Matrix Games Forums

I cannot thank you enough for your AAR. It certainly helped me pass the time waiting for your fine game.

I am curious about the whole animation thing (good answers in the chat) as one who put in a lot of hours with them. Did you eventually just turn them off or did you still find them as enjoyable as when you first started?

Depends on the mood you are in at the time really they are good and add suspense but if you dont want them just click on the done button

The [ESC] key works as well.

I went back and forth. When I was really in the mood to get through a turn (like near the end) I didn't watch too many, but I always got sucked in to watching to see if I was going get just one more of those lovely torpedo hits!

Darn! And I was hoping you'd break 20,000!

In UV, support troops do lots of things, but they add almost nothing to your land combat ability. Not only did you have only 4000 troops, but after months in the jungle I bet they were near worthless. For land combat it's your adjusted assualt value (infantry and tanks adjusted for morale, experience, fatigue, disruption) that counts, not all those mechanics and base support people. Also, when units are disabled, they count in the troop category as 50% of the men in the unit but are worth 0 in combat. I realize this can be very misleading. After your failed charges against his prepared positions, I would bet that at least half of your units were disabled, which would mean you really only had about 2700 infantrymen that could fight, while 2700 were totally ineffective but listing as worth 1350 infantrymen. I hope my point is getting across that in UV you cannot just look at number of men in the hex. The loss of 43000 men on one day is excessive, but it was the result of everything that had gone on up until that point.
By the way, as I said in the chat, your AAR was great and did teach us a few things. The main one was that we have to change the auto victory rules so that only Noumea and Luganville trigger this (on the east side of the map). Thanks again.

I have also pre purchased. I wonder how many of us reading the AARs and were going to buy UV anyway were prompted to go ahead and pre purchase buy what we read through your (and the others)
AARs.

Joel, thanks for the clarifications. I am sure that the effects are as you describe. This is one of the nuances of the game that is not at all obvious. Part of the joy of playing UV will be in learning to master such details. Those that do will be pretty hard to beat.

BTW, I had noticed that assault power had dropped dramatically and, as noted in an earlier post I also noted that on successive days attacks just seem to peter out.

As I said last night, I don't think that anything is wrong, I just think that I don't understand it.

That being said, if you are looking for suggestions for WITP (:rolleyes: ) I would suggest taking a look at the LCU interface and seeing if there are ways to highlight to the player when units are declining as you discuss. I am sure that the information is probably available in the interface (most information is!) but I would venture to say that the effects (and their causes) that you describe are not entirely obvious. For instance, it clear from what you say that pure numbers of troops, vehicles, guns are not be the really important factors, but they are still the only ones listed on the combat results screen (at least in my older version).

Perhaps one suggestion might be to include "nominal" or maximum values for some characteristics so that it is obvious when significant decline has taken place.

I've posted your note in Mike Wood's test section thread regarding the UV patch and WitP. No promises but perhaps Mike will come up with something to take some of the surprise out of the situation.

Can't ask for better than that.

My congratulations to Iain for devising such a devious feint at Luganville. His plan worked to perfection. Never intending to rely on the capture of Luganville, he instead distracted the Americans into defending Luganville, which wasn't even his primary target!! Brilliant!!!!

That is what we suggested, wasn't it? Well, that's how I choose to remember it.

Hi Iain,

Just wanted to let you know how much I appreciated your AAR. I also pre-ordered. Although I very likely was going to anyway ( like most here, I've been waiting for this game for 20 years ), your AAR made me feel very sure of the strength of the game and its design. So, again, thanks for all the time you put it.

By the way, total agreement with Mogami - the Hall of Fame awaits. I guess you just have to wait the requisite 5 years.


Best,
Randy

"By the way, as I said in the chat, your AAR was great and did teach us a few things. The main one was that we have to change the auto victory rules so that only Noumea and Luganville trigger this (on the east side of the map)."

Excellent...otherwise (to paraphrase) it was a terminal case of "he who must protect everything, protects nothing".

I was just wondering ... has anyone ever managed to take one of those big bases in UV, like Port Morseby or Lugainville? For I do not recall something like this succeeding in any of the AARs. Sure, accomplishing this *should*, as a matter of fact, be pretty difficult (and taking Rabaul or Noumea even more), but not totally impossible.

Hartmann

You should have thrown that extra division into the battle. Overwhelming force is the rule.

Great AAR, just spent the last 6 hours perusing this entire thread.

Iain. You are going to have to change your email address or drown in PBEM requests.

Thanks for the AAR Iain its been great following it

Iain,

I just wanted to offer my thanks, too - a truly epic AAR, and very well written, I might add.

