Perfection, of a kind, spence (A) vs fcharton (J), no spence, please

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Hi Francois. Good to see you back. A very excellent post up there on the game, and just good reflections about the difficulties of negotiating the abstracts and limitations of the AE by a number of players.

The only contribution I want to make just now is on defense. One thing we've not had yet is a real calculation of the cost of infrastructure for Japan, including field, port and fort building. The cost is as high as the player is thorough. If he/she has the time because of a good opening to continue the preparation for defense well into 43 the defense is more solid, but the cost is higher and the economic wheels might come off sooner. I was able because of a very fortunate CV encounter in late 42 to slow Jocke's offensive for a good while, allowing much more intensive preparation of at least the first few layers of defense, and yet in the end couldn't get enough bullets in rifles.

It worked for a while. The Allies moved, but they were stalled in spots, specifically Burma, for a good time. I was able to use the forts to slow movement in the Pacific, the KB to take a tithe for moving forward, and the flotilla of patrol planes and transports dedicated to moving men and equipment to actually evacuate entire divisions. (Part of this made easier by a bug causing ineffective LR CAP, later fixed).

Evacuation, and even loss and rebuilding, is an option for Japan, and where barges don't function quite as well as in reality, flying boats and transports are more effective than they could ever have been.

In places these planes were also used for last minute ops to fly in troops just before a base was attacked, thus stalling an advance as the prepped unit was no longer able to take the base.

The limitations of the game are sometimes frustrating, but they also can be used as a constructive constraint, squeezing our box of tools so that we have to be creative in order to find new methods and strategies, many of which bear little relationship to the war we're fascinated by and trying to understand more fully.

While I did make a good number of mistakes in the game against Jocke, and did end up running for the hills instead of digging in and fighting to the last man in true Japanese fashion on many occasions, I do think I learned a lot and defended to the end. My capacity to persevere and adapt both tactically and strategically really developed throughout the match, and I saw that in my opponent as well. He got tougher and tougher, and didn't drive Japan into a corner just because the Allies have more stuff but because of how he learned new ways of using it all.

Mainly, we learned each other, and that is the primary focus of this game to me, to have a hard fought social gaming experience with another player and share that with a community.

The game may not be as good as it could be if it were remade now with the tools available and the understanding of the current limitations, but it is still getting better, not just through the developers work (thanks DBB and michaelm!) but through all of the collective knowledge, skill, creativity and audacity of it's players, who keep learning how to make it do what they want in spite of it's cranky old code.