This new stand alone release based on the legendary War in the Pacific from 2 by 3 Games adds significant improvements and changes to enhance game play, improve realism, and increase historical accuracy. With dozens of new features, new art, and engine improvements, War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition brings you the most realistic and immersive WWII Pacific Theater wargame ever!
Your post would indicate you've never played the game before. You honestly have no idea what we are referring to when we say there are units just showing up on map for both sides even after I give an example?
Erstad has probably played more turns in PBEM than 95% of the people on the forums - I'm fairly sure he has some idea what he's talking about. As to the one example you gave, do you mean the dive bombers that arrive at Brisbane shown in the screenshot below? The ones you could open your reinforcement queue up and look at weeks ahead of time to know they were coming, as has been suggested to you? The ones that you could open the editor and know were coming as Erstad suggested to you?
I understand that you aren't trying to be a troll (and if you were, you'd have to be the most patient troll around to have opened your account 6 years ago and just now have decided to give almost everyone trying to help you a hard time), but you still seem to be doing your best to come across as one. On the last two issues you've raised, you've been given good answers multiple times. If you don't understand them, say so, and ask for clarification. Your current style isn't going to get you anywhere fast, though.
Your post would indicate you've never played the game before. You honestly have no idea what we are referring to when we say there are units just showing up on map for both sides even after I give an example?
I didn't dispute the example. The scenario design has the A-24's show up in brisbane. this is all in accordance with the rules and the units are clearly shown in the reinforcement track. I didn't open the scenario in the editor, but have no doubt they show up there too. You then asked
Great, but what about all the other units that get the same sudden appearence treatment?
But didn't cite the other units. I would suspect they are also programmed by the scenario design to appear in a given location. Either the reinforcement track or a review with the scenario editor would confirm that for a given unit.
Based on the one example you gave, there is no basis for the assessment that something outside the rules is occurring. There are many, many undocumented items under the hood and there are cases where the manual is wrong or outdated - but this isn't one of them.
Your post would indicate you've never played the game before.
I'm thinking because the Manual didn't cover them (as oddities) there is a problem. BTW, are these oddities addressed in the Manual?
No. The manual has the rules, but does not describe the scenarios.
Documentation for the scenarios is in the scenario notes (which is a very high level description). Details on the OOB for the scenarios, which is what your question relates to, can be found by loading the scenario (for example, in head-to-head mode) and using the in game menus, or by loading the scenario in the scenario editor.
You aren't harsh, just a complete arsehole, I now know that Symon must have posted from experience.
A number of time units were created from excess reinforcements into combat units due to operational reasons, this is how LCU & Air Units appear "from nowhere"
Stop reading Commando comics and try books from time to time.
Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum
Some of the units that just 'appear' in the game in various places are, as others have said and/or hinted at, actually part of the in game historical convoy reinforcement system for the allies. They usually appear in places like South Africa or the Gulf, but, like the A-24 units you specifically mention, do occasionally appear elsewhere.
This is the designers making it unneccessary for the the Allied Players to produce things and ship them to the front, for some very well historically documented things. I am not one of the designers and don't fully understand why some units appear in (say) San Fran or LA and then need to be manually shipped to ... wherever ... while other units appear in situ, at their historical destination ... I assume it is a designer decision to provide a good mix of historicity and free will.
(I have not played enough *different* campaigns to be sure if some of these 'in situ' arrivals are only partly scripted - that is, they *always* arrive in, say, South Africa, on more or less the same date, regardless of whether the historical basis for their arrival is actually fulfilled on map or not ... as long as, in this case, South Africa is still allied controlled, of course).
The above ONLY applies to my experience with the Allied side ... I cannot comment with any experience on the Japanese side, but would assume that for those Japanese units that may seem to 'appear' in situ, it is the last thing I mentioned for the Allies but applied to the Japanese (that is, the designers have mandated certain historical events/arrivals ... for their own reasons).
I suspect that the above may not be of specific help, but hope it does provide *some* assistance.
