Bringing the Outer Islands into Play

[Happycat]

Somebody should put this thread out of its misery

Yes you are right, and I ask once again, does Battlefront use a moderator for its forums? This thread is definitely begging to be flushed away.

[scottsmm]

I agree to although I think Kuniworth and I have moved on, but I'm not sure. Either way I'm getting sick of seeing this topic here, and would like to flush it down the toilet like the rest of you. Like I said above it's become a dead topic.

[SeaMonkey]

Now just wait a minute....you guys... I started this thread and being a forum god, I'll decide when its time to pull the handle.

OK, its time!

[scottsmm]

Oh please give me brake. If I have to explain what I said to Kuniworth one more time I don't know what will happen to me.

Thank god I think this is a joke

But seriously I never said that about you or JJR, and I probably shouldn't have said that to Kuniworth either...

Please can we just put this forum to bed its really old and there is no more entertainment coming from it anymore.

[Hubert Cater]

Ok, how about everyone go back to playing nice or I will lock it up.

[Hubert Cater]

Blashy not to argue with you but it seemed to work well in SC2 where you had to go near a base to resupply, my question is why was it dropped in this game where I believe supply is way more important than in SC2. Not taking the outer islands is historical incorrect and not taking them would in my opinion make the game very very boring and we dont want that now do we? Also as I stated earlier that by using Marines in fighting in the outer islands it would increase their experience rating for the big battle down the road. You said not to change anything, why not change the supply rule as some of the supply rules that are in this game are incorrect as compared to what happened in WW2, meaning a HQ completely cut off from sea and land and surrounded by the enemy and not sitting on a port can be resupplied thats wrong wrong wrong, if it looks wrong it is wrong. I have read the argument in the forums that they could have been resupplied by air. Well if I cant get an air sotie off for three months how can supply planes get through?

Willy

Thanks for the post Willy and to quickly answer your question one of the reasons we made the change was to actually even out the naval combat for both sides. If supply drops each turn you are at sea then it is a great disadvantage to those that move their ships around in anticipation of far away combat. What the new system does is simply reduce supply once you engage in combat and the nice thing about that is that it still takes into account nearby Port holdings in terms of potential resupply.

So for example, if Japan decides it wants to engage in the Battle of Midway it can now move its naval units into position without losing supply and maintaining ideal battle 'readiness' for the anticipated naval battle. With the current system, they are free to engage the US fleet but if they don't capture Midway they will be at a disadvantage (in the turns following combat) as they will not be resupplied while the remaining US fleet will be if close enough to the ports at Midway.

Essentially we felt that it was a more realistic supply/combat system that the older system simply wouldn't allow for in a similar sense.

Hope this helps,

Hubert

[Moon]

All I can say is sorry I shouldn't have said what I said above, but obviously Kuniworth feels that, because he has been around for a few years he should be a god, and treated as such. That's the problem with SOME people on this site.

This is a common problem on forums that pass a certain age, and certainly not just specific to this forum here. There are two phenomena that I have been observing on our forums (and others) as time goes by:

- some people begin to form groups. At first it's great to be part of a community, but over time this tends to split people into insiders and outsiders, and begins to get into the way of attracting new fans. We had this problem for a long time on the CM forums.

- some people get an elevated sense of self value and begin to think that they are somehow special for hanging around for some time. We see this most often with people who get into what I like to call "forum haze": posting too often with too few breaks in between.

None of these developments is good, and it begins to suffocate a community over time. Since it's a slow creeping process it's often difficult to notice until it's too late.

You will notice that even though we're using vBulletin as forum software, a lot of the community, group-building features like karma and social groups and what not are disabled here. That's on purpose, because ANYONE can be part of this community here if they want.

Sometimes this means that we as mods need to take action and remove some troublemakers. Our first and foremost duty as moderators (and owners of these forums) is to ensure that EVERYONE can participate. This may be a surprise to some people who seem to think that we should be fighting for freedom of speech or justice in the world. But our main task is really much more mundane.

This leads me to the reason for my posting. It's the result of a string of events, complaints via email, and internal discussion, that has been going on for some time. After reviewing a number of threads and posts, we decided that JJR and Kuniworth are to be banned to a 6 month cooling-off period.

Thanks for your attention.

[Gorgin]

MOON

THANK YOU ! ! !

[Happycat]

Interestingly, one of the people who was banned (JJR) made a couple of very good points earlier in this thread. Had they not been wrapped up in a couple of layers of insults and condescension, I would have enjoyed carrying on the discussion with him.

I doubt that any of us expect to have all of our opinions agreed with, and I am quite capable of expressing an opinion that can turn out to be, well...not fully thought out. But I also doubt that any of us enjoy being called stupid or dumb by others, especially some faceless person named after one of the most dubious movie "heroes" in cinematic history.

