History or Balance

[Kwik E Mart]

ORIGINAL: Mynok


That's an interesting concept. Reminds me a little of the Empires in Arms system.

exactly...world in flames as well...the beauty of the system is that the players have no one to blame but themselves for VC's that aren't set the way they like them...it works well for games of this size in which thousands of possible strategies are available and playtesting them all is almost impossible...the up front work is setting up the bidding matrix...but i think there's enough intelligent folks around that could handle that task...darn...there i go thinking again [:-]

[Sonny]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl


....................................


Use your forces as you wish...., as long as the rules and capabilities of those forces are held to the same basic physical realities as those of your real life counterparts.

Since you participate in all of the threads I'm sure you are aware of just how many "physical realities" there are - one for just about everyone who posts.

Everyone knows ground combat is screwed. But look at all the "reality" suggestions on how to fix it.

Even more "reality" can be found in the threads on A2A combat.



(BTW - I voted for historical reality.)

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Kwik E Mart

i want a historically accurate game (as much as feasible) that is also balanced...that is why if *I* was designing a game of this scope, i would include variable victory conditions which were different based on a bidding system that two players would go thru before starting the game. a total point systsem could be generated in which geographic, manpower/material/ship/plane losses and political objective subtotals would be added together. these could be updated each year of the game to allow for auto-victories. for example, japan decides that by the end of 1942 he can control cities x,y,z with no more losses than x manpower, y planes/pilots and z ships and with an invasion of australia, he increases the first two totals by some multiplier to pay for the political impact of invading austraila. the allied player makes a similar bid and they are compared to come up with an auto-victory situation for that year. who cares who wins the war...the players have agreed to a set of objectives that will determine victory. think of it like making the "contract" in a game of bridge before playing the hand.

of course this is a very basic description of how the VC's would be generated, but the point is that the two players playing the game decide what victory looks like for THEIR game. otherwise, there could be playtesting til the cows come home to try and come up with "balanced" VC for a campaign game.

Maybe this is why I can't understand you folks. I've never paid any attention to the "victory conditions" in WITP at all. With 1600 turns at this level of detail, I have enough to think about without worrying about what someone else thinks is "winning". I know if I think I'm winning or losing, and at the end I will know if I've won or lost. Why would I want to spend hundreds of hours worrying about someone else's notions of what "winning" is? I'm damned sure the Joint Chiefs didn't spend any time worrying that if they didn't hold "X" island, or take "Y" port, by "Z" date, that God was going to step in and say the War was over and the other side had "won". Now I will worry that if I'm not in position to finish the war by the Summer of 1945 my opponant will be razing me for months about it. And as the Japanese, if I score a "reverse Midway" or wreck an attempt to invade Kwajalien, he's going to hear about it..., and if I'm still hanging in there at the end of 1945 he's never gonna hear the end of it.

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl
Maybe this is why I can't understand you folks. I've never paid any attention to the "victory conditions" in WITP at all. With 1600 turns at this level of detail, I have enough to think about without worrying about what someone else thinks is "winning". I know if I think I'm winning or losing, and at the end I will know if I've won or lost. .......

You know- there is a lot of truth in that. I've been playing the same team PBEM since last Dec 7th (2005), it's now July 15th 1942 in our game. I know what's happening in our game - but I have never considered it in terms of "winning or losing the game".
I just know there is a war on - and it's going to be a long war.

Friends have asked before "so, who's winning", and all I can tell them is "well, nobody - it's going to take years at this rate". I don't think that they even understand that at this point, after all this time spent - it isn't a matter of winning the game - it's a matter of finishing the war...

B

[Mynok]

Friends have asked before "so, who's winning", and all I can tell them is "well, nobody - it's going to take years at this rate". I don't think that they even understand that at this point, after all this time spent - it isn't a matter of winning the game - it's a matter of finishing the war...

Might I suggest that we actually think of it as a game instead of a re-enactment?

[kafka]

Might I suggest that we actually think of it as a game instead of a re-enactment?

