The Road so Far

[numdydar]

Warning this is a LONG post so be aware.

I am in Fall of 1943 playing at 50%, zero bonus and as the Axis. Here is a summary of my thoughts on the game so far.

ETO

The French left a gap in the Maginot Line which I exploited in the winter of '39. France fell in July '40 and VF was accepted. This AI behavior and some map issues have been noted in other threads.

It did seem too easy to get people into the Axis side. By the end of 1940, I had all the Balkans, Romania, Hungary as my Allies. This without any influence.

After France fell, what to do? Well I had two paras so let’s see what happens when I drop them In England. Found out that England was pretty empty. By the time I decided to do something about it, one para was dead and the other was in bad shape. So I invaded, took Southampton and then realized it was not a port. Managed to take Bristol the next turn and the end of the UK was sealed. The AI sends way too many troops overseas and uses PPs to rebuild out of country troops even while the UK was being overrun.

Somewhere during late '40 after the invasion, but before the UK was finished off, Russia declares war. Even though I had a 2:1 ratio in troops on the border. However, I definitely was not prepared so it took some time to get moving. The Russian AI, is very good, so working on AoC must have helped. I have not even looked at AoC yet.

Believe it or not, I did not capture Odessa until June '43 :confused: I have just managed to take Smolensk and Leningrad and am ready to march on Moscow from the North. However, Russia is NOT anywhere near broken. Still lots of units and hurting me at many places. So definitely do not know how this will turn out.

Once I got close to Leningrad, the Fins came in. They were a big help in taking Leningrad. However, historically, they refused to do this. Nor would they go much further past their '39 borders unless the Germans took Lenngrad on their on first. Not sure how the game could model this, but it should be fixed if possible.

I did get Spain into the war finally. The random number generation was very unkind. I do wish you could see or have some indicator of the Allies pressure as this would have been fairly easy to see in real life. Took Gabrater after a major effort. Of course the Brits sent a Corp and a Army even though the fighting in the UK was still going on. They could have been much better used there versus Spain as all they did there was die.

Took Greece in late '40 along with Crete. The italians had fun with the French and British navies. Losing a BB and a CA. At some point I notice I had left Cypres alone. I quickly invaded and fixed that.

I never bothered with Malta and it is still British owned.

In May '43 (or so) the US decides to try and free their opressed brothers in the UK by landing a MASSIVE army. Very shocking. The good news for the AI is that is it did a really good job with getting the troops on the land and surprising me. The really bad news is the AI seems to have no desire to actually capture a port so they can be supplied :confused:

They have landed 5 Armies, 3 Corps and one HQ. If they had concentrated on getting a port they could have easily done so, but instead are now OOS and will soon all die. I am hoping the AI scripting can be tighened ups so that the AI will not land at all if it determins that capturing a port is unlikely. More on this in the PTO discussion.

What was nice is that I had allocated extra units to be shipped to England but could divert them to Turkey once I realized that the US troops had no chance of getting a port. So was able to stave off a diaster due to bad AI planning

Mid East

Italy was able to completey capture Alexandra (with the help of a German Armor and Inf Army. The Africa Corps lives. Capturing Cario on the other had took forever since the Germans had to go East versus South. But finally it fell. This was the major event for the Italians as it now allowed them to actually get to their buddies further South.

Syria joined the Axis anlong with Iraq. Of course the Bristish sent troops into iran (again with fighting in the UK ongoing). It took a while for AK to get down there, but made short work of the British when they did. Then we get to Persia/Iran.

I thought they would join automaticlly so wasted a few turns waiting around and nothing happened. So went ahead and declared war. Was able to conquer then in two turns which was a good thing since quite a few Russians came pouring in. Lost my first Armor corp in the heave fighing. Current a complete stalemate on both side. The only good thing is it is tying up far more Russians than Germans.

