A Plea For Allied Production
Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 7:50 pm
To begin with, hello! Yes, this is my first topic. This is an incredibly long post, and I'll recap at the bottom. Feel free to ignore it if you don't feel up to a lot of reading. Note that I'm not entiiirely sure where this should go, so if it belongs in another subforum, feel free to move the post or thread.
To give the slightest bit of background, I'm just a young player who stumbled onto this game, spent the last couple of weeks reading forum threads from this and the original WitP board - arguments about strategy, tactics, how-to guides, debates on expansionist vs. defensive strategy for Japan, the journeys of the Hibiki... so on, so forth. It all eventually got me over my sticker-shock for the game, and I made my purchase. I'm three days in and loving it, even though I'm only on my fifth turn. This game is insane, beautiful, and everything I ever dreamed of a wargame being.
Well, almost everything.
One thing that I've found rather disappointing is the Allied player's complete lack of control over production and industry. I've read the threads detailing why - and they make a lot of sense. It's true - the war in Europe took priority, in everything, leaving me all the more astonished that the brave men of the Commonwealth, the Chinese soldiers, and American soldiers and marines - to say nothing of the Filipinos, the Free French, et cetera - accomplished what they did: The defeat of an Empire whose history stretches back before they started writing things like that down.
But it was not merely strength of arms that saw the fall of the Empire of the Rising Sun, the liberation of the Pacific, and the beginnings of a new era (for better or for worse) - nor was it merely America's gradually-awakening industrial splendor that overwhelmed the Japanese under hundreds of thousands of tons of rifles, machineguns, ships, mortars and howitzers. Other Allied nations contributed, too - and their contributions, owing to the game's system, cannot be modeled.
Let me be frank: I am not asking that Production be enabled in the regular game, because there are very good reasons not to have it on by default, there. (Don't want to deal with a production system? Play Allied! I imagine that was a good selling-point of the game, for some people.) All I'm asking is that the option to turn it on in user-made scenarios, be enabled. I know that we're coming up on the release date of Patch 2, and so I don't expect this to make it into that patch (especially considering balancing issues to be resolved), but I would like to see this added to a provisional, far-in-the-future Patch 3. Mayhap even, by then, an official scenario supporting it - but that might just be a pipe-dream, considering how much work goes into these scenarios.
There are very good reasons to discount this request, entirely. The scale of the work involved is just one of them - I presume that, from day one, the Allies were intended to keep their current partial-production model, and the entire game has been modeled around that. There are elements in place - merchant shipyards and the like converting to repair shipyards, just to name one - that are touted as part of the 'balance' between the Allied and Japanese forces - and, indeed, the entire game is balanced around this paradigm, and around weakening and limiting the Allied player as much as possible, to give the Japanese player a chance.
That doesn't even go into the fact that it may turn out to be a tremendous deal of work (and programming, and coding, and testing, and bugfixing) for only a minority segment of the people who play the game - after all, those who want to play with Production don't seem to have a problem with playing Japan, as it stands, and I haven't seen many Allied fans who are up in arrears over the lack of production-control on that side - nor many who seem like they'd even want it, though I don't know if my own limited exposure is sufficient to reveal that.
But there are also compelling reasons to include it. It wasn't, as I stated earlier, American industry alone that fueled the Allied war-effort. Canadian industry played its part, as well - as pointed out here. (Canada At War: Canadian War Industry) To summarize: Canada contributed over 4,000 ships, over 800,000 military vehicles, and countless guns and supplies to itself and its allies during the war - not just to Britain and the United States, but, through the Canadian "Mutual Aid" program, to Australia, to New Zealand, to countries in need and Allied, across the globe.
The country's industrial capacity did not start with the ability to sustain or deliver this sort of production - it was built up during the war, built up in the same manner that Japanese production was, during the very war that War in the Pacific seeks to simulate. The growth of Canadian industry was unbelievably important for them, as a country, and its exclusion as such in the game is, thusly, unfortunate.
But, and I can already hear others saying this, Canada is not the focus of the war. While many ships and supplies from Canada's newly-built western shipyards likely reached the Allied war effort in the Pacific, only a tiny fraction of the country - and the least-industrialized part of it, to my understanding - is actually represented in this game. Canada by itself is not a compelling enough reason to make any drastic changes to the game, and I might just agree with that, myself.
But what about Australia?
