Is resizing a gamey?

[spence]

Always remember that the Japanese Player gets to make a hundred or so "house rules" that restrict the Allied Player to what was done 'historically' or reduce the 'gaminess' of his exploiting the game engine to any of the changes the Japanese Player makes because of the omnipotence Japanese Player gets by fighting a war that was already fought (and lost).

[Aurorus]

This thread is deteriorating rapidly into an AFB complaint center. The only advantage that Japan actually receives over history is the ability to accelerate the arrival date of aircraft via R&D. The most important and common house rule, that restricted units must pay PPs to cross national boundaries, is the most powerful and limiting house rule in the game. If you do not believe me, then think about 7 full-strength, high experience Japanese divisions, 10 armored regiments, and 20 battalions of heavy artilley moving across the Manchurian border into China on turn 4, and then imagine if all of these units proceeded through China to Thailand in January and February, through Thailand in March, and invaded India in April, along with another 5 or 6 unrestricted Japanese divisions. I would like to see any allied player try to stop 12 Japanese infantry divisions, 2 tank divisions, 5 tank regiments, and 40 or so battalions of heavy artillery from conquering the whole of India by the end of 1942.

So... stop with your nonsense.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: Aurorus

This thread is deteriorating rapidly into an AFB complaint center. The only advantage that Japan actually receives over history is the ability to accelerate the arrival date of aircraft via R&D. The most important and common house rule, that restricted units must pay PPs to cross national boundaries, is the most powerful and limiting house rule in the game. If you do not believe me, then think about 7 full-strength, high experience Japanese divisions, 10 armored regiments, and 20 battalions of heavy artilley moving across the Manchurian border into China on turn 4, and then imagine if all of these units proceeded through China to Thailand in January and February, through Thailand in March, and invaded India in April, along with another 5 or 6 unrestricted Japanese divisions. I would like to see any allied player try to stop 12 Japanese infantry divisions, 2 tank divisions, 5 tank regiments, and 40 or so battalions of heavy artillery from conquering the whole of India by the end of 1942.

So... stop with your nonsense.

You obviously don't know this game very well

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: Aurorus
This thread is deteriorating rapidly into an AFB complaint center...

Hehe, as all threads do when people for some strange reasons insist on discussing gameyness as a game mechanic property instead of specific players' agreement and its violations [:D]

Though I believe it is an exagerration to talk about India being up for grabs with no house rules. As I've said, no-house-rules games between competent players are going out there pretty often, and do not differ that much in dynamics from standard house ruled ones

[BillBrown]

ORIGINAL: Aurorus

This thread is deteriorating rapidly into an AFB complaint center. The only advantage that Japan actually receives over history is the ability to accelerate the arrival date of aircraft via R&D. The most important and common house rule, that restricted units must pay PPs to cross national boundaries, is the most powerful and limiting house rule in the game. If you do not believe me, then think about 7 full-strength, high experience Japanese divisions, 10 armored regiments, and 20 battalions of heavy artilley moving across the Manchurian border into China on turn 4, and then imagine if all of these units proceeded through China to Thailand in January and February, through Thailand in March, and invaded India in April, along with another 5 or 6 unrestricted Japanese divisions. I would like to see any allied player try to stop 12 Japanese infantry divisions, 2 tank divisions, 5 tank regiments, and 40 or so battalions of heavy artillery from conquering the whole of India by the end of 1942.

So... stop with your nonsense.

Of course the Allied player has the option of moving 30-40 large corps units to India where there is lots of supply available to fill them out. That will make it a bit harder to conquer India.

[etsadler]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: RickInVA

ORIGINAL: HansBolter




Maybe because both sides don't get the same choice, hence the perception of unfairness.

Why is it that the dark side seems to attract the most unscroupulous players?

This is not a game where each side has the same capabilities and opportunities. It is highly biased in favor of the Allies due to the actual historical factors. If the Japanese are no allowed to deviate from history then what is the point of playing the game? It will just have the same result as history. I'm not saying that resizing planes will result in Japanese victory, but there is (IMHO) no "competitive" reason it should be off the table.

