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Tristanjohn -> Re: Historical results (8/21/2003 12:51:58 AM)
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Mogami
[B]Hi, I wish people would stop using the phrase "historical results"
Have it your way, then. This game system renders consistently unreasonable results, results which cannot be found from any reading of the WWII history in question.
How's that? (Says the same thing, of course. :))
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Of course the results won't be historical. No one plays the game historically. How many of these south pacific airfields had 400 bombers stationed on them? How often did troop laden transports sit in range of these 400 bombers?
I don't know about that. I try to play the game historically, indeed, my concern is that the system fights against this sort of realistic play, instead rewards ahistoric methods.
Good point re airfields, which gets back to the problem at hand, namely that the system mechanics were not well conceived to model this history. Case: why should it be possible to operate x-hundred aircraft from a 3- or 4-level level"strip" at, say, Mieta? There's a reason the Japanese gave up in their attempts to build there. (Why they ever started makes one wonder about their higher command's competence to manage warfare of this scale in such a setting.) In UV, however, such a venture UV is a snap. Just dedicate the time of engineers and the supplies requisite and presto! there's an airfield at Mieta and now, if we stuff enough base support in there, this field can fly as many planes (and at level 4 of any kind without penalty) as one wishes. It doesn't matter to the system that the Mieta site was wholly unsuitable to even the establishment of a short fighter strip, much less an "airfield" capable of launching heavy or even medium bombers.
Dumb. :)
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Betties and Nell's proved they could sink warships at sea. (BB,BC,CA were all sunk at sea by Betty) I can imagine the excitement that would have occurred at a Japanese airfield with several hundred Betties/Nells when 25+ allied transports came into range without CAP. How many transports do you think the Japanese would have sunk?
Well, off Lunga Point on the 7th of August 1942, under similar circumstances, the Japanese sunk precisely . . . zero.
Briefly: two separate Japanese attacks went in with a total of 43 bombers and 18 Zeroes participating. CAP was provided by Enterprise and Saratoga. In all, the Japanese probably lost 14 of the dive-bombers and two of the 18 "Zekes" (this according to Rear Admiral Yamada, 25th Air Flotilla, after the war--USN claims at the time, based on AAR from the American pilots, were higher at the time). The Japanese did register a hit on destroyer Mugford which killed 22 men but caused only slight damage to the vessel.
The next day, on the 8th, Yamada sent in torpedo bombers with another fighter escort. Of 26 bombers noted in the Japanese attack formation only nine were seen to pass through Admiral Turner's task force of transports, then steaming at 13.5 knots out in Nggela Channel and responding to orders for simultaneous turns. The only torpedo hit was recorded on destroyer Jarvis. Another Betty which had been hit badly was steered by its pilot into transport George F. Elliott. The latter became a burning hulk (Morison cites a green crew jumping ship and poor damage control as the culprits).
It's difficult to test this scenario with the UV system for the reason the model for "spotting" is too far out of whack. In reality, Yamada's pilots never could find Admiral Fletcher's CV TF, while in the game it's always spotted. Or at least when I've tried to simulate this battle it's always been spotted. I suppose if I ran the test a thousand times eventually the Japanese planes would leave these ships alone and go after the ships off Lunga Point instead.
So what I did was to put similar CAP strength in Wildcats at Henderson Field and let these fighter groups provide CAP. The result? The Japanese dive-bombers consistently recorded multiple hits on both warships and transports in a simulation of the attack on 7 August, and the Betty's sent in on the 8th scored multilple hits on both warships and transports on the 8th. Time after time, without fail.
I haven't bothered to keep records of these tests so I have no combat reports to show you. But the tests aren't difficult to edit and can be run fast enough.
By the way, in this campaign Japanese air groups headed south down the Slot were reported all the time by coastwatchers, thus affording the USN time to prepare off Guadacanal. On the 8th this early warning afforded Turner 80 minutes lead time, which he put to good use getting steam up so his ships could get out into the relative safety of the channel. This, too, is not modelled by the UV system. Yet another shortcoming, and one which tips the balance yet again in favor of Japanese air power.
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Stop blaming the game and start accepting the responsibility for the screwy results. Every time I do exactly what occurred historically I get pretty much the exact historical result. (This means the game works)
Now you're teating yourself to a giddy session of denial. This game system does not give reasonable/historical results in all too many situations for a very simple reason: the game mechanics will not allow for this eventuality.
Please, let's keep this discussion serious. I want to make the follow-on title WitP better, not see the same old mistakes repeated once more.
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It was not the Beta testers fault. (Back in Beta testing I recall a long heated debate whether Japan could even capture Luganville. Everyone was much more modest in their operations. (patch and time have turned UV into a 60 day race. I'm certain if one side or the other had had the knowledge of the future the way every UV player has events would have been vastly different.
"Patch and time," eh? That sounds to me as if the game system wasn't tested thoroughly enough out the door. For what it might be worth, beta groups are supposed to find these holes in the system. The purpose of beta testers (in large part) is to try and break the game system.
