The Slant

[witpqs]

Hmmm. What if a mutant were assimilated into the Borg? My head hurts.

[mogami]

Hi

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Pasternakski,

I agree with you. As I have said before I want historical capabilites. Victory Conditions are where balance should be considered.

And perhaps I should have written it as "The war was 'slanted' toward the Allies..." to better show the sarcasm I was implying.

Gotcha, big fella.

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

YES!!! Somebody "Gets it". Thank You, Jee-zus!

Hmph. That's "Hey, Zeus" to you.

thanks for jumping in.

Mike, old scout, I thought you knew me. I "jumped in" long before this game was ever published. Here, let me show you the scars...

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi

Mog. I hope you didn't send this photo in with your "re-up" application....

[bradfordkay]

I think that he's more worried about the results of thirty years of beer drinking...

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

YES!!! Somebody "Gets it". Thank You, Jee-zus!

Hmph. That's "Hey, Zeus" to you.

thanks for jumping in.

Mike, old scout, I thought you knew me. I "jumped in" long before this game was ever published. Here, let me show you the scars...

One of these days we'll have to get together over a few cold ones and compare "Brady Bruises"

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: Charles_22

Sure you're right Mike, but a Tony has a lot less impact than a 4E bomber, just as a 4E bomber would have less impact than unlimited a-bombs. Also, your Tony opponent, if I'm not mistaken, can be adjusted, by means of not taking up PDU's in pre-game agreement, but adjusting the 4E bomber rate may not even be alterable at this point.

If you were playing with PDU's, whether you realized it or not how it would play out, that is the main point, as I take it, to using PDU's in that the IJ player has something more of a hypothetical option. Surely you aren't playing that way, if indeed you are, and expecting them to play straight-up by the production numbers? I have no idea how many of most of these planes were produced, only I'm trusting that if I alter nothing, and the factories get bombed at the historic rate (whatever that was), then and only then will I have something resembling the historic amounts. The IJ side is already considerably hypothetic in the first place, when you consider that you change change the factories around.

Weren't playing with PDU's, just the straight Scenario 15 (with upgrades). And the point wasn't which screwed up piece of data effected what the most...., it was that ALL screwed up data needs to be eliminated to the best of our abilities and research. Personally I'm not a big fan of Japanese Production as it's implemented. And most of the "improvements I've seen suggested turned out to be ahistoric boosts to Japanese capabilities. I have to admit I got a big laugh when the PDU rooters found out it worked for BOTH sides and started screaming. I've never even tried a game with PDU turned on. Too much temptation to visit "fantasyland".

Oh okay, I guess he must had revved up the r/d then. I believe Mogami had the suggestion of starting IJ r/d at zero, but that's not right either, as surely there was plenty of r/d going on before 12/7. No matter how low it is, there's always a way for the IJ player to get one plane early if he really wants to pay and then for the Allied player to get irritated about it. Actually, come to think of it, it would probably be more difficult to figure out a way to make sure the IJ planes came out when they did historically as I'm not even sure putting all that r/d on disable would make things right. You would have to assume that the designers, if they really were shooting for historic entry points, would have made it so that if left r/d unchanged that this would occur. OTOH I've heard that the r/d was there to help the AI. I have the feeling it's neither way entirely, and switching them off would hurt IJ as far as entry points go.

[mogami]

Hi, Aircraft have an entry date that is supposed to be historical. (I know not everyone agrees on certain dates)
The RD helps the AI because it becomes actual producing capacity of a certain aircraft on a certain date. However a human player can
1. expand factories. (The AI does not)
2. Convert a RD factory of a future model into a factory of a current model thus increasing production (The AI does not do this)

So a human can use the RD to produce aircraft and he can also expand factories. Thats the exploit. He should either
1. Leave RD alone and not expand and thus get historic production at historic times
2. Delete all the RD factories and pay for them (set them to size 0 ) and use his normal expansion.

[Monter_Trismegistos]

This discussion is not about if we should make game as accurate a reflection of the historical realitys as research and effort can produce. Thats obvious.

This is about if we should downgrade only Japan to historical realitys, leaving US side overpowered. Thats ridiculous.

[Mynok]

But the GAME's scenarios must be as accurate as possible.

Seems to me that this discussion is not about scenarios so much as the engine itself. The old argument about "game" vs "simulation" will never be resolved. Both of those positions are fine with accurate OOBs, though. It is simply the difference in approaches to play balance that cause the friction.