Got Turkey into the Axix, but was VERY costly to do so. Not really sure it was worth it. Since the Eastern part of the country was very quickly overrun by the commies. Only by diverting troops that were slated to go to England and Russia was diaster averted. Again, it seems like more Russians are being tied up than Germans which can only help the cause.

Africa

The quagmire of Ethiopia. What a mess. Neither side has enough troops to do anything. I was able to barely hold on and only because, I paid to send the SF and HQ down there. Once Cario fell then the troops sped South and caputred Sudan. Fighing is still going on in East Africa but it is only a matter of time.

Currently the NA troops are contining to push West out of the Sudan while the rest are mopping up the enemy in the East.

Battle for the Atlantic and Med

Before we move on to the PTO. A brief discussion of Raiding. I really like the way this is modeled with the convoy lanes dynamicly changing based on what happens on the ground. I do think the convoys to Russia go too close to the UK. If the UK is captured, the lines should go much further North than they currently do.

At the start of the game, my subs were getting killed pretty regularly. Also lost a lot of the German navy contesting the channel. At one point was down to a CA and DD as far as SURF ships go.

I got my subs to lv 2 as soon as I could. I put two chits into subs as I was not sure if even lv 2 would be enough. Lv 2 was better, but it was not until, I got to 3, where the Battle of the Atlantic turned into my favor. Of course knocking out England helps too.

Before England fell, my subs were costing England anywhere between 40-50% of their colony income. This was from mid '40 on. Needless to say this had a major impact on the game. Of course the down side is I overbuilt on subs because, I was losing quite a few at the start and did not know how good the lv 3 would be. So now they have to sail across to the Caribbean to be useful now lol.

The German CV is PRICELESS and worth its weight in gold. So I would recommend always building it and protecting it at all cost. Because once the Eastern front opens up, you will not be able to afford another one if it is lost.

I would not build the Italian CV because it is not really needed in the Med. of course you do not really need another BB either, but at least the BB costs nothing.

One the Suez was opened for the Axis, most of the Italian navy heads to the Indian Ocean to raid every convoy line around. A few clashes with our British friends which took time to repair since we had to sail all the way back to Italy to get fully repaired.

The plan is to keep raiding as much as we can around Eastern Africa until our Japanese friends can liberate India. Which brings us to the PTO

PTO

Even though this is a single game, the differences between the ETO and PTO are like playing two different games within the same game. What really works well in the ETO, does not work well, in the PTO. I am not sure if this is game design, AI scripting, etc. but something is off once you hit the Pacific.

I have discussed the garrison, naval actions, and invasions in other threads regarding the PTO. But before I get into some of this, let me show you where I am in the game right now.

China

China is definitely not a pushover, but still able to be overrun. It will most likely take me to mid '44 to do this, but I should be able to. The key to this is HQs and lv 2 inf. Nothing else is really needed. I added the Strategic Bomber and one HQ along with a few more troops. I think 2 Armies, two SFs, and 3 corps.

While partisans are a pain, I just decided to completely ignore them and this seems to be working much better than trying to commit the troops to kill them. So far their presence has not seem to had any detrimental impact on my operations. This is totally unlike Russia where partisans do make a difference. A reason it feels like a different game.

DEI, Burma, Malaya, PI

Went to war with them in mid Dec '41 along with the US. The PI fell pretty quick. Bataan did not seem to make any impact in the game. Once the PI surrendered, the unit there just disappeared. Kind of anti-climactic wouldn't you say?

Java was a cakewalk which is pretty accurate. Actually thought it was a bit too easy so not sure what the AI was doing with the troops.

OMG, Singapore. This was the Bataan of the game. The damn place just would not die. It finally took 4 SFs, 2 HQs, two BBs, and a Tac to finally walk into the city. plus I swear over a YEAR of fighting. Given the terrain, I think having a corps there is too much especially which it can build back to 8 every turn.

