Brave Sir Robin

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl
What *would* help is to put a very strong time bias in the early war, such that the longer the Allies hold out in their historical at-start positions, the more VPs the Allies get. And it should be exponential, such that for example having even a single brigade hold out on Bataan until May 1942 pays off more in VPs for the Allies than they lose in men and material casualty VPs accorded to the Japanese.

This won’t make any difference. The allies can’t increase the time it take Japan to conquer half the map by more than a week or two if they stay and fight. That’s the essence of the problem. Ground combats are far too quick in WitP, so sticking around to fight simply kills off your troops for at most a gain of maybe one day.

Ground combat would have to be overhauled first before the allies could change the opening months of the war enough to make something like this viable.

A division, no matter how inexperienced, took a very long time to reduce, even if totally outclassed and massively outnumbered. In WitP it goes away like a puff of smoke in a single battle. This is the main issue with ground combats. Units need staying power, even very bad units.

Jim

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: herwin

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

Faced with ridiculous and historically impossible japanese invasion scheduales, allied players are perfectly justified in simply bugging out.

Exactly. Japanese early war capacity is radically overestimated, and the air to air combat routine so utterly flawed in favor of the Japanese that the entire strategic picture painted by WitP is radically different from the one that existed in the real world, and delivers to the Japanese player the ability to entertain objectives and employ strategies that were never available to the real Japanese. This allows them to exploit hindsight in ways that the Allied player cannot.

According to Richard Berg, Operation "IAI was one of the key historical examples of economy of force. The Japanese gained the majority of their objectives within one month of Pearl Harbor. EOTS allows you to see the broad outlines of this conquest and much of the initial order of battle is designed to give some insight into the complexity of this multi-dimensional plan. Due to the small-scale nature of some of these operations that are below the granularity of EOTS, although all key features are accounted for, some of the smaller detachments are subsumed into the broader tapestry of the game design. It is important to note that the card indicates that there are no Allied ZOI during this Offensive. The order of the Japanese moves would be different if this had to be taken into account."

Note that this suggests:
1. Japanese historical performance was damn near optimal.
2. Japanese historical performance took advantage of a lack of allied air assets.
3. The plan was a strategic surprise.

In EOTS, the standard game begins on the first turn of 1942, making the assumption that Allied leadership took that long to get their initial act together.

Harry - It appears that the entire discussion revolves around the issue of whether to design the Game in pbem mode to allow a Japanese player to acheive the Historical results during the first six months of time, or whether to design the Game to allow the Allied player the ability to stop a Japanese player from achieving those initial six months results.

My interpretation of the design of the current Game is that it is tailored to allow a Japanese player to achieve the first six months historical results, and then is tailored to allow an Allied player to achieve the historic moves from the South Pacific and eventually through the Central Pacific for the rest of the game.

What throws the Game out of kilter is that the same factors that allow a Japanese player to achieve the first six months' worth of conquests can also allow a Japanese player to go beyond those conquests if he moves quickly and decisively enough. Likewise, the factors that allow the Allied player to come back in the rest of the game allow the Allied player to achieve re-conquests faster than the historical Allied re-conquests if he chooses different strategies from the Historical strategies.

So while this design decision works well for playing against the AI, it causes discord for pbem play, because each side wants to be able to improve their results over the Historical results.

I'm not sure that there is an answer for pbem. No player enjoys playing a game where he feels that he can't "win", but all of the arguements and proposals being put forward essentially devolve into arguments on how one side rather than the other should have the ability to "win".

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns


[

ORIGINAL: treespider
IIRC AE has modified this routine to the effect: if the bridgehead has AV = % of the defending AV then a shock attack will not be initiated by the follow-up forces.

This totally flies in the face of all military logic. Establishing a bridgehead against well fortified troops behind a river was one of the hardest military operations to pull off in WWII and required more forces not less.

But with this crazy rule you send a small detachment into the hex and it suffers the shattering affects of the crossing. This then automatically assumes this tiny fraction of the force achieves a bridgehead for some bizarre reason and the next day your huge army crosses the river unmolested.

Who on earth thought up this stupid rule? It has no basis in reality and is the opposite of historical river crossings.

Now *if* the tiny advancing force was automatically retreated if it lost the battle, then the rule would be fine. But if I read the rule right, it is guaranteed to create a bridgehead no matter what.

Ridiculous!

River crossings were a bitch and a half, this rule makes them easy as pie and not very costly to an attacker either.

