Stitch

Ok ok, then how about a 15 second spot in next year's Superbowl?

When I was young, it felt as if WWII happened eons ago...

A "beta demo"? Beta?? Argggggggh!

Given ND's close working relationship with BF staff, I will take his comment as confirmed.

I feel... good!

It sure does sound like you're talking about something else.

I am smelling a replay of this ME soon. Do it quickly, before it's released!

I think Steve is inferring that there was really a 4:1 ratio of Sherman to Panther deaths. This is because the Panther is better armoured when compared to the little pkw IV (I loved the F2 variants in ASL!) and could withstand 4 direct hits, and therefore fire 4 times more than 1 Sherman. /joke. Okay, how 'bout a 4.5 ratio ETO wide?

Momma always said, "Idle hands make for the Devil's work.".

The infantry on tanks will hopefully be implemented later, but if they do it anywhere with the detail of the infantry in half-tracks, it will be well worth the wait! In my preview, a full American squad in a halftrack rushed down a country road between 2 houses full of Germans. The halftrack was then stopped (due to a hidden Panther!) and reversed. The Germans in the houses then concentrated on the halftrack with small arms, and the Americans returned fire while still IN the halftrack! Between the animations and the pixeltruppen AI, I was stunned.

Ah, HF you beat me here to it. What a successful preview, kudos to Phil and Normal Dude for hosting. Like a first kiss, I will always remember when my pak 40 put that front turret hit on your Sherm for a knockout...I'm sure you only ran it in there because we were pressed for time. It was quite amazing how many US tanks you lost to that one Panther. As I think there will be another thread opening for the AAR, that's all I'll mention for now!

I, err...didn't say the "B" word? Hope that helps!

I want to see a British upside-down machine gun with tripod! Sign me up!

Yasi looks pretty big

And would this be at Taronga Zoo?

Either way, I'm piqued.

If attacking a land based army or armor with a red dot carrier, are you utilizing strafing abilities (fighter) or bombing ones (tac bombers)?

Ah yes, this thread brings up 2 issues that are not historical (so you purists need not grab your guns) and yet presents a huge (detrimental) challenge to the Japanese. Japan starts the game heavily dependant on amphibious landings. I have had up to a 60% casualty rate on these early (read: fresh undamaged troop) landings, and more often than not, taken hits than had a clean landing. In the beginning, Japan can not afford these severe random acts of violence in time nor MPPs. It is really too whimsical for one random "die roll" to push back an invasion for weeks. I would like to see the instances and severity of these casualties, especially when not next to enemy units, reduced...it really does not make the game fun. Speaking of whimsicality, issue 2 is relating to the weather. Why are ground combat results *so* affected by them, and why is it so oppresive. I don't bother attacking cities on frozen ground, just to give 10% damage from each unit is tiring indeed. No air launches in rain, I understand, sort of. Weather is just included in the game to slow down the attacker, hey I get it. But to have randomly determined *theater-wide* inclement weather at any given time that affects 10 days or more, is again, not fun. While there does seem to be a propensity for bad weather at certain times at certain locales, I've had continuous rainy turns in China from April through September (8 turns) and December and January in India (just in time for frozen ground in China) for a few outrageous examples. I play with the weather off, but I would like to implement more historical effects like the monsoons in Burma, and Japan snows in the winter. It's just way overboard as it is now, so I don't even bother. Again, not all things determined by a random roll is a good thing to make a game "fresh". Just a thought, perhaps if weather was square-based as opposed to theater-based? Don't even get me started on the randomness of tech...It seems that while this game wants to portray historical accuracies via scripts and OoBs, it gets stymied by the random events that are included to make each game different, and many of these events are to the detriment of Japan.

It is sort of gamey that US air units can relocate from San Francisco to Kukum to Calcutta in 2 turns. Once Britain takes back Burma, I like to shove air up to China. This quickly and permanently saves them, especially with that committed US HQ already there. Easy Peasy, just watch out for the monsoons.