There is no way Britain could get troops there once Japan landed. So why can it constantly build up every turn? Again this type of behavior in the ETO makes sense as units for the most part have direct connections to their home territories. Even Egypt makes sense as the British were able to ship troops there pretty regularly. But Singapore, with total sea and air control is very unrealistic. So again it feels like a different game than the ETO.

I discussed Thailand in another thread so I hope something is done about that. Burma seems to work well. Except WAY to many British troops seem to be involved. Somehow, there was a British tank and SF deep in China. So the UK is being overrun and high quality British troops are near Manchuria? Again makes no sense.

India

With all the British troops in China and Burma, I thought I would pay India a visit. Nothing there :confused: I took Ceylon and the 4 most southern cities before I ever ran into a unit. I now have 5 units in India so I am wondering how far they can go before I can find another unit ? So the defense of India is in even worse shape than Britain. Which i really did not think was possible.

CenPac

Attacked Pearl and killed everything there. Ran amok across the Pacific. Was very surprised to find no units in New Guinea at all. Maybe they all went to China too lol? Got all the way to Lugenville but could not take Samoa. US had a frigging armor unit there of all things. Not a pleasant surprise, but glad to see something was protected. Lost my SF there obviously.

In mid '43 a massive fleet shows up and lands on Guadalcanal. Lost the CVL, a CA, BB, and damn near lost a CV down to 2-2. They lost three CVs, a BB, CA and most of the rest damaged.

Have left Australia alone since India is wide open. Plus they are not going anywhere.

Invasions

The US has made two major invasions following the same pattern as with England. One in Java and Guadalcanal. The Java one is also massive. 3 Armies, 1 corps, 1 armor, and 2 SF. Again no port captured in either location so all will eventually die. It will be interesting to see if the AI can even invade in a contested location and actually capture a port. So far three major invasions and zero ports captured.

Other PTO silliness

I had a US CV sail into the Yellow Sea next to China and bomb a city all by itself. I also had a US CA sail close to Japan. Have no clue as to why, but it activated the entire Home guard so now I have a bunch more troops to play with . Thanks US. Maybe I will take these to down under lol. Both of these happened in Sept '43 my current game turn.

Spotting in general

Fleets, especially large ones, the opposing player should have some rough idea of location and heading. Both sides in the PTO and ETO had many aircraft dedicated to searching for enemy ships. This works well for convoy raiders, but is awful when it comes to ships moving in the ocean. The Japanese had Emily’s while the US had Catalonia’s all over the Pacific. So having a CV and CA sail all the way to Japan without being noticed at all is nowhere close to reality. Again this is far more noticeable in the PTO versus the ETO.

Maybe each base could be assigned a 'spotting range'. If anything sails within that range, a random die roll could be made to see if it is spotted. You could even add a 'spotting' tech to improve the range/detection chance. But whatever can be done to fix ships sailing through heavily patrolled enemy patrolled waters. Even if the planes did not spot the ships, the massive amount of Japanese merchant shipping would have noticed a CV long before it got to the Yellow Sea.

Production/Loses

Last but not least, I thought I would discuss this. The number of units and cost seems to be a little off. Too few smaller units and things costing a little too much. The amount of time seems about right though.

In Sept '43, the three Axis countries are barely out producing the Allies. With the US alone producing over 700/month before losses. I am sooo glad I heavily invested in Production tech for all three. I can be pretty sure things would be a lot worse for me if I had not. However, i am NOT sure I can keep continue to do so. Only time will tell.

As far as loses go

Germany - 12

Italy -2

Japan - 4

Total - 18

British - 100

US - 34 (not counting the 15 or so stuck on invasions that will soon die off)

Russia - 74

China - 90

Total - 298

Not too bad, almost 1:15 in my favor.

However, ever with these odds, I do not feel like I am really winning. Russia is still nasty and the US production is massive. So I still feel that this is an open game.