As covered by the this site (Australian War Memorial, specifically the Civil section) and the sub-section here, (Australian War Memorial: Home Front) Australia also pulled together and vastly increased their industrial muscle and output during the war. Australia alone contributed over 3,300 planes, hundreds of military vehicles - including tanks! - tens of thousands of artillery-pieces, machine-guns, and anti-aircraft weapons, and hundreds of thousands of rifles, for their own troops, especially. Admittedly, unlike Canada, many of these craft were reserved for Australian or Commonwealth use, but that's still a substantial chunk of industry, and a great deal of industrial growth, that this game makes impossible.
My final talking-point is India. I hardly need to tell you that India's industrial growth helped fuel, clothe, and supply the Allied war effort in the Pacific - the increasing process of military Indianization is already modeled in the ever-greater replacement of British regulars with Indian troops, to my understanding. The entire subcontinent is there for the player to toy with, and there is no doubt in my mind that the expansion of industry and economic might that occurred in India during World War II helped to make it one of the world's leading industrial powers in the decades that followed.
The purely-historical reinforcement and replacement system of the game does, admittedly, cover a great deal of the black-and-white effects of these increasing national outputs - and with the difficulty Japan has in directly threatening Australia, the continental United States, and the whole of the Indian subcontinent, full Allied production may just be another nail in Japan's coffin - something that's unnecessary and will only contribute to headaches for an Allied player. But, I don't think so.
By sticking with only enabling it for modified scenarios, or, wonder of wonders, creating a special full Allied Production scenario, the balance of the game is preserved for those who like a limited Allied production schema - and for those who just don't want to mess with a complex production system in the first place!
And, at the same time, the system is freed up to deliver to those of us who do want that additional headache, that additional struggle, exactly what we're begging for. Enabling full Allied Production as an option for modders extends our options, extends the challenge of the game, and for those who are already turning to 'Ironman' scenarios to get a little more 'oomph' out of the AI's capitalization of its resources, affords an opportunity to try a game that will truly test our resolve.
Or, for those of us who like the idea of buffing Japan up so as to have to fight harder, it gives us an opportunity to actually match them - whereas right now, the limited nature of Allied production functions as a chain on how strong one can make the Japanese side before victory becomes next to impossible, with the set, limited forces at our command.
I don't know exactly what role you, the developers, see the player taking in this game - but for my part I tend to see us in a role as the Chief of the Navy or some similarly-powerful position, similar to the player's role in "Pacific Theater of Operations" and its sequel, games for the Super Nintendo that I grew up on. Such an individual would, doubtless, be able to influence and direct production for this theater, to a larger extent than merely building airplanes with a set and unchangable number of factories. But, whatever role you see us in, I'd still say there are plenty of reasons to let us have free reign of the Allied production pipeline.
Yes, in the beginning, Japan will find it hard to stop initial Allied production, but as the system expands across the board, it will need resources just as much as the Japanese system does - India, Australia, even Canada and the Continental U.S. are not endlessly self-sufficient in regards to resources and oil, in this game, from what I've seen. It will require Allied effort to keep going, if he wants to keep expanding. It wouldn't, in my eyes, be 'just another Allied advantage', in a game that - according to some - is already weighted with quite a few. If anything, when enabled, it'd help level the playing field, making it necessary for the Allies to do more than twiddle their thumbs to get the forces to fight Japan.
To summarize: The geopolitical realities of industry in the various Allied nations mean that there are compelling real-world examples of industrial growth in the Pacific during World War II, and this cannot currently be modeled in Admiral's Edition or War In The Pacific. To help portray these, to increase the range of options available to gamers and players and modders, alike, to help contribute to the creation of challenging and interesting games and scenarios in Admiral's Edition, I am suggesting that the enablement of full control of Allied Production be added as a scenario option, or realism option, for modders to use or for gamers to enable.
I am not suggesting that it be enabled by default in any scenario, owing to the headaches it can cause for people who don't want it. I am considering a custom-made, official 'Full Allied Production' scenario as a wishlist-item - nice to think about, but probably not something that will happen. I also realize that "Allied" production is a great deal more complex than Japanese production - whose resources can you use? What do all these factories build? Can an Australian factory be forced to build an American fighter, or vice-versa? I don't know how many of these concerns, and countless others, will have to be addressed by the team if they even so much as give me the time of day, but I'm sure it'd be a considerable investment to make Allied Production a 'go'.
That's why I've taken the time to go through all this, though. I know it's just a game - that the whole thing is just a game, it's not incredibly serious business, but still - I think it's worth the effort. I think it's worth the headaches. I think it's worth the investment. And, after all, isn't that what a game like War in the Pacific is all about? Isn't it a game that looks you square in the eye, and says: "I am difficult, I am complicated, I will be your worst nightmare as you try to learn all of my intricacies, plan for them, and implement them. I will keep you up at night worrying, I will steal time that may be more wisely invested elsewhere, but I am worth it"?
