ORIGINAL: mogami
Don't listen to any of them. Play the whole thing and if you can get a PBEM game play that. It does not matter if you get spanked the first time out you will learn how and why you got spanked. When you play a game this size and time consuming you are looking for some kind of truth. A search for truth is never easy. Obviously the truth is Japan was going to be whipped. Play Japan. You will learn history. No egotistical person can play Japan. Only Egotistical people will never play Japan. This is a game. A chess game where having the first move does not count for very much. The allied player only needs suffer for around 6 months. The Japanese player will suffer for 3+ years. (Unless the allied player has a really massive ego and throws away the war)
“No egotistical person can play Japan”
This is not exactly right.
The problem with PBEM is not necessarily ego. The problem is the “fun” level.
The game is front loaded for Japan. In a PBEM game the Japanese player can run over
the Allied player in 1942 and well into 1943. Then the Allied player can come back for the next three years.
Playing the Japanese you won’t find a lot of war-gamers who find it fun to spend three years
of their
real lives getting beaten in order for the Allied player to have fun.
This creates an incentive for the Japanese player to have fun during 1942 and 1943 and then
to just drop out of the game and leave the Allied player high and dry.
This is a reason the game designers created a victory points system to make the game competitive.
It is a very good design. With that in mind it can be lots of fun to play Japan right up until the end of game.
That is if you have three or four years of your life to dedicate to it.
I will quote Alfred on this:
Japan will experience an economic implosion. As it should because that is historically accurate.
But it does not follow that the Japanese player is doomed to lose the game.
Japan has two ways of winning in AE. One is by achieving an auto victory which can occur
at any time after 1 January 1943. I see too many Japanese players who recklessly throw everything
to achieve an auto victory on 1 January 1943 and failing to do so then they reap the consequences
of their poor play. They forget that unless their opponent plays very badly, a later auto victory
which builds on thoughtful play throughout 1942, is the road to take. A very good example of properly
approaching an auto victory is found in Cribtop's recent AAR where a Japanese auto victory
on 1 January 1944 was assured (provided he did not lose his head waiting) and an auto victory
in the last quarter of 1943 was very much on the cards.
The other approach to achieve a Japanese victory is to prevent the Allied player from achieving either
an auto victory or a decisive victory at the end of the scenario. AE's victory conditions are very much
shaped by the historical outcome which equates to the game's auto/decisive victory conditions.
A Japanese player who prevents the Allied player from achieving that outcome, has in fact performed
much better than Japan did historically and therefore can consider to have won their race.
As to the strategy of digging in, at least in terms of how most interpret that strategy,
they simply get it wrong. The correct approach has always been for Japan to employ an active,
not passive defence. Again a very good discussion on how to conduct an active defence is found
in Cribtop's AAR. The fact is that the simplified and abstracted logistics model, combined with
certain "switches" which greatly augment Japan's historical at start asymmetrical advantages
and initiative, a good Japanese player can keep the initiative until he achieves victory.
Supply is overrated. Or more correctly, the lack of supply is unnecessarily feared. This is due
to the simplified abstracted logistics model. In AE a division which has zero supply still fights
at 25% of its theoretical combat power. In real life, such a unit, without water, puts up zero resistance.
In AE a unit with zero supply is only in trouble if it is called upon to do prolonged fighting or is confronted
by an overwhelming enemy force. In AE Japan will always be able to produce more supply than it was able to historically.
The ability to fly planes consuming only rice instead of avgas, means there is always the potential of flying air missions.
The issue really is not the production of supply per se but the distribution of supply to where
it is really needed. What usually happens is that Japanese players tend to look at their supply
distribution network and priorities only when it is too late. Not too many Japanese players consider
how much supply will be subsequently needed, and how to get it there, before embarking on their operations.
Cost benefit analyses do not figure prominently in their planning.
Alfred
Many players play the AI only for the following reasons:
The AI is always ready to play 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Late or early hours are not a problem. Multiple turns in a single day.
The AI won’t quit and won’t get mad or complain about some obscure issue.
You can sometimes finish an AI game in about six months and still remember what your wife looks like.
In any case welcome to the game Oli Draper. Have fun.
K
Got ya!!!!
