AE, the real game (YH v TS mk IX)

[Andy Mac]

There is an important point in this AAR that I am gratefull YH raised.
 
We were not able to implement national borders which is a PITA but we were not able to do it.
 
The intent of the design is that there are some units that are restricted and there are basically three tiers
 
Static Restricted - these units are restricted and are marked in white on the HQ list (i.e. there HQ may never be changed - these are units especially on the Allied side that are never intended to be used outside of their current location - I would have made them totally static to a single base but that leaves them vulnerable so they are mobile but may never be released no matter how many PP's aplayer has.
 
A good example of these units are the Royal Thai Divs, Mongol Forces, Japanese Chinese Puppets various British Forces that are in 'theatre' reserve but earmarked to go elsewhere (e.g. 5th British Div) or are tied to a geographic location - Korhat Bde or most of the Chinese Units
 
There are others but these are the ones with a land connection to combat theatres - these units can NEVER be loaded on ships but they can march across borders - I would strongly recommend a house rule but thats a matter for players
 
Normal Restricted (Yellow HQ)
 
These units e.g. 5th Chinese Corps and its component Divs are restricted as per stock and if sufficient PP's are spent may move outside of their local area - e.g. NCAC is an unrestricted command, 11th Group Army is restricted if you pay PP's to move LCU's of the 5th Chinese Corps to NCAC then as per stock you can do what you like with it.
 
There are a limited pool of Chinese units that may change HQ's so no matter how many PP's you throw at it if you follow the premise that Chinese force only leave China when they are unrestricted you will not see the Chinese horde in Burma (albeit with sufficient PP's you can choose to release a few more units than history but at the expense of Australian, US or Indian units as PP's are not unlimited)
 
Unrestricted you can do what you like with !!!
 
Andy
 
 
 

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: pad152

Most ships seem to be one hit wonders, this looks more like the Brit Navy (aluminum ships) in the Falklands then steel ships of WWII! 

Again, this was an extraordinarily successful PH attack. Don't make a general assumption based on it.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: steveh11Matrix
This time.

If they ran it again, would they likely get the same numbers?

Right, but these numbers are ridiculously low numbers of flak losses (assuming it's not just FOW). Remember there is no special rule that limits flak losses at Pearl in game, so these are the kinds of low flak losses we can expect to see for the entire game.

Historically the Japanese achieved a total surprise at Pearl, so flak was almost non-existent for the first wave of the attack and only a handful of planes were downed. By the time the second wave showed up, lots of heavy damage had already occurred to the fleet, so its ability to defend itself was significantly lowered.

Even with the heavy damage, the fleet still managed to down about 20 or so of the second waves planes. Had the fleet been on full war footing when the first strike arrived and flak opened fire as soon as Japanese planes got within range, Japan could have easily lost 100 or more airframes to flak.

In game every fleet is always considered to be on full war footing when attacked as far as I know. So if the flak model was even close to historical, we should expect to see greater numbers of Japanese air frames lost for the Pearl raids in game, because there is no special surprise effect to reduce the losses.

There really is no justification for tiny losses like this, as historically Japan's surprise was total, so I can't see the US flak results being any worse than it was historically by any significant margin.

Jim

[Terminus]

Well, if you CHOOSE not to listen to what people tell you, then I guess we can't force you.

[Jones944]

I'm not really sure why people are basing any opinions off of one combat result file. Are they trying to make the game developers wish they hadn't posted this AAR? If after 20 battles there is a discernable pattern then someone should say something, but after one attack? Wow.

[Panther Bait]

Ummm, wouldn't it stand to reason that in an atypically more devastating naval attack (as stated by the design team this attack was atypical) that flak losses would be lower than usual?  Meaning the damage was worse to the ships because the flak was unusually ineffective?  Or even the opposite, a lucky combination of early hits severely reduced later flak and therefore later waves of attack craft were more effective than usual? 
 
If the design team knows off hand, what is a typical range of Japanese air losses that you are seeing the PH attacks?

[Dili]

so I will fly in the engineers via Mavis transports and patrol planes from Kwaj and begin improving the ports.

Patrol planes can now transport troops?

