Things I still don't understand!

[pad152]

I've now played through a complete month 12/7/41 - 1/7/42.

Things I still don’t understand.

There seems to be a ton of air groups no replacements some with only 1 plane that withdraw in 30 – 60 days, what’s the point? Once damaged or start taking losses that’s it, unless you have PDU on and even then you may have to wait months to upgrade and fill out the group and if you have withdraw on, forget it they don't seem to serve any purpose?

Even after playing a month of game time, I still don’t know what all the new ship types are or what they are used for? Do I really need AG’s if I have AGP, AD, AE, AKE, AS, AVD, AR in a port? Do they replace the function of any other tender?

Soviet land units start the game with more experience and any other force, why?

Why do soviet ships keep showing up on the ship reinforcement screen with an ETA of day1*? Place them on the map and be done with it!

Ship conversions, I’m not sure of these but, I don’t like the loss of not being able to convert ships to repair ships and sub tenders. I would gladly trade all of the new ship conversions to get them back! There needs to be a list or table that shows ship upgrades, (what ships can convert into what).

Economy, it’s now harder than ever to figure out what you need and what you are using and what needs to be shipped where, even when playing allies. There really needs to be an economy screen for each country so you can see at a glance what is needed and what is being used where. Sorry, third party apps don’t cut it, the info is needed in game.

Load/unload, AE clearly shows the difference between AK and AP ship classes but, having a transport TF with AK’s taking weeks or more to unload seems excessive. There are times when you just don’t have AP’s available and have to use AK’s. The new load/unload rules also make Naval Support detachments the most important unit in the game, just try to unload or build up a new small base without them. I could have won the invasion if only I had more Naval Support detachments just doesn’t seem right?

Off Map areas, having to move stuff from the east coast to the west coast just seems like a complete waste of time, just have stuff show up on west coast a week later. I still don’t get what use if any, the UK or Falkland islands have? Do we really need all four Mombasa, Cape Town, Aden, Abadan, how about just 2 instead of 4?

Even with all the off map areas and new ships, unit reinforcements still magically show up on map at remote bases, why? Some stuff shows on the West Coast or Aden and be required to be shipped and others just show up (poof) on some remote island?

The Intel screen show losses for ships, air groups, but, not land units why?

You can review scheduled reinforcements for ships and air units by country but, not land units why?

[Scott_USN]

I can answer one or two.

Load/unload, AE clearly shows the difference between AK and AP ship classes but, having a transport TF with AK’s taking weeks or more to unload seems excessive.

Port size, docking size, ship size naval support. I can load a whole regiment once in strat mode at Pearl in one day with supplies. If I send it to Palmyra with a 1 or 2 port and no naval support it will take a week to unload if not longer. If the ship can't dock forget it, will take forever to unload.

I think the new limitations are good and accurate and were always needed.

The Intel screen show losses for ships, air groups, but, not land units why?

Yes I agree it seems it was more overlooked then not implemented.

I also want KIA, MIA, WIA for my troops I was always amazed at the overload of information that the game would give me constantly but not tell me if my loses are just too excessive. I want to know how many men I am losing per day. It would not be hard even if it shows as squads I am good with that. Otherwise I have no idea if I am over my reinforcement numbers are grinding units to much.

I never understood why it could not tally my loses besides arbitrary points number.

Are those numbers per squad? If I have 800 point lost for army have I lost 8000 men? Makes no sense never did,

[Rob Brennan UK]

I'm as lost as you are on the 1 plane air groups in the USA [&:] I pulled in a bunch of
crummy pilots into one and set them all to train 50% .. if/when the pilots get to the pools
there should be a few more experienced ones.

However on the economy side of things , the manual does state that australia and india
are self sufficient in resources but does need some oil and (i think) more importantly fuel.

As for ship sonversions in convertying any i can find to AKA's or even APA's although i cant seem to figure out which definate classes do upgrade.

I think its all part of the new learning cliff from WitP , no-one mastered that in a few days and i suspect the same will be true of AE ..

P.S don't send the queens to drop off troops at PM .. can't unload and was sunk on the way home when KB turned up (or part of it) , I almost cried [;)]

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: pad152

I've now played through a complete month 12/7/41 - 1/7/42.

Things I still don’t understand.

There seems to be a ton of air groups no replacements some with only 1 plane that withdraw in 30 – 60 days, what’s the point? Once damaged or start taking losses that’s it, unless you have PDU on and even then you may have to wait months to upgrade and fill out the group and if you have withdraw on, forget it they don't seem to serve any purpose?

Historcity...

