Carriers at War

[David Sandberg]

ORIGINAL: RayWolfe
CAW is not hex based!

CAW WAS hex based, even if the hexes weren't actually shown on the screen. (We're speaking of the old CAW now, of course, although it doesn't sound like the new game will have changed that, and there really isn't a great need to change it either.) Even the original CAW manual refers to fleet locations as "hexes".

To the earlier poster, I don't know exactly what the size of the hexes were, but they seemed to be pretty small, and as I said above, they weren't shown on the map, but were just used internally by the game to track fleet positions. I never found them to be particularly noticeable, so I wouldn't worry about that.

You don't even know that it's not hex based.

(biting my tongue here) [;)]

I'm sure you will like it. serious wargamers loved the original.

This serious wargamer (much more serious then than now, in fact) did love the original, but with a few reservations nonetheless. At the time it was more of a "wargamer's game" than I had dared expect would ever be available to me, even with those few warts. But the times, the available computer power and the ease of development have all changed ... and so have my expectations.

[Marcus Caelius]

...and SSG will not let this iteration be bad.

I'm not as sanguine. It's been years, but I recall there was some sort of bug in the Construction Kit that was fixed in CAW2, then reintroduced in CCAW and never fixed again. IIRC, there were also one or two graphics files (having to do with optional damage, I think) that disappeared in CCAW.

SSG can get a little sloppy.

Oh, and I really missed the original CAW intro music that disappeared in CAW2 and CCAW.

Other than that, I'm as anxious for the release as everyone else.

[Gregor_SSG]

Just a few points in reply to the posts made here. Firstly, we do try to read every post, though its usually not possible to respond in detail to every single one.

As to the question of what the carriers do when launching a strike, I'd like to make the following points.

Carriers are considered to be 'on station' in a hex steaming at cruising speed while waiting for strike recovery - they are not anchored at zero knots.

Carriers are considered to be manouvering at flank speed whenever under air attack, for the purpose of dodging bombs and torpedoes.

The fact that the formation is in a single hex is no advantage at all for the purpose of launching airstrikes or intercepting with surface groups, since you never deal with the real location of enemy ships, only a sighting report which is inherently variable. You have the same chance of your strike finding a Task Group steaming a set course as one that is 'on station'. So while you know that a TG is in the same hex, the routines that handle sightings and strikes don't.

It is true that if your surface TG is in the same hex as an enemy TG then there a chance for repeated surface contacts. However this is very hard to achieve. You might manage it at night, but sightings decay at night and carriers are unlikely to still be on station recovering strikes at night. You can try during the day, but its hard to get a surface group close to enemy carriers without being sighted and sunk long before you can even think about surface combat. The Japanese did manage this at Leyte Gulf, (by the deliberate sacrifice of their fleet carriers as decoys) but their surface group, despite overwhelming force and being opposed only by a bunch of escort carriers, found the experience so disagreeable that at one stage they retired in confusion and were able to sink exactly one US carrier with gunfire.

In all our years of making games, we have stuck to some basic principles and some of them are very relevant here. In summary, they include:

1. Game first, simulation second. It doesn’t matter how realistic it is, if a game is too hard or not fun to play, people just won’t play it.
2. No game should try to do everything, otherwise it will fall foul of Rule 1 and be too hard to play. This means that we abstract some game elements in order to focus on those that are, (in our judgement) both important and fun.
3. No player wants to do everything but different players will want to do different things. In other words, you can’t please everybody and in trying you’ll probably end up pleasing nobody.
4. You cannot just ask players to ‘do the right thing’ (more on this later).

Carriers at War is not a super tactical game. We don’t want you having to turn your carriers into the wind, micro-manage deck operations or do complex navigation. Your job is at a higher level which involves making tough decisions on incomplete information, not counting deck spots.

On that last point, Carriers at War is already a highly successful game, with its various versions winning multiple awards and selling around 150,000 copies. We’re confident that, even if it doesn’t happen to handle all the details the way you would like, it is such an exciting and fun to play game that you won’t regret its purchase.

