Why the CV replacement rule is not worth worrying about

[tsimmonds]

There is no equivalent for JA in this game at all. Just what happens to JA if they lose half their carriers early on, or have substantially greater victories?

Charles, you are still missing the point of this rule. It is in the game as much to help the Japanese player as it is for the allies. Assume that the CVs arrive per the historical schedule. The allied player knows precisely how powerful he will be on Jan 1, 1944. He knows how powerful the IJN will be. He knows that if he fights in 1942 he will be at a disadvantage. So he decides to sit back and wait until his strength arrives. There is nothing to say no to this. There is no reason not to do it; in fact, I submit it would be foolish to do otherwise. Japan wins on points you say? I'm not so sure. Japan needs more points than he can just scoop up in bases; I feel certain that he needs a significant number of points from destroying men and materiel to get a 3 to 1.

This rule benefits Japan as much as it does the allies. How else do you explain that people from both sides are howling about it? It discourages the allied player from sitting back and waiting, while affording him some protection against the catastrophic early losses he must risk to oppose an IJN player (who will almost certainly be more competent than IRL), losses which would surely have been made good had they actually been incurred. If we would all consider for a moment the benefits rather than just complaining that it is ahistorical, or that the benefit is one-sided, perhaps we could appreciate the elegance of this single solution to two very different problems.

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

ORIGINAL: Charles_22

ORIGINAL: irrelevant



Forgive me, but IMHO CAs and CLs are basically irrelevant. You can have 5 of them or fifty, and it won't make any difference in the outcome. After 1/1/44 they are little more than auxiliaries, mere AAA platforms.

If they're irrelevant, irrelevant, then why not just give them all to the Japanese? They're more than happy for irrelevant AA I can assure you.

I'm talking about for the allied player. After a point there are only so many cruisers that he can use. Of course IJN could always use more. But that's hardly the point, is it? IJN is not going to get more. And check out my banner BTW, I am the Japanese. I just can't see how any of this will make any material difference in any game I may play, whether PBEM or vs the AI.

Well obviously the DD's and BB's are irrelevant too, so why not throw them in? When you play chess, do you give the queen and knights back to the opponent after so many turns have passed since they were taken? THE most important unit on this game can respwn for the Allies, whereas the third most important surface unit (and the 4th) can respawn too?

For some of you (maybe not you irrelevant) this will be difficult, but the exact same situation exists somewhere else in the war, and I dar guess the majority of you would see the point in that case, since you might just be playing the Allies then too. Imagine Germany in France, or in the USSR, and she suffers a lot of losses. Does she then get to go to "total war" earlier because they could have? It's the exact same thing, a clause for a nation that could've geared up more, gearing up more because they did poorly. Any takers?

[timtom]

The allied player knows precisely how powerful he will be on Jan 1, 1944.

With or without respawn, the Allied player will be overwhelmingly powerful at this point.

He knows that if he fights in 1942 he will be at a disadvantage. So he decides to sit back and wait until his strength arrives.

Can't wait to see the first Allied PBEM player going 700+ turns doing squat [>:]. My bet is that most players will try to fight along historical lines[;)].

It discourages the allied player from sitting back and waiting

If the argument goes that the pace and volume of reinforcements encourages conservative play on the side of the Allied, then it follows that the whole system ought to be shook up and ties to some kind of historical phase line or some other kind of penalty.

Anyway, Allied 1944 preponderance is such that respawning (or not) wont make a difference to the viability to "hoard-'nd-wait" strategy.

If it is felt that respawning is necessary to encourage an aggressive Allied strategy, then can not the reverse argument be made? If the AAR's are anything to go by, the Allied players use their CV's very aggressively from the get-go, and more so than was historically the case.

This is ultimately a design issue, but as far as Im concerned, I want a game that models history as close as possible, not some kind of HOI clone.

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

There is no equivalent for JA in this game at all. Just what happens to JA if they lose half their carriers early on, or have substantially greater victories?

Charles, you are still missing the point of this rule. It is in the game as much to help the Japanese player as it is for the allies. Assume that the CVs arrive per the historical schedule. The allied player knows precisely how powerful he will be on Jan 1, 1944. He knows how powerful the IJN will be. He knows that if he fights in 1942 he will be at a disadvantage. So he decides to sit back and wait until his strength arrives. There is nothing to say no to this. There is no reason not to do it; in fact, I submit it would be foolish to do otherwise. Japan wins on points you say? I'm not so sure. Japan needs more points than he can just scoop up in bases; I feel certain that he needs a significant number of points from destroying men and materiel to get a 3 to 1.

This rule benefits Japan as much as it does the allies. How else do you explain that people from both sides are howling about it? It discourages the allied player from sitting back and waiting, while affording him some protection against the catastrophic early losses he must risk to oppose an IJN player (who will almost certainly be more competent than IRL), losses which would surely have been made good had they actually been incurred. If we would all consider for a moment the benefits rather than just complaining that it is ahistorical, or that the benefit is one-sided, perhaps we could appreciate the elegance of this single solution to two very different problems.

I argued from the Allied perspective "against" it too, for I don't want an easy street. I see now where the supporters are coming from, thank you very much, as I hadn't considered the VP point of this. Of course, if I straggle the game out to it's full course as the Japanese, as I expect to do (for the sake of experimentation if nothing else), then I want to see removed forever what I have destroyed. My hope is to at least keep winning victories over the Allied carriers while I have numbers, to at least have carrier parity late in the war. Quite impossible as things stand; respawning destroys that. It's obvious that can never work, but adding the CA/CL and probably CLAA's as well the quotient is beyond the pale. I keep wondering why the BB's, DD"s, and subs were skipped on this, and then I remember that it's ludicrous enough already.

Fine I understand the VP side of things, as I didn't realize that JA getting the losses was so badly needed as well, but, as you can see, the fictional VP side of things, you'd hope, was made to give JA a chance, but making this sort of adjustment destroys the type of game I'm trying to play; something more historic. I really believe you can fight militarily well with Japan and at least last as long as '45, but with respawning that possibility is out the window.

There were two different strategies for Japan: either win all really early or fight well and hold on. In my mind the latter was the more achievable, as losses to the US might've ended in at least an armistice. I don't really think super great early victories would've beaten the US (apart from invading, somehow, successfully the US mainland), and that only resorting to inflicting maximum damage over time would.

I realize gamewise there's no chance for Japan to get an armistice past '43 should she inflict so many losses, but I want to play that way anyway. If the US was going to give up, it surely wouldn't have been before '43 IMO, so therefore my only course of semi-victory is to inflict maximum loss. If the ships keep coming back there's little or no point. If I play as Allied I have it too easy too. I'm playing militarily not VP-ly.

Maybe that's the whole flaw with this game in my view, that the game was determined to give Japan it's chance for victory early instead of late. That point were more important then inflicting losses on the enemy. And before you say it, no, having "more ships to destroy" doesn't work. The idea is to work diligently enough to always keep some edge to still inflict high casualties, when so many ships are repspawning, the very time of the war where the losses I'm inflicting should really start adding up, I'm instead thrown into a series of ships that never really sink syndrome, to where I can't see how well my generalship has worked, but, militarily, seem as though I achieved nothing. Hoping all along to be on a par at that time, instead to find I'm at the role of a partisan.

Of course, having said all of that, I have no idea what impact the A-bomb will have even if I am very successful when Japanese (of course historically there were only two) to my miltary loss inflicting strategy.

I just can't get my head wrapped around the idea that this IMO, suedo-secondary method of playing the game (early points for JA) has tilted this game so massively against the military way of doing it. I never would've believed it before.