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So just what the gently caress is going on? Well, it’s that time of year again and it’s been months since I’ve heard anything from Alikchi, so I’ve dredged the matrix forums and come up with a There are a few differences of course, noticeably that he wanted to play Japan, and hey, we know Japan is pretty good in this right? I also overhauled the mod, addressing (or attempting to) various things like Scythes (  ), porting the changes to a DBB base as we had originally intended, and cleaning up some hosed up aspects of the Japanese economy resulting from Alikchi and I being too impatient to even attempt to play test it. Ohh, and restoring the normal plane R&D and engine system, because that’s how my opponent likes it apparently  Am I making any kind of commitments to schedule or anything at all? How long will this go on for? How fast are we playing? Respectively: Absolutely not, until I get bored of this and so far unproven, but probably not real time. That said, you fuckers will be content with whatever scraps I dribble to you, and and thank me for it. Will the Alikchi game ever resume? Did he have any input in this? Is he dead? Will he post here? v0V, V0v (he isn’t actually dead), I did ask him but he didn’t respond and v0v but he’s more than welcome to, if not dead. A by no means exhaustive list of changes: Implicitly, everything listed here, since this is built off DIB B, specifically. So significant overhauls to various combat systems, particularly late war allied AA, but also to ground combat, attempting to slow it down and result in more stalemates. As a B variant there are no changes to the shipping capacities from vanilla, a request from Gregimus I honoured as the bulk of the logistics burden obviously falls on the Japanese player. Scythes aren’t nerfed as such, but won’t show up until January, and then only come in at the replacement rate of 9/month, meaning we will be out of the landing bonus before I can field a full squadron and hopefully making them incapable of disrupting the expected flow as much as they did in round 1. Likewise the Billy is gone because it should no longer be needed, and although this time round it should work perfectly, giving the Japanese player a Scythe equivalent that could be manufactured in unlimited numbers in April ‘42 could be mildly problematic. All Allied replacement plane rates are bumped up by 10%, and the FAA by often considerably more, up to 200%. I’m British and I like the RN to be something other than a recurring gag, sue me. 1000 of the 1250 extra (beyond Scen 2 normal) HI locations Japan starts with start damaged, in 2 chunks of 500. This means he will not hit peak production until 500 days into the war, and also means his industry shouldn’t immediately run out of resources, the way mine did. Combined with above Allied plane boost, this will also hopefully mean he doesn’t need to choose between either playing optimally or playing to maintain the narrative as I was. Two thirds of the extra oil on the map moved from Manchuria to the SRA. Starting stocks of oil and fuel in the home islands massively nerfed, in line with the way RA does it instead of Scen 2. I was only shipping oil/fuel back for the sake of it and had in fact calculated I could just send all the fuel to the front lines and not run dry back home until mid ‘46, and that’s assuming no disruption to HI factories whatsoever. Japan has full control of the rail network in China, as a bit of a sop to the massive oil/fuel nerf above, however needed it was. Donryu & Tairyu arrive in the autumn of 42 rather than the spring, so the KB won’t be so inevitably dominant. Also, you know, I like to think I’m pretty good at carrier combat in this.: Various Japanese poo poo renamed to remove anime references. Lots of them probably still remain since I don’t get the references  MXY7 Modd 22 added for the P1Y, and Ki-148 for the Ki-102. Q1M & ZPK blimp made actually useful - shoutout to Jobbo Fett Assorted other poo poo, I don’t know. I’ll talk about it when it comes up if I can remember.  Here we go!
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Dec 20, 2022 23:17
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| # ? May 4, 2024 00:00 |
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GROUND FLOOR BOYS HERE WE GO
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Dec 20, 2022 23:23
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Oh dear, more explosions?
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Dec 20, 2022 23:30
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Reporting
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Dec 20, 2022 23:36
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Hell yeah, time for imaginary boats to blow up!
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Dec 20, 2022 23:39
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Poster trots to thread Hell yeah this is gonna be good
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Dec 21, 2022 00:15
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Oh hell yeah
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Dec 21, 2022 00:38
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Thank you for your service 
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Dec 21, 2022 00:47
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Blimp Lyf Yo.
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Dec 21, 2022 01:29
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I'm playing a Japan game now using the save from Matrix where a guy went through and did all that spreadsheet for you and you start on Dec 8. Having all the convoys setup is a huge step up.
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Dec 21, 2022 01:55
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WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS THE WORLD WONDERS
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Dec 21, 2022 03:39
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Yessss, its a christmas present in advance! Looking forward to you showing us what this bloated runaway military budget can do.
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Dec 21, 2022 09:33
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You magnificent bastard.
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Dec 21, 2022 10:09
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OK so I've had the first turn results, but between Christmas and a sick dog Greggimus isn't going to have the actual turn done until the 26th at the earliest, and thus I can't input any orders either. I'll have the pearl harbour results posted tonight or perhaps tomorrow, but now I've got your attention in the mean time I want to ask you guys about format. I'm thinking this time round I might try to make more use of gifs or some other kind of moving image, both as a way to reduce the amount of screenshots I need to take (don't need to take one to show that a torpedo hit, one to show it penetrated the belt, one to show it hit the engines, ect) and to try and inject a bit more life into the LP. I have a few concerns though, what would you feel is an acceptable gif to screenshot ratio? Too many gifs I think would just result in unreadability, especially if they're all cycling all the time and you can't see when they are supposed to start from. I can solve that by using webm that needs to be clicked on to start it instead of a gif, but is that a good thing from your perspective? Or is that going to be too much clicking? I might post the initial results a couple of times in different styles and see what works better I suppose.