Jim

You did not read the rule correctly and you immediately jump up and down having never seen the rule in action. Please read the rule again and think about it before refering to the rule as stupid.

When crossing a river - if you do not already have forces on the enemy side of the river that are at least a minimum % of the defending side (In otherwords a bridgehead of sufficient size to cope with the enemy) you will launch a Shock attack.

I do not currently recall what the % is but I think it may be something like 50%. So if you cross a river against 4 divisions you need to have at least 2 divisions survive the attack to establish the bridgehead. Anything less than 2 and your reinforcements will also shock attack....until you have at least the needed % to establish a secure bridgehead.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1

Harry - It appears that the entire discussion revolves around the issue of whether to design the Game in pbem mode to allow a Japanese player to acheive the Historical results during the first six months of time, or whether to design the Game to allow the Allied player the ability to stop a Japanese player from achieving those initial six months results.

My interpretation of the design of the current Game is that it is tailored to allow a Japanese player to achieve the first six months historical results, and then is tailored to allow an Allied player to achieve the historic moves from the South Pacific and eventually through the Central Pacific for the rest of the game.

What throws the Game out of kilter is that the same factors that allow a Japanese player to achieve the first six months' worth of conquests can also allow a Japanese player to go beyond those conquests if he moves quickly and decisively enough. Likewise, the factors that allow the Allied player to come back in the rest of the game allow the Allied player to achieve re-conquests faster than the historical Allied re-conquests if he chooses different strategies from the Historical strategies.

So while this design decision works well for playing against the AI, it causes discord for pbem play, because each side wants to be able to improve their results over the Historical results.

I'm not sure that there is an answer for pbem. No player enjoys playing a game where he feels that he can't "win", but all of the arguements and proposals being put forward essentially devolve into arguments on how one side rather than the other should have the ability to "win".

Operation IAI was nearly optimal, while Operation Z was a strategic blunder of the first water. After the first month, the balance slowly swung to a neutral position by August 1942. The Japanese were able to hold it there until the counteroffensive started at the end of 1943.

Assuming Operation Z takes place, the Allied goal would be a better start position in late 1943/early 1944, while the Japanese goal would be a worse Allied start position for that offensive. If Operation Z does not take place, the Allies would have had a different task--defeating Japan by the end of 1943--to avoid a stalemate. (Now you see why Yamamoto was a fool as a strategist. There is limited PBEM experience that no Operation Z would have resulted in an earlier War Plan Orange offensive.)

As a game against the computer, WiTP has to be tuned so that an AI can play the Japanese side through Operation IAI and into the spring nearly optimally. Thereafter the AI needs to provide a reasonable level of opposition. If the AI is playing the Allied side, the Japanese basically need to be limited (by the same things that limited them in reality) so that they end up at a comparable high water mark. Thereafter a computer AI should be able to run a War Plan Orange offensive by rote.

As a PBEM, the game has to be tuned so that a Sir Robin strategy loses the Allied side too much, a bunker strategy provides at best marginal improvements in the Allied starting position (Nov 43) against a competent Japanese player, and a Japanese fantasy strategy is over the top in terms of Allied counter-attack opportunities. This translates into realistic logistic and planning constraints.

In other words, the middle of the war position should be recognisable and reflect a short-term strategic balance between the sides.

[herwin]

As stated, it sounds good. The question is what % is necessary, especially given that the defence has a short-term counterattack advantage against the bridgehead. Probably the % should be in terms of effective rather than raw combat power. Thus, an 80% disrupted division would have serious problems against anything larger than an infantry regiment. You need a raw superiority of 4-1 or better to have the effective combat power to advance against a fortified line, cross a defended river, or make an assault landing.

[Dive Bomber1]

As a PBEM, the game has to be tuned so that a Sir Robin strategy loses the Allied side too much, a bunker strategy provides at best marginal improvements in the Allied starting position (Nov 43) against a competent Japanese player, and a Japanese fantasy strategy is over the top in terms of Allied counter-attack opportunities. This translates into realistic logistic and planning constraints.

In other words, the middle of the war position should be recognisable and reflect a short-term strategic balance between the sides.

Your suggestions are very reasonable in my opinion. That is the Game that I would like to see for pbem.

Thanks -

[moses]

The Japanese player is capable of completely undermining the allied position on turn one by exploiting the first turn movement. Without severe restrictions there is little hope for anything approaching an historical type game. I would never play such a game but if forced to as allied I would see mass retreat as the only rational option.

