Burma Road so far...

[kondi754]

East - not west, of course
I confirm the Japanese attack immediately and from both directions.
The attack from the east is weaker - 1 tankette, 2 infantry and 2 sniper units
The attack from the north is very dangerous - 4 or 5 tanks, 5-6 infantry, 1 recon units

The problem is not just the scale of the attack but the exhaustion of my units in the earlier battles and the shortage of resources that were much needed earlier.
Nevertheless, I managed to rebuild my stocks during the next scenario.

[Andy2012]

People with different styles have different results. I am still trying to get through Rangoon. I get to Rangoon Defense lines with little problem. The IJA tank units are formidable! You can kill them with Infantry, but that wears them out quick. If you spend all your replacement points by the time you get to the Rangoon Defense Line you are going to have a hard time replacing losses. The Japanese Air Force comes out to play several times and the only way to stop it is to take all the airfields. Taking the airfields in the Southeast triggers IJA Reserves to counterattack. Certain IJA units (Snipers) have to be cleaned out behind your lines or your supply will be disrupted. I find I have to leave a unit to block IJA attacks when I get down to the Rangoon Defense Line that cross the rivers. The good news is I know now where the IJA Fuel Depots are. I find Wellingtons can take them out.

Pruitt

Made 15 turns in, getting there slowly. I think the best approach is probably to knock out the supply base in the east and meanwhile slowly push south towards Rangoon. If you keep your AT behind your infantry, tank counterattacks should bounce off. Let the AT set the pace and the infantry move with it. Takes longer, but saves credits.
The key seems to me to get the major supply bases. One in the east, surrounded by Banzai Marines. And two on the roads south around Rangoon itself. (Press space to check it out.) After seizing these, Rangoon should fall (no supply).
Anyways, I agree - this one is not straightforward. Also, that Jap jet feels a bit off, just like the Jap Tiger tank in Imphal44. Sure, it is fun using the whole deck, but when the briefing tells you "we have the Japs on the run, they have massive supply issues" and they throw way superior equipment at you, this kind of kills the immersion for me a bit.
Also, you need to kill their supply faster than you kill their units. Otherwise, their army shrinks and suddenly their supply suffices again.
May take a while before I come back to this. Please post about your success.

[WarHomer]

Did they nerf Kawkareik Pass, or did it just not trigger right for me just now?

The second wave of nips dont come charging for Kawkeriek city. Round 22 and still no attack...

[bru888]

Did they nerf Kawkareik Pass, or did it just not trigger right for me just now?

The second wave of nips dont come charging for Kawkeriek city. Round 22 and still no attack...

You may not have killed enough of the first wave to trigger the second one.

Screenshot 1.jpg (96.12 KiB) Viewed 3287 times

The first wave has twelve units in it and you need to kill six of them to set off the second wave. It's these guys; note the three outliers. (SPOILER ALERT)

Screenshot 2.jpg (213.29 KiB) Viewed 3287 times

[Pruitt]

Finally made it through and won Rangoon! The clue about taking out the depots was what I was looking for. I was in a hurry to go down the middle before. I had success going after the depots and airfields in the East, but the Japanese were too strong if I didn't attrit the depots. I found having two Wellingtons worked best. I did lose some of my light armor, but I had a couple on my reserve list that I was able to activate. I don't normally use antitank, but if I replay the game I may try it with AT. Consider taking out the depots in Rangoon when you get close.

Pruitt

[Andy2012]

Finally made it through and won Rangoon! The clue about taking out the depots was what I was looking for. I was in a hurry to go down the middle before. I had success going after the depots and airfields in the East, but the Japanese were too strong if I didn't attrit the depots. I found having two Wellingtons worked best. I did lose some of my light armor, but I had a couple on my reserve list that I was able to activate. I don't normally use antitank, but if I replay the game I may try it with AT. Consider taking out the depots in Rangoon when you get close.

Pruitt

Glad that helped. That briefing is a bit off for me - instead of "we have the Japanese on the ropes, but need Rangoon's port before the monsoon season hits us" it should rather be "the Japanese have superior numbers, tech and resources, even though they have lost all battles recently. Try not to get f*cked." I know, the mission still works and the twist with the supply is nifty. But the jets, Tiger tanks and the misleading briefing kind of kill the mood a bit for me.

