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Maybe the thing to do is to make "fixed" ports like Pearl Harbor much better at repairing the WITP equivalent of "system" damage in Uncommon Valor. Make any major "shake and bake" anchorage like The Admiraltys or Ulithi or Eniwitok good at repairing fire and flood damage, then the ship has to be sent back to Pearl/West Coast/Sydney for real repairs.

......to get too worried about "victory conditions". Once the play-
testers have beaten the "alpha" version into some sort of shape
we'll have a better idea just how historically accurate play is
going to be. If they succeed is getting it "right", then the
Japanese players can compare their performance to that of the
real event and judge their "victory" accordingly. The latest note
from a playtestor I've seen suggests that in the alpha the early
expansion of the Japanese goes VERY well against the computer.
Which also suggests that the Allied "comeback" may roll quickly
once it gets going. Of course, it could also mean that the AI is
a totally incompetent opponent, and that if you can't beat the
crap out of the computer from either side you shouldn't try a
game against a real player.

The Allied Side probably doesn't need victory conditions at all.
If September of 1945 rolls around, and you haven't beaten the
Japs to a pulp, you lose. For the Japanese Player it may be more
a matter of "how pulpy" you've been beaten---a harder thing to
quantify.

The latest note from a playtestor I've seen suggests that in the alpha the early expansion of the Japanese goes VERY well against the computer. Which also suggests that the Allied "comeback" may roll quickly once it gets going.

I dont see that one neccessarily follows the other, as there could be reasons other than AI for the ease of Japanese expansion. Anyway, as you pointed out it is so early for balance issues...as new features are still being implemented in the game and whatnot. Beta testing is where more of the balance issues are resolved (or with most other companies in patches after release).

I think the debate about victory conditions is an important one. I will say to begin with that I am only interested in playing historical scenarios, or ones based on small what ifs around historical ones. I might go as far as a 'Speer hits Japan in 1936' type varient, however the change would have to reflect the real situation. In other words this mythical guru might be able to increase merchant shipping out put by say 10%, but there would be a cost (either money/economic) etc, because more steel is used etc. This would effect say supply output or something. He might even manage to rationalise IJN/IJA rivalry, although I think that would be pushing it. Say Army standardises on a version of the Zero, but still limited to a different version from the navy, limited production rates etc. Turning Japan into a mini US does not interest me.

The point of the ramble above is that victory conditions should be able to cope with a very unbalenced game, and should give the Japanese player realistic chances to 'win' (the game, NOT the war!). I do not want ahistorical changes to Japan to 'balance' the game (UV scen 19 I hate!). I usually think that, for reasonable length strategic games, history acts as a good bench mark. Given the advantages a player has (knowledge of what happened, 'eye in the sky', unified plans etc) not doing as well as history is a loss. Historical results are a draw. To win, you really need to beat history.

I like the casualties VP ramp up system (as PACWAR). It allows the Allies to fight hard to begin with, but subtly puts constraints on the use of the overwhelming strenght later (you need to use the strenght to minimise the casualties, rather than some manic multiple front logistical nightmare of an advance). The only point I would make, is why step it up in big steps? How's about ramping it (x%/month). Or better yet, do it on total casualties (if casualties are less than x, score mutliplier 1.0, x to y score 1.1, and so on up to 2, 3 or even 4 times.) You could also do it by nationality, e.g. Dutch casualties go above a level, their multiplier goes up (assuming VP for cas is the sum of all the national cas, just like PW). Thus giving the Japanese incentive to 'knock' countries enough to take them out of the war. A big issue I had with PW was the monolithic Allies (no problem with ships, troops, etc all mixing freely). Any constraint on this has to be good in my book.

The national levels thing could also be used as a multiplier on effectiveness, i.e. at a level of casualties, all units suffer 5% effectiveness loss, etc (level break points representing significant fractions of total forces present?). You could even make them reversable - say UK defends Malaya to the last, and takes lots of losses, suffers a hit of 5, 10% etc in effectiveness (morale). Then as reinforcements come in, (and presumably the troops aren't used as much) the losses drop as a proportion, and the effectiveness loss decreases.

This sort of thing could also be applied to the Japanese, but with probably high thresholds and small effectiveness losses, to address some of the 'how do I stop the historical decline of the troops/airmen quality'? discussions...answer do better. This would then replace some (not all) of the hardwired decline in quality.

This counts as a random brain dump, and shows how disordered my brain is on average!

It's not a question of "Albert Speer hits Japan" or a "mini-US", it's a question of you, as the overall commander, being able to implement those reforms/procedures that you would IRL be within your abilities to effect.