Now to the delicate issue of player behaviour. Ian Trout, designer of Carriers at War, has reminded me that the main reason for the ‘on station’ rule is to prevent players from launching a raid and then simply running away from any retribution or mutual strikes. The player would lose their planes, but quite possibly preserve their carriers while sinking the opposition force. With reference to Rule 4 above, we know that it is futile, especially in a multi-player game, to ask players to refrain from exploiting the game system. If an exploit is possible, they will use it while blaming us and simultaneously demanding that we stop it. So we’ve stopped it. Ian reports that the impromptu kamikaze tactic was a favourite in the old board game Flat Top, which had no mechanism to prevent it.

So there you have a full and frank explanation of the mechanism. I’m sure that people will have further ideas and we’ll listen to everything. I would remind people though that we are close to finishing the game, and we are not in a position to make big changes to the current game system.


Gregor

[goodwoodrw]

Well said sir, now get back to work and finish CAW so you can start on a new version of Warlords closer to the original [:D]

[David Sandberg]

Gregor,

I realize that you're going to do whatever you feel is best for your game design, and I don't want to belabor my point of view to where it becomes tedious.  I'll just respond to a couple of your points, in case it gives you anything further to think about:

You can try during the day, but its hard to get a surface group close to enemy carriers without being sighted and sunk long before you can even think about surface combat.

The disagreement I have with this is that striking a nearby surface group is not always the smart decision ...and definitely not when there are enemy carriers also within range.  The latter obviously ought to be considered the greater threat and should be attacked rather than the surface group.  As you pointed out in your post, a surface group almost never was able to close to gun range with enemy carriers during the war, but that's as much because carrier groups were able to spot and run away from surface groups when they needed to, rather than that they always used their planes to strike any approaching surface group.

Take my Midway example: if the American carriers spot the four Japanese battlecruisers shortly after daybreak to the SW at a range of only 60 nm, but shortly thereafter spot the Japanese carriers to the NW at a range of, say, 100 nm, what should they do?  Since both sightings are well within range, but the carriers ought to pose the greater threat (in a realistic setting), the obvious course is to strike the enemy carriers immediately while turning the fleet to the NE to maintain distance from the enemy surface group, since the surface group needs to close the range to attack, but the enemy carriers pose a more immediate threat.  However, this situation is unsolvable in CAW, because such a strike against the carriers ends in an attack by the surface group before the airstrike can be recovered, and a strike against the surface group most likely ends with an enemy airstrike against your carriers while you are busy attacking the surface group.  And splitting your aircraft to strike both targets simultaneously would be the worst idea of all (violating the dictum of concentration of forces at the point of attack, and probably not significantly hurting either enemy fleet as a result).

... the main reason for the ‘on station’ rule is to prevent players from launching a raid and then simply running away from any retribution or mutual strikes. The player would lose their planes, but quite possibly preserve their carriers while sinking the opposition force

I understand what you are saying about not allowing players a "gamey" exploit like launching a strike with no intention to recover it, and I fully agree with that goal.  However, I believe the better and more realistic way to prevent this is the implementation that I've now described more than once: specifically, that the player has to lock in his fleet movement when the strike is created, and the software only allows the strike to be created if the player's requested fleet movement would allow the airstrike to be recovered.  And when you say that the player shouldn't need to do math, let me repeat that the proposal was for the program itself to limit the player's inputs for fleet movement to those that would allow recovery of the strike aircraft.  As soon as the player has selected the airstrike's target, the program should have everything it needs to do the math internally to say "okay, we can enable the buttons for fleet movement to the W and NW during the airstrike, but disable the other fleet movement buttons because moving the fleet in those directions would not allow the strike to be recovered".  (In case it's unclear, I'm thinking of a set of fleet movement buttons almost exactly like those used for setting search plane arcs here.)  Restricting the player's fleet movement inputs to those movements that would allow recovery of the requested airstrike falls far short of being rocket science ... for the most part it's a straightforward intercept calculation.