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Dec 21, 2022 14:04
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Another year another witp thread
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Dec 21, 2022 17:13
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The webm format offends my sensibilities but it's a lot better and faster and easier for you to deal with that actually editing them manually to have some start / end cards, however, maybe link the webms? That way they won't do weird things to memory and page loading offsets.
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Dec 21, 2022 18:08
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  What’s this then? Nothing of significance, surely.  Dai Tung’s very bad day   RIP the first casualties of this new war. Well, if you don’t count the crew of those nonexistent midget subs.  Maybe we should have listened to Ward after all   Who could possibly have seen this coming??  So far it’s mostly 250kg bombs bouncing off us though.  Well, mostly.  It takes a hell of a lot to sink one of these big old ladies though, especially in port.  Cachalot though, probably not so much.  Sucks to be submarine crew, but on the whole probably better for us than battlewagons taking the hits.  Getting in early on the old war crimes.  That was really pretty light. Suspiciously light, even. And I think I saw a Kate overflying Singapore…  A few thousand miles west, sweeps are starting.  Oh dear, Buffaloes.  Technically they’re probably better than Peashooters though!  Why they called these things Peashooters I’ll never understand. Nominative determinism doomed them from the start.  He’s being thorough.  Nates are probably actually equivalent to Buffaloes   And as for Oscars, well.  Somehow he survives!  Blenheims really shouldn’t be fighters.  They’re not even much use as bombers afterall.  Lots of unopposed sweeping.  War comes to Rangoon.  They were not ready.  He’s being very thorough, if, in my opinion, a little thin. Fine on the first turn of course where sweep is scarcely needed, but in a sustained campaign bombers are going to fly before the sweep, as we know very well.  Speaking of, a large wave of navy twin engine types approaches Singapore.  60kg hits are ignorable on anything with any armour.  Nice of them to save the 250kg hits for the unarmoured ships.  Quite a lot of them are aiming for the airstrips too, with reasonable success.  Looks worse than it really is, probably.  The vast majority of that is either small and irrelevant hits, or hits on small and irrelevant stuff. Having the Vildebeest grounded isn’t ideal though.  Manila’s turn now.  You can’t make an omelette without cracking some war crimes, I guess.  More 60kg hits.  We do seem to be getting pretty lucky with the Bettys’ bombing.  Really no big deal at all. Sorry Dos Hermanos, but you’re just not very important.  He’s committing the Liz to Manila then. Let’s see how they do, I seem to remember they were pretty poo poo on the first turn as well as being just generally poo poo last time.  They don’t, of course, carry 60kg bombs.  RIP the Asisatic submarine fleet I think.  I’m not sure I’d call that “pretty poo poo”.  Unless, of course, you mean from our perspective.  Sweeping Clark Field.  He can’t have much bombing force uncommitted though, so maybe he’s just looking for easy kills.  Interesting that he’s going for Iba over Clark Field, although Lillys are very much a second line bomber of course.  Second line my arse :arg:  A chance for a kill?!   We re engage as they leave though.  Our best result yet.  The next wave.  Training flights don’t interact with sweep, but have a chance to attack bomber waves.  This is exploitable against players like myself who tend to use fighters mostly for sweep rather than escort, but I don’t because it’s lame as hell, and also you’re waiting most of your fighters potential and letting most of the bombers through unchallenged.  They finish off Spearfish, and in the meantime Shark succumbs to her wounds.  Hong Kong only merits a gaggle of obsolete crap.  On the other hand I did substantially buff the IJA light bombers by making them dive bombers  Lillys over Georgetown.  My Lillys never did jack poo poo!  At least these ones don’t either  Or a smaller Sentai at Hong Kong.  He's leaving no stone unturned.  Or airfield unbombed.  Jesus wept, RIP the Flying Tigers.  Oh god, he does have carriers off Malaya!  Do not fail me now RN AA!  Holding up so far    The second in the same spread detonates though.  Thank you game, where else do you expect torpedoes to explode?  250kg bombs are never going to worry the gunships, but we really need all the AA we can get.  The first hit  AA is mostly holding up so far though. This is exactly the engagement Ark Royal was designed and built for afterall.  But it can’t go on forever.   So far so survivable.  9 Kates straggle in, but 4 of them turn back for lack of escort despite the absence of CAP. I’ve never seen that before, especially not from the Japanese.  gently caress off!!  It’s a bit late for that now!!  Still not heavy damage or fires, good. If she can be half as stubborn as Alikchi’s Ark Royal was I’ll be happy enough.  A PM attack on Pearl? That’s very unusual, but it’s a product of some Sentai failing their flight roll this morning, not a second strike, which in WitP can’t happen.  Despite whatever ragtag group of fighters made it airbourne, the strike gets through unmolested.  They probably only have bombs to drop at this point.  Still, they hurt.  Narwhal is all but cut in half by an 800kg hit, although somehow Grebe has shrugged one off.  Two Dutch bombers try to attack the carriers off Mersing.  A truly heroic if deeply inadvisable attempt.  An attack on ships at Singkawang has much better chances.  Well, of surviving. Chances of hitting anything are still extremely minimal.  I at least hope that makes him feel overextended.  The RAF’s turn.  A Buffalo sacrifice gets the bombers through.  Splosh.  Buffaloes   Blenheims without an escort penetrate over another fleet 40 miles east.  Not that they hit anything, of course.  Now this… Please please please   !!!  Come on! They don’t have torpedoes of course, but these old biplanes have a habit of being lethally accurate with their bombs.  Oooooh!  That could be quite a nasty hit.  Oh well, you did your job, it was nice knowing you.  And infact they only get one of ours. No fires on Ryujo, which is a little disappointing. Still, a lot better than nothing.  