ASW capabilities, whether techniques, more escorts, or research is probably a prime example. Even marginally more effective ASW equates to more ships afloat, which in conjunction with new ship construction means more resources making it to the factories, which means more production of war materials, and less resources/production capability being diverted to replace ships being sunk by subs. By the end of the war, the Japanese had oil in the west they couldn't get to, and food/resources sitting on the docks to the north they couldn't transport, and their industry idle due to the lack of materials/fuel. It was a vicious cycle. Nothing is for free...there'd be costs to effective ASW. But, downstream, the price paid would be worth it. Keeping ships afloat is much cheaper than replacing them.

This isn't Albert Speer, this is YOU asserting your position as Supreme CinC. Heck, even the Brits (and then later the US) instituted ASW reforms eventually once the U-Boats started cleaning their clocks. Even an incremental advance in IJN ASW capability would pay enormous dividends over the course of the war, the only people brain dead enough not to recognize this was the IJN command. Even the IJA tried to get them to do something.

"What if" even 25% of the shipping that was historically sank enroute, made it through to the islands that were to be assaulted by the Allies, with their cargoes of troops, construction materials, guns, and supplies? "What if" IJN ASW managed to sink/seriously damage/scare off 25% of the limited number of US fleet boats available (and they were being built as fast as possible). There are a huuuuuge number of assumptions that went into the interminable "okay, IJN ASW feels about right historically" debates for UV. "What if" you, as the CinC, built hundreds of escorts instead of those useless BB's? Instituted reforms; ASW research, centralized C&C, convoy systems with effective escorts, dedicated ASW aircraft, ect? By the end of the war, the U-Boats had been rendered almost totally ineffective..."what if" the USN boats were rendered only 75% effective?

Yeah, the Japanese were doomed to lose. But, if they'd fought a "smarter" war, the actual outcome might have been somewhat different. We're already "re-fighting" the war with the benefit of historical hindsight, so "historical accuracy" for anything other than limited scope scenarios is out the window. UV is an example of fighting a limited scope scenario...we know what they had, and how they were setup historically. WitP is an entirely different cat. We're the "Supreme Commander" for the entire theatre, and should therefor have the ability to impact gameplay in ways other than just shuffling counters around.

Thanks for the thoughtful commentary, Warspite and babyseal.

I tend to agree that the player's control over production and R&D matters should be limited, due to the fact that the player is the commander of military operations, not the political or social figurehead. A game that makes you Roosevelt or Tojo might be fun, but this isn't it. Further, a game that puts you in charge of economic and technological development leading up to WWII also might be interesting, but, again, that's not who you are going to be in WitP.

One interesting sidelight on this for me is that the Allied commander isn't really Nimitz, but some abstract quantity who controls the in-theater operations of the armed forces of various countries. On the Japanese side, the player isn't really Yamamoto, either, as there are more forces involved than merely Combined Fleet. At the same time, you don't seem to be as highly placed as King or Tojo (or Roosevelt or Hirohito, for that matter). Still, you are superior in the command structure to the likes of Chiang Kai-Shek and the various political leaders of nations and quasi-nations in the area. How do you stand vis-a-vis Winston Churchill? The Australian Prime Minister (whose name escapes me at the moment)?

So who are you in WitP? How much control do you (or should you) have over manufacturing, allocation of resources, development of various war-fighting capabilities (such as ASW), and so on?

I think that there needs to be a clear expression of what the player's role is before the design assigns you to that role. Then, the degree of control over production and the rest (including loss of "political points" for various decisions you might make and the effect on "victory conditions") can be decided sensibly.

I don't like the idea of having "points" for things that are not really under my control decide the outcome of a game from a "win or lose" standpoint. If I am the theater military commander, my performance in the game needs to be evaluated on the basis of my accomplishments (or lack of them). For example, if there is to be an escalating directive on the Allied side requiring mimimizing casualties, fine, but it needs to be clear in the victory conditions that this is an outside political concern before MY win-loss evaluation is made.

Who are you in WitP? Good question.

I tend to think (obviously) that you should have some ***limited*** ability to control your wartime environment. The effects of your actions should be reflected in gameplay. If I carefully manage my shipping (unlike the Japanese) via painful micromanagement and dedication of assets, what's in it for me?