[Andy2012]

Finished now in 63 turns. Jesus, what a whopper. On the one hand, I like a challenge. On the other, I always wonder how less experienced players feel with these tough nuts.
The one thing making this difficult and rather annoying for me sometimes were the waves and waves of Jap bombers, jets and fighters. Even after I took all their other airfields and they should run out of supplies, they threw new ones at me again and again. This really drains your resources. So I am kind of torn - the supply mechanic idea is great, there is no way to beat this in a frontal assault. The massive Japanese superiority in technology, numbers, supplies, resources and so on however felt inaccurate. In a fictional what if mission, this is fine. But this actually happened and all the other missions were grounded in historical reality. But instead of Japanese against the ropes and maybe clinging on, this feels like an inferior force assaulting a mysteriously defensive, superior enemy. This felt a bit overcranked to up the difficulty for a final mission. For somebody who plays on middle difficulty, this was very hard. And I am pretty good at this. (No losses)
Still, I had a lot of fun. But this was easily as difficult as Winter War.

[WarHomer]

Did they nerf Kawkareik Pass, or did it just not trigger right for me just now?

The second wave of nips dont come charging for Kawkeriek city. Round 22 and still no attack...

You may not have killed enough of the first wave to trigger the second one.

Screenshot 1.jpg

The first wave has twelve units in it and you need to kill six of them to set off the second wave. It's these guys; note the three outliers. (SPOILER ALERT)

Screenshot 2.jpg

I got the secondary and the prestige boost, just no second wave...

[kverdon]

Heh, Andy and I at least agree on something : "The massive Japanese superiority in technology, numbers, supplies, resources and so on however felt inaccurate. In a fictional what if mission, this is fine. But this actually happened and all the other missions were grounded in historical reality. But instead of Japanese against the ropes and maybe clinging on, this feels like an inferior force assaulting a mysteriously defensive, superior enemy"

You have summed up the whole series, outside of the origina,l in a nutshell. The game really should come with a disclaimer "This is a work of fiction, units, places and events and incidents are either the products of the developers imagination. Any resemblance to actual historical events are merely a coincidence".

I just don't get it. Tigers??? The mere idea of a Tiger, a open terrain, cross country tank, in a jungle setting a absurd to the nth degree. Add to this the Japanese had about much chance of manufacturing a Tiger tank as they did a M1A2 Abrams. Any why a Tiger?? The Japanese had a number of advanced heavy tanks on the drawing board at the end of the war, why not use them? This, of course, ignores the issue of how the Japanese managed to get those heavy tanks to Rangoon unless they invented a transporter. Throw in the swarms of jets and it is pure fantasy.

Having said that, why even bother with a semblance of history? There *IS* a decent game system here, why, if you are going to create Fantasy scenarios, not take it completely in that direction? Turn Armored units into Tanks, Artillery into Catapults and Ballistas, Fighters/Bombers into Wyverns and Dragons and you might have something and it would probably be pretty decent. With the insane popularity of "Game of Thrones" it could actually be a huge hit.

If you decide to continue on this pseudo-history kick, what can we expect next, chase the Russians to the Volga only to be stopped by wave after wave of T-55's and Mig-15's?

[kondi754]

Heh, Andy and I at least agree on something : "The massive Japanese superiority in technology, numbers, supplies, resources and so on however felt inaccurate. In a fictional what if mission, this is fine. But this actually happened and all the other missions were grounded in historical reality. But instead of Japanese against the ropes and maybe clinging on, this feels like an inferior force assaulting a mysteriously defensive, superior enemy"

You have summed up the whole series, outside of the origina,l in a nutshell. The game really should come with a disclaimer "This is a work of fiction, units, places and events and incidents are either the products of the developers imagination. Any resemblance to actual historical events are merely a coincidence".

I just don't get it. Tigers??? The mere idea of a Tiger, a open terrain, cross country tank, in a jungle setting a absurd to the nth degree. Add to this the Japanese had about much chance of manufacturing a Tiger tank as they did a M1A2 Abrams. Any why a Tiger?? The Japanese had a number of advanced heavy tanks on the drawing board at the end of the war, why not use them? This, of course, ignores the issue of how the Japanese managed to get those heavy tanks to Rangoon unless they invented a transporter. Throw in the swarms of jets and it is pure fantasy.

Having said that, why even bother with a semblance of history? There *IS* a decent game system here, why, if you are going to create Fantasy scenarios, not take it completely in that direction? Turn Armored units into Tanks, Artillery into Catapults and Ballistas, Fighters/Bombers into Wyverns and Dragons and you might have something and it would probably be pretty decent. With the insane popularity of "Game of Thrones" it could actually be a huge hit.

If you decide to continue on this pseudo-history kick, what can we expect next, chase the Russians to the Volga only to be stopped by wave after wave of T-55's and Mig-15's?

100 percent agree (I think mostly about the latest scenario - Race to Rangoon)
I wrote about that fact during betatests that building such a last scenario is a mistake, but nobody listened to me.
Japanese heavy tanks, tank destroyers and self-propelled guns or jets are acceptable in US Pacific (where the last scn in the Tokyo Bay is a fictitious event) or Rising Sun DLC (where half of the campaign is fictional) but not Burma.

