Subject: re: VG's Carrier
From:    jimg@cbnews.att.com (james.c.grams)
Date:    17 Jan 91 14:26:34 GMT

mmbace@atrp.media.mit.edu (Matt Bace) asks:

>      A while back, someone mentioned that they had received a copy of
> "Carrier", VG's new solitaire naval game.   I have been thinking about
> getting a copy for myself and would be interested in hearing a review.
>
>      One thing I noticed from looking at the box is that "Carrier" may
> have borrowed some of its game system from "Tokyo Express" (the
> mapsheet had the same task force movement compasses).  Is this the
> case?  If so, how much similarity is there between the games?  How
> important is air-to-air and air-to-surface combat in "Carrier" and how
> often do they occur relative to surface-to-surface combat (i.e.
> torpedoes and guns)?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Matt Bace
> mmbace@atrp.mit.edu

Victory Games' "Carrier" fell into my hands over the holidays.
I've played through the six educational introductory scenarios
and two full blown standard scenarios, but haven't dabbled much
in the optional rules (which do not look to be significant changes).
I'm not familiar with Tokyo Express, so I can't help answer the
question about similarity.  Perhaps the notes below will help you.

In a nutshell, this is a marvelously enjoyable SOLITAIRE game.  Usually,
solitaire games aren't to my liking.  It also is quite challenging, and
winning is not that easy.  I like this game and highly recommend it.

Synopsis:
	You command US Navy task forces in the Coral Sea/Solomons
area in scenarios between Jan '42 and early '43 (i.e. when the sea
war was seriously in doubt).  The focus is on carrier engagements
with surface actions getting a simpler treatment.  Japanese Naval
units appear on the board as "forces" and move using a series of
algorithms toward various objectives.  The seas are divided into
areas, and Japanese movement within each area is generally toward
the force's objective, but not necessarily in a straight line.  Some
factors (such as proximity of US Task Forces or Airfields) greatly
modify the Japanese behavior.  The "forces" essentially represent
initial intelligence reports of Japanese movements.  Identifying
which of these forces are real (and what ships they contain) and
which are dummies is a big part of the game.  The intelligence
the US commander possesses about each "force" is represented by five
levels of information (0-4, with 0 being the initial report, and 4
being a complete breakdown of the ships).  Generally, as scouts contact
the "forces" intelligence improves.  If you ignore a "force" for awhile,
earlier, less than perfect, intelligence degrades so what you thought
was a harmless group of DD's, might become a carrier battlegroup.  This
is not likely if you're keeping your wits about you.  Eventually, you
know enough to launch strikes against the Japanese carriers and blow
them away.  Sinking carriers is clearly the path to victory, as points
awarded for stopping surface fleets or transports are significantly less
than points for damaging or sinking carriers and destroying Japanese
aircraft.  Although you can't completely ignore those Japanese forces
or they will help the Japanese to win by collecting a few victory
points here and there.

Some additional details:

A Detailed Sequence of play (and a handy display chart) controls the action:

	A turn represents 80 minutes of activity.  The turn starts with
	the placement of new Japanese "forces".  There can be up to 20
	"combat" forces and 6 "transport" forces on the map at one time,
	although the average seems to hover around 14-18 total.  An
	activation counter for each Japanese force on the map is placed
	in cup for use later.  Then US planes on Search duty are advanced
	along Search Tracks that show what "leg" of the Search they are
	on.  Searching is somewhat abstracted by committing "steps" of
	aircraft to the Search job.  It doesn't say anywhere that I could
	find, but from Carrier capacity it seems clear that a US air "step"
	represents about 5 planes.Y

	Then there are four Action Phases (each with a Japanese Segment
	followed by a US Segment) during which most of the play takes
	place.  In the Japanese Segment, Activation chits are drawn
	for about 1/4 of the Forces on the map, and one-by-one, each
	Force executes its move based on the algorithmic rules for
	Japanese units.  Different, but simple, rules apply for carrier,
	surface, transport, and unidentified forces, which means that
	the various Japanese units move and attack in a fairly realistic
	way, based on their objectives.  Japanese carrier forces start
	out very aggressive, but if they get hurt, tend to try and
	withdraw to save themselves from sinking.  Japanese carrier
	handling is very simple and abstract (but logical) so there is
	very little bookkeeping on the Japanese side.  Japanese forces
	adjacent to US Task Forces when they are activated may decide
	to try and engage the US in surface combat.  (This is nasty at
	night when superior Japanese optics and tactics puts US surface
	ships at a disadvantage.)

