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I guess you have to return to Transport Tycoon in the Pacific [:D]

ORIGINAL: Miller

Just goes to show you need to sort out the HRs fully before the game begins. If either side does not like one, then find a compromise or another opponent.

Its not to hard to say something along the lines of "Look, I have been outplayed/made an arse of the game, therefore I resign" rather than just disappear..........of course he may have a valid reason and be back, but I doubt it.

Every single turn I recieve -- I send a message with my schedule to my opponet. That allows him to adjust his schedule if he pleases as well as know when to expect a turn. To just disappear is beyond rude. This game take quite a bit of committment and the right match of styles to be fun. It is getting more clear it is becoming less fun for you.

ORIGINAL: Crackaces

ORIGINAL: Miller

Just goes to show you need to sort out the HRs fully before the game begins. If either side does not like one, then find a compromise or another opponent.

Its not to hard to say something along the lines of "Look, I have been outplayed/made an arse of the game, therefore I resign" rather than just disappear..........of course he may have a valid reason and be back, but I doubt it.

Every single turn I recieve -- I send a message with my schedule to my opponet. That allows him to adjust his schedule if he pleases as well as know when to expect a turn. To just disappear is beyond rude. This game take quite a bit of committment and the right match of styles to be fun. It is getting more clear it is becoming less fun for you.

I think you are getting me mixed up with Castor Troy, its his game not mine.

However you are correct about giving your opponent an idea on the timing of the next turn. My current opponent is very good at cranking out the turns (we average 2.5-3 per day so far) However he never indicates as to whether or not he can do another that day (unless I ask him as soon as he has sent the turn)........a bit frustrating but I can live with it as he never complains no matter how bad the outcome of a turn.

ORIGINAL: Miller

ORIGINAL: Crackaces

ORIGINAL: Miller

Just goes to show you need to sort out the HRs fully before the game begins. If either side does not like one, then find a compromise or another opponent.

Its not to hard to say something along the lines of "Look, I have been outplayed/made an arse of the game, therefore I resign" rather than just disappear..........of course he may have a valid reason and be back, but I doubt it.

Every single turn I recieve -- I send a message with my schedule to my opponet. That allows him to adjust his schedule if he pleases as well as know when to expect a turn. To just disappear is beyond rude. This game take quite a bit of committment and the right match of styles to be fun. It is getting more clear it is becoming less fun for you.

I think you are getting me mixed up with Castor Troy, its his game not mine.

However you are correct about giving your opponent an idea on the timing of the next turn. My current opponent is very good at cranking out the turns (we average 2.5-3 per day so far) However he never indicates as to whether or not he can do another that day (unless I ask him as soon as he has sent the turn)........a bit frustrating but I can live with it as he never complains no matter how bad the outcome of a turn.

Yes I was directing my comment in the context of Castor Troy's game but a general comment on the game being fun and it takes two to do so .....[8D]

Not everyone has the same PBEM wargaming experiences, so in my case I went 6 months of a steady under-promise over-deliver and now we both let each other know the schedule for the day, week, in my case sometimes the month.

I am also very lucky in that my opponent never complains .. but we both share the same reasons and pleasures from wargaming .. it is the journey not winning in the end that counts. It is hard to find adversaries that share the same values and yet it is so important in a game like this where a relationship is required to continue for 2 -3 years.

ORIGINAL: castor troy

the AAR is on hold for the moment. While the game is still two weeks in front of the AAR I haven't had a turn or reply on my emails for the last five days so I don't know what's going on and I don't want the AAR completely catch up with the game due to intel risks (learnt from earlier AARs).

Any news CT? This looks more and more like an Allied victory in 1942 to me.

Just re-read the AAR, strategy wise it seems like your opponent ran operations with extreme risk from the very beginning, like someone only
would do against the AI while doing the good old save/reload strategy. You patiently waited for your chance to crush one of those kamikaze ops,
and he suddently noticed theres no reload button?

