AE my impressions

[sermil]

Ok this is going to sound like spoil fun.
I'm playing the Guadalcanal scenario. I must say that I'm impressed by all the additions to the user interface and the new map etc... nothing to say here, my compliments. However, playing this scenarion I've noticed a few things when comparing to WITP. First, ship movement is stratospheric, practically three times as fast as in Witp. Now I haven't made calculations but some of these ships have 16 knots..). Another thing I've noticed is air combat. It's even more confusing and weird than it was in Witp. By that I mean the sudden increase of plane numbers during a dogfight, dogfights not leading to any results, different squadrons appearing in a dogfight.
Then there's the AI. I thought I would see some more sensible decisions being made. But here's what I see: playing the Allies I've damaged two Japanese carriers off the Salomons, but instead of retreating they end up in naval combat in Lunga?
To conclude there was one improvement I wanted to see in the game: when a carrier task force is being attacked by kates and vals, the main focus of sorties should be the ennemy carriers. Instead the sorties are still wasted on nearby freight ships. This doesn't make good sense to me.
Final thought, this is scenario related: how am I to acquire new sorties for my carriers? (haven't read thoroughly the manual for this one).

[Scott_USN]

Remember hexs are 40 miles now so yes ship movement went up 33% faster or it seems like it to us WITP'ers, it still takes same amount of time from SF to Suva though

Aircombat makes more sense now to me and more realistic, you have a few fighters up and the rest in ready 5 or whatever.

[Nikademus]

To replenish sorties/torpedoes for your carriers...you have to return to your main base.

Japan - Truk/Rabaul
US - Noumea

[sermil]

My carriers being all back in Noumea, after how long or under what conditions are their sorties replenished? (they haven't since three turns).

[Tazo]

Most changes are conform to reality. If you have an idea of historical reality then you can assume that the game is doing like that.
Plane squadrons are patroling in CAP so can not intercept all at the same time, combat rounds start with a few, and sometimes nobody
manages to intercept on right time, depends also on weather, altitudes, fatigue, experience, radars. You will also see some of them intercept
after the bombing on the return way. Concerning TFs they are very limited in action : check the ammo of your surface ships,
afer one combat they can be almost depleted and then have to replenish immediately. If you do a bombardement then go immediately
to replenish. Likewise for sorties : IRL you can not replenish extremel quickly, also your air groups will need several days to repair
damaged aircrafts and rest pilots, take replacement if any (delayed is written, for CV you have to wait a little bit)... and so on !
 
The AI wants to surprise your convoys at lunga, and if one is landing with too few protection it is done by such a move. But if the CVs are
damaged before then they have to be retired, I agree, maybe this script is too deterministic. The problem with jap CVs here is that they have a
lot of BB/CA/DD to provide night combat cover and anihilate air cover of lunga so the whole aera is in danger... except if the allied CV
crippled the jap ones before or during this attack... So basically this type of agressive attitude is the new flavor of the AI and many players
had many bad surprises, you'll see that AI can now hurt far much. Read the threads, they are all instructive, it is long but useful.
 
TZ

[NightFlyer]

Maybe the japanese fleet didn't spot the US CVs? What were the weather conditions like? In the battle of the Coral Sea, both sides attacked minor ships (oil tankers, transports) when the CVs were close enough to attack each other. They eventually did find each though hehe

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: sermil

My carriers being all back in Noumea, after how long or under what conditions are their sorties replenished? (they haven't since three turns).

You have to dock them and hit TF replenish from Port.

[Tazo]

 
Indeed the same happened to me but the CV (1 vs 2) did clash just before the surprising move to lunga, which entailed a night
combat with my surface TF protecting the convoy here, and the jap two CVs took some hits by my CA before breaking off
and they retreated the day after. My damaged CV was also retiring and the lunga aera was incredibly crowded by
these jap TF moves (one jap BB surface TF east and/or west have proved to conduct very agressive raids and was
dangerous just later). The enterprise was my damaged CV so maybe the AI felt confident and was still not abble to
spot the saratoga, indeed in the same hex as the enterprise during the first clash but not discovered (bad
weather, TF separated = good against surprise attacks like this, I had not spotted the japs, but = uncoordinated air
attacks, so no results because of the dense jap CAP).
 

[Scott_USN]

And you can't always dock a full CVBG at most docks. PH only allows one at a time and it is large.

I have not tried to remove my Carriers from their task force and try to dock them as individual ship but still the dock will have to be large to allow the big carriers.

[sermil]

Question: could someone please tell me when the Guadalcanal scenario ends? It's not on Feb 7 '43 since I'm still playing in March of '43.