Historical or "What-If" .... Can you have both?

[Shaka of Carthage]

This came up in another topic. I felt it deserved its own topic.

(written by 88mm, I edited it a little)

Do you want to play a "historical" and as close as it can towards "realistic" game or do you want to re-write history ?

Actualy, now that I think about it. Why are there 2 types of Airfleets? Why not 1 ?

It's a Airfleet, right? With all different kind of planes, including bombers.

Why 2 ,3 types of naval fleets. Why cruiser, Battleship and Carriers ? Why not destroyers? After all the detroyer was/is enemy number 1 of a sub, any sub. So the Cruisers/Battleships must I see as fleets with supporting destroyers etc...

It's a strange setup, 2 air-type (some would like 3), 4 naval types, and just one infantry(well 1 and 1/2, given the 1/2 sized corps) and one Panzer unit. Where's the recon, police-units (to control occupied arrea), Pioniertroops, Armored Infantry, Motorised infantry, Anti-tank bataljons, Ligth Tanks, Heavy Tanks, etc.etc.etc.

That's why i don't understand the need for JET-fleets, while the hole game is simplified to the max. (except a few strange choice, see my comment on naval vessels).

Also this kind of changes involves re-writing the game-engine, instead of adjusting gamebalance.

(enhancements) sounds great, but when implemented you still don't have a complete, realistic game. That is at least what I think about it.

[88mm]

you're pulling my leg, aren't ya ?

[Liam]

I have to agree, you have rockets but no artillery/anti-aircraft/Coastal Guns???

If you can fire 50 miles inland why not 50 miles out? You won't see many cases of WW2 ships getting in range of Coastal Batteries without a suicide wish or other support...

[JerseyJohn]

At war's end Germany was building jet fighters in substantial numbers. By then it was too late, of course. However, if they'd done nothing more than continue with their existing program in 1939 at even a slow pace they'd have been over two years ahead of their actual jet development schedule! There would definitely have been large numbers of jet interceptors in use by 1942.

The British would have put their own research into high gear and reverse engineered downed German air craft so there would have been British jets in the skies as well.

The problem with SC is all your airfleets become stocked with jet aircraft the moment you've developed that level of research. Naturally this is unreasonable. That's why I advocate making it two seperate lines of research and two different types of units. There's nothing wrong with having Prop Aircraft L=0 thru L=5 existing beside Jet Aircraft L=0 thru L=5. The reason I'd have them both 1-5 is for scenario sake; players should have the freedom to create scenarios with jets and props on varying levels, though historically jets might have peaked at L=4 during the actual war, and the L=4s may not have actually been ready for service at Germany's surrender. But potentially there's no reason they couldn't have gotten to L=5 and had large quantities in service.

I'd give both aircraft types specific stregnths and weaknesses. Jets (incorporating rocket aircraft as well) should be for intercepting bombers. They should have a minimal ground and naval attack rating, no strategic bombing capability and a very powerful air to air ability. That way, jets can achieve air superiority yet, if you haven't got fleets of prop aircraft for ground attack the jets would be of no further use.

By Hubert's definition, air fleets are made up of a variety of aircraft; from recon to fighter to medium bombers. As there's no way to include jet interceptors in that group I see no problem in allowing units of jets to be produced simultaneously.

Jets of the period would be useless as escorts due to range limitations; so if they're included as part of the airfleets it should mean the only thing they do is increase the interdiction capability for a comparatively small part of the airfleet's range. How do we do that using only the air fleet unit? And we can't just ignore the existence of Jets in WW II, nor should we want to. They were around even before the war began, became a factor in it's outcome and need to be represented.

[88mm]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

The problem with SC is all your airfleets become stocked with jet aircraft the moment you've developed that level of research. Naturally this is unreasonable.

This is true. But this goes for all "enhancements". As soon you reach a higher lvl. , the material is immediatly upgraded. That's a part of the game-engine. So when you change it the way you propose, you should also look at armor, subs and the rest. Let's face, you don't transform a PzII in a Tiger.

So instead of going the hard way, which have much for it but then again also against it the best way to tackle this problem is to adjust the parameters for the unit and/or MPP. Maybe fiddling with some MPP of other types could help.