Italian navy

[sapper32]

Hi all I'm playing as Allies and in 1939 the Italian navy has left port and is leaving the Med and was last seen sailing through the English channel so I guess it's either going to base itself in the German ports and assist the Kreigsmarine in some way ,My concern is that it could recce for the U Boats/surface raiders as a neutral or even blockade ports on DOE, As the neutral US fleet can't leave home waters is this fair ?

[wevilc]

LOL, no! [:D]

[elxaime]

You will typically get two sorts of answers to questions on fairness. One school of thought is the adage "all's fair in love and war" and unless someone is abusing a flaw in the computer code, this is in the category of allowing player creativity. The other school looks to the designer to add more restrictions to the game to prevent players from doing things that would have little historical support.

In WaW you certainly can do tons of unusual things that can be quite effective, although usually on the unsuspecting. In one game as Axis, I was wondering where the British fleet went in early 1941, aside from a few destroyers. Turns out they were sailing to the Pacific, where, along with the US fleet, they pulled off a massive wipe out of the Japanese fleet as it attempted to attack Pearl Harbor. Wildly a-historical? Sure - there is no way the British would have abandoned the Atlantic that way in real life. In game, of course, there are consequences to letting the U-boats and maybe Kriegsmarine run free in 1941-1942. But if the war in the East has started, and hence threat of UK invasion has diminished, the benefit of knocking out one of the two main Axis countries is well worth it. In the face of a strategy like this, Japan has to turtle. I had resigned, so we never played further to see if the absence of the British fleet for a year or so would have counterbalanced the destruction of Japan, but I felt strongly it was game over.

This is one of the reasons that, over time, I have strayed away from WaW. I am more a fan of historical, political and geographic constraints. The game replayability and, for some, the fun, rests on allowing maximum freedom. But you rapidly realize that, if you wish to compete at higher skill levels, you increasingly need to unshackle yourself from history and just play the game. Nothing wrong with that and certainly WaW was designed and pitched - and delivers - as a fun light strategy game.

So no right or wrong answer. You just need to decide if this fits within your expectations for entertainment.

I imagine there are some pros and cons of using the Italian fleet this way. A big con I can think of right away is that Italian morale plummets if the Allies land on Italian soil. No risk of interception by the Italian Navy means the French alone themselves can land some troops from Africa and put a big hit on Mussolini. Obviously same for UK. A second big con is that, once the Italians leave the Mediterranean, when war starts they are quite unlikely to be able to get back in, e.g. Gibraltar. So for whatever benefit of having them in the Atlantic, the UK can just move its Mediterranean naval assets to the Atlantic and counter. Also, without a big investment, the Italian fleet is unable to compete with the UK and Italian capital ships, especially, are easy fodder for even non-upgraded Allied subs. So I actually see what is happening here as a gift to Churchill.

[sapper32]

ORIGINAL: elxaime

You will typically get two sorts of answers to questions on fairness. One school of thought is the adage "all's fair in love and war" and unless someone is abusing a flaw in the computer code, this is in the category of allowing player creativity. The other school looks to the designer to add more restrictions to the game to prevent players from doing things that would have little historical support.

In WaW you certainly can do tons of unusual things that can be quite effective, although usually on the unsuspecting. In one game as Axis, I was wondering where the British fleet went in early 1941, aside from a few destroyers. Turns out they were sailing to the Pacific, where, along with the US fleet, they pulled off a massive wipe out of the Japanese fleet as it attempted to attack Pearl Harbor. Wildly a-historical? Sure - there is no way the British would have abandoned the Atlantic that way in real life. In game, of course, there are consequences to letting the U-boats and maybe Kriegsmarine run free in 1941-1942. But if the war in the East has started, and hence threat of UK invasion has diminished, the benefit of knocking out one of the two main Axis countries is well worth it. In the face of a strategy like this, Japan has to turtle. I had resigned, so we never played further to see if the absence of the British fleet for a year or so would have counterbalanced the destruction of Japan, but I felt strongly it was game over.

This is one of the reasons that, over time, I have strayed away from WaW. I am more a fan of historical, political and geographic constraints. The game replayability and, for some, the fun, rests on allowing maximum freedom. But you rapidly realize that, if you wish to compete at higher skill levels, you increasingly need to unshackle yourself from history and just play the game. Nothing wrong with that and certainly WaW was designed and pitched - and delivers - as a fun light strategy game.

So no right or wrong answer. You just need to decide if this fits within your expectations for entertainment.

I imagine there are some pros and cons of using the Italian fleet this way. A big con I can think of right away is that Italian morale plummets if the Allies land on Italian soil. No risk of interception by the Italian Navy means the French alone themselves can land some troops from Africa and put a big hit on Mussolini. Obviously same for UK. A second big con is that, once the Italians leave the Mediterranean, when war starts they are quite unlikely to be able to get back in, e.g. Gibraltar. So for whatever benefit of having them in the Atlantic, the UK can just move its Mediterranean naval assets to the Atlantic and counter. Also, without a big investment, the Italian fleet is unable to compete with the UK and Italian capital ships, especially, are easy fodder for even non-upgraded Allied subs. So I actually see what is happening here as a gift to Churchill.

Yes you are correct I'm starting to realise slowly that you can do pretty much what you like , It doesn't seem to matter about supply and bases or shipping if you can afford it you can ship units all over the globe or base entire fleets out of a few small harbours which leads to in historical events, I would be interesting to see how the Italian ships would cope with the Atlantic Ocean as I believe there ships were designed more for speed but obviously SC doesn't model that (shame) Lets see how this pans out I guess I need to be prepared for Sea lion.