Having played Guadlecanal Campaign, War in the South Pacific and PacWar, purchasing UV was never a question for me, but from reading your posts I was compelled a few weeks ago to pre-order it, something I rarely do for any game. Now, if they could just get it shipped today...

Thanks, guys. I appreciate the feedback.

You guys are doing wonders for my argument with David that he owes me commission on all those pre-orders.

David, David.... are you reading these?

In actual fact, it was alot of fun. I haven't work on the game for that long and I was glad to be able to contribute a little at the end to help generate enthusiasm for what is truly and excellent game.

That epic weekend of "the big invasion" I almost felt like a theatre commander with the general staff waiting for reports from the front. I felt like telling my wife to hide all the sharp implements in case it failed. I didn't want to have anything around to fall on

I have never been a true Pacific Theatre Grognard but I think I learned more about WWII in the SW Pacific by playing UV for a couple of months than I have gotten from any other source.

I looking forward to hearing about everyone elses experiences in the very near future.

Well now that everybody else is starting their 24 hour vigil waiting for the postman. It seemed like a good time to discuss some of the "lessons learned" from this little campaing.

These are just some random thoughts in no particular order.

First of all, I learned that pursuing the autovictory conditions is not really a good idea. Against a human opponent, I almost certainly would have failed. Joel and Gary first suggested the strategy because they suspected that the AI would not be flexible to respond to a massive invasion below hex row 52. They were right, while the AI did a credible job of keeping L'ville alive, it did not ever get serious about kicking me out of any of the other bases that I occupied. Sure, it bombed the crap out of them, but it never followed up with ground troops. A competent human opponent would have probably disabled and recaptured Koumac within a week and likely PV within a month. Deprived of those two bases, the assault would have failed because I never was able to take L'ville.

Second of all, this may be billed as a Navy game, but I'm sorry to say that I am convinced that aircraft RULE. For instance:
- Usually CV's are treated as the highest value assets on the board. This is true only if there is no suitable airbase in range or prospective targets. Once a chain of airbases is established CV's are redundant.
- In a battle between LBA and a CV force the CV's will lose almost every time (except maybe early in the game against exceptionally weak allied bases).
- After about October 1942, the largest single factor in the game will likely by US LBA. In each of the games I have played (including this one) US LBA was the dominant tactical arm. US Medium and heavy bombers are literally a steamroller that will flatten all before them, particularly once they start to gain experience. It is not unusual for the allied player to mount raids with 200+ bombers by Nov/Dec 1942.

This, then should drive the following strategies:

- Typical Japanese strategy should be to establish a line of bases which are as isolated as possible from large allied air bases. Then defend forward of this line to prevent airbases from being built. Once the US LBA dominance kicks in, the allied player can take just about anything within 6 hexes of an airbase apart piece by piece. The Japanese player has to utilize the range advantage in the IJNAF aircraft by basing aircraft where they are able to hit invasion fleets, but where their bases are safe from escorted bombing attacks. Note that this strategy will start to come apart when P-38's start to arrive.

- Typical Allied strategy will be to hold on to forward airbases. If airbases are lost, establish new ones ASAP to at least provide CAP to the re-invasion that will ultimately be mounted. If a Japanese base is in range use the following prescription:
First, pound any aribases that can attack the invasion fleet into submission, second sink any ships that venture into range, third pound the ground troops for about a week, then invade.


Amateurs talk about firepower - professionals talk about logistics! Boy oh boy is this ever true. UV will make you pay for overextending yourself. Not only do you have to devote more supply resources to feeding the long link, that devotion of resources itself eats up the resources in the pipeline. Also, combat resources become increasingly dedicated to preserving the supply line so that further offensive action becomes impossible. This was brought home very clearly to me in my campaign. Just supporting L'ville basically used up almost all of my available surface combat units and most of my aircraft reserve as well.

Which brings up my last point - it's a long war! In my campaign the naval and air combat power of the Japanese forces was essentially expended by the time the game ended. I would guess that 85% of my ships had 15% or more system damage. Most of the carriers were down to 50% or less complement of a/c (as I kept using them to reinforce the airfields). Most air groups were depleted (especially the bombers). Basically, I expended all my reserves to get the AV condition. In any real campaign this would have been suicide. I think learning to husband resources for a long campaign may be one of the toughest things to learn in playing UV. I won't be surprised to hear of some long campaigns where one side looked like an easy victor right up until the last six months only to have the whole thing come apart in a hurry as the lack of reserves is suddenly exposed by an enemy that planned better for the long term.

Comments? questions? queries? complaints?

I think David owes Iain a check too. I would have probably eventually bought UV but it was the his AAR that got me fuzzed up to the point where I couldn't wait to preorder.

Now I'm going to start a new thread whining about when can we expect Europa Fleet Actions?;)