Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kham

To pass the time I played through a solo CWIF game to the summer of 1943 and I have some observations for what it is worth

In general, the screen format often led to forgetting a rebase or having a transport forgotten in some forsaken Pacific or African port. You can cycle through units but that just goes through so many that it is not really working. I don't know how it will work in MWIF but I would suggest that you could somehow set a priority flag for some units for future naval actions/rebase phases. So that they come up first when u scroll through units I mean.

The scale changes had great impact, always benefitting the attacking side.

China: Got conquered. Mostly due to infiltration and the use of air supply to reorganize the infiltrators when they got out of supply. This forced the Chinese back to their heartland, i.e. Chung-King, Lanchow and Kunming. The Japanese - having sustained practically no losses could afford low odds assaults and take those cities eventually.

Pacific: The joy of the Japanese was shortlived. The pacific battle turns defensive for the Japanese real quick usually - and all those extra islands are pretty much indefensible and soon become air bases for the americans. There are a bunch right next to Truk, and the marshalls got taken really quick. Rabaul when from a single hex nightmare that usually had to be bypassed to a 5 hex island where low cost units could just hammer away at the defenders and eventually get the port - killing Japanese reinforcements on their transports. (admittedly the Japanese could have prepared a better defense / surprise impulse but had a lot of units stuck inside China when war broke out). The end result was a rapid collapse of the Pacific perimeter and Americans in the Phillipines in 1943. All the extra units and production from a conquered China meant nothing - the Japanese where so busy trying to defend that they dropped all plans on India and Siberia. I have a hard time seeing how the pacific can be defended at all to be honest.

Russia: When the Russians lost the Moscow - Voronetz - Stalingrad line in 1943 and could not form a coherent line anymore they just got slaugthered. Retreating to "the pacific map" did not work. In the board game u need a lot less units to form a line on the pacific scale.

The Atlantic: All those extra islands made land-based air defense against subs much more simple.

Just some observations from trying it out. Use them for what it is worth.

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian
In real WWII, Subs sank over a dozen carriers. You will never see that happen in a game of WiF.

quote:

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian
In real WWII, Subs sank over a dozen carriers. You will never see that happen in a game of WiF.

Whoa - that sounds wrong. Where's Warspite when we need him?

Subs may have finished off a few CVs but outright credit for sinking a dozen CVs ???

If WiF had a rule that damaged ships had to limp back to a home country port, instead of teleporting through the fourth dimension from, say, Diego Garcia- to the Repair Pool in Japan, USA or England; then we might see more realistic results.

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1

quote:

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian
In real WWII, Subs sank over a dozen carriers. You will never see that happen in a game of WiF.

Whoa - that sounds wrong. Where's Warspite when we need him?

Subs may have finished off a few CVs but outright credit for sinking a dozen CVs ???

If WiF had a rule that damaged ships had to limp back to a home country port, instead of teleporting through the fourth dimension from, say, Diego Garcia- to the Repair Pool in Japan, USA or England; then we might see more realistic results.

Warspite1

Top of my head we have:

HMS Courageous
HMS Ark Royal
Shokaku
Shinano
Taiho
4 or 5 smaller Japanese carriers and light carriers
USS Wasp
USS Yorktown (just finished off after being pummelled by the navy bombers)

Brian Brian is right - although look how many were Japanese CV's at the hands of US subs

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I think the new scale in China and the Urals will help illustrate that the standard WiF rule on Partisans needs some work...just not counting units for garrison within two hexes of an enemy unit would be a simple, but big, change. The new map and the size of the Japanese army will reveal Japanese strategic dreams to be ... dreams actually.

Also Napoleon would have loved commanding the attacking side in WiF...we all love simple supply rules, so we can be Patton, rather than Montgomery.

Land-based air was deadly against Subs ... but WiF already makes it more of a gimmee than it should be due to the units, the rules system, and their building structure rather than the number of bases to fly them from. I hope the new Portugese GARRison unit is in MWiF but I can't remember. Subs should be more dangerous in the game, where you need too many surprise points to sink something valuable. In real WWII, Subs sank over a dozen carriers. You will never see that happen in a game of WiF.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I think the new scale in China and the Urals will help illustrate that the standard WiF rule on Partisans needs some work...just not counting units for garrison within two hexes of an enemy unit would be a simple, but big, change. The new map and the size of the Japanese army will reveal Japanese strategic dreams to be ... dreams actually.

Also Napoleon would have loved commanding the attacking side in WiF...we all love simple supply rules, so we can be Patton, rather than Montgomery.

Land-based air was deadly against Subs ... but WiF already makes it more of a gimmee than it should be due to the units, the rules system, and their building structure rather than the number of bases to fly them from. I hope the new Portugese GARRison unit is in MWiF but I can't remember. Subs should be more dangerous in the game, where you need too many surprise points to sink something valuable. In real WWII, Subs sank over a dozen carriers. You will never see that happen in a game of WiF.

About the subs versus carriers, ...

- Each SUB unit in WIF represents multiple submarines.
- The time line for a naval combat is usually 2 months (there may be multiple combats in a sea areas during a turn, but that is uncommon).
- In WIF subs, surface ships, and land based air often fight together against naval units (e.g., carriers).

