How can you guys stand PBEM?

[Halsey]

This was why I brought up the Zero bonus in another thread. How many new upgraded Zero squadrons can be brought online before the bonus is gone? Maybe they should have left this for the mod scenarios.

Will this now be the standard for the historical scenarios too?

I don't think it's unreasonable to fix the deadend Nate and Oscar paths. I do think it's a mistake to allow the paths to be changed for everything. That goes for either side.

[mogami]

Hi, The only aircraft that can upgrade to A6M2 is the A5M and it upgrades to that without any rule change. The only thing that regualtes upgrading A5M is production of A6M2 and that is not effected by rule change.

[dtravel]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

I thought it was agreed that this would not be done because of this BS hindsight side effect.[:-]

From the original description it sounds like this would be optional. If the player wants to stay with the original upgrade path he just doesn't use this. (Yes, yes, another house rule.)

[Halsey]

I can live with that![:D]

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR
dblock coming.

Now yes, v1.41 with the upgrade paths will allow the Japanese player to equip (if he can) the entire land based navy with Frank/Georges and the IJA with the other one if he so desires. Fighters that is. All this does is allow the player to really streamline his production of a/c. No more producing 5 different IJA fighters, 5 different IJA fighters etc.

See, this is what is ruining the little that is right about this game. One of the severe problems the Japanese faced was the hierarchical disconnects and inter-service conflicts that resulted in their fractionating aircraft production and proceeding in a hopelessly inefficient way.

Can we have history in a historical simulation? No, of course not. Once again, we have to kiss the Japanese fanboys' arses at the expense of Allied arms. You people don't want to be placed in a tough historical situation where you have to work creatively with what you are provided. All you want is revisionism.

I tell you, I'm getting tired of the whole BS routine.

[WiTP_Dude]

I don't know the details yet but it sounds like a troubling development. The Japanese side will see a big boost in their fighting potential if they can scrap all those lesser aircraft groups for better ones. The Allied side is surely going to want the same kind of options. This takes the game yet further away from simulation and closer to revisionism and fantasy.

[erstad]

ORIGINAL: WiTP_Dude

I don't know the details yet but it sounds like a troubling development. The Japanese side will see a big boost in their fighting potential if they can scrap all those lesser aircraft groups for better ones. The Allied side is surely going to want the same kind of options. This takes the game yet further away from simulation and closer to revisionism and fantasy.

But it's optional. Personally, I agree with you. Even playing as Japanese, I think having a wide variety of aircraft with varying abilities just adds spice - instead of a homogenous group of the "best" aircraft, to play well I need to maximize use of all air in the best role I can find for it - including Sonias, Idas, and Hickory's. However, there is clearly a sizable contigent of folks who would rather have this control (at the expense of realism), and it's not illogical for Matrix to provide that option. I don't plan to use it in my games, and you don't have to either. (And if we end up being the lonely few in that camp, maybe it's time for the two of us to play a game

[WiTP_Dude]

Sure it's optional and you don't have to use it. However results using all these new toys can't really be called a simulation of the war. I mean they could give the US side jets in 1944 and make it optional. Does it make any more sense because it's optional?

[Reiryc]

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR
dblock coming.

Now yes, v1.41 with the upgrade paths will allow the Japanese player to equip (if he can) the entire land based navy with Frank/Georges and the IJA with the other one if he so desires. Fighters that is. All this does is allow the player to really streamline his production of a/c. No more producing 5 different IJA fighters, 5 different IJA fighters etc.

See, this is what is ruining the little that is right about this game. One of the severe problems the Japanese faced was the hierarchical disconnects and inter-service conflicts that resulted in their fractionating aircraft production and proceeding in a hopelessly inefficient way.

Can we have history in a historical simulation? No, of course not. Once again, we have to kiss the Japanese fanboys' arses at the expense of Allied arms. You people don't want to be placed in a tough historical situation where you have to work creatively with what you are provided. All you want is revisionism.

I tell you, I'm getting tired of the whole BS routine.

Who said the player has to upgrade his equipment? [&:]

Playing a pbem and don't want the players to upgrade all the units, then state that up front.

