Destroyers- Must have been on Sale at Wal-mart

[SSLConf_Yolo911]

I'm doing the USA campaign. I'm at the 8th scenario, Philippine Sea . The Japs, just like all of the other scenarios, have 10,000 destroyers. I have two battleships three cruisers, and a couple of destroyers. This time, like every other engagement, I barely get to fire the guns on the BB's before the destroyers sink them with torpedoes. they swam around the ships like bees.

I'm not allowed enough points to purchase any substantial fleet. Pretty lopsided in favor of the japs every time. The only way I can survive in these scenarios is to buy about $5000 in warbonds just to barely keep in the game.

I have played these games forever and I've been at OOB: Pacific at least 8n hours a day since it was released. Is it the way you decided to make the AI at least somewhat competitive by giving it an unlimited number of destroyers?

Is there anyway I can tone down the number of Destroyers the japs can field each time so I can have a little fun with my battleships?

[simcc]

Bombers wack destroyers easy so bring a few to support and you need at least 2 battleship to be effective

[Longasc]

Dive Bombers and even mere Fighters work nicely against the destroyer screens.

I know your feeling, I find the RP are too tight for the US campaign till Okinawa, too.
But 5000 RP in Warbonds is a bit excessive in any case!

1 Battleship and 2-3 Cruisers should be fine, keep a Destroyer screen before them to screen them from torpedoes of the Jap destroyers. Have 2-3 Dive bombers, each of them should be able to do 3x 3-5 points damage to enemy destroyers. Then finish them off with your Fighters, Cruisers and BB.

Stay at a distance, use your own destroyers defensively and destroy them with long range ship artillery and fighters/bombers. Torpedo bombers only work well vs big ships, as their 3 turn reload is reducing their effectivity.

[monkspider]

The US is definitely tight on resources, no disagreement there. But if you have some of your own destroyers can place them in front of your heavies and protect them from torpedo attacks. If you do this, and throw in a few bombers as was mentioned, you can beat the destroyers pretty easily.

[adherbal]

You're not really supposed to engage the Japanese fleet in naval combat here. Philippine Sea was a carrier battle, like Coral Sea and Midway.

I guess if you have put your emphasise on Naval forces from the start it might be possible, but a quick well executed air attack will certainly be more cost-effective.

PS: The amount of Japanese ships is also based exactly on the actual battle.

[SSLConf_Yolo911]

What is troubling , at least for me, is that by the end of each scenario I have depleted almost all of my forces and have to use all of my points at the beginning of each new scenario just buying back old units. I am playing on Captain difficulty level and I don't see how anyone can be successful at the two higher levels without using the cheat codes.

I suppose this sounds like sour grapes but the scenarios don't seem balanced or the resource points and command points should be increased.

[zakblood]

the games been finished on the hardest difficult levels by a few testers more than a few times, it just takes luck and plenty of knowledge and time to learn, only i cheated on it as i'm not the greatest gamer living, more useless to casual tbh

so good luck and keep trying

[gunnergoz]

This is the thing that eventually sours me on these PG/PC/OOB:P type games: the heavy scripting and trick solutions that are required to win them, often in unrealistic ways. You have to play them over and over to master the moves and timing that wins the scenarios and eventually the campaigns. I can enjoy them up to a point and then after a while find that I get really bored and frustrated. It takes a special kind of game fan to play these over and over again and still take pleasure in it: for me, they tend to be very repetitive because every time you play the scenario, you tend to see the same AI behavior with few alterations, then because of the scripting and tight victory conditions you have to counter it a certain way to win.

I really would love to see a mid-level Pacific war game similar to this, but with an open ended sandbox campaign, with little or no scripting and with random tactical maps, while keeping the best aspects of the basic combat, logistics, upgrade, core units, replacement and "research" systems.

But that's just my feelings about it and your views may of course differ. I think the designers have done a very commendable job with the genre so I'm not knocking them but rather the shortcomings of the genre itself.

[stragen]

You're not really supposed to engage the Japanese fleet in naval combat here. Philippine Sea was a carrier battle, like Coral Sea and Midway.

I guess if you have put your emphasise on Naval forces from the start it might be possible, but a quick well executed air attack will certainly be more cost-effective.

PS: The amount of Japanese ships is also based exactly on the actual battle.

By the amount of destroyer in the fleet/fleets at Guadalcanal do we also not engage an naval battle? Because it was fucking hard, but very satisfying to sink the whole fleet. The IJ campaign is imho easier and it feels smoother.

@Yolo911 Like the others said park some destroyer right in front of your cruiser, battleship or carrier. Use recons if possible. If you engage a enemy fleet, you should let them come to you. At the end of your turn you should around 7 hexes distance between your destroyers and the hostile destroyers. Be an A****** and use your auxiliaries as bait or bullet catcher if necessary. It safes you plenty of resources.

[simcc]

@ Yolo,

It is not impossible to do harder level. I have finished Admiral difficulty with ease and are now doing Fleet Admiral. I gotto say Fleet Admiral is hard as the enemy start at strength 13 and they will often engage even when you are well entrench and it take huge losses for both side lol. Up to Gilbert Marshall raid atm and I can comment that the defence of Philippine is tough as I lost more unit (sacrifice) than I ever did to keep my core strong.

A thing I always do in naval battle is send 1-2 destroyer ahead( non core preferred), then when they spot enemy withdraw to my fire base and let them come so I can bombard them with my CA and BB. I also usually don't focus fire instead I hit every ship to bring their strength down as I find a full strength DD can cost me 2-3 lost taken while a strength <4 DD usually won't dmg anything so let your BB and CA tone them down abit then when they are within 3 hex of your DD move your DD 1 hex which I find deal a lot of dmg and once they are down to <3 I usually send my bombers to finish them off. I try not to engage a full strength DD with bombers as even a single lost of bomber is expensive to replace or reinforce. DD have a cheaper cost so they can take the lost.

I always take note of unit cost and replacement so I usually arrange cheap unit as vanguard while expensive ones as flankers.
In land - infantry and engineer is great vanguard and don't worry bout losses as they are cheap to replace and when the enemy infantry is weaken my marine and airborne will wack them from flank hence taking no or minimum losses.
In sea - DD is my cannon folder as they cost < 100 usually and a BB cost > 300 losing a DD is ok but BB taking dmg is expensive
In air - kept some cheap fighter like wildcat to take the hit while expensive corsair / mustang only engage when enemy is < 5 strength. Don't attempt to upgrade all planes to the best ones as those planes are expensive to replace / reinforce

This help keep my replacement at a cheap cost hence I will be able to build up my RP. I manage to save up to 2k+ for US campaign after new Georgia but I doubt I can do the same with Fleet Admiral difficulty as even my cannon folders lost twice as much due to the aggressiveness of AI engaging. Captain and Admiral difficulty the Japanese tank don't engage if I park that AT car (can't remember the name but that AT car that can switch to arty) behind bunker or infantry but on Fleet Admiral they just charge in taking 7 lost and still at strength 5 lol my infantry can't do 5 dmg nxt turn so he can reinforce and swap with infantry and attack again which it very tough to handle. That's my experience for Fleet Admiral, dread to think of land battle like Guadalcanal etc no idea on my losses lol will find out once I reach there