Once something is done to fix the PTO, then i think this game will actually be great. I keep talking about War in the Pacific but for a valid reason. You really need to look at this as it shows exactly how things really worked in the PTO. I do NOT expect anything close to that kind of modeling in this game, but it may give you some ideas to provide a better experience and bring the PTO and ETO experience closer together.

Thanks for reading

[Hubert Cater]

Thanks for the feedback Numdydar and I've made several adjustments to the AI scripts that should improve US naval behaviour as described above as well as their amphibious invasion planning.

The UK Home Island should play a bit better now as well for the next patch and some of the UK units that you are seeing in other theaters are pre-set events so it is not necessarily a matter of them ignoring the home islands or sending units to other theaters, but more of an abstraction to show interest on the part of the UK in the battles that continue to rage elsewhere at the same time.

[numdydar]

I hope the British deep within China are addressed as that never occured. Matter of fact large numbers of British troops never even went into China at all. It seems there should be some way the code could be written to tell the AI to consider areas of the map to be impassable on a nation by nation basis. This way both the US and British AI would be prevented from sending troops there. However, this would still allow the player to do so if they wanted to.

[crispy131313]

Perhaps the UK player should have some control over at least the deployment of some units similar to the event that allows the option to deploy the navy in India or the UK.

[mcaryf1]

Hi numdydar

Thank you for your very interesting description. You might like to think about using the editor to make the game more challenging for yourself and others when playing the AI by creating some variant scenarios of your own. After I played the AI once or twice in Gold I set it to play itself and tried to spot where it got into trouble and then tried to fix that issue. For example the AI would typically commit its naval units to attacks before it had assembled a strong enough fleet so a human player could easily overwhelm and destroy the few ships that did attack. I went back into the editor and changed the arrival dates so that the AI would get whole batches of new ships at the same time.

Similarly to you I noticed that the AI was not brilliant at obtaining ports for supply when invading and sometimes it did not bring an HQ. In consequence I observed the favoured spots where it likes to invade and sprinkled a number of towns around so that its units could get at least some level of supply. I also noticed that it was very casual at escorting transports and many of its land units went to watery graves so I implemented 80% evasion for those. This is not unreasonable in view of the low real rate of loss in WW2 and it certainly helps the AI not suffer as much as it used to do.

Clearly from the numbers of destroyed units you have reported it is not enough to give the AI lots of extra units. It probably needs specific unbalanced scenarios designed for itself so that it can provide a real challenge but not just unbalanced in terms of numbers of units.

My current effort in AOD editing is going into designing a whole series of loops so naval units can travel relatively easily throughout the globe whilst still being liable to interception in certain key areas. Once I have that working I will have to see how I can help the AI to use the loops or at least compensate it for any advantage they give to a human player.

Thank you once again for your comments.

Mike

[numdydar]

Thanks as I wanted to give an indepth view of the various theaters at a midpoint.

I would point out that the AI is doing a fairly good job of keeping its fleets togeather. I just had a massive batttle nesr the PI and both side got beat up. Japan lost both DDs and two BBs. They lost a CV, BB and 2 CAs. So a pretty even battle.

While that was very nice to see the AI do that, there is no way those ships should be anywhere near the PI without being detected way before they got there. There really needs to be some way to spot ships at see and have the AI be able to tell if they were spotted and fall back rather than pushing on and getting themselves killed.

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Numdydar,

For spotting, have you tried doing reconnaissance flights with your land based air units, from key Pacific islands, to see if that helps?

I only ask as players seem to enjoy the cat and mouse portion of the naval game and I think this would be missed if spotting were made too easy.

Hubert

[numdydar]

The issue with using in game AC to do this is that there are too few of them and are far more important uses for them than flying search missions. Even adding a new unit just to do search would not work since there are too many other types that are more important.

