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wdolson -> AE Forum Glossary (8/22/2014 11:56:14 AM)
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Strategies
Sir Robin - Early war Allied strategy involving various degrees of fleeing from Japanese advances instead of fighting back, with the goal of minimizing losses and husbanding strength for a later counter attack. (From Monty Python's "Holy Grail", "Brave, brave sir Robin, he bravely ran away!!" as sung by Sir Robin's minstrels, before they eventually ate Sir Robin's minstrels.)
Ablative armor - The use of obsolete airframes as escorts to draw fire on themselves, thereby shielding the bombers they are escorting from attack. Occasionally used by Japan as a late war tactic.
Mersing gambit - An early landing by Japan at Mersing close to the southern tip of the Malayan peninsula. The aim is to cut off the retreat of the Commonwealth forces to Singapore. The location is excellent as there is a major road connecting the west to the east coast, but the attack can be costly because of the proximity to Singapore, even more when standing up against an intact Force Z, and even more against an alert Allied opponent preparing for such a move.
Player Slang
AFB - Allied Fan Boy (also spelled Fanboi). The term fanboi is an old internet slang for someone who champions one side or the other in a game, often to extremes. In this case, AFB refers to someone who only plays the Allied side and is a vocal advocate for everything Allied. When the game doesn't go their way, an AFB may complain that the game is rigged against the Allies.
JFB - Japanese Fan Boy (also spelled Fanboi). The term fanboi is an old internet slang for someone who champions one side or the other in a game, often to extremes. This term is used in a similar manner as AFB, except it is used for someone who champions everything Japanese in the game.
FOW - Fog of War. Referring to situations, where the game won't always give you a complete or accurate view of combat, enemy troop composition, sunk ships, spotting, etc.
Unit or Game Related Slang
DEI - Dutch East Indies. The territory held by the Dutch at the beginning of the game. Java, Celebes, Sumatra, much of Borneo, etc. Rich in resources and oil. Also referred to as the SRA.
SRA - Southern Resource Area. Area encompassing mostly the Dutch East Indies, rich in both oil and resources. More or less the same as the DEI when referred to in game.
HI - Home Islands. The Japanese main islands of Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido (plus a couple of other tiny ones.) Can also mean Heavy Industry (see Game Terms). Because of the multiple meaning of the term, many forum members avoid this abbreviation unless it is easily explained in context.
HI - Hawaiian Islands. Can also mean Heavy industry (see Game Terms.) Because of the multiple meaning of the term, many forum members avoid this abbreviation unless it is easily explained in context.
GC - Can mean one of the Grand Campaign scenarios, or the Guadalcanal Scenario.
PI - Philippine Islands. Luzon and Mindanao are the main islands, but the term refers to the entire archipelago.
LBA - Land-based aircraft. Planes flying from a base versus from a carrier.
KB - 1. Kido Butai which was the term the Japanese Navy had for the carrier arm. In game it usually means Japanese carriers, operating all or most together in one large task force. Early war, you'll see many references to staying away from the KB, or making sure as the Allies you know where the KB is, or "my LBA refused to attack the KB!! "
2. Kota Bharu, usually one of the first Allied bases invaded in the war, located at the top of the Malay peninsula.
Mini-KB - Kido Buttai's little sister, a combination of Japanese CVEs/ CVLs into a carrier TF. Sometimes BKB or LKB are used.
OOB - Order of Battle. A list of the forces one side has (or will receive) for any given scenario.
LCU - Land combat unit. Divisions, regiments, brigades, etc.
CBI - China, Burma, India theater.
PH - Pearl Harbor.
SF - San Francisco.
Oz - Australia.
WC - West Coast (of North America.)
EC - East Coast (of North America.)
HK - Hong Kong.
Singers - Singapore.
CT - Capetown.
IO - Indian Ocean.
HR - House Rule(s). Any agreement between players in a PBEM (play by email) to amend or change rules, generally intended to prohibit certain tactics which game mechanics may allow, but which both players feel are not beneficial to the type of game they wish to play. Often used to try to make campaigns play out closer to "historical" results.
Gamey - Anything that takes advantages of flaws in the game engine to do things that are unrealistic. The development team did everything possible to close loopholes, but there are always limits to the realism in any game engine.