So, while the instances of a WIF SUB attacking and sinking a carrier are rare, the involvement of a SUB in a naval combat that sinks a carrier is less rare. Although I have to agree that WIF players do not build SUBs for the purpose of attacking enemy carriers.

quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1

quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1

quote:

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian
In real WWII, Subs sank over a dozen carriers. You will never see that happen in a game of WiF.

Whoa - that sounds wrong. Where's Warspite when we need him?

Subs may have finished off a few CVs but outright credit for sinking a dozen CVs ???

If WiF had a rule that damaged ships had to limp back to a home country port, instead of teleporting through the fourth dimension from, say, Diego Garcia- to the Repair Pool in Japan, USA or England; then we might see more realistic results.

Warspite1

Top of my head we have:

HMS Courageous
HMS Ark Royal
Shokaku
Shinano
Taiho
4 or 5 smaller Japanese carriers and light carriers
USS Wasp
USS Yorktown (just finished off after being pummelled by the navy bombers)

Brian Brian is right - although look how many were Japanese CV's at the hands of US subs

Warspite1

That was unforgivable - I forgot HMS Eagle....

quote:

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

I agree. Even with more than 10 convoys in the North Atlantic, the chances of the subs finding with 7 or more surprise against a CV with a 4-range aircraft onboard are 16.8%. It will take a lot of subs or a lot more surprise to get an X result.

quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1

quote:

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian
In real WWII, Subs sank over a dozen carriers. You will never see that happen in a game of WiF.

Whoa - that sounds wrong. Where's Warspite when we need him?

Subs may have finished off a few CVs but outright credit for sinking a dozen CVs ???

If WiF had a rule that damaged ships had to limp back to a home country port, instead of teleporting through the fourth dimension from, say, Diego Garcia- to the Repair Pool in Japan, USA or England; then we might see more realistic results.

Warspite1

Top of my head we have:

HMS Courageous
HMS Ark Royal
HMS Eagle
Shokaku
Shinano
Taiho
4 or 5 smaller Japanese carriers and light carriers
USS Wasp
USS Yorktown (just finished off after being pummelled by the navy bombers)

quote:

ORIGINAL: brian brian

The whole air/Sub thing in WiF is just goofy ("I'll react my Spitfire out to cover my convoys..."). The Courageous was sunk in the first month of the war on anti-sub patrol ... and it's planes didn't even have a bomb that could hurt a submarine. Here's a good WWII trivia question for you - what happened to the first British aircrew to attack a U-Boat? The U-Boat captured them! How? Their bombs bounced off the water and destroyed the attacking aircraft, and the chivalrous submariners took them back to Germany with them. It took the Allies quite some time to figure out how to sink subs with planes, but in WiF the Courageous is a very effective convoy escort from the very first turn. Convoys in Flames and the sub-chaser plane units help on this some, but the sub/air rules system could still use some deeper thinking, in my opinion. No country in WWII used fleet carriers as anti-sub escorts ... in fact significant ASW assets were kept around fleet carriers at all times due to the sub threat. And while a SUB counter represents 'about' 15-30 subs, how often does the sub side lose an entire counter without scratching an enemy force that has a carrier? It only took one real submarine to sink an enemy capital ship. SUBs do sink CVs on occasion in WiF, but those numbers will never add up to the numbers in the real war, and the CV sinkings during convoy battles is just silly. I guess you could use SUBs in WiF the way Steve mentions, as part of a 'combined arms' action at sea, but that's not how WiF Admirals nor real Admirals tended to use Subs, except of course that Subs and surface ships might operate in the same seas (zones in WiF), so the Subs could finish off stragglers as was mentioned.

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

quote:

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

The real problem for the map cale is distortion on distance as we go north. Make it a sphere.

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

quote:

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

Steve already did a spherical map actually, I realized that some time ago :)it only need to be adapted.

Of course we need to keep the flat one as an optional, so why not the original Wif one too?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Neilster

quote:

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

Steve already did a spherical map actually, I realized that some time ago :)it only need to be adapted.

Of course we need to keep the flat one as an optional, so why not the original Wif one too?

Say what? I must have missed this spherical map.

Cheers, Neilster

quote:

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

Steve already did a spherical map actually, I realized that some time ago :)it only need to be adapted.

Of course we need to keep the flat one as an optional, so why not the original Wif one too?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

quote:

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

Steve already did a spherical map actually, I realized that some time ago :)it only need to be adapted.

Of course we need to keep the flat one as an optional, so why not the original Wif one too?

Not true.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

Steve,

All your reference map are spherical (according to the screen shot I have seen). Of course, they could not be use as it, as several question will rise. But as you show controlled territory, then there is a concordance that could be use as a starting point.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Neilster

quote:

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

Steve,

All your reference map are spherical (according to the screen shot I have seen). Of course, they could not be use as it, as several question will rise. But as you show controlled territory, then there is a concordance that could be use as a starting point.

It's impossible to work out what you're trying to say here due to the incorrect English but I think Steve knows what sort of maps he has programmed and to your assertion that "Steve already did a spherical map" he wrote "Not true". That should be pretty clear.

Cheers, Neilster

quote:

OEIGINAL: I could be wrong but here is how I read it.


All your reference maps are spherical (according to the screen shots I have seen).

Of course, they could not be used as is, as several question arise.

But since you show controlled territory, then there is a agreement of a starting point (when displaying the maps).