Hahaha, die die, DIE!!  Yes.  I’ll take that trade.  PM strikes on Ark Royal The december 7th surprise rule (which is totally required for Pearl Harbour) means there will be no CAP up from her, which is a little silly but oh well. At least this wave is unescorted for some reason and a handful of Buffaloes from the mainland have managed to roll to fly.  Buffaloes that are so bad they can’t even manage a Val each.  Yes, go and bounce some bombs off PoW please.  Or Repulse, whatever. AA ammo seems to be lasting, they are still taking heavy damage on approach.  Shoot, shoot! Light that loving sky on fire!!  This is not good.  This one shouldn’t do much anyway.  Much better.  We actually don’t want the CAP to engage now, I’d much rather they save their ammo for anything else that might be coming.  Oh well, at least they got a few. Those last two bomb hits are really worrying me. Ark Royal is tough, but not armoured box tough.  No second wave of Kates at least, as we’re into the landings phase.  To, I’d imagine no one's surprise, they are landing at Lingayen.  And further up the gulf too.  Older cruisers to escort the landings, standard stuff.  Older cruisers maybe, but what was the Philippine 11th doing?? Sitting on the beach with coconuts when the shooting started?  Some big girls out to play.  A very heavy commitment to Manado? More interestingly we now know the location of two Japanese battlewagons low on ammo, although with Force Z out the fight if not out of the war, I don’t think we can really do anything about it. I’m not sending Kortaener by herself against twenty 41cm guns, even if they are short on shells.  Manado does have some decent coastal guns, but all the same it strikes me as a weird first wave target when Ternate is right there with no defences at all.  Well, that’s the Mersing Gambit confirmed, if confirmation was really needed at this point.  The garrison at Mersing of course is not going to last against much of anything, let alone the massive hammer doubtless about to drop on them.  There’s lots of them.  And they’re landing at Singkawang too.  As expected after we saw Kongo here.  5th Air Division you say? That’s a ballsy commitment, I love it. gently caress, if only PoW and Repulse were in condition to fight we could have some fun tonight. There’s a slim chance they are, but I’d be very surprised.  I’m starting to think he’s thrown everything at Mersing. That, in my humble opinion, constitutes a mistake, but we shall see.  Still more TFs unloading.  And more. Certainly he can’t be landing anywhere else with defences, at most he might manage to grab somewhere undefended like Miri or Brunei.  Wave after wave.  Vigan too. These guys of course couldn’t have reached Mersing anyway, although infact Vigan is undefended.  Another TF starts disgorging troops at Mersing.  Some casualties, it’s a (very minor) consolation.  When will it end?  Sending small units like this is a waste I think, they won’t have a measurable effect on the outcome here, but they could have grabbed smaller bases. Maybe there’s some plan for them I’m not seeing, of course.  Not sure how that’s managing to happen, normally you’d have to wait until the next day to order an attack.  An airfield battalion is of course present, so he now has a level four airfield on Luzon.   Well, that was a fantastic loving start. In fine WitP tradition the USN has got off scot free whilst the RN is already half sunk before I’ve even had a chance to input orders  Much less one sided in the air than you'd traditionally expect, thanks in part to Force Z’s AA gunners, but mostly because he didn’t hit the fields at all at Pearl Harbour. Still, that's a decent chunk of KB pilots dead on day one.  Nothing important on this list yet, yet. Loss of that many submarines is unfortunate, and I’m sure most of the rest of the contents of Cavite will follow soon enough, but no Ark Royal so I’m not complaining.  Force Z, or what’s left of it.  The burning question on everyone’s mind I’m sure. Thankfully not literally burning right now She’s in rough shape, no doubt about it, but the lack of fires and the low engine damage make me think she’s in for a chance. It’s not going to be easy though. Normally I’d hunker down with her in Singapore for a week or so, but with a maximum effort landing at Mersing that’s obviously not an option.  Prince of Wales is fighting fit, but by herself can’t really do too much. Once she can link up with Kortenaer though…  Except, ohh. Seeing Repulse disbanded into Singapore out of Force Z I was expecting by far worse than some damage to her topsides. This gives us Options, oh yes.  The general situation at Singapore. Ark Royal aside, the most damaged and important ship on this list is Mauritius, who’s going to be fine. Everything else is either also fine or entirely disposable.  Manila. Yeah, this lot are capital F hosed, I’ll proably scuttle the three over 90 flooding to scrape back a handful of VPs and more importantly guarantee the survival of their captains. The rest at least stand a chance of limping to Soerabaja over the next month, assuming he doesn’t invade Java before then. He does seem deliciously aggressive.  And finally, that irrelevant backwater Pearl Harbour. Nothing to be worried about here, even Cachalot looks like she’s going to be fine. Of course, with only 2/3rds of the KB here that’s hardly surprising, but I would say he did about as well as could possibly be expected with the lowered commitment. Not even bothering with the airfields at all helped a lot with that of course.  Nevada, the battleship with the least reserve flotation remaining.  Arizona is really far worse hit though.  Pennsylvania.  New Orleans took her torpedo like a champ.  Maryland, the last battleship to take more than superficial damage, mostly to her 5” batteries. Welp, in the end I decided to stick with what I know, so that will have to do for tonight. A more general situation will follow tomorrow and maybe some initial ideas for plans. Feel free to take advantage of the time before I can actually put in any orders to suggest things, although of course the usual disclaimers are very much in effect. Pharnakes fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Dec 23, 2022 |
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Dec 23, 2022 00:57
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I love the sudden pivot to a random land bombing in the middle of Ark Royal's existential struggle. I'm guessing its a mix up in screenshots, but the timing was comedy gold.
