Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

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ORIGINAL: witpqs

No differences of opinion about the campaign up to The Philippines, only over choosing the Philippines.

So take P/NG, Morotai, isolate Rabaul and Truk, island hopping=good, but don't take the Philippines once you've accomplished that? Leave all of the PI 'behind your lines'? I don't see the military logic in that either. If you're going to Formosa, you've *got* to take the Philippines.

I think there's some argument about whether Palau was necessary in the hops up there. But if not the Philippine archipelago, then how did you intend to secure your flank?

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ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

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ORIGINAL: Alfred

A marginal Allied victory is a game victory but it shows a performance outcome less than the historical outcome.

If you mean that it's a game victory for the Allied player, then we are agreed. I feel you are singing somewhat different tunes between threads over time with regards to game victory conditions and historical comparisons - namely that historical comparisons, from a game victory/defeat standpoint, are out of the window at the get-go because (in essence) the game isn't a simulation.


I am singing a consistent tune.

The game has objective victory conditions which trump the "I don't need no stupid stinkin' VPs to tell me if I've won, I'll know anyway the outcome" school of thought. I've never shied away from the VP indicator being the objective metric of assessing victory.

What gets misunderstood is that built in to the objective VP metric is a subjective perspective which is based on the historical Allied performance. Hence why there are different grades of victory which reflect the historical outcome. In any other game a victory is a victory. Win a game of chess by checkmating your opponent in 4 moves does not earn you more tournament points than if the checkmate had taken 30 moves, and that in turn does not earn more points than winning by the opponent resigning. Nor does a Black win generate more tournament points than a White win. Similarly in gridiron, whether the win is by 1 or 57 points, it is only a win.

In AE there exists a gradation of victory levels. This exists to pander to the rabid American market which finds it impossible to accept anything other than their perceived God given right (practically enshrined in the Constitution in a "post 1945 amendment") that only the USA is entitled to win the 1941-45 Pacific War and anything else means the game is a failure. The problem with this mindset is that not only are there Allied players not good enough to achieve game results commensurate with the outcomes achieved by the historical commanders, it also overlooks the ability of Japanese players to achieve better than historical outcomes.

The victory conditions outlined in chapter 17 of the manual are quite clear that they have been determined on the basis of historical considerations. At the micro level this can be seen in the different values attached to the loss of Chinese/Filipino, Soviet, other Allied, and Japanese devices; 12 Chinese Support devices = 4 other Allied Support devices even though they have exactly the same characteristics. The only difference being the home public tolerance level of incurring casualties.

It is at the macro level where the historical considerations are most clearly visible. The Allied player must achieve an auto victory by the historical deadline (actually in AE the player is given a bit of extra time) in order to achieve the historical Decisive Victory. Achieve it (or the 1.75:1 ratio at conclusion of the scenario) after the historical date and there are two specific factors which are applied to "arbitrarily" reduce the quality of the "victory". These factors are outlined in s.17.1.1 and 17.1.2. Why should using a third Atomic Bomb automatically reduce the victory level or why does it matter if the auto victory/1.75:1 ratio is achieved in November 1945 or March 1946? The answer is it is valid only because the quality of the victory is being directly assessed against the historical outcome.

Precisely because it is a game which must allow for the result to be determined by the efforts of the players themselves rather than some predetermined inflexible outcome, but significantly a game whose primary market is America, the victory gradations exist as a sop to the ego of Allied players. It is therefore possible for an Allied player to still claim a Marginal Victory at best and not feel too bad even though they failed the historical test. One shudders to think of the reaction of Allied players confronted with a Draw or even a Marginal Japanese Victory at the conclusion. If there were no victory gradation levels in the game, IOW if the winner were simply determined on the basis of the side which has 1 more VP at the conclusion of the scenario, there would be no rational reason why non masochists would agree to play Japan in PBEM.[/I]

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ORIGINAL: Alfred

In this game, there is no guarantee that the Allies will even achieve a 1.25:1 VP ratio before 1 September 1945.

Which, if the game were to end on September 1, 1945, would be relevant. But the game doesn't end then. The only time the 1.25:1 ratio matters is when the clock runs out in 1946. The only ratio that matters before the clock runs out is the autovictory ratio for the given year.

