Canoerebel
Posts: 21100
Joined: 12/14/2002
From: Northwestern Georgia, USA
Status: offline
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In addition to 4EB, I know that John has serious issues about Death Star. His thoughts are just as flawed.
John (and Japanese players in general) prefer a game where Japan is more competitive. (I do too. I want to be pushed to the edge and challenged.) The game gives them many advantages (thank goodness!) that they relish and enjoy, and that we Allied players then get to relish and enjoy because the challenge is great. Japan gets more fighters, more bombers, more pilots, better coordination, more potency at extreme ranges, etc. In this mod, Japan gets many more flattops and other combat ships. The net effect is a vastly improved air force that poses a lethal threat to all things Allied. The Allied player had better give this careful thought.
Right now, John has 3,198 aircraft at nine major airfields in Japan (and hundreds of others at bases I didn't count). If he assembled KB in the Home Islands, it might contribute another 1,500 aircraft. This potent mix is augmented by the aforementioned ability to coordinate and attack at long range, plus the lethality of kamikazes. And he has plentiful level 7, 8, and 9 airfields from which to launch those aircraft. Japan is a bristling, ****ly cactus of air power that might total more than 5,000 aircraft.
By boosting air power, Japanese players force (or at least encourage) Allied players to take countermeasures. If Japanese players prefer that Allied players play historically, with lots of smaller carrier TFs, then we need to revert to the real war air balance, else Allied players are going to get licked. It's because of the boosts to Japanese capabilities that the Allies have to react.
Since my invasions have penetrated deep and beyond Allied LBA cover (DEI, Luzon, China), I created Death Star to maximize the defenses against potentially massive air strikes. I haven't always maintained a cohesive DS, sometimes separating the CVEs from the CVs for weeks at a time. But whenever I approach a nest of level 9 airfields, especially around Shanghai or Korea or Japan, I know John might cobble together strikes in excess of 2,000 aircraft - something that can battle DS toe to toe.
Why hasn't John done so? Why didn't he mass his carriers and LBA and kamikazes? Mostly, I think, because he threw his hands in the air and declared DS "unfair." Therefore, he wasn't going to stoop to getting sucked into that trap.
Japan in 1945 had no choice but to attack under impossible conditions. John doesn't like it that he's faced with the same impossible conditions (though they probably aren't impossible).
He wants to be able to go toe to toe with the Allies in '45, with a counter for each tactic and weapon. Oh, he'd make some concessions. AFter all, the Allies were stronger in '45. But I think what he really wants is to play Blitzkrieg with one twist. Blitzkrieg was the Avalon Hill game in which both sides started with equal forces and similar terrain (IE, a more complex game of chess). The twist is that John would insist on the Japanese having the historical (or, preferably, historical-on-steroids) ability to blast out of the opening gate and run amock for a year or so.
Since he doesn't have parity, he'll keep adding House Rules and mod sweets until he is able to compete toe to toe. When he reaches that nirvana, he'll have created Blitzkrieg in the Pacific.
< Message edited by Canoerebel -- 2/14/2018 1:48:24 AM >
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