AE Grand Campaign - May 1942 start
Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2011 3:25 pm
This scenario is based on the grand campaign May 1942 version that shipped with original WitP stock.
Veterans of WitP will remember that the post 1941 grand campaigns were essentially copies of the standard Dec 7 1941 scenario with a few key playing pieces moved around whilst the majorty of the units remained in their 1941 positions. Please read carefully the descriptions and disclaimers before commenting. Thx.
What This Scenario attempts to be:
This scenario is meant to be a more comprehensive 1942 GC scenario than it's predesessor with a focus on minimizing player administration on Turn 1. This was acomplished by the following:
- most units (land/sea/air), including reinforcements that arrived between 12/7/41 and 5/1/42 have been moved either to their historical locations, or placed in a logical distribution based on the time period in question. (aka, in other words...no more finding piles of LCU's for example at Formosa in their 1941 positions ready to invade the SRA and PI islands)
The exception here is China. For the time being I have left it alone due to the mostly static nature of the conflict there at the time, + the fact that it's such a hyper Theater that players will quickly change the entire face of the map with movements, offenses and defenses within a few turns. An exception to this exception is that I put in a rough estimate of the Chinese Expeditionary Force that stumbled it's way out of Burma by mid 42
- The bulk of the opposing forces' merchant fleets have been concentrated at either their respective auto-convoy ports (Osaka/Columbo/San Francisco), or their home capital as in the case of Australia. This will allow players to quickly and easily allocate what preportions of their merchant fleets to economic and auto convoy duties without having the scour the map trying to locate them.
- The various opposing fleets have also been congregated in large part at home ports and bases with the exception of units assigned to imminent ops. For the Japanese fleet, there was some dispersement of major units to various naval commands so one will find major units at Singapore, Java, and the PI's as well as the Home Islands.
- All warships and merchants have been scrubbed to put them on their most current upgrades as of 5/1/42
- Airplane pools have been adjusted for May of 42. This was roughly based on letting the respective economies run for the six month period from dec41 to may42 + a tweak here or there.
- Map has been adjusted to account for May 42 situation (obviously) and command HQ assignments dolled out. (This may change somewhat in future versions as the AI scripting is hashed out)
- The historical forces for the Coral Sea operation and the situation in Burma are represented in close proximity as these were the two active hot spots at this point in time.
- Some additions to Restricted Commands were put in force to balance out the large amount of Allied LCU's that start the orginal scenario as well as reinforcements. This was done to reflect the political priorities of the time that stressed a defensive posture for the Allies in case of Japanese invasion. On a pragmatic game related side, it helps curb the 'early Allied counter-offensive' phenomenum that tends to infect most AE GC's.
What this scenario is NOT
This scenario is not....repeat NOT meant to represent a complete and anally retentive effort to historically place every single air unit, LCU or ship in their historical starting points in May of 1942. So please do not polute either this thread or my email box with gobs of Errata regarding the proper placement of the Australian 45th Bagpipe Cleaning Regiment or the whereabouts of Admiral Yammamotto. Such an effort would require 100's of man hours to acomplish and at the end of it, there would still be nitpickers who will complain that this or that is not HISTORICAL. In my own personal view I beleive that, in addition to time constraints that part of the reason why the Stock WitP post 1941 GC scenarios came off looking like partial conversions of the 41 template was because the original Developers probably figured that the effort was not worth the cost and time when in reality a game with this level of detail control by the players will quickly result in a completely changed situation...in other words...an AHISTORICAL situation outside of Restricted Commands. So given players' tendancies to take total charge of their forces and go their own ways to make history....does it really matter whether or not the 45th Bagpipe Cleaning regiment is in Brisbane on Turn 1 or Perth? By turn 5 it could be in Rabaul cleaning the socks out of Japanese bagpipes. [:)]
As stated, my primary goal was to ease player adiminstration duties on turn one and enhance enjoyment of the scenario by not having them have to take several hours tracking down units still sitting in their 1941 positions or in reinforcement ports and get them moving. What one has here is a rough mid 42 starting point that allows players to get further into the war without having to first mire through the first six months conqueroring the same areas before getting to the main showdown that was seen during this period and into 1943.
****
That all said....i welcome feedback and Errata corrections for major boo boo's and problems that crop up in player testing. I'm sure there are still a ton as i've only had 2+ weeks to work on this.
