Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

The truth is that a lot of players SAY they want to play the Japanese when what they mean is they want to play some version of Japan "on steroids". And AE provides the "Super Japan" option for those who want to go that way. For those who want a more historical game, PDU on is not a good choice.

Agreed. I want my Japanese opponent to be "on steroids", because otherwise the game is a boring walkover. Whatever tactical advantages the Japanese may gain from the ability to use historical hindsight to adjust production, they pale in comparison to the Allied STRATEGIC advantages that come from using the same hindsight to avoid deploying their assets inefficiently on known historical dead ends and backwaters. The Allies will always have both the quantitative AND qualitative advantage. Couple that with strategic pre-knowledge and - absent some corresponding offset to the Japanese - it's quickly game, set, match. Fun for you, maybe, but not for most of the rest of us.

Other than "Agreed" I have to disagree with almost everything you said.

The side that made the most mistakes irl gets more of an advantage from hindsight in a game. Imo Japan made far more mistakes than the Allies and, as a result, gets to correct/improve more issues. This occurs either from the game design itself (having production vs. not having production to no rl Ki61 design/production snafus) or player choice (concentrating on the best ac, having a coherent asw doctrine or pilot training program vs. what Japan used irl, being able to calculate exact invasion forces from known defences at start, etc.). Those Japanese advantages may seem tactical to you but they allow you to contemplate strategic choices unavailable to Japan irl because they were either impossible or that Midway had occurred.

From the little that I've played (1 pbem, 3 ai games) the allies have neither the qualitative or quantitative advantage in 41-42. Kinda like what happened irl. In my pbem I don't have either advantage in early 43 but at least I have a theory on the cause (some mix between my ability and Japanese ac production/pilot training).

I'm not sure what strategic pre-knowledge means other than to imagine that Japan has a similar capability to explore wiser strategic choices than they made during the war or to explore options unavailable to them.

I've never played w/o pdu on, I'll have to try it off sometime.

ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

Other than "Agreed" I have to disagree with almost everything you said.

The side that made the most mistakes irl gets more of an advantage from hindsight in a game. Imo Japan made far more mistakes than the Allies and, as a result, gets to correct/improve more issues. This occurs either from the game design itself (having production vs. not having production to no rl Ki61 design/production snafus) or player choice (concentrating on the best ac, having a coherent asw doctrine or pilot training program vs. what Japan used irl, being able to calculate exact invasion forces from known defences at start, etc.). Those Japanese advantages may seem tactical to you but they allow you to contemplate strategic choices unavailable to Japan irl because they were either impossible or that Midway had occurred.

From the little that I've played (1 pbem, 3 ai games) the allies have neither the qualitative or quantitative advantage in 41-42. Kinda like what happened irl. In my pbem I don't have either advantage in early 43 but at least I have a theory on the cause (some mix between my ability and Japanese ac production/pilot training).

I'm not sure what strategic pre-knowledge means other than to imagine that Japan has a similar capability to explore wiser strategic choices than they made during the war or to explore options unavailable to them.

I've never played w/o pdu on, I'll have to try it off sometime.

I'm obviously not talking about Allied capabilities in 41 and 42. Quantity and Quality advantages reside with Japan for the first year or so, and that allows them to dictate the strategic terms of engagement. Unfortunately for them, that doesn't leave much in the way of choice. They have to capture the resources necessary to keep the war machine running, and once that's been done, there's precious little time to do much else. And tactically speaking, what else IS there which could change the strategic dynamic? The Allies really do not need China, India, Australia, Burma or much of anything, really, other than the invulnerable American mainland (and, to a lesser extent, the Soviet Union). From there, the Allies simply have to march through the island chains (and only those) which lie between Hawaii and Japan. It's that simple.

Because no matter what the Japanese do, beginning in '43, the advantage swings - PERMANENTLY - to the Allies. And there is absolutely NOTHING the Japanese can do to stop that. From that point forward the Allies dictate the terms of engagement, and they can do so without having to worry about appeasing British colonial interests, Chinese adventures, or Doug MacArthur's ego. So granting the Japanese a PDU advantage simply adds some degree of difficulty. It can delay the point at which the pendulum swings, and it can make the end game a lot tougher, but it won't don't anything to alter the Grand Strategic Equation.

ORIGINAL: Kull
Because no matter what the Japanese do, beginning in '43, the advantage swings - PERMANENTLY - to the Allies. And there is absolutely NOTHING the Japanese can do to stop that. From that point forward the Allies dictate the terms of engagement, and they can do so without having to worry about appeasing British colonial interests, Chinese adventures, or Doug MacArthur's ego. So granting the Japanese a PDU advantage simply adds some degree of difficulty. It can delay the point at which the pendulum swings, and it can make the end game a lot tougher, but it won't don't anything to alter the Grand Strategic Equation.