There are others but these are the ones with a land connection to combat theatres - these units can NEVER be loaded on ships but they can march across borders - I would strongly recommend a house rule but thats a matter for players

So being at big distance from Command still doesn't matter for Supply?

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: Panther Bait

Ummm, wouldn't it stand to reason that in an atypically more devastating naval attack (as stated by the design team this attack was atypical) that flak losses would be lower than usual?  Meaning the damage was worse to the ships because the flak was unusually ineffective?  Or even the opposite, a lucky combination of early hits severely reduced later flak and therefore later waves of attack craft were more effective than usual? 

If the design team knows off hand, what is a typical range of Japanese air losses that you are seeing the PH attacks?

Typical range is difficult to answer, given the sheer number of PH attacks we've done, but between 10 and 40 shot down, with maybe 30 to 60 damaged is a good bet. In this attack, it was around 50+ in total. Remember that with the new aircraft repair routine, damaged planes take far longer to get back into action.

[ny59giants]

Patrol planes can now transport troops?

They always could. I tend to use some of them to get out BF, AA, and Engineers from Luzon to China by using them. I play with various mods and as long as a base in China has a port, you can do this. [;)]

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Jones944
I'm not really sure why people are basing any opinions off of one combat result file. Are they trying to make the game developers wish they hadn't posted this AAR? If after 20 battles there is a discernable pattern then someone should say something, but after one attack? Wow.

Who's basing any opinions about anything, I'm simply discussing flak in the game. I posed a question (which is yet to be answered) and then replied to a question posed to me. I discussed the assumption the numbers weren't FOW, they very may well be FOW and my point is mute.

But if the numbers we see aren't FOW, then my point is a salient one. Or are you saying we shouldn't critique the game at all until after release? Kind of a tall order for a bunch of guys sitting around drooling as we await the release.

Jim

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Panther Bait

Ummm, wouldn't it stand to reason that in an atypically more devastating naval attack (as stated by the design team this attack was atypical) that flak losses would be lower than usual?  Meaning the damage was worse to the ships because the flak was unusually ineffective?  Or even the opposite, a lucky combination of early hits severely reduced later flak and therefore later waves of attack craft were more effective than usual? 

If the design team knows off hand, what is a typical range of Japanese air losses that you are seeing the PH attacks?

Right, but my point was/is Pearl was a unique event in the war. In game all attacks are treated the same, so the results we see for the Pearl attack will be the same kind of results we will see for all attacks (unless they've added something new to the engine).

So that said, the Pearl attack should probably always be worse than historical when it come to flak losses, as historically it was a total surprise, but the game should treat it as a normal attack if the game can't differentiate the Pearl raid from other attacks that occur in game.

If the average result is what Terminus posted (10-40 shot down out of 300+ attackers), then we can assume all attacks in game will see total surprise levels of losses instead of historical *wartime footing* levels of flak losses, which were much higher than Pearl.

Jim

[JuanG]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: Panther Bait

Ummm, wouldn't it stand to reason that in an atypically more devastating naval attack (as stated by the design team this attack was atypical) that flak losses would be lower than usual?  Meaning the damage was worse to the ships because the flak was unusually ineffective?  Or even the opposite, a lucky combination of early hits severely reduced later flak and therefore later waves of attack craft were more effective than usual? 

If the design team knows off hand, what is a typical range of Japanese air losses that you are seeing the PH attacks?

Right, but my point was/is Pearl was a unique event in the war. In game all attacks are treated the same, so the results we see for the Pearl attack will be the same kind of results we will see for all attacks (unless they've added something new to the engine).

So that said, the Pearl attack should probably always be worse than historical, as historically it was a total surprise, but the game should treat it as a normal attack if the game can't differentiate the Pearl raid from other attacks that occur in game.

If the average result is what Terminus posted (10-40 shot down out of 300+ attackers), then we can assume all attacks in game will see total surprise levels of losses instead of historical *wartime footing* levels of flak losses, which were much higher than Pearl.

Jim

Actually, thats what the little 'December 7th Surprise' option simulates. Which means that this isnt representative of all air strikes in game, or even of all PH strikes - as with all random processes, sometimes things get skewed one way, this was just one extreme of the possible outcomes.

One question - when its stated that some of the data wont be shown in the final version, does this mean only the 'Ship Manuevering' data, or also the 'Time to intercept' data too?

