Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

And if Japan had done a smash and grab in Jan '42, the US production would have ramped up even more than before.

No it wouldn't have. It was already ramping up, as fast as possible, for total war. Maybe the US war machine could have been a bit more efficient - but it didn't need to be, so it wasn't. Historically, it was already marvelously efficient (at least relative to the rest of the world). But lots of things took time to get set up, and once set up they were already (historically) pumping matierale out as fast as they could.

"He's already pulled over, he can't pull over any farther!"

or

"I'm givin' 'er all she's got, capt'n"

Kinda like that.

I totally disagree. We were no where close to having our economy in a despeate "total war" situation in WW2, unlike what was seen in Germany, Japan.

Of course we dramatically outproduced them in aggregate, but we weren't at capacity like they were.

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

As far as defending the WC against Japanese invasion if an invasion happened... well I think that if the invasion does happen, tons and tons of permanently restricted, static "Militia" units should be created... to represent the "old cowboy with a hunting rifle" that would defend his home, that Japan was "so scared of" when the idea of a WC invasion was floated around the IJN/IJA.

The "militia" you're wanting to happen are supposed to be represented by the garrison requirements for bases. I'm not sure if all of the CONUS bases have garrison requirements, but I wouldn't be surprised if nearly all of them did and many of them would be substantial.

As for the rest, you have the emergency reinforcements package.

No, I'm not talking about government trained troops. I'm talking about the 60 year old wanna be cowboy with a lever action winchester. These guys. These guys are what Japan feared in an invasion of the US. That there'd be a "cowboy with a rifle behind every tree", and there would be.

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

Also, again, as far as defending the WC against the Japanese, or Germans for that matter, we did that anyway.

But the OP didn't. That's part of the point.

WOuldn't have mattered anyway.

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

My grandfather spent most of 1942 tearing up golf courses and installing AA units.... in Chicago, Illinois. (later he got shipped and fought in Germany). Needless to say, my grandfather (much like myself) did not have any patience for stupidity (he refers to Roosevelt as the "king idiot surrounded by a cabal of idiots"... and calls Poland the "pariah of nations, that will sell themselves to whoever gives them a better deal").... railed time and time again about the idiocy of "digging up golf courses to defend against aircraft that don't exist, and would never be able to reach Chicago by flying over the north pole. Yet another example of the clueless idiots in Washington"...

Well that's just like, your opinion, man. And his.

I wonder how helpful those airfields were for training, beyond just security. One of those airfields in Chicago eventually became O'Hare International Airport. It sure was mighty stupid of us to build that airport, wasn't it?

He wasn't putting AA guns on airfields. He was putting them on golf courses. On the southwest side of Chicago. No where near anything of importance except some cornfields.

The man was a genius. Spent most of his post WW2 career in "special weapons." He started in the military as a private, retired as a brigadier general. And he was no "politican suck-up perfumed prince type.".

Eagles Don't Flock.

That was his saying.

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

So we were defending the US, all of it, against threats, both real and imagined. And if Portland's shipyard was "destroyed", it would be rebuilt. Quickly.

Maybe. Probably. There would be intangibles and ramifications from an invasion like this one that would perhaps influence it being built somewhere else, like perhaps... I dunno, New Orleans or something. Gotta think about the logistics of it and all that steel. The big ol' river would be useful. *shrug* But see below....

The intangibles and ramifications would be that the US went into a "total war" economic setting, and every hill-billy-bobby-jack cowboy of any and every age would be marching to get them some Japs!

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

At best I think the Japanese could hope for small delays in the ships coming "online".... but for all those ships to magically go "poof"? I don't buy it.

This is the only part of the argument I agree with, but it's a game and there are abstractions. These abstractions are fine. Mitigating this consequence would be needlessly complicated (aside from Hans's suggestion of modifying the UI to make the player more aware, but I've already pointed out why that's not necessary and borderline impractical).

It may be impractical to patch a game that's 10 years old, yeah,.... but that still doesn't make the original choice a 'good decision'

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

I disagree. In UV, if you take Nomeua, that’s it game over. In reality, the US would have staged their forces a little more to the south and you get a few days delay before they would be “in-theater”.

Same goes for Portland in WITP. If you take it as the Japs in this game, that’s it, none of those ships get built, ever. In reality, they’d be built elsewhere, or built after a "factory rebuild delay" once the Japs get pushed out. Same goes for all the other factories on the West Coast.

The things you mention are not equivalent, and the loss of the ships at Portland is not "Game over, man!"

