So, in 2v2 the allies won and won well.
The attack on the left land mass by the Japanese went well, but they proceeded south and crossed the mountain range. I sat at the far end with 2 Hvy Infantry and used strategic bombers to destroy the Japanese. Mean time I trashed their support ships then advanced and took back the primary objective. The British fleet hounded the Japanese fleet there and and left them with just carriers.
Meantime, my US ally worked out that if the Western Japanese fleet had no landing force left it could not get the objecvtive, so he located the landing force with his air force and annihilated it at the expense of his ships. Extreme but it worked.
The 2 Japanese players felt the 2v2 scenario was weighted against them. Clearly tactics played a part here but this was their feedback:
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1. map - excellent
2. victory conditions and general arrangement of forces - excellent
3. allied fleets - too numerous, especially british.
4. allied airforce far too powerful. Needs restricting in numbers and availablity in terms of fuel. At the moment they can attack ships and land forces repeatedly and for many game-turns. Torpedo bombers work much better and things should be geared around that. There is no point in worrying about your carriers as almost no planes will ever return to land and re-arm. CAP is far too powerful.
5. Japanese ship based torpedoes seem rather feeble. Numerous DD attacks on large ships produced zero or 1 hit only, with no real effect on the target regardless of attack aspect Torpedo damage should be range-based and ideally also factor in target aspect
6. The ability of fleets to destroy large armies by shore bombardment is excessive. Without forward artillery observers and radio comms, ships cannot accurately target land forces unless very close to the beach
Many of these points may require code changes which are difficult or not cost effective, so we make some simple suggestions below :
1. simple fixes suggested :
1. Japanese resource points per turn are feeble. Way more should be provided, allowing the purchase of new waves of aircraft with deployment zones near the carriers or fixed points at sea
2. Split US air power in
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My response was:
So to push back, so we do not inadvertently make it too easy for the Japanese, I’d counter with the following:
British RP were also feeble and spread across 3 nations, so at most I could repair 1 aircraft by about 3 health per turn, by the end I had 1 Torpedo bomber on 10 health, the rest 6 or less. In the entire game I healed one ship only and to do that sacrificed air healing.
You annihilated the US fleet, reducing it by 20% would make it ineffective.
The British fleet whilst still there was badly damaged so again reducing it by so much would not necessarily work,.
Do both of those and increase the turns to 50 would mean actually your fleet would reach mine, and trust me, you’d have sunk the entire lot.
That said, we have the technology to try it
So my counter is Japanese tactics, and of course hindsight is wonderful so this bit is easy:
Rodger’s landing was defeated mainly because they were sent through the mountains and lost supply. Constant harassment by heavy bombers shredded them and I held out end of the coast road and mountain pass with a single heavy weapon unit on each road. The heavy bombers won it there with support of destroyers taking down your supply ships.
Regarding torpedoes, our were pretty naff too but were at least doing 1 damage, more so than British gunnery that struggled to damage any Japanese Battleships, those I hit with Torpedo planes. I suspect that’s a game software thing rather than the scenario nerfing them but I’ll look see.
Next bit is a can full of recrimination worms but is there a case to say the Japanese strategy was suspect in hindsight? I get your plan but once Dave had spotted the 2nd landing fleet he was able to trash it and effectively nullified that objective for you. Granted he lost a fleet but objective achieved. With Rodger’s invasion force could he have had more support from Gordon to handle the British fleet whilst his invasion went ahead. After all, the invasion went smoothly and the objective taken in a few turns as I had nothing to stop it, Rodger’s issue was maintaining it.
That said, I can do all those changes and we can try again with Dave and I as the Japanese and you and Rodger as the depleted Allies, it would test both the changes and a revised strategy... We could even use the same strategy actually and see how it goes
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Not sure if it all help?
I suppose I could test to see if the disappearing airfield glitch is still present, but that can probably wait until I'm confident it won't affect the outcome of the game. Hopefully winning, heh.