Indeed, we need a new poll to determine whether this is a game at all! [:D]

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Mynok
Might I suggest that we actually think of it as a game instead of a re-enactment?

Might I suggest that you THINK! Chess is a game..., but each piece has very carefully described and circumscribed capabilities. That's what the REALITY folks are asking for. If you insist on allowing your pawns to move as queens, you aren't Bobby Fischer..., and you aren't playing chess. If you allow the "pieces" in WITP to move and act in ways that the historical units they represent could not---or you give yourself more pieces than the real side had; you aren't Yamamoto..., and you aren't playing the War in the Pacific! Save it for the EDITOR, and whatever version of historical fantasy you want to make it into.

[kafka]

Chess is a game...,

yes, and a balanced one. It depends on the player's skills to win or to loose, not a priori on the game itself

[Ursa MAior]

Someone stated that chess is the first wargame. Well WITP is one too and probably among the most complicated. If someone wants balance he/she should set up the forces along the opposite map edges with equal VC's on a simmetrical map. Although modern combat is more complex than it could be precisely modelled (apart from technology, luck and morale plays a much more important role than most of us including the game desgners would lke to admit), one should try to build a model which brings historical results.
As of VPs, although not perfet there is no other solution (yet) to show the relative worth of geographical spots. I like the idea that these values are far from identical for both sides. IMHO noone plays to reach say 4512 VPs, but to conquer important (ie high value) places.

A game representing a HISTORICAL period should strive to recreate it as much as possible. If someone wants an even battle, well, that's why editors were invented. I'd like to see a Yamato vs Musashi or an Iowa vs Revenge + POW battle not to mention Shokaku vs Taiho. Maybe will try out one of those sopme time, but until then would like to be in Yamato's or Nimitz's shoes.

A game with less detail can be also very exciting, if the system is well thought, see chess. Sometimes less detail is better than more.

[kafka]

A game representing a HISTORICAL period should strive to recreate it as much as possible.

Eventually one could define WitP as a wargame which allows the players to create alternative outcomes of the war in the pacific within the historical constraints (yet to be defined). If you want a kind of fantasy within historical restrictions. Neither winning nor loosing but creation of historical alternatives?

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: Mynok
Might I suggest that we actually think of it as a game instead of a re-enactment?

Might I suggest that you THINK! Chess is a game..., but each piece has very carefully described and circumscribed capabilities. That's what the REALITY folks are asking for. If you insist on allowing your pawns to move as queens, you aren't Bobby Fischer..., and you aren't playing chess. If you allow the "pieces" in WITP to move and act in ways that the historical units they represent could not---or you give yourself more pieces than the real side had; you aren't Yamamoto..., and you aren't playing the War in the Pacific! Save it for the EDITOR, and whatever version of historical fantasy you want to make it into.

Careful Mike..Some of these guys never had the intent to play a game designed from the ground up around an actual historic event. It's fairly obvoius they were looking for something more along the lines of RISK or AXIS and ALLIES, a game where everybody has the same number of pieces and winning was purely decided on mental prowess and tactical decision, rather than the confines of the historical constraints of availibility,supply,national will,etc.
If historical correctness were any consideration whatsoever, it would be much easier for them to understand our historical forefathers won that war by more than a series of "flukes", lucky moves, or "a roll of the die"(?)..
You can try to explain the "auto-victory" conditions, or even pre-game "house rules" to them, (as if speaking to a child), but some people will never be convinced once their mind is made up.
Send 'em to "Toys 'R US" and wish 'em well................[8D]

[Ursa MAior]

I accept the burden to be called non-PC but then why these people dont get lost and play with RTS-es? Because it is a genre for balance fans. Or they should play Crown of Glory the prime example of these unhistorical equlitarian games.

If someone has a problem with understanding what a HISTORICAL WARGAME is, why does he play? Kafka has put it together precisely, what a historical wargame is. I want one of those. Not an Imperial Glory type desecration of a historical period. IF the KB was not able to hang around PH then he should not be able to do so. Period.

HISTORICAL WARGAMES ARE FOR GROGNARDS NOT FOR GFX AND FANTASY fans! If I were a publisher I would separate the two groups.

