|
BossGnome -> Casualty-based VP count? (2/3/2012 4:59:53 AM)
|
Hi everybody,
So I was doing my usual thing, lurking around these forums and laughing good-heartedly at all of the insanity that goes on here, when I was struck by the kind of flash of inspiration that, just once in a while, actually makes me want to set down my pen to post.
It went like this: I finally, after over 6 years of playing this game (and the original WITP before it), realized how bad of a General I was!
Now, this does not mean that I lose the game. Far from it. I have only played 3 games of WITP (and AE) so far in PBEM, but I have won all of them handily. Rather, it means that, and you may call me naive for the time it took me, I was suddenly struck that what I was doing as supreme commander of the allied forces was, though effective, completely psychopathic and with complete disregard for any of the lives of the men under my command.
For example, in my current game as the allies, I decided to go for a fortress Java strategy. I know many people prefer the fortress Palembang, but, hey, I felt like being original. So, I piled on 6-7 commonwealth battalions, spent a few PPs to repatriate forces from across the DEI to Java, and took out about 20% of the Singapore garrison to stack it at Batavia and the surrounding areas.
Doubtlessly the tactic worked; it is now mid-June 1942, and the Japanese are just starting to land on Java, after having had their refineries at Balikpapan and Palembang largely wrecked by my mid-long-range bombers. The americans are meanwhile advancing in the Pacific, and the British, mindful of the Japanese troop requirements to take Java, are pushing into Thailand. I am by this point quite satisfied that, even if Java does end up falling, it will have taken the Japanese a large amount of time and troops which will allow me to, meanwhile, break his initial defensive line and push him back further, perhaps even all the way to Saipan, by late 1942.
But here is the thing. While I was busy congratulating myself, I tried to think of the humanity contained in those little pixels flickering on my screen. Did I have any plan to get these men out? No. Was I giving them any reinforcements? No. I had just callously ordered 70-80 000 men to fight to the death, to not give a single inch of ground to the "dirty japs" and not to expect any reinforcements or new supplies, ever. Sounds like the kind of thing Hitler or Hirohito would do. Doesn't sound like the kind of thing a Nimitz or MacArthur would (well, maybe MacArthur, but you get my point...)
Now, such a situation would have been excusable in a Bataan-like context, where the Japanese invaded and cut off an American garrison with a relative amount of surprise. But here was this plan I had put in motion, knowing full well that every brigade I sent in to Java would never make it out, as I never had any plan to actually get them out. Though I am not an expert, I believe that is exactly why allied GHQ ended up scrapping any plans to hold Java - no way to save any of the men sent in there, even if they did end up delaying the Japanese.
In my case (as well as, I suppose, the case of many other allied players), this is not an isolated incident. Be it on sea, on land, or in the air, I have personally sent countless suicide delaying missions, resupply missions, reconnaissance en force missions (hey guys, they're shooting at us! I guess there was a Japanese garrison on this island after all!), which would have promptly gotten my ass fired from any allied command as a heartless "butcher".
Now, I remember once reading on these forums the (very true) statement that players tended to take many more risks with their assets than in real life because none of them had to write hundreds of condolence letters to grieving mothers embellishing the reasons for their latest debacle.
But this just got me thinking; would the game not play very differently if casualties were made THE determining factor in the allied player's winning or losing the war, and not just one factor among several? Just to make it clear, I am not saying the game is borked, nor am I agitating for a change to the VP system. All I am saying, is that the current system is oddly symmetrical. The Japanese and allies both gain points by bombing each others' factories, taking each other's bases, and killing each others' troops, even though both sides' war aims were not similar at all. Even though the Japanese and allies ground troops have different kill-vp ratios, the ships and planes are largely identical.
How do you think the game would run with a largely unchanged Japanese VP system, but with an allied VP system that, for example, made them LOSE VPs every time, for example, a battalion surrendered, or more than x% of ships in a TF sunk? How would the allies play with a system that didn't reward them at all for taking ground (apart perhaps from highly symbolic locations like Singapore, Manilla or Tokyo)?
Basically, I am curious on hearing everyone's thoughts about the current VP system. What it does well, what it doesn't do so well, and if it could potentially be tweaked in such a way as to simulate the "writing letters home to grieving mothers" problem that so tied historical commanders' hands.
I look forward to reading!
|
|
|
|