To get back to the points that he made: it is indeed true that SCPT does not encourage an "outer island" strategy, either for the Japanese, or the Americans. This can be countered by employing house rules, but that tends to be a turn-off for many.

So I still think that a way to make the islands "attractive" needs to be found within the game mechanism. That was my original reason for joining into this discussion, and I hope that people keep coming forward with their ideas.

[Blashy]

We cannot make them attractive if they tactically had no purpose historically... which they did not.

For both Japan and USA it was political.

We play this game and try to be much smarter about not making the same tactical mistakes the people of the time made. If a player wishes to make them again and take all those worthless islands then let him do so.

But I can not agree that they NEED to be made attractive because historically they were in play by both sides. For Japan it was a pure dumb move by the politicians for no gain whatsoever and for USA it was politicians who were in a hurry for victories in the Pacific at the cost of lives just to look good for the public. All they had to do was keep preparing for an extra 6-12 months and invade islands of value like the Philippines, DEI or Borneo but we know politicians...

The outer islands simply had no military value.

[xwormwood]

Hello Moon.

I can understand your motives when you act to protect a fragile comunity, of course, but banning Kuniworth an JJR for 6 month might end in protecting an empty shell, because Kuniwoth and JJR are the salt in the soup, not the flies, which needed to be removed. So you might create the opposite effect you intended.

Kuniworth or JJR are both excellent members of this forum, and knowing that we are all adults here, i would like to invite you to dare something more than shown here.

Close a thread if needed, no one has to many problems with that.

Warn a member of this forum if you don't like a post, of course.

And ban a member if you need to, who could argue with you, as you are a / the forum administrator.

But rethink, please, the timescale.

6 months are an eternity in the lifecycle of a computergame.

Kuniworth is an assett to enhance this game, he has proven this many times (i think i don't need to prove this here), and JJR as well, as he constantly invites all members to multiplayer games, especially those, with which he had the one or the other minor dispute, and newbies as well.

I could go on, but i think i don't have to.

Maybe one more point:

the SC forum went pretty silent in the last years, with nearly no one writing or commenting.

When Hubert released PTO the situation started to change for the better, even though some of the better members left in anger (JerseyJohn as the most missed member, per example).

It would be a shame if this forum would fall back into the dull sleep in which it stayed for a pretty long and sad time because of nothing to read, to discuss, to learn again.

So i beg you to reconsider the 6 month ban of Kuniworth and JJR.

I think your point would be understood as well if you would decide to ban them for a week or two instead.

Please don't axe them away, as we have already lost too many interesting members.

It is not very entertaining to read the 10000th post like "is this game worth buying" or "i can't unload my ships because i never read the manual".

I loved those fruitfull discussions in the past, about the best strategy, about historical background (KUNIWORTH!!!!) or everything else, hell yes, i like to laugh as well, and there is noone as funny as Kuniworth or JJR here around.

Again: i can understand your reason, but as my doctor always said:

much doesn't help much. So please: use your medicine (banning, shouting, warning) in little doses, don't give your patient the complete package of pills to swallow on the very first day of illness.

Yours faithfully

Claus aka xwormwood

[SeaMonkey]

Guys, I'm sorry if I contributed in any manner to this turn of events, it was not intended.

I come here to make SC better and share and receive ideas to increase our enjoyment of life. That's what this is about, its play time and sometimes that means poking a little fun at one another, no malicious intent ever meant.

Now Kuni and JJR sometimes handle our newest members with......well not quite a velvet glove, but surely everyone knows they jest, its sort of their MO. It is in your defense that I say, give them some of their own medicine back, cause even though they dish it out, they can take it too.

I won't defend their use of diction as sometimes it gets a bit out there, but don't let it suck you into a likewise poor choice of sarcasm to needle them back, do it with tongue in cheek and in a lively spirit of construction......yes...we can eventually reconstruct them into contributing humans to our forum.

Anyway...I just wanted to apologize as I didn't intend for anyone to get banned or others of us to be put off from my egging on of verbal joisting. One of my many faults is sometimes my playful antagonizing gets out of hand, ....sorry Kuni and Rambo, my bad.

Sorry.... Moon and HC and all the rest here...not a good feeling.

[Happycat]

We cannot make them attractive if they tactically had no purpose historically... which they did not.

For both Japan and USA it was political.

We play this game and try to be much smarter about not making the same tactical mistakes the people of the time made. If a player wishes to make them again and take all those worthless islands then let him do so.

But I can not agree that they NEED to be made attractive because historically they were in play by both sides. For Japan it was a pure dumb move by the politicians for no gain whatsoever and for USA it was politicians who were in a hurry for victories in the Pacific at the cost of lives just to look good for the public. All they had to do was keep preparing for an extra 6-12 months and invade islands of value like the Philippines, DEI or Borneo but we know politicians...

The outer islands simply had no military value.