Its HISTORY that is highly biased in favor of the Allies.

The GAME is actually highly biased in favor of the Japanese side.

That's apparently what it takes to make the Japanese side sufficiently appealing to have anyone actually play it.

Re: History, agree.
Re: Game, disagree. If that were so a majority of the AARs posted should result in Japanese victory. I do not see that.

Re: being appealing, agree. It is a game, if both sides do not have at least a reasonable chance to win then the side with the markedly lesser chance will be less appealing. Chess would not be as popular if the white side was not allowed to have a queen.

I feel, and I think many would agree, that a good game is one where the skill of the players determines the result, not the game itself.

[JeffroK]

If you want balance play Chess, but that doesnt allow you to keep producing Pawns or Knights or Queens depending on you ability to manage your economy.

It doesnt start with your opponent setting up a board full of pawns, while you get an advantageous set up.

It doesnt regularly force withdrawal of your pieces depending on what happens in another game thousands of km away.

WITPAE gives the JFB a lot of ahistorical advantage over real life, not going to argue about them as thats the way it works and the AFB can take advantage of some of them.

But lets not pretend its legitimate to trawl through the game engine to squeeze every possible "unintended" perk from it.

It might make you feel good, doesnt make you a good player.

[spence]

If that were so a majority of the AARs posted should result in Japanese victory. I do not see that.

Even a cursory look at the AAR pages shows that most games don't last all that long. There are very few that even approach the historical end of the war. My experience is that the Japanese Player has a tendency to 'disappear' once the 'fun part' (the expansion phase) is over. They were indeed 'winning' at the point that they disappeared though.

[modrow]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: hartwig.modrow

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Maybe because both sides don't get the same choice, hence the perception of unfairness.

Just a thought:

Wouldn't giving the same choices (resize and produce at will) to both sides but making only one of them pay a price for that choice (supply issues, which you do not encounter as Allied but seem to be a limiting factor for Japan) leave a perception of unfairness ?

Just my 2cts

Hartwig

Except that one side just won't have enough planes in the pools to fill out the unrealistically oversized squadrons.
The Allies ALREADY have their limiting factor.

Hans,

if you reread my above post carefully, you will notice that it says "resize and produce at will". I was trying to outline a problem resulting from giving the same choices, as suggested by you as condition for fairness. So I think your riposte misses and leaves my original point unscathed. Fairness in this aspect leads to unfairness because only one side has to pay a price for what they do in this respect.

There are or were ideas (JuanG? Nemo121? not sure about the origin and the current state of implementation) who tried to address that issue by giving Allied the chance to get additional planes *if* the Allied player was ready to devote part of his shipping space to moving sufficient amounts of supplies to some off map base (Port Stanley?) for some time to allow factory repairs. I actually think that this is a way to allow Allied additional options re. air production without running into that problem.

Of course, this does not eliminate the more general problem that IMHO in this game by design the two players play different games even though they play against each other. They are not given the same choices and do not share the same limitations. Perhaps it is good that this is the case, because my impression is that many players shy away from playing Japan because they are scared of running (ruining) the economy game on top of the war game. But the economy game is what defines the limits for the options Japan has, so just giving the same options to all sides without limiting them by the economy does not lead to fairness IMO.

Feel free to disagree - just my view.

Hartwig

[etsadler]

ORIGINAL: JeffroK

If you want balance play Chess, but that doesnt allow you to keep producing Pawns or Knights or Queens depending on you ability to manage your economy.

It doesnt start with your opponent setting up a board full of pawns, while you get an advantageous set up.

It doesnt regularly force withdrawal of your pieces depending on what happens in another game thousands of km away.

WITPAE gives the JFB a lot of ahistorical advantage over real life, not going to argue about them as thats the way it works and the AFB can take advantage of some of them.

But lets not pretend its legitimate to trawl through the game engine to squeeze every possible "unintended" perk from it.

It might make you feel good, doesnt make you a good player.

I make no claims to be a good player of this game, I just enjoy playing.

Certainly there is nothing wrong with having a game where the goal is to "do better than historically with the same 'stuff' as historically." Perfectly acceptable.

