ORIGINAL: ny59giants
I took over in running the economy for the most part for many months with John 3rd game vs Canoerebel. I had just installed WitPTracker and was figuring out how to use it. He had asked if he could send a turn to someone to help. I had played John breifly before, so I took up his offer. This Utility is very useful for the Japanese player. His economy was close to crashing. I was reading both AARs up to that time, but once I became his Economics Minister, I stopped read the other AAR. I only gave economic advise and orders for transports to get him back running and avoided any military advice. It may help that I'm a Mental Health Counselor and am use to ethics. I believe a lot of players got a lot of help on how not to run the Japanese economy and in some ways how to fix it when it goes sour via his AAR. One of the two co-designers of WitPTracker helped (he is now my opponent). [:D]
I play this game for two reasons - to have fun and learn. There are plenty of players that know a lot more than I do and I use them to increase my learning. Indirectly it allows me to have more fun in the game.
Just my $.02 [:)]
This was a case of game mechanics vice strategy. The Japanese economy is a very hard part of WitP to master from what I gather. It is one reason I really have no interest in playing the Japanese side. So any Japanese player asking advice on how to run the economy, IMO, is just trying to level the playing field not cheat. Only the Japanese have an economy to run. While having the Japanese economy in the game does allow a player to accomplish more in the game and certainly exploit his/her successes, it is also an enormous burden. I hope Larry seeks advice on running his economy if he feels he is getting bogged down in the game mechanics in our current PBEM. I want to defeat my opponent based on good gameplay not because complex game mechanics overwhelmed him.
As far as strategic advice goes, it's just that: advice. No two games are the same. No two players are going to find themselves in the exact same situation. Ergo, while some one may say "try this" because it worked in my game it does not automatically follow that success will repeatable. So I may ask advice as to a certain situation, but ultimately it is up to me to make the decisions in "MY" game. In my current AAR, several people have chimed in as far as giving me some advice. All of it was good advice but some of the things that have been suggested were not possible to pull off in my game. So while it was good to hear some options, it was up to me to accept or reject these options. If I follwed some one's advice and it leads to a disaster, it is not the advice givers fault, it is mine. Likewise, if I have a major success, while giving credit where credit is due, it would be my execution that leads to the victory not just the good advice
[/center]
