Armchair General Review

[doomtrader]

I just found a review of Storm over the Pacific at Armchair General:

You can read it here:
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/storm-ov ... review.htm

[Razz1]

I saw that several weeks ago rated 84%

[doomtrader]

I wonder do you agree or disagree with Passed and Failed sections?

[Razz1]

No I do not agree with fail. He is trying to make it like HOI where a country get disillusioned and then surrenders.

There is no problem with taking all the VP points for:
Philippines
Yunnan
Qang-Si
Communist
Republic
Dutch

I don't see a problem with Australia, Japan, Canada, USA.
Russia... never looked.

Can loose units in terrain. WRONG

He is not familiar with the interface and doesn't use the unit menu that shows pictures of the unit when zoomed out.


This isn't WAR in the Pacific so I don't know how you would make the battles more complex.

We can add more to the strategic battle planning by adding Sea tenders, CVE's and CE's as in the Rising Sun.

A Max ship range of 8 to 10 plus a fuel ship (strength 2/2?) that can transfer 1 strength point that increases fuel to ship by one point.

Also, allowing the sea tenders/CVE's to transfer one point of strength to another carrier would also help.

But the ideas above do not effect complexity of a battle, just the preparation.

In fact land combat is just as complex as sea battle, click and roll the die. He doesn't complain about that.

If we infer that he means planning preparation then we have my suggestions above.

Remember the time scale is 7-8 days per turn.
I suppose if we got rid of sea zones and went to hexes, but then again that's only the planning and preparation.

Let me read the whole article again and see if I can add more input.

EDIT: I see where he comming from by loosing track of which unit smoved. Yes, that could be improved with a bigger dot.

However since he plays board games and hex PC games I don't see what his problem is....

Start on one side of the map and then move each unit moving toward the opposite side of the map.
Then net turn do the samething, same starting point.

If you want to randomly move units around and attack then there is a memory capacity problem in your brain.
However if you randomly move and attack units all over the map then your not planing very well.

He talks about MASS fire with ships. It's the same, each ship fires at the same ship if it wants to. That is mass firing.

He wants to know when you loose a city or port. Well he doesn't know the interface. Just click the third square on the mini map or change the border and possession colors. Then you know each turn if something was captured.


By the way... If you don't know the AI took a city or port.... then your not paying attention.

[Rasputitsa]

No doubt there are changes that will improve the game, but the reason why 'SoP' gets played and 'WitP' stays on the shelf, is complexity and playability. This game is grand strategy, not so much tactical manouvre.

I like the sea area concept, as opposed to hex movement by ships, the whole point is strategically fighting for control (and keeping contol) of an area, not in mico-managing where each ship sails.

If Naval strength points have something to do with use of fuel, than refuelling at sea makes sense. I wondered if there should be any restriction on how long groups can remain at sea, before returning to port. If reducing group strength points represents ships leaving to refuel, than allocating fuel tankers could allow groups to stay at sea, at greater strength, for longer periods. The opposite is that, without refuelling, you would have to return groups to port regularly, affecting your strategy and the sea areas that you could effectively act in.

There was at first the problem of following the action, as it happened, in the combat phase. However by using the transparent combat box mod, it is possible to more easily see the action, as it happens, and you are not just playing 'catch-up' when you turn starts.

Map mods and now unit mods becoming available, have made it easier to see the detail on the map, even at zoomed out levels.

The main advantage for me, is that the game has been made easy to mod in many aspects, there were things that I initiallly found difficult and didn't like, but those have rapidly been overcome, with the full co-operation of the developers. We are all looking for different emphasis and within certain basic features, each copy of the game can evolve to meet the taste of the user. There may be somethings missing, but there is a whole lot more that is really good. [:)]

[Razz1]

I agree, with the semi-opaque combat window.

I changed it a little and it is better now.

900;324;400;1066;479;Combat Result Frame

But probably should reduce it just alittle more.

This should be done for the next patch to all the GUI files.



Concerning Re-fueling... a reduction in strength point is not good to represent fuel. The cost is way too high and a person can not recover from that type of loss.

Better off having the ship movment at zero, forcing you to refuel so you can move one sea zone.
Being dead in the water is more realistic. Having a fuel ship at 2/2 or 3/3 and only being able to transfer one of those points per ship per turn to a ship as a movement point is much better.

So maybe have the fuel ship movement range at 16 compared to a ship at 10 to 12. Then only being able to transfer a maxium 2 movement points.

A good option to have is in the player preferances, where a person checks off:

A) Use fuel ships (can transfer fuel, max 2/turn, 1/ship)
B) Use Sea Tenders, CVE's, (can transfer 1 strength point to carriers, maximum 1 to 2 depending upon ship type, maximum 1/ship, 1/turn)
C) Use CVL's a reduced strength carrier ranging from 4 to 8


This way new comers can play with the options off until they become more experienced. Now a 12 year old can play and understand the simple way and move more in depth as they learn the game.