There is also nothing wrong with having a game where the goal is to "do better than historically by not making the same mistakes and/or operating under the same restrictions that the historical actors did." Also perfectly acceptable.

My personal preference is the latter. Yours may be the former.

I also much prefer to feel my biggest obstacle to victory is my opponent, not the game system. You may prefer to fight the game instead of your opponent.

Whichever way, enjoy!

[Alfred]

There is actually very little in the game design actually intended to benefit one side over the other.  However, when one is dealing with an asymmetrical game design, which is the inevitable result of any game which is attempting to in as much as it is possible to do so, to faithfully reproduce the historical factors which shaped the PTO, it is impossible to have a perfectly level playing field.  This is why the VP system is so vital.

I am always left speechless by players who insist on playing the game but refuse to play under the most basic game rule viz the VP system.  The alternative to not treating AE as a game is to try to make it a simulator, which it is not and which the devs have always said it isn't, but then JFB players, in particular, refuse to be handicapped by the historical limitations which is the absolute inevitable consequence of treating it as a simulator.  It is intellectual dishonesty of the highest order to pick only the pro of the game/simulation divide whilst overlooking the quid of that divide.  The VP system allows the Japanese player an excellent chance to win the game whereas the simulation aspect reduces the Japanese player to almost zero chances to "win".

I am also left speechless by the constant refrain from JFB players that they need all the ahistorical elements in order to play.  Firstly, they are not needed if the game is played according to the VP system.  It is only the mindset of those JFB players who believe that somehow they are entitled to, in a game which is supposed to faithfully reproduce the historical factors, to achieve an absolute victory of an equal magnitude to that achieved by the historical Allies in August 1945. 

Play the VP game and the Japanese bantamweight can take on the Allied heavyweight and earn a points decision from the judges.  Don't play the VP game and instead rely on a knockout in order to bypass the judges, guess what, the heavyweight will almost always knockout the bantamweight if the fight is held under the Marquise of Queensberry rules.

Secondly, the last time any AE sale figures were disclosed, the information was that 80% of AE sales went to solo players who never played PBEM nor posted in the forum.  This forum very much over represents the PBEM community.  The game design is first and foremost one intended to cater for solo players, it is not designed to attract Japanese PBEM players at the expense of solo players.



Some of the design parameters and attendant abstractions can benefit both sides but when this is the case it is the Japanese player who can derive a greater benefit than the Allied player from the same feature.  The very few features which can clearly benefit the Allied player and aren't available to the Japanese player, are features which can be turned on or off at the start of play and are the subject of the pre PBEM game negotiations.  This leaves quite a few features, not just the R&D of aircraft models, which basically can only be of benefit to the Japanese player.


1.  Japanese has absolute certainty that the Soviets will not launch a surprise attack on her before August 1945. 

It is of incalculable strategic benefit to the Japanese player.  It allows for a draw down of the Manchukuo army which simply was not possible historically.  The game 8000 AV Manchukuo garrison rule is a construct which does not fully capture the historical limitations.  Firstly, because an AV is the same as any other AV for the purposes of the garrison rule, every single Japanese AFV can be withdrawn and sent elsewhere whereas historically there was never any thought in the high command that they could afford to be caught by a surprise Soviet attack without the bulk of their armour being present.  Secondly there are many valuable combat units which do not contribute any AV to the garrison rule and these units are regularly sent out of Manchukuo by Japanese players.


2.  Aircraft do not consume AVGAS.

The historical Allies did not suffer a shortage of AVGAS but Japan was crippled by not having sufficient AVGAS, hence this design parameter greatly aids Japan.

(a)  The game abstraction of supply consumption simply does not come close to reproducing the historical consequences.  Yes supply consumption does crimp to a certain extent the conduct of Japanese air operations but the Japanese player is still able to conduct many more air sorties than historically were possible with the AVGAS shortage.

