Tom Hunter
Posts: 2194
Joined: 12/14/2004
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Irrelevant,
I think Blackwatch is right about the continous action slowing things down. By continous action he means there were always several active fronts, and we both had to be careful all the time. In the real war both sides were afraid that if they went too deep into enemy territory they would get their heads chopped off. This actually happened to both of us within the first 3 months of the war so we both started to be careful.
Each of us would have forces resting, repairing or organizing somewhere else. But we were both fighting constantly. This made it harder to concentrate truely overwhelming forces. For example I had my 4 engine bombers at 3 different fronts. I felt I needed them in Malaya, Timor and NE Oz for various reasons so I could not concentrate enough to really wipe out Blackwatch's airbases they way some people do. On the other hand if I did not have them in all 3 places I would have lost some important battles.
Because we were fighting everywhere there was more strain on our ability to manage the war. This is important especially in a huge game where inability to figure out what is really important can really hurt you. For example I did not really understand the power of Japanese LBA until mid 42 and lost a lot Cruisers because of this. Blackwatch missed the importance of the airbase upgrade messages that were coming out of North Sumatra from time to time. Those messages were the first clue that the British were up to something.
Turning China into a swamp was also important. It keeps Japanese air and land units busy and eats up Japanese supply and replacements. Its not decisive, but having it go away can be very good for Japan.
We both tried to keep our ships in good shape, that may have slowed things a bit.
We had very high attrition, so we may have been slower on territorial conquest but faster on racking up losses.
Finally we seem to be pretty well matched and I think that matters most of all. That is my fundamental disagreement with Tristanjohn about the game allowing players to do things that were historically impossible. We don't really know what was historically impossible. Historical people have often done things that were "impossible" from the point of view of the other side. It was impossible that myopic little copycat monkeys (or so the white racist Anglo-Saxon's thought) could develop a top quality fighter plane. Then Zeros started shooting them out of the sky. Americans at Pearl Harbor were so conviced of this that they reported Germans flying German fighters on December 7th, it was the only explaination that made sense to them.
I don't know if the Japanese could have conquered India. I know they did not, but conquest can develop momentum of its own. I don't know if the Japanese could really conquer China though I am pretty sure garrisoning it would be a nightmare, because that was true of the part they did conquer.
I do think the game has very deep flaws, but its still a fun game. I hesitate to speak authoritatively about alternative histories because they are all speculative by nature.
I also think we have to look at play balance. The game Blackwatch and I just played between to well matched players with decades of wargaming experience seemed pretty well balanced and got a result that was interesting and within the limits of historical probability.
I am very confident that I can hold India and China with the resources available within the game as it is. I will also admit that I could lose them if I screwed up my defense. Some of the "fixes" proposed to the problem of a (relatively) weak India and China would create very strong Indias and Chinas. One of the reasons the Allies need to be careful in the early part of the game is to avoid losing these places, make them strong and foolish allied players can play on after losing large forces to Japan. But give those same strong forces to smart Allied players and you will see them go on the offensive big and early.
Even the logistics system may be producing cockeyed results because of player style. I was committed to fighting as many places as possible so I had to supply all those places. I had shipping shortages in the Indian Ocean and though I was able to supply my other bases I never had 2 million supply in Oz. Outside of the map edge supply hubs I never had more than 350,000 supply at any one location and that was at Pearl Harbor. I did have many bases with 50,000 to 100,000 supply. I needed that because I could not be sure where the next fight would be. Historically the Allies did the same thing, they supplied Dutch Harbor, Canton Island, Fiji, and countless other places with lots of supplies, just as I did.
But I read comments from other Allied players saying that they let a number of bases run out of supplies, presumabley to focus their efforts on the point of contact with the Japanese. If you play that way its going to mess up the logistics system because you are using resources designed to supply bases all over the Pacific to supply bases in a small part of the Pacific.
This is the interaction between player ability/style and game mechanics that I was talking about.
Blackwatch and I successfully ambushed eachother in the early game. After that we slowed our operation tempo to avoid being tactically suprised -player ability and reaction to it changed the pace of the game.
The PzB and Wobbly AAR pointed out the vunerablity of India if you put too much stuff in Burma so I defended India in depth. It was a good defense that was never tested but again player decisions made a strong India. Wobbly lacked the example and his decisions left India critically vunerable. Blackwatch can comment on why he did not go for India but its possible that he realized I was planning a strong defense in depth when he found Burma weakly defended.
In China we both stumbled around trying to figure out how to fight there. Japan took a handful of cities early, China won some defensive battles later but basically we have a bloody stalemate. Again player ability/decision making was the key factor not the strength or weaknesses of the two armies.
As I mentioned above even on logistics the players were key. Logistics may be broken, I am concerned about what will happen in the later part of the war and also I lost over 440 ships most of them merchants and that may have slowed me down. But even so it shows the power of player decision making to change the game. I made decisions that cost me a lot of shipping (and some of them were really stupid decisions, let me tell you) and that changed the game.
I hope this helps explain why our game ran in a way that looks historically possible. It should also show why I am a little bit sceptical when people say change the system it does not encourage "realism". Not to say that it could not be better but we need to really understand what is going on first, and why we get crazy results.
If crazy results are caused by the people playing the game then the only way to stop them is to constrain what players can do. Some constrait is good, but too much constraint is bad. A game that forces us to abandon our flights of fancy is not going to be much fun, even if they are crazy or historically innacurate.
< Message edited by Tom Hunter -- 4/22/2005 2:44:51 PM >
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