rustysi
Posts: 7472
Joined: 2/21/2012 From: LI, NY Status: offline
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As with so many other aspects of this game I've come to appreciate and manage the impact this abstraction has on game play. IMHO it definitely restricts a players' 'freedom of movement/operations', and I for one feel this is its intention. More than that I agree with its purpose, as I see it. I'm not saying its perfect or even a good thing, but it seems to accomplish its objective. Even though its not very elegant. TBH within the framework of things I don't really see an alternative. At least not one that the Dev's could have used given the scope of time, resources, and coding. For those of us who've been around the hobby for a long time I go back to use an analogy of old U.S. Civil War games. Had the North been turned loose from the start its overwhelming strength would have overrun the South rather early. The game implement to prevent this was to roll a die. All your forces on a hex ending in that number were unable to move that turn. Horrible mechanism and one that keep me from playing Grand Campaign games of that war. That is until Victory Games came out with their version, a variable length game turn. Nice little innovation, that added a degree of excitement/stress to each turn. That being said in AE if Japan were able to move her forces where she wanted, form day one, she'd have little trouble overrunning the Allies and winning most games. On the flip side, if for some reason Japan couldn't win, the Allies would crush Japan that much sooner once her immense forces started to come to bear. In comes the PP system to restrict this from happening. It seems to me that there's a lot of resistance to this system. I can understand that as most of us are used to being the Omnipotent being in our gaming. Just as when a player doesn't know why his/her units don't carry out his/her orders to a tee. The simple answer is the game is not designed to allow it. I too feel that frustration. Until I remind myself, I'm playing AE. With all that said (and I could say more) I'll come to my point. It seems to me players are always trying to get by 'on the cheap' when it comes to paying these points. Most if not all of us seem to agree that reassigning an HQ to another HQ to then by units out at reduced rate is a 'no go'. OTOH its seems perfectly all right to 'buy' a unit which is mauled out at its 'reduced rate'. There's a dichotomy here, no? Anyway, in my AI games as Japan I imposed upon myself a 'house rule' that I'd buy no unit out at anything less than 90/90 (usually that means 90/100, there's no 'charge' for disabled devices if you've noticed) when it comes to unit strength. So each unit is at 90% strength. See where I'm going here... (I can hear the howls now ). Now I'm considering some such in a PBEM game. Maybe not that level, but something. My intention is to 'slow the tempo' of the game somewhat. There would be some exceptions, though the few would be on the Allied side. These would involve the Chinese units that could be bought out. The intention here being they were moved to India to train, refit, and receive supply anyway. The other unit being the U.S. 41st division. This unit was the first U.S. unit sent to the Pacific and was unrestricted in the original release. In the thread I saw on this the Dev's stated they gave the PP's back in other ways, although I don't know how. The thing I really don't know about is how restrictive this may be to the Allied OOB. My intention is not to tie the Allies' hands behind their backs. From my cursory looks at the Allies, I really don't see that many ground units that require buy outs. I could be wrong though. Also keep in mind. I really don't care if you can't have the perfect commander in every sub, air unit, or ground ponder in the world. I know that as a Japanese player I haven't even looked at my sub commanders. They are what they are, and if I can ever accumulate enough PP's I may take a look someday. Also I could care less if you wouldn't now be able to buy out Dutch units. TBH who cares. I know that may sound a bit harsh to some, but it's not really my intention. So, if you've read all that $#^&* above, I'd like to have an objective (objective as possible) discussion as to the pros and cons, if we can. Should buyouts be at a certain strength level or not?
< Message edited by rustysi -- 1/25/2018 7:10:57 PM >
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It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Hume In every party there is one member who by his all-too-devout pronouncement of the party principles provokes the others to apostasy. Nietzsche Cave ab homine unius libri. Ltn Prvb
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