(b)  In the war Japanese pilot training was very inadequate in large measure due to an AVGAS shortage.  In the game the cost of Japanese pilot training is borne by supply (at a heavily discounted cost) and heavy industry points.  As these are universal industrial outputs which are used for other actions the cost can be easily borne by a Japanese player prepared to make their use for pilot training a priority but the same is not possible with a dedicated industrial output like AVGAS which can only be used for aircraft operations.

(c)  Not having to use AVGAS (and being able to rely on local light industry output to generate supply points) releases all tankers from having to transport AVGAS and allows them to concentrate on moving oil and fuel only.  This reduces the number of valuable targets available to Allied subs as the number of ahistorical Japanese convoys can be concentrated to those sealanes which move oil/fuel.  The Japanese player can afford to send much less valuable xAKs loaded with supply to isolated island outposts to support their air operations.


3.  The magical highway which allows the auto movement of oil/fuel/resources all the way from Singapore to Port Arthur (or even Korea).

A fundamental logistical game design feature whose benefits are maximised on large continental land masses even where historically the transportation structure was simply not there.  There is no magical highway from the Australian industrial heartland of Sydney/Melbourne up to the Top End.  Both India and CONUS were well endowed with railways so they could historically move these items.  China lacks both the interior railway infrastructure and surplus to create an equivalent magical highway.  Even when overland transportation links from Rangoon into China are re-established in 1944 the result is not a magical highway.  Which means it is only Japan which really benefits from it as they control the large continental land masses.  The magical highway allows Japan to drastically reduce its fuel consumption in getting raw materials back to the Home Islands plus once again the reduced ship borne trade is a major factor in preventing the historical Allied submarine anti merchantmen campaign from becoming a similarly war winning option in the game.


4.  The initial Japanese amphibious landing bonus.

Contrary to what some AFB claim, this is not a game feature intended to benefit a human Japanese player.  It exists to benefit the Japanese AI.  Without it, it was found that the Japanese AI could not achieve the historical Japanese conquests of the first six months.  Again contrary to what so many players claim to be the case of the AI cheating (a claim which lacks foundation but then facts don't really matter to them), this feature is retained for human players precisely so that it is not viewed as an AI cheat.  Irrespective of why it is in the game, the fact is that it greatly benefits a human Japanese player and allows him to conduct very ahistorical amphibious operations.


5.  Accelerated ship construction.

It is not just aircraft R&D which can be accelerated by the Japanese player.  Japanese players tend not to accelerate merchantmen but they do tend to accelerate capital ship construction and it is not unheard of to see capital ships sailing which were never built.  The historical difficulties in building such ships are simply not adequately captured by the abstraction.  Could you imagine the reaction if the Essexes started to appear on the Allied OOB in time for a 1942 Guadalcanal campaign.


6.  Unified Central Command.

An unavoidable game design feature which when combined with hindsight benefits both sides but Japan much more so.  The IJN and IJA were both 500lb gorillas to each other so lack of cooperation between them left a substantial dent in the overall Japanese war effort.  However on the Allied side only the Americans (in game USA/USN/USMC) were the 500lb gorilla, the other Allied contributions being substantially less.  This means that the per centage war effort efficiency gain from a unified command is much greater for Japan than for the Allies.  It allows for amphibious invasions of Australia and India which historically would have been vetoed by the IJA.  It allows for the historical 10x IJA divisions released for the capture of the SRA to be exceeded by a human player.  It allows for IJA aircraft to cooperate with IJN aircraft.  It allows for IJA aircraft to conduct ASW operations (again another factor in limiting the effectiveness of the Allied submarine merchantmen campaign).


7.  Air unit size.

Excluding the Soviets who don't come into play before August 1945, at the start of the war Allied air units are generally much smaller than their equivalent Japanese counterparts even before any Japanese resizing.  Even with subsequent Allied scheduled resizing, they end the war still smaller.  This gives the Japanese player an unintended benefit in making it easier to place more airframes in a coordinated manner over target.  It also gives them a benefit under the airfield admin overstacking limits.


8.  Absence of electronics.

AE lacks a true electronics component and what there is, is very abstracted.  The abstraction provides the Allied player with only a fraction of their historical electronic advantage and tends to substantially reduce the historical deficiencies which plagued Japan.  As a consequence Japanese ASW and CAP efforts are better than they would otherwise be.

