Should changing the aircraft upgrade path cost Political points?

[Kereguelen]

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner

I voted yes. Probably the exp loss would be better, but i do think that you must pay something for switching.
I do also agree with those who think that this new feature should not be allowed to allies. Their Airwarfare situation is already good enough. It's just Japan that has problems with nates and oscars in the first months of war.

Hi,

it seems that you've never played the Allies. I'd say that the Wirraway and P-39 squadrons the Allies have are not really "good enough".

But you're nevertheless somwhat right when you mean that Allied upgrades should not be completely free. Australian squadrons should only allowed "Australian" (Kittyhawk etc.) upgrades, British sqn. "British" upgrades and so on. But if I understand the developers correctly, this is what they plan. And with such upgrades the Allies would be restricted enough as they don't get so many good planes (P-40B, P-40D, Kittyhawk, Hurricane) in the early game. They still need good planes to be available. At least for me the availability of "good" planes is always the main problem when playing the Allies and I don't see this problem solved with a "free" upgrade path (and that is a good and realistic thing IMHO).

No real need to worry for the Japanese, the free upgrade path rule won't unbalance the game in favor of the Allies!

K

[Tankerace]

I play Allies all the time, and I love my P-39s. Put a group or two of P-39s in with a group or 2 of P-40s, and the P-40s handle the fighters while the P-39s blow the Betties all to hell with their 37mm cannon.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

I play Allies all the time, and I love my P-39s. Put a group or two of P-39s in with a group or 2 of P-40s, and the P-40s handle the fighters while the P-39s blow the Betties all to hell with their 37mm cannon.

Me too!

[Tankerace]

In my current Scen 27 game, July 42, 1 Group of P-40Es and a Group os P-39Ds between them have 350 kills at Port Moresby... The Zeroes get mauled, on the few days the Japs don't send any to cover the Betties.... hooo-eeee. I just crammed a 2nd Group of P-40s in there and I got such total air supieriority I could send my carriers within 120 miles of Rabaul and they were safe.... netted me 3 CAs and both the Nagatos.

[mikemike]

ORIGINAL: Apollo11

Hi all,


It's not just modern jets that are sophisticated and require long transition.

How can anyone think that following changes (from current WitP v1.40 upgrade scheme for Allies) do not require long transition time:

P-39D -> P38G
B-18A -> B-17C
B-17E -> B-24J

Those aircraft are so different that no one can expect that same pilot (or crew) who flew older aircraft can jump into new one and fly with same skill and same efficiency in matter of days (and we have exactly this situation in WitP)...

The trouble with hitting "experience" when changing a unit to a different type is that "experience" as used in this game expresses more than just the skill in handling a particular type, there are also such things like situational awareness, tactical flexibility, the ability to guess what a particular adversary´s tactics would likely be, folded into this variable. All these things wouldn´t be impacted by a change in equipment, and so shouldn´t be penalized for that. Anyway, as pilots are handled individually in WitP, you couldn´t just apply a blanket experience penalty like in Pacwar, you would have to apply that penalty individually to each pilot, its size factored on the pilot´s total experience with some random component.

[mikemike]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

I voted yes.

Reason? Gamey tactics. While no one would do it, without any hit it would be possible to go from A6M2s to A6M3s (assuming you had them) to A5M4s, and Back to A6M2s. The player should have to do something to facillitate a change. That said, I don't mind if they don't pay PPs, but if the pay in supply, HI, etc. But the player should not be allowed that as soon as all planes get shot down he can instantly up or downgrade and get new planes. I applaud giving the player a choice, but lets not make it gamey.

True. Changing equipment should exact a price. However, if you really want realism, then every single piece of equipment delivered to a unit should cost, and that includes all upgrades, "historical" as well as player-selected ones, and all replacements . Even if you regard aircraft that are produced anyway as "free of charge", it would cost resources to get them to the units, resources that even on the Allied side would always have to be obtained in competition with other users. The universe is structured against there ever being a sufficient supply of the things you really need.

And now to another peeve of mine in regard to the grognard faction. They seem to regard equipment changes as they happened in history as sacrosanct. But face it - equipment changes happened based on where a particular unit was operating, what task it had, what the military situation was, what its chain of supply was etc. So how is it historical when, say, at the end of 1942, a Jap fighter unit that historically operated in New Guinea at the time but in the game is sitting on the Home Islands, were to be re-equipped with Tonys, while a different unit in Wewak would be forced to keep its Oscar I´s, because in RL this particular unit had been in some backwater area. That´s ahistorical writ large!

