Bill101

Is it the pop up itself that doesn't work, or is it that the Churchill image doesn't appear, whereas Mosley's does?

Hi Stitch Please could you send me a save file of this game to Bill@furysoftware.com as I agree that game balance is very important and would like to take a look to see what the allies are up to. I have actually had naval tech level 3 as Japanese by this time on a few occasions, so I'll need to look at the bigger picture before considering any changes. Thanks!

An excellent source on the battle of Iwo Jima is the official US Marine Corps history. The section on the bombardments prior to the landing on Iwo Jima can be found in the following link, and it is rather illuminating: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/USMC-M-IwoJima/USMC-M-IwoJima-2.html If you scroll down to Naval Activities, you will see that the actual naval bombardment prior to the landing was a lot smaller than we'll tend to operate in the game, and also that it didn't go on for very long. Possession is of course the key, so even if the visible garrison has been destroyed, when landing your troops you may still suffer heavy casualties, and there is also a delay before you can use the facilities to their full potential due to scorched earth. This represents the time taken to mop up enemy resistance and to get everything working smoothly. Carriers only have a soft attack value of 1. We did in beta testing experiment with a factor of 0 but it actually rendered their attacks totally useless. Basically it swung things too much the other way.

Hi Retributar I'm glad you're enjoying the game. We will be making some amendments to Soviet activation, but even so, I wonder, did you leave Manchukuo free of garrisons? Only that's the only way I can think of, unless the allied AI has invested a lot in diplomacy, to activate the USSR so early.

Hi Bcdane Sorry for the delay in replying but I wanted to check my sources in the local library before replying. It is true that the Main Body of the Combined Fleet (i.e. these battleships) didn't take part in the Hawaii operation, but instead remained in Japan and for the most part didn't do very much for the first part of the war. Instead they conserved precious fuel by remaining in port, while some training was also carried out. Now, if we were to have them start the game in Japanese home waters, then it has a lot of potential to upset the balance of play in South East Asia early on. For instance, the allies made a valiant attempt to hinder the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies by assembling a small multi-national fleet, which saw action at the Battle of Java Sea. If these battleships were to start at Japan then they could be in the Java Sea in time to effectively squash any attempts by the allies to do what they historically attempted to do, and I quite like the fact that the allies at the moment have the potential to inflict some damage on the Japanese navy in Indonesian waters early on. So this will require some thought.

Hi Stitch There was what you've called "overlap of coverage", but I think that will happen because carrier A will have taken some losses intercepting, so when another strike comes in carriers B and C are more likely to intercept it as their air components were still at full strength. As a result the carriers launching the intercepts will tend to alternate so that the strongest ones should be the ones intercepting (I think that morale and/or readiness will also play their part in determining who intercepts). I did also try it with just one US carrier there, and this lone carrier did intercept both of the strikes by the first Japanese carrier. It might be a good idea if you play around in the editor and set up a little scenario to test it all out, as in my experience it all seems to work ok. You can always PM me if you find anything interesting that you'd like me to take a look at.

Hi Stitch I'm not sure I fully understand what you're saying here, as in my experience carriers in CAP mode will intercept twice, and they dish out a fair amount of damage too. To directly clarify the difference this makes, I've just tested out having 3 US carriers operating CAP just off Hawaii when the Japanese carriers strike in turn 1, and the difference in result to normal was astounding: Here the carriers haven't been intercepted during their attacks: And here they have: To make things fair I gave the US carriers experience and upgrades equal to their Japanese counterparts. Given the difference, and the fact that all the carriers intercepted twice, I am a little confused by your comments. Am I missing something? Thanks Bill

Hi Stitch The reason for putting in the arrows was to save players time. Having the loops there means that the US doesn't have to manually sail large numbers of naval units from the west coast of the USA to Hawaii. As a result, you have more time to actually play the game! Bill

I do understand the issue here, but on the other hand there were pro-Japanese elements in Burma and the Japanese were pretty good at infiltrating units behind enemy lines, so having Myitkyina fall to the enemy when Rangoon falls isn't as far fetched as it might at first appear. The allies were chased out of Burma with their tails between their legs, and are lucky in this game that they can usually hold onto Mandalay for sometime, possibly for the entire game. Also, if the Japanese do land air units behind allied lines then remember that they will be in very poor supply and easily destroyed by your own ground troops. Such a move could actually work in the allies' favour. I will think some more on this, but it is a tough issue and even with this, on balance the situation in Burma is slightly more favourable to the allies than it was in real life.

