Joseignacio
Posts: 2449
Joined: 5/8/2009
From: Madrid, Spain
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Centuur
Knowing the rules is one thing. Getting the right strategy and tactics another. Sure, I know how to defend properly and how to attack, using the available terrain. The air force, well, let's just say I can make good use of it. However, the fleet? I still don't get it. There's something there which I don't seem to understand.
A good admiral knows when to fight and when not to fight. Now, that's a very difficult decision for me to make, since I don't seem to be able to get to estimate the combat losses in advance. The outcome of a naval battle is always a gamble, even with a far superior force in a sea area you can get trashed by the opponent by rolling a bad die compared to the opponent having all the luck in the world...
So I put in some more research in the major naval battles of the war. And there it is: most of those battles were lost or won due to being lucky or not. Tactics simply have nothing to do with it. You get found by the enemy? You might be in trouble if your planes are sitting on deck of your carrier at that moment, being refueled. The Hood blown out of the seas? Lucky shot. The sea battles at Guadalcanal: a continuing story of being lucky or unlucky. And than there was the battle at Leyte Gulf (I think it was there), where the Japanese admiral thought he was up to some fleet carriers, but only had a couple of escort carriers against him. If he had attacked, those US marines would have been slaughtered in the transports. And so it goes on, and on, and on.
Now, being somewhat of a cautious man where it comes around to accepting losses on my forces, depending on lucky dice is one of the things I'm not really happy about. You know, I like to be in control. At sea in World in Flames, there is no way you are in control of things happening. That's historically right, of course, but I still think I'm not a good admiral at all (I would even say a lousy one).
Or were all admirals in WW II lousy ones and was the major part of being an admiral that you need to be lucky? I don't know...
As an experienced English player, I am experienced in sea battles and sea support, which as mentioned is necessary to be a good admiral but not necessarily enough.
That said, it's very true that naval battles depend more on luck, like in Hofgeismar (I think you were around that time) when I (UK) made 10 searches in 10 impulses of the Italian fleet and fail the 10 of them but he found me most of his. Although I had advantage in planes and Ships, he was able to put some bombers each time along the battle, which is not strange, but then used the surprise to select targets and increase damage. Since my rolls were 7 to 10 and his were mostly 1s, with some 2 (he needed to, to find me because he was on level 1 or 2 all the time, to be able to get land based fighters' support, ..). I was on level 3 and he had a convoy for supply purposes, so I hit with a 4 (that I never got). One of the worsts losing streaks I have had.
This costed me 4 carriers, several more ships, paralyzing the Libyan UK offensive because IT units were supplied, ..., with few losses on his part. It was not stupid on my part because we needed to take Tripoli to surrender Italy and he was pretty weak already at the desert, I was attacking in superiority at sea and was at a higher box, however...
Yes, sh*t happens. But if you are experienced or intuitive, or better, both, you can do things. Like putting one of your own convoys so he can more easily find you even with a worse roll (questionable tactic, but still...) or much better, if t he occasion is worth it, spend O points at port to get a number of re-rolls (yours or opponents).
But if you don't know you can spend O points (or O Chits) for this, it will never occur to you. This is what I mean about knowledge, you need it to be a good player, although is not the only thing you need to have.
Of course there are moments when you need to see when it's better to leave the combat but, in my case for example, at first I always thought that all my planes should have to fight till the end of the air combat. Now I know I can leave that air combat after the first round, take my losses and no unit needs to leave the sea (acceptable if they don't include sunk ships, for example or even with one sunk carrier if you are facing the whole American fleet and you've been unlucky).
This can be considered a good tactic, but you cannot know it unless you know the rules that allow you to. Rules don't make you a good admiral, but you cannot be the best admiral you can be without knowing the rules.
< Message edited by Joseignacio -- 3/28/2014 10:25:54 AM >
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Really Enjoying the Game - 
There are rules here now and you just violated the biggest one, ENJOYING THE GAME 
people are going to be very angry around here about that statement 
I have gone through Barbarossa and Guadalcanal a few times without a hitch, not one problem. Interface works well for me but could use some fine tuning later on. It does get boring defeating myself one way or the other. 
Inexperienced also means the unpredictable, rash, daring, elan. 
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