AW1Steve
Posts: 14507
Joined: 3/10/2007
From: Mordor Illlinois
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Alfred
The data of a scenario is not dependent on the executable, so I don't follow why you keep on making the distinction between stock and beta.
There are two Guadalcanal scenarios: scen 04 from Nikademus and scen 34 from the DaBabes gang. Both share the same view of logistics, with scen 34 being even tighter in this area.
This is a quote from jwilkerson made on 24 May 2009 regarding the design philosophy of scen 04.
Back in early 2007, I joined Nik as the "Beta" team for his Guadalcanal Scenario for "NikMod" with the stock game engine. After about six months of play testing we released the scenario and then Nik started working on porting the scenario over to AE.
The design goal of this scenario is to put the player in the role of theater commander - and present the problems to the player that the real theater commanders had.
First and foremost is logistics. In Nik's GuadMod scenario, you will wonder "where is all my supply"? where is my "fuel"? How can I do anything with no supply or no fuel? In stock and in AE it is possible to stockpile large amounts of fuel and supply as you prepare to operate in a given area. Players (who plan ahead) rarely find themselves operating on a shoestring. In the real war - the Americans and Japanese in the South Pacific could not direct their bosses to send them everything they needed - they had make do with what they had.
But the player will find shortages of everything: Aircraft, engineers, transport ships. All the things the players wants most, will be in short supply!
So, if fighting a campaign under (simulated) realistic conditions sounds like your cup of tea - then the Guadalcanal Scenario will be for you. A six month campaign - long enough to require planning as well as execution - but not so long that your kids will grow up while you are playing it!
Nowadays Nikademus doesn't drop all that often into the forum but previously, on several occasions he made it very clear that the logistical constraints mirrored closely the historical situation. It was after all, called Operation Shoestring. In fact Nikademus was at pains to point out that players who play the GC (both Allied and Japan) are spoilt by having too much available logistics. GC players usually maintain their operations constantly at maximum effort (the constant criticism of much too fast an operational tempo) and this was simply not possible historically. His main goal was to ensure maximum effort was only possible in short spurts. This slowdown being achieved by the need to spend limited PPs, practically non existent in theatre repair yards for damaged ships and shoestring logistics with ships out of position to fetch supplies.
The morale issues experienced by a long term AE player is one of the main reasons why I never, unlike 97% of responders, recommend newbies start off with a short scenario. The short scenarios are simply not forgiving of any player mistake unlike the GC which can accommodate multiple mistakes and still allow for recovery.
Alfred
Alfred I like the 97% strongly recommend the shorter scenarios for two good reasons. 1) each of the scenarios teaches different lessons. Coral Sea , fighting a superior force with an inferior. Thousand mile war the effects of weather , and Guadacanal , the absolute importance of proper planning and supply. 2) WITP AE has a bit of pain involved in it's learning. It's much better to completely screw up a game that's weeks in playing versus one that's years in playing. Completely blowing a grand campaign has been known to cause people to "sicken" and leave the game with disdain and unpleasantness. Like all bitter medicines , it's usually better in small doses. 
Now for people who have a strange thing for pain.........
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