I've said my piece on this (more than once, already).  So hopefully I'll be able to bow out now and simply wish you much luck with your release.

[cyberwop36]

Well thanks for the info. Sorry, I didn't mean to start a storm. I never played CAW back in the day and wanted to know about it. I was playing Great Naval Battles back then.

SSG has made many great titles over the years and I was wondering if this one was for me. WitP gives me all the big decisions I can handle. I was hoping for a more hands on carrier commander role. That is why these forums are great. We can find out about games and make informed decisions instead of buying titles blind. It is also great to get info straight from the horses mouth so to speak. Everybodys tastes are different.

Thanks

[Ursa MAior]

Thanks for the info. Altough it is a great idea what David proposed I also have one which IMHO is easier to implement. Planes lost due to running out of fuel cost say 5-10 times more Victory Point than shot down planes. In this way players will be forced to think as a real admrial. "it would be too costly to loose all those pilots".

[NimitsTexan]

Now to the delicate issue of player behaviour. Ian Trout, designer of Carriers at War, has reminded me that the main reason for the ‘on station’ rule is to prevent players from launching a raid and then simply running away from any retribution or mutual strikes. The player would lose their planes, but quite possibly preserve their carriers while sinking the opposition force. With reference to Rule 4 above, we know that it is futile, especially in a multi-player game, to ask players to refrain from exploiting the game system. If an exploit is possible, they will use it while blaming us and simultaneously demanding that we stop it. So we’ve stopped it. Ian reports that the impromptu kamikaze tactic was a favourite in the old board game Flat Top, which had no mechanism to prevent it.

 
Why not simply penalize the player in terms of victory conditions for loss of his strike group? It was no easy thing training and building carrier air groups, and the loss of a hundred or so planes and pilots could be just as devestating to a navy as the loss of a carrier or two. See the Japanese "Victory" at Santa Cruz.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: David Sandberg

Gregor,

I realize that you're going to do whatever you feel is best for your game design, and I don't want to belabor my point of view to where it becomes tedious.  I'll just respond to a couple of your points, in case it gives you anything further to think about:

You can try during the day, but its hard to get a surface group close to enemy carriers without being sighted and sunk long before you can even think about surface combat.

The disagreement I have with this is that striking a nearby surface group is not always the smart decision ...and definitely not when there are enemy carriers also within range.  The latter obviously ought to be considered the greater threat and should be attacked rather than the surface group.  As you pointed out in your post, a surface group almost never was able to close to gun range with enemy carriers during the war, but that's as much because carrier groups were able to spot and run away from surface groups when they needed to, rather than that they always used their planes to strike any approaching surface group.

Take my Midway example: if the American carriers spot the four Japanese battlecruisers shortly after daybreak to the SW at a range of only 60 nm, but shortly thereafter spot the Japanese carriers to the NW at a range of, say, 100 nm, what should they do?  Since both sightings are well within range, but the carriers ought to pose the greater threat (in a realistic setting), the obvious course is to strike the enemy carriers immediately while turning the fleet to the NE to maintain distance from the enemy surface group, since the surface group needs to close the range to attack, but the enemy carriers pose a more immediate threat.  However, this situation is unsolvable in CAW, because such a strike against the carriers ends in an attack by the surface group before the airstrike can be recovered, and a strike against the surface group most likely ends with an enemy airstrike against your carriers while you are busy attacking the surface group.  And splitting your aircraft to strike both targets simultaneously would be the worst idea of all (violating the dictum of concentration of forces at the point of attack, and probably not significantly hurting either enemy fleet as a result).

