wdolson
Posts: 10398
Joined: 6/28/2006
From: Near Portland, OR
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Symon
Does anyone care? Of course not!
quote:
ORIGINAL: Icedawg
Many players care. "Gameyness" is a big issue to lots of people (myself included). Just because players like you and Bullwinkle don't care about it, that doesn't mean that others don't.
Different players play the game from a different point of view. There's nothing wrong with those different views, they are just - different. Guys like you and Bullwinkle (and many others) have a particular outlook on the issue, so you should play against each other. Other players (such as myself, Chickenboy and quite a few others) have the opposite view. We should play against each other.
The OP is obviously someone who does care about "gameyness". There's no need to ridicule him about it. I myself have asked many such questions over the years and have gotten lots of constructive advice on this forum. The OP was just doing the same.
Like everything in life, different people have different preferences. Just because I like to write with my right hand and you like to write with your left hand, it doesn't mean either of us have the "correct" way of writing. I care about being gamey. You don't. That doesn't mean one of us plays the game correctly and the other plays incorrectly. They're just different ways of playing.
I think this comes back to the debate that has waged here for years (no no about the Bismarck!). Whether this is a game or a simulation. With a simulation, you strive for the most accurate experience. With a game, you try and learn the game rules as well as possible, then exploit any holes in those rules to your advantage. Most people who win at black jack learn the intricacies of the rules and push them to the limits (card counting being the most common in that case). Casinos try and spot these people and kick them out.
This game has some aspects of a simulation, but it is a game and has rules imposed by the game engine, OOB, etc. PBEM players have house rules because there are things players can do that some people think are warping the simulation aspect too hard.
I know there are some game settings in which you can see the air units in the combat report. It also can be disabled by a setting (probably something to do with fog of war, I forget which at the moment). The fact that Japan didn't mix up the squadrons on their carriers was a matter of doctrine and actually worked to their disadvantage at Midway. The Zuikaku could have made it to Midway if they had mixed the Shokaku and Zuikaku's air groups.
The reason boiled down to how the units were designated. In the USN, air groups were separate units that were assigned to a carrier. In the IJN, air groups were statically assigned to a carrier.
From a game aspect, I don't think it's fair to have a house rule that requires the USN and IJN to stick to their historic doctrines. Especially when the game engine under some conditions can give your opponent more information than was available to the enemy in the real conflict. In an air to air battle the enemy could sometimes get some valuable unit information like the call codes from Allied European theater aircraft, but the IJN was always discrete about unit markings and the USN was discrete mid-war. Early war the USN had squadron numbers as part of the plane number, but that was eliminated fairly early on. In 1944 the USN had geometric symbols and in 1945 they had numbers on the tail to designate air groups. However by the time the USN started doing things that could identify units again, the question was usually "are we facing 10 carriers or 12?" In any case it meant the Japanese were in trouble.
I suppose this could be a house rule, but its one I would allow if I was playing PBEM.
Bill
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WitP AE - Test team lead, programmer  |
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KB is gamey? Barb now admitted - 
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