Slitherine

Regarding the last part (the 'also'): building a foxhole represents building and garrisoning the foxhole. Part of the unit is effectively detached to garrison the foxhole.

ah, ok.

so, when I fight the americans in the later scenarios, they seem to have a special ability I'll call "last man standing". because it is about 3 times harder to take out the last health point of their troops as the previous 9 points. I have seen this over and over and over again. enemy is say at 5 health, with yellow efficiency. I hit it with one attack that is rated to hit at 2 damage, and does just that... 2 damage. then I hit it with something that should overkill it by a good margin (rating 5, enemy remaining health 3), ALWAYS... there will still be one enemy remaining. ALWAYS. The enemy always has to be hit by 3 separate attacks to finish it off. it's hugely irritating, but if it's a skill the american side has, which is it?

Maybe it is the Field Medics specialization. Super band-aid.

Erik wrote:Maybe it is the Field Medics specialization. Super band-aid.

LOL

I'm betting they put it there for players who chose the ability to gain cash when you attack zero efficiency targets.

some of then you can attack over... and over... and over... one time I counted 5 straight turns where I attacked a unit that was in the red before it finally went down, just an infantry unit mind. it ran every turn, and I was attacking it with a level 5 experience heavy infantry, and it was level 0.

so... yeah... someone is fucking with that to try and make those units last longer.

now that I have played with it more, defensive doctrine is brutally effective on the NZ map, when you are on the defensive for the first 12 turns.

building machine gun nests and bunkers everywhere, and using your engineers to lay mines pretty much can funnel the enemy into whatever spot you like. also, the enemy artillery seems inordinately fond of firing on your newly built nests and bunkers, keeping it off of your more valuable troops. still not seeing the entrenchment for core units at start though.

also, I think the OP has overrated the Wunderwaffe ability. If you go the super sensha route, you essentially get the same thing tank wise, and the Japanese already made better artillery than the Germans did, and this shows in the final mission, with at least 3 choices being far far more useful than the nebelwurfer. that's not saying kamikaze is a better choice, just that I would rate Wunderwaffe more a 3 than an 8.

overall, I find the base game combat to be really well done in this game; perhaps the best I have seen in a turn combat strategy game, but found the specializations, special unit leaders, and experience gain system to be poorly thought out, and needing much work.

edit:

actually, now that I have played with the Kamikaze... it actually IS a better choice for this map... by far. you even get several free units to use in your reserves! the explody pt boats work fantastic at clearing out the other pt boats in the first area, as well as being great suicide mine removers! The subs are slow, but once you get a more northern port, you can launch them to devastating effect on the enemy fleet.
suicide divebomber units (the cheapest you can buy on this map at 110cp) actually do good damage as well, and having a couple of these around for emergency attacks, or for when you do a major assault, is quite handy. I get that thematically, you might think this doesn't fit... but think of it like the Americans' usage of the atomic bomb. They can be used as a terror weapon to get the enemy to realize that resistance is futile in the face of such determined opposition. very much like the Germans used the "Buzzbomb" as a terror weapon. Doesn't matter if you are "winning", these kinds of terror weapons are meant to simply speed up enemy capitulation and end conflicts faster. Albeit it didn't work as well for the Germans as they might have hoped, the concept was sound at least.
So, I'd actually rate Kamikaze at about 5. It is very useful in that last scenario... especially the free pt boats, not to mention you can buy as many as you want for 10 each. they make great bait, and do really good damage.

the only changes I would make to kamikaze: Either fix the sub-carrying suicide mini sub (currently I cannot figure out how to "launch" a docked minisub from a regular sub), or increase the suicide sub speed to 3. Second, add a feature to suicide planes that enables you to switch to suicide mode when the unit strength gets below 4, and set the damage potential to 50% of what it would be if you actually converted it onboard a carrier.

I had fun upgrading my lousy Japanese tin-tanks to Tigers (or rather Taigā?) and rumbling over the Shermans and other weaklings that stood in my way to Melbourne. That gave me the needed dose of nostalgia to anticipate this game on European (and maybe US) soil later. I'm pretty sure there will come many more fans here to this forum when the Germans dare to conquer the world again. They offer the greatest variety of all kind of units and scenarios of all nations after all.
It is mentioned somewhere that the specialization system is been considered for revampisation to something like trait trees; maybe for Army, Air Force, and Navy bonuses. Can't wait to see that later.