Canoerebel
Posts: 21100
Joined: 12/14/2002 From: Northwestern Georgia, USA Status: offline
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At lunch today, I was reading an autobiography of a young private in a Confederate Maryland regiment. His regiment helped route the Union Army at First Bull Run. With good reason, he expressed the southern soldier's expectation that the Confederate Army would advance on Washington and then free Maryland from Yankees. The path to Washington seemed clear. But we know that, from a bigger picture, such an advance was problematic. Supply and the disarray of battle limited what the victorious army could do, in ways that folks couldn't really understand. The same applies in this game. In June of 1944, I was winding up the Luzon campaign and looking at Coastal China and Formosa. I had supply limitations that affected what I thought I could achieve. And I felt like Strategic Bombing was the most efficient way to score the points needed to achieve victory. So everything was put into motion to implement that plan - to forego a more risky and supply intensive invasion of the Home Islands in favor of a more supply-friendly ground campaign in China to allow an air campaign against Japan. Contrary to what some folks think, that wasn't an idiotic plan. There was merit to the plan, at least from what I knew or thought I knew. In fact, the Strategic Bombing campaign has been tougher than I had expected. I've scored a lot of points. But instead of "a thousand points a day" its been more like (on average) three or four or five thousand points a month. That maybe due to flaws in my strategy or brilliance in John's or a combination of both or a neither. The bombing campaign has gone pretty well but it wasn't enough to drive the Allies to victory in February or March, as I had first hoped. Instead it looks like victory will take place in late April or early May. According to the game, that will be a decisive Allied victory (if I understand the rules). As I've noted before, the notion of victory is enhanced by certain tangibles like the mod and the House Rules. This feels to me like a pretty decisive Allied victory, as things currently stand. So when Joh or a Forumite says or implies, "Hey, dumbass, you stink. You should've won six months ago." That's about as offensive a thing to say as I can think of.
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