IMPORTANT NOTE
Version 1.0 of this scenario is ******PBEM ONLY********
Andy Mac has graciously agreed to write AI scripts for this scenario and the process has begun but it will be at least a couple weeks testing before it can be finalized. Until then....there is no AI. Don't try it....you'll get bored quickly. On the other hand...your brilliant plans will always suceed against an enemy paralyzed with fear. [:D]
Veterans of WitP will remember that the post 1941 grand campaigns were essentially copies of the standard Dec 7 1941 scenario with a few key playing pieces moved around whilst the majorty of the units remained in their 1941 positions. Please read carefully the descriptions and disclaimers before commenting. Thx.
What This Scenario attempts to be:
This scenario is meant to be a more comprehensive 1942 GC scenario than it's predesessor with a focus on minimizing player administration on Turn 1. This was acomplished by the following:
- most units (land/sea/air), including reinforcements that arrived between 12/7/41 and 5/1/42 have been moved either to their historical locations, or placed in a logical distribution based on the time period in question. (aka, in other words...no more finding piles of LCU's for example at Formosa in their 1941 positions ready to invade the SRA and PI islands)
The exception here is China. For the time being I have left it alone due to the mostly static nature of the conflict there at the time, + the fact that it's such a hyper Theater that players will quickly change the entire face of the map with movements, offenses and defenses within a few turns. An exception to this exception is that I put in a rough estimate of the Chinese Expeditionary Force that stumbled it's way out of Burma by mid 42
- The bulk of the opposing forces' merchant fleets have been concentrated at either their respective auto-convoy ports (Osaka/Columbo/San Francisco), or their home capital as in the case of Australia. This will allow players to quickly and easily allocate what preportions of their merchant fleets to economic and auto convoy duties without having the scour the map trying to locate them.
- The various opposing fleets have also been congregated in large part at home ports and bases with the exception of units assigned to imminent ops. For the Japanese fleet, there was some dispersement of major units to various naval commands so one will find major units at Singapore, Java, and the PI's as well as the Home Islands.
- All warships and merchants have been scrubbed to put them on their most current upgrades as of 5/1/42
- Airplane pools have been adjusted for May of 42. This was roughly based on letting the respective economies run for the six month period from dec41 to may42 + a tweak here or there.
- Map has been adjusted to account for May 42 situation (obviously) and command HQ assignments dolled out. (This may change somewhat in future versions as the AI scripting is hashed out)
- The historical forces for the Coral Sea operation and the situation in Burma are represented in close proximity as these were the two active hot spots at this point in time.
- Some additions to Restricted Commands were put in force to balance out the large amount of Allied LCU's that start the orginal scenario as well as reinforcements. This was done to reflect the political priorities of the time that stressed a defensive posture for the Allies in case of Japanese invasion. On a pragmatic game related side, it helps curb the 'early Allied counter-offensive' phenomenum that tends to infect most AE GC's.
What this scenario is NOT
This scenario is not....repeat NOT meant to represent a complete and anally retentive effort to historically place every single air unit, LCU or ship in their historical starting points in May of 1942. So please do not polute either this thread or my email box with gobs of Errata regarding the proper placement of the Australian 45th Bagpipe Cleaning Regiment or the whereabouts of Admiral Yammamotto. Such an effort would require 100's of man hours to acomplish and at the end of it, there would still be nitpickers who will complain that this or that is not HISTORICAL. In my own personal view I beleive that, in addition to time constraints that part of the reason why the Stock WitP post 1941 GC scenarios came off looking like partial conversions of the 41 template was because the original Developers probably figured that the effort was not worth the cost and time when in reality a game with this level of detail control by the players will quickly result in a completely changed situation...in other words...an AHISTORICAL situation outside of Restricted Commands. So given players' tendancies to take total charge of their forces and go their own ways to make history....does it really matter whether or not the 45th Bagpipe Cleaning regiment is in Brisbane on Turn 1 or Perth? By turn 5 it could be in Rabaul cleaning the socks out of Japanese bagpipes. [:)]
As stated, my primary goal was to ease player adiminstration duties on turn one and enhance enjoyment of the scenario by not having them have to take several hours tracking down units still sitting in their 1941 positions or in reinforcement ports and get them moving. What one has here is a rough mid 42 starting point that allows players to get further into the war without having to first mire through the first six months conqueroring the same areas before getting to the main showdown that was seen during this period and into 1943.
****
That all said....i welcome feedback and Errata corrections for major boo boo's and problems that crop up in player testing. I'm sure there are still a ton as i've only had 2+ weeks to work on this.
IMPORTANT NOTE
Version 1.0 of this scenario is ******PBEM ONLY********
Andy Mac has graciously agreed to write AI scripts for this scenario and the process has begun but it will be at least a couple weeks testing before it can be finalized. Until then....there is no AI. Don't try it....you'll get bored quickly. On the other hand...your brilliant plans will always suceed against an enemy paralyzed with fear. [:D]