Historical First Turn

[romanovich]

Hello Development Team,

Obviously lots of effort is going into making the OOB as historically accurate as possible. Kudos for that!

There was one thing in the plain vanilla WITP that I always found very annoying: if you selected Historical First Turn and Pearl Harbor Surprise on, the game never actually represented the attack on Pearl Harbor that well. Historically, obviously, the Japs missed the U.S. CVs since they were out at sea. They did do some considerable damage though to the fleet train, with 5 BBs and several other ships sunk. I've never seen that replicated in plain vanilla WITP. Usually the Jap attack sinks a BB at most, sometimes not even that.

If such were to re-occur in WITP AE, the whole thing about recreating a realistic OOB would be turned on its head with the very first turn (with the U.S. essentially retaining its whole fleet train, the whole game dynamics change).

Are you planning on giving us a truly "Historical First Turn" in AE? One in which the losses in the Pearl Harbor attack are mirroring historical reality? Would it even be possible to create a starting turn that re-creates Pearl to a tee? It's kind of distracting to embark on a grand scenario and have the USS Arizona show up in different theaters and battles because the game engine decided that it wasn't to be her turn 12/7/41. Saps a lot of realism from your grand campaign if that happens...

Thanks for the heads up. Look fwd to your early Summer '09 release. [:'(]

[Tactics]

Yeah, I usually only sink 1 US BB also. Another thing that seems to always happen - As my Japanese Carrier task force is on teh way home, the US carriers usually attack me on the 2nd or 3rd turn.  It usualy ends with me sinking one US CV.
 
 

[Crimguy]

Is this as Japan against the AI Tactics? B/c only a moron would go anywhere near KB until May at the earliest. I'd opt for avoiding Jap carriers until '43 when my hellcats arrive.

[spence]

One foible of the system is that ships sunk at Pearl Harbor such as Nevada, West Virginia and California would be permanently out of the game and would miss their rendezvous with Yamashiro (two out of 3 anyways)at Surigao Strait some years later. (Similarly the British raid on Taranto did not permanently eliminate the Italian Fleet) The ability to raise a ship is not part of the system. The number of ships "sunk sunk" is not that inconsistent with history. Besides, in the game the Japanese can spend an extra week hanging around the Hawaiian Islands burning "cyberfuel" and run their total up far beyond historical reality.

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: spence

One foible of the system is that ships sunk at Pearl Harbor such as Nevada, West Virginia and California would be permanently out of the game and would miss their rendezvous with Yamashiro (two out of 3 anyways)at Surigao Strait some years later. (Similarly the British raid on Taranto did not permanently eliminate the Italian Fleet) The ability to raise a ship is not part of the system. The number of ships "sunk sunk" is not that inconsistent with history. Besides, in the game the Japanese can spend an extra week hanging around the Hawaiian Islands burning "cyberfuel" and run their total up far beyond historical reality.

Excellent points. As for "hanging around", that was a no-brainer decision with "old WitP", since the KBs deathstar CAP made it impervious to anything in the Allied 12/41 arsenal. But based on what we've seen in some of these recent AE AAR's my guess is that you'd be well advised to get KB the hell out of dodge before LBA reinforcements and the US carriers show up. Fool proof CAP appears to be a thing of the past.

[Grotius]

Also, didn't vanilla WITP have a December 8 scenario? You start with the situation the day after Pearl? I might be wrong, as I never tried it -- I always wanted to play the Pearl attack.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Grotius

Also, didn't vanilla WITP have a December 8 scenario? You start with the situation the day after Pearl? I might be wrong, as I never tried it -- I always wanted to play the Pearl attack.

there is a December 8 scenario...

[spence]

since the KBs deathstar CAP made it impervious to anything in the Allied 12/41 arsenal.

Historically, the really loose organization, almost complete non-organization, that the IJN employed to control its CAP made the "KB Deathstar Model" one of the most egregious historical flaws of WitP. However, the USN developed over time a CAP that did inflict horrific losses on attacking Japanese aircraft. The CAP leaked some to be sure but it was so proficient that the 3rd/5th Fleet was able to consistently go head to head with major land-based concentrations of airpower and win. On a tactical level the USN evolved equipment and organization that let their CAP "get there first with the most" while still providing a reserve to deal with new threats.

Does AE address the fundamental doctrinal differences in such a way that a really deadly USN CAP does or can evolve over the course of the game (while a similar evolution in the IJN is at the very least seriously retarded)?

