Amphibious assault ships cannot attack

[Markiss]

I have run into this problem over and over again in the game I am playing. There is an enemy unit on the coast, I pull up adjacent to it with my assault ship, and I try to select that hex to attack, but the game will not allow me to. Why? I have plenty of movement left. There seems to be no reason for it, and this phenomenon is preventing me from conducting amphibious assaults.
This is especially irritating in the Pacific, where I pull up next to an island I want to attack, only to find out that I can only attack it with ships or aircraft, not the amphibious assault ships.
Is anyone else having this problem? I am not using naval cruise, so that is not it.
Without the ability to conduct proper amphibious assaults, this game is not even playable from the Allied side. I hope this is a glitch.

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Markiss,

Amphibious Transports can only strike/attack a coastal target a single time once a land unit is loaded onto an Amphibious Transport. All this means is that if you attempt to strike/attack on a follow up turn (your land unit has not yet unloaded) with the same Amphibious Transport, it will be displayed as having 0 strikes, and of course then an attack is not possible.

Does this help to possibly explain what you are seeing in game?
Hubert

[Christolos]

Hi Markiss and Hubert,

This happened to me too:


My US AVL, in the picture above, had attacked the previous turn inflicting 2 points of damage on the paratroop unit in Nauru. On my next turn, despite having full action points, good supply, morale, and readiness, I found that I could not attack the same unit again. I was able to attack and destroy it with another AVL that had not attacked last turn, but then I was able to unload the troops from US AVL (that couldn't attack) into Nauru.

I did not notice the US AVL being displayed as having 0 strikes. Where is this supposed to be displayed?

Thanks,

C

[Markiss]

Hi Hubert,
Thanks for responding. The situation you mention may very well explain it. I hadn't noticed this effect in WiE, that would be on me for not catching the new rule. Live and learn.

[Hubert Cater]

My mistake it doesn't show the strikes, I'll look into fixing this, but yes, a new rule for WaW to limit abuse by Amphibious Transports in that you can only strike a single time, once they are loaded and no matter how many turns they are at sea.

[ElvisJJonesRambo]

Correct, AVL get 1-attack when setting sail. They cannot pop a round, fish, take a cruise & pop next turn. There's no rinse & repeat attacking with dudes in those rectangle attack boats.

@Markiss --- Guessing you're talking about our game, those landing craft are nibbling on Sicily. On replays I saw Patton & Friends sniffing ports.

[Markiss]

There was abuse? I don't ever recall anyone complaining about it, but I could see how it could potentially be an issue.
This change does make launching an amphibious invasion very risky, however. Especially if you are coming from the US to invade.
You basically have one turn to get a foothold. Fail, and you now have to go all the way back to the US, disembark, wait a turn, re-embark, then travel all the way back to your destination in order to get one more turn of combat. I an running into this problem in the Pacific, where on the islands there is often only one hex available to land on. If you can't clear it on the first turn, your invasion has failed, and you must now go through the procedure above to get another shot many turns later.
Even if you succeed in taking the island, any units other than the one that actually landed have exhausted their attack, and now must return to a base somewhere and do the disembark/reembark dance to get its attack back, instead of going on to the next objective.
Amphibious assaults are difficult to pull off already, and this new rule makes it much harder, especially with a bunch of one-hex islands in play.
Maybe 2 attacks to limit abuse but still keep amphibious assault a viable strategy? Or maybe make it so that they cannot attack on consecutive turns? Or maybe the assault ship could just get adjacent to a port to get "resupplied" and get its attack back without having to disembark/reembark.
I think that this new rule goes a little too far..

[ElvisJJonesRambo]

Hmmmm, the Japs rarely defended the Beaches. So maybe there's an opportunity to allow diminishing supply or something, not sure. Would take some thought to consider overstacking or sharing the Hex. Beach hexes where units do land and can fight, but are pinned down. Then again, this is a Strategic game, units co-existing in close combat for Week/Month.

Any significant changes would need to be co-exist on same Hex and tie those 2-units up. Meaning, allowing the AVL to jump on the Hex. Now, the Defender would have be allowed to set their defensive strategy. In the Pacific, those Jap units went to the death, did not defend the Beaches. Would need the following choices without knowing what the enemy is doing. Attacker dropdown selection: Auto, 1-Pop, Mix, Land-No-Matter. Defender would pick something like this: Auto, Beach, Mixed, Cave.

Both Attacker & Defender would need set their choices, unknown to the opponent. This would have immediate combat resolution. Could have units in Close Combat for turn? Also, National Morale. Battle of Tarawa for example with the United States meeting an opponent on the Beach instead of a Cave.

[Christolos]

ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

My mistake it doesn't show the strikes, I'll look into fixing this, but yes, a new rule for WaW to limit abuse by Amphibious Transports in that you can only strike a single time, once they are loaded and no matter how many turns they are at sea.

Hi Hubert,

A fix for this would really be appreciated as I sometimes lose track of which Amphibious Transports have attacked without landing, especially when I have some loaded that could attack in the same turn. Being able to distinguish between them would help!

Could there also be a way to check the properties of units loaded onto transports?
This would help too! [:)]

Thanks,

C

[Hubert Cater]

This is fixed for the next build, and we are in the process of wrapping up changes as we speak. Hopefully not much longer [:)]