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Any player feedback on the game balance with V1.00.041 now?

I may start with my own opinion.

The initial phase of the game is good now with the DEI harder to take. It obliges Japan to invest troops to take it. And, these troops are not elsewhere.
I still find there are missing air actions around Singapore, Borneo and Sumatra. The Royal Air Force deserves a unit in Singapore, unit that will help later to defend India and Ceylon.

I still find this is too easy to take Noumea, Port Moresby or Fiji. There is nothing in the Allies OOB to stop this to happen. But this may be me because my opponent was successful to defend these three locations.
But, what is the most important is that the invasion of Australia is much much more difficult if even possible.

Regarding India, defending Ceylon is problematic when all the Japanese navy is there to do naval blockades. The Royal Navy lacks some historical ships to protect Ceylon against an invasion.
The Royal Air Force is not present in Ceylon or India.

Burma and China fronts look good to me.

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

Any player feedback on the game balance with V1.00.041 now?

I am in July 44 of my latest hotseat game. Overall I am happy with the state of the game but do use some house rules to keep things more balanced. Once we get some of the improvements being tested for the next patch that will help a lot.

- Night moves may be a bit overpowered. They work up to 11 hexes even though they show 12. I found I like it at eleven as IMHO 12 hexes opens up too many ports from which to sortie.

- I have been limiting the naval stacking to six and like the feel of it. I hope this is working well in beta.

- I agree with your assessment of Ceylon. There is no way to defend it against naval superiority. When it falls it also opens up ports on the west side of India which stretches out the allied defense and makes Calcutta harder to hold. Without aircover the British navy cannot use night moves to open supply to Ceylon as they get slaughtered by the IJN battleships.

- Having Allied transports at the start opens up some options that help hold some positions and makes the allied start more interesting.

- The changing of port sizes has been strategically successful, as coupled with the ability to improve the size and the impact on loss of effectiveness has made it harder to take some of the farther out islands.

- The loss in Naval effectiveness at sea has also mitigated some of the damage to the Merchant Marine as the IJN cannot stay on station forever. However it is possible to rotate ships and keep the pressure on. I feel the surface ships still do too much damage to the convoys.

- It sounds like a Main Supply city will be put in east USSR which I think will slow down Japan and the Early Soviet gambit. Otherwise that could be an issue.

I agree in general with the above. However, I am still too new to the game to be making these kind of assessments.

A couple things that I have noticed, need some attention.

The NZ forces do not reinforce correctly, especially the bomber unit they have. Even if you disband all the NZ infantry forces, the best the bomber will do is get to 5/20.

Also around late 1942/early 1943, in China around Canton and Zhanjiang, the whole area becomes a black hole preventing the Chinese from advancing in that area. I'm not sure why that is, because the forces in this area are receiving supply down the road system from major supply sources. The result is that it closes the whole southern area from counter attack and leaves the Chinese fighting a defensive battle against superior forces in the north.

ORIGINAL: *Lava*

Also around late 1942/early 1943, in China around Canton and Zhanjiang, the whole area becomes a black hole preventing the Chinese from advancing in that area. I'm not sure why that is, because the forces in this area are receiving supply down the road system from major supply sources. The result is that it closes the whole southern area from counter attack and leaves the Chinese fighting a defensive battle against superior forces in the north.

Yes I have seen this before, this is very strange. I don't have an explanation for it but all Chinese units there don't have a supply source anymore and China is forced to withdraw.