It seems that each Malaria area has a couple of Temperate strongholds, and those are the truly desired cities as enemy will have a lot of difficulty taking them. In Philippines, it's Clark - Manila corridor (but not Bataan), in Dutch East Indies it's Soerabaja and one other port close to Singapore.
The rulebook states "Units will take extra fatigue in Malaria Zone hexes, although being in a friendly base can minimize the impact of the Malaria Zone". I guess that leads to the question, are these friendly bases hard-coded into the game, or are they relative to the base's size?
Next time I am thinking about looking at Cold zones as well - my Soviet troops never seem to get below 37% disruption in every game...
Same section of the rulebook - "The negative effects of these (cold) zones only function 4 months of the year (winter) depending on the area; in the North they function November through February, while in the South they function from May through August. Cold Zones during the winter impact ground units the same way as Malaria Zones (above), with the following added penalties:
o Ships moving in Cold Zones during the winter will suffer operational system damage at double the normal rate.
o All base construction in Cold Zones during winter takes twice as long
o Air units will fly 25% less aircraft on strike-type Missions.
o Ground units unloading at an enemy base/beach or into a non-base hex with an enemy unit will suffer roughly three times the losses they would normally suffer.
It is very interesting that those Chinese ships that did survive encounters with IJN are slowly learning the tricks and ropes of high sea warfare. Maybe one day...
In my game vs. the AI, I had some Chinese LCUs reach very high experience levels due to constant contact with the Japanese.