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Dec 23, 2022 01:33
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I forgot how long Turn 1's were, sheesh let's go Ark Royal!!!
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Dec 23, 2022 04:12
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The Mersing Gambit is one of the feistier moves from the Japanese WITP playbook. Looking forward to the game.
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Dec 23, 2022 05:11
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For those casual scrubs among us (like me) who only play Allies and only against the AI, could you explain the Mersing Gambit? I'm seeing a massive swarm focused on just Mersing and I'm guessing the idea is to zerg rush Singapore, cutting off the rest of the peninsula from any hope of evacuation and, if successful, speeding up the advance of the southwestern thrust by about a month. Bit of an "all eggs in one basket" situation though isn't it? Anything else in it or did I get the gist of it?
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Dec 23, 2022 09:38
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That's pretty much it. Going for Mersing maximizes the amount of Allied troops you can isolate and can speed up the fall of Singapore, but you're operating that much closer to Allied bases
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Dec 23, 2022 09:46
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 Our airforces at Singapore. The airfield itself isn't too badly damaged, but our aeroplanes are pretty crippled. That is slightly skewed by Ark Royal’s squadrons being craned ashore and needing reassembly, but still, it’s pretty grim. Regretting removing the Scythes from the starting lineup now  Reported at Mersing is this gaggle of stuff, although in practice we know there must be much more present.  And their carriers, which we know to be Hiryu, Soryu and Ryujo. They are now going to be a little short on strike planes, particularly Vals, but they still have Kates and probably at least ~20 torpedoes to put on them. In between the two fleets are reported two CAs, which I’m inclined to suspect are battleships, probably Nagato & Mutsu, although it could also just be a pair of stray destroyers. This is the fleet the two Dutch bombers tried to attack, but they were both shot down before making contact. If we could have had a positive confirmation on what is here it would be hugely useful right now, but the very fact the TF attracted an attack over the carriers next door suggests battleships to me.  There is already, uhh, a lot of stuff ashore at Mersing. In total he’s going to be landing something in the order of 1.2-15k AV here I would think, with probably a third to a half already ashore.  We have just over 200 AV worth at Singapore, but a significant proportion are Malay troops that are pretty worthless.  The critical hex of Kluong is held by the 22nd Australian Brigade. Decent, even good, for what they are, but badly understrength and no more than a speed bump to what’s coming. Johore Bahru is held by another understrength brigade, and to the north Malacca has a small Punjabi garrison.  Thoroughly outflanked in the north are a pair of green and under equipped Indian brigades. I’m kind of tempted to go on the offensive here to be honest. There are no Japanese troops in Thailand at the start, and since he’s sent everything at Mersing that means Singora is going to be undefended. Also toying with the possibility of withdrawing everything I can north, and evacuating from Georgetown. If only those two squadrons of Scythes were present, what I couldn’t do   Over at Singkawang only Kongo is confirmed. It’s generally standard practice to at least pair battleships up, but who knows what Greggimus thinks of such conventions. Since Kongo and her potential companion(s) didn’t directly support the landings, all we have to go on again are the reports of the Dutch bombers. Notice that Singkawang is range 8 from Singapore, and deeply annoyingly both PoW & Repulse have been slowed such that their maximum sprint distance is 7 hexes per phase, meaning a night attack on the fleet unloading at Singkawang is not a possibility. In purely fleet engagement terms, a day phase battle is probably preferable, we all know how the IJN like to favour night engagements afterall (although it has to be pointed out the RN is no joke in that regard either). However, that will mean another 12 hours of uninterrupted unloading for him at Singkawang, which with the speed they unload at currently probably means we won’t be able to prevent him taking Singkawang, which is the real prize at stake. We could head over and seek a day fight against a presumed pair of Kongos, even a damaged Force Z should win that handily, and sinking or crippling two of his best carrier escorts this early is no small matter. On the other hand, it’s hardly the decisive blow I’m looking for, and there is a risk of either land based air from Vietnam issued torpedoes in anticipation of an exodus from Singapore, or the carriers might just be in Kate torpedo range.  The Dutch have the bulk of their fleet assembled and ready at Soerabaja, with some destroyers at sea. Soerabaja is too far from any potential targets for tomorrow (except, potentially, a 24 hour sprint to Singkawang), but Kortanaer will surely see action soon enough.  Clark Field was entirely untouched by bombers, and boasts a reasonable complement of ready fighters, as well as 8 Fortresses ready to fly. We have another 16 ready down at Cagayan in Mindanao, also untouched, which gives us a decent if delicate strike force. To be used only after due consideration, but there are some tempting targets, particularly the airfield at Takao must be packed to the gunnels and beyond, and I very much doubt he has put CAP up. A night raid on those closely packed Liz could prove very lucrative indeed.  At sea the USN has Houston & Boise, but they are too far south to intervene tomorrow. Also Manila has only one fighting fit destroyer to escort them with.  The bulk of the USN destroyers in the far east are undamaged, just even further south. It’s tempting to have them try a night run on the ships at Manado, but at maximum range if anything goes wrong they will arrive in daylight instead, where they will probably get slaughtered for nothing even if the Japanese are low on ammo.  In the Pacific; Enterprise is at sea, escorted by United States.  And to the west so is Lexington. Four on two is still very uncomfortable odds, so there’s no question of trying to intercept the reduced KB as it heads for home. However I’m feeling rather emboldened about contesting Wake, which would normally be suicidal in a pbem.  Saratoga is in port at San Diego, but ready to leave. Note to self: don't forget an escort! You’ll notice there’s also a whole bunch of allied TFs all over the place, this is various things DBB has added which presumably were at sea historically on the 7th. Most of it is just assorted xAKLs that I frankly couldn’t care less about, but there’s some more important stuff we’re going to have to escort through the submarine cordon.
