SeaMonkey

Mithel you sound like a proponent of "The Search". Unfortunately, although getting better, SC is still somewhat lacking in that department. The again, as soon as the feature was incorporated there would likely be a group who would dislike the unpredictability.

It(the grounded fighters) uses its AD(air defense) ctv, not its AA ctv. So you think that improved positions that fortifications represent wouldn't include hardened hangar facilities?

If the air unit is grounded and entrenched, it will gain the advantage of entrenchment effects if attacked by any unit.

This is one I've tested before. Subs in silent mode will pass through enemy warship occupied tiles unless the warship is a destroyer group as they(the DD group) will detect it.

Didn't I read something about Japan's industrial modifier going to 35% from 50%. Also an error after China surrendered where a convoy stayed active. These two might account for the losses. Next time it'll be really tough to get that Japanese marginal victory on Expert+2.

Build you're paratroops early so the one you get later will give you 3, you'll also need another TAC. Use you fighters to clear the skies over London area while you're bringing in your subs. Right after France falls, amphib a couple of armies, HQ, perhaps a Panzer group and bring the Kriegsmarine into the North Sea under your air umbrella. Block off the English Channel, one end with subs the other with the KM, bomb the crap out of the English while landing your amphibs and use your FJs to capture a port or London, follow with the HQ. If you don't get a supply source your HQ will have 5 supply, get it next to your landed forces and definitely clear a supply source next turn with your bombers, you may need the Italian AFs if your opponent is an SC vet. If your opponent has purchased the engineer and built fortifications next to London and port, forget Sealion and go take out Malta and expand into Africa.

I've been remembering two books I read, "Storm Over the Gilberts", and "On to the Marianas" as to what was the real motivations to garrison and attack the outer islands in the offensive and defensive scheme of things. Among other things mentioned I want to pay particular attention to the land based air parameters and how it applies to the SC PTO mechanics. TAC & Bombers should be very effective against ground units, causing not only casualties but demoralization and effectiveness degradations. Bombers(SAC) do that in SC and TAC also when upgraded with AT but I think we need a rebalancing and some testing of CTVs of many of the units. I believe the double strike CVs are correct for attacking naval forces, but not ground units, perhaps the CD (carrier defense value) for ground units needs adjusting as the SA and TA values for the CAGs are cemented at 1. What I'm hoping to accomplish is raise the importance of land based air vs carrier air groups(CAGs) so that the islands find their proper historical role(unsinkable aircraft carriers). The only thing is that if we do that the risk of an exagerated Japanese air campaign on Chinese conquest will be elevated and its already ahistorical. A dilemma to say the least. Since CAGs should be smaller in aircraft numbers than TAC and SAC groups maybe they should only have one strike when compared to 2 for land based. This means an upgrade for TAC so their effectiveness on a single strike basis would need to be minimized vs ground units(the Chinese syndrome). They begin at 1 for TA and SA ctv(instead of current 2), upgraded through AT tech and a greater demoralization %. In turn though they should be most effective against naval units, upgraded through naval tech, so that island basing would be desirable for both offensive and defensive operations. On the other hand since we now have only single strike CAGs, their effectiveness would have to be enhanced vs naval targets and when they elevate to naval tech 3 they should be able to take out a naval unit with that one strike. Their effectiveness could be further enhanced by not taking so many aircraft losses per strike giving them staying power able to stay on station longer. Once the USN has upgraded and floated its build Q it will be as it was with widespread very effective CV task forces all over the Pacific. I'm sure that Hubert and company can think of other ways to make the outer islands more involved in the gameplay, but it seems a shame to relegate half the map to irrelevance.......which brings me to one other suggestion. Why not take out a lot of the eastern Pacific tiles by using the looping arrows for US west coast to Hawaii movements and expand the western Pacific. I mean there's nothing going on there, let's get those extra tiles into the area that counts. Its a wargame, we want maneuver and combat not the tedium of USN deployments to Hawaii and points west. You can still work the Aleutians in.