... the main reason for the ‘on station’ rule is to prevent players from launching a raid and then simply running away from any retribution or mutual strikes. The player would lose their planes, but quite possibly preserve their carriers while sinking the opposition force

I understand what you are saying about not allowing players a "gamey" exploit like launching a strike with no intention to recover it, and I fully agree with that goal.  However, I believe the better and more realistic way to prevent this is the implementation that I've now described more than once: specifically, that the player has to lock in his fleet movement when the strike is created, and the software only allows the strike to be created if the player's requested fleet movement would allow the airstrike to be recovered.  And when you say that the player shouldn't need to do math, let me repeat that the proposal was for the program itself to limit the player's inputs for fleet movement to those that would allow recovery of the strike aircraft.  As soon as the player has selected the airstrike's target, the program should have everything it needs to do the math internally to say "okay, we can enable the buttons for fleet movement to the W and NW during the airstrike, but disable the other fleet movement buttons because moving the fleet in those directions would not allow the strike to be recovered".  (In case it's unclear, I'm thinking of a set of fleet movement buttons almost exactly like those used for setting search plane arcs here.)  Restricting the player's fleet movement inputs to those movements that would allow recovery of the requested airstrike falls far short of being rocket science ... for the most part it's a straightforward intercept calculation.

I've said my piece on this (more than once, already).  So hopefully I'll be able to bow out now and simply wish you much luck with your release.

I think that David has both good arguments and good solutions, and I for one would be ready to wait longer, and pay more, for a game that would have such more realistic behavior in this critical domain.

[LitFuel]

Maybe thse things could be added in an expansion later along with my Kriegsmarine Atlantic/Med scenerios [:D]

[Admiral DadMan]

The "on station" function was the reason I stopped playing CAW and trashed it as totally unrealistic. Not only can a CV TF be slaughtered by SC TF's, if a US CV TF is stuck "on station", an IJN CV TF can stand off out of range and pummel the USN CV's.

Sorry, but if the "on station" rule is still being implemented, I'm not buying. I'm not throwing money after what I already hated about an otherwise great game.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Admiral DadMan

The "on station" function was the reason I stopped playing CAW and trashed it as totally unrealistic. Not only can a CV TF be slaughtered by SC TF's, if a US CV TF is stuck "on station", an IJN CV TF can stand off out of range and pummel the USN CV's.

Sorry, but if the "on station" rule is still being implemented, I'm not buying. I'm not throwing money after what I already hated about an otherwise great game.

I understand your concerns, but someone needs to note that U.S. carrier TF were MORE vulnerable to the possibility of surface action PRECISELY because of the shorter "legs" of its a/c that you mention, particularly the old Devastator model.

IMO, the only way that this becomes a deal-killer is if the surface-engagment is automatic, one that can be arranged by anyone who's playing the IJN and seeks such an event KNOWING that it's a slam-dunk. That'd be too weird.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[Admiral DadMan]

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl

ORIGINAL: Admiral DadMan

The "on station" function was the reason I stopped playing CAW and trashed it as totally unrealistic. Not only can a CV TF be slaughtered by SC TF's, if a US CV TF is stuck "on station", an IJN CV TF can stand off out of range and pummel the USN CV's.

Sorry, but if the "on station" rule is still being implemented, I'm not buying. I'm not throwing money after what I already hated about an otherwise great game.

I understand your concerns, but someone needs to note that U.S. carrier TF were MORE vulnerable to the possibility of surface action PRECISELY because of the shorter "legs" of its a/c that you mention, particularly the old Devastator model.

IMO, the only way that this becomes a deal-killer is if the surface-engagment is automatic, one that can be arranged by anyone who's playing the IJN and seeks such an event KNOWING that it's a slam-dunk. That'd be too weird.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

That's not quite the problem you think it is. At the Battle of Midway, Spruance launched his TBD's at 175 miles, and then closed the enemy. Point Option was plotted for an average of 24kts on a base course of 240, IIRC. 4 planes of VT-6 (that had not been shot down) made it back.

This "on station" thing is just cock-n-bull. A serious amount of thought should be invested to properly dissuade players from the single-pulse kamikaze missions. For example: a severe point penalty for attacks that suffer a high rate of "failed to return" aircraft.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Admiral DadMan

I'm not throwing money after what I already hated about an otherwise great game.