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Dec 23, 2022 23:43
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 Ok, so the turn is apparently being worked on tonight, although I won’t be able to do anything with it until after work tomorrow, so I thought I’d talk about overall strategy going into the game. Obviously this is all very up in the air since I have no real sense of him as a player yet. The two impressions I get from turn one are aggressive and single minded, but it’s hardly a very large sample now. Let’s start then with a couple of the strategic maps. I wish we could do higher resolutions of these, but then WitP was hardly built with modern monitors in mind.  As you can probably imagine, green is us and red is him. Shocking. Yellow is us also, but bases that aren’t in full supply.  And a cleaner one with taskforces off, so you can more easily see what is an island or a fleet. Although actually with how little we have at sea right now, that makes not much difference to be honest. So apart from China and those two red dots of the landings at Singkawang and Mersing, just as you’d expect it really. This being the mod that it is, we are obviously going to have to bleed ground, and lots of it, but the difference between overall winning and losing this game could well come down to just how, and how well, I can manage that process. As Alikchi very neatly demonstrated in our game, if you forward defend you can really surprise the Japanese player and screw up his early invasion schedule, but if you then have no reserves once the initial shock wears off you’ll be bypassed and end up worse than a more conservative deployment. My plan therefore, rather than contesting Malaya and Borneo, is to pull back everything I can from the initial front line, preparing a series of set piece defences I’d like him to hit in late January/early February, hopefully ruining the rest of his plans for the landing bonus by drawing those fights out long enough that any further significant attacks become impossible. Therefore, I’m adopting the Red Dead Redemption strategy.  Which is to say, forming three strongpoints at Rangoon, Darwin and Rabaul. This might seem (with the possible exception of Darwin, I guess) like a very aggressive, overly optimistic defence, and it would be. But remember I’m not particularly expecting to hold any of these bases, even Darwin, just hold them long enough to run out most of the landing bonus and thus prevent anything outrageous like a February attack on New Caledonia or Fiji, or March landings in India. As a matter of fact, I strongly anticipate the war coming to India, but I want it to be out of the landings bonus where we can at least play on our Sig Int advantage, if he doesn’t just drown us in noise anyway. At the very least I want him to have to pay the full preparation time, although of course he could well have set that clock ticking already.  Which isn’t at all to say I intend to Sir Robin before that, and here we have particular bases I intend to fight at, either due to their strategic importance or their defensible terrain, ideally both. So in the west we have from the top: Port Blair in the Andaman Islands, the key to Rangoon. Palembang in Eastern Sumatra, the largest oil field in the game (maybe even the world at this time?) Malang or Madioen in Java, two highly defensible (mountain and jungle rough respectively) bases within easy retreat from Soerabaja. I’m leaning towards Malang at the moment despite the better airfield at Madioen, a big prize for anyone who can guess why. Although it would kind of ruin the game. And then to the east, Clark Field in Luzon is the most defensible hex, the hex with the best airfield, and by virtue of controlling access to the Bataan Peninsula, also the decider of who has access to Manila Harbour. Clearly therefore this is the only hex in Luzon worth contesting. In Mindanao I’d like to defend Davao in the south if I can get troops there in time, because I judge it likely he will land there, and it’d be nice to surprise him. If not the equally defensible hex of Malaybalay in the interior will be the last stand of the 101st Philippine division. Finally, Ambon with its single hex island, jungle rough terrain and level 4 airfield is worth making at least a medium sized deal out of.  The Pacific, with it’s vast distances and currently non existent garrisons is far to fluid at this point to make any real plans, although I do intend to reinforce at least the following points: The Auelutians Midway Wake (if it seems feasible) And in the south, from the left: Tulagi Espiritu Santo The Ellice Islands The Phoenix Islands It’s also worth noting that with 1/3rd of the KB already deployed to the DEI, initial expectations for this theatre might be considerably subverted in practice. In two weeks time we shall have Saratoga with us, and then if nothing changes we will be 3v4, which really isn’t such terrible odds. That brings me on to overall fleet strategy though, which you might be surprised to hear is going to resolve mainly around fleet in being. Although I am at heart a death or glory cove, I am going to have to restrain myself for now. So long as we maintain a credible threat in each theatre there is a distinct limit to how fast and far he can advance, whereas if we fight a decisive battle and lose (or at this point, even draw), well, he’ll be in Calcutta by Christmas. This Christmas Of course, we will have to remind him occasionally that we are not to be taken for granted, but my initial instinct to attack on all fronts is not actually the right one for this situation
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Dec 26, 2022 22:57
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Any plans for how you intend to deal with a situation where he gets as shafted as you were with the damaged refineries and oil production? Cause I remember you having some...issues with the 99% devastation of all the key oil producing hexes as you took those places.
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Dec 26, 2022 23:07
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No post today, or indeed for a few days. gently caress, every time I play again I forget just how long the first turn is. Or second as allies. Anyway, I though about posting it in chunks, but I'm likely to change my mind a dozen times or more about major decisions over the next few days so it's just going to be confusing if I post about how force Z will run away then in a week when the results are in I've instead had them slam face first into Mersing. So we'll save it all up and have it as one big post. Up to 199 screenshots so far SerthVarnee posted:Any plans for how you intend to deal with a situation where he gets as shafted as you were with the damaged refineries and oil production? Cause I remember you having some...issues with the 99% devastation of all the key oil producing hexes as you took those places. We'll cross that bridge when we get there, but I doubt we will. I had a very bad run of luck initially but then took Palembang more or less intact which mostly restored the average, so at the very least I'm not going to panic over it until he's taken all the major oil bases. And if it does happen there's options, don't worry we won't let it ruin the game.