Again I'll reiterate my past statement of the use of engineer built fortifications to accomplish that task (enhanced basing). As you add to the number of sides of an improved position(fort) an engineer unit generates you build a better %efficiency/supply base. Start with a one side fort next to a 50%/5 supply base you get 50%/5 supply, all four sides yield 80%/8. By itself, no 50% port or town adjacent, you'll get 10%/1 up to 40%/4 supply from one to four sided fortifications, but remember an HQ stationed in the vicinity will enhance that efficiency. One additional enticement for using engineers and to simulate a support base is that to deploy aircraft you must have a one sided fortification to simulate the needed logistics. Now we have an airbase capability. Think how long it will take to build a large airfield to base 4 aircraft units in proximity to your forward operations (will China be so easy now). Engineer capabilities may need some tweaking. If we enhance the TAC air units ability to degrade land units more effectively than CAGs, well...perhaps you can see how islands may become more important. Carry it a little further, reducing the air(bomber) defense CTV of Naval Tech upgraded naval units and your island based TACs will dish out more damage to opponents marauding fleets. By the way BB's air defense(CTV) should start at 0 for the Z campaign, maybe for CAs and DDs also, as it was later in the war that the effectiveness of anti-air weapons and tactics came about (that's what naval tech upgrades should simulate). Not only that, obviously these newly created bases are subject to degradation by air and naval bombardments where the aircraft would suffer the accompanying effects. Now can we picture a little better simulation of the Pacific War's dynamics?

Pretty easy taking out the Chinese. Just concentrate those Jap Bombers, HQ supported, and take out all the supporting supply points, working the Chinese HQs over with TAC and Fighters. Focussing the air makes it a simple function of degenerating the Chinese as they slowly fall back. Interdiction is the name of the game, without supply, even the strongest enemy units fall.

Well since I haven't actually played from the USN viewpoint I could be wrong in this assumption, but. Bill, it seems to me that the USN has enough units to literally canvas the entire map slowly working his way westward discovering any hiding places? Failing in that, surely the tech edge the USN gets will deliver LR5 soon enough to spot anything that exists on the perimeter of his slow moving sphere of influence to the west? There has to be some logical circumstance that compels the Japanese player to project force to the outer islands and in turn for the Allied player to want to establish a network of support bases as his forces careen to the final battle of the Japanese homeland.:confused:

CPw60, welcome, you can enhance the base with an HQ, thereby giving your deployed units a supply basis of 8. This means at best those surrounding units(in AP cost 1 terrain) would have a supply of 7, being one tile away. Usually bases that do not have a communication/rail net connection suffer from reduced supply.

Just wanted to point out a possible solution that I posted in the "Supply" thread. Post #8 deals with the relationship of land and sea based aircraft. This could actually make the islands worthwhile, because land based air(TAC) would be necessary to take out ground units.

See Blashy...Happycat has got it. Stop looking back with the hindsight of historical events, especially with the later technology and tactics that World Wars catalize. These outer islands did in some measure perform a military task, interdiction, especially early before the arrival of the vast CV task forces deployed by the Allies. We've already heard a number of mechanic changes that would contribute to this historical fact. The question....is... will it be enough? I've not heard anything that sounds foolproof. That's not unusual, that's why we have playtesting. Believe me, we need to figure this out before Global SC is distributed, think in terms of Malta.

Guys, I'm sorry if I contributed in any manner to this turn of events, it was not intended. I come here to make SC better and share and receive ideas to increase our enjoyment of life. That's what this is about, its play time and sometimes that means poking a little fun at one another, no malicious intent ever meant. Now Kuni and JJR sometimes handle our newest members with......well not quite a velvet glove, but surely everyone knows they jest, its sort of their MO. It is in your defense that I say, give them some of their own medicine back, cause even though they dish it out, they can take it too. I won't defend their use of diction as sometimes it gets a bit out there, but don't let it suck you into a likewise poor choice of sarcasm to needle them back, do it with tongue in cheek and in a lively spirit of construction......yes...we can eventually reconstruct them into contributing humans to our forum. Anyway...I just wanted to apologize as I didn't intend for anyone to get banned or others of us to be put off from my egging on of verbal joisting. One of my many faults is sometimes my playful antagonizing gets out of hand, ....sorry Kuni and Rambo, my bad. Sorry.... Moon and HC and all the rest here...not a good feeling.

I would assume that the only way of obtaining a better victory margin, would be if Japan retained control of the seas. Obviously that is impossible with the current USN build Q and tech advantage. In my game I heard the sound of jets by late 44 coming from the Allied camp.