By severe I mean allow PH and stock invasions of Malaysia. All other Japanese ships remain in port.

With such a restriction it is possible to have a semblance of historical feel in spite of the already mentioned game weaknesses.At least the Japanese player must then support his offensives logically.

It then allows the allied player to use his "superweapons" (heavy bombers and single ship surface forces) to offset Japans' superweapons (Betty's/Nells/and uber KB and virtual logistic independence) and to compensate a little for the fact that his ground forces are stupendously fragile.

A certain suspension of disbelief is required but at least such a game can be competitive, fun, and plausably believable. (remember some suspension of belief)

[Oldguard1970]

Roger N's post #157 was great.  I share his fascination with the tension of playing the allies in the early war.
 
Roger said: 
 
"So the key problems of the game, to me are: 1. Unit designations die with the troops ..."

"To counter [this] the best I have come up with is to pull cadres out where possible"
 
Bingo!  That defines the problem very well. 
 
Consider the two USA armored units in the PI.  If the allied player fails to evacuate a cadre, he can never recreate the units.   ("I'm sorry general, we have the tanks waiting on the docks, but we cannot build a tank battalion for you because we lost the colors on Luzon, and nobody knows how to get the War Department to authorize a new set.")  Accordingly, like Roger, I also try to save a cadre of key units so I can reconstitute them for future use.  This creates a wonderful problem for the Allied player as he has to allocate scarce PPs and shepherd the cadres back to be reconstituted.
 
My Japanese opponent and I agreed to a house rule preventing the use of submarine troop transport.  That means I cannot wait until a unit is on its last legs, pay a minor PP cost, and rescue the cadre by sub.  Instead, I have to find a way to use air transport or sea transport to salvage a cadre.  That puts more stress on the PP account and also leads to some nail biting as I wonder if the AK or AP carrying a unit fragment will survive the Japanese gauntlet. 
 
 

[bradfordkay]

"My Japanese opponent and I agreed to a house rule preventing the use of submarine troop transport. That means I cannot wait until a unit is on its last legs, pay a minor PP cost, and rescue the cadre by sub. Instead, I have to find a way to use air transport or sea transport to salvage a cadre. That puts more stress on the PP account and also leads to some nail biting as I wonder if the AK or AP carrying a unit fragment will survive the Japanese gauntlet. "

I don't think that I would agree to this restriction. I heavily used the available transport to relocate my troops during the first six months of the war, but by the time it came to rescuing defeated troops there was no way that any ships could get in. I know, because I tried. I lost well over a hundred AKs in the period of Japanese expansion, and am still suffering in early '43 from a lack of transport capacity due to my efforts to try and keep the PI supplied and use those ships to withdraw troops.

My thoughts are that once the ships can no longer safely get through it is okay to use subs to rescue the cutoff men. This was done historically, after all...

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: treespider
You did not read the rule correctly and you immediately jump up and down having never seen the rule in action. Please read the rule again and think about it before refering to the rule as stupid.

When crossing a river - if you do not already have forces on the enemy side of the river that are at least a minimum % of the defending side (In otherwords a bridgehead of sufficient size to cope with the enemy) you will launch a Shock attack.

I do not currently recall what the % is but I think it may be something like 50%. So if you cross a river against 4 divisions you need to have at least 2 divisions survive the attack to establish the bridgehead. Anything less than 2 and your reinforcements will also shock attack....until you have at least the needed % to establish a secure bridgehead.

Well given this explanation then yes I did read the rule correctly and it is ridiculous and stupid. Rivers were force multiplies in WWII.

In other words you could place a regiment behind a stretch of river and expect it to stop a division or two all on its own. Getting across that river was a major operation and usually took 4-6 times the defenders strength to establish a successful bridgehead.

Your rule has the exact opposite effect. It takes less attacking strength to cross the river than what the defender has and even if the unit gets chewed up, it assumes a bridgehead is achieved automatically as long as you have a little over half of the defenders strength. In other words two regiments can cross a river against a full division and achieve a successful bridgehead every single time.

This is not logical nor does it have any basis in history.

By trying to address the problem of allowing reinforcements to get into a combat hex without triggering a shock attack, you’ve made river defense lines POINTESS as defensive terrain. Rivers should be one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome for an attacker in the game. And they should be force multipliers that increase you unit’s ability to resist against larger attacking forces.