[juliet7bravo]

Yes, but the KB could have hung around PH. So the player should be able to do so, though it might not have been real smart. But who knows, maybe he catches the USN carriers. Maybe he catches the remnants of the USN fleet fleeing PH. Maybe he launches another strike (or two) and levels the fuel storage and machine shops. Maybe he gets his butt handed to him on a plate. Or runs out of fuel. HIS decision, not one handed to him by the past actions of some dead guy.

Historocity (sp?) shouldn't be an excuse to save a player from his own ignorance or stupidity...or to keep him from displaying his possible strategic/tactical genius either. Historical and realistic gameplay is a framework, not a straight-jacket.

As an example...should players re-fight a Midway type battle each game? No, because from the Japanese perspective it was a stupid plan, and without gain to offset the potential costs. No "miracle" where the IJN supremacy in carrier airpower is leveled at a single stroke. So we've just introduced a new reality where the IJN maintains dominance in the Pacific longer. Sooooo...maybe there goes the Solomons and possibly Noumea. Or PM. Maybe now Australia gets cut off. How does the war progress now? Who knows? Because it's a new reality.

But it's a "new reality" based on realistic and historical CAPABILITIES, not on sci-fi "War in the Pacifica Galaxy", and not on "well, that's the way it was". There's plenty of room for both "sides" here...and I'm not talking about the Japanese and the Allies.

[TulliusDetritus]

m10bob, you shouldn't look down on people who do not want 100% history (or who want some/a lot of fantasy). Every opinion must be respected. And above all, it's their problem. I will never tell people how they should be playing this game. It's their game, they bought it, just like everyone [;)]

[Mynok]

but each piece has very carefully described and circumscribed capabilities. That's what the REALITY folks are asking for.

All for it.

If you insist on allowing your pawns to move as queens, you aren't Bobby Fischer..., and you aren't playing chess.

Strawman. No one's espousing this view, yet it keeps coming up. Wonder why that is? [8|]

[Mike Scholl]

Yes, but the KB could have hung around PH. So the player should be able to do so, though it might not have been real smart. But who knows, maybe he catches the USN carriers. Maybe he catches the remnants of the USN fleet fleeing PH. Maybe he launches another strike (or two) and levels the fuel storage and machine shops. Maybe he gets his butt handed to him on a plate. Or runs out of fuel. HIS decision, not one handed to him by the past actions of some dead guy.

NOT for any extended time. In the game it can, because it moves all the way there with virtually no fuel expended. In the real world, they could have hung around maybe another day or two, then they had to sail back to meet their tankers (and not, the tankers weren't full either---they were the same ones that had been refueling them on the way out). Nagumo probably made a mistake in not launch another couple of strikes on the 7th. But the players who want to hang around "bushwhacking" things for another couple of weeks are exercising an option that Nagumo never had.

[Ursa MAior]

ORIGINAL: juliet7bravo

Yes, but the KB could have hung around PH.

Yes for one more attack. Not multiple days.

Maybe he launches another strike (or two) and levels the fuel storage and machine shops.

And how is this feasible in WitP?

Maybe he gets his butt handed to him on a plate. Or runs out of fuel. HIS decision, not one handed to him by the past actions of some dead guy.

No I dont want to be restricted by Nagumo's error, but yes I want to avoid such STUPID mistakes such as running out of fuel. IIRC it has not happened to any major warship (DD and upwards) or convoy merchant ship in WW2.

Historocity (sp?) shouldn't be an excuse to save a player from his own ignorance or stupidity...or to keep him from displaying his possible strategic/tactical genius either. Historical and realistic gameplay is a framework, not a straight-jacket.

Yes and no again. In my current PBEM I am advancing as IJN faster than historical while suffering huge losses. It is OK my choice, BUT this framework MUST NOT BE so flexible that it allows completely unhistorical scenarios (e.g. running out of fuel).