All I ask of a game of the WitP kind is that it lets me do all that could have been done in RL and that it produces a plausible outcome, even if it never hasppened like this in actual history. That´s why we are playing these games after all: to see if we can do better than the historical leaders.

[mikemike]

ORIGINAL: medicff


I also voted yes for the penalty. But the food for thought is that the Japanese will see the benefit very early on with better planes and production that isn't challenged by losses, while the allies won't benefit much at all in the early days until they start to stockpile and roll over any IJN force. So I don't know if complete choice of paths is going to be helpful to playbalance. I think players just like to micromanage and get rid of their non performing equipment.

BTW if this equipment (AKA the Nate) was sooo bad, then why didn't the Japanese just change the squadrons to all zero's historically? Politics. So allowing any type of changes we are even more so pulling away from history. I agree that we should be allowed to go backwards to excess pool planes if we are short. There must be a stiff penalty to go outside the upgrade path, otherwise the change may create more problems with game balance.

A frequent type of complaint. Will this be a change that might enable the Japanese (god forbid!) to delay defeat until November, 1945?

Game balance! To you Allied fanboys out there - you start the game with very precise information about Japanese Forces, intentions, capabilities, reinforcements that the Allies just didn´t have in RL. This gives the game a severe ahistorical slant right from Day One. Or do you make your game choices based entirely on intelligence, war plans, staff thinking, supply situation, and political decisions that the Allies actually had at that point of time historically?

[Kereguelen]

ORIGINAL: mikemike

ORIGINAL: medicff


I also voted yes for the penalty. But the food for thought is that the Japanese will see the benefit very early on with better planes and production that isn't challenged by losses, while the allies won't benefit much at all in the early days until they start to stockpile and roll over any IJN force. So I don't know if complete choice of paths is going to be helpful to playbalance. I think players just like to micromanage and get rid of their non performing equipment.

BTW if this equipment (AKA the Nate) was sooo bad, then why didn't the Japanese just change the squadrons to all zero's historically? Politics. So allowing any type of changes we are even more so pulling away from history. I agree that we should be allowed to go backwards to excess pool planes if we are short. There must be a stiff penalty to go outside the upgrade path, otherwise the change may create more problems with game balance.

A frequent type of complaint. Will this be a change that might enable the Japanese (god forbid!) to delay defeat until November, 1945?

Game balance! To you Allied fanboys out there - you start the game with very precise information about Japanese Forces, intentions, capabilities, reinforcements that the Allies just didn´t have in RL. This gives the game a severe ahistorical slant right from Day One. Or do you make your game choices based entirely on intelligence, war plans, staff thinking, supply situation, and political decisions that the Allies actually had at that point of time historically?

That's true, but the same applies to the Japanese side, doesn't it[;)]?

Always the problem with "history" games...

[Mr.Frag]

That's true, but the same applies to the Japanese side, doesn't it ?

Not quite true, Japan started the war ... they *did* plan it, bad plan, but at least they had one [:D]

[medicff]

ORIGINAL: mikemike

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

I voted yes.

Reason? Gamey tactics. While no one would do it, without any hit it would be possible to go from A6M2s to A6M3s (assuming you had them) to A5M4s, and Back to A6M2s. The player should have to do something to facillitate a change. That said, I don't mind if they don't pay PPs, but if the pay in supply, HI, etc. But the player should not be allowed that as soon as all planes get shot down he can instantly up or downgrade and get new planes. I applaud giving the player a choice, but lets not make it gamey.

True. Changing equipment should exact a price. However, if you really want realism, then every single piece of equipment delivered to a unit should cost, and that includes all upgrades, "historical" as well as player-selected ones, and all replacements . Even if you regard aircraft that are produced anyway as "free of charge", it would cost resources to get them to the units, resources that even on the Allied side would always have to be obtained in competition with other users. The universe is structured against there ever being a sufficient supply of the things you really need.

And now to another peeve of mine in regard to the grognard faction. They seem to regard equipment changes as they happened in history as sacrosanct. But face it - equipment changes happened based on where a particular unit was operating, what task it had, what the military situation was, what its chain of supply was etc. So how is it historical when, say, at the end of 1942, a Jap fighter unit that historically operated in New Guinea at the time but in the game is sitting on the Home Islands, were to be re-equipped with Tonys, while a different unit in Wewak would be forced to keep its Oscar I´s, because in RL this particular unit had been in some backwater area. That´s ahistorical writ large!

