Attack Attack Attack - a Hotseat AAR

[Remington700]

Mariana Islands
The British 10th Corps mops up the remaining stragglers and the capture of Saipan is complete. A hundred miles south the US 12th Corps gains complete control of Guam liberating the island from four years of enemy occupation. The Marianas are now returned to allied control!

[Remington700]

Production
UK: No builds.
India: No builds.
USA: No builds.

Convoys
No Convoys

[Remington700]

September 9th 1945

AXIS Victory!

After the fall of Manchukuo, the surrounding of Tokyo and the loss of two cities to atomic bombs the Japanese surrender. The emperor agrees to terms as long as he can stay in power. An agreement is reached, and hostilities officially come to an end. Japan wins by 52 victory points!

By my estimation the allies would need another three turns to cross the threshold and win by points. Or five or six turns to capture all the production cities in Japan. The game was close from the start although I always felt a little behind with the allies. I made a lot of mistakes on both sides which overall seemed to even out and made for an exacting game.

[Remington700]

Thank you for reading!

After four months of play, my game has come to an end. As does my report. It has been a lot of fun and I learned a ton. Thank you for taking the time to read this AAR.

-Mike

[ncc1701e]

Thanks for taking the time to do it plus the nice arrows for your fleet movements. It was an interesting reading.

[Magpius]

Fantastic AAR Remington.
Read many times. Informative and entertaining.
Thankyou.

[John B.]

Thanks for a great AAR and all of the time and effort you put into it. I really enjoyed it!!

[anarchyintheuk]

Thanks, Remington. It was really enjoyable to read.

[AP514]

How was the .....AI ?

[Remington700]

Sorry I will have to defer to others on that. I play "Hotseat" with a couple of house rules to somewhat counter the perfect knowledge issue that crops up.

[Grotius]

I just found this wonderful AAR. Brilliant idea to play solo-hotseat! I think I'll try it. (I play most of my board wargames that way, so why not a computer game too?) Anyway, I'm curious what house rules you use for a hotseat game. I assume you leave fog of war on?

[Remington700]

I just found this wonderful AAR. Brilliant idea to play solo-hotseat! I think I'll try it. (I play most of my board wargames that way, so why not a computer game too?) Anyway, I'm curious what house rules you use for a hotseat game. I assume you leave fog of war on?

Thank you for your comments. I am sorry for such a late response - I have been away from the game for awhile.

With solo hotseat, I find it is more of a discipline issue than anything - it is very easy to act on knowledge you should not have.

Yes I leave FOW on. And in some cases you have to ignore what you know. For example, I scout areas before doing a full scale invasion (it might be a raid or the use of COMINT points to see what is in the area) even though I know exactly what is in the hexes. In the past, the visibility of the enemy ship counters on the map did not help you to hit them - it used to require spotting before you can successfully strike - I hope this has not changed as that went along way to mitigate the perfect knowledge problem.

The other thing I try to hold firm too is avoiding the urge to reload saved files because of a silly mistake. It is the mistakes that add additional variety and chance to counter the knowledge issue. However, in some cases I do run tests after saving the initial results - which helps me learn the mechanics of the game. Once my tests are complete I can open the old file and take up where I left off. This helps to combat the rationalization of "I will reload because I did not know the mechanics of the game" thought process while gaining a better understanding of how things work.

I also play the 1941 small ship scenario in an attempt to keep the naval battles smaller - but I am not sure how much this matters.

In the end, no matter how you play it, you miss the uncertainty you face with PBEM. And you will not improve your skills near as fast as you do when you get "schooled' by another human. But on the bright side, my games are evenly matched and I have full control over "chezzy" play.