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Dec 27, 2022 22:52
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A pretty wild first turn! I will always love WITP threads
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Dec 28, 2022 06:07
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 OK, gently caress, where to even start  Well, might as well start with the big stuff. After spending approximately 80% of my waking time in the last week wondering what to do with Force Z, the decision has been made. A run against Mersing, as tempting as it is, is too great a risk of the destruction of Force Z, which combined with the inevitable loss of Singapore leaves our entire western flank open and essentially nothing to stop him from landing in India before the end of the year. On the other hand, PoW and Repulse handily outmatch the Kongo class in both firepower and armour, and although they can’t make comparable speed anymore, I think they could well get some nasty hits in before the Japanese battleships can escape. By the time they have rearmed and performed what emergency repairs they can, they won’t be leaving until well into the night, meaning a sprint in the day phase will be required.  The antiquated, but crucially, undamaged Danae is making a daring run in the night to attempt to disrupt the landing cycle at Singkawang. Her odds aren’t great, but all she needs to do is make contact with the landing fleet to scare them off, then run. I feel it’s worth the risk for an otherwise fairly worthless old rust bucket.  If we’re making Singkawang into a “thing” then we’re drat well bringing everything we can to bear. The Dutch rebase their newest medium bombers to Palembang, enabling them to fly with a full load. If we can save Singkawang this turn we’re in with a chance of outright destroying the 5th Air Division, which would be a very nice consolation prize for the loss of Singapore. Losing Singapore is bad enough, if he can get setup at Singkawang with AV support and it’s already level 3 airfield, he’s basically got the Java Sea on lockdown straight away.  And finally, if Kortenaer leaves Soerabaja right now at best speed, she can just reach Singkawang tomorrow in time to provide some fire support against the anticipated Japanese assault.  She will collect the rest of the Dutch Navy on the way.  Night naval bombing is patchy as hell, but, hey sometimes it works, and if it is going to work it’ll be with these old biplanes with their ridiculous accuracy. If we tried day bombing we’d surely just get butchered anyway, and we have to try and do something about this giant target at Mersing. I’m also evacuating the planes temporarily to Johore Bahru, to protect them from the inevitable bombing of Singapore tomorrow.  Night bombing of course requires night search.  Ark Royal doesn’t have the speed to reach anything other than Tandjoengpinang and still be safely hidden in port by the air phase, but at least that will get her away from the Singapore docks for tomorrow, because I’m sure they’ll be hitting us hard here.  Anything heavily damaged at Singapore today is put into individual TFs and left to make their own way to Batavia. I’m hoping this will create confusion with the Japanese sighting reports and improve the chances of our better stuff escaping.  We have enough political points available to allow the 2nd Loyal Battalion to be directly assigned to ABDA, and thus be evacuated from Singapore to Java. There are lots of other units I’d like to get out of Singapore, but it simply isn’t possible, we have to prioritise heavily.  Artillery units are very cheap in PP to reassign, and every single AA gun we can get out is going to count, so this is an obvious choice.  The entire fighter wing in Singapore (or what’s left of it) will attempt to cover the retreat. He can’t sweep our TFs, and most of his carrier Zeros should be covering Mersing, so we should have a decent chance of grubing some kills.  Units within Singapore that have a pack time of only one day will be able to escape to the north, although I’m not sure what the chances of actually getting them out of Malaya are.  A couple of Indian Battalions and some supporting artillery at Malacca are already free to load. They can’t all fit in, but we’ll get a decent chunk of them out.  The 15th Indian Brigade by virtue of higher morale is chosen to retreat to Georgetown, and maybe even to be evacuated from Malaya, if they get ridiculously lucky.  Leaving the 6th Indian Brigade to go on the offensive. The suicidal invasions will continue until morale improves! We simply don’t have enough shipping to get everybody out, and fighting is pointless so let’s go and see if we can catch those planes at Singora on the ground. Doing this will also delay the arrival of the bulk of the Southern Army, who are in Vietnam and must march into Thailand before taking the train down the peninsula to Malaya. Can’t do that if we’ve planted a flag on the railway lines.  I’ve no idea if there actually are any tankers here or not, but gently caress it, let’s find out. I don’t suppose he’s put any CAP up, and the absolute best possible outcome would be him putting CAP up rather than pushing us with sweeps or LRCAP over Mersing.  In fact, gently caress it, let’s really get under his skin. We’ve got a handful of thoroughly obsolete Blenheims at Alor Star, which, if we transfer the flyable ones to Victoria Point, can just reach Bangkok. To be honest I’m not even sure if Thailand has entered the war at this point, but if they haven’t they certainly will after tomorrow  A pair of destroyers fleeing Hong Kong are ordered to go and poke Samah. It will certainly be a target rich environment, although how well escorted the convoys might be I really don’t know.  The Dutch submarines are focusing their patrol efforts on the corner of Vietnam, in anticipation of all that stuff at Samah heading south.  Madioen is chosen as the fall back point for Java. I’ll start funnelling every unit I can with engineers here.  The USN isn’t going to let the Royal Navies have all the glory though, Marblehead is going to lead her squadron in for a night run on the fleet off Manado. I originally wasn’t going to do this, but then I realised that because the battleships bombarded as part of the unloading process, they must be directly integrated with the fleet, rather than escorting it at a distance. Therefore they should take horrible penalties at the beginning of the fight, in addition to being somewhat low on ammo. I doubt anything much will come of it other than some dead four stacks, but eh, let’s try it.  