LOL you play the game with out all those ships, planes, etc. that come from the NorthWest, and see how well you handle the late game strategic bombing campaign

Sir Robin is a strategy that allows the Japs to get auto-victory and should never be used, and any JFB that encounters it should rejoice, as they will be able to win the war and not suffer through the "dark times" of '44 - '45. IMO.

Full aggressive action by the Allies is the best course of action. IMO.

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

And if Japan had done a smash and grab in Jan '42, the US production would have ramped up even more than before.

No it wouldn't have. It was already ramping up, as fast as possible, for total war. Maybe the US war machine could have been a bit more efficient - but it didn't need to be, so it wasn't. Historically, it was already marvelously efficient (at least relative to the rest of the world). But lots of things took time to get set up, and once set up they were already (historically) pumping matierale out as fast as they could.

"He's already pulled over, he can't pull over any farther!"

or

"I'm givin' 'er all she's got, capt'n"

Kinda like that.

I totally disagree. We were no where close to having our economy in a despeate "total war" situation in WW2, unlike what was seen in Germany, Japan.

Of course we dramatically outproduced them in aggregate, but we weren't at capacity like they were.

You've evidently not done much reading on the topic, if you're suggesting that Germany engaged in "total war". Germany didn't even properly mobilze women, instead using slave labour.

"ps. I won't deny the last accusation is often true, but it is not the source of my passion on this point."
HB

Now were talking

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

Sir Robin is a strategy that allows the Japs to get auto-victory and should never be used, and any JFB that encounters it should rejoice, as they will be able to win the war and not suffer through the "dark times" of '44 - '45. IMO.

Full aggressive action by the Allies is the best course of action. IMO.

BullXXX! Obviously you've never played against someone who played the strategy competently. Many players have successfully used the strategy successfully. BUT, there is a point to end the strategy. Sir Robin should ALWAYS be a withdrawal to regroup forces. One the regrouping is done , THEN it's time for a counter attack. The allied players mission is not to die easily so that you can get off on an easy victory. It's to save and collect enough resources to turn around and kick the JFB's teeth so hard that they fly out his backside. [:D]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: Lowpe


Hopefully, tactics like this will cause a slowdown in the tempo of the game.

+1

If you have to defend, more closely to the historical reality, that would be very true. Wait until we have an AAR with the allies landing Nagoya and destroying all those engine/AC/ships.
That will close the lid on a lot of Jan42 novelties ...

Except that the fantasy you envision is very unlikely. One side starts with a developed industrial complex and a huge concentrated army while the other starts with its pants down.

The Allies don't have a death star capable of steaming unmolested into the heart of the empire to deliver this fantasy invasion you envision.

A clever Allied player could do exactly as PaxMondo suggests. Many Japanese players, because the Japanese land OOB is nowhere near enough for what you need it to do, strip Japan of nearly all combat units very early in the war.

Bullwinkle attempted it against me, in fact. But I didn't leave my coastline without naval search, and he got spotted.

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

The crux of the issue here is the lack of a garrison in Portland. If we are supposed to accept all of these "abstractions" like the complete loss of shipping that was not under construction hen the shipyard was destroyed, why should we also have to accept historical starting locations for the WC LCUs.
Why shouldn't the Allies be entitled to an additional abstraction of an at start garrison for this most valuable and vulnerable of assets?

Japan can't invade CONUS before the Allied player is able to shuffle units around. It's literally not possible. If you haven't moved units to put a garrison at your important bases, that's on you.

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

It's somehow OK to defend the horrendous consequences of this "abstraction", but I don't see anyone offering an additional abstraction to mitigate it.

What you're asking is, essentially, that the game use a different abstraction for the Allied "production" system. But the one that's in the game is the best compromise there is between all relevant factors when you're making a game design decision (utility, ease of use, does it make enough sense, etc.).

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Yes, Sir Robin and Fortress Palembang are weasel tactics. Perhaps a lesser degree of weasel, but weasel nonetheless.

I have personally never utilized either against a human opponent so NOT GUILTY as charged.

Keep grasping at those straws until you can find an indictment you can make stick!

I'm not charging you with anything except having no argument beyond your knee-jerk response that basically boils down to "It's not faaaaaaaaair!" when in fact it is fair. Both players in this game play within the same constraints.

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: HansBolter


Except that the fantasy you envision is very unlikely. One side starts with a developed industrial complex and a huge concentrated army while the other starts with its pants down.

The Allies don't have a death star capable of steaming unmolested into the heart of the empire to deliver this fantasy invasion you envision.

