I'm playing NATO campaign again and I confirm, no naval flag on sight in this one
Sorry about make you check Delta point in tuto 1 : I understood after that the timer was so short that I not awaited long enough to make the city to allow me to improve my units. Modifying a unit during the scenario is not the feature I use much, and I forget I needed to wait a little bit before being able to buy something inside a captured city.
Timer is still d**n short anyway, and it's better to savagely cross the river on foot than to await that the equipment is available in the city
About naval combat, it seems good ; I didn't excepted this naval flag feature. It may incite players to push forward (or defend) more fiercely on the sea, and maybe direct the AI ships better.
Helicopters are fine : they are here to hunt submarines, and do that task well. They had one major problem : very limited range, not allowing them to be really important in their task. That will apparently be balanced in the update with more fuel. But indeed : they struggle to be on positions long enough to make a difference, but their combat stats are excellent. More fuel is the only thing they need to really be impactful.
F-18, on the other hand... they are useless as figthers now. I even often make the heresy during my NATO campaigns to only deploy "non-marine" fighters (F-15 or Rafale B at that point) on my carriers until Rafale M and F-35 are available, instead of deploy F-18. Penalty range on sea of "ground fighters" is less damagable than a fighter unable to make better than a 1-4 damage ratio against any other fighter. I still try to train them by just escorting helicopters or attack ennemy ships, but it still feel like early NATO naval fighters units are severaly lacking.
Nothing to suggest about it, however. Maybe a small debuff on the naval sukhoi could allow our poor F-18 to be less outmatched.
Otherwise, since ships will have AA attacks, it may be enough to support them and allow them to attack weakened ennemy fighters.
The need to overprotect the naval vessels don't feel out of place.
They represent the only units that are unique and repair them requieres to bring them back to base, sometimes on the other side of the world, and stay for months and months in a dry dock. On the contrary, every damaged ground or air units could have their damaged vehicles repaired near the field or, cynically, more easily replaced if destroyed.
Ships not being able to be repaired gives them more importance, in my opinion, since we need to make everything possible to engage in our own terms to not risk these unique (and expansive!) units unnecessarily.
More defense, on the other hand, is a good solution to balance it. Naval battle will be longer, while keeping the feeling of importance of these ships.
Just a little nuance about naval flags : Not having to capture places gives more room for free maneuver and "organic" strategy, and that is a nice thing.
In the grand scenario Europe, the player can perfectly think by himself : -where do I need to place my mobile airbase (carrier) to support my air operations- ; -how to spot where is the ennemy fleet and how to attack it? ; -how to block an ennemy fleet whose naval units may bombard my attacking ground units ? ; etc...
Naval flags could represent key points or naval routes to protect (or threaten), but I thing that keeping our freedom to decide our own goals (and thus having only very few naval flags) on sea is still an interesting approach.
Whatever decisions you make regarding naval combat, I look forward to the next update!
It will not be the same game
