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Bullwinkle58 -> RE: Shearing the Sheep! - JocMeister(WA) vs. Meklore61(Ax) (3/18/2015 12:17:39 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Seminole
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To answer your question, no, I don't consider the German player to be "punished" for failing to defend Berlin. In my current AE PBEM I recently lost Chungking and all its garrison. Combined with the Japan player building the infrastructure post-takedown I lost circa 6000 VPs. He earned them, I lost them. Fair enough.
What I'm talking about is negative VPs for NOT doing something. The analogy would be the Japan player being penalized, say, 3000 VPs if he DIDN'T take Chungking.
Would the Allied player in WitP get any victory points for holding Chungking? If so, is this a reward to the Allies for holding Chungking, or a penalty to Japan for not taking it?
The whole VP "philosophy" is different. Every base/airfield/dotbase has a VP total. The VPs are assigned to SOMEBODY every turn. They are modified by level of port/AF construction and by in-supply or not-in status. But the VP awards vary by side. Chungking is worth 800 VPs to the Allies at start and they get +100 for each AF level they build. But it's worth 1600(200) to Japan. Tokyo is 30(1) for Japan but 7500(250) for the Allies. CONUS bases have similar gaps the other way should Japan throw the kitchen sink at them in the first months (not a good move, but available.)
In WitW the German player is rewarded for building U-boats in '43. The Allies can try to prevent the Germans from gaining these points with air power if they want to. If they'd rather use the bombers to reduce Panther production and toast railyards to prep southern France for an early invasion they can try that too. They even split things up and try to do some of all three and half a dozen other things.
Same as AE, but the production system and underlying economy make those choices more interesting IMO. Bombing Oil doesn't even get the Allied player VPs except in certain very small regions. But it does prevent construction of assets and hamper naval operations. Perhaps that's a big reason Jocke has trouble with the system as an old AE Allied hand. Choosing to attack national strategic targets in AE flows down to the tactical level due to the production system. And it shows why perhaps starting the West in mid-1943, while understandable in development terms, was a mistake for playability. If bombing those U-boats really affected an in-game Battle of the Atlantic and that affected D-Day I think Jocke would happily bomb U-boats.
But negative VPs for not bombing U-boats rubs me wrong. The penalty for not bombing them ought to be I don't get VPs for bombing them. I went elsewhere with the assets and bet on more VPs there. I wasn't channeled into bombing an asset I think is less valuable to my progress.
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Here, if I don't want to invade Normandy, what happens to me? What if I want to only enter through southern France. Can I? I don't know, but it seems not .
You can try to send the entire Allied army up through Southern France, but I don't think it would be sound. Not a lot of ports down there to support a huge army.
Some of what you may be mistaking for the 'rails' of history are the underlying reasons that drove historical decision making. But WitW will let you do dumb things, I've read the AARs to prove it!
I agree it would be unwise. And perhaps I misunderstand the -1000 penalty. I thought it required a northern France invasion by July. If it's anywhere north of Italy that's better. But still not what I want if there's a penalty at all. Let my loss of time to win be the penalty. If I wait to October to invade anywhere that should be my choice and my problem.
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In my AE game I am behind the historical real estate curve. But I know exactly how much each hex is worth to me and worth to him (the amounts vary, and the differences are sometimes quite dramatic.) I know how much each lost ship will cost, each plane, each land-combat device, for every nation. If I like spreadsheets I can play that way. But I can also look years ahead and figure what I can lose and what I can risk.
There's more to the WitW grand campaign VP system as well. The Allies gain points each turn for cities and ports they control, with higher points awarded for controlling them in '43 instead of '44, and more in '44 than in '45. Thus both sides have an impetus to take terrain as early as possible, and to hold it as long as possible.
I do like that the VP screen separates these different VP sources. If people played games out we could see which things make the biggest impact.
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The victory point system and the auto-win system are linked.
The only 'auto-win' in WitW is to kick your opponent's ass so hard early on that they quit. [8D]
AE has a 4:1 ratio on 1/1/43, a 3:1 on 1/1/44, and a 2:1 on 1/1/45. Plus each day in those years at the same ratio. As before the Allies must get an auto-win to win the game. In my current game I'm about 2.4:1 against me in mid-1943. I have a lot of work to do.
