My first and biggest beef still stands - no allowance for wind. At Samar for instance, Kurita sought to stay north of Spague's fleeing carriers to prevent them turning into the wind and launching. I think it's something that this scale of game should pay at least token attention to this. Sprague could not flee due south as he would not have been able to launch so chose to run east as a compromise. Because of this he was brought under fire from the Japanese battleships and he had to sacrifice his destroyers to cover his retreat. The game abstracts this too much. Sprague's decisions (as a carrier group commander) and Kurita's are exactly the sort of decisions the players should be making. Yet they are lost because the game abstracts a bit too much...
I'd also say carrier aircraft operations (re-arming/refuelling) are all way too fast and attacking airfields seems to be rather a waste of time
That apart, I'm growing to like the gameplay and Wake Island and Eastern Solomons have proved the most interesting to play as the US. At Midway it seems a bit too easy to identify the Jap carriers.
It's now my opinion that this is a decent game but also that there's a really good one struggling to get out. I suspect wind can't be 'fixed' but I hope the other two issues I have mentioned will be addressed fairly swiftly.
1. Have forces start further apart.
2. Let the player assign TG behaviours that the computer will decide to execute given docrtine/training of the sides - eg: aggressive, passive, cautious.
3. Let the player assign search "sector" priorities - overlay a search grid on the map.
4. Let the player assign trigger happiness - launch on sight, await confirmation, launch all, launch conservatively etc.
I rather like all these ideas.