	In the US Action phase, 1/4 of the US Task Forces are allowed
	to move (US player choice - and since there are usually less
	then 4 TFs on the map, frequently only 1 or 2, this choice is
	relatively unimportant).  US Task Forces adjacent to Japanese
	forces may move into the hex with the Japanese (who may evade
	you and retreat) and attempt surface combat.  More importantly,
	all aircraft move each Segment, and all US Carriers perform plane
	handling activities.  There is a nice display on the map for each
	US Carrier that allows the player to manage all the details of
	launching, recovering, storing, arming, and readying of aircraft (a
	similar display is provided for Land-Based planes at Henderson Field).
	Decisions about when to bring fully armed planes up on the
	flight deck is critical, as a Jap air strike can appear overhead
	at any time and mucho extra damage occurs (not to mention loss
	of a lot of US planes) if a carrier is hit while readied planes
	are sitting on the decks.  Aircraft handling (and searching) is the
	heart of the game, and how much CAP you fly, how many planes you send
	on scouting missions, how long to wait to launch strikes against
	Japanese Forces, how long to delay recovering fuel starved returning
	planes etc. will decide most games.

	Following the four action phases there is an end game phase where
	some clean-up activities occur.  This is when intelligence about
	Japanese forces that haven't been located by search may degrade.
	Some of the Japanese aircraft bookkeeping occurs here, and Japanese
	carriers sunk or damage that could no longer generate air strikes
	are noted.  (Note: this is a nice touch.  Since Jap Strikes appear
	overhead unannounced, even if you sink or disable a Jap carrier
	it can still attack you since it may have actually launched the
	strike against you prior to the US player inflicting the damage
	on the Japanese ships.  This means there is a lag after the time
	you put a Japanese carrier out of action until the time you no
	longer have to fear air strikes from it.)

Other notes:
	Air-to-Air combat occurs when an Air Strike contacts a target
	(usually a group of ships, but a land air-base can also be
	struck at).  Actual combat is somewhat abstract with the attacker
	first flying through CAP, then defending AA fire, and then
	launching an attack on specific ships or bases.  Losses to
	CAP and AA are still allowed to attack (at half strength) to
	represent that CAP and AA affects attackers before and after the
	actual bomb/torpedo release point.  US attacks containing both
	bombers and torpedo bombers are move effective than attacks
	containing only one type or the other.

	Surface combat is quite abstract with ships targeting each other
	and engaging in a single exchange of "fire".  One twist is after
	two separate surface combats within 24 hours, the involved ships
	suffer battle fatigue and fight any additional actions at a
	disadvantage.  Generally, surface actions seems to work fairly
	well, if you aren't expecting much detail.  Since the focus of
	the game is air-to-surface, I haven't found this simple handling
	to be a problem at all.

	Standard scenarios are randomly generated which should make for
	many different situations to arise.  Ship availability depends
	on historical circumstances, so US carriers lost at Coral Sea
	and Midway are not available in scenarios generated for periods
	after May 42.  Similarly, the Japanese have only two fleet
	carriers (Shokaku, Zuikaku) left after Midway, although several
	of their CVLs carry a lot of punch.  If you ignore the US victory
	at Midway and re-introduce USS Yorktown along with Hiryu, Soryu,
	Kaga and Akagi I can imagine that the Japanese will be very tough
	to tackle throughout the 1942 scenarios.

General Feel:
	This is where I think the game design pays off.  The rules aren't
	what I'd call simple, but they work well and are pretty logical
	so they are easy to get used to.  The writing is clear and a
	series of six introductory scenarios are very effective in teaching
	the game mechanics.  It is also encouraging to be able to punch
	some of the counters and play through a couple of air-strikes
	within minutes of opening the game (air-to-surface attacks are
	dealt with in the first few pages and first intro scenario).

	So far, I've been please with the "feel" of the game.  As US
	commander you are faced with a large number of decisions that
	can influence what will happen.  The Japanese are somewhat
	predictable, so it is possible to account for that in your
	strategy, but surprises are possible.  (e.g. having located
	a "large" group of ships I was quite convinced would contain
	the enemy fleet CVs, I launched a strike with 2/3rds of my TBF/SDBs.
	Before they could make contact, another seemingly "harmless" Jap
	force attacked me with substantial revealed air strength indicating
	I'd either guessed wrong or the Japanese possessed a lot more
	carriers than I believed possible.  USS Hornet was heavily damaged
	(repair efforts later resulted in further damage a la USS Lexington
	at Coral Sea leaving Hornet a useless hulk).  My strike then found
	the Japanese force and it was revealed to be a large group of
	transports and escorting DDs.  I sank 4 of them, but with Hornet
	ablaze it was clearly not an even exchange.)

	Keeping planes in the air searching, on CAP, and still retaining
	enough punch to knock out major enemy carriers before they can
	hurt you is hard, and enough work to keep you quite busy.  Toss
	in difficulties presented by the sideshows, and you get to feel
	like the situation is only just barely under control.  I think
	this gives an excellent "feel" so that when you make the right
	decision and re-route your Task Force and you end up catching
	and hurting the Japanese carriers you feel like you just might
	have a knack for the Admiralty.  And then, suddenly, there's
	another formation of Betty's overhead....

Optional rules:
	I haven't started using these yet, but to name a few: Extended
	Scenarios, PBY Searches, and Jap Air Strikes from Rabaul.

In closing, appears to be a very challenging and workable solitaire
game.  So far, I've nothing but praise for it.

Jim Grams
jcg@cblpe.att.com
att!cblpe!jcg