Victory Conditions

[Grifman]

Love the game, but not a fan of the victory conditions . . .

Playing as the Allies, the Japanese just won in June of 1944 because of the possibility in the game that they might win every turn past March, 1944. This is was absurd, I held Kwajalein, Tarawa, Truk, the Marianas and Iwo Jima and was on my way to a strat bombing victory. They did take Darwin in late 43 but I retook it in early 44 after crushing their fleet twice in the Battles of Coral Sea I and II when they over-reached amd tried to then take Port Moresby .

The Japanese fleet had all but been annihilated, and I had just successfully raided the Home Islands the turn before. The Japanese had 3 carriers, 7 battleships, and a few cruisers left, that was it. The rest was on the bottom of the ocean. With what was left of the Japanese fleet locked in, I could go anywhere I wanted (including another raid on the home islands to sink the last of their fleet) the next few turns. Yet they won.

I much prefer the VITP victory conditions based on control points. You won as the US and Japan not by winning the war (that was usually a foregone conclusion with a competent US player) but by outperforming your historical counterparts. This gave you something to aim for - could you do better than the US or Japan actually did.

Matter of fact, this was my second play through and I think I dominated this game much more, and was going to win a strat bombing victory earlier than I had previously (June, 1945). Yet I lost

Great game, just not fond of this mechanic.

[FEDOR]

I tend to agree with your view of the game. I played the game from both sides, including the alternate scenarios, and the game ends with either a Japanese survival win or Allied victory due to bombing. The game always ended in 1944 or earlier, so I changed the March 1944 survival date for Japan and the October 1943 date for Allied bombing. The game did go into 1945, but with the same results. Some type of point system would be a nice addition or alternative to the current victory conditions.
A way to view the type and amount of aircraft on a carrier would be a great help in planning raids and invasions.

[Strider]

I get the impression that when playing against the AI that the oil fields are the primary way to achieve victory. It seems that the bombing and American public opinion are more secondary ways to achieve victory.

Now with multi-player, I've lost and won games using all four conditions. Normally, if the Allies can get their airbases for bombing established, they can win...but if the IJN keeps the bases beat down, then there is a better chance that public opinion will give the victory to Japan.

There was talk, a while back, of a patch that would include players being able to assign fighters to cap or attack. This might also provide a view of what planes are available...

As Fedor says, there are some edits you can make to make the current version of the game play a bit more the way you'd like.