Looking forward to following this.

[Jones944]

<reply to Jim D Burns moved to the "Ships too fragile" thread so as not to destroy this AAR before it's even really started>

[Erik Rutins]

Extrapolating anything from one combat report, especially with FOW, is pretty futile. But, I totally understand why everything is scrutinized and why all the questions are asked. You guys only have these results to go on and curiosity and anticipation are very high.

With that said, I always thought that the surprise attacks on December 7th actually were not typical attacks, in that they had several bonuses/penalties applied for the Japanese and Allies that don't apply on other turns (as long as Surprise is on). I don't think that has changed in AE, so I would be particularly cautious about extrapolating from a Dec. 7th surprise attack to make any assumptions about the game.

I can say for sure though that the last replay of the PH attack that I did this morning 2 BBs were lost and more Japanese planes were shot down. My sense is that the median is about 4 BBs lost, but I've seen just about every possible result. I have no idea what the average flak losses at PH are in AE, haven't really tried to keep track of that, though I know others on the team have spent a lot of time over development fine tuning many parts of the design for historical results, including flak losses.

I encourage you all to ask questions, but I also encourage you _not_ to jump to conclusions.

Regards,

- Erik

[RevRick]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Extrapolating anything from one combat report, especially with FOW, is pretty futile. But, I totally understand why everything is scrutinized and why all the questions are asked. You guys only have these results to go on and curiosity and anticipation are very high.

With that said, I always thought that the surprise attacks on December 7th actually were not typical attacks, in that they had several bonuses/penalties applied for the Japanese and Allies that don't apply on other turns (as long as Surprise is on). I don't think that has changed in AE, so I would be particularly cautious about extrapolating from a Dec. 7th surprise attack to make any assumptions about the game.

I can say for sure though that the last replay of the PH attack that I did this morning 2 BBs were lost and more Japanese planes were shot down. My sense is that the median is about 4 BBs lost, but I've seen just about every possible result. I have no idea what the average flak losses at PH are in AE, haven't really tried to keep track of that, though I know others on the team have spent a lot of time over development fine tuning many parts of the design for historical results, including flak losses.

I encourage you all to ask questions, but I also encourage you _not_ to jump to conclusions.

Regards,

- Erik

Thanks, Erik. I feel better after the shock of that attack. I was ready to consign my monitor to a canvas bag and a 5" shell, let it slip over the side and hand my CPU a sword to fall on. Now, I only have to click on the green button beside a condescendingly arrogant post about reading history.

[fabertong]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Extrapolating anything from one combat report, especially with FOW, is pretty futile. But, I totally understand why everything is scrutinized and why all the questions are asked. You guys only have these results to go on and curiosity and anticipation are very high.

With that said, I always thought that the surprise attacks on December 7th actually were not typical attacks, in that they had several bonuses/penalties applied for the Japanese and Allies that don't apply on other turns (as long as Surprise is on). I don't think that has changed in AE, so I would be particularly cautious about extrapolating from a Dec. 7th surprise attack to make any assumptions about the game.

I can say for sure though that the last replay of the PH attack that I did this morning 2 BBs were lost and more Japanese planes were shot down. My sense is that the median is about 4 BBs lost, but I've seen just about every possible result. I have no idea what the average flak losses at PH are in AE, haven't really tried to keep track of that, though I know others on the team have spent a lot of time over development fine tuning many parts of the design for historical results, including flak losses.

I encourage you all to ask questions, but I also encourage you _not_ to jump to conclusions.

Regards,

- Erik

Egggs-actly........until we all play it.....we can't jump on one single combat report................

[witpqs]

... And even if it turns out that The Team decides to make some tweaks to probabilities down the road, those decisions will be greatly aided by the experience of zillions of turns that we will all crank out in just a couple of months. Of course, if the percentages were way off they would already have picked that up. I for one am not worried. [:)]

Edited to tweak the teak.

[Terminus]

"teaks to probabilities"? I'm not a wood merchant...[:'(]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

"teaks to probabilities"? I'm not a wood merchant...[:'(]

Fixed it. I thought AE warranted woodies? [:D]

[Terminus]

To each his own, I suppose.