All I ask of a game of the WitP kind is that it lets me do all that could have been done in RL and that it produces a plausible outcome, even if it never hasppened like this in actual history. That´s why we are playing these games after all: to see if we can do better than the historical leaders.

You say you want to alter history. You say allied allied fanboys complain about allowing the IJN to completely concentrate on the best of the best. At what point is this game about any history. Do you take what forces you had historically and then just modify the strategy and tactics? Or do you take the production capacity and alter the way it was set and the strategy and tactics? Or do you take the production ability and alter the way you could make war materials, alter the way capacity is set, and alter the strategy and tactics?

The allies cannot change their production and make it any more effiecient (not that they need to), but they also cannot change which units were produced or research and development time frame either.

My point is at what point is their some history to model the game after. Why not just make it two sides with equal forces starting on opposite sides of the map

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: medicff

ORIGINAL: mikemike

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

I voted yes.

Reason? Gamey tactics. While no one would do it, without any hit it would be possible to go from A6M2s to A6M3s (assuming you had them) to A5M4s, and Back to A6M2s. The player should have to do something to facillitate a change. That said, I don't mind if they don't pay PPs, but if the pay in supply, HI, etc. But the player should not be allowed that as soon as all planes get shot down he can instantly up or downgrade and get new planes. I applaud giving the player a choice, but lets not make it gamey.

True. Changing equipment should exact a price. However, if you really want realism, then every single piece of equipment delivered to a unit should cost, and that includes all upgrades, "historical" as well as player-selected ones, and all replacements . Even if you regard aircraft that are produced anyway as "free of charge", it would cost resources to get them to the units, resources that even on the Allied side would always have to be obtained in competition with other users. The universe is structured against there ever being a sufficient supply of the things you really need.

And now to another peeve of mine in regard to the grognard faction. They seem to regard equipment changes as they happened in history as sacrosanct. But face it - equipment changes happened based on where a particular unit was operating, what task it had, what the military situation was, what its chain of supply was etc. So how is it historical when, say, at the end of 1942, a Jap fighter unit that historically operated in New Guinea at the time but in the game is sitting on the Home Islands, were to be re-equipped with Tonys, while a different unit in Wewak would be forced to keep its Oscar I´s, because in RL this particular unit had been in some backwater area. That´s ahistorical writ large!

All I ask of a game of the WitP kind is that it lets me do all that could have been done in RL and that it produces a plausible outcome, even if it never hasppened like this in actual history. That´s why we are playing these games after all: to see if we can do better than the historical leaders.

You say you want to alter history. You say allied allied fanboys complain about allowing the IJN to completely concentrate on the best of the best. At what point is this game about any history. Do you take what forces you had historically and then just modify the strategy and tactics? Or do you take the production capacity and alter the way it was set and the strategy and tactics? Or do you take the production ability and alter the way you could make war materials, alter the way capacity is set, and alter the strategy and tactics?

The allies cannot change their production and make it any more effiecient (not that they need to), but they also cannot change which units were produced or research and development time frame either.

My point is at what point is their some history to model the game after. Why not just make it two sides with equal forces starting on opposite sides of the map

[:D]

[Ron Saueracker]

This seems like a lock. A drawn battle in a hopeless war against revisionism and fantasy.

[freeboy]

another "Ronism"

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: medicff
My point is at what point is their some history to model the game after. Why not just make it two sides with equal forces starting on opposite sides of the map

Chess. Stratego. Marriage.

[herbieh]

I voted yes, but only if you can choose freely the next a/c, and only if
it means a certain manufacturer loses business to another manufacturer.
ie, upgrading a mitsubishi plane costs little, changing from mitsubishi to nissan a lot

[mikemike]

ORIGINAL: Kereguelen

That's true, but the same applies to the Japanese side, doesn't it[;)]?

Always the problem with "history" games...

True, the same applies to both sides, but...
The Japanese were much better at keeping secrets before Pearl Harbor, so knowledge in the Western intelligence community about the Japanese war machine, its plans, tactics, capabilities, and equipment was fairly limited. This goes even for the Allied military and political leadership. Most Americans, including the majority of the Services community (except the AVG, of course), would have been surprised to hear that Japanesee aircraft were not constructed with rice paper and bamboo sticks. Therefore, the Allies in the first few months of the war were constantly surprised by what the Japanese could actually do. Do you think Tom Phillips would have operated Force Z against the landings in Kuantan without air cover if he had known the IJNAF could effectively attack his ships with planes based in Saigon? And that´s only one example. This kind of thing is why the nonhistorical slant against the Japanese side due to hindsight is so much more severe than the other way around.