Could be that the above statement is unfair though. RL can interfere, I know how much.

The game and AAR are terminated. It's been a week now since I have received the last turn and there was no reply at all on my emails, my opponent vanished. I hope that my opponent hasn't been hit by a serious real life problem but due to the fact that these serious real life problems usually occur when something in the game goes bad at the same time I am leaning more towards the game situation not being pleasant anymore and therefore vanishing.

The game was still two weeks ahead of the AAR but I won't post the last combat reports anymore as this is just more a waste of time than all the PBEM has already been. Like I've mentioned before, one of the big disappointments of the last 7 years of gaming. Unfortunately it seems the AAR contributors are proven 100% right in their interpretation of my opponent.

To summarize what happened in these two last weeks between the end of the AAR and the game, the enemy was warping around his divisions in Southern Australia after the para spam opened up all raillines and at that point he probably was positive that the flawed strategy of taking the Melbourne/Sydney area would come true even after he lost all his invasion fleet for the Perth area. After the disaster around Perth I had my carriers retiring for r&r and at the same time I pushed nearly a dozen convoys with a total of 250 ships to Melbourne! [:D] These convoys brought several divisions, tank units, base force and two hundred USAAF fighters to Melbourne, which meant the thread title would become totally true, this ended the Japanese wet dream as there was just no chance to achieve anything in Southern Australia anymore other than once more taking all the empty bases, just like what he did everywhere else, taking empty ground.

Having my reinforcements in Melbourne, I ordered 300 av to move on the coast road to Sydney, bringing Sydney to 950 av, easily enough to hold off 2500 enemy av as we are speaking about an urban heavy hex and the two Australian divisions there had 100% preparation, were in excellent shape and had the best available leaders plus level 5 forts. Both Melbourne and Sydney had easily enough troops to stop what the IJA had in Southern Australia even without using my airforce. Needless to say that my convoys also carried roughly 400.000 supplies and 150.000 fuel, bringing the total supplies to over 600.000 in the area, enough to last forever. At the same time we were holding Perth with 1000 av, 100% prepped and level 5 forts, Darwin with 1200 av, 100% prepped (200.000 supplies) and Port Moresby with 1100 av, 100% prepped (200.000 supplies). None of these targets were in danger to be overrun by the Japanese, every target would have needed a major Japanese operation and taking them one by one would take him over a year without me doing anything. He still was bogged down at my strongholds on Java, Philipines and Sumatra, no real action in China where my troops are dug in, fully prepped and well supplied.

There was no hope for him to achieve air superiority over Southern Australia, there was another convoy coming in within ten days bringing another 8 USAAF fighter and a dozen bomber squadrons. Within three weeks when the game crashed I would have operated roughly 500 fighters plus 300 bombers in Southern Australia, Melbourne being a level 9 airfield, both Melbourne and Sydney having level 6 forts and ample supply. The biggest enemy airfields were Port Augusta and Brisbane, both only level 4. All my fighter pilots had 70 air skill and 1/3 of them already 70 def skill. The last turn he played he sent a Zero and and Oscar unit to sweep Melbourne and while only 80 fighters were airborne, the Zeroes lost 5:1 over my base (he forgot to order them on a strato sweep and the were doing horrible at 10000ft) with the Oscars coming in on their strato sweep they did considerable better but I was 100% confident that he would not have a chance to achieve air superiority with me having so many more fighters, let alone that I could field 130 B-17E and D plus two and a halve dozen Liberators, a hundred Mitchels/Marauders, Hudsons I/III, Vengeance, SBD, Banshees, three dozen torp biplanes and if necessary 100+ Wirraways [:D]. A sub also put a torp into a Kongo class BB in the days before the IJ commander vanished.