Just wanted to bring this thread up to my current turn of Z, Aug. 45. Have absorbed the first three A-bombs and Honshu and Kyushu are still Japanese. The Reds have been stopped in Manchuria and a timely coordinated withdrawal from Southeast Asia has been successfully implemented, Singapore still holds. I believe at this point I will gain the marginal victory. A little disappointing, but again it is the AI and it has improved expotentially since the SC1 days. The one biggest fault of the AI that I would focus on, is that .....focus. The AI tends to be easily diverted and does not amass his forces like a human opponent. Obviously a human can defeat it with a locally superior force as long as a proper diversion is prepped. The other thing I observed is the Allied AI uses lacking units like artillery, anti-air and anti-tank units to initiate amphibious assaults on the home islands instead of more effective infantry and armor. Course I did concentrate on taking those type of units out when faced with a choice of amphibians. Its been fun, but like brother Rambo states, the AI still doesn't count.

Of course you should use delayed production. And later Expert +2, but don't be in a hurry, the experience of SC is the aroma as you travel the path culminating with the human opponent. One thing though, delayed production should be coupled with a delayed cost also. If a unit takes 10 turns to produce and a 100 MPPs, it should cost 10 MPPs a turn. The cost should run sequentially in increments of the total and the controlling player has the option to delay the build from turn to turn as priorities shift. Just like it was and is in real life.

This is one of the features that turns SC from a more historical aspect to a "what if" one, from our visionary developer.

Try creating a folder at the same level as your program folder in the main drive, usually the "C" drive. Call the folder "Games". When you install the game, use the different path, C\Games instead of C\Programs when you are prompted for the path install. There is also a task in the "Users" profiles, accessed through the control panel that needs to be disabled. Remember Hubert, this is how I got mine to run. What is that task to disable, something to do with security? I have no problems running Vista and it runs very fast.

Now just wait a minute....you guys... I started this thread and being a forum god, I'll decide when its time to pull the handle. OK, its time!

Update on the Aleutians. Kiska was assaulted and initially occupied by 500 marines and assorted support personnel from the No.3 SNLF. Attu similarly taken by the 301st Independent Infantry battalion. These should be the deployed troops for the beginning(Summer 42) campaign.

OK another possibility here. Japan always touted the islands as "Unsinkable Aircraft Carriers", the answer is obvious. Those islands allowed for the forward staging of aircraft, that was their value. But in SC, because aircraft take such a beating from surface vessels, especially as they acquire greater naval tech, it makes attacks by land based aircraft too expensive. Look at BBs, they start out with a bomber defense of 2, with 3 levels of naval tech they are at 5, way over powered IMO. We need some rebalancing of Combat Target Values(CTVs) so that land based aircraft can deal out more punishment, ie...when fully supplied and HQ supported, to naval vessels and not take so many losses. The next problem is the effectiveness of the double strike carriers on land units. By somewhat neutering the CV assault on land units(as it should be) it will elevate the importance of land based air(TAC) in proximity to the island you want to assault and occupy. This rebalancing will have need of testing to fine tune but in the end it should bring the island bases into the realm of importance to what they were in history. And that was as a staging platform for land based aircraft so they could attrite the island occupiers in a more efficient manner than naval air. Now later in the war the USN did have so many carriers that in effect they made the island bases obsolete except for strategic bombing. But if the Japanese player husbands his TAC, upgrades & escorts them and uses the kamikaze approach, he should be able to delay the Allied naval assault to a certain degree, albeit at a very great cost. If this can be accomplished then islands supporting land based TAC will attain the value necessary for Allied players to rexamine their approach to the Japanese home islands and the Japanese to defend them. Maybe!

The only references I found so far names the "Aduk-Attu" and "Kiska Occupation Forces". Another source quotes a 1200 troop, "Army Landing Force" for Attu. On Attu the Japanese commander was Colonel Yamazaki Yasuyo. In 1943, during the nights of July 28/29 approx 5200 troops and civilians were evacuated from Kiska and subsequently the 34000 US and Canadian troops landed to find nothing. On Attu the US 7th Infantry Division(11000 strong) invaded on May 11, 1943. For the Midway portion, the invading forces were "Kure" and "Yokosuka" 5th SNLF, along with Army Ichiki Detachment. scottsmm, i have all the other island garrisons for the late summer of 42, I'll get to them later this week.

scotts....simmer...JJR and I are longtime forum members. We sometimes get a little pompous with each other, but when the chips are down, the fun aside, ....Well we're both Americans and human beings and I know JJR has a good heart. I would be honored for him to be by my side, even at the Alamo! Besides, he's always good for a laugh and a challenging SC game, this forum would be less without him.

JJR posts = no value