Destroyer division 57 is steaming north for Iolio, where they will join Houston & Boise.  S-36 was already at sea today and has avoided the devastation. She will patrol between Luzon and Formosa, hoping to catch subsequent invasion waves.  A handful of fleetboats - Skipjack, Sargo and Sculpin, made it through unscathed, and will be doing likewise.  Most of the survivors though are embarking on a long and uncertain journey to Soerabaja. The bulk of them will probably make it eventually, submarines being very tough in WitP.  But Snapper, Sailfish and S-38 are judged beyond hope, towed out into Manila Bay and abandoned.  As is the Clemson class John D Ford.  About the only valuable thing left at Manila with a decent chance of escaping, Pecos is ordered to get the hell out, accompanied by the one unscathed destroyer available.  The remaining shipping will be escaping independently as best they can. Narrator: They did not escape.  The PT boats are sallying from Cavite. They probably won’t achieve all that much, but they can be loving annoying and you never know when they might get lucky.  The USAAF’s first blow will be to strike at Takao airfield tonight. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for some reconnaissance planes able to reach Takao. Unfortunately the US hasn’t invented strapping a camera to a plane yet.  Although, it turns out there is one flyable Beaufort the RAF have at Kuantan that has not only the secret technology of aerial cameras, but also both the range to reach Clark Field and to then be able to overfly Takao from there. Let’s do it.  Fortifications are started at Clark Field.  And the order is given to start withdrawing from all other bases. Since he landed at San Fernando rather than Lingayen, the 21st will be able to retreat intact, and we have another day or two in hand for troop movements.  Like I said earlier, the DBB scenario starts with various allied shipping at sea, and some of which is leaving the Philippines with supplies. I immediately order these cowards to turn around, and deliver their contents where they can hopefully go unnoticed.  A bunch of Dutch coasters are also voluntold to load up at Soerabaja and make their own way as best they can up to Luzon. Every thousand tons of supply we can get in could well be another day we can hold at Clark Field.  A somewhat more serious convoy is loading for Cagayan. These guys are in for a reasonable chance of making it there (and maybe even back!) so they warrant an escort. If we can get the supplies in, Cagayan makes for a decent B-17 base to do unexpected things like harras Babeldaob.  CAP up for Palembang. I don’t anticipate any action here tomorrow but you never know.  A large convoy is here and loading up what they can. Escorts will be provided by the Dutch enroute.  And coming the other way, the first supply convoy for Java is loading at Perth. Somewhat hampered by old and rickety escorts, but we can’t be choosers right now.  I don’t want to overcommit to Ambon, but an additional 40av should be enough to thoroughly screw up his expectations of force required whilst keeping something in reserve for us.  The Dutch have seized a horde of old civilian ferries and short distance liners that are perfect for Dunkirk style evacuations. Because of the way restricted commands work we can’t actually use them on Dutch units at all, but we’ll send them up to Northern Sumatra in the hopes of being able to get most of the 3rd Indian Corps out of Malwaya with them.  Another area where we must get supplies in while the getting is good: Burma.  The Flying TIgers are retreating to Mandalay, to please not be bombed for a day or two, thanks.  As said earlier, I intend to make a fight over Rangoon, so the convoys bound for Singapore are diverted.  The RAN is making a run for Rabaul, in the hopes of getting there before any invasion convoy.  First on the scene though is going to be USS Houston.  New Zealand departs for Fiji.  Elements of the First Australian are being assembled in Sydney, in anticipation of a fight over Darwin.  Kavieng is being evacuated back to Rabaul by airlift.  The yards at Pearl Harbour. We’ll have two battleships and New Orleans back in a few weeks, and West Virginia not far behind.  Oklahoma is lightly damaged too, but can’t start repairs yet because in all the excitement a cook burnt some toast. Still, by spring the USN will have at least half a dozen battleships able to stand in the line. About what you’d probably expect given the reduced effort directed at Pearl, but I’m pretty happy with it.  Our two available carriers will link up west of Johnston Island.  The USN fleetboats will be using Townsville in Australia as their base for the next period, and require tenders to operate from a relatively underdeveloped port.  Saratoga departs San Diego, yes, with escorts.  The first of doubtless many troop convoys from San Francisco, carrying whatever we are allowed to load. No real plan on what to do with them yet, but they’ll be for garrisons in the central or southern Pacific.  And finally, the most important question of the game. Will Penguin make it to Darwin? Get your bets in!
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Dec 31, 2022 00:15
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I believe you can do it Penguin! 
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Dec 31, 2022 19:34
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Some exciting turns ahead! I'm always a sucker for a good surface combat in the DEI. The first few turns - when Japan can be dominant anywhere it wants to be but doesn't yet have the networks of airbases and search and escorts and such and can run into the small number of assets the Allies can put in play - is a very fun dynamic.
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Dec 31, 2022 22:02
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Oh poo poo here we go agaaain
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Dec 31, 2022 23:53
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Let's go sink the Royal Navy!