[mlees]

Do you think Tom Phillips would have operated Force Z against the landings in Kuantan without air cover if he had known the IJNAF could effectively attack his ships with planes based in Saigon?

Yes. He was promised RAF fighter support that never showed up. (They were busy with their own problems...)

Just nitpicking the one comment. [;)]

However, if the nonhistorical anti-Japanese slant is so severe, why does AAR after AAR show the Japanese far exceeding their historical gains, and in less time? All of the Allied players there can't be such boobs...

It seems as if the "slant is in the eye of the beholder".

[Tankerace]

Phillips was such a staunt supporter of battleships that I believe it was Captain Leach (Commanding PoW) said "Tom, when if a [airplane] bomb ever hits us, you'll yell 'My God, what a hell of a mine!'" Don't know who said it, but the statement is real.

[mikemike]

ORIGINAL: medicff


You say you want to alter history. You say allied allied fanboys complain about allowing the IJN to completely concentrate on the best of the best. At what point is this game about any history. Do you take what forces you had historically and then just modify the strategy and tactics? Or do you take the production capacity and alter the way it was set and the strategy and tactics? Or do you take the production ability and alter the way you could make war materials, alter the way capacity is set, and alter the strategy and tactics?

I think you are not quite getting the core of my argument, so I will try an example:

Let´s say it´s February, 1943. The most modern army fighters available are the Ki-43-II, the Ki-44, and the Ki-61-I. You notice that your bombers in the CBI will fly no missions because you can´t generate enough fighter escort. You have to provide more fighters in that area. You decide to release the 244th Sentai fron the Home Defence Force. They have Ki-27s. They will need to be updated, but the update path goes to the Ki-61, which is useless because of its limited range. What you need is the Ki-43-II. You could also take the 203rd, which has Ki-43-Is, but their upgrade path also lands you with the Ki-61. Now you´re f****d. It´s not gamey (I hope) to use units in areas they didn´t go and for tasks they didn´t have in RL, but you have to pay a penalty when you try to give them the appropriate equipment (which, after all, is one of the Jobs of a CinC). Why? Because you tried to CHANGE HISTORY! Shame upon you! Mr. Saueracker would probably argue you shouldn´t change an upgrade path because it is Written. To this I quote Lawrence of Arabia: "Nothing is written!"

The allies cannot change their production and make it any more effiecient (not that they need to), but they also cannot change which units were produced or research and development time frame either.

Exactly. The Allies don´t need to, they get deluged with all the goodies they would ever want. I, playing as Japanese, can live without R&D, it doesn´t have much of an effect anyway (except eating up resources). Switching production is a different matter. There are arguments that that would have been nearly impossible in real life due to interservice rivalry or industrialist´s interests. Bah. Basically, Nakajima built all the Army fighters, and Mitsubishi built all the Navy fighters. If you switch from the Oscar to the Frank, where is the conflict of interests? Japan was not much of a capitalist country, either; if necessary, the Tenno could have asked, as a personal favor, that Mitsubishi switch to building Franks and they would have jumped to it. You will never be able to produce and crew enough top aircraft to make a real difference, anyway.

[mikemike]

Ah, Mr. Saueracker, you seem to be a Reenactor. Let me guess. You will be playing PBEM games, because the AI might not keep to real events. You will play one turn per day. Maybe your game has started on a December, 7th. You will play as Allies. Your adversary will like sushi.

You will meet each evening with the fellow mwmbers of your group, who will each command one national service. You will be dressed in correct, appropriate, uniforms. The gentleman handling the British forces will have a walrus mustache, pepper his dialogue with phrases like "By Jove!" or "Good show, that, what" and insist on regular tea breaks. The gentleman handling the Australian forces will have a generous supply of canned beer. You will all have the official War Diaries of all the Commands involved which will guide your every action, step by step. There will be a strict code of honour keeping every participant from straying off the Path Of History. In four years, the Japanese will surrender, much to your satisfaction. You will have proven that the war in the Pacific couldn´t have had any other outcome.

Sounds like fun. (Warning - this statement is intended to be ironic)