N00b school: Pearl Heavy v. Pearl Light

[trihero]

Err, but Pearl Heavy lands 2 fighters already on land, not 2 more fighters closer to land.

Dice luck works both ways.  I’ve seen many games where over whelming firepower gets one hit while pitiful defenders score 100%. Why risk a battleship when you don’t have too?

Gee I know, we should never send any valuable units out ever because there’s the risk of losing them. Why use figs or bombs in battles anyways, they could die. I guess I’ll just wait for the enemy to give up by conserving my valuable units.

To be serious however, the battleship isn’t exactly a risky proposition. It always gives you a free hit to absorb and attacks like a bomber. For every Pearl Heavy that goes bad, you could be losing 3-4 fighters in Light Pearl which is really bad.

[tekkyy]

I recall a 2v2 recently in the play-by-forum section.

Japan performed pearl harbour light on J1.
US counterattacked on US1.
Japan gave up J2 or J3.

[Crazy Ivan]

:cry:
I’ll bet that he forgot to take out the trash before he left home, and his wife called and, well ,quiting the game was the least of his worries at that point……Ah, yes dear, I was just coming to bed, ya I’m done. :-o

[Jennifer]

@Bean:

Dice luck works both ways.  I’ve seen many games where over whelming firepower gets one hit while pitiful defenders score 100%. Why risk a battleship when you don’t have too?

Gee I know, we should never send any valuable units out ever because there’s the risk of losing them. Why use figs or bombs in battles anyways, they could die. I guess I’ll just wait for the enemy to give up by conserving my valuable units.

Yea, but we’re not talking a bomber (which you would never leave undefended in a forward territory if you could avoid it.)  We’re talking a 24 IPC Battleship AND a 16 IPC Carrier.

2 Fighters, Carrier, Battleship dies to 2 Fighters, Bomber, Battleship, Transport.

[Magister]

I’m assuming everyone here knows J Pearl Heavy must lose the Bomber before the Destroyer ? or you talk about such bad J luck to lose both ?
J 2 Fighters, Carrier, Destroyer, Battleship hold quite well to US Transport, Battleship, 2 Fighters, Bomber.

With a Japanese transport bid they can do the Doubly-Heavy Pearl: while a ‘normally-lightly heavy’ Pearl sinks the fleet, 2 tra (3inf 1art) with 1 ftr take the island itself. 1 IPC, counterattack down 1 more ftr, good position to continue earlier the usual NZ offensive or even towards Brazil.

NOW… if Britain sinks the J Solomons sub and lands on US carrier at Pearl: would you prefer it Light or Heavy ?

[Jennifer]

Wow, so now I have to lose a Bomber in Pearl Heavy….all the more reason NOT to go Pearl Heavy. :P

And how many n00b’s are going to realize they need a destroyer, 2 fighters, carrier and battleship to survive in SZ 52?

[trihero]

NOW… if Britain sinks the J Solomons sub and lands on US carrier at Pearl: would you prefer it Light or Heavy ?

Ultra heavy. 4 figs 1 bom 1 btl 1 dest 1 car. Light at that point has simply too much variance, as does the normal heavy. It’s either go all out, or do not go at all. You might lose a fighter more than normal, but that’s nothing surprising since an extra fighter is present on defense.

[Jennifer]

I like to have 4 fighters in China.  Those damn Chinese dig really good bunkers, hard to root them out, don’t want to give them 5 rounds to pick my officers off one at a time!

[trihero]

Yar me too; that’s why I like to throw carrier/dest at the Japanese transport, in order to force them to use only 2 figs in China and hopefully get diced there.

[Jennifer]

I tend to ignore the destroyer, carrier.  They’re a nuisance, but generally harmless since they are British, not American.

[TimTheEnchanter]

Jennifer,  I’ve been trying to follow your arguments and for the most part I thought I understood where you were coming from on this subject, but now I’m confused.  Let me sample some of your comments so far…

@Cmdr:

My pearl lights are generally 4 fighters, bomber, destroyer, submarine.

My pearl heavies are generally, 2 fighters, bomber, destroyer, submarine, battleship, carrier.

@Cmdr:

Why risk a battleship when you don’t have too?

