SLC = 15K VP?

[AcePylut9]

You know all those restricted US armor and inf divs in the white West Coast (R) hq's? I turned their reinforcements off and railed them to slc at the start of the war and promptly forgot about them. Please invade SLC with mininal weenie forces, so I'z can shock attack those suicidal empire soldiers into oblivian.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: ADB123
Do that late enough in 1942 and the Japanese player could get an auto victory...

A perfect example of the kind of nonsense engendered by "Victory Points" and "auto-victory conditions". Basically it encourages a "to He11 with reality..., let's find a loophole and try to weasel through it" style of play...

Yep, no fan of auto victory. It just ruins the game. There would have been no autovictory in the real deal....

I like to see the whole campaign played out. Don't worry about VP at all. I will know in the end if I have been whipped....

[Smeulders]

A small necro, but dud anyone notice that the emergency reinforcements for the USA arrive in Salt Lake City ? That's 4 divisions arriving at the target the day you get ashore. Good luck to the paratroopers.

[Rainer]

crsutton:

auto victory. It just ruins the game.

It does not ruin the game. Not at all. We all know that.
Potentially misleading for newbies.

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: Rainer

crsutton:

auto victory. It just ruins the game.

It does not ruin the game.

It easily can ruin the game by encouraging the Japanese player to throw caution to the wind and try crazy things to achieve it. Then if it doesn't work, he quits on January 2nd, 1943. That ruins the game. [8|]

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: Rainer

crsutton:

auto victory. It just ruins the game.

It does not ruin the game.

It easily can ruin the game by encouraging the Japanese player to throw caution to the wind and try crazy things to achieve it. Then if it doesn't work, he quits on January 2nd, 1943. That ruins the game. [8|]

If so, that's a fault of the player, not the game.

[Rainer]

Mike Scholl:

It easily can ruin the game by encouraging the Japanese player to throw caution to the wind and try crazy things to achieve it. Then if it doesn't work, he quits on January 2nd, 1943. That ruins the game.

What a wonderful piece of applied logic [8|]

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1
It easily can ruin the game by encouraging the Japanese player to throw caution to the wind and try crazy things to achieve it. Then if it doesn't work, he quits on January 2nd, 1943. That ruins the game. [8|]

There is a very easy way around it. It's called "house rules". If you don't like the VP thing, only play with players who agree to keep playing regardless of auto victory. IMO, you're making a mountain out of something I wouldn't even call a molehill. It's an option you can ignore.

Bill

[erstad]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1
It easily can ruin the game by encouraging the Japanese player to throw caution to the wind and try crazy things to achieve it. Then if it doesn't work, he quits on January 2nd, 1943. That ruins the game. [8|]

There is a very easy way around it. It's called "house rules". If you don't like the VP thing, only play with players who agree to keep playing regardless of auto victory. IMO, you're making a mountain out of something I wouldn't even call a molehill. It's an option you can ignore.

Bill

Exactly. In witp-classic I had two autovictories, but in both cases offered to play on. One opponent took me up (and we went to March 1946) and the other decided he was done. But it's a good think to discuss up front to make sure expectations are matched.

[AcePylut9]

There's no way to force a player to continue playing.  House Rules or not.  So if a Japanese player wants to try it and agrees to a HR of no auto-victory, that doesn't mean he won't quit on Jan 2, '43

[CaptBeefheart]

Now the surprise is lost. You should have tried it in an AAR on Dec. 31, 1942. That would have been great.

Personally, I think auto-victory simulates the desire to sue for peace quite well. Who's to say if good chunks of Oz and NZ, or other valuable geography, were taken by the Evil Empire the Allies wouldn't have cried "uncle," especially if Japan offered to give back the national territory?

Cheers,
CC

[crsutton]

I think that in the future I would not agree to any autovictory if I agree to play scen#2. I am beginning to think that as you JFBs gain experience and build on your mistakes, that AV is entirely possible in this scenario. However, I don't think it is possible vs matched opponents in scen 1 so don't really care. If somebody gets an AV on me in scen #1 I would resign from shame anyways-and my opponent should be ashamed for taking on such a wanker..[;)]

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1
It easily can ruin the game by encouraging the Japanese player to throw caution to the wind and try crazy things to achieve it. Then if it doesn't work, he quits on January 2nd, 1943. That ruins the game. [8|]

If so, that's a fault of the player, not the game.

I've always felt that anything included in a game that encouraged strange a-historical play to achieve a "win" by "victory points" was a bad idea. I've felt this way ever since some proud "genius" announced in MOVES magazine that the Allies could always "win" the quad game Austerlitz by running all their units off the map starting on turn one, thus preventing the French player from being able to catch and kill enough of them to meet his VP requirements.

Might well be that historically the optimum strategy for the Austro-Russians would have been to refuse to engage..., but what's the point of playing a game at all in that case? VP's are one person's ideas on what might be important in a conflict. I've always preferred to make my own decisions on such matters. I know they'll never go away (too many players like the "genius" mentioned above in the gaming world). But I don't have to like them..., and I don't.[8D]

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: Rainer

crsutton:

auto victory. It just ruins the game.