Commenting the whole strategic situation and what happened in the four months of war, the IJ was able to take all the empty ground on the map and that's it. We've lost 4 BB and 1 CL at PH, 1 CA at Darwin and roughly two dozen DD all around the map plus the merchants that tried to flee the SRA and that's it when it comes down to our ship losses. After the disaster around Perth and Melbourne, the enemy took the lead for points in shipping losses already, having lost something like 150 ships in total. 1 BB, halve a dozen CA, a couple of CL, two dozen DD, halve a dozen SS (mines around Melbourne [:D]) and over 70 transports were lost in the flawed Australian operation (not counting damaged ships) and if we would have continued, this would have seriously gone up as our strenght would have grown far more in just a couple of weeks than what the Japanese could increase their strenght. To top the flawed IJ strategy, he released my invasion reinforcements which gave me over 1000av in top units that would have reached Australia under the cover of all my US and British carriers. Within the next couple of weeks, there would have been three more US divs, two Aus, one British div, tank units, engineers, base forces and a dozen AA units reaching Australia, further increasing our strenght at Perth and Southern Australia. I think my opponent thought it would be enough to take all the empty map to isolate Australia but he totally failed doing so, not a single convoy going to Australia was caught as they were coming in from off map locations so the tactic of taking the whole SOPAC was wrong right from the start as this meant I would not even give him the chance to intercept my convoys on the long route from the US West Coast to Australia. With the presence of my carriers and KB never operating as a whole, he would not have had a chance to stop me bringing in my convoys and even with KB operating in full strenght, KB can't be anywhere and it is not that hard to avoid the enemy carriers as they were spotted frequently patrolling around Australia.

I was fully confident the enemy would get nowhere other than taking yet empty ground, this time in Australia and while taking all the empty ground, he paid an extreme price for it. But exactly the turn my convoys unloaded at Melbourne and IJ recon aircraft suddenly showing a huge Army plus hundreds of aircraft there, my opponent vanished. Go figure!

Castor - I applaud your doggedness in these AARs & I'm sorry that you've been unable to find a real quality opponent (and I do love your rants - there are many facets of the game that, most likely due to limitations in the code & AI / balance issues, that can make for a very unpleasant experience - re: Greyjoy's debacle).

I'd love to see you play John3rd or even get into a game with CR (though he is a bit tied up at the moment). Have you played the Japanese side yet?

Best of luck to you in future endeavors.

ORIGINAL: paullus99

Castor - I applaud your doggedness in these AARs & I'm sorry that you've been unable to find a real quality opponent (and I do love your rants - there are many facets of the game that, most likely due to limitations in the code & AI / balance issues, that can make for a very unpleasant experience - re: Greyjoy's debacle).

I'd love to see you play John3rd or even get into a game with CR (though he is a bit tied up at the moment). Have you played the Japanese side yet?

Best of luck to you in future endeavors.

I've played John in WITP and the game ended in mid 42 [8|] after he lost halve of KB to my carriers taking no damage as he just always has the bad habit of splitting KB into several divisions which enables one to take on the IJ at nice odds.

I haven't played the Japanese in AE yet, but am thinking about to do so as this seems to be one of the better choices if I want to have a game going longer than early 42 with the opponents I had lately. My last three campaigns all ended prior to 6/42 with the Allied wrecking havoc in all three games. While I was really lucky with most of my opponents in WITP I also had a great campaign against Rainer79 in AE but ever since the outcome of my PBEM was just a pity. Going with my experience, it seems best not to try to hurt the Japanese until mid 43 or you run danger of losing your opponent.

Going with my experience, it seems best not to try to hurt the Japanese until mid 43 or you run danger of losing your opponent.

Indeed [:D]

Its very hard to hurt the Japs before then if they are played correctly. Trying to take half the map before April 42 whilst splitting the KB into two or three seperate operations at the same time is asking for trouble.

Sorry, CT, too bad. Give it another go, there are plenty of good blokes around. Slightly tricky zeroing in on them is all.

Well... wet dream ended. [:D]

Well, good job. You did not panic and reacted to his moves well. Sorry it is over but you are better off.