It is to me. Here's hoping that Allied Production is, to you.
~Kaoru, probably the first APFB (Allied Production Fanboy)
To give the slightest bit of background, I'm just a young player who stumbled onto this game, spent the last couple of weeks reading forum threads from this and the original WitP board - arguments about strategy, tactics, how-to guides, debates on expansionist vs. defensive strategy for Japan, the journeys of the Hibiki... so on, so forth. It all eventually got me over my sticker-shock for the game, and I made my purchase. I'm three days in and loving it, even though I'm only on my fifth turn. This game is insane, beautiful, and everything I ever dreamed of a wargame being.
Well, almost everything.
One thing that I've found rather disappointing is the Allied player's complete lack of control over production and industry. I've read the threads detailing why - and they make a lot of sense. It's true - the war in Europe took priority, in everything, leaving me all the more astonished that the brave men of the Commonwealth, the Chinese soldiers, and American soldiers and marines - to say nothing of the Filipinos, the Free French, et cetera - accomplished what they did: The defeat of an Empire whose history stretches back before they started writing things like that down.
But it was not merely strength of arms that saw the fall of the Empire of the Rising Sun, the liberation of the Pacific, and the beginnings of a new era (for better or for worse) - nor was it merely America's gradually-awakening industrial splendor that overwhelmed the Japanese under hundreds of thousands of tons of rifles, machineguns, ships, mortars and howitzers. Other Allied nations contributed, too - and their contributions, owing to the game's system, cannot be modeled.
Let me be frank: I am not asking that Production be enabled in the regular game, because there are very good reasons not to have it on by default, there. (Don't want to deal with a production system? Play Allied! I imagine that was a good selling-point of the game, for some people.) All I'm asking is that the option to turn it on in user-made scenarios, be enabled. I know that we're coming up on the release date of Patch 2, and so I don't expect this to make it into that patch (especially considering balancing issues to be resolved), but I would like to see this added to a provisional, far-in-the-future Patch 3. Mayhap even, by then, an official scenario supporting it - but that might just be a pipe-dream, considering how much work goes into these scenarios.
There are very good reasons to discount this request, entirely. The scale of the work involved is just one of them - I presume that, from day one, the Allies were intended to keep their current partial-production model, and the entire game has been modeled around that. There are elements in place - merchant shipyards and the like converting to repair shipyards, just to name one - that are touted as part of the 'balance' between the Allied and Japanese forces - and, indeed, the entire game is balanced around this paradigm, and around weakening and limiting the Allied player as much as possible, to give the Japanese player a chance.
That doesn't even go into the fact that it may turn out to be a tremendous deal of work (and programming, and coding, and testing, and bugfixing) for only a minority segment of the people who play the game - after all, those who want to play with Production don't seem to have a problem with playing Japan, as it stands, and I haven't seen many Allied fans who are up in arrears over the lack of production-control on that side - nor many who seem like they'd even want it, though I don't know if my own limited exposure is sufficient to reveal that.
But there are also compelling reasons to include it. It wasn't, as I stated earlier, American industry alone that fueled the Allied war-effort. Canadian industry played its part, as well - as pointed out here. (Canada At War: Canadian War Industry) To summarize: Canada contributed over 4,000 ships, over 800,000 military vehicles, and countless guns and supplies to itself and its allies during the war - not just to Britain and the United States, but, through the Canadian "Mutual Aid" program, to Australia, to New Zealand, to countries in need and Allied, across the globe.
The country's industrial capacity did not start with the ability to sustain or deliver this sort of production - it was built up during the war, built up in the same manner that Japanese production was, during the very war that War in the Pacific seeks to simulate. The growth of Canadian industry was unbelievably important for them, as a country, and its exclusion as such in the game is, thusly, unfortunate.
But, and I can already hear others saying this, Canada is not the focus of the war. While many ships and supplies from Canada's newly-built western shipyards likely reached the Allied war effort in the Pacific, only a tiny fraction of the country - and the least-industrialized part of it, to my understanding - is actually represented in this game. Canada by itself is not a compelling enough reason to make any drastic changes to the game, and I might just agree with that, myself.
But what about Australia?
As covered by the this site (Australian War Memorial, specifically the Civil section) and the sub-section here, (Australian War Memorial: Home Front) Australia also pulled together and vastly increased their industrial muscle and output during the war. Australia alone contributed over 3,300 planes, hundreds of military vehicles - including tanks! - tens of thousands of artillery-pieces, machine-guns, and anti-aircraft weapons, and hundreds of thousands of rifles, for their own troops, especially. Admittedly, unlike Canada, many of these craft were reserved for Australian or Commonwealth use, but that's still a substantial chunk of industry, and a great deal of industrial growth, that this game makes impossible.