This is known as REALITY. The 98-lb bully kicked the 1000-lb gorilla in the nuts while he wasn't awake, and got to run around stealing his bananas for a while. But inevitably the gorilla is going to pull himself together and start pulling the bully's arms and legs off. That's pretty much the story of the WITP.

vettim89,

This might not be viewed as being directly on point of your OP, but I thought I should mention it anyway as you are gathering data/opinions in the process of making your own mod.

One thing that irks me as an Allied player playing with PDU on is to find some air units have no upgrade path at all. If PDU is off, I can understand an air unit not being scheduled to upgrade to another model (assuming that this represents the historical record). With PDU on, it just seems to me that it defeats the purpose of playing with PDU enabled to find an air unit is not scheduled to upgrade to another model (that is OK if IRL the unit never used another model) and no possible upgrade options are presented. This is particularly disconcerting if the unit is flying a plane which has no production/replacements built (did I mention the British Vildebeest III or even the P-26).

Playing with PDU on allows for non historical asset allocation. I don't think it goes against the spirit to allow non historical upgrades, provided it is like for like ie fighter models only for a fighter unit, divebombers only for a divebomber unit etc and within the appropriate national aircraft constraints.

Alfred

ORIGINAL: Alfred

vettim89,

This might not be viewed as being directly on point of your OP, but I thought I should mention it anyway as you are gathering data/opinions in the process of making your own mod.

One thing that irks me as an Allied player playing with PDU on is to find some air units have no upgrade path at all. If PDU is off, I can understand an air unit not being scheduled to upgrade to another model (assuming that this represents the historical record). With PDU on, it just seems to me that it defeats the purpose of playing with PDU enabled to find an air unit is not scheduled to upgrade to another model (that is OK if IRL the unit never used another model) and no possible upgrade options are presented. This is particularly disconcerting if the unit is flying a plane which has no production/replacements built (did I mention the British Vildebeest III or even the P-26).

Playing with PDU on allows for non historical asset allocation. I don't think it goes against the spirit to allow non historical upgrades, provided it is like for like ie fighter models only for a fighter unit, divebombers only for a divebomber unit etc and within the appropriate national aircraft constraints.

Alfred

Alfred i could not agree with you more here. I find myself torn between both viewpoints. On one side, giving both sides the flexibility to define how air groups are filled seems both fair and logical. Countering that is that you give the skilled Japanese player the ability to produce more aircraft than the United States did in the real war as a trade off. Japan's economy could not have hoped to come anywhere near what the USA's did let alone exceed it. To be honest, I only understand the most basic tenets of how the Japanese economy funtions in the game. Perhaps it is time to learn

ORIGINAL: vettim89

...To be honest, I only understand the most basic tenets of how the Japanese economy funtions in the game. Perhaps it is time to learn

Oh no! If you did that, it might take you at least another 12 months before you could again work on your mod. And what would JWE et al over in the modding sub forum have to discuss/explain regarding DP guns, denerfing plane production etc.[:D]

Alfred

ORIGINAL: Alfred

ORIGINAL: vettim89

...To be honest, I only understand the most basic tenets of how the Japanese economy funtions in the game. Perhaps it is time to learn

Oh no! If you did that, it might take you at least another 12 months before you could again work on your mod. And what would JWE et al over in the modding sub forum have to discuss/explain regarding DP guns, denerfing plane production etc.[:D]

Alfred

Aircraft production is the third rail of AE modding.

I don't think the two are remotely commensurate.

The torpedo problem was a technical failure that needed time to be overcome technically. Choosing the TO&E of air groups is an administrative/command issue that a different planning staff could simply choose to have done differently.


[/quote]

Actually I mean "Allowing the Japanese Player to switch his production and air groups to nothing but the best A/C Japan ever designed, while forcing the Allied player to play with his historical A/C production."

We generally force the Allied player to live with his side's historical mistakes (like the Mk XIV torpedo), so why let the Japanese side out from under it's historic screw-ups? It's a one-sided option.

[/quote]

I really think the idea of a "historical" game in the sense you guys are talking about is finished already once you insert live players. Sure, the game trys to limit you to meeting the same sorts of challenges with the command obstacles it throws in your way; but you can't make this a reenactment. And I am not sure why you would want to.
 
Once you give the Japanese player the responsibility for running their own aircraft industry on one hand, I don't see how you take away the ability to setup the TO&E for their air groups with the other.
 