It does not ruin the game.

It easily can ruin the game by encouraging the Japanese player to throw caution to the wind and try crazy things to achieve it. Then if it doesn't work, he quits on January 2nd, 1943. That ruins the game. [8|]

Which is exactly why I don't play PBEM.

My very first and only experience with PBEM came at the hands of a JFB in UV who promised he was going to go the distance and then went all out for an AV and promptly quit the turn after I sunk the KB off the Santa Cruz islands.

Axis players start indebted to the Allied player. The Allied player has a right to expect to collect on that debt. Auto victory conditions encourage Axis players to weasel out on their debt repayment. They are the bane of any grand strategic game.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Axis players start indebted to the Allied player. The Allied player has a right to expect to collect on that debt. Auto victory conditions encourage Axis players to weasel out on their debt repayment. They are the bane of any grand strategic game.

IMO your logic falls apart in between the two bolded words.

A player can quit at any time, for any reason, AV or no AV. The issue is player ethics, or, if that's too strong, player manners. No rules will keep a jerk from being a jerk, in AE or when cell phones are involved.

If you want a good opponent don't take random strangers who walk up and offer to engage large poritons of your time for two or three years. You wouldn't do that with a business partner, stock broker, or random woman who approached you in a bar. Don't do it in grand strategic games either.

If you have a trustworthy partner, and want to negotiate away AV as an option, go for it. But asking for the rest of us who like it as a game (not war) mechanism to give it up because you don't care for it is a bit presumptuous.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58


IMO your logic falls apart in between the two bolded words.

A player can quit at any time, for any reason, AV or no AV. The issue is player ethics, or, if that's too strong, player manners. No rules will keep a jerk from being a jerk, in AE or when cell phones are involved.

If you want a good opponent don't take random strangers who walk up and offer to engage large poritons of your time for two or three years. You wouldn't do that with a business partner, stock broker, or random woman who approached you in a bar. Don't do it in grand strategic games either.

If you have a trustworthy partner, and want to negotiate away AV as an option, go for it. But asking for the rest of us who like it as a game (not war) mechanism to give it up because you don't care for it is a bit presumptuous.

Sound advice indeed.

However, how does some one new to a game, looking for an opponent not take on a random stranger in PBEM?

I had several rousing games of UV in hot seat mode meeting a trusted, long time board game opponent at a coffee shop after work one night a week.

It was my foray into PBEM against a regular on the UV forum that left the nasty taste in my mouth.

The single greatest advantage the AI has over PBEM is that the AI will never be the jerk who quits when his wild gambit fails.


p.s. It's not the AV that I mind, it's how players use it. If he had won on his gambit, I would have congratulated him. It was quitting after he failed that destroyed his integrity from my perspective. and btw, I am NOT being presumptious by calling for the removal of AV. It's players who abuse it that I'm calling for the removal of! [8D]

[Bullwinkle58]

How to get reliable playing partners is probably the biggest issue in AE. I've never played PBEM in part because of the issue you encountered in UV. I've tried to get RL friends to take up the game, guys I know and could give grief to, but also ones who know my lifestyle well enough to cut me slack when I might not turn out daily turns. A lot of the PBEM players who show themselves here in AARs seem to make AE the core focus of their non-work time. It'll never be that for me, so finding a PBEM opponent who would both stick and be flexible is pretty hard I fear.

There's no perfect way to get a good oponent, but I see dozens of double-post-number folks in the Opponents Wanted forum looking for games. I think if you're going to commit for multiple years you should/could first hang around, post, and get known well enough to be at, say, 500 posts first. I'd be suspicious that anyone under that range has enough time in the game system to really be able to handle it.

If, as in your case, you get a regular who is also a jerk, that's just the odds I guess. I wouldn't be averse to publishing his name and behavior in the forum, but that's me.

[JeffroK]

Do any more CONUS bases have 17k VP??

I'd love to see a situation where the japanese player makes a suicide run on CONUS and para drops into 2-3 bases!
The players above who have garrisoned SLC might not cover enough bases, or take a week to get into the area from SF.

At the least it would increase the heart rate for a few minutes!

PS, I reckon this might work better into Australia or India!!

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: AcePylut9

There's no way to force a player to continue playing.  House Rules or not. 

Well...you could find out where they live, kidnap them, stick in a pit under the house and not give them any food until they completed a turn.

I'm not advocating this, of course. They might not try very hard and, if you are going to go to that much trouble and not have a serious opponent, you might as just well play the AI

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter
p.s. It's not the AV that I mind, it's how players use it. If he had won on his gambit, I would have congratulated him. It was quitting after he failed that destroyed his integrity from my perspective. and btw, I am NOT being presumptious by calling for the removal of AV. It's players who abuse it that I'm calling for the removal of! [8D]

Exactly the reason I'd love to see it removed. To remove the temptation to play "fast and loose" in pursuit of an "Automatic Victory". If all players KNEW the game was going to last until 1945 when they started, they would play accordingly. Won't happen..., but that's my reasoning.[8D]