Alfred

Edit: Original posting left out a couple of important "not/un". These together with some rephrasing to make the text meaning clearer can be identified as underlined italic text. 

[InfiniteMonkey]

ORIGINAL: spence

Always remember that the Japanese Player gets to make a hundred or so "house rules" that restrict the Allied Player to what was done 'historically' or reduce the 'gaminess' of his exploiting the game engine to any of the changes the Japanese Player makes because of the omnipotence Japanese Player gets by fighting a war that was already fought (and lost).

All of which is equally true from the opposite perspective. Both sides benefit from hindsight and both sides are under the constraints of historical OOB's. Once the juggernaut that is the US economy gets going in game, the Allies can benefit from this far more than the Japanese player can.

1. Japan screwed up more than the Allies did - and that means there is more opportunity for improvement.
2. Japan did not voluntarily place emphasis upon defeating another opponent (Germany/Italy), the Allies did.

The lure for the Japanese player is to do better than his historical counterparts. The Japanese player never believes they will win, they just hope to survive beyond VJ day. The truest way for the Japanese player to do that is to never attack the US at all. In other words, the best course of action for most Japanese players in the face of continuous AFB whining is simply not to play WitP:AE.

[btd64]

Alfred hit it on the nose....GP

[Anomander Rake]

1. Japanese has absolute certainty that the Soviets will not launch a surprise attack on her before August 1945.

True, but Japanese can't freely build a lot of new formation. They can do it only late in the war. It wasn't possible earlier? In fact Japan took troops from Manchuria and invoke new worse troops in their place. Even when it was already more threatened by the USSR. Player it's limited here to historical events. Also he can't freely transefer more troops from Manchukuo to China to destroy Kuomintang, at least most players have limitations here.
So, limitations and benefits work here both ways.


2. Aircraft do not consume AVGAS.

Yes, also rare resources do not have such an impact on the war as they actually had (which would make it easy to achieve - there was a thread on this topic). Unification of raw materials generally facilitates the war.

3. The magical highway which allows the auto movement of oil/fuel/resources all the way from Singapore to Port Arthur (or even Korea).

This is not very real to open this highway at least in some mods.

4. The initial Japanese amphibious landing bonus.

I don't understand why this isn't on/off option.

5. Accelerated ship construction.

It's very limited option. If the war was going on differently, Japan could probably build faster. Allied have respawning system which gives them free aircraft carriers and cruisers.


6. Unified Central Command.

This is the most important change in relation to historicity in all games. Whenever one man knows everything and takes all decisions, things will go better. Especially when offensive operations are carried out.
No split command is needed for misunderstandings to arise, it is enough that decisions are made by different people at different levels. The game does not reflect, but on both sides.

7. Air unit size.

It is probably how you write. therefore, there is no point to increase this and resizing should be limited.

8. Absence of electronics.

Here I haven't knowledge to speak.



On the other hand the game is based on a good knowledge of allied sources and worse Japanese sources. For example I remember discussions about the fact that Japanese did not save pilots (that's not true of course).
Also I remember times when Japan got 20 pilots a month (and historically lost hundreds and thousands of aircraft ).
Also games is best suited to the historical course of the war. But what would happen if Japan won the battle for the midway and next battle and then a few more? If the raw materials would be more efficient and Japan avoided the bombing?
The game doesn't show everything in a perfect way but it is worth improving where it is possible.

p.s.
Google translator i much better last time but in spite of everything, I apologize for any inaccuracies and language shortcomings.

[Alfred]

Allies do not have free spawning system for carriers and cruisers.  No official scenario has enabled the spawning feature.  To the best of my knowledge no user created scenario has incorporated this feature.
 
As to  the Japanese ship acceleration it is most definitely not a limited option.  Just because most Japanese players prefer to invest most of their heavy industry points on other actions does not diminish the value of this capacity.  Plus the real world Japanese shipyards were already at maximum capacity, no ship which could be built in time and which was considered to be a useful ROI was left unbuilt.  Thus in the game additional ships can be brought into play before the end of the scenario without having due regard to historical bottlenecks such as appropriate quality steel, turrets, propulsion systems, loss of skilled workers impressed to serve in the military, inadequate electronic capacity, suitable shipyards.
 
