when I puppeted Japan (giving the Yanks Hokkaido. Now I have to protect my puppet's territorial integrity and take Hokkaido back... Death to America! :rofl: )

 

[unmerged(52397)]

i must say that i am a bit surprised how well in my game japs are defending their home islands, i am playing as the us and we entered in a status of war thru pearl harbour event, i launched an attack on tokio (kill the head i say , always works fine against the japs, first take their home islands, then move against there other holdings), and for the first time (did it 3 times in hoi2 , always won) they have beat me , they had 6 garrisons in tokio, my marines and mot inf (33 in total) didnt manage to land in tokio in the end,......

that will not save them from me but it was refreshing for a change

 

[Alexander Seil]

MIB, remember that the AI is not like human. It has no memory and cannot detect "trends". All it knows (unlike you, it's omniscient) is that you have a certain number of ships in the area and you can crush any troop convoy you want like a bug. It has no means of determining whether that WILL happen or not (again, it doesn't see a trend in your behavior), so it simply decides that sending troops to Japan would be too dangerous. If AI took into account previous player actions rather than merely the objective facts of the situation, it would be terribly easy to trick it (after all, you could just lure poorly protected Japanese troop convoys out into the open and sink them all!).

 

[mib]

MIB, remember that the AI is not like human. It has no memory and cannot detect "trends". All it knows (unlike you, it's omniscient) is that you have a certain number of ships in the area and you can crush any troop convoy you want like a bug. It has no means of determining whether that WILL happen or not (again, it doesn't see a trend in your behavior), so it simply decides that sending troops to Japan would be too dangerous. If AI took into account previous player actions rather than merely the objective facts of the situation, it would be terribly easy to trick it (after all, you could just lure poorly protected Japanese troop convoys out into the open and sink them all!).

Heh, maybe I WAS expecting too much from the AI. Been playing GalCiv2 a lot. GC2's AI does detect things like this.

PS. My entire navy consists of 9 transports. Constantly guarded by NAVs, of course.

i must say that i am a bit surprised how well in my game japs are defending their home islands, i am playing as the us and we entered in a status of war thru pearl harbour event, i launched an attack on tokio (kill the head i say , always works fine against the japs, first take their home islands, then move against there other holdings), and for the first time (did it 3 times in hoi2 , always won) they have beat me , they had 6 garrisons in tokio, my marines and mot inf (33 in total) didnt manage to land in tokio in the end,......

that will not save them from me but it was refreshing for a change

Why are you attacking with 33 divisions? Attack with 3 or 6, and you can win.

 

[Invader_Canuck]

Heh, maybe I WAS expecting too much from the AI. Been playing GalCiv2 a lot. GC2's AI does detect things like this.

PS. My entire navy consists of 9 transports. Constantly guarded by NAVs, of course.


Why are you attacking with 33 divisions? Attack with 3 or 6, and you can win.

Ya, GalCiv AI is just amazing.

I just love when they ram 15 or 20 undefended troop ships at a border colony and I shoot them all down in 2 turns.

Brilliant AI.

 

[unmerged(38672)]

Why not include a new AI-file that make Japan give higher priority to home defence if in war with USA? Or is that already included?

 

[unmerged(44893)]

Ya, GalCiv AI is just amazing.

I just love when they ram 15 or 20 undefended troop ships at a border colony and I shoot them all down in 2 turns.

Brilliant AI.

Yeah I've been getting some silly situations like that alot in Galciv2. So much for the brilliant AI.

But it works well nonetheless.

 

[unmerged(52397)]

Why are you attacking with 33 divisions? Attack with 3 or 6, and you can win.

thats my force for taking the entire main island, i dont make 5 sea runs for that when playing against ai, in first landing i land the entire force and overrun the island, then move elsewhere

btw. it is rather un fair to compare the ai from gal civ with ai from dd, gal civ ai is just one of the best there is

 

[Manoa]

Historically Accurate

It may be just a coincidence, but Japan failing to send troops back to the home islands is basically historically accurate. By 1945 US naval superiorty was so overwhelming and the Japanese merchant fleet had become so small that large scale troop movements were not really possible. By 1945 mib undoutbedly has somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-20 carriers in the Pacific. It wold be suicidal to try to escort troops with a couple of curisers in such an environment. That does not necessarily mean the AI should be stupid, a player might have the wherewithall to buildunits in the home islands and disband units overseas etc., but I personally find AI foolishness more palatable if it is at least historically accurate. No one will ever know how an invasion of the home islands would have played out historically, but there is plenty of evidence that it could have turned out much as it did in mib's game.