If an attacker fails to achieve a 1-1 attack he should be forced to retreat back across the river to the hex he came from. That would make it a more logical rule. But as long as a failed attack remains in the combat hex after combat, no matter how bad the odds were, the rule stinks and breaks river defenses completely.

Jim

Edit: What we have now isn't much better, but at least it hurts the attacker enough to make rivers a major obsticle.

[mdiehl]

My interpretation of the design of the current Game is that it is tailored to allow a Japanese player to achieve the first six months historical results, and then is tailored to allow an Allied player to achieve the historic moves from the South Pacific and eventually through the Central Pacific for the rest of the game.

I think your interpretation is a complete misread of the situation. I can't say for sure what the game was designed to do, but as IS it results in the Japanese achieving far more than the historical results in far less time, rather than allowing a Japanese player to achieve the first six months historical results." Given the frequency with which Ceylon, India, Port Moresby, continental Alaska, Hawaii, Johston Island, New Caledonia, and Australia are invaded, there is absolutely no question about the Japanese player being able to "achieve the historical results." Indeed, there is no question about the Japanese player being able to regularly EXCEED the historical results. And that is the core of the problem and why Sir Robin is chosen regularly.

You can defend the PI to the death as the Allied player. It won't alter the Japanese timetable, and the Japanese player will be able to vastly exceed the historical defensive perimeter regardless of what you do in the PI. At least "Sir Robin" allows the Allied player to deny a few CVPs to the Japanese.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: treespider
You did not read the rule correctly and you immediately jump up and down having never seen the rule in action. Please read the rule again and think about it before refering to the rule as stupid.

When crossing a river - if you do not already have forces on the enemy side of the river that are at least a minimum % of the defending side (In otherwords a bridgehead of sufficient size to cope with the enemy) you will launch a Shock attack.

I do not currently recall what the % is but I think it may be something like 50%. So if you cross a river against 4 divisions you need to have at least 2 divisions survive the attack to establish the bridgehead. Anything less than 2 and your reinforcements will also shock attack....until you have at least the needed % to establish a secure bridgehead.

Well given this explanation then yes I did read the rule correctly and it is ridiculous and stupid. Rivers were force multiplies in WWII.

In other words you could place a regiment behind a stretch of river and expect it to stop a division or two all on its own. Getting across that river was a major operation and usually took 4-6 times the defenders strength to establish a successful bridgehead.

Your rule has the exact opposite effect. It takes less attacking strength to cross the river than what the defender has and even if the unit gets chewed up, it assumes a bridgehead is achieved automatically as long as you have a little over half of the defenders strength. In other words two regiments can cross a river against a full division and achieve a successful bridgehead every single time.

This is not logical nor does it have any basis in history.

By trying to address the problem of allowing reinforcements to get into a combat hex without triggering a shock attack, you’ve made river defense lines POINTESS as defensive terrain. Rivers should be one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome for an attacker in the game. And they should be force multipliers that increase you unit’s ability to resist against larger attacking forces.

If an attacker fails to achieve a 1-1 attack he should be forced to retreat back across the river to the hex he came from. That would make it a more logical rule. But as long as a failed attack remains in the combat hex after combat, no matter how bad the odds were, the rule stinks and breaks river defenses completely.

Jim

Edit: What we have now isn't much better, but at least it hurts the attacker enough to make rivers a major obsticle.

What you fail to consider is the fact that in AE we have 46 mile hexes in WitP they are 60 miles.

The attacker need only have the superiority in numbers to which you refer at the point of the spear. Part of the art of river crossings is to deceive the defender as to your true crossing point.

Once the Assault force is across they need only to establish a bridgehead long enough to allow for the reinforcements to be brought across.

So the larger the defending force, the more forces the attacker has to bring to cross the river, because far more of the river front will be covered by the defense.

------

As to history I'm sure we can dig up several accounts of a successful crossing and establishment of a bridgehead by an assault force having less than the 1:1 in an area covered by a 46 or 60 mile hex....only to be reinforced the following day by the main force.

-----

And by the way, retreat is a possible outcome of a failed river assault.

[moses]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

...I can't say for sure what the game was designed to do, but as IS it results in the Japanese achieving far more than the historical results in far less time, rather than allowing a Japanese player to achieve the first six months historical results." Given the frequency with which Ceylon, India, Port Moresby, continental Alaska, Hawaii, Johston Island, New Caledonia, and Australia are invaded, there is absolutely no question about the Japanese player being able to "achieve the historical results." Indeed, there is no question about the Japanese player being able to regularly EXCEED the historical results.