Every ship class in the game during the war, had float planes on baord that constantly did searching for both ships and subs. For example the BB Yomato had seven float planes assigned to her directly just for this purpose. The fact that you have these units in the game (which I am assuming represent larger task forces versus single ships. So a BB represents a Surf TF with a few BBs in them, CV units have 1-2 CVs, etc. along with the escort ships that would also be in these types of TFs) and NO search capability allows absurd behavior that was impossible in RL. CV TFs normally had 10-20% of their combat AC dedicated to searching on top of the float planes that were in the CV TF.

I agree cat and mouse in the Pacific was and is something that should be modeled. However, this searching and avoiding searching, too place on a much smaller scale than what the game represents. Plus the fact that ships can sail all over the Pacific without any regard to fuel/supplies is also a factor in this.

I can buy that tenders and supply ships are also imbedded in the actual units to allow this to occur, but even they would run of of fuel at some point. This 'unlimited' movement and lack of search are the main causes of this.

Also while we are on this topic, There were only two location in CenPac where the Japanese could ream/resupply major fleets like CVs and BBs. Truk and Rabaul. The fact that I can get these TFs completely supplied back to 10 anywhere I have a port, while nice, also is very gamy.

So it seems to me that to better model things so they work along a more realistic level, you need to do three things. First you could add fuel as a reource in the game and let ships use fuel to move OR a more simple solution for SURF TFs is to restrict ships from moving X squares from major ports. If the second option is chosen, you could add events into the game that would allow the player to inverst X/turn to upgrade a base to extend the ships radius. Ethier of these would prevent the silliness that is currently happening with Naval Ops in the game now.

The second thing is you just really need to forget about the cat and mouse game. Every base and unit in the game had massive amount of search abilities to detect SURF fleets. Subs work really well as they are btw. The scale of the game is too big and the number of air units too small and too important to be used for searching. Emily's in Dec 1941 had a range of 4,440 miles! Which means their search range was about 2,000 miles in 10 degree arc with just one plane! Both sides had planes like these that were all dea cidated to searching. So anytimie any SURF fleet gets within X squares of a base gets put on the map with a question mark.

This could indicate somthing was found within a one square radius. You could even add additional logic so that within a 1-5 distance you know exactly where they are (representing the larger number of shorter ranged planes available for searching), 5-10 random chance to know exactly where they are otherwise a ?, and longer than 11-X ? and the TF could be anywhere within a 2-3 square radius or nothing at all , based on randon chance.

Lastly, only Japan, US, GB, and France had true blue water navies. These countries should be the only ones allowed to operate outside of their home waters. While the Italian Navy ships could operate in the ocean, it was mainly designed for operations in the Med. I am not sure even if the Germans had opened up Suez if the Italian Navy would have gone beyond the Red Sea. So any county with ships other than the above should be restricted to operating within a certain range of their 'home' waters.

Of course how to do SURF raiders? Again these work well in the game as is. If you place a SURF on raiding, then the restriction of having to be in the home waters is lifted, BUT in exchange they cannot remove the Raiding flag until they return back to a home port and they cannot attack anything (but can defend normally). This represents that when a ship was sent out to raid, it avaoided combat ships if possible. Plus the raiders did not have the support vessals that a combat TF would have had. So if you want to raid, fine go wherever you want, but do not expect to turn into a combat TF in the middle of nowhere.

Sorry for the long post, but I really like the game and want the naval system to feel like WWII, not Startfleet Battles. Of course, this is your design and effort, not mine. If you want a SFB experience for your customers, then that is definately your call, not mine. But as I said before, in a game that is marketed as a WWII game, I expect WWII behavior, not what is currently reflected in the game.

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Numdydar,

Some good thoughts here and we did have a different supply model for naval units at one time but without changing the game engine it didn't work out as we had hoped as a constantly reducing supply for naval units gave units that stayed near ports a significant advantage in naval engagements.

Now we just reduce supply during engagements and it helps to keep naval units on a more level playing field no matter where they engage and how far they need to get into position and so on.

