Well, it aint flattop but...

[pcpilot2]

I finally got the game two weeks ago. I havent posted because I have been busy learning the game and battling Yamamoto in the Operation IGO, scenario9. I must say that you 2X3 fellas and Matrix have done a great job on this game. It is a heck of a LOT of fun. It looks a lot like my old Avalon Hill game Flattop, espesially the map. Unfortunately I dont have the control over my carriers I had in Flattop. My admirals need firing, the dolts. Just as soon as I fish them out of the water I'll start a court of Inquiry.
Will you guys be coming out with a game like Flattop? Have you ever played that game? Verrrrry cool, most tense board game I ever played.

PS. Take this as a well done and a hint...

[pasternakski]

Originally posted by pcpilot
I finally got the game two weeks ago. I havent posted because I have been busy learning the game and battling Yamamoto in the Operation IGO, scenario9. I must say that you 2X3 fellas and Matrix have done a great job on this game. It is a heck of a LOT of fun. It looks a lot like my old Avalon Hill game Flattop, espesially the map. Unfortunately I dont have the control over my carriers I had in Flattop. My admirals need firing, the dolts. Just as soon as I fish them out of the water I'll start a court of Inquiry.
Will you guys be coming out with a game like Flattop? Have you ever played that game? Verrrrry cool, most tense board game I ever played.

PS. Take this as a well done and a hint...

It kind of IS FlatTop, isn't it?

There are a lot of things to like about that game. One of the best (and one that appeared in Grigsby's old computer game "War in the South Pacific) was local weather. You had direct representation of what the weather was like at any time in any place. Worried about where the enemy carriers were? Try looking under that weather front moving in on your location.

I wish UV (and WITP - hint, hint) could build in this kind of specificity. WITSP was a 40k design. Surely there must be room in 600-800 megs for this.

Airplane control, especially by type, left something to be desired, IMHO. All F4Fs had to take off and land at the same time in order to function at all. This was a shortcoming in the paper asset tracking system, and I tried mightily to devise a way around it, but met with only mixed results.

Air attacks on TFs sucked. Even the simple, old AH game of Midway was far better.

[pcpilot2]

Now in both Flattop and UV you can tell your aircraft what targets to attack on land such as airbases, ground units, or airbases and they do it within the constraints of weather, leadership, etc. Thats cool for the most part. Though I think in Flattop your units were far more likely to complete the attack since leadership wasnt an issue.
The problem I see with UV, and the main reason I dont think its like Flattop, is in the naval attacks. The command to attack "naval" targets is too general. You should be able to designate, if you so wish, WHICH naval targets to attack. I have way too many of my air attacks on ships carried out in a peicemeal and/or haphazard fashion that winds up costing me dearly in lost aircraft and sometimes a lost ship...the last one I lost was my only CV the Saratoga which I could ill afford to lose. When Im praying my commanders will attack that enemy task force with 2 CV's and a CVL that has been spotted and paste it, all They do is attack it two or three times, if Im lucky, with 3 B25j with no escort, then 9 TBM with 10 F4F escort, then maybe if I'm "lucky" again, an attack by a few B17s at high altitude which is what I set them for to attack land targets, (why did they just attack ships?). Not only are these attacks shot to ribbons by the enemy CAP and AAA but being piecemeal they seldom actually get a hit with a bomb much less a torpedo.
I just think it would be nice to exercise a more direct control over my air units or at least be able to better designate which targets my commanders should attack at sea.

PS. I also think it would be cool if the weather were shown on the map, espesially as it moves along. If it blots out a target you had planned to attack, then you know why it wasnt found by the attacking aircraft. Let me also say, I dont mean to be negative. This is an excellent game and I understand it is more geared to operational control. But I do beleive if Nimitz knew an enemy taskforce was out there, he would direct his forces to attack it, not just "naval targets" in general.

[MG'42]

Naval attacks can be so frustrating in this game-it's one of the reasons I've stopped playing. Don't get me wrong I think the game is basically pretty good, it just needs some sort of more specific controls for naval attacks(see above post for reasons!)

Just my $0.02.

[thantis]

It certainly would be nice to be able to assign your carrier task forces with a specific order - like the bombardment mission for surface forces.....

1) Engage Enemy CV's
2) Avoid CV's (only - but attack everything else)


Retirement allowed would seem to take care of #2, but my forces seem to retreat from everyone - even supply convoys.

Other than those two options, I can't see how a operational level commander (such as ourselves acting as Halsey or even Nimitz) would be able to direct CVs to attack only one particular target.

In my experience, my CVs do a good job at directing the majority of their bombers at the best targets in range. Whenever enemy CVs appear, the majority (if not all) bombers are sent after them.

I have had situations where less attention is paid to CV task forces close by, but this is usually after I've plastered them for a couple of turns and they pose less of a threat (like no planes).

If you wanted to micromanage every strike from every carrier and airbase, it would make the game almost unplayable (would take forever to even play one turn of intensive airstrikes). Some abstraction is necessary. UV is not that kind of game and was not designed that way. Just imagine the kind of work necessary for WiTP - abstraction makes it playable, and fun.

[Sonny]

Originally posted by pcpilot
[B............... I have way too many of my air attacks on ships carried out in a peicemeal and/or haphazard fashion that winds up costing me dearly in lost aircraft and sometimes a lost ship........... [/B]

Isn't the realism in this game great? Not everyone goes where/when you want them to just like happens IRL.

[Wilhammer]

Remember, at Coral Sea, the Japanese thought they were attacking a Carrier and a CA, but instead got the Neosho and a DD, and they hit them with a full strike.

Surely the IJN player, Yamamato, in a game of UV, would complain that the lasck of control over his air groups was ust not worth the effort to play the game anymore...

And then, you had Midaway, when less than a score of Dauntless DBs sank the hopes for aggressive war.

[dtx]

How does a WG designer replicate how unpredictable battle outcomes are? I think UV does this well. It's frustrating when planes attack the wrong targets - but that's war.

As Wilhammer noted, at Midway relatively few SBDs caused a huge victory. In contrast, also at Midway, 58(!) SBDs dive-bombed a single Jap DD, the Tanikaze (sp?) - all missed and one was shot down. A single DD against 58 planes should have been sunk - but it wasn't. This goes to show that battle outcomes are unhighly upredictable. Hence, games like UV need to add a big Murphy's law factor to replicate all those "ahistorical results" that actually occurred during the war. My 2 cents is that UV does this well.

[Sonny]

O.K. now I gotta jump to the other side of the fence.

2 enemy TFs - one surface group with BBs, one CV group. Both about 8-10 hexes from friendly air base at Lunga.

My CV TF commander sends 40+ escorts and 15 dive bombers to attack the BB group. He also sends 15 escorts and 40+ dive bombers to attack the CV group.

Which one is likely to need the most escort fighters?

This is a little different than sending assets to attack small groups of worthless ships. It is not a targeting problem with the AI but an allocation problem. The targeting problem I can see happening IRL - not the allocation problem.