The amphibious bonus is not an on/off toggle because the very same JFB players who insist on absolute religious adherence to exactly reproduce the eras weapons, doctrines, industrial capacity, would be the first to howl loudly at its removal.  As the feature is needed for the AI and there would undoubtedly be some solo human players who would toggle it off for the Japanese AI (and then complain about a weak AI opponent) it is easier to simply retain the feature on.
 
There are two fundamental different people types who play AE.  The AFB/JFB divide is not it and it is often unfair to label an individual as belong to one of those camps for the inference is that they are biased to that side and against the other.  The fundamental divide is really between those who accept the game design features and mechanics and work within them.  If they think a bug exists or that perhaps something is not working as designed, they will raise it as an issue.  Otherwise they quietly play the game, some only as the Allies, some only as Japan and some as either side.
 
The other group (and they play either side) are those who under the cloak of historical accuracy will demand game changes which, as the French would say quel surprise, just coincidentally make it easier for them to win and again quel surprise, remain silent on ahistorical game elements which make it easier of them to win.  To make it even more pointed the historical record is usually misrepresented so they will justify doing something in 1942 which in fact was only possible and done in 1945, or insist on their opponent not doing something because it was rarely done in the PTO as if that was an absolute bar when in reality it wasn't done much in the PTO because there were higher priorities for the use of those assets, a priority which may not be applicable to AE because of the changed battlescape brought about by the game's abstractions.
 
Alfred

[Anomander Rake]

I set up this thread to limit my temptations to using the resizing that really serves a different purpose. And also that I saw really absurd way of using this mechanism.
I'm always happy to consider all proposals for limiting non-historic activities in the form of home rules.
I always play using the rule "first operational phase" which is to limit Japanese expansion befere they catch some important points from the first expansion phase. So I'm limited to conduct opertions within histrical borders before I don't liberated Hongkong, Singapore, Manila (like open port), Palembang, Soerabaja and Batavia. I never liked very deeply early invasions without taking into account the primary goals of the war.
Players implemented deeply operations because they know better than historically the possibilities and location of the Allied forces

Allies do not have free spawning system for carriers and cruisers. No official scenario has enabled the spawning feature. To the best of my knowledge no user created scenario has incorporated this feature

Really? I thought it was the mechanism assigned to the game. So I will be more happy to sink allied cruisers (especially).
Amphibious bonus arguments are not convincing. It should simply be done. I mean on / off switch.

[HansBolter]

[quote]ORIGINAL: Alfred

This forum very much over represents the PBEM community.  The game design is first and foremost one intended to cater for solo players, it is not designed to attract Japanese PBEM players at the expense of solo players.

[quote]


Thank you Alfred.

[LargeSlowTarget]

Original: Alfred
It is only the mindset of those JFB players who believe that somehow they are entitled to, in a game which is supposed to faithfully reproduce the historical factors, to achieve an absolute victory of an equal magnitude to that achieved by the historical Allies in August 1945.

Original: InfiniteMonkey
The lure for the Japanese player is to do better than his historical counterparts. The Japanese player never believes they will win, they just hope to survive beyond VJ day. The truest way for the Japanese player to do that is to never attack the US at all. In other words, the best course of action for most Japanese players in the face of continuous AFB whining is simply not to play WitP:AE.

Alfred hit it on the nose....GP

No, InfiniteMonkey hit it on the nose... [:'(]


1. Japanese has absolute certainty that the Soviets will not launch a surprise attack on her before August 1945.

OTOH the Allies have the absolute certainty that the Soviets will declare war in August 1945.

Japan and the Soviets had signed a non-aggression pact, which was to remain in force until April 1946.

