Bullwinkle58
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Joined: 2/24/2009
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quote:
ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget
quote:
ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
quote:
ORIGINAL: rtoolooze
"Most important thing: as an Allied player, YOU CANNOT LOSE. PERIOD."
I've been getting closer to finally buying this monster game, studying the manual, and tutorials. But after seeing this, it kinda took the wind out of my sails. Why play a game when you know who will win.
So no matter what, Japan can't win?
I hate it when the uninformed make statements like the one you reacted to. It is categorically false.
I'm a decent player. Been playing AE and WITP for 13 years. I've completed three PBEM games as the Allies and I lost two of them. In my fourth now and the outcome is in doubt. IF you play the game design and understand the victory conditions, Japan can win. In some sense it's easier for Japan to win as all they have to do is hang on and not lose. The Allies MUST, under the design, get an auto-victory to win the game.
Japan has numerous advantages built into the design they did not have in RL. Over the decade of AE's existence Japan players have come to understand how to optimize those advantages. Today, unlike 2009, you will likely encounter a Japan PBEM opponent who is very, very tough.
The statement made by rtoolooze is false, no doubt. However, is Japan the only side with advantages built into the design they did not have in RL? And are the Japanese players the only ones who have come to understand how to optimize their advantages? And have Allied players not learned anything about how to negate / reduce the impact of the Japanese advantages? Sure, there are cases of Japanese players winning, but I'm convinced that in games between equally skilled players, the Allies will win more often than not by a very large margin. Maybe the adage goes "As an Allied player, YOU CANNOT LOSE - unless you make big mistakes or get unlucky dice rolls"?
Here we go again.
No, the Allies do not have the optimizing advantages the Japanese do in the game design.. That is by . . . design. The OOB is the OOB, the LCU pool system is restrictive and cannot be accelerated or expanded, aircraft R&D is fixed, etc. Further, Japan knows exactly, on 12/7/41, what the Allies will get and when they will get it. Even the random arrival set-up spinner acts to hurt the Allies as much as help, and is thus neutral.
Further, there are major portions of the Allied war machine that are missing from the game models, while nothing Japan possessed is really not there. I'm speaking primarily of all things CAS, at which the Allies excelled, and which had a major effect in large campaign in cutting the legs out from Japan's logistics. There is no napalm, There are no parafrags. There are no rockets. No WP. And, of course, the whole submarine game is nerfed to the point of near irrelevance compared to history. The Allies must use assets to hit the seaborne economy that were in RL used to support combat campaigns. And shall we speak of amphibious landings? The entire concept of a beachhead is missing. Repeated shock attacks by the entire force ashore when even one new combat device is landed on a small island are certainly not "real." And complicate the invasions the Allies must do, over and over, to a fare thee well.
There are advantages built in that both sides use, yes. Op tempo is very fast. Ship repair is very fast. There is no av gas, and thus island logistics are much easier. No wounded to evac. Base infrastructure repairs at no cost. Aircraft replacements bip onto distant bases with no transport required. Many more. But I'm at a loss to find any major game mechanism that the Allies get that Japan does not that aren't based on historic OOB decisions.
I'm sure that over the nine years since launch more Japan PBEMs have been lost than the opposite. I'm not sure that's true in the last three years, when the games went to completion. Since it's an unknowable stat we're each going to have to accept our own impressions. Bottom-line, I'm glad you reject the central premise of my post: it's ludicrous to assert that Japan can never win.
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RE: Mayday Mayday, The USN is on the brink of disaster.... - 
). There are also major portions which are in the game but should not be. Take a look at ship withdrawal dates - they are missing for many many ships which left the PTO temporarily or permanently. Most prominently USS Nevada which in the game stays in the PTO while in RL she left to participate in Overlord and Dragoon. Then take a look at ship arrival dates - I have found many ships which arrive on map weeks and months earlier than IR (I have also found some which arrive later, but far less in numbers). Submarines nerfed - yes, but largely a Japanese player choice to devote assets to AWS which could be used for other things - robbing Peter again. Neither Allied nor Japanese subs can target multiple ships in one attack, so it is neutral. Amphib ops - the mandatory shock attack as such is neutral. If the Allies select to attack heavily defended bases subject to shock attack rules, it is poor target selection. The Japanese OOB is way too thin to allow for a solid defense across the PTO. The Allies can hit them where they ain't. 
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