And not only can these locations be taken, but they can be held with no real logisitical difficulty. And at the same time Japan can greatly exceed its historical production.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

My interpretation of the design of the current Game is that it is tailored to allow a Japanese player to achieve the first six months historical results, and then is tailored to allow an Allied player to achieve the historic moves from the South Pacific and eventually through the Central Pacific for the rest of the game.

I think your interpretation is a complete misread of the situation. I can't say for sure what the game was designed to do, but as IS it results in the Japanese achieving far more than the historical results in far less time, rather than allowing a Japanese player to achieve the first six months historical results." Given the frequency with which Ceylon, India, Port Moresby, continental Alaska, Hawaii, Johston Island, New Caledonia, and Australia are invaded, there is absolutely no question about the Japanese player being able to "achieve the historical results." Indeed, there is no question about the Japanese player being able to regularly EXCEED the historical results. And that is the core of the problem and why Sir Robin is chosen regularly.

You can defend the PI to the death as the Allied player. It won't alter the Japanese timetable, and the Japanese player will be able to vastly exceed the historical defensive perimeter regardless of what you do in the PI. At least "Sir Robin" allows the Allied player to deny a few CVPs to the Japanese.

Mdiehl is right, the game isn’t really “tailored”, in the sense of a “plan” to allow this early, and a “plan” to do that later to compensate; the game just works how it works, it’s linear.

He’s also right in that “things” allow the Japanese to achieve far more than the historical results in far less time, resulting in numerous a-historical responses, such as Sir Robin, the Bunker, and the invasion of Oregon. These are only the results of efforts by players to ‘run the margins’ and see what it takes to win. OK.

It will be far harder to do this in AE. Most of us have played the game for ages and know the standard defects very well. Maybe we over-compensated, maybe not, but we’ll be watching and listening very closely and ‘patches’ are a way of life .. yeah?

I’m sure interested in what kinds of defensive moves develop under the new system. I’m also interested in what a good player can do with the new Japanese limitations. Life will be different.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: treespider
What you fail to consider is the fact that in AE we have 46 mile hexes in WitP they are 60 miles.

The attacker need only have the superiority in numbers to which you refer at the point of the spear. Part of the art of river crossings is to deceive the defender as to your true crossing point.

Once the Assault force is across they need only to establish a bridgehead long enough to allow for the reinforcements to be brought across.

Bull, this is a tactical/operational consideration (not a part of the land game in WitP) being applied to justify the negating of river defense lines.

ORIGINAL: treespider
So the larger the defending force, the more forces the attacker has to bring to cross the river, because far more of the river front will be covered by the defense.

Again you’re using tactical/operational considerations that have no place in the game. I can see a bridgehead being achieved at one place in the line by a small force, but your rule then permanently unhinges the river defense of 10, 15, 20 corps or more in the large hex. What about them, they are still sitting behind a river line but your small assault force just forced them out of their strong positions too?

Tactical considerations are all abstracted into the massive scale of the game. It is wrong headed to use them to justify this rule. Everything needs to stay on a large strategic abstract level equal to the scale the land model represents.

A 60 mile river line should not be considered negated because one or two points were crossed in some whimsical tactical fantasy thought to occur within the hex. It should only be negated when a level of force large enough to negate the entire defending force has crossed, which is two or three times the TOTAL defending force at the minimum.

ORIGINAL: treespider
And by the way, retreat is a possible outcome of a failed river assault.

This is a good thing, but the retreat should be mandatory every time, not just possible. And again I stress a successful battle should represent all forces in the hex being forced off the river, not just a tiny percentage of them.

Jim

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

Again you’re using tactical/operational considerations that have no place in the game. I can see a bridgehead being achieved at one place in the line by a small force, but your rule then permanently unhinges the river defense of 10, 15, 20 corps or more in the large hex. What about them, they are still sitting behind a river line but your small assault force just forced them out of their strong positions too?

Again you are misreinterpreting the rule. If you have a 10 corps river defense line then the small force that needs to cross the river to unhinge your defense is at least the size of 5 corps - not a battalion.

Tactical considerations are all abstracted into the massive scale of the game. It is wrong headed to use them to justify this rule. Everything needs to stay on a large strategic abstract level equal to the scale the land model represents.

...the game is so abstract that we detail every squad, rifle, tank and machine-gun and artillery piece down to how effective each item is vs armored or unarmored targets to include the range on a daily basis.