See above comments re the need no stinkin' VP school of thought. It also goes directly to the psychology of the VP school of thought player in that even with a subsequent improvement in the ratio, an improvement which may well not arise (certainly not to a subsequent 1.75:1 ratio) given the performance of the players to date, it emphasises just how far short of the historical performance the Allied player has been.

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The bottom line is that no Allied player, irrespective of whether their opponent is Human or the Computer, can truly be satisfied that they have outplayed their opponent unless they achieve an Auto Victory by the historical date (bearing in mind the devs have given a bit of extra time to do so).

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ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

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MacArthur's campaign effectively sealed off the DEI and Philippines from the Japanese

Actually, it didn't, and don't think Halsey didn't notice. Subs kept hitting stuff but ships were still getting through the gap behind Formosa. Halsey & Nimitz thought, correctly I believe, that holding Formosa would have sealed that door tightly shut and would have allowed us to better supply and use China to end the war. Keep in mind nobody knew about a A-Bomb. I suspect with Formosa in hand the Philippines would have been necessary. Fortunately....we have an excellent simulation in this game. Imagine, or recreate, the respective forces and positions in the game in say.....September 1944. I submit to you that the obvious choice would be Formosa. That takes all resources out of play 100% and save the need for massive ground forces to take back the Philippines. The assumption , at the time, was that an invasion of the mainland of Japan was going to be required. Why burn all those divisions taking something off the direct path? Mcarther just wanted his Army show and to say "I have returned". Same reason he refused to let the Australians participate in the Philippines. More glory for him

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Of course Yamato hits the DDs at Wakkanai first thing. They sink two, but this just reduces ammo and ops for later.

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ORIGINAL: mind_messing

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Of course Yamato hits the DDs at Wakkanai first thing. They sink two, but this just reduces ammo and ops for later.

This is the real killer for the IJN in the late war. Any decent Allied invasion has an average of what, 10 to 20 dedicated TF's in the invasion hex. It's a lot of engagements to fight through and the game engine doesn't really handle it amazingly. It's frustrating to see torpedoes wasted on the likes of LST's when there's the potential for bigger targets in other TF's.


Of those, only three or four offer a real return in terms of VP's for risking high value IJN warships.

- the escorting BB's (risky: if it's slow BB's on bombardment duties they're normally Long Lance fodder, but the modern stuff can be dangerous).
- the covering CVE's (pretty much free VP's if you can properly engage them, they tend to burn very nicely in surface combat, but you need to luck out and avoid the hated "Allied CV TF evades combat")
- the invading amphibious ships (even then, they're often not worth the loss of IJN warships unless they're loaded chock full of troops).

I don't think you did anything wrong, you just got unlucky. The only other thing I could have thought to do was maybe peel two escorting DD's from every SCTF and have a bunch of two DD TF's patroling around the combat hex to provoke reactions from the Allies. I've had a bit of luck doing this with the likes of the E-class ships, PB's, basically anything with the slightest capacity in surface combat. They're not there to sink ships, just to sow confusion and draw off Allied assets out of the invasion hex. Sometimes they get lucky, I had some E-class ships maul a bunch of CVE's once. Obviously lucked out that day...

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ORIGINAL: ericv

Another epic battle, with mixed results. I had hoped the BB's would have delivered one more mighty punch.

On the bright side, your LBA and I assume, your carrier based airforces, are still very present and capable.
Very good planes, with good results overall air to air.

Burma still seems a big mess for him, and a lot of territory is still firmly in your hands.

The activation of kamikazes isn't far off, another thing to look forward to maybe? I am unfamiliar with the effectiveness of kamikaze as the farthest I have reached is januari 1943 in my current PBEM.
I don't know if you have experience with or expectations of their effectiveness?

In general, you are on the defensive but the window of time is closing for the Allies. It's december 1944, the coming winter months might hamper his operations.

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ORIGINAL: obvert

The real downer today is that the KB did not launch any strikes. .

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ORIGINAL: Lowpe

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ORIGINAL: obvert

The real downer today is that the KB did not launch any strikes. .

Any idea why?