Chiteng
Posts: 7666
Joined: 2/20/2001 From: Raleigh,nc,usa Status: offline
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by byron13 [B]Chiteng, I don't think there is much you can do about the perfect hindsight "problem." You've got two choices: either let people take advantage of perfect hindsight (and assume the AI will as well) or force contemporary doctrine and beliefs down a players' throat. Most posters seem to want the ability to change history and don't want to be tied to doctrine which, in hindsight, was irrational, e.g., Japan maintaining large land-force commitments in China. At the outset of the war, it was believed that the Mark 14 would be more effective than the Mark 10. Even after sub skippers begain having suspicions and then were even convinced that there were defects in the Mark 14, the higher headquarters (that's us in game terms) did not believe them and continued to insist on ineffective tactics. We, as players, won't suffer under those misconceptions and will know on December 7th that you have to use a Mark 10 to hope for a kill. S boats will be highly valued as a result and will not be used historically. But I don't see how you can force-feed contemporary doctrine down a player's throat (other than forced withdrawal, which I'm not opposed to). If you could, then you would force players to attack fleets with B17s from high altitude - even though we know that to be a complete waste of time - because it was believed that the pickle-barrel-accurate Norden on a B17 was an effective defense against invasion fleets. Or, assuming a no PH scenario, you might force the American to sally forth with his battleships for the great battle of the titans because the senior brass still had that mentality. Or - well you can describe any number of pre-war fallacies that were disproved only after months of combat experience or circumstance. Not sure how you can hard-code fallacy and, to an extent, incompetence into the game. Better, I think, to leave the ahistorical element in the game, since (i) the advantage of hindsight is minimal in most cases (e.g., how much more damage can a player achieve knowing only Mark 10s are effective? Not much) and (ii) the ahistorical advantage disappears in a relatively short period as the combatants discovered fallacies through their own hindsight and experience (e.g., torpedo malfunctions were corrected and someone realizes that the B17 sucks as a high altitude ship-killer after numerous tries). Besides, most players want to play to see if they can do better than their historical counterparts. Doubt there are any battleship disciples among us, and none would want to be forced to follow a particular doctrine. Kind of hard to play the game without subconsciously knowing that the carrier will be the dominant weapon of the naval war. How many players on turn one would consider the carrier to have a scouting function for the battleships? Let's face it: hindsight is a necessary "evil" that cannot be entirely hard-coded out, and any attempt to do so would only cause more harm than good. Besides, if a player wants to operate under historical handicaps, he can, to a large extent, voluntarily operate under them. Right? [/B][/QUOTE] Really? I can ignore the ahistorical use of the B-17? Have you added up just how many unreal elements there are in UV? The majority of which favor the US.
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“It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster.” Voltaire 'For those with faith, no proof is needed. For those without faith, no proof is enough' French Priest "Statistic
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