My primary interest is in having a fun game for as much of the game as possible...and that's a tall order for the war in the Pacific. I'm very curious whether I will get utterly bored as a Jap player in 44 and 45.

[Mike Scholl]

"This is about if we should downgrade only Japan to historical realitys, leaving US side overpowered. Thats ridiculous."

If you honestly believe that statement, you haven't been paying much attention to the ebb and flow of this thread. Either that or you are the most hopeless Japanese Fan-boy who ever came down the pike. I've said over and over that BOTH sides need correction, as has Pasternakski and several others. But there is also the reality of the situation, which was that the Allies were going to grow to "overpowering" as the war went on. You can't compare by raw numbers because they wer not producing the same things, but on the basis of value of goods produced General Motors produced as much as all of Japan.
It's not "rediculous", it's reality...

[Charles2222]

Of course GM is somewhat irrelevant, the full scope of GM that is, when you consider that before Germany was defeated the majority of GM was going there.

[Mike Scholl]

You've missed the point entirely. The value of the equipment and supply produced by all of Japan during the war was only equal to that of ONE large US Corporation during the same period. Unfortunately Japan could not only fight a war against General Motors..., so even though the Majority of US production went to Europe; the remainder still exceeded Japan by a large majority.

[juliet7bravo]

xxx

[mlees]

I have commented on the irony of "winning the game" (as Japan) and still "losing the war". (i.e. Doing better than the historical commanders did.)

I have commented on how that is somewhat counter-intuitive for a lot of players, and is an (subconsiously?) unsatisfying type of "win".

I have little to offer in regards to suggesting a "fix" for this, as that is a player mental state issue...

However, there is also a viewpoint that the game (and the war it simulates) is over by mid 1944 by the latest, and that that ending date was an indication of how imbalanced (or at least improperly modeled) game was.

Those players who hold that viewpoint feel that a perfectly played Japan should be able to stave of defeat until at least the historical dates.

(I dont have strong feelings either way on this, as I only play versus the AI, and I usually end up restarting sometime in 1943 anyway...)

[pauk]

[>:][>:][>:]

same old story....

[Demosthenes]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

You've missed the point entirely. The value of the equipment and supply produced by all of Japan during the war was only equal to that of ONE large US Corporation during the same period. Unfortunately Japan could not only fight a war against General Motors..., so even though the Majority of US production went to Europe; the remainder still exceeded Japan by a large majority.

ORIGINAL: juliet7bravo

Without historical and realistic capabilities though, you'll never know. Making a "fun" game by giving units fantasy capabilities is exactly the wrong approach, and the more accurate your OOB is will just exerbate the problem. You end up with an ever increasing ripple effect requiring ever more radical adjustments to capabilities to try and achieve "balance". A balance that didn't exist.

You had a 2nd (at best) rate country, barely industrialized, with few natural resources attacking a country with the greatest industrial potential in the world, the result was foreordained. As Nimitz once stated (paraphrased); "The only suprise in the course of the war was the kamikazi". "Fun" should be derived from out-performing your historical counterparts using equivalent resources and capabilities. Not by some kind of fantasy where Japan wins the war.

Though I'll admit that giving the Japanese player some limited ahistorical control over his industrial base would definitely increase the "fun" factor...

Well stated. As I recall reading, at the time Japan's Industrial output in those years was 10% that of the United States. So if 70% of US industrial effort went to fight Germany first, that still leaves the USA alone with 3 times the industrial output Japan could ever manage (and a higher percentage of the USA's war effort shifted toward the Pacific towards the end of the war...by 1945), and THAT dosen't include the contribution of the British Empire.

Unless you want to play "War In The Pacific - On Planet Xeonon" (to paraphrase Mdiehl) There is No Way there can ever be any balance or parity between japan and the Allies (at least after the first 6 months).

Demo

[Demosthenes]

ORIGINAL: Monter_Trismegistos

Why can't you reccognize that it's the "pro-history and reality" viewpoints that are causing you grief?

We know that winners write history, but who decides what is reality? The only real thing is that Japs attacked Pearl Harbour, and US won that war. All between are not so obvious.

There is nothing unclear about what happened in between those events at all...unless you actually believe that some form of Orwellian mind control has been perpetrated on the world to collectively erase our memories of "what actually happened".

Demo

[Brady]

Sometimes I think that the forum is the worst posable palce to discuss a topic, at least if you want to do it to some sort of meaningfull end.[:)]