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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> War In The Pacific - Struggle Against Japan 1941 - 1945 >>

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- 9/28/2003 4:20:24 PM

Piiska

Posts: 132
Joined: 8/28/2002
From: Helsinki, Finland
Status: offline

Has anyone played Medieval:Total War? An absolutely brilliant game, by the way...

It has a scoring system called Glorious Achievement (which can be turned on or off). In this system a faction scores points if it is able to complete certain historical tasks within a certain time frame. For example England scores a lot of points if it successfully completes a crusade against Palestine before a certain year. Similarly Spain scores points if it manages to build certain amount of building in its homelands to signify their cultural achievements.

This translated to WITP would, for example, award Japanese x amount of points for successfully capturing Southern Resource Area by time X. Similarly U.S could score points by recapturing Solomon Islands before time X, or by sinking x tonnage of Japanese merchant fleet by the end of 1944. These 'goals' could be virtually anything, ranging from capture of bases, to gathering of x amount of resources (for Japan), to building up bases, doing the Doolittle, or the Singapore raid, or attacking Sydney Harbor with submarines. Only the history would be the limit :)

Additional points would be scored for destruction of enemy assets and also for controlling bases. This would mean that a loss of 12 carriers would actually mean something and, just like in Medieval, the player would be free to pursue own strategies and still score enough points by controlling other areas to win the game. The 'tasks' would just give a good incentive to launch particular missions using whatever assets the player has. In other words, the players would be encouraged to take more risks.

This could nicely simulate political pressure a real world commander would feel if he just remains inactive, waiting for those new carriers to arrive the next year.

The players could have competing goals through the campaign and the points scored, or not scored, from them would be permanent. Thus, if Japanese would score a massive amount of points by capturing Midway, even for a short time. At the end of the game they would have more points under their belly because they were able to do something their historical counterparts were not. This in turn could mean that by winning some important battles and fulfilling given goals the Japanese player could score a victory in the game, even when he gets nuked and is forced to surrender.

Ps. In this system, or in any for that matter, I would give heaps of point for the Japanese if they can get themselves conquered by the U.S instead of the Russians. The history has show that they were much better off under U.S occupation than any country under the Russians. This has to count for something :)

(in reply to CommC)

Post #: 1

- 9/28/2003 5:03:46 PM

HMSWarspite

Posts: 1401
Joined: 4/13/2002
From: Bristol, UK
Status: offline

[QUOTE=CommC]Two tidbits of information have come to light only recently that are relevent to the victory conditions debate.

1. The Japanese tried to surrender to the US some time (several weeks?) before the A-bomb was dropped. To save face, they tried to surrender using the Soviets (Stalin) as an intermediary. This was a mistake as Stalin sat on the info and did nothing to forward the request to the US. This of course was deliberate on Stalin's part as he was hoping to prolong the war so Soviet forces could enter the conflict and the Soviets could get more of the "spoils". The US was anxious to end the war as quickly as possible before the Soviets could intervene, hence the A-bomb was used as soon as possible, without any delay to attempt to gain a Japanese surrender.

Even if Tinian is captured early (say 1942), the A-bomb can't be used. It simply wasn't ready until the date it was dropped historically.

2. After the Doolittle raid, the Japanese high command realized they could not win a protracted war with the US and resolved to try to end it by gaining overwhelming victories early in the hopes of demoralizing the US, and gaining a negotiated early surrender. To this end, their plan was to capture Midway, destroying the US carriers in the process, then use Midway as a spring board to invade and capture Hawaii. Again, they hoped that the loss of Hawaii would prompt a US surrender or cessation of hostilities in the Pacific.

This would make an interesting Japanese "automatic victory" if indeed some one could capture Hawaii as the Japanese player.[/QUOTE]

Why do you say that this has 'just' come to light? I am trying to remember the reference, but I have known of the approach via the Russians for a long time. I would have to search the net, or my books, but IIRC the offer would not have been accepted anyway, because it had strings attached.

On the subject of the A bomb, this had great emotional impact, but didn't really produce the level of damage that conventional bombing did. If Jn had not surrended when they did, they would have discovered that there could not be another A bomb for some months. There would, however, have been continued incendiary raids on the big cities (overall, causing many more deaths than the A bombs). The positioning of a sizable force of B29 aircraft within range of Japan is the deciding factor IMHO, althought the capture of Iwo Jima acts as a force multiplier. I would say that the points system should just reflect that, by allowing a points build up so effectively that Jn reaches the surrender point when this happens. GG would have to be Very careful with auto victory capture of Tinian, especially against the AI, because it looks like a candidate for gameyness to me!

On your second point, Yamamoto realised this long before the Doolittle raid. He knew before Pearl! I also do not recognise the ambition to capture Hawaii. I thought Midway was an attempt to create a link in the outer defensive ring around the co-prosperity sphere...? The aim of this was (as you sort of imply) to make attacking the Empire prohibitively expensive, and force a negotiation to accept the status quo.

_____________________________

I have a cunning plan, My Lord

(in reply to CommC)

Post #: 2