A "No-Whiners" challange for v1.50

[Mynok]

I wonder what kind of jap player will agree to this. Heroic? Challenge seeking? Utter stupid? Center piece of the jap war plans was getting surprise at Pearl and destroying as much allied war assets in PI and SE Asia as possible. As I see it handing away surprise for nothing can't be a brilliant move by any jap player.

I'll second mc3744. I sunk nearly every capital ship that began at Pearl because my opponent ran. Plus, few planes can transfer out of Pearl due to range, so I got a big whack on those too.

Please run. Please. I lost more Kates than in a normal Pearl attack, but Ironbottom sound was a good bit further northeast than historically, too.

[:D]

[forranger]

I'm your allied player then after 1.5 is out. I seriously doubt you'd sink more of my BB's and sack more of my planes from PH than in a surprise setup. Plus: You'd probably live to regret that you can only destroy a fraction of planes on the ground, especially those on PI and in Malaya. Think of all these P40B's that can be saved for use by AVG, B17 squadrons which will be ready for action way sooner and the allied search capability which will be operational right from the start. I guess this will hurt japs more in the early phase, and I guess there's not enough to compensate for that.

By the way I'm not biased toward playing Allies, most of my pbem time was as jap. There's only one way to convince me that giving up jap surprise is a smart move: Send me your first turn..........

[Tom Hunter]

Forranger is operating from a point of view that seems pretty common among people posting to this board, and one that I used to beleive when I started my first game, but don't believe any more.

In summary that point of view says that a single turn's events can be very important for the game. In one respect that is true, the turn you CVs or BBs sink, or the turn Singapore falls (to either side) is important. But I will argue that the dramatic turn is actually the product of planning over many turns. Good planning over time is what sinks the CVs or makes the objective fall. If you have good long term planning you will take the objective or sink the ships, the actual day that occurs is pretty much incidental.

Suprise on December 7th or no the Japanese player is getting the results of previous preperation by the historical Japanese military. After that its up to him, no amount of success or level of failure is on December 7th is going to change that.

[kaiser73]

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

Forranger is operating from a point of view that seems pretty common among people posting to this board, and one that I used to beleive when I started my first game, but don't believe any more.

In summary that point of view says that a single turn's events can be very important for the game. In one respect that is true, the turn you CVs or BBs sink, or the turn Singapore falls (to either side) is important. But I will argue that the dramatic turn is actually the product of planning over many turns. Good planning over time is what sinks the CVs or makes the objective fall. If you have good long term planning you will take the objective or sink the ships, the actual day that occurs is pretty much incidental.

Suprise on December 7th or no the Japanese player is getting the results of previous preperation by the historical Japanese military. After that its up to him, no amount of success or level of failure is on December 7th is going to change that.

The point is that the no whiners challenge actually represents a big advantage for Allies in the setup. that's what i post about. then there is no doubt with good planning you can achieve the same results. but let's say the odds are even more for Allies than in a house ruled PBEM.

It makes a difference for allies to have all their BB safe on 8th. a smart player will create single different BB TF and will send them out in different directions meaning you will be lucky to get in range of just 1.
As it makes a difference to save all their airpower in PI and Malaya on turn 1. it means japan will lose lot of shipping and aircrafts.

sure Japan can get SRA anyway. but with much more losses. and while Allies just need to not lose CV, Japan is hurt by any loss.

[forranger]

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

Forranger is operating from a point of view that seems pretty common among people posting to this board, and one that I used to beleive when I started my first game, but don't believe any more.

In summary that point of view says that a single turn's events can be very important for the game. In one respect that is true, the turn you CVs or BBs sink, or the turn Singapore falls (to either side) is important. But I will argue that the dramatic turn is actually the product of planning over many turns. Good planning over time is what sinks the CVs or makes the objective fall. If you have good long term planning you will take the objective or sink the ships, the actual day that occurs is pretty much incidental.

Suprise on December 7th or no the Japanese player is getting the results of previous preperation by the historical Japanese military. After that its up to him, no amount of success or level of failure is on December 7th is going to change that.

Tom, I agree to your point that good planning is needed throughout the game, especially for jap players. But you fail to see the point I tried to make here: Perfect planning later won't compensate for giving away the element of surprise that was crucial for Japan's entry into the war (crippling US navy and allied air assets was the center piece of the initial japanese strategy). If you're convinced that beginning a scenario with allies on full alert is no big deal for the jap player then I'll be happy to take you on. You jap, me allies, after patch 1.5.

In general: Folks who are not willing to play such a scenario as japs should better stop defending such an unbalanced game setup.

[WiTP_Dude]

Wrong button. PM.

[Iridium]

ORIGINAL: forranger

Tom, I agree to your point that good planning is needed throughout the game, especially for jap players. But you fail to see the point I tried to make here: Perfect planning later won't compensate for giving away the element of surprise that was crucial for Japan's entry into the war (crippling US navy and allied air assets was the center piece of the initial japanese strategy). If you're convinced that beginning a scenario with allies on full alert is no big deal for the jap player then I'll be happy to take you on. You jap, me allies, after patch 1.5.

In general: Folks who are not willing to play such a scenario as japs should better stop defending such an unbalanced game setup.

I just don't believe that in '41, even if alerted, the US would fair all too well against Japan. The BB's were old, your CV's are dispersed and too few, and the schwerepunkt is at PH on turn 1. It's a simple case of overwhelming strength concentrated at one point. Even if you had both CV's around PH, I doubt much good would come of it. I doubt what the US could do unprepared for war.

[denisonh]

Here is an idea for a "non-historical" scenario:

It would be nice to simulate the Japanese uncertainty of the locations and strengths of the enemy, a factor that caused them to be much more conservative than their WitP counterparts who have 100% exact intelligence on the enemy locations, strengths and capabilities (can't do much about that one).

So have the Allied player outline his own defense of Malaya, DEI, Indo-Burma and Phillipines and have a third party "redeploy" the allied forces to support the Allied players "own" defense plan (not abandonment plan). The idea is that the players would play a scenario modded by a third party to reflect the Allies having thier chance at changing the plan without mitigating the Japanese surprise.