Maybe I'm losing something because of the semantics of "outer islands". I agree that Tarawa and Makin, to name a couple, were meaningless. But some of the other islands allowed the projection of land based air over areas that were hitherto the domain of Japanese land-based air only. Although the carrier task forces certainly did not need a land-based air umbrella, and in fact coordinating such a thing was exceedingly difficult, it certainly still had military value.

Air bases in the Solomon chain allowed land based bombing of New Britain (Rabaul) and this tactic was repeated from time-to-time as the Americans moved closer to Japan. Land-based bombers in that era carried a better ordinance load than the carrier planes could, and thus achieved better results (when they actually hit the target, of course).

Everything I have ever read on the Pacific theatre suggests to me that the island hopping strategy was a sound one, although not without flaws (the Philippines, for example, could have been bypassed, and it was only to fulfil MacArthur's bombastic promise that it was not).

In "Shattered Sword" (an amazingly good analysis of the Battle of Midway), the authors make the point, early in their book, that in the earlier stages of the war, it was not feasible for any carrier force to stand off of an objective, and pound it into submission. Only land based air could pack the punch, and this, in some measure, explains why Japan wanted Midway. Also, no carrier force, least of all the Kido Butai, could operate in the face of land-based air. The authors state that it was not until later in the war that the American carrier task forces, with their huge numbers and impressive logistical support, showed how it could be done.

While I agree that this game does not make taking the outer islands very important, that does not reflect history, imo. It reflects a flaw in an otherwise very good game.

[Happycat]

Now Kuni and JJR sometimes handle our newest members with......well not quite a velvet glove, but surely everyone knows they jest, its sort of their MO. It is in your defense that I say, give them some of their own medicine back, cause even though they dish it out, they can take it too.

I'm sorry, you kind of make the entire point right here---I, and no doubt many others, do not come to forums like this to be abused and ridiculed by people who take some sort of pathological delight in doing so.

While I couldn't care less whether or not they are banned, I certainly welcome a respite, however it comes, from that sort of nonsense.

As a new member to this forum, I should point out that I am an OLD member of several other forums, and members manage to debate and argue endlessly, without being disrespectful or rude.

It's easy to sit behind the anonymity of a forum handle, and spew out insults and inanities. I try to conduct myself on forums as if I was sitting across a table from my "listeners". To do otherwise is not respectful, productive, or brave.

[SeaMonkey]

See Blashy...Happycat has got it. Stop looking back with the hindsight of historical events, especially with the later technology and tactics that World Wars catalize.

These outer islands did in some measure perform a military task, interdiction, especially early before the arrival of the vast CV task forces deployed by the Allies.

We've already heard a number of mechanic changes that would contribute to this historical fact. The question....is... will it be enough? I've not heard anything that sounds foolproof. That's not unusual, that's why we have playtesting.

Believe me, we need to figure this out before Global SC is distributed, think in terms of Malta.

[Bill101]

So I still think that a way to make the islands "attractive" needs to be found within the game mechanism. That was my original reason for joining into this discussion, and I hope that people keep coming forward with their ideas.

Agreed. I think they did have a historical role and getting it right is the key.

Incidentally, has anyone actually tried a strategy where they defend some of the island chains, and if so, which ones and how did it go?

In my experience defending the Marianas can be quite fruitful. Guadalcanal too. The Marshalls are a bit more tricky but as I'm currently experimenting with defending them in one game I'd better not say more in case my opponent reads this thread!

[Happycat]

I think your point would be understood as well if you would decide to ban them for a week or two instead.

While I don't find myself in agreement with much else said in xwormwood's argument in support of the two missing members, I do think that I agree with his comment about the severity of the ban. Some forums go for a short ban the first time, a longer ban for a second offense, and if it's three strikes? Why, then you're out, of course.

Some simple rules of conduct perhaps need to be posted. Or, if they are posted, then posted somewhere that they can be found, 'cuz I haven't seen any.

Now I am banning myself for the rest of the day, because I'm off-topic. LOL

[Timskorn]

Wasn't Australia threatened? I just can't imagine the US standing off for an additional year when the Japanese were a doorstep away from hitting the Aussie mainland. And I can't imagine the US would swing all the way south and bypass the outer islands in order to take the DEI, when the Japanese could operate long range bombers and subs from those locations and interdict ships and supplies.

Unlike in the game the US had supply lines. And could damaged US carriers and ships get the proper repairs and upgrades in Burma or Western Australia? Replacement parts and planes, upgraded equipment and even replacement airmen and seamen would have had a long route to travel from the US to the DEI.

Historically, the US had a lot of carriers out of commission in 1942 after engagements with the Japanese. Only the Enterprise was operational towards the end of the year for the entire Pacific theater. Why would the US feel confident at that point that they could just bypass all the islands?