Ergo: the testing of UV, if not exactly "bad" was certainly insufficient. I don't mean to slam you or anyone else here, Mogami, but the result speaks for itself.
As for the patches, I wasn't around then and have little idea what shape UV arrived in and what was called for patch-wise, but as I noted earlier in another thread, a player I know has told me the old "squeaky wheel" started making its squeaky-wheel sounds and pretty soon those patches began to flow.
All I know is that as it stands, UV is incapable of closely modelling this page of history, and that is an issue inherent to the system--it has nothing whatsoever about how I play it.
As for the scenarios and some of the incredible results I hear about: part of that has to do with the system mechanics (how could it not?), and part of it's just the fantastic nature of the scenarios themselves. Please tell me if you can what could be the possible allure to playing a scenario where the Japanese are given the potential to amass some 200% of their actual (historical) naval assets in an area as tiny (and isolated) as the South Pacific? Where do these ships come from? How is it that they have become available? Is there no war on anywhere else in the Pacific Ocean? What's going on?
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In WITP the style of play used in UV will lead to some interesting situations. Ignore the defense of any base within enemy recon and see what occurs. Ignore the West Coast USA or the Home Islands. It's clear to me from reading AAR and playing PBEM that people do not worry so much about disaster as they crave some wonder trick victory.
No doubt there's a lot of that in there. But the context of the greater war will only help WitP so much. The actual system is still off in worrying areas (assuming critical changes have not been made from UV, which is what I read into your remarks), other mechanics which might prove helpful have not (as fart as I know) been installed.
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There is a wide spread perception that the Japanese had overwhelming power in 1941-42. Not so.
Then why was Japanese air power modelled in UV to simulate substantial ascendancy over its Allied counterpart? Were the Japanese pilots more experienced? Many of them were, at the start--but American pilots caught on fast. Was Japanese equipment that much better? In fact, on balance it wasn't as good in a lot of critical ways. Were Japanese air tactics superior? Not after the first few encounters they weren't. Soon enough we had their number and the loss rate of the "bad guys" spiked upward in a hurry.
Problem is, I don't see any of this modelled correctly, either. Exeprience ratings coming in are arbitrary and I'd guess, like with Girgsby's games in general, they have a lot to do with the problem. I note that experience ratings don't seem to change very fast for Allied pilots. These must have changed one whole helluva lot in reality because those very same pilots started to knock down enemy aircraft at a 2-1 clip shortly after first meeting the Japanese, and this with the same old obsolete equipment.
Has any of this been changed?
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If the Allies had their material massed they would overwhelm any local Japanese. The Japanese are concentrated and the allies dispersed. If the Japanese ignore the defense of the Central Pacific and send the IJN elsewhere. In WITP expect allied capture of Japanese bases early and often. I'm sure this will trigger howls of WITP being incorrect. The sad truth is both sides will have to commit a large amount of their resources to defending areas that will never see an enemy. But if you leave these bases unguarded you will invite what was historically impossible/impractical.
We'll see about that. Sounds good, as far as it goes.
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I don't think the games can or should restrict players to only historical behaviour. I feel it is unfair and unreasonable to critize the program results when your not following history to begin with.
Again, I'm not sure you get it. This system (speaking about UV) is off because of its design flaws. Ahistorical strategies wedded to fantastic scenarios aggravates that problem but is not itself the cause.
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Everytime I duplicate a historcal event in testing. (send the type and number of aircraft against the correct target) I get "historical" results. Wheres the beef?
The beef here is that isn't the case with UV. If something in this regard has been changed with WitP fine, I'm all for good change.
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What do you suppose would be the outcome of any simulation of the battle of Antietam that did not impose "historical" restrictions on the use of the Army of Potomac? Would you expect the ANV do last past noon on Sept 17th 1862? Would the result be historical? Was this outcome possible? Would the simulation therefore be flawed? (or would it be a very good case for making it in the first place to prove or disprove the notion that McClellan could and should have destroyed Lee then and there.) He certainly had knowledge of Lee's dispositions and intentions for weeks prior to the battle. In UV with this same knowledge aggressive players "exploit" the system to achieve "ahistorical" results. It does not mean the system is flawed. In fact it justifies it. It forces the players into acting "ahistorically" from the start. Since both sides know "what/where/when" they can't react in the historical manner. [/B][/QUOTE]
You're off on a different tangent. The discussion here is about UV system mechanics, not player strategy. Sure, these wargames offer too much knowledge in the form of hindsight in all too many respects for anyone to expect identical results with history. All well and good. But that doesn't begin to address specific problems with the game before us, rather is a topic for another (and interesting) discussion of how best to go about simulating warfare in general.
Let me say this: from what I've read from the testers my impression is this group is not critical enough by half. The game system is fun to play around with. Grigsby's games always are in my experience--call that bias, perhaps, on my part, plus my interest in this history. But make no mistake. Giant strides are necessary if this system ever hopes to become a realistic model of the period.
Thanks for adding your input, Mogami.
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