A 60 mile river line should not be considered negated because one or two points were crossed in some whimsical tactical fantasy thought to occur within the hex. It should only be negated when a level of force large enough to negate the entire defending force has crossed, which is two or three times the TOTAL defending force at the minimum.

So 5 corps are insufficient to establish a bridgehead for one single day against 10 corps along a 60 mile front?

[ChezDaJez]

What you fail to consider is the fact that in AE we have 46 mile hexes in WitP they are 60 miles.

Isn't that a 40 mile hex in AE?

mdiehl said:

You can defend the PI to the death as the Allied player. It won't alter the Japanese timetable, and the Japanese player will be able to vastly exceed the historical defensive perimeter regardless of what you do in the PI. At least "Sir Robin" allows the Allied player to deny a few CVPs to the Japanese.

I have to differ with you. Brad's defense of the PI significantly delayed my advance. I had to bring in more troops to rectify the situation which definitely affected how fast I could move on other areas.

We have to be careful about lumping all Japanese players into the fantasy category. While I agree it is ahistorical in the extreme to capture India, Australia and other areas, not all players make such attempts. As I have stated before, players need to find like-minded players in order to minimize any dischord. Matching a historical player with a fantasy player is unlikely to produce a satisfactory game.

AE is most definitely going to slow down the Japanese advance with the many changes in AE expecially to the way transports are treated. In addition, the number of torps available to ANY unit will be greatly so massed raids of torpedo-equipped Bettys or any other type aircraft will be difficult if not impossible.

These changes will effect both sides but will affect the Japanese player far more. I expect that the "next generation" of complaints will revolve around the rapidity of the allied advance in AE.

Chez

[Dive Bomber1]

These changes will effect both sides but will affect the Japanese player far more. I expect that the "next generation" of complaints will revolve around the rapidity of the allied advance in AE.

Is that supposed to be a "good thing"?

From all that I'm reading about AE, I've got to wonder who will bother playing the Japanese side in pbem, and why. It is the very opportunity to go beyond the boundries of history that makes the current Japanese side interesting at all.

Will we now have a game in which the challenge will be for the Japanese player to avoid being conquered by January 1, 1943?

I will be very interested in seeing the first few AARs from the beta testers.

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

My interpretation of the design of the current Game is that it is tailored to allow a Japanese player to achieve the first six months historical results, and then is tailored to allow an Allied player to achieve the historic moves from the South Pacific and eventually through the Central Pacific for the rest of the game.

I think your interpretation is a complete misread of the situation. I can't say for sure what the game was designed to do, but as IS it results in the Japanese achieving far more than the historical results in far less time, rather than allowing a Japanese player to achieve the first six months historical results." Given the frequency with which Ceylon, India, Port Moresby, continental Alaska, Hawaii, Johston Island, New Caledonia, and Australia are invaded, there is absolutely no question about the Japanese player being able to "achieve the historical results." Indeed, there is no question about the Japanese player being able to regularly EXCEED the historical results. And that is the core of the problem and why Sir Robin is chosen regularly.

You can defend the PI to the death as the Allied player. It won't alter the Japanese timetable, and the Japanese player will be able to vastly exceed the historical defensive perimeter regardless of what you do in the PI. At least "Sir Robin" allows the Allied player to deny a few CVPs to the Japanese.

What is wrong with a Japanese player being able to exceed the Historical results in pbem? Shouldn't that option be in the game? If it is wrong for a Japanese player to exceed the Historical results or the historical time table, is it equally wrong for an Allied player to exceed the historical results and historical time table?

[ChezDaJez]

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1

These changes will effect both sides but will affect the Japanese player far more. I expect that the "next generation" of complaints will revolve around the rapidity of the allied advance in AE.

Is that supposed to be a "good thing"?

From all that I'm reading about AE, I've got to wonder who will bother playing the Japanese side in pbem, and why. It is the very opportunity to go beyond the boundries of history that makes the current Japanese side interesting at all.

Will we now have a game in which the challenge will be for the Japanese player to avoid being conquered by January 1, 1943?

I will be very interested in seeing the first few AARs from the beta testers.

Don't read too much into my statement. It was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.

It will be much harder for the Japanese player to mount mulitple large-scale invasions simultaneously but India, Australia, Ceylon and others will still be available for conquering... just don't try to do it all at once! If you do, you will most likely fail at all of them against even a mediocre opponent. You may succeed with one but the allied player should have sufficient forces and hand to make it painful when you try for the next.

Chez