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Each year it gets easier for each player to get an auto-win in VP terms. And the victory design is such that the Allies CANNOT win the game if they do not get an auto-win. The best they can do is a draw. The pressure of time is relentless to the Allied player. Buying time is essential to the Japan player. The two sides play very differently. It's a great, great system and it would work in this game as well. But they didn't copy it.
The conquest milestones in WitW are intended to create time pressures as well. The Allied player is pressured to get the liberation of western Europe underway, while the German player is pressured to hem the Allies beyond that which their historical counterpart managed.
I get that. I just don't like being told I have to go by June or there is a huge negative penalty.
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Japan doesn't know if I'm coming through the DEI, or across CentPac. Through the Aleutians, or into Sumatra. This game starts every time in the Med and if the Allied player doesn't play well there (history on rails), oh well. If he doesn't have 10 hexes by an arbitrary date, oh well.
So in WitP can I decide to invade Okinawa in '42?
Yes
WitW lets someone invade Brittany with the summer '43 OoB if they want, but I'm not sure it is a war winning strategy.
The Western Allies started with taking off small bites because they felt they didn't have a big enough army to do more. Smart? Cowardly? Think you could have done it better going into Denmark in '43 and driving straight for Berlin? Give it a shot! There are no 'rails' in that regard.
AE's VP award for every base makes the defend/run away decision very meaningful. Japan usually expands past historical borders, into Oz or India. Everything the Allied player gives up has to be earned back. But the VP cost in planes, ships, and men is a critical factor in the defend decision. A squad of British infantry has the same VP loss cost in December 1941 as in the summer of 1944 when it is much, much stronger after upgrading devices. Is it better to lose the base VPs now by running (they can be regained), or to incur the permanent VP cost of staying and being destroyed, but slowing Japan's advance? The choice is the player's, but there are no date triggers. The balance is in the VP cost schedule and the auto-win ratios.
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I think you're missing the point when you question why would a player quit if decisive victory wasn't going to happen. That's not the point. In my AE game I'm playing for a draw right now in mid-1943. Things are not good. But it's still fun.
Being ordered to invade and take Saipan by August 1944. . . OR ELSE?! Not fun.
I don't own WitP, would the Japanese gain points if you hadn't invaded anything west of Midway by July of '44?
No. But if that were the case they'd almost certainly have an auto-win. The politics of the PTO are inherent in the auto-win system and in the Preparation Point system. Japan earns VPs the same way the Allies do, but in different amounts. They earn fewer for killing a Chinese squad than a USMC one for example.
Is there any advantage derived by the Japanese if the Allies sit on their hands until halfway through '44?
They win? The "Brave Sir Robin" strategy in the first six months whereby the Allies fall back to save assets at the cost of territory is probably the most discussed in AE World. But at some point earlier than 1944 the Allies have to fight, or lose the game.
I'm not yet convinced the 'real estate curve' in WitW of capturing 10 hexes north of Italy by July of '44 is too high a hurdle.
I question why it has to be a hurdle. Let the calendar drive the decision, but make it a decision, not a law.
Why shouldn't the German player be rewarded if he can hold the Allied player to smaller gains than they achieved in real life? Besting history has always been the point of these historical war games to me.
Same as AE. With matched players the Japan player never, ever wins the war. But Japan can win the game. The VP system allows that.
BTW, the 'OR ELSE' is exaggeration, the points we're talking about are not even the difference between a major and decisive victory. Part of the shame of quitting over this VP award is we don't get to see how it fits in balance with everything else.
I don't have the whole roster of negative VPs in WitW. I only know the U-boat bombing one and this one. I don't think there should be any, but that's apparent by now.
Someone else asked why can't the Allies try a later invasion that gets to Berlin faster. They can! Do it and let's see how things shake out!
Frankly, I'm in favor of getting to Anne Frank's family as fast as possible, so I'm not building a strategy around hanging back and letting the Soviets do all the hard work.
Take away the -1000 and I think more would try it.
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