Slitherine

I am in the middle of playing your Iwo Jima scenario and I am enjoying it a lot. Playing the Japanese side, I am really seeing how desperate the situation was for the hopeless defenders as I attack infantry with my anti-tank units to do one point of damage while I take 3 or 4 and see them decimated by air and naval attacks. Thanks a lot for developing these awesome scenarios!!

A couple of things you might want to consider to make it a little more historically accurate (and I think more fun for the Japanese side).

1) Kamikazes. I notice Japanese player has the Kamikaze specialization but there is no ability to actually purchase kamikazes in the scenario as there are 0 air points available. In the battle of Iwo Jima, kamikazes actually sunk a US carrier the USS Bismmark. It would be cool to have at least a couple of kamikazes available to instill some panic on the US carrier force which otherwise is untouchable in this scenario.

2) Coastal guns. There are some coastal guns that are completely useless in the scenario as they cannot reach any sea-based hex with their fire. And historically, I think the biggest guns the Japanese had were more land based artillery than guns to shoot at ships. I would look at replacing most of the coastal guns with the guns that can fire at land units. I don't remember the name of them, but they show up a few times in the single player scenarios, like on Okinawa.

3) US naval bombardment. In the actual battle, US naval bombardment was of limited effectiveness as the Japanese troops were so heavily fortified and dug in. In the scenario US naval bombardment is over-powered taking out pillboxes and bunkers before they even have a chance to fire. I would consider reducing the number of US ships for naval bombardment. might also work to have more concealed japanese units like commandos so that they can only be bombarded when enemy unit is next to them.

Of course these are just suggestions. Having fun regardless!

Erik, I am his opponent and I agree with him. I have a lot of battleships and cruisers that are untouchable. Turn after turn I bombard his emplacements and I don't have to think about defensive strategy. I is a turkey shoot and really not much fun. It certainly doesn't tax our ability to when it comes to tactics.

Move the costal guns down closer to the coast. Give him some zeros also. I just fly my hellcats around in circles for something to do because there isn't any opposition for them.

Give the Japs more troops and less pillboxes. The Americans could use more troops also, at lease a few more flamethrower tanks. Just to make things a little more interesting. And the Americans should get a little more Resource Points. The push is running out of steam.

I am the Japs in Betio Island. Why would you put so many AT and ART right on the beach just to be blown away in the first or second turn? The ART should be inland with the beach zeroed in. There are so many ships that I can't defend against so all he is doing is killing all my units with having to even land. It would be a good thing if you could take a second look at these scenarios because they aren't much fun right now. They seem like a video game for shooting things with ships.

Carth, I tried sending you a PM but I don't know if you will get it. So here is the message:

Carth, I spent some time and modified the Iwo Jima Scenario. Added planes and troops and ART for Japs, plus a couple of subs. I deleted a lot of the AT guns and moved the Shore guns closer to coast. Added Kamikaze's. And deleted some of the pillboxes but substituted troops. I added troops for the Americans and made Mt Suribachi much tougher of a nut to crack. Want to try playing it? We can test it and try to get it balanced and make it have some tactical decisions that have to be made by both sides to increase the playability.

Guys, thanks for the feedback. I'm adding them to my notes...
Nice to see you creating a variant.

Betio: The Japanese were deployed at the beaches/coastal hexes. The main issue IMO is that ranged weapons can't fire on sea transports in the game.
The Japanese hit the Marines way out in the lagune as the amtracks got stuck on the reefs. This is difficult to simulate.
I think only a (unit) modded scenario would come close with the Dual Purpose guns behaving like AA/coastal guns.

Hi Erik,

I was hoping you wouldn't mind if I plagiarized your scenario. If you had any objections I would have deleted it. As it stand carth and I are going to try a practice run with it. I don't have high hopes for success. I think it will take a lot of tweaking. too many variables. And I don't know haw to name units in the editor or give land units trucks or how to put planes into hangers so right now everything starts out airborne.

Select the unit, click on the Rename button

Click on the truck unit in the list, then Ctrl-click on the Marine unit.

That was easy, thanks. How about how do you arrange for reinforcements to appear on a certain turn? If that isn't possible can you add resource points and command points on a certain turn? And then add a deploy hex?

Yes to all. Hope these screenshots point you in the right direction.

Click on the lower left star symbol to access deployment and other goodies. Then select a combination of alliance(s) and unit types and click on the map. Right-click to remove a deployment hex.
Note that you need to enter a turn number > zero if you want the deployment hexes to be available during play. I simply use the last turn number.
You can always purchase/deploy land units around cities/towns and air units araound hangars/carriers, no need to add deployment hexes.