ORIGINAL: LoBaron
This discussion is so old that I don´t even care to remember. Be sure that the devs know this too.
I am aware of all that you wrote. I just know the game and the difficulties on the game engine side, as well as on legal side, long enough, to not have any
high hopes for a perfect solution that comes even close to what you are proposing.
And I am slightly amused that a considerate player like you thinks there is a chance the same situation experienced by GJ could be experienced by you.
I am still shaking my head that GJs campaign after the initial attack on Hokkaido, and Downfall simulating the exact same situation, are viewed as something that
has any credible chance of occuring in any PBEM where two more or less equally matched opponents play. It can´t. Not if the Allied player wages war as he should.
GJ did a sensational job as a new player, but he neglected about every rule of warfare when trying to expand on his initial Hokkaido gain (which only worked with the element
of surprise on his side) at this specific time and in this specific situation. He played the worst card when thinking a Honshu invasion has any chance of success, now that rader was
prepared. Instead he should have bogged down, ran a strategic bombing campaign, and revive a couple of other frontlines. For months, maybe a year. Rader would have lost without
much effort.
Impatience was the #1 reason for those big furballs causing so much damage to GJ, and the #1 reason for his brutal naval defeats.
And I am very sure that the above will not have the slightest chance of occuring in my own PBEM, and from reading your AAR I am pretty sure it will not occur on yours. [;)]
Well, altough i understand your point of view, i don't think that's exactly what happened.
Rader experienced the same thing and complained just like me.
I chose to land at Honshu not because i was impatient. I knew that operation had 0,5% of chance of success, but i thought one year of strat bombing campaign wasn't good for my audience [:D]
But that's not the point. The only real point is that the 200 firing passage rule unbalances the game in favour of the attacker when certain numbers are reached.
Rader experienced the same. He managed to put something like 2500 TOP fighters around Tokyo (and when i say TOP, i mean KI.201, KI-83, KI-94, Shidens and waves and waves of Franks) but, no matter what he did, if i sent in 200 escorts along with 400 4Es, the escorts were mauled, while not a single fighter was able to intercept the bombers....so his industries couldn't be defended.... and don't say that the allies should always be able to bomb Japan to dust no matter what cause in our particular match Rader's aircraft industry was so advanced that if it wasn't for that rule the allies would have never achieved any kind of aerial superiority.
The same, obviously, happened to me. I remember for example at Hakkodate. I had placed something like 1200 TOP fighters on CAP (those of you who followed the game know the quality of my air force)...he simply had to send in a wave of 300 dead-meat Oscars escorting 500 Helens...and voilà: 300 oscars downed (remember we had the 300 firing passing patch) and not a single shot to the enemy bombers.... results? Bases were undefendable.
Not to talk about my CVs... they were well organized, divided in TFs following the best pratice....CAP was HUGE ....and the results always the same: 300 escorts downed and not a single scrap to the attacking torpedo bombers....
I think you just need to make some tests in a sandbox scenario to see that this rule advantages too much the attacker.
This is not a rant clearly. I love this game and i have loved that match. But i think that the "problem" wasn't created by my inexperience or by our particular game. The problem has always been there, in the code.