To continue to use the ASW example, what if you do nothing more than use a larger percentage of your aircraft on ASW patrol (on convoy routes) as the IJN player than was used historically? In UV, this tends to suppress sub activity (and actually sinks one occasionally). This would have undoubtedly been true IRL. Obviously, this means more ships available for use in the limited UV gameworld. But what will it mean in the WitP gameworld? Will there be any strategic implications? More oil/resources being transported, thus resulting in more ship/AC/war material building points being available? Higher/faster industrial growth? Maybe I could get meaningful numbers of the excellent Japanese late war fighters into production in time to do some good?

People say the Japanese were doomed, because the US just flat out-produced them to death. Very true, and a key issue. This just highlights the importance of production/logistics. We're already more or less eliminating the effects of the Jp. Army/Navy rivalry to a very great degree because as the "Supreme Commander" I'm the one deciding what ships go where, and carrying what. The most concrete manner in which I, as the Japanese CinC, could effect the course of the war is in logistics, and those areas which impact logistics...because the US is just going to out-produce me, period.

If I do better, I can drag the war out, possibly repulse some of the island invasions, and possibly force an ahistorical outcome. Anyone care to speculate on the wars course IRL if the Japanese had repulsed the invasion at Tarawa, as one example? Could have happened. Iwo Jima, another close thing, where a great deal of the troops, equipment, and material was sank by subs in-route? A few shiploads of cement could make an enormous difference. How much "whithering on the vine" would have occurred, or rather when, if the Allies couldn't get a foothold?

I tend to agree that the player's control over production and R&D matters should be limited, due to the fact that the player is the commander of military operations, not the political or social figurehead. A game that makes you Roosevelt or Tojo might be fun, but this isn't it. Further, a game that puts you in charge of economic and technological development leading up to WWII also might be interesting, but, again, that's not who you are going to be in WitP.

********************************************

So sayeth Pasternaski. Who is neither a Matrix employee,
nor a Matrix PR representative.

His assumptions and assertions are not engraved in stone,
and are highly questionable. At best they can be described as
'what he wants to see' and nothing else.

The game is in testing now, and it is up to US, to let Matrix know
what we would like to see.

Why have production at all, if we do not intend to allow players to deviate from historical reality?

Originally posted by Chiteng
So sayeth Pasternaski. Who is neither a Matrix employee,
nor a Matrix PR representative.

His assumptions and assertions are not engraved in stone,
and are highly questionable. At best they can be described as
'what he wants to see' and nothing else.

I thought you were told to confine this crap to AoW.

Originally posted by babyseal7
Who are you in WitP? Good question.

I tend to think (obviously) that you should have some ***limited*** ability to control your wartime environment. The effects of your actions should be reflected in gameplay. If I carefully manage my shipping (unlike the Japanese) via painful micromanagement and dedication of assets, what's in it for me?

To continue to use the ASW example, what if you do nothing more than use a larger percentage of your aircraft on ASW patrol (on convoy routes) as the IJN player than was used historically? In UV, this tends to suppress sub activity (and actually sinks one occasionally). This would have undoubtedly been true IRL. Obviously, this means more ships available for use in the limited UV gameworld. But what will it mean in the WitP gameworld? Will there be any strategic implications? More oil/resources being transported, thus resulting in more ship/AC/war material building points being available? Higher/faster industrial growth? Maybe I could get meaningful numbers of the excellent Japanese late war fighters into production in time to do some good?

People say the Japanese were doomed, because the US just flat out-produced them to death. Very true, and a key issue. This just highlights the importance of production/logistics. We're already more or less eliminating the effects of the Jp. Army/Navy rivalry to a very great degree because as the "Supreme Commander" I'm the one deciding what ships go where, and carrying what. The most concrete manner in which I, as the Japanese CinC, could effect the course of the war is in logistics, and those areas which impact logistics...because the US is just going to out-produce me, period.

If I do better, I can drag the war out, possibly repulse some of the island invasions, and possibly force an ahistorical outcome. Anyone care to speculate on the wars course IRL if the Japanese had repulsed the invasion at Tarawa, as one example? Could have happened. Iwo Jima, another close thing, where a great deal of the troops, equipment, and material was sank by subs in-route? A few shiploads of cement could make an enormous difference. How much "whithering on the vine" would have occurred, or rather when, if the Allies couldn't get a foothold?

Great post. I guess what we're saying is that we want the opportunity to do better than our historical counterpart did - whoever he was ...

Originally posted by pasternakski
I thought you were told to confine this crap to AoW.

He said no personal attacks. I have made none.

Pointing out reality isnt a personal attack.

Ok enough is enough. When one of the mods comes in here and lays down the law and it still keeps on going I step and and say ENOUGH NOW!!! THREAD IS LOCKED.