@Cmdr:

Wow, so now I have to lose a Bomber in Pearl Heavy….all the more reason NOT to go Pearl Heavy. :P

OK, so I was mostly following your reasoning up to here.  I didn’t quite follow the “allows you to blitz faster” argument since 2 figs in sz52 and 4 on land seems like a quicker blitz than 2 figs on land and 2 in sz51  and 2 on wake, but If you were comparing to “super heavy”, I could almost see your point because the 2 figs in sz51 would be closer than 2 in sz52, although the only additional asian territories they can attack J2 are Manchuria and Kwang (but if you’ve got bogeys there on J2 you probably have bigger issues).  I guess the main difference is would be that you can land in FIC or china if you want to provide airsupport, but for this argument to hold up, it assumes you’re sending 4 figs in each case.  If you only send 2 figs on Pearl heavy, those figs can already be in FIC on J1.  But that didn’t seem like a real important aspect.  I still figured you were a proponent of Pearl Light (unless you suspect KJF), and I could understand that.

But with this next comment, you’ve completely lost me.

@Cmdr:

I like to have 4 fighters in China.  Those damn Chinese dig really good bunkers, hard to root them out, don’t want to give them 5 rounds to pick my officers off one at a time!

You’ve just spent the whole of this thead arguing for Pearl Light (which you say is 4 figs) over Pearl Heavy (which you say uses 2 figs), but now you’re saying you like to send 4 figs to China as well.  So which is it?  I assume you’re not winning bids of 20 and giving japan 2 extra figs.

Are you saying you like to send 4 to china, but usually don’t because they’re in pearl?  Are you suggesting the potential risk of a counter in pearl is greater than the  risk of getting dice fracked in china or wanting those figs on J2 for somewhere like FIC, India or Sinkiang?  I guess  I’m missing some subtleties here.

[TimTheEnchanter]

By the way, I want to thank everyone who has been contributing to this discussion.  It’s gotten even more input than I had hoped for when I started it.  I’ve really learned a lot (and realized there’s a whole lot more I need to learn) from everyone’s contributions. :thumbsup:

[trihero]

No problem, let me just recap by returning to the first statement that I made, that not even the best players are in complete agreements about so-called “standard” first round moves, there is more thought going in than one thinks.

[Jennifer]

Actually, other then Russia Round 1, no one can be in agreement on what has to happen on round 1’s turn, even with him/herself.

[trihero]

Why is Russia 1 excluded? Any player continues to wax and wane between the possible Russia attacks and strategies…

[Pervavita]

because russia is the only one that don’t got to react on round 1. ya there are diffrent moves, but each of them can be made with out reacting (short of bids).

[Jennifer]

@Bean:

Why is Russia 1 excluded? Any player continues to wax and wane between the possible Russia attacks and strategies…

Because in most cases, Russia has the same board configuration each and every time they go to make Russia’s first move.  That means they can pretty much make the same attacks, buy the same equipment, etc from game to game with the only alterations to that being a difference of players’ opinion as opposed to Japan or Germany having to move to counter a KGF/KJF or America and England facing a large German fleet instead of a large German army, or what have you.

America, on the flip side, is the least able to build a “pat” routine for USA 1 because Russia could have done splendid, Japan could have left the SZ 52 in tact, England could have fallen to Germany on G1, what have you.  There’s no way to know what the board will look like on USA 1. (You can pretty much guess what it will look like and be right most of the time.  China will have fallen.  SZ 52 fleet will be gone.  Russia will be out of Karelia but have W. Russia.  England will be nursing a black eye in Egypt, but have fleet and units around for the most part.  Germany will be stacked in E. Europe, etc.)

[Lucifer]

It’s not uncommon for Germany to place bids in Europe, and this will change R1 drastically sometimes.

[Jennifer]

Understood.  However, even the places Germany puts their bids in Europe isn’t too dynamic.  If Russia is conservative (like me) they will generally over whelm W. Russia and hit Belorussia.  Even with German bid units, these attacks can and should win most of the time anyway, it’s just a matter of degree.

[trihero]

You’re not conservative, you hit Ukraine and W. Russia all the time!