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« on: March 17, 2006, 03:20:25 AM »
"An observation I've made is that the naval movement rates in the Pacific don't seem to be justified. It's hard for me to speak definitely on this, since we haveyet to get a game to the point where there's any action in the Pacific, but only allowing tactical movement of two zones seems peculiar. I realize that the Pacific is covering a larger area, but at the same time, we're talking about turns that are supposed to cover from 2-4 months. Under the current system, it would be impossible to re-create the Coral Sea campaign from history, since neither side could reach that sea zone in one turn using tactical movement (historically, the US fleet was able to steam from Pearl Harbor to the Coral Sea, fight, and steam back to Hawaii in less than a month)."
A good question. Several versions ago, tactical movement in the Pacific was 3 sea zones (instead of 2) and fighters launched off of carriers could move 4 (just like land fighter movement). What several games illustrated was that one massive fleet could cover a vast area of the Pacific map and the Pacific theater became a game of both sides building a massive fleet and slamming it into each other - which was not that much fun.
To make the game have more the feel of the Pacific theater, tactical movement was reduced to 2 spaces and planes off of carriers were reduced to 2 as well. This forced players to have multiple fleets to attack or defend different strategic areas of the Pacific map and made for a much more dynamic game and captured a bit more of the essence of the war in that theater. Also, having a movement of 2 and a rule that says "all units must be off loaded from transports at the end of a movement phase forces both sides to island hop - which was perfect.
To answer you question about the Coral Sea: a lot of design and playtesting went in to allow history to be played out almost turn for turn the way it happened. In a season per turn game, some of the things that happened historically are hard to simulate. But, Coral Sea and Midway would have happened something like the following:
Winter 1941 Axis Turn:Â Japanese move and bomb Pearl Harbor and a seperate Japanese task force invades Rabaul and Northern New Guinea.
Winter 1941 Allied Turn: The US strategically moves (up to 8 spaces) a carrier task force to the Coral Sea to protect Port Moresby and Australia.
Spring 1942 Axis Turn: The Japanese attack the Coral Sea and lose a light carrier due to a hit by a US carrier based fighter plane and the Japanese retreat. the Japanese also strategically move another fleet together to prepare for Midway.
Spring 1942 Allied Turn:Â The US stratgically moves their carriers adjacent to Midway anticipating the Japanese attack.
Summer 1942 Axis Turn: The Japanese move their carrier group adjacent to Midway and stratigically move a transport force to the Marianas islands - in striking dstance of Midway.
Summer 1942 Allied turn: The US attacks the Japanese carrier force adjacent to Midway with their own carrier based planes. The US player rolls extremely well and sinks 2 Japanese carriers.
Remember, players can strategically move their navies up to 8 spaces through sea zones they control to enable this series of events to happen. Both at the Coral Sea and Midway, the US was on the strategic defensive - so in game mechanics they strategically moved their fleets prior to the battle to defend the area from Japanese aggression. I think the game system - between strategic and tactical movement - allows things like the Coral Sea and Midway to simulated pretty well with a game of this scale.
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