We will likely be making changes for SC3, including some randomized spotting, but in the meantime there are things you can experiment with in terms of spotting ranges by editing the campaigns using the Editor.

It's a nice way to try out some of your ideas and see how they go in game

Hubert

[numdydar]

As I told mcaryf1 in another thread, I do not buy games that I have to mod in order to play properly.

From your comments, it appears that fixing the naval problems cannot be addressed in a patch. Which is a shame since the way it works now totally sucks in my opinion.

As this game has progressed, the naval absurdness has become even more pronounced. I will finish this one out since I want to see how the game works from start to finish. But it is very unlikely to ever be played again due to the naval system.

While I do not have access to your code (nor do I want to lol), it seems like an easy fix to limt naval movement to within X squares of a major port. No other parameters in the current system would need to change. Or anything to limit ships, transports and Assult ships from sailing to India from the West Coast.

I have major US forces in the Persian Gulf and they had to go across the entire Pacific AND the Indian Ocean to get there. The closest Pacific base the US has is the Fijis. While others that play the game may think there is nothing wrong with this, if it was not possible to do in the real war, the game should not allow it either. If the game does allow absurd things (and I have a list ), then it ruins the game for me.

I have not tried AoC yet and I am hoping it does a better job or recreating that Theater of Operations better than what AoD allows you to do.

[MonsterClaude]

Hi Numdydar

I read most of your posts and sure appreciate someone adresses those issues with realism. You remind me the way I was years ago when I was dreaming of the perfect wargame both on strategic and operational level.

At some point though, I came to understand that realism is not compatible with playability. One has to choose between an unplayable realistic game that would appeal to very few people or a game for a larger customer spectrum, a game that would prove its long-term entertainment value through sales years after years in order to give the creation team an incentive to improve it and, hopefully enough cash to make a living out of that. If reality means anything, the only true one is the wargames market with its constraints.

Even if some hard-working dedicated genius programmers in a joint effort go for The Reality Wargame of the XXIe Century, they will not go further than the cash available for the project and, guess what, no customer no cash!

Once we accept the inevitable abstraction levels required by playability as oversimplified as it could be, Strategic Command leaves all competitors well behind as far as WW2 feels and game fun are concerned.

Mind you! I think an hungarian garrison in Bucharest looks weird! I think finnish amphibious operations against the Russian coastal cities are laughable and looking at one small entrenched unit capable of a 2 months resistance to 4 armies and 3 air fleets makes me yell every time!

Would I say playing this game is so unbearably disappointing, I can't longer stand it.

Not a second.

In my first AoD hotseat, I was astonished at how closely my game unfold like the real WW2 events. Roma fell in june 44, Paris in August 44,. The Allies were stuck in front of the Siegfried line all the winter 44-45 and so on. And above all, it was fun!

Wanna really immersing game? Put aside the AI! It's only a teaching tool. Find an opponent and you will flavor something of the real WW2, not the full WW2 experience I concede but the closest you can get by now.

[mcaryf1]

Hi Numdydar

The development of at sea supply and refuelling was I think more advanced than you suggest in WW2. Towards the end of WW2 the US fleet's major units could stay at sea virtually indefinitely. Even in 1941 when the Germans sent the Bismark to operate in the North Atlantic she was preceded by 7 tankers so that she would be able to replenish herself if she had successfully broken out.

The main weakness in AOD in my view is not that the US Navy can operate in the Persian Gulf but rather that it should take it so long to get there. The cruising speed of the more modern major warships was 15 - 20knots, this gives a range of 2500 nautical miles per week or 10,000 in the 4 weeks elapsed between player turns. The USN Wichita had a maximum range of 10,000 nm so she could theoretically have done the whole trip from Fiji to the Persian Gulf (about 8,000 nm) without even refuelling. The CV Essex had a range more than double that of the Wichita so my example is by no means unusual.