I'm a big advocate of maintaining the greatest possible compatibility with historical realities in computer games of this type.

[Andy2012]

@kverdon, kondi: Let's make one thing clear - it felt a bit off to me, but I still had a lot of fun. And I am not siding with longish rants about Game of Thrones and pseudo-history. Kerensky put a lot of effort into this and digging up historical maps etc. This is a well-designed, fun DLC . While criticism is fine, we should keep in mind that somebody put a lot of work into this and thus deserves our respect. Vicious posts create an atmosphere of hatred and disrespect, which is poison for this niche community and makes it easy to dismiss valid criticism as wacko rants.

[kondi754]

@kverdon, kondi: Let's make one thing clear - it felt a bit off to me, but I still had a lot of fun. And I am not siding with longish rants about Game of Thrones and pseudo-history. Kerensky put a lot of effort into this and digging up historical maps etc. This is a well-designed, fun DLC . While criticism is fine, we should keep in mind that somebody put a lot of work into this and thus deserves our respect. Vicious posts create an atmosphere of hatred and disrespect, which is poison for this niche community and makes it easy to dismiss valid criticism as wacko rants.

Andy, don't exaggerate please ...
I write about what I don't like all the time and I will continue writing...
I have always been critical when it comes to the Japanese army in OOB and historical realities in some scenarios.
Burma Road is a great campaign and very difficult, but I am not able to accept the last scenario, sorry...

[Asap]

I agree with Andy, Kerensky did a great job, so thanks again for all the work you have done. Burma Road is a very great DLC, I had a lot of fun during the beta and I can't wait to see more "what if" scenarios. At the moment I am playing the Winter War DLC again (my version) but right after that, I will return to Burma Road, of course

[koopanique]

While I can understand that having Tigers and Jets in this campaign can seem absurd (especially in a game called "Order of Battle"...), I'm not too bothered by it personally. And unless I'm mistaken (didn't make it that far yet), it only happens in one mission, right? Plus, this campaign is set in a totally new theatre, practically never covered before. There's not as much info available on this as, say, Normandy or the German Blitzkrieg campaigns. And while Burma Road is not perfect, I can feel Kerensky and the devs tried to make interesting scenarios, and succeeded; if that costs some historical accuracy, I'm fine with it. I'm playing a strategy game, not reading a book on the subject -- and I'm not saying that games shouldn't strive for a minimum amount of historical accuracy, but I think Burma Road already hit that point. What I'm saying is, if making room for interesting gameplay means puting aside some minimal amount of historical accuracy, then I'm all for it.
And yes, maybe some people and some kids with not a lot of knowledge of WW2 will play this campaign and come out on the other side with the unquestionned belief that Japan had Tigers and jet fighters, but on the other hand, they will have learned what happened in this region during WW2! And that outweights the other negatives, I think.

Also, I sure as heck wouldn't want to see OoB take the fantasy route with dragons and magic and stuff (I know it has 0% of becoming a fantasy game -- I'm just saying. For strategy game, I visually prefer WW2 setting to any other.)

[Andy2012]

I write about what I don't like all the time and I will continue writing...

Burma Road is a great campaign and very difficult, but I am not able to accept the last scenario, sorry...

I absolutely encourage that. Keep it up.

[bru888]

I write about what I don't like all the time and I will continue writing...

Burma Road is a great campaign and very difficult, but I am not able to accept the last scenario, sorry...

I absolutely encourage that. Keep it up.

+1

While I can understand that having Tigers and Jets in this campaign can seem absurd (especially in a game called "Order of Battle"...), I'm not too bothered by it personally. And unless I'm mistaken (didn't make it that far yet), it only happens in one mission, right? Plus, this campaign is set in a totally new theatre, practically never covered before. There's not as much info available on this as, say, Normandy or the German Blitzkrieg campaigns. And while Burma Road is not perfect, I can feel Kerensky and the devs tried to make interesting scenarios, and succeeded; if that costs some historical accuracy, I'm fine with it. I'm playing a strategy game, not reading a book on the subject -- and I'm not saying that games shouldn't strive for a minimum amount of historical accuracy, but I think Burma Road already hit that point. What I'm saying is, if making room for interesting gameplay means puting aside some minimal amount of historical accuracy, then I'm all for it.
And yes, maybe some people and some kids with not a lot of knowledge of WW2 will play this campaign and come out on the other side with the unquestionned belief that Japan had Tigers and jet fighters, but on the other hand, they will have learned what happened in this region during WW2! And that outweights the other negatives, I think.

Also, I sure as heck wouldn't want to see OoB take the fantasy route with dragons and magic and stuff (I know it has 0% of becoming a fantasy game -- I'm just saying. For strategy game, I visually prefer WW2 setting to any other.)