I have spent the past week looking in-depth into this issue. Results after playing 3 games (40+ turns) from the Japanese side (and 1 from the Allied) make clear the a-historical nature of the tech element in SC:PT. If we want this to be historical, then why not just give actual tech awards during an appropriate time? It would be much fairer to the Japanese, at least they know how bad off they will be in '44. The randomness of tech will really affect the game for Japan, from being a challenge when they research a decent amount of tech and the US doesn't fare normally as well, to just ridiculous when Japan isn't as lucky and the US researches normally. Against the US AI, I sure haven't been that lucky, while I will give some extreme results for the US: Infantry weapons tech from 0 to 2 in 3 turns. Advanced aircraft from 2 to 5 in 5 turns. (I have the 2 save games to prove this) Production tech from 2 to 4 in 4 turns. Heavy tanks from 2 to 5 in 4 turns. I will say the US results are not in the realm of impossibility, as I have been almost able to do this myself by overloading my tech investing. Still I think the US AI has been getting some "help", which perhaps it doesn't need. I will reiterate my stand, either US tech needs to be nerfed, or Japanese tech needs a boost to make it playable from the Japan side, especially in PvP games.

Don't know about you guys, but when I have my IJN fleet blockading Hawaii for months, I definitely notice my fleet's action points and supply going down...

I'm with you here K Man. As the Red and Green indicators shift from the lower right to lower left depending on how the carrier icon is looking (for 3-D icons), I find myself always double checking the mode, especially since one carrier alone in CAP is just begging to be sunk. I wonder why there are two indicator circles anyway, as just 1 circle with red, green and yellow could tell me definitively what mode my carrier is in?

Will do, Bill. I will have it available from my work comp tomorrow. Thanks for looking into this issue. @ LampCord Oddly enough, in that particular game I was over investing tech in intelligence (to secure that tech discovery bonus). I did manage to secure 2 points in it by that time, but it expensed me a bit in opportunity costs in Chinese theatre. Compared to other games, I was doing quite well. I think I got a total of 4 tech by then; in other games, I'd have no breakthroughs even after 1 year had gone by. It's very true that the war was not balanced. Japan's fighters were especially good in the beginning, but was outclassed by mid-war as they didn't "upgrade" to advanced aircraft. However, as far as a computer game, it must be important to give Japan a fighting chance somehow. Or in head to head play, why would anyone willingly choose Japan? As we saw in Blashy/Colin's AAR, Blashy sat back in most of his allied game, getting heavy bombers and a base above mainland Japan. Colin was walking all over the place in China and the Pacific, but yet still succumbed very quickly starting mid-game. I think your "investment" strategy looks to be pretty much infallable. Even if Australia, China and India were down by mid-43, those Pershings, jet's and B52s would clean up Japan right quick. Wouldn't that be an interesting scenario to play out?

How many of you are able to research every tech as the US before 1945? Then you'll know it is not that hard at all. This why I deplore playing the Allies...it's just too easy to win a decisive victory via tech by spring 45. So here I am, now playing a game as Japan against US AI. It is October 3, 1942 (not even 1 year out from war's inception) and a bold US cruiser has sidled up to my army unit in Brunei and bombards it! After recovering from my shock from US audacity, I am then put into a coma when I see that the cruiser has already been outfitted with the tech Naval Warfare 3! Game breaking...I quit. I have complained about this before in this forum, the US starts with too much tech investments, has too large a tech limit and way too many units in queue. The US player needs to do nothing else but make cheap land units and shove the rest into tech. Maybe it's historical, but it does not make for a fun game. Wouldn't it be great if the next patch rectified this, or allowed us to make this part of a what-if campaign, or let us modify the above factors. Thank you!

I have noticed this to an extreme as well. Many times where it was estimated I take no damage while giving 1, I end up giving none and taking the obligatory 1 damage. While I will admit it ending up the other ways at times, it is few and far in between. This is really noticiable in ports, I don't think the computer estimation takes into account the port modifiers. Also, speaking of taking arbitrarily unfair damage, what of those amphibious landings? While I've noticed the enemy AI takes *no* damage from these landings, I have lost up to 70% strength, more often than not 10 to 20%. This unfairly hurts the Japanese, who is depending alot on these landings in the beginning when MPPs are tight. The Burma campaign is set back weeks on a bad landing, and India is based on pure speed. Is there a way to take out amphibious landing damages?