Given that warships could travel much much further than AOD allows I think you should accept the abstraction that allows them to refuel at minor ports given that they could have travelled backwards and forwards to a major port in the same time if you had wanted to bother the players with doing that.

Regards

Mike

[numdydar]

Thanks for the thoughts mcaryf1. I am aware that late in the war, the US Navy had improved capacity to stay at sea for longer period of times. The issue I have is the game allows ships to be on station for YEARS. From '43 on I was able to keep the entire Italian Navy raiding convoys from Oz. Where could I restock my fuel and ammo supplies? Ethiopia!!! Nonsense.

I am sorry to keep repeating this but the naval system, while it has a lot of great features that I do like (subs for example), the way SRUF and transports can move and operate is sooo unrealistic it destroys the game for me.

Plus the AI does amazingly wierd things like sending massive fleets to the Japanese HI just to get killed off. This happened several times in my game from '42 on. The US Navy NEVER went near the HI until '45 yet they are doing this in '42? Why? because sailing from Pearl to Japan, while could be done in '42 with tankers, etc. it was just too damn far for actual combat operations.

So the naval system needs to really re-worked to better reflect the realities of the period. While you correctly point out what the US could do in te war, they were the only ones. Yet EVERY navy in the game can do what it too the US four years to accomplish. Turkey, Spain all can go out to sea and get supply value back to 10 at ANY port they come across. So EVERY, no matter how tiny in real life, port in the game has all the ammo, supplies to refit and repair EVERY country's naval units in the game? I realize the desire to make things easy, but this is going way beyond that.

Like I said before, I would suggest a naval range for all SURFs (not subs). With options to spend MPPs to develop other ports to extend the range. So if Italy wanted to operate around SA, then they would need to spend the time and money to build up an Ethopia port for example AND the Allies should know about it too. As this type of construction was impossible to hide. This would actually help the game immensely since this is exactly why Guadacanal occured.

Also Japan had to expend quite a lot to build up Rabal to be able to have their fleets operate from there. You could even have Naval Tech researce improve the range. This would allow the US to go further as the war went on versus having that capability from the start.

Regardless of what is done to the naval system, it needs something to be done. Before SC3. Otherwise, I have wasted my money.

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Numydar,

Just looking at the code again, naval units do lose supply each time they raid and perhaps I could go further to adjust their raiding effectiveness by having it relative to its supply (right now it is just relative to raider strength)... but in your specific case if they are still in range of a friendly port near Ethiopia, then it is not likely to make much of a difference.

The US AI naval action where it sends US naval units to the Japanese Home Islands in 42 should also be corrected for the first patch.

Hubert

[mcaryf1]

Hi Numydar

You have a reasonable point concerning the Italian Navy as the ranges of their capital ships between refuelling stops were typically just over 4,000 nautical miles so they could just about have got from Ethiopia to S Africa and back. The Italians were also desperately short of oil so I doubt that raiding near S Africa would have been a priority for them even if they could get into the Red Sea!

Hubert

If you do decide to change the supply impact on raiding please make that adjustable in the editor. In contrast to the Italians the Graf Spee had a potential cruising range of 18,000 nautical miles so one size fits all would not be appropriate for raiders.

It would still be relatively straightforward for players if we had 2 levels of port. One being major naval bases where all actions would be possible and naval units would automatically refuel or be capable of being repaired if within, say, 2 squares of a major port (note you need to allow the 2 tiles as repair capacity might otherwise be too limited). All other ports should only provide supply and repair to a maximum of half supply/strength and only if the unit was actually in the port. Finally there might be a level of naval tech that would equate to fleet train with different variants for surface and subs (the Germans had their milch cow subs) which should prevent specific naval units with that tech upgrade from suffering supply reductions from raiding or combat. If you need to free up a naval tech slot you could always make AA another factor improved by naval warfare.

Regards

Mike

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Mike,

Yes and I think a lot of this we will be looking at for SC3

Hubert