"Eastwind, Rain II" Playtest

[Shaka Naldur]

glad to see you back FMK!
downloading the scenario...

[Arthedain]

@ FMK: IMHO you should finish that ww2 scen where you should defend Germany.

[our_man]

I've just given it a quick play, it looks good. One bug I spotted though is that it's harder for the Japanese to get a marginal defeat (28 obj.) than a marginal victory (27 obj.)!

BTW FMK, I went looking for one of your units in the graphics showcase a few weeks ago (can't remember which one it was now). However in a lot of the posts the graphics had been removed. What happened, most of them were excellent.

[klesh]

Originally posted by our_man
I've just given it a quick play, it looks good. One bug I spotted though is that it's harder for the Japanese to get a marginal defeat (28 obj.) than a marginal victory (27 obj.)!

IIRC, for a marginal defeat it is <28 (meaning 27 or below), and for a marginal victory it is >27 (meaning 28 or more).

Ask me if you need a unit, I may still have it. Nothing happened in particular.

[Eivind IV]

Originally posted by GoPostal
I believe the Free French took control, but were ousted by the IJA, who were then removed by the Viet Minh, who then removed the French when they tried to come back.

The little research I did confirmed what I thought, that Indo-China was Vichy controlled. It doesn't mention the Free-French with a word.

http://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/seas...ifrindoch.html

http://www.dposs.com/k9/french.htm

[Case]

Originally posted by Field Marshal Klesh
Would you suggest gifting bangkok to the Japs?

Yes, definetly. Japanese troops freely passed through Thailand during the entire war, and the Thais provided some troops for the invasion of Burma.

5) Excellent, that will actually help lead them in the island hopping campaign. I'll add Truk and change Saipan. What about Guam?

Guam was US territory, with a garrison of about 100 Marines.

The Brits don't really do much more than thin out the Imperial Navy a bit in the scen, so a production wonder though it might help, could be 'wasted' on them.

Bah! As you've chosen to keep Australia lumped in with the Brits, you need to accept the consequences. Namely, Australian troops made up the majority of MacArthur's command until 1944 and won most of his victories in New Guniea for him. Following that huge numbers of Australian troops wasted their time and lives mopping up isolated Japanese pockets.

On that topic, perhaps you should give Australia and NZ to the US civ? Historically, Australia/NZ and Britain had almost nothing to do with each other in the Pacific following the fall of Singapore. The British sent a single Spitfire squadron to Darwin and their Pacific fleet was based at Sydney in 1945, and that's about it.

BTW, as another correction, the Japanese captured Peking sometime in the 1930s, and it was firmly in their hands at the start of the war with the US.

[klesh]

Originally posted by Case
Bah! As you've chosen to keep Australia lumped in with the Brits, you need to accept the consequences. Namely, Australian troops made up the majority of MacArthur's command until 1944 and won most of his victories in New Guniea for him. Following that huge numbers of Australian troops wasted their time and lives mopping up isolated Japanese pockets.

On that topic, perhaps you should give Australia and NZ to the US civ? Historically, Australia/NZ and Britain had almost nothing to do with each other in the Pacific following the fall of Singapore. The British sent a single Spitfire squadron to Darwin and their Pacific fleet was based at Sydney in 1945, and that's about it.

BTW, as another correction, the Japanese captured Peking sometime in the 1930s, and it was firmly in their hands at the start of the war with the US.

Wow, there were alot of existing problems with the original Eastwind apparently, Things like Peking I didn't alter from the original.

I think lumping NZ and Australia might make things too easy for the American. If he can use NZ and Australian bases to build ships or planes to trrack the Japanese Fleets. I want the tide to turn, that is the British civ should have an easier time once the Amis have done alot of the damage to the Japs. This may not work and the Amis may have to take the entirety of the South Pacifc.... thats why were testing.

Everyone should let me know whats going down in their game and what they've been able to do.


Changing Free French to Vichy French would be a simple name change.

[AGRICOLA]

I regret to say that I find some features of Eastwind, Rain II much less player friendly than in the original.

In the city window, the pebbled grey border with the Nip flags does an almost perfect job of obscuring the most important piece of information, the amount of money in the treasury. It really is very difficult to manage cities without knowing how much cash is on hand.

Similarly, in the small resource window, the yellow grain, yellow bullets and yellow trade icons are more difficult to work with than the color coded icons in the original.

I apologize if this seems unduly harsh, but many recent scenarios seems to include changes that have been made for the sake of appearance without a critical examination of whether they actually improve or detract from playability.

[klesh]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
I regret to say that I find some features of Eastwind, Rain II much less player friendly than in the original.

In the city window, the pebbled grey border with the Nip flags does an almost perfect job of obscuring the most important piece of information, the amount of money in the treasury. It really is very difficult to manage cities without knowing how much cash is on hand.

Similarly, in the small resource window, the yellow grain, yellow bullets and yellow trade icons are more difficult to work with than the color coded icons in the original.

I apologize if this seems unduly harsh, but many recent scenarios seems to include changes that have been made for the sake of appearance without a critical examination of whether they actually improve or detract from playability.

Hey thanks, you see I always check my treasury in the right side of the main screen, I never look up there. If I take out the flag, then you've got the default civ border I'll see if I can fiddle around in that respect.

I'll look into the resiources too, yes too much yellow indeed. Good point.

[Case]

Originally posted by Field Marshal Klesh
Wow, there were alot of existing problems with the original Eastwind apparently, Things like Peking I didn't alter from the original.

Yeah, to be honest you would have been better off updating Harlan Thompson's classic WW2 in the Pacific scenario.

I think lumping NZ and Australia might make things too easy for the American. If he can use NZ and Australian bases to build ships or planes to trrack the Japanese Fleets. I want the tide to turn, that is the British civ should have an easier time once the Amis have done alot of the damage to the Japs. This may not work and the Amis may have to take the entirety of the South Pacifc.... thats why were testing.

OK, while it's not the slightest bit historically valid, it certainly does have good gameplay implications, which I think are more important then 'pure' historical accuracy.

[klesh]

So just for fun I searched yahoo for Don Melsom, and I actually found one. No email, just address anbd phone. Should I call him? Maybe ask him about his catastrophic Peking decision?

[Xenozod]

The exclusive Apolyton interview of the man who wronged the world...Don 'Peking Devil' Melsom.

FMK:"Just one question, Mr. Melsom. Why. Just...why.
Melsom:*sobs*"I...I was young. Desperate! I...I'm sorry.
Please forgive me for my foolishness!"
FMK:"Crying won't bring back those kids."

[klesh]

"I had a deadline! Children of my own to feed!"
"Mr. Melsom, excuses aren't helping any"
"I know, I know"

[Xenozod]

Great job on the remake!
Just nitpicking, but I think you should add something about
Mac's speech when Manilla is taken to kinda keep in line with
the Pearl Harbor event. Ok, so its really insignifficant, but I still thought of it during the game anyways.

Gotta love those elephants waging war in China, though.

Looking forward to your Götterdämmerung/Fall of the Third Reich/Bloodied Eagle/Nein Sieg scenario.

[Xenozod]

Sorry, I meant Davao, not Manilla.

You might want to set it up so that Japan takes more cities on the first turn. It's pretty funny watching Japan take months to capture less than half of the islands.