{Unfair...True. But for a variety of reasons the IJN insisted on "bringing a knife to a gun fight" until there was next to no IJN left.}

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: spence

One foible of the system is that ships sunk at Pearl Harbor such as Nevada, West Virginia and California would be permanently out of the game and would miss their rendezvous with Yamashiro (two out of 3 anyways)at Surigao Strait some years later. (Similarly the British raid on Taranto did not permanently eliminate the Italian Fleet) The ability to raise a ship is not part of the system. The number of ships "sunk sunk" is not that inconsistent with history. Besides, in the game the Japanese can spend an extra week hanging around the Hawaiian Islands burning "cyberfuel" and run their total up far beyond historical reality.

This sure sounds like fodder for WITP 2? The ability of the game engine to detect very shallow water sinkings, and sunken ships being brought back from the bottom.
While the Japanese had very few real AR's, they had maybe 20 salvage ships, IIRC.
I have Ian Allens' book on the IJN and they worked in pairs and were stationed all over as I recall.(Book is at home.)

[romanovich]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: Grotius

Also, didn't vanilla WITP have a December 8 scenario? You start with the situation the day after Pearl? I might be wrong, as I never tried it -- I always wanted to play the Pearl attack.

there is a December 8 scenario...

Alright then, let's re-work that question posed to the development team: with much effort going into a historically accurate OOB and - as I recall - only limited scenarios available on initial release of AE, will there be a "grand scenario" that has an OOB as of 12/8/41?

If none is available, has Pearl been playtested in a "Historical First Turn" and "Surprise On" setting? What are the resulting losses to the U.S. fleet (on average)?

As I don't post/read up that often on forum things, I don't know who the members of the AE development team are. In your reply, could you identify yourself as such, so that I know which reply can be trusted?

Thanks much in advance.

[John 3rd]

m10bob--What book are you referring to?  Could you provide title and author?  Thanks!
 

[HMSWarspite]

ORIGINAL: spence

One foible of the system is that ships sunk at Pearl Harbor such as Nevada, West Virginia and California would be permanently out of the game and would miss their rendezvous with Yamashiro (two out of 3 anyways)at Surigao Strait some years later. (Similarly the British raid on Taranto did not permanently eliminate the Italian Fleet) The ability to raise a ship is not part of the system. The number of ships "sunk sunk" is not that inconsistent with history.

I have always taken the historical ships sunk and raised later as equivalent in game to a very heavily damaged but not quite sunk ship that takes ages to repair. Don't get too hooked on 'sunk' in game. It kind of works, because damage that would surely sink you at sea (in game) wont in Pearl, so you get the 'raised ship' syndrome. Not worth major havoc in the code to change for anyway IMHO.

[Barb]

There is 99 sys damage to ships in harbors causing them to be "unsinkable". With little luck your day at pearl harbor will end with 1-2 BBs sunk, 2-3 in high 90s of damage.
To repair a Battleship with 99 sys damage to 0 will take you 2 years with little luck. So they could be ready for combat somewhere in 1944 - just in time for Surigao strait rendenzvous [:D]

[romanovich]

The 1-2 BBs sunk, 2-3 in high 90s is an average result of the Pearl Harbor Attack in a Historical First Turn in AE?

You are a playtester?

Thanks for clarifying.

[ny59giants]

If we are going to talk about a historical first turn, then the invasion of Wake Island needs to be changed. 

[spence]

If we are going to talk about a historical first turn, then the invasion of Wake Island needs to be changed.

There are a number of first turn invasions that never happened. It is my opinion that the sailing of the invasion TFs (Vigan, Legaspi, Wake) for those invasions was purposeful so that the KB would have a better chance of achieving surprise at Pearl Harbor.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

m10bob--What book are you referring to? Could you provide title and author? Thanks!

The book is JAPANESE WARSHIPS OF WWII by Anthony J Watts, sbn 7110 0215 0

[Yamato hugger]

Well, I have run quite a few "historical first turns" in AE and I have seen anywhere from none to 7 BBs sunk in the attack. 1 to 3 is most common.

As for Wake, barring any future changes of course, I havent seen Wake invaded on turn 1 in any test run.

[undercovergeek]

so theres no way to lock in the ACTUAL pearl results and leave you to fiddle with the rest of the first turn elsewhere?

[Grotius]

o theres no way to lock in the ACTUAL pearl results and leave you to fiddle with the rest of the first turn elsewhere?

Well, as I mentioned, there was a way in vanilla WITP -- a December 8 scenario.

there is a December 8 scenario...

Castor, you mean there is one in AE, or only in vanilla WITP?