Hans, the Allies don't need a DS. In my Lokasenna game I got US Army troops ashore on Honshu in the early months with no carrier support. You need to play an AI Japan game. The HI are pretty open in the first six months. Fighter production is low, Kate production is zero. There are not a lot of 2E units available unless the front lines are stripped and the perimeter-build sacrificed. IF the Allies want to, they can indeed send suicide forces onto the HI and fusk up aircraft production. It's possible. After doing it, or trying to do it, I don't think it's worth it, but that's what makes the game great. You can decide to try.

Having far less familiarity with the "other" side I was not aware of those vulnerabilities Mooses.

Thanks for delivering me from my ignorance. It puts paid to my argument that what Pax described was pure fantasy.

However, we differ on our take on what makes the game great.

I see an Allied player exploiting that weakness as being just as slimy and weasely as what the Japanese player did here.

I don't see facilitation of slimy weaseely play as a sign of greatness.

If you want to fight a gentleman's agreement game where you each agree not to attack each other's undefended rear areas, that's perfectly fine. Because that's the only way such tactics can be described as slimy or weasely.

This is a war game. You know what they say about love and war. If a player doesn't defend their soft spots, or even make the attempt, or at the very least set up recon/pickets/etc., they have no legs to stand on when their opponent hits them where they're weak.

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

I totally disagree. We were no where close to having our economy in a despeate "total war" situation in WW2, unlike what was seen in Germany, Japan.

Of course we dramatically outproduced them in aggregate, but we weren't at capacity like they were.

You can disagree all you want, but please cite sources on the US being able to produce more substantively more armaments than it did in substantively less time, which is what you claimed. There are real-world constraints on production that you're ignoring.

ORIGINAL: AcePylut


No, I'm not talking about government trained troops. I'm talking about the 60 year old wanna be cowboy with a lever action winchester. These guys. These guys are what Japan feared in an invasion of the US. That there'd be a "cowboy with a rifle behind every tree", and there would be.

Which is what garrison requirements are supposed to represent in the game...

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

WOuldn't have mattered anyway.

How do you know? How can you be sure that the Japanese player wouldn't have been spooked off the invasion if his forces were spotted a day and a half from landing, for example? You can't.

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

The intangibles and ramifications would be that the US went into a "total war" economic setting, and every hill-billy-bobby-jack cowboy of any and every age would be marching to get them some Japs!

So... what happened anyway? Because war fever ran very high, very quickly beginning on December 7.

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

It may be impractical to patch a game that's 10 years old, yeah,.... but that still doesn't make the original choice a 'good decision'

You should go make a game, then.

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

I disagree. In UV, if you take Nomeua, that’s it game over. In reality, the US would have staged their forces a little more to the south and you get a few days delay before they would be “in-theater”.

Same goes for Portland in WITP. If you take it as the Japs in this game, that’s it, none of those ships get built, ever. In reality, they’d be built elsewhere, or built after a "factory rebuild delay" once the Japs get pushed out. Same goes for all the other factories on the West Coast.

The things you mention are not equivalent, and the loss of the ships at Portland is not "Game over, man!"

LOL you play the game with out all those ships, planes, etc. that come from the NorthWest, and see how well you handle the late game strategic bombing campaign

I'd find a way. I've lost comparable numbers of ships early in 1943 and still won out.

Even without all those ships, the Allies still have more than enough stuff. What they may not have enough of, without them, is time for enough stuff to arrive and get it into place. It's the same challenge as a "regular" game, it only changes the degree of challenge.

Using magic move on turn 1 to do this - ultimate in cheese

After that? - its a failure of the allied player to play to combat the worst case scenario

Regarding the argument about whether the game mechanics regarding construction of vessels, probably a fair point but its a mute point if the allied player does his job properly in the first couple of months of the war.

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Both players in this game play within the same constraints.

That is just about the biggest load of horse pucky anyone has ever tried to sell me.

So the Japanese are limited to the actual historical production of war material as the Allies are?

The Japanese can't accelerate ship or aircraft production the way the Allies can't?

The Japanese don't get 4 months of "no prep needed for invasions" like the Allies?

Do I really need to go on?

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58




Hans, the Allies don't need a DS. In my Lokasenna game I got US Army troops ashore on Honshu in the early months with no carrier support. You need to play an AI Japan game. The HI are pretty open in the first six months. Fighter production is low, Kate production is zero. There are not a lot of 2E units available unless the front lines are stripped and the perimeter-build sacrificed. IF the Allies want to, they can indeed send suicide forces onto the HI and fusk up aircraft production. It's possible. After doing it, or trying to do it, I don't think it's worth it, but that's what makes the game great. You can decide to try.

