Global War : a Japanese AAR

[yvesp]

But this proves useless; the allies pilots were drunk anyway.
Nevertheless, there was no better use for these fighters, considering the risks...

[yvesp]

The allies launch a carpet bombing on Tokyo.
The Japanese have no better use for their fighter but to try and have this raid fail.

[yvesp]

But the raid would have failed anyway.

[yvesp]

The USA launch a paradrop attack on Tokyo.

[yvesp]

And everybody sends almost all available planes into the battle.

[yvesp]

But Tokyo resists. It is likely saved as there are few available reinforcements available around.
Yet, one never knows: the USA and Comonwealth may reorg their troops and launch another attack; there won't be any additionnal naval support, which may well make the defense of the city difficult!

[yvesp]

Not surprisingly, Diego Suarez resists too.
I must admit that I was really not on that part of the word, and Madagascar escaped my attention too long.

[yvesp]

The USA advance in Lübeck.

[yvesp]

A at long last, Berlin falls!!!
With the capture of Saigon by the advancing para, and that of Athen (by the advancing US armored marines), thats three objectives that fall this impulse!

[yvesp]

In northern China, the Japanese army is now almost destroyed.

[yvesp]

The Japanase decline to pass and reinforce Tokyo.

On their turn, the USA port attack whetever remains in the port.
The raid has some success, not really useful...

[yvesp]

The Russian do a carpet bombing raid on Stettin.
Useless too, as we know that Germnany will surrender.

[yvesp]

The British do the same, with a better success and a better reason, on Tokyo.
However, the unit that goes away is a plane.
Too bad!

[yvesp]

So...

The turn ends on a one when the axis passes.
Germany is not conquered because the Russians did not have time to capture Stettin. One impulse short... The siege of Berlin was really a killer! Hence, the axis performs better than in many games I've played.

Some lessons learned: The Japanese did well in China. However, this did not prevent a severe come back by the allies. This come back was worsened by the fact that many Japanese land units were engaged deeply in China. They could not be withdrawn in time to reinforce the motherland or critical victory hexes, as I could do in other AAR. I'm still wondering why the Japanese should advance in China, considering both the cost (units are bound to be lost in attack), and the fact that it achieves nothing (few if any resources to gain); he only reason would be to reach a conquest of China; but that is something that I never ever came close to. I'm still wondedring about a strategy for Japan!

On MWIF itself, much can be said. None is good.
It has been 20 months now since the game release. Within these 20 months, no new features have been added: it has been a time for bug crushing. But as the game advances, I note that game crashes still exist (in the 4 last turns I had more than 3 crashes); I also note that the game performance problems have not been solved, far from it. In many case, these delay have no visible cause: why would picking up a plane from a carrier to go on a mission (whatever the mission) take 30 seconds or more is absolutely beyond my understanding! There is just nothing to check: a carrier at sea is in supply by the rules; so what is the game doing ? There was also that time when returning ships to base took more that 8 minutes... For god's sake! Thats absolutely incredible, and once more nothing can explain such delays. Then, of course, picking up a land unit often takes 30 seconds, then 30 seconds more when placing it back on board: not always, but much too often.

From all this, as a professional programmer, I can draw some conclusions, and they are not good for the game. The first is that it is obvious that Steve still doesn't master the code. I don't blame him: he had to take over the old delphi code, which itself was very likely a huge mess: experience shows that it is often better to restart from scratch after having learned the mistakes not to do. The worst part of this is the supply routine which is a pile of s..t. Weighting my words. The first problem with is is that is it based on the wrong paraygm: in this game supply is attached to the units while it should be attached to the hexes as a topological property! Hence, the game cannot show you maps of the supply network for a given country! You have to know the rules to know if moving a unit in such or such an hex will put it out of supply. There are also other problems, less pregnant, but nonetheless annoying: the interface is just bad. That probably comes with Theme Engine, just a bad choice. Difficult to place windows as you want, sometimes windows refuse t come on top and you have to move other windows away (and when this happens with a modal window blocking the game, you're toast.) Then there is the dramatic choice that whenever one changes the current playing major power, the focus usually shifts to another place in the world. That's really a poor ergonomical choice and makes playing CW/USA very tedious.

As for the future of the game, it is bleak and it would be naive to believe that there will ever be a playable AI. In the current game state, that's plain impossible. I don't even believe that the performance problems will be solved: this would probably involve rewriting the supply routines from scratch. Why no AI ? because unless it cheats, the game will have to suffer the same slowness when investigating possible moves, and then when actually playing them: the underlying poor performance in the basic game engine (supply or whatever causes the sluggishness I met) will just prevent the AI to react in an acceptable time for players. Unless one is willing to accept 1 or 2 hours turns for the computer near the end of the game.

In all honesty, I'm really disappointed with the game now.
Yet, it is still a bit better than having to place all the pieces down on the map.

[Centuur]

A German victory! Pretty good...

I agree on your conclusions where the supply calculations are concerned. It simply takes to long. I'm not a programmer so I can't tell if your solution to the problem would be better. But I believe it needs to be adressed sometimes, because it is hampering gameplay a lot in the endgame.

Personally, I like the interface. Sure, it's not a standard one, but it is sufficient enough to get the job done, when the problem of disappearing forms has been adressed.

The AI is indeed far, far away, I believe. To many bugs still around in solitair...

Thanks for you AAR.