Is it an advantage for the Japanese not to have to do it the same way as the historical side did? Yes. But that is the whole point. It allows the Japanese to try a different approach to meeting the quanititive and ultimately qualitative superiority they will face. And it gives the Allied player a more interesting challenge too. You are not leaving the historical tracks altogether, but you are giving more options within the historical capabilities.
 
Playing with the steroidal Japanese OB of scenario two is doing damage to the historical model, I am not sure PDU is.

ORIGINAL: a_gonatas
I really think the idea of a "historical" game in the sense you guys are talking about is finished already once you insert live players.

"Historical" simulation means trying to meet the same needs and challenges as your real life counterparts did..., using the same tools they had available. As soon as you start changing those tools, or making more of them available, you have plunged into the realms of "what if".

Nothing wrong with "what if".., just don't confuse it with "historical".

ORIGINAL: Kull

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

The truth is that a lot of players SAY they want to play the Japanese when what they mean is they want to play some version of Japan "on steroids". And AE provides the "Super Japan" option for those who want to go that way. For those who want a more historical game, PDU on is not a good choice.

Agreed. I want my Japanese opponent to be "on steroids", because otherwise the game is a boring walkover. Whatever tactical advantages the Japanese may gain from the ability to use historical hindsight to adjust production, they pale in comparison to the Allied STRATEGIC advantages that come from using the same hindsight to avoid deploying their assets inefficiently on known historical dead ends and backwaters. The Allies will always have both the quantitative AND qualitative advantage. Couple that with strategic pre-knowledge and - absent some corresponding offset to the Japanese - it's quickly game, set, match. Fun for you, maybe, but not for most of the rest of us.

I'm mostly in agreement with Kull on this.

As a IJ PBEM player (x3), there are strategic advantages that are assumed by the allies that they don't have to worry about. Examples of this on the IJ side include a fixed number of aircraft engine factories, research factories and airframe factories on the home islands and Manchuria. I wouldn't mind fielding a polyglot airforce if I could have more control over the numbers being produced of each type of airframe.

If the allied players wanted to hassle with factory setup, feeding resources into CONUS and Great Britain for airframe production, oil transfer to CONUS / GB and so forth and then have their factory outputs limited, then PDU off would make more sense. Most allied players eschew the micromanagement of monkeying with production and running the economies, so this would likely be of limited appeal were it possible (which it's not).

IRL, the Allies realized that some of their fighter types were crapola. Examples included the P-400, Buffalo and some of the Dutch fighters. They generally moved away from those to more capable airframes as the war progressed. This transition is a hard coded improvement for the Allies. Much the same transitions occur with the IJAAF and IJNAF, except this transitition also bears a cost to the IJ player-the factory setup / production circuit.

I suppose I would entertain the idea of keeping Nates on the front lines into 1943, provided that the Allies are willing to reciprocate by keeping their P-400s, Wirraways and Buffalos on the front line into 1943 too. Course, no one wants to commit their pilots to such foolhardy endeavors, resulting in them switching into preferable airframes ASAP.

Since the Allied production is not going to be changed in this game any time soon, the Allied players are stuck with 'ground truth' such as it is-replacements are hardcoded and you don't have to monkey with factories, resources, oil, fuel, etc. With this tradeoff in playability, PDU on for most games makes the most sense for me as IJ as a result.

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: a_gonatas
I really think the idea of a "historical" game in the sense you guys are talking about is finished already once you insert live players.

"Historical" simulation means trying to meet the same needs and challenges as your real life counterparts did..., using the same tools they had available. As soon as you start changing those tools, or making more of them available, you have plunged into the realms of "what if".

Nothing wrong with "what if".., just don't confuse it with "historical".

Mike, we both know that history changes for ALL WiTP:AE games on December 8, 1941 and thereafter.

History diverges from ALL games immediately. This game has never been about historical duplication, which I would argue is a metaphysical impossibility in a game with a random number system for generating combat results.

In reality, the Allies had to expend huge efforts to get their production systems up and running. In this game, the Allies are spoon-fed these production numbers and we just 'assume' that they could duplicate the production miracle that they did IRL. Is that assumption justifiable?

If not, then we should monkey with it by inserting random dockyard strikes, production issues, prototype failures, U-boat sinkings of ships laden with precious resources from South America, dry oil wells in Texas and Long Beach, delays from machinery changeover to different aircraft types, cessation of congressional funding for the B-29 project (or the Manhattan project), etc., etc..