(There are some problems with the assumptions made by the designers, I believe ... and this may be one of them ... one of them that has always perplexed me is the rule on invading Australia [and, to a lesser extent, New Zealand and India] ... historically, at the period of maximum danger the Australian Army was, IIRC, around 14 divisions strong ... far stronger, at least as well supplied if not always fully equipped, than any possible Japanese force that could be landed, let alone supplied ... which, as far as I am aware, isn't a problem in play vs the AI, but can be in PBEM ... I assume the designers had their reasons for doing things the way they did, and this whole issue is another example, I guess)
Phil
Author, Space Opera (FGU); RBB #1 (FASA); Road to Armageddon; Farm, Forge and Steam; Orbis Mundi; Displaced (PGD)
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Email: aspqrz@tpg.com.au
Every now and then, the game developers just have to chime in. Will we give good info, yes. Are we polite, no. You don't like what the developers think, then just push the green button and go about your business and don't bother us. any further.
Ciao. JWE
The game is the collective property of the developers (well, it's GG's, but nobody here cares about copyright law). That I do not contest.
Last time I checked, however, the forum said Matrix Games at the top, not Henderson Designs.
Henderson Field Designs developed the game. Matrix published it. Big difference.
And AE is not property of Grigsby. The original WitP is his. This is a new IP.
Irrelevent, considering this is Matrix's forum and not Henderson's. Matrix kindly allows some (thankfully not all!) of the devs to act as admins.
While it might hurt Symon's ego, the truth is that he's considered equal with the rest of us on this forum, and subjected to the same rules and terms as the rest of us. If he was actually treated as such, I very much doubt that he'd still have a accessible account on here...
It's not a new IP either. It's a refinement of an existing IP. Proof of that lies in the fact that the devs refuse to reveal any of the games underlying code for "legal reasons", as well as the fact that they added two words in the title and a whole bunch of code under the hood.
Re 27th BG
Operations. Activated for bombardment operations on 1 Feb 1940. Moved to the Philippines in Nov 1941. The group's A-24 aircraft, which had not arrived by 7 Dec, were diverted to Australia after the Japanese attack on the Philippines. The group's commander and 20 pilots who were flown from Luzon to Australia to get the aircraft did not return because of the continued Japanese advance in the Philippines. Some of these pilots saw service in Java, Feb-May 1942, before they were assigned to another group. The men left on Luzon flew missions against the Japanese with available aircraft and served as infantrymen in the battles of Bataan and Corregidor. Although a few managed to escape, most were either killed or taken by the Japanese as prisoners of war. The group received three Distinguished Unit Citations (DUC) for their heroic efforts in the Philippines, late 1941 and early 1942.
This extract was taken form US Air Historical Research Agency. This info is available to all who bother to look.
http://www.afhra.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=9664
Case in point related directly to this post, while there are friendly reinforcements that appear on the reinforcement list designed to be placed in very odd places, there is no mention of such a significant activity anywhere in the manual to make players aware it will happen.
"16.0 REINFORCEMENTS AND REPLACEMENTS
Reinforcements are ships, air units and ground units that enter the game after a scenario has
begun. These units appear in locations displayed on the various reinforcement screens found
off of the Intelligence Screen."
It states right there that reinforcements appear at the base shown in the reinforcement screens on the Intelligence screen. You might say that this is very general, but of course it has to be. Reinforcement arrival locations are set in the scenario and can be changed in the editor that comes with the game. There's no way that the manual can list where reinforcements will appear, since that is up to the scenario designer.
I don't know what you mean by "very odd places." The arrival locations are based on historical sources. For example, the USAAF divebombers that arrive in Brisbane were the aircraft of the 27th Bombardment Group that were on their way to the Philippines when the Japanese attacked, and were diverted to Australia. They were actually part of the cargo of the convoy escorted by USS Pensacola, but because of the game mechanism that limits ships to carrying only one unit each and the LCUs that are carried by that convoy, it's not possible to load them on that convoy. So the scenario designer decided to place them in Brisbane at about the time that the convoy arrives there. A pretty elegant solution to my eye.
If you don't like where a reinforcement unit arrives, you can change the location using the editor. I am not fond of the USS Yorktown arriving in San Diego, while her escorting destroyers arrive in Balboa. It's an easy change to have them arrive together. But I don't think it's reasonable to expect the scenario designer to explain every arrival location, and it's impossible for the manual to do so.