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Jan 1, 2023 02:27
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the lone Beaufort going over Takao to provide recon for B-17s out of Manila it'll be worthy of a Peter Berg film if it works
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Jan 1, 2023 13:14
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  Wait, where have those battleships gone??  I’m not going to show all of the Mersing screens.  San Fernando going well.  Let’s hope this is the last phase of unloading they get at Singkawang.  Oops.  Things are on the move around Singapore. Many things.  Oohh, Danae has bumped into the Kongos coming the other way.  Not good so far.  On the other hand, they are shooting off a lot of their torpedoes and not hitting her. That’s actually quite good since they should also get caught by Force Z in a couple hours.  It’s less good if they hit her though.   Lmao, what. I think that’s the best I’ve ever seen any ship be after taking a long lance, never mind a D class cruiser.  Well, this explains why there were no battleships providing fire support to the landings at Manado. He has very sensibly split them off into a surface combat TF, and thereby completely ruined our plan.  Good effort from Marblehead, but the only thing to do now is hope they cut and run.  We’re getting the worst of it, of course.  But we get away without significant damage.  No Danae to disrupt them at Singkawang of course, still, that means we are out of the night naval phase,and with no fight between Force Z and the Kongos, they should be here on time in the day phase.  Wow, the defenders of Mersing get a hit in!  A daytime battle at only 3k yards?  They must be blind!  gently caress ‘em up girls.  They’re shooting back now though.  We’re not getting a sneaky run on Samah then, oh well.  And again, this time really at point blank.  A good start.   Haha, gently caress you!  Well she went down fast.  Sinking a few irreplaceable xAPs would have been ideal, but I’ll cheerfully settle for a nice Fubuki.  They’re not giving up.  These destroyers might be ancient, but they’re crewed by heroes.  They’re starting to fight back more now, and even three on three the odds are decidedly on their side.  Well, we already did far better than it was reasonable to expect.   Thanet, but it looks like Hatsuki is cooking off nicely from those two shells in the second bout. Unloading??? What the hell is Force Z doing?  They’re right here in the hex!  These 3” guns are doing their best, but sadly it looks like they didn’t manage to start any fires.  And now we’re into the airphase. Look at Singkawang, Force Z is there argghhhhh. And no bombardments either!!  CAP up at Singapore, so that must mean the evacuation TFs haven’t left yet. This is shaping up to be a total disaster  This means he can sweep over our TFs, and this is Bad.  No CAP at Georgetown since we sent them all to Johore Bahru.  Well, navy bombers here is good, since the alternative is they’re torpedoing us at Singapore.  Storms over Rangoon should provide a good degree of protection.  Which they do.  Lilies at Georgetown, but they don’t hit all that much.  Army planes from Samah attack what’s left of our destroyers.  I’m now regretting making these things divebombers.  RIP our heroes.  Maybe Scout can make it?  More Lilies, and more damage this time.  And some Sallies for good measure.  At least this does mean the Sonias and Marys get used, I suppose.  Our Kingfishers sneak under the CAP at San Fernando.  Only to miss.  And then get caught as they leave  RIP indeed.  Which of course means the CAP is down low as the Seagulls arrive.  Five get through.  Nope.  Worth trying.  Wait, the Kongos are now at Mersing? And there’s no loving CAP?!?!  gently caress!  Some random Blenheims are still on naval bombing.  I thought I put them all on bombing Thailand.  What is even happening now.  Preemptive revenge on Bangkok for perfidiously attacking us after we bombed them just because we couldn’t think of anything else to do.  Take that!  Another wave over Rangoon.  I’m never going to complain about Betties being committed against land targets.  Extra sweep over Singapore, and that must be his CVs out in the middle of the South China Sea. What the hell??  Today the Liz come for Clark Field.   It would appear they did not get destroyed on their field  And that’s all of our Fortresses out of action, probably. poo poo.  This is not going well.  No survivors then.  Trying not to think about how much damage our Vildebeest would have caused on day bombing here   And who knows what has happened to Force Z   Well, maybe they can catch these cruisers tomorrow.  gently caress you rice paddies!  This turn is not up to my usual standards Let’s hope I get into the swing of things soon.  Chaos regions.  And not the good kind!  I-8 takes a swipe at our minesweepers returning to Pearl.  There’ll be lots of this in the future I’m sure.   As expected.  Mersing. Lmao.  Of course, but will he pursue? That makes all the difference.  He did not, meaning evacuation plans should go through.  Manado never had any hope of course.  No chance whatsoever.  And now he has his airfield with a huge air HQ unit, I think an air division has 144 AV support squads? Plus of course torpedoes. However, I do see one glimmer of hope in a mistake he’s made here, any guesses?  And then, of course, there is the minor issue I was too arrogant/forgot to evacuate the planes  Welp, so today was one of those most WitP of turns where both sides gently caress up catastrophically but symmetrically resulting in nothing actually that dramatic happening. God only knows what the gently caress he was thinking, withdrawing his carriers just because their strike wings got lightly mauled. Had they even lost a single Zero? It’s not like anything was necessary but to keep CAP up over Mersing. And I of course tied myself into 5d 50 moves ahead chess and decided the best option was night bombing??? We’ve got like 40 flyable torpedo bombers here, and those biplanes do not gently caress around. Kongo and Haruna would have been toast. Since in this game I am allied, when Greggimus sends me the combat replay, this is all I can post, so until I get the turn file once he has finished his orders, I can’t post the actual results of damage to ships, ect. Would you guys rather I just post as I receive it like this, or save it up until I can go the whole day at once I was before?
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Jan 1, 2023 19:03
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 It keeps it nailbiting and very, very confused, which is the only way to deal with this game.
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Jan 1, 2023 19:32
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Yeah, Love Force Z just sitting there as the Japanese land.
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Jan 1, 2023 19:56
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habeasdorkus posted:Love Force Z just sitting there as the Japanese land.
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Jan 1, 2023 21:30
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You're a madman Pharnakes, a beautiful madman with delicious WiTP scraps
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Jan 2, 2023 00:03
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Where, repeat, where was Force Z? The world wonders.
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Jan 2, 2023 03:41
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| # ? May 4, 2024 00:00 |
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So glad to have a Pharnakes WITP screenshot LP active on the forums again.
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Jan 2, 2023 14:38
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