Chickenboy
Posts: 24520
Joined: 6/29/2002
From: San Antonio, TX
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quote:
ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget
As I said, playing with perfect hindsight and only taking into consideration the game mechanics, it makes sense to evacuate since you know you have little to no chance to stop the Japanese forces.
However, this does not take into account factors which existed IRL and more or less forced the Allies to fight against hopeless odds.
The Dutch troops would not leave 250.000 Dutch civilians at the mercy of the Japanese without putting up a fight, regardless of chances. In any case they were too numerous to evacuate and had nowhere to go, Holland being occupied by Germany.
The British realized the weakness of Singers without landward defenses, a sizeable fleet and adequate airforce, but since it was the keystone of the Pacific defence strategy of the Empire - basically "Australia and New Zealand are being defended by Singapore" and a symbol of colonial rule, it was impossible not to fight for it.
And for the US, it was understood that the defense of the Philippines was doomed :
Source : Louis Morton, The Fall of the Pilippines. Center of Military History US Army. Washington DC 1993.
This is largely my perspective as well.
By the game (as an Allied player), it makes perfect sense to extract every useful land, air and sea unit possible and hide out in the safe waters of Southern Australia, Pearl Harbor or Karachi and wait for the storm to abate. Move your LCUs to reinforce these theatres by unassailable off-map convoys that have very limited space for interdiction and where you can focus your ASW and air search assets. Move LCUs via magical transcontinental teleportation wherein they can arrive intact in India after a relatively short (and infinitely safe) off-map jaunt. Do all these things. Play the code! Have fun! It's just a game and has no bearing on the real world politics or mindset of the time.
Or you can try to, as LST has done, replicate / honor the mindset of the time.
The usual outcry-and the reason I avoided entering this periodic flamewar-in-the-making is for the AFBs to decry the Japanese ability to overextend themselves and invade India or Australia or CONUS or wherever else it makes no sense for the Japanese to invade. It's a fair cop.
The most likely timeframe for Japanese autovictory ("winning the GAME") is January 1943. A lot of things have to go 'right' for this to happen. For the Japanese player to get an achievable autovictory in 1943, they need a 4:1 margin of VPs. A sizeable portion of this must come from captured Allied LCUs. Luzon, Hong Kong and Singapore usually provide a goodly chunk of these LCU VPs. China another share. Some more will have to come from Dutch forces trapped and captured on Java, Sumatra and maybe Ambon and the odd capture of Ceylon or other such.
Cagey Allied commanders will strive to deny naval VPs to Japanese players until the risk of autovictory has passed. You are unlikely to find too many PBEM Allied commanders that risk a couple/three partially damaged / depleted CVs against the Japanese KB in June 1942. They're likely too busy keeping their precious carriers safe (and-oh by the way-avoiding any possiblity of Japanese autovictory).
So, from the JFB's perspective they see the Allies running ahistorically for the hills, avoiding naval conflict for game-related purposes and denying the Japanese player feasible grounds to establish victory (IN THE GAME). All this is perfectly possible in the game and is rewarding to the Allied player that disavows any historical rationale for standing and fighting / risking his naval assets until after January 1, 1943. Some Allied players go further and avoid serious confrontation until the Essex carriers come en masse or the CVEs start piling up or the Hellcats come or the Allied torpedo curse is lifted or...or...or...
From the Japanese player's perspective, they see this as overly-cautionary gameplay that-by default or by design-denies them any semblance of victory. It's a frustration to find that, months into a game, that you and your opponent do not share the same 'world view' about the relationship between historical mindsets and the game unfolding before you.
I think moderation is the key to all things here. Allied players that pull everything they can as fast as they can as far as they can run the risk of frustrating their opponent's rationale for playing the game. It wouldn't surprise me at all if this resulted in dropped games by the Japanese player in 1943. After all, there clearly wasn't a 'meeting of the minds' about how this thing would play out philosophically.
I've also suggested-in a fit of pique-that Japanese players exposed to these "Sir Robin on Steroids" techniques *not* drop games, but play on to spite the Allied player. Namely, that they should ,after their initial Japanese expansion has been completed, immediately fall back to the home islands as quickly as possible. You know-to preserve their forces and avoid giving the Allies 'freebie' VPs. Abandon Burma, the DEI, Philippines, etc. Everybody back to the home islands.
Deny the Allies any meaningful personal experience in the game. After all, they didn't so much capture it in a brilliant feat of arms, you abandoned it in your headlong dash to ahistorical safety. You're preserving your forces to 'fight another day'. Let them discover the empty feeling of swinging at air for a ****ing year or more of game time/ real time.
Think that would be a 'historical' match? Think it would leave a bad taste in the mouth of Allied players looking for a historical match? Because I do.
Good PBEM partnership starts with a compatible mutual philosophy and balance. Give and take. If, by your headlong flight, you take away a meaningful possibility of Japanese AV, that's changing the balance of the game. You should be up front with your prospective partner about it and let them decide whether you are compatible. Just like house rules or philosophies about "Fortress Palembang" or the overuse of the magical Japanese first move bonus, these approaches should be open for discussion and consideration.
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RE: "SIr Robin" Ethimology - 
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