I assumed that we were at approximately the same experience level. Of course, it was also my first time playing allies, as I have always been a hardcore Japanese player.ORIGINAL: veji1
Hi Ron, nice to read you, very refreshing.
Seydlitz, were you much more experienced than your opponent ?
Ron,
to answer your question....
He got exactly what he deserved. By pulling everything out of the area and sending it far away, he made Hakodate a legitimate target. Nothing gamey about it. He was starting to screw around in the Indian Ocean with major forces.
Aside from that, when I posted in the opponent wanted column, I made it clear that I wanted an opponent who could do a turn a day, with only infrequent RL interruptions. It turned out not to be the case here. We would play a bunch of turns a day apart, then he would suddenly disappear for several days with not so much as an email to let me know that he had the turn but was busy. It became so inconsistent about a month and a half into the game that I decided to pick up a second pbem with another player. Here I was, tracking all sub actions etc in a spreadsheet so that I could go back later and see how much subs improve long term, convoy patterns, what worked,didn't work, etc and I couldn't even get consistent turns. Bottom line, if you plan to play with me, I expect consistent play, and if there is going to be a delay, drop me a courtesy email before the fact, not two weeks later. Needless to say, I doubt that I would play another pbem with this opponent because my limited hobby time is too limited. I would instead find me another opponent with a better track record of sticking with the game.
As I say, it wasn't a suicidal hail Mary because he had commited major forces to the IO, and I felt that I had damaged over 50 transports in SAMAH and Pescadores that he had left in 4E range over the course of two months. That reduced his ability to move troops back quickly that he had taken from northern Japan.
I feel that there was a 50% chance that I could have permanently held the northern island (I looked at the files after we ended to see what I had really done), but whether or not I held was a moot point. I did enough damage to his forces to slow his offensive down and prevent any hope of autovictory. If Japan can't win an autovictory, then they are doomed.
In the end, Hakodate had very crappy weather that prevented my planes from flying about half the time, and the hex paths in and out required passing through a defended strait on both sides. I won't say that I wouldn't do it again if similar circumstances presented themselves, but I will say that the potential of Hakodate as a base for bombing doesn't live up to it's bill. On the flip side it did screw up his production since there were significant resources on the northern island. At least as a Japanese player, I have learned enough to know exactly how much I need to keep up north to defend against this gambit by another allied player.