Even after playing a month of game time, I still don’t know what all the new ship types are or what they are used for? Do I really need AG’s if I have AGP, AD, AE, AKE, AS, AVD, AR in a port? Do they replace the function of any other tender?

Maybe try to RTM...there is some information that is useful in its 330 pages like a 6 page chart describing all of the different ship classes.

Soviet land units start the game with more experience and any other force, why?

Why do soviet ships keep showing up on the ship reinforcement screen with an ETA of day1*? Place them on the map and be done with it!

Soviet ships mess with the AI...always have likely always will ...and not worth the trouble of dealing ....

Ship conversions, I’m not sure of these but, I don’t like the loss of not being able to convert ships to repair ships and sub tenders. I would gladly trade all of the new ship conversions to get them back! There needs to be a list or table that shows ship upgrades, (what ships can convert into what).

I believe JWE will release a chart or has somewhere showing the conversion paths...

Economy, it’s now harder than ever to figure out what you need and what you are using and what needs to be shipped where, even when playing allies. There really needs to be an economy screen for each country so you can see at a glance what is needed and what is being used where. Sorry, third party apps don’t cut it, the info is needed in game.

Load/unload, AE clearly shows the difference between AK and AP ship classes but, having a transport TF with AK’s taking weeks or more to unload seems excessive. There are times when you just don’t have AP’s available and have to use AK’s.

Realism bites ehh?

The new load/unload rules also make Naval Support detachments the most important unit in the game, just try to unload or build up a new small base without them. I could have won the invasion if only I had more Naval Support detachments just doesn’t seem right?

Off Map areas, having to move stuff from the east coast to the west coast just seems like a complete waste of time, just have stuff show up on west coast a week later. I still don’t get what use if any, the UK or Falkland islands have? Do we really need all four Mombasa, Cape Town, Aden, Abadan, how about just 2 instead of 4?

So what if you want to move all of the east Coast appearing unit to Cape Town or the Med when they appear?

Even with all the off map areas and new ships, unit reinforcements still magically show up on map at remote bases, why? Some stuff shows on the West Coast or Aden and be required to be shipped and others just show up (poof) on some remote island?

Maybe that is where the unit actually formed...

The Intel screen show losses for ships, air groups, but, not land units why?

Was not a priority.

You can review scheduled reinforcements for ships and air units by country but, not land units why?

Was not a priority for the land Team...during development there were four (actually more) distinct teams in charge of separate areas...hence different development priorities.

[Scott_USN]

You know what you said about Unit Destruction should be addressed I was just thinking that last night Betties from canton sunk some AP's but for the life of me I couldn't remember who was on what ship. So I can't remember what I lost.. was it the 47 constr bde or 56th coastal guns.... I don't know

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Scott_USN

You know what you said about Unit Destruction should be addressed I was just thinking that last night Betties from canton sunk some AP's but for the life of me I couldn't remember who was on what ship. So I can't remember what I lost.. was it the 47 constr bde or 56th coastal guns.... I don't know

That's why i always make a save just before ending the turn....[;)]

Not a bad idea...But would you list unit fragments as well?

So lets say you have a 16 ship convoy carrying one unit and three ships are sunk? How do you list the unit? The parent still survives...

Unit/5, Unit/7 and unit/11 which were lost with the ship may all reappear again if you load the unit onto a new TF....so what do you list? I'm not a coder and it doesn't sound simple.

[Scott_USN]

Well it saves at the end of the turn but I was not that interested but a simple click on a button like I would for air units would be much easier, i do that to see how badly I am doing. Does the air unit lost show fragments? No it doesn't no reason to.

So neither would you show a unit destruction because it lost a fragment. If you lose a fragment of an air group does it show?


But some of the huge Ak's can hold a full constr brigade. Of course I learned a valuable lesson, it is best to ship any unit on more than one ship so that if anyone is sunk you don't lose everything. But that is another point.

Just doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to do but whatever not like I will worry about it.

KIA,WIA, MIA is far more important to me in both immersion and important information.

[Yamato hugger]

ORIGINAL: pad152

There seems to be a ton of air groups no replacements some with only 1 plane that withdraw in 30 – 60 days, what’s the point?

I asked about this several times. Thats the way the air team wants it is the simplest answer I can give you. I agree, it makes no sense. If you notice, the 7th BG goes away in Apr 42 and comes back in May 42 in India because in real life they were sent through Africa to India so even if you have them operating out of India in Apr 42 (which personally I would if I were the allies) you still have to withdraw them, so they can make the move to India. I went round and round on this point (and lost).