Sandbox - A test scenario, where conditions are set and then run multiple times to help determine what effect certain variables in the game actually do. Often used as a verb, as in "I sandboxed a CV battle in late 42 where the Allies had limited help from LBA."
AAR - After Action Report - A series of posts from a player describing the progress of their game. Many players read these to learn new strategies from other players.
Beta - Updated program and/or official scenarios that are available for players to use on a test basis, but are not officially released by Matrix yet.
Magic move - Japanese first turn movement bonus. A "free" 20X pregame move by any "*" pre-loaded IJN units w/o spending any fuel. This is done to replicate the simultaneous surprise attacks on Dec 7th
Battlewagons - Battleships
Fortress Palembang - Early Allied defensive strategy that involves reinforcing Palembang to make it as hard as possible to capture.
RTB - Return to base
Force Z - A CW combat group center around BB PoW (Prince of Wales) and BC Repulse sent to Singapore as a deterrent to Japanese aggression. Both major combatants sunk by Japanese air attacks on Dec 10th ´41.
3rd Party Scenarios (Unofficial)
DaBabes - A set of unofficial scenarios created by some of the developers of AE. These scenarios add units and take advantage of some features that the official scenarios don’t have. There are several different versions of DaBabe scenarios.
DBB - Da Big Babes. These are a set of DaBabes scenarios with lots of extra units.
DBL - DaBabes Light - these are the smaller DaBabes scenarios.
RA - Reluctant Admiral. Another well known mod for WitPAE.
Game Terms (things you will actually see within the game)
TF - If you don't know this abbreviation, you probably need to RTFM . (If you really don't know this one, it stands for Task Force - a collection of ships grouped together for a single purpose. Also, if you didn't know this one, the manual really is a must-read before being able to make any kind of sense out of the game.)
HI - Heavy Industry. Production points generated by Japan, and used to build aircraft, engines, ships, tanks, etc. Can also mean Home Islands or Hawaiian Islands (see Game Related Slang). Because of the multiple meaning of the term, many forum members avoid this abbreviation unless it is easily explained in context.
ASW - Anti-Submarine warfare, or referring to assets (either naval or air) involved in anti-sub activity.
SCTF - Surface Combat Task Force. A group of ships put together to engage enemy ships, or to screen friendly ships in a separate task force. (also frequently referred to as a SAG.)
SIGINT - Signals Intelligence. Radio intercepts, code-breaking, etc. which may give you some information about what your opponent is up to. In game, this information is located on the Intelligence Report.
DL - Detection level. How visible (or not) either your forces, or your enemies forces are (often influencing the likelihood and accuracy of attacks.)
VP - Victory Points. Points which measure each players relative success, and which determine the levels of victory and defeat in scenarios and campaign games. Note: You can't "spend" victory points on anything, you only gain or lose them over the course of the game before an outcome is determined.
PP - Political Points. Points given out every turn which can be "spent" by making discretionary decisions in game, such as changing out inferior leaders for better ones, changing the HQ affiliation of some units to allow them to freely travel to other theaters, changing aircraft types in a given squadron, etc.
AF - Air Field. Usually referring to the size of an airfield at a given base, as in "Manila just hit AF4".
SR - Service rating. A reliability rating given to each type of plane, from 1 to 5, with 1 indicating the aircraft is very reliable and 5 indicating that the plane type has serious and frequent maintenance needs. Greatly impacts how many planes in a given group will be ready fly if they've been recently been used.
Restricted - Refers to the freedom of mobility (or really the lack thereof) for both LCUs and air groups. Unrestricted groups can travel or transfer to and from any base you own. Restricted units are limited to the theater they start in (West Coast, Home Defense(Japan), China, etc.) unless a player spends PPs (see above) to free these units up. Note that there are some cases where units cannot be freed up by any means - these would be referred to as Permanently Restricted.
ABDA - the short lived (early 1942) American-British-Dutch-Australian supreme command for all Allied forces in South East Asia
Other Terms
RTFM - Read the ******* Manual. Usually said in jest.
TANSTAAFL - There ain't no such thing as a free landing. Paraphrased from Robert Heinlein's _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ where the L stood for "Lunch".
OT - Off topic. A thread not immediately related to the game, though usually related to the period.
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