Having far less familiarity with the "other" side I was not aware of those vulnerabilities Mooses.

Thanks for delivering me from my ignorance. It puts paid to my argument that what Pax described was pure fantasy.

However, we differ on our take on what makes the game great.

I see an Allied player exploiting that weakness as being just as slimy and weasely as what the Japanese player did here.

I don't see facilitation of slimy weaseely play as a sign of greatness.

If you want to fight a gentleman's agreement game where you each agree not to attack each other's undefended rear areas, that's perfectly fine. Because that's the only way such tactics can be described as slimy or weasely.

This is a war game. You know what they say about love and war. If a player doesn't defend their soft spots, or even make the attempt, or at the very least set up recon/pickets/etc., they have no legs to stand on when their opponent hits them where they're weak.

So it's a game when you need to rationalize abstractions, but it's a war when you need to rationalize ungentlemanly and unfair game play.

Nice.

If it's a game it should ALWAYS be played gentlemanly and fairly.

"If you want to fight a gentleman's agreement game where you each agree not to attack each other's undefended rear areas, that's perfectly fine. Because that's the only way such tactics can be described as slimy or weasely."
L

scary and messy

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Both players in this game play within the same constraints.

That is just about the biggest load of horse pucky anyone has ever tried to sell me.

So the Japanese are limited to the actual historical production of war material as the Allies are?

The Japanese can't accelerate ship or aircraft production the way the Allies can't?

The Japanese don't get 4 months of "no prep needed for invasions" like the Allies?

Do I really need to go on?

Even with all the love shown Japan, they still lose what...90% of games?

In the real event they lost 100% of them...........

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

In the real event they lost 100% of them...........

Well, they lost one, actually. [:)]

We hear you Hans.

The game has kept evolving over all of these years, which is what I think is great about it. I've never seen this appear in the forums until now. How cool that new stuff is still being discovered.

I also think more payers on both sides are sticking it out when bad stuff happens. This idea that Japanese players drop games after 43 isn't really the case now, if it ever was. It seems like some games end, but it's not because someone had a major setback. It's just life, usually.

When you finally play the Japanese side and see how easy it is I'll listen more carefully to what you're saying. Until then ...

This old gem of a thread has a lot of meat in it. I recco it to all involved in this thread. It starts with a detailed rendition of my Lokasenna game HI landing, then moves into much broader strategic discussions. It's what this forum used to be like in Olden Times.

tm.asp?m=3555379&mpage=1&key=Lokasenna

Buried deep in the thread I posted this. FWIW:

"I understand the context of your comments, but I still take umbrage in general with the word "gamey." It has negative connotations. So does "gaming the game." I just play the game, as designed and coded.

I push back around here on "gamey" because I think too many players use it without thinking about its ramifications. If you use it I believe it is on you to then explain the exact parameters that would merit the withdrawal of the charge. It's a binary. If THIS is "gamey", then at what point is the thing "not-gamey"? And I mean exact parameters no matter into what uncomfortable circumstances they lead. So if landing an SST-worth of troops on the HI is "gamey", how many would not be? If the answer is "it's always gamey", then why? Even in the Fall of 1945 when Olympic was set to go? Or, if the HI is always off limits due to depot activation, how far away do the Allies have to stay? Why is depot division "gamey", but landing on one of the non-national Kuriles a couple of hexes from Sapporo isn't? In that case is an SST gamey, or an APD, or one xAP, or ten APs, or fifty APAs? What's the breakpoint? Justify your answer.

"Gamey" often substitutes for "it makes me uncomfortable" with no attendant analysis or "and so?" next step thinking. That's the problem with it. It doesn't have end-points, and players here usually fall back on the "well, just talk to your opponent" dodge. The problem with that is one player ALREADY "talked" through the action. He obviously thought it was fine else he wouldn't have done it. (Unless he's a sociopath and then you have other problems.) So the "discussion" begins as a zero-sum game. Somebody has to give in. They may smile and say "no problem", but it's a problem for most competitive people. When you golf with your boss and he asks for multiple mulligans, you smile, agree, but inside you think he's a jerk. After awhile you don't want to play with him anymore. We've all seen AARed games here collapse after one too many "discussions."

You may not like how the game works, but it's objective. It works the way it works. You can plan around it. You don't have zero-sum discussions. Or even non-zero-sum. You just play."

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

In the real event they lost 100% of them...........

Priceless![:D]