There's a benefit to having production hard coded. You can do no worse than historical production. Full stop. You want to try to command the production of all PTO units in the economic empire that was the USA, circa 1942? That's more than I'm (and a lot of other allied players) are looking for.

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

"Historical" simulation means trying to meet the same needs and challenges as your real life counterparts did..., using the same tools they had available. As soon as you start changing those tools, or making more of them available, you have plunged into the realms of "what if".

Nothing wrong with "what if".., just don't confuse it with "historical".

Mike, we both know that history changes for ALL WiTP:AE games on December 8, 1941 and thereafter.

Right..., the "course" of history changes as soon as players start changing it. But that does not mean that the historical "tools" available to them should. What's the challenge of playing Rommel in the Desert if you get unlimited supplies and 10 panzer divisions? Might be fun.., but it ain't historical.

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

In reality, the Allies had to expend huge efforts to get their production systems up and running. In this game, the Allies are spoon-fed these production numbers and we just 'assume' that they could duplicate the production miracle that they did IRL. Is that assumption justifiable?

If not, then we should monkey with it by inserting random dockyard strikes, production issues, prototype failures, U-boat sinkings of ships laden with precious resources from South America, dry oil wells in Texas and Long Beach, delays from machinery changeover to different aircraft types, cessation of congressional funding for the B-29 project (or the Manhattan project), etc., etc..

There's a benefit to having production hard coded. You can do no worse than historical production. Full stop. You want to try to command the production of all PTO units in the economic empire that was the USA, circa 1942? That's more than I'm (and a lot of other allied players) are looking for.

You realize this is a "straw dog" arguement? I've never asked for Allied Production..., only for the elimination of Japanese production and the exploits it engenders. Why would I want to add more BS to the situation?

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

In reality, the Allies had to expend huge efforts to get their production systems up and running. In this game, the Allies are spoon-fed these production numbers and we just 'assume' that they could duplicate the production miracle that they did IRL. Is that assumption justifiable?

If not, then we should monkey with it by inserting random dockyard strikes, production issues, prototype failures, U-boat sinkings of ships laden with precious resources from South America, dry oil wells in Texas and Long Beach, delays from machinery changeover to different aircraft types, cessation of congressional funding for the B-29 project (or the Manhattan project), etc., etc..

There's a benefit to having production hard coded. You can do no worse than historical production. Full stop. You want to try to command the production of all PTO units in the economic empire that was the USA, circa 1942? That's more than I'm (and a lot of other allied players) are looking for.

You realize this is a "straw dog" arguement? I've never asked for Allied Production..., only for the elimination of Japanese production and the exploits it engenders. Why would I want to add more BS to the situation?

And so why don't you just play game with production off and PDU off and leave everybody else alone? Why do I have to play the game the way you want? the designers gave options and if I want a option who are you to say I can not have it. If you do not like it you do not have to use it so leave us alone.

MO

I don't think either side of this argument can convince the other side of their view point.

In another thread in the Design and Mod forum, it was pointed out how hard the dev's worked to get as accurate as possible Allied production numbers. I commend them for their efforts on this as it is not as easy as one might think especially when working with types that were used in both the ETO and PTO. I am sure similar numbers were worked on to get the initial industry numbers for the Japanese. Unfortunately once the game starts only one side has to deal with those numbers in PDU is "ON".

I guess I have a hard time seeing why JFB's would insist that producing 200 Ki-44 a month is just fine when only about 1200 were produced in the entire war.

And they should obviously be forced to build the Shinano even if they want something else more???

If you require aircraft production to be historical shouldn't naval, merchant, vehicle, manpower, heavy industry, light industry, oil and resources be confined at historical levels?

I think people are missing a major design intent of this game. Without the need for Japanese production, the strategic choices involved, and obtaining the necessary raw materials, why would Japan ever go to war in the first place??

Pwople like that just make me want to vomit. They are arrogant and ignorant and they want every body to do what they want. And all they do is rant about how some body does not do it like how they want. I am sorry but these people are nothing but fat no bodys sitting in easy chairs that have never served and that pretend they know something because a website says so. These people make me sick.

MO

ORIGINAL: Osterhaut

Pwople like that just make me want to vomit. They are arrogant and ignorant and they want every body to do what they want. And all they do is rant about how some body does not do it like how they want. I am sorry but these people are nothing but fat no bodys sitting in easy chairs that have never served and that pretend they know something because a website says so. These people make me sick.

MO

It has nothing to do w/ vomiting and ranting. It's about establishing as close as possible an historical base line for the start of the game. What you want to do w/ it via scenario design, editor, house rules, etc. is your own affair.