Particulars aside, were the CaW update to be published as described, do you know of another carrier-focused, computer wargame/simulation that'll handle matters in a more satisfactory fashion and can be played TCP/IP? If so, I'll BUY IT.

PoE

[Admiral DadMan]

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl

ORIGINAL: Admiral DadMan

I'm not throwing money after what I already hated about an otherwise great game.

Particulars aside, were the CaW update to be published as described, do you know of another carrier-focused, computer wargame/simulation that'll handle matters in a more satisfactory fashion and can be played TCP/IP? If so, I'll BUY IT.

PoE

I won't discuss other games here, that's not the point. What is the point is that, imHO, there is a major design flaw (not bug) in the way this game handles CV TF movement after a strike is launched. It's a game breaker for me. Maybe other people can overlook it and enjoy the game. I can't.

And it's not like I'm sitting here, nit-picking or just shooting from the hip and not offering a solution. I want to buy this game. Like I said, I don't want to buy a re-hash of something that broke the game for me.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Admiral DadMan

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl

ORIGINAL: Admiral DadMan

I'm not throwing money after what I already hated about an otherwise great game.

Particulars aside, were the CaW update to be published as described, do you know of another carrier-focused, computer wargame/simulation that'll handle matters in a more satisfactory fashion and can be played TCP/IP? If so, I'll BUY IT.

PoE

I won't discuss other games here, that's not the point. What is the point is that, imHO, there is a major design flaw (not bug) in the way this game handles CV TF movement after a strike is launched. It's a game breaker for me. Maybe other people can overlook it and enjoy the game. I can't.

And it's not like I'm sitting here, nit-picking or just shooting from the hip and not offering a solution. I want to buy this game. Like I said, I don't want to buy a re-hash of something that broke the game for me.

I'd love to be able to pick and choose from a menu of features that I'd like included in the game. Heck, I'd be spotting aircraft on the hangar-deck, were it an option. The thing is, that's not gonna happen.

Personally, I'll feel pretty darned lucky if I get a spruced up CaW that'll allow me to play a friend over an IP connection. And I'll jump on the package like white-onto-rice because I know that there's a really good chance that this as good as it's EVER gonna get, what with hot computer wargaming titles selling copies in the four figure range. Quality programming talent is expensive, and not a lot of it is gonna flow towards a project characterized by those kind of sales.

Thanks for sharing, [:)]

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[RayWolfe]

ORIGINAL: Admiral DadMan

The "on station" function was the reason I stopped playing CAW and trashed it as totally unrealistic.
Sorry, but if the "on station" rule is still being implemented, I'm not buying. I'm not throwing money after what I already hated about an otherwise great game.

(My emphasis.)

Doncha just love the internet for allowing all the balanced and measured views that people can express? [:D]

Ray

[Ursa MAior]

Well I'd really like to play this one, but I definitely wont be giving away money for a facelift version, where the code is hardly changed, only the gfx and sfx is updated.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

@Ursa MAior:

Do you have a preference as to opponent, computer or human?

I definitely do. I like playing against people. Adding TCP/IP so that I can play over the internet is a BIG deal. And it's not a "gimme" on the part of the developers, either. It'll take a lot of coding and testing if it's to work properly.

I've worked with enough software developers now to know how they operate. They develop an engine and then xmas-tree stuff on it. They add features. If they make a change to the underlying code, it needs to be something "easy," meaning something that won't break the game.

And I still want to hear from someone that has knowledge of a game that does what CaW does, only better, one that currently exists, or is under development.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[Ursa MAior]

With all respect what does has to do with my statement?

All I said that for me stationary CV TFs ARE unacceptable. What was good in 1994 is not accptable in 2006. I have the same opinion about Harpoon 3.

On the other hand I like UV/WitP (with all theor bugs) probably will buy this one too if it is brought up to 2006 standards, along with EiA if it ever gets finished and Hussargames's next game if it is Punic/Frederick the great/nappy.

Just dont force me to fall in love at first sight with Ms World 1966 in a tight jeans and a small top, after her Botox course.