ORIGINAL: mrchuck
I have always believed that the minutiae of staff problems like e.g. making sure support units get loaded with combat units is not worth modelling at the grand strategic level.
ORIGINAL: geofflambert
The ability to do something about that (as the Japanese player) is, to me, central to the value of this game
My Gorn friend expresses succinctly what I suspect is the majority view. The lure of this game is the ability to make decisions that have consequences.
This is very rare in many games. The best games of any genre manage it correctly.
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I disagree that you can model the "Strategic" without the "Tactical" in any meaningful way.
I think some people confuse strategy with tactics.
Simply put the Strategy of the Allies in WW2 and the Pacific Theater was to bring superior manpower, weapon force both quantitatively and qualitatively, supported by superior supplies to halt Japanese expansion and then reverse it.
Period.
They did so.
The industrial / population / resource base of the Allies made it inevitable so long as the Allies stayed the course on unconditional surrender.
The Japanese Strategy was to enter a
short term war by rapid expansion and the creation of a non-euro / non colonial / non-'western" sphere of influence dominated by Japans government. They intended from the very start to endure a short war and inflict such massive damage that the so called western powers would loose their will to fight through a long war.
They expected to end the war by compromise and treaty with Japan maintaining the bulk of its sphere of influence. Japan never planned for a long war of attrition.
Period.
Everything else is tactics
Whether picking a raid site, a location to face off mano a mano, how you leverage your resources, how you leverage your forces, right down to how you ensure you have sufficient mechanics repairing planes is all tactics.
You might be able to further abstract "support" embedded in every troop concentration but in my opinion that limits your decsisions, flexibility, and consequences because you end up placing "airstips" where there are "troops" ~ at the point of attack for example.
Not historical, not practical, not good tactics.
But everyone is entitled to their own opinion on the merits thereof.
Cheers
A People that values its privileges above it's principles will soon loose both. Dwight D Eisenhower.