Even after playing a month of game time, I still don’t know what all the new ship types are or what they are used for? Do I really need AG’s if I have AGP, AD, AE, AKE, AS, AVD, AR in a port? Do they replace the function of any other tender?

They actually can be handy.

Soviet land units start the game with more experience and any other force, why?

Probably to keep the Japs from invading the USSR.

Why do soviet ships keep showing up on the ship reinforcement screen with an ETA of day1*? Place them on the map and be done with it!

Placing on the map means they have a set location and could be hit on the first turn of a potential Jap invasion and they didnt want you to be able to do that.

Ship conversions, I’m not sure of these but, I don’t like the loss of not being able to convert ships to repair ships and sub tenders. I would gladly trade all of the new ship conversions to get them back! There needs to be a list or table that shows ship upgrades, (what ships can convert into what).

That would be quite a list! Even ships within the same class cant always make the same conversions (look at Momi class for an example).

Economy, it’s now harder than ever to figure out what you need and what you are using and what needs to be shipped where, even when playing allies. There really needs to be an economy screen for each country so you can see at a glance what is needed and what is being used where. Sorry, third party apps don’t cut it, the info is needed in game.

Actually I dont think this is any harder than WitP really, just different. Divide the Jap factories into zones and figure out how many of what needs to go where. I had all that stuff written down once upon a time. Took about a half hour to write it all out and once done, its done forever.

Load/unload, AE clearly shows the difference between AK and AP ship classes but, having a transport TF with AK’s taking weeks or more to unload seems excessive. There are times when you just don’t have AP’s available and have to use AK’s. The new load/unload rules also make Naval Support detachments the most important unit in the game, just try to unload or build up a new small base without them. I could have won the invasion if only I had more Naval Support detachments just doesn’t seem right?

My biggest complaint is evacuations arent possible in this game like they did historically unless you are evaccing a major port. An island like Guadalcanal, forget it. You arent getting them out. And the naval support help is actually a recent thing. At least on size 0 ports.

Off Map areas, having to move stuff from the east coast to the west coast just seems like a complete waste of time, just have stuff show up on west coast a week later. I still don’t get what use if any, the UK or Falkland islands have? Do we really need all four Mombasa, Cape Town, Aden, Abadan, how about just 2 instead of 4?

There are times when you will want something on the east coast to go to India rather than to the west coast. I do agree that Port Stanley, England, Mombasa, Abadan, and having 2 Panama bases seems redundant. And I would add Canada to that as well. Anything arriving in Canada could just as well be on the US east coast.

Even with all the off map areas and new ships, unit reinforcements still magically show up on map at remote bases, why? Some stuff shows on the West Coast or Aden and be required to be shipped and others just show up (poof) on some remote island?

The Intel screen show losses for ships, air groups, but, not land units why?

You can review scheduled reinforcements for ships and air units by country but, not land units why?

The 3 teams worked in a vacuum with no real contact between them until it was "too late" to change anything [8|] - read that as no one was willing to budge from their vision for continuity. There are a lot of differences in the way things are done between them. Air units are bought with PPs based on TO&E strength of the units and land units are based on current undamaged forces in the unit for example. Frankly just as an outsider looking in, there was a lot of foot stomping "I want it this way, so thats the way its going to be" type stuff in there. A lot of this stuff on your list is just someones ego. Not based on anything historical, just "thats the way I want it". Or on the flip side of that, "it was there historically so we put it in" even when its just useless clutter and really SHOULD be removed. Time and time again I beat my head against the wall trying to make playability and fun the driving force. I was over ruled almost every time.

The biggest "problem" with the way AE was developed from my point of view what the simple fact that it was a volunteer effort, and frankly why this took 3 years instead of 1. Because of this, Joe (as project lead) wasnt able to wield a stick and tell folks what to do. Several people quit and threatened to quit several times over various aspects of the project (frankly I quit myself for over a year, I was tired of all the in-fighting between them and just walked away from it. A year later when it was ready for testing I came back).

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger
Time and time again I beat my head against the wall trying to make playability and fun the driving force. I was over ruled almost every time.

Believe it or not - I expect most AE Team members feel this way to some extent - myself included. AE is/was not really about "what I want" - but more about gaining sufficient consensus to sell your point of view. There were/are many, many points of view, at least as many as we had people, so definitely there was lots of juggling, but given the nature of the effort, I don't consider that to be "wrong". Actually I think my point of view failed to win consensus far more than it succeeded - but I'm ok with that - I consider that to be the rules of the game!!!