Yes, this is intentional because after the allies retreated from Burma, what little remained of the 7th Armored was promptly sent off to fight in North Africa. As a result it was some time before any new Indian armoured units were formed. Normally you will be able to rebuild units cheaply, providing they were destroyed while in fairly good supply, but this is one exception.

Good points, thanks! I have actually seen the USSR join much later, and sometimes not at all. It all depends on the circumstances and whether or not the Japanese abandon Manchukuo (which I understand happened here). I have made a number of amendments to Soviet activation for the first patch which will hopefully resolve this, and also improve game balance too.

Hi Fuchu This is a problem that will be fixed in the first patch. The good news is that you aren't actually losing any MPPs as a result, they just aren't shown as coming from the convoy. Bill

Thanks for the great AAR guys, and congratulations to Colin for keeping Japan going for so long in your first ever game. Considering that Blashy was a betatester, that is some achievement!

Hi Amadeus Supply scripts are actually used to damage resources and therefore the supply they provide, rather than in providing supply. Is Estonia an independent country in your mod? If so, I would just recommend giving the Estonians a HQ as that will give Estonian forces good supply. If not, e.g. if it's part of the Soviet Union, but cut off from other parts of the USSR, it can easily be given higher supply by making Tallinn an Industrial Centre.

Yes, when you're in a game you can click on the next menu tab on the right hand side of the screen, then options (the one numbered 123) and then Victory.

Never say never Blashy!

Hi Nupremal You're totally right, but we were just adding potential names for players to use should they wish to build some more ships, as ship names are often re-used. That's why their names only appear as options for naming the ships, rather than as the names of ships that actually start in the game.

Don't worry about it Xwormwood, I'd be a liar if I said that I'd never reported a bug that wasn't really a bug!

Moving your subs in silent mode will reduce the chances of them taking a nasty bump should they encounter an enemy ship. It doesn't eliminate the chance of damage, but they will generally go straight through enemy formations. Air units and carriers are the real key to spotting at sea. Obviously there are risks involved, very big risks if your carriers lack long range air, so sometimes it's better to avoid any naval clashes until your research level is higher or the enemy fleet have sailed into sight of your territory or ground based air.

This is very strange, I've never noticed any problem like this and I've just been in the game operating all my units everywhere to see if it could happen again. Are you aware of any specific circumstances when this happens? For instance, you mentioned not being allowed to place the unit - was that because there was no other free territory under your control at that time? If you can replicate this problem please send Hubert the file at support@furysoftware.com

Yes, quite a few features including the ability to save the game are disabled in the demo, but they all come with the game itself.

The only thing I can suggest is taking screenshots and stitching them all together in a photoshop type program. Then shrink the image down to size. It will take a while to do, and you'll lose a significant amount of detail doing so, but in the process you'd probably get a much better grasp of the details on the map (which I presume is your intention?) so it's not necessarily wasted effort.

Hi thetwo I've just tried replicating it but when my Japanese unit advanced from 22,35 to take Chittagong (21,35), the port was also destroyed. Was there an allied unit at either 20,34 or 22,35 when the Japanese took Chittagong, or a naval unit in the port? If not, then it would have to be something else, and it would be great if you could let me know how to replicate it (i.e. is it due to advancing from a certain direction?). Great, I was wondering how you were getting on, though four hours looking for the problem does sound like it was driving you mad! You can set the % chance of a diplomacy hit on a major to zero. If doing so, you might want to either make the cost prohibitive (1,000MPPs), or set it to cost nothing at all. Don't forget to also amend the AI's diplomacy scripts, otherwise they may continue to invest even though there is no chance of a hit. Although I will almost certainly be making some changes to Soviet activation, I do not intend to prevent diplomatic initiatives from being able to bring in the USSR earlier. View the cost of diplomacy if you like as an increase in lend lease - the more the USSR has, the quicker they can beat Germany and then join in the Pacific.

Hi Panzerkiller Script events are things that either definitely will happen, or have a chance of happening, possibly only under certain conditions. To give some examples: Burma Corps deploying to defend Burma from the Japanese will definitely happen, while the USA getting to choose whether or not to send the 14th Air Force to China is dependent on China still being allied when the opportunity arises to send it there. I hope this helps, and if you have any more questions feel free to post!

Hi Demorve You should find a pdf copy of the manual in the game folder?