[Timskorn]

Bill: I've fought an opponent who has defended the islands, but game-wise this may not be necessary. I think the point people are trying to make is that ultimately, the US gains dominance through the USN, not physically rooting out the Japanese on islands. And the USN can do this anywhere whether it's near Japan, the DEI or the outer islands. Defeat of the Imperial Navy is what drives the US forward.

In my current game I willingly bogged down taking out Japanese defenders at Port Moresby and Rabaul. But looking back I ask, why? Once I beat the IJN back from the area there is absolutely no reason to spend time on clearing out the islands. Once I can clear the way to the Marianas with my fleet, I can amphib my troops from San Fransisco if I wanted to and land them there. They can be at zero org, supply and morale...doesn't matter because any Japanese defenders at the Mariana's will be blasted with air and sea power so my troops can walk right in. My Marines will land, regroup and have a staging point for Japan.

I think land invasions would become more important if land-based aircraft posed more of a threat to fleets. For Japan, it's critical to have land-based air support in range of their carriers in order to even the odds against the US. If, at least, to have fighters soak off fighter escorts so the tac can smash the CV's.

But Japan doesn't need the islands either. They can save MPP's and focus their forces in China and Burma if they have no intention to go for Australia, which is the only good reason I can think of for Japan to care about the outer islands.

In the end though I think these situations need to be tested more (in multiplayer games!) before we can rightfully conclude that there isn't a single player that has figured out how to make someone pay for ignoring the islands.

[scottsmm]

xwormwood and everybody that thinks Kuniworth and JJR shouldn't have been banned I would like to inform you that you only know one small part of the puzzle. It's also fairly evident to me that the people who do know the whole thing don't want to put it out there, because it's simply too wrong and disgusting. Needless to say I fully agree with Moon and Hubert Cater's decision to bane Kuniworth and JJR. Also they were very light on Kuniworth as imho he should have been banned for life for some of the things that were mentioned in private messages. With that said I do greatly appreciate that Moon and Hubert Cater have decided to step in and stop these people that think they are greater than life itself.

xwormwood in regards to your fears of this series and forums going downhill I can personally assure you that it won’t happen as there are too many of us adults that want to push this series forward that the loss of two people won’t damage it at all.

At this time though I would like to apologize once more for one of my early comments as it was wrong and I hope I didn’t offend anybody here on these forums as I realized it was something that I shouldn’t have ever said, and it was likely the spark to JJR and Kuniworth’s recent rampage of cruelty on these forums.

I want to get back to discussing topics that are meaningful to the SC series, but as human beings you must realize that when me and SeaMonkey make a mistake we genuinely say sorry for it as we didn’t mean anybody harm, but both JJR and Kuniworth don’t say sorry, and instead move onto attacking their next victim which is just totally wrong, and for anybody that supports those people you are just as wrong.

Anyway getting away from these two cruel people let’s get back to discussing the importance of the small islands and the role they play in Operation Z.

[SeaMonkey]

Just wanted to point out a possible solution that I posted in the "Supply" thread.

Post #8 deals with the relationship of land and sea based aircraft.

This could actually make the islands worthwhile, because land based air(TAC) would be necessary to take out ground units.

[xwormwood]

scottsmm, sorry, i know both of them pretty well, and therefor i ment every word i wrote here.

I'm pretty sure that -if they would have known where this all would finaly end-, both of them would have happily decided to simply ignore you.

Without any wish to hurt your feelings, i would like (in all humility) to do exactly the very same thing right now.

[Hubert Cater]

Thanks for the comments and concerns and just a quick note, these bannings have not come out of thin air as they have both been warned innumerable times in the past (the SC and Battlefront Forums have been around for quite some time) and for those of us that have been around long enough it really is not much of a surprise that the hammer finally came down.

As for the 6 month length, it could easily have been for life and was very close to that but we were willing to give them a second chance after the designated cooling off period.

Let's all keep in mind that the SC forums are for open discussions on the game, strategy and tactics and we always welcome healthy and civil debate.

Beyond that, what can I say, the decision is final (I honestly won't discuss it any further) and hopefully we can move on and get back to playing and talking about the game.

Thanks,

Hubert

[scottsmm]

xwormwood I'm sure your right hindsight is 20/20.

Anyway obviously you have the right to simply ignore me and where as it seems to me that you have decided to endorse everything that they (Kuniworth and JJR) have said I would really appreciate if you did just that to avoid any further conflict. All you have to do (if you don't already know this) is click on my username and simple click add to ignore list, and for anybody else that feels the same way as xwormwood does, but wants to hold onto some decency and not post it on a public forum I suggest doing the same thing.

[arado234]

As far as the Islands go in having a purpose,im not quite sure I understand what people want.If anyone wants to take them and use them to put L.R.air for spotting they can.It seems to me that would be their main function and its open for anyone to do that.