There are plenty of valid complaints to make about the manual. It hasn't been updated since the game originally came out, and there have been numerous changes to the game since then. There no prospect of the manual being updated, so we just have to live with it. The forums are the best place for updated information.
There are some US Dive bomber squadrons that show up in brisbane around Jan 42. There are units like this all accross the map on both sides of the fight that simply transfer on their own and reappear in different places undamaged and fully operational.
Not Unit withdraws and reappears with new TOE in a new location, very rare.
Not Fragments that turn into parent units.
Not LCU airlifted across the map.
It is (I guess) AI controlled units using different rules. These "rules" are not established by the players but seem to be inherantly integrated into the game. Problem arises trying to figure out the who, what, when, where, how and why of it all.
Yes I too don't understand why those air units just appear in Oz land in early 42. Considering as well when almost every other air unit or LCU in the game has to be shipped manually to wherever we want that unit to go. Thus for the units that show up in OZ land early on in game, why wasn't their a convoy set up at the game beginning that was at sea in route to OZ carrying these units? A bunch of American boy & equipment just didn't appear out of nowhere in OZ in 1942, they had to have been shipped there somehow/sometime after Dec. 7 1941
It probably has to do with the fact that supply convoys are slow. If you had knowledge of a convoy with valuable aircraft at sea on december 7th with the way this game works woudln't you try to hit it cripling the ability of Australia to defend itself? Nobody is going to hit a couple of 75mm arty pieces at sea but the aircraft (P40s and A-24s) are an attractive target for the Japanese player. You only need one or two carriers to take them down. It's a different beast then the US carriers at sea. At least they can travel 9 hexes in any direction at game start...
AKA Cannonfodder
"It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.”
¯ Primo Levi, writer, holocaust survivor
Yeah, sorry about that, but I was a dev too. I know better than you.
Yes, Gary Grigsby's WITPAE is exclusively Henderson Fields, right?
In simple terms, for non lawyers, the answer is yes.
I'm not privy to the actual contractual arrangements entered into by all the parties but I expect that 2By3 gave Henderson Fields a licence to use their code and subject to their approval the right to modify said code. The resultant product's (aka AE) Intellectual Property is therefore owned by Henderson Fields.
This is not the first time that someone has attempted to muddy Henderson Fields IP legitimacy. The granting of licences is extremely common and does not invalidate the new IP rights which attach to new work.
Bottom line is that when devs such as Terminus (who is not a lawyer) or Symon (who is an IP lawyer specialist) say that AE belongs to Henderson Fields, they are 100% correct. If one disagrees, take them to court. Of course then there are the technical problems of whether one has standing, let alone establishing who has better title to AE than Henderson Fields. Good luck with that exercise assuming you could find any legally qualified practioner prepared to take on the case.
Yeah, sorry about that, but I was a dev too. I know better than you.
Yes, Gary Grigsby's WITPAE is exclusively Henderson Fields, right?
In simple terms, for non lawyers, the answer is yes.
I'm not privy to the actual contractual arrangements entered into by all the parties but I expect that 2By3 gave Henderson Fields a licence to use their code and subject to their approval the right to modify said code. The resultant product's (aka AE) Intellectual Property is therefore owned by Henderson Fields.
This is not the first time that someone has attempted to muddy Henderson Fields IP legitimacy. The granting of licences is extremely common and does not invalidate the new IP rights which attach to new work.
Bottom line is that when devs such as Terminus (who is not a lawyer) or Symon (who is an IP lawyer specialist) say that AE belongs to Henderson Fields, they are 100% correct. If one disagrees, take them to court. Of course then there are the technical problems of whether one has standing, let alone establishing who has better title to AE than Henderson Fields. Good luck with that exercise assuming you could find any legally qualified practioner prepared to take on the case.
Alfred
Without the terms of the contract, who knows? Regardless, I stand corrected, and no doubt Symon will appear to point out just how incorrect I am.
This is a digression, however. My original issue was the fact that the forums belonged to Matrix, not Henderson's.