As an example...should players re-fight a Midway type battle each game? No, because from the Japanese perspective it was a stupid plan, and without gain to offset the potential costs. No "miracle" where the IJN supremacy in carrier airpower is leveled at a single stroke. So we've just introduced a new reality where the IJN maintains dominance in the Pacific longer. Sooooo...maybe there goes the Solomons and possibly Noumea. Or PM. Maybe now Australia gets cut off. How does the war progress now? Who knows? Because it's a new reality.

Agreed, but it is not an excuse to have coordinated US CV airstrikes with 150 planes in 4/42 or to be able to produce more than 420 Tojos in a month. Someone noted that after turn 2 it is not historical, but let me ask who is THAT stupid to want to replay again and again the same thing. Yes I want free, but historical choices vs complete freedom.

[mdiehl]

Maybe he launches another strike (or two) and levels the fuel storage and machine shops.

Mobile force did not have the capability with the munitions in its inventory or the aircraft at its disposal to substantially damage the fuel storage depots or machine shops, much less "level" them. Loitering near PH was doable, but the most likely consequence was the pointless depletion of DaiIchi KB's aircraft and pilot pool against ground targets that it could not substantially affect.

[mdiehl]

Agreed, but it is not an excuse to have coordinated US CV airstrikes with 150 planes in 4/42 or to be able to produce more than 420 Tojos in a month.

The US launched coordinated strikes against multiple targets in 4/42. Particularly germane are the trans-Owens-Stanley range raid in (IIRC) March, by Lexington and Yorktown, which was a very well coordinated strike. At Midway, the two factors that took much of the starch out of the USN's attacks was Enterprise's group leader's decision not to fly the course he was allegedly given -- resulting in a coordinated strike package of F4Fs, the Scout Bombing squadron, the Attack Bombing squadron [both SBDs] and the Torpedo Bombing Squadron going astray. Of these, the TBDs diverted to the correct course. But there's no reason to imagine that sort of thing was typical of the USN. The other of the two factors was Hornet's consistent piss poor performance, in which bumbling efforts she was rivalled by the recon assets of Mobile Force, especially Tone.

I think the 150+ plus plane US coordinated strike is, as a matter of alt-history, less contingent upon (false) assumptions of USN incapability and instead more contingent on the CVs doing the attack. I can *easily* see a well coordinated 150 plane strike coming off of Enterprise, Yorktown, and Lexington operating together pretty much any time after 7 December. Based on "Shattered Sword" I'd have to peg down Hornet's performance initially. But if the USN exercised Hornet in a suite of learning experience raids in, say, the Marshalls, I would expect Hornet to be potentially very capable of delivering a well coordinated strike package in concert with other USN CVs in April 1942.

[pauk]

ORIGINAL: Ursa MAior

Agreed, but it is not an excuse to have coordinated US CV airstrikes with 150 planes in 4/42 or to be able to produce more than 420 Tojos in a month. Someone noted that after turn 2 it is not historical, but let me ask who is THAT stupid to want to replay again and again the same thing. Yes I want free, but historical choices vs complete freedom.

For all "mega-ultra-history fanboy" i suggest togle on/off for the japanese production.

Limited control of the japanese war industry was enabled to simulate assumption that Japan leaders realised the danger and turn their economy to the total war production (like US did - that's why Allied player can not interfere in his industry). Furthermore, it obvious that Japan couldn't run his industry based on total war demands without resources and oil. So, expanding war industry is possible only if the player capture oil and resources intact. If not, but despite that he expand his industry he is screwed...


So I'm agree with you - WiTP isn't 100 % historical simualtion. But i do want to have "what if".... what if Japan capture oil and resources intact, what if i realise that Allies would get Hellcats and Corsairs in the 1943 (hey, i'm at least smart as any Allied player who has correct prediction[:D])...

Besides that, 400 Tojos per month wont change the outcome of the war. You need decent airmen to fly them, that is the problem....

There is no completely freedom for Japan. There is no freedom at all - make a one mistake and you are screwed....

In short, i think that toggle on/off option would be good - for all historical issues (toggle on for historical oil/resource damage, japanese war industry....)...

Then all you have to do is founding the opponent.....