I will say I learned a lot about managing a virtual team (virtual in almost every respect) through a major project like this - and if I "do it again" there will be some changes. We did not start the design "from the perspective of the player" as I think it should be done - but we did not fail to do this because we were stupid - but because we were building on the vision of the player role that was already in place - and decided early on we could not try to change that without starting over. I think the design team needs to start small - to ensure we gain consistency of vision and can then sustain that.

If we do start over - that is where we start - designing from the perspective of the player. What does a player DO and what does a player NOT DO. What decisions does a player make, what decisions does he not make, what buttons does he click etc.

I think one of the aspects of WITP and AE that fascinate those of us that have played it almost every day for 5 years - is actually the mixture of high level responsibility and low level responsibility. I decide where to send my Army Corps - and I also manage the training schedule for each individual air unit. So this "duality" (or plurality) is both a strength AND a weakness. I do believe however, that we can have some plurality of role without so many trivial button clicks. So one personal goal I would have in a complete redesign would be to keep the duality - but significantly reduce the non-value added button clicks.

Well, I'd best not get started talking about this topic too much as that will take me off the current topic - which is working on patch 01 for AE - so back to that!!!
[:D]

[morphin]

jwilkerson

i say only one word: GUI

Andy

[pad152]

Realism Bites! - I don't think the following are realistic or very historical.

- That there is no economic info for each country!!!
- Canada has more medium bomber replacements then the USA for first 60-90 days!
- Naval Support detachments are now the most important unit in the pacific war!!!
- No list of ground units lost in the pacific war!
- RAAF Wirraway can't preform CAP or escort missions but, can do ASW missions!

I hope some of these are addressed in future updates!

[pad152]

Ship conversions, I was really looking more at AK/AP versions, like are is there some that can convert into AS/AR's?

Economic info - I was talking about allies, you now have to ship resources to places like Ceylon and Hawaii. All the new location with industry that require resources, fuel, etc. I'm just trying to find out what each country/location needs and what it's using so I can plan shipping.

[Rexor]

ORIGINAL: pad152

Realism Bites!

[&:]

Then why are you playing WitP AE...?

[WingedIncubus]

ORIGINAL: pad152

- Canada has more medium bomber replacements then the USA for first 60-90 days!

I don't see how it is ahistorical. Canada was at war for more than two years when the US joined the war. Its factories were building ships and aircrafts as replacements for the Royal Air Force, and it sent aircraft contingents and pilots to Britain to fight against Germany.

The US hadn't even an independent airforce arm until after Pearl Harbor (it was part of the Army branch), the full industrial complex hadn't been mobilized yet, and the federal governmement had imposed a draft only one year ago to meat up its skeleton army of the thirties.

[WingedIncubus]

ORIGINAL: pad152
Economic info - I was talking about allies, you now have to ship resources to places like Ceylon and Hawaii. All the new location with industry that require resources, fuel, etc. I'm just trying to find out what each country/location needs and what it's using so I can plan shipping.

One word: Australia.

The rest of the map is autosufficient, except punctual fuel and supplies convoys to Columbo and Pearl Harbor. No need to lose sleep over it.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: treespider

ORIGINAL: pad152
Ship conversions, I’m not sure of these but, I don’t like the loss of not being able to convert ships to repair ships and sub tenders. I would gladly trade all of the new ship conversions to get them back! There needs to be a list or table that shows ship upgrades, (what ships can convert into what).

I believe JWE will release a chart or has somewhere showing the conversion paths...

Yeah, I got one of those somewhere. I was just waiting for the OOB issues to settle out, and the dog to get off my pile pf papers. Maybe now is a good time?

[Mynok]

The industry screen is quite comprehensive about where your industry is. As for analysis, that's way outside the scope of 'in-game'. I wouldn't want it in there because there's too much fiddling to do. Much better to get it out into third party tools where I can analyze the situation and figure out where stuff needs to go. Then I write orders for transport and execute them in game. Works very well.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: JWE

and the dog to get off my pile pf papers. Maybe now is a good time?

Hopefully the dog did not eat it......I say release the the hounds..

[Mynok]

No, no...we want the papers not the hounds.

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: Drakken

ORIGINAL: pad152

- Canada has more medium bomber replacements then the USA for first 60-90 days!

I don't see how it is ahistorical. Canada was at war for more than two years when the US joined the war. Its factories were building ships and aircrafts as replacements for the Royal Air Force, and it sent aircraft contingents and pilots to Britain to fight against Germany.

The US hadn't even an independent airforce arm until after Pearl Harbor (it was part of the Army branch), the full industrial complex hadn't been mobilized yet, and the federal governmement had imposed a draft only one year ago to meat up its skeleton army of the thirties.

Er, the USAF didn't become independent until 1947.