This allowed the Japanese to reduce the Kwangtung Army. It was "plundered" as a source of reinforcements to be sent elsewhere, units were reduced to peacetime strength and the "excess" wartime strength personnel transferred out of theater, some units lost entire battalions or even regiments transferred out of theater as cadre for new units. The 1945 Kwangtung Army was a hollow shell compared to 1941.

So why blame the JFBs for doing something in the game which has been done by the Japanese IRL ?!?


2. Aircraft do not consume AVGAS.

Was it an availability problem (not enough production) or more a distribution problem for Japan (lack of tankers / losses in transit)? As it is, the tanker issue goes for both sides. The Allies can also use all tankers exclusively to ship fuel for the fleet and thus speed-up naval ops, not having to worry about tanker capacity needed to ship the prodigious quantities of avgas the Allied 4E monsters needed to fly.


3. The magical highway which allows the auto movement of oil/fuel/resources all the way from Singapore to Port Arthur (or even Korea).

How many JFBs actually (want to) achieve this? It is neither a common occurrence nor a standard strategy. In fact, it is hard to achieve and requires a considerable investment of forces and supplies. Plus it is relatively easy for the Allies to cut that route, forcing the Japanese to keep sizeable garrisons and mobile reserves.


4. The initial Japanese amphibious landing bonus.

Can be seen to represent the extensive pre-war planning for the initial operations.


5. Accelerated ship construction.

Difficult to afford for Japan and comes with a cost. Number of ship construction points is limited and yard expansion is expensive. Plus I faintly remember a Dev comment about Allied shipbuilding being considered "accelerated" by design from Dec 7th 1941 on.


6. Unified Central Command

Certainly true for Japan, but also true to an extent for the Allies which had a fair amount of dissent, dabbling and plotting over strategies, timing, force allocation etc. - esp. in the CBI. As players, we are the supreme commander with powers to impose our will on all factions.


7. Air unit size

Matter of HR negotiation. In my PBEM with IdahoNYer we have limited resizing to six dedicated training groups per side which are not allowed to be used in combat, plus the FP groups. It does not make sense to overdo resizing - the Japanese economy may be able to produce the necessary airframes, but the number of pilots is fixed, and it is easy to run the trainee pool dry.


8. Absence of electronics

Improvements like VT fuze and radar gunnery are handled "under the hood". However, what seems to be lacking is a "reliability factor" for the search radar devices in the game, esp. for the notoriously unreliable Japanese radar.


The list could go on and on, with examples for both sides of perceived or real advantages / disadvantages which should or should not be in the game.

However, I'm pretty sure the number of games where Japan does better than history is much smaller than the number of games where the Allies do better than history.

Fact is, unless player skills are very unequal, the Allies will win no matter what - which is perfectly ok. The Allied players will get so much stuff they don't even know what to do with it all. The Japanese will be increasingly outgunned, outbombed, outbombarded, outnumbered, outproduced, outmaneuvered, out of supplies and out of options. The only thing they can hope to achieve is to outblunder the Allies. So I have little sympathy for AFB whining about this or that unhistorical (dis)advantage - they should be glad about the additional challenge offered [:'(].

[btd64]

OK, there are very good points for both sides, but there are tactics used IRL that are HR'd out. Such as No 4E naval bombing below 10k. Just my 2 cents....GP

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

However, I'm pretty sure the number of games where Japan does better than history is much smaller than the number of games where the Allies do better than history.

Fact is, unless player skills are very unequal, the Allies will win no matter what - which is perfectly ok. The Allied players will get so much stuff they don't even know what to do with it all. The Japanese will be increasingly outgunned, outbombed, outbombarded, outnumbered, outproduced, outmaneuvered, out of supplies and out of options. The only thing they can hope to achieve is to outblunder the Allies. So I have little sympathy for AFB whining about this or that unhistorical (dis)advantage - they should be glad about the additional challenge offered [:'(].

And I'm, pretty sure you couldn't be more wrong.

If, and only if, there was a mechanism that prevented JFBs from simply quitting after their day in the sun ends, you would have a valid point.

No Allied player EVER has any guarantee that after agreeing to take a pasting that they will EVER have a chance to administer one.

This is the reason I refuse to play PBEM.