Seems like a bunch of whining over nothing when your complaint can be easily solved by a house rule. As for the AI, I doubt it will be corrected to choose appropriate aircraft from the list, chances are good it will continue as it has always done and go with the default upgrade path.

[Reiryc]

ORIGINAL: WiTP_Dude

Sure it's optional and you don't have to use it. However results using all these new toys can't really be called a simulation of the war. I mean they could give the US side jets in 1944 and make it optional. Does it make any more sense because it's optional?

There are plenty of abstractions in this game. Just because your comfortable with abstraction A doesn't mean abstraction B is wrong. If it's optional, then what difference does it make?

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: Reiryc
Who said the player has to upgrade his equipment?

Yeah, that's what sophisticated game design is all about.

Seems like a bunch of whining over nothing when your complaint can be easily solved by a house rule.

Thanks for respecting, then responding intelligently to, my post.

[WiTP_Dude]

ORIGINAL: Reiryc

There are plenty of abstractions in this game. Just because your comfortable with abstraction A doesn't mean abstraction B is wrong. If it's optional, then what difference does it make?

The question is whether the abstraction makes sense in terms of making a simulation covering the War in the Pacific. I just don't see how having both sides load up with super aircraft advances the simulation.

[Reiryc]

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

ORIGINAL: Reiryc
Who said the player has to upgrade his equipment?

Yeah, that's what sophisticated game design is all about.

Seems like a bunch of whining over nothing when your complaint can be easily solved by a house rule.

Thanks for respecting, then responding intelligently to, my post.

Np, glad to help.

[Reiryc]

ORIGINAL: WiTP_Dude

ORIGINAL: Reiryc

There are plenty of abstractions in this game. Just because your comfortable with abstraction A doesn't mean abstraction B is wrong. If it's optional, then what difference does it make?

The question is whether the abstraction makes sense in terms of making a simulation covering the War in the Pacific. I just don't see how having both sides load up with super aircraft advances the simulation.

If it's optional, then can people agree to not do this if desired?

If they both agree to not do this, then where is the problem?

[ZOOMIE1980]

....We've been playing monsters since the early 90's. You just have to stop looking at it as playing a game and more as a way of life. LOL

What a truely sad statement....

[pasternakski]

Yeah. This is what I need:

1. Design the game
2. Publish the game
3. Sell the game
4. Shut up and play the game

All this self-important "gee, I know it all, and if I would have designed it, it would have been like this, so here's my mod and here are my cute little suggestions, so now we're all going to putz around and enjoy each other's company, because PBEM and modding are SO good when shared among US and the game will be so much better when OUR fantasies (known to us as ideas) are incorporated ..."

I think I'll fire up my C64 emulator for a round of "Carrier Force."

This show's so good, it ought to be on television.

[WiTP_Dude]

ORIGINAL: Reiryc

If it's optional, then can people agree to not do this if desired?

If they both agree to not do this, then where is the problem?

Good points, something to think about.

[CaptDave]

Personally, the only problem I find with the AI is that there are too many forum threads where people reveal what the AI is going to do (or not do). After some time it may not be the most intelligent opponent on the face of the planet, but neither will I be.

That said, I'm definitely looking forward to some good PBEM at some point, too. That's the only way to guarantee a lack of advance knowledge of the enemy's plans! In the meantime, since I have very little time available to play (besides my 9½-hour-per-day paying job, I'm the corporate secretary of a not-for-profit organization and I'm working on my MBA), the AI is good for learning the game. I've been playing the same scenario since mid-August and I'm only up to mid-January 1942 in the war; how many PBEM opponents would put up with that (any volunteers out there?)? When I do get a chance to play, I find out how little I know about such things as supply, command structure, and so on (I'm doing all right on the combat side of things, aside from forgetting to put CAP over the Enterprise, with the result it's now the first resident of Iron Bottom Sound, and sending a bombardment TF straight into the face of a Japanese TF with five undetected carriers!). But, as hard as I try, I can't get out of my head some things I know to expect from the AI (I won't reveal them here). As I say, though, it's a much better tutorial than the actual tutorial is.