My final talking-point is India. I hardly need to tell you that India's industrial growth helped fuel, clothe, and supply the Allied war effort in the Pacific - the increasing process of military Indianization is already modeled in the ever-greater replacement of British regulars with Indian troops, to my understanding. The entire subcontinent is there for the player to toy with, and there is no doubt in my mind that the expansion of industry and economic might that occurred in India during World War II helped to make it one of the world's leading industrial powers in the decades that followed.
The purely-historical reinforcement and replacement system of the game does, admittedly, cover a great deal of the black-and-white effects of these increasing national outputs - and with the difficulty Japan has in directly threatening Australia, the continental United States, and the whole of the Indian subcontinent, full Allied production may just be another nail in Japan's coffin - something that's unnecessary and will only contribute to headaches for an Allied player. But, I don't think so.
By sticking with only enabling it for modified scenarios, or, wonder of wonders, creating a special full Allied Production scenario, the balance of the game is preserved for those who like a limited Allied production schema - and for those who just don't want to mess with a complex production system in the first place!
And, at the same time, the system is freed up to deliver to those of us who do want that additional headache, that additional struggle, exactly what we're begging for. Enabling full Allied Production as an option for modders extends our options, extends the challenge of the game, and for those who are already turning to 'Ironman' scenarios to get a little more 'oomph' out of the AI's capitalization of its resources, affords an opportunity to try a game that will truly test our resolve.
Or, for those of us who like the idea of buffing Japan up so as to have to fight harder, it gives us an opportunity to actually match them - whereas right now, the limited nature of Allied production functions as a chain on how strong one can make the Japanese side before victory becomes next to impossible, with the set, limited forces at our command.
I don't know exactly what role you, the developers, see the player taking in this game - but for my part I tend to see us in a role as the Chief of the Navy or some similarly-powerful position, similar to the player's role in "Pacific Theater of Operations" and its sequel, games for the Super Nintendo that I grew up on. Such an individual would, doubtless, be able to influence and direct production for this theater, to a larger extent than merely building airplanes with a set and unchangable number of factories. But, whatever role you see us in, I'd still say there are plenty of reasons to let us have free reign of the Allied production pipeline.
Yes, in the beginning, Japan will find it hard to stop initial Allied production, but as the system expands across the board, it will need resources just as much as the Japanese system does - India, Australia, even Canada and the Continental U.S. are not endlessly self-sufficient in regards to resources and oil, in this game, from what I've seen. It will require Allied effort to keep going, if he wants to keep expanding. It wouldn't, in my eyes, be 'just another Allied advantage', in a game that - according to some - is already weighted with quite a few. If anything, when enabled, it'd help level the playing field, making it necessary for the Allies to do more than twiddle their thumbs to get the forces to fight Japan.
To summarize: The geopolitical realities of industry in the various Allied nations mean that there are compelling real-world examples of industrial growth in the Pacific during World War II, and this cannot currently be modeled in Admiral's Edition or War In The Pacific. To help portray these, to increase the range of options available to gamers and players and modders, alike, to help contribute to the creation of challenging and interesting games and scenarios in Admiral's Edition, I am suggesting that the enablement of full control of Allied Production be added as a scenario option, or realism option, for modders to use or for gamers to enable.
I am not suggesting that it be enabled by default in any scenario, owing to the headaches it can cause for people who don't want it. I am considering a custom-made, official 'Full Allied Production' scenario as a wishlist-item - nice to think about, but probably not something that will happen. I also realize that "Allied" production is a great deal more complex than Japanese production - whose resources can you use? What do all these factories build? Can an Australian factory be forced to build an American fighter, or vice-versa? I don't know how many of these concerns, and countless others, will have to be addressed by the team if they even so much as give me the time of day, but I'm sure it'd be a considerable investment to make Allied Production a 'go'.
That's why I've taken the time to go through all this, though. I know it's just a game - that the whole thing is just a game, it's not incredibly serious business, but still - I think it's worth the effort. I think it's worth the headaches. I think it's worth the investment. And, after all, isn't that what a game like War in the Pacific is all about? Isn't it a game that looks you square in the eye, and says: "I am difficult, I am complicated, I will be your worst nightmare as you try to learn all of my intricacies, plan for them, and implement them. I will keep you up at night worrying, I will steal time that may be more wisely invested elsewhere, but I am worth it"?
It is to me. Here's hoping that Allied Production is, to you.
~Kaoru, probably the first APFB (Allied Production Fanboy)