+1 and a very good post. It sums up how I feel as well. No fantasy or science fiction but a bit of alternative fiction within the bounds of reasonableness. Wherever those limits are, we must trust the developers to know and respect them.

I'm in the process of developing two scenarios which represent alternatives to true history, but they are plausible. These events could have happened with fate twisting a bit this way or that. If I can have some fun while creating interesting gameplay, why can't the developers?

So yes, I see in Race for Rangoon that a wave of late-in-the-war Japanese air units are introduced; models that probably never made it out of prototype in some cases. Same thing with those Type 5 Chi-Ri and Super Heavy Tanks. (Now, here is a good example of "bounds of reasonableness": Way back in the Rising Sun campaign, there was a "Yanagi Missions" specialisation in which the Japanese were able to purchase German Tiger Tanks; I've always thought THAT was a dumb idea because, for one thing, how are the tanks safely delivered to Japan and to their front lines in 1943? From Germany? I'm glad I did not see that type of thing in Burma Road.)

My thought is, why not? Why not spice it up just a bit with the premise of the Japanese being able to get a few of these units to the front by early 1945? The developers made those exotic units on the right of the unit selection scroll bar but have hardly used them to my knowledge.

When all is said and done, the Race for Rangoon was an historical event but it was not very exciting, frankly. The Japanese put up respectable resistance at first but "From this point, the advance down the main road to Rangoon faced little organised opposition." If the developers recreated this exactly, we would be complaining about how this scenario is boring.

[kverdon]

Bru makes an excellent point:

"+1 and a very good post. It sums up how I feel as well. No fantasy or science fiction but a bit of alternative fiction within the bounds of reasonableness. Wherever those limits are, we must trust the developers to know and respect them.

I'm in the process of developing two scenarios which represent alternatives to true history, but they are plausible. These events could have happened with fate twisting a bit this way or that. If I can have some fun while creating interesting gameplay, why can't the developers? "

Indeed why can't the developers? There is room in a game of this setting for some "plausible fiction". But make it somewhat reasonable. The main problem with the DLC is that the devs decided to end at a historical event with a absurdly fictional rendition. The game should NOT have ended at Rangoon if the devs wanted a bang out exciting fictional ending. The final Rangoon scenario should have been a slow grind down to capture Rangoon. Sure, beef up the Japanese forces a bit to make it a bit more challenging. Now with the port of Rangoon secured, you are open to have your fictional scenario, the invasion of Formosa, an event that **could** have happened. You could have incorporated a time break of a few months to account for "what if" units. Go wild on that one but **NOT** with Tiger tanks (which actually show up twice) please, as Bru has pointed out that Japanese had plenty of advanced tanks and tank destroyers in planning so why not keep the fiction at least plausible??

I too did enjoy the Burma Road expansion up to the last scenario and, as others have pointed out, that was completely unacceptable and that was my point about Sci/Fi - Fantasy. Do something right or do something else.

Bru states "Wherever those limits are, we must trust the developers to know and respect them" but right now that trust is just not there with scenarios like the Fall of Rangoon. That goes double when you learn that the criticism that has been raised about the scenario was raised during the beta and ignored.

[Andy2012]

The game should NOT have ended at Rangoon if the devs wanted a bang out exciting fictional ending. The final Rangoon scenario should have been a slow grind down to capture Rangoon. Do something right or do something else.

I guess you can always hope for other missions / other endings. But Kerensky did it right. And I hope he will return to this game as a developer.

Bru states "Wherever those limits are, we must trust the developers to know and respect them" but right now that trust is just not there with scenarios like the Fall of Rangoon. That goes double when you learn that the criticism that has been raised about the scenario was raised during the beta and ignored.

I think criticism will always be raised this way or another. But adherbal somewhere around here wrote that if you dont have a vision as a developer how your game is going to look like, you will get distracted and it will never get made. That focus is necessary to get done, published and make money. This is a business and a profit has to be made. It is not possible to heed every advice.

I too did enjoy the Burma Road expansion

I think this is the most important sentence here. Hours of fun, money well spent. All hail Kerensky.

[Pruitt]

When I saw was going to win Drive for Rangoon, I started wondering if they had an Invasion of Malaya as well. I was under the impression that the Yanagi Mission was delivering PLANS for constructing the Tiger. You can't fit a Tiger on a sub, but you might be able to fit the blueprints. The Germans did send some stuff to Japan by sub, including a Jet engine. I thought my fighters were shooting down the Japanese Jet Fighter because they were Type XVI Spitfires with four and five star experience and the Japanese pilots were a bit under trained.

Pruitt

[kverdon]

Andy,

Please do not quote me out of context. While I did enjoy Burma Road, the ending, rather like the bad ending of a book or movie, rather spoilt the experience for me. It makes me extremely wary of purchasing another DLCwith the concern of how That one is going to end.