theWombat
Posts: 48
Joined: 9/11/2004 Status: offline
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Interesting discussion. I cannot comment on the mechanics too much, as I have not really done much with the game yet, but I do think that tackling the Pacific War is tough no matter how you do it. Japan had little chance of coming out of the war on top once they attacked the USA. Barring a miraculous coup de main by Japan and a total implosion of American leadership, once Tokyo brought Washington into the fray the issue was not if, only when, Japan would finally run out of steam. Given that resources were the reason for the war, more or less, and that the Japanese went to war with the Allies largely due to needing resources to prosecute the war in China, it seems relatively reasonable to make the game turn on the supplies of things like oil. The challenge is that from a game perspective, the entire situation is hardly balanced or appealing for a potential Japanese player. A game like WitP:AE can get away with it easier because it overwhelms you with minutia and detail; no matter how horribly your war effort is collapsing, there's always a ton of decisions to make and things to fiddle with. Here, with a more elegant and streamlined approach (which I find much more appealing overall, FWIW) you do run the risk of exposing the baked-in strategic imbalance pretty starkly.
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