First Impressions and Feedback

[AlbertN]

Hello,

Dabbled vs AI to unrust some what I remember of SC, and then jumped in PvP - for now my experience is still very limited but I tend to get the gist of things quickly enough.

The first turns are roughly 'scripted' in how they unfold, which give a good historical vibe. This is achieved though through the artifices of timed reinforcements and the setup. That's perfectly fine and plays smooth exactly as one expects the first turn(s) of War in the East see the Germans running (relatively) rampant.

Then the game enters in what I'd call 'Japanese Pick a Direction' phase. Mopped up what is roughly historical the Japanese must decide a direction / target. India? Australia? China? Hawaii? Russia Early?

In the mirror game that I got to '44 atm and is ongoing, I picked China with a Chittagong-Ledo redux, my opponent picked India after a naval victory at Guadalcanal. Both I and my opponent play regularly strategy games such as War in the East, Warplan for me, War in the Pacific for my opponent (we tried also SC: WaW previously but botched it fast, for an issue I see repeated here though)

Here I depict the first issue I feel - and that I described already in another post: China.
I feel that it will emerge that 'the best way to play Japan' will be to hammer China and hammer it hard.
China has resources which can bump Japan production up and lower China production. Mostly China is the only spot (ruling out Russia) where Japan can advance without worry of being molested or to lose gains later on. This makes China a very interesting target, with some mines, industrial cities etc.
On the other hand if China is left unmolested or simply aggressed here and there locally, it will grow in a monster that is to kick back into the sea the Japanese.
Where I am Japan, China is in a redux west of Lanchow - virtually their production is non existant and Japan pumps 600+ production a turn (where US in my counterpart game is 700+ on its own; not to mention other allies). I see this as the only way for Japan to remain competitive.

My opponent went into India - but Allies must contain at the start, I was producting some ground units, even Garrisons can be speed bumps that a single unit cannot destroy at once.
Mostly Australia or India can be 'rescued' by some US or Commonwealth troops, while China cannot.
China in January '44 is advancing in Manchuria, liberated Siam is about to liberate Thailand, flanked Burma and made Japs retreat and enabled Brits to advance in Malaya and land in Java. China counter invaded Philippines (that has not ended well for them). China fighters contests Japan air formations in Taiwan. China is at the doors of Shangai (it will fall in a few turns). China is also advancing in Manchuria and is to press forth into Korea.
Definitely China cannot be left unmolested.

As it is now China needs a massive offensive nerf. China should not suffer in economics or it can get trampled without being the focus of Japan, I believe it's perfectly legitimate for the Japanese to shank China in the game. The W.Allies must apply pressure to Japan elsewhere and ensure that Japan diverts resources.
China troops need to be less powerful in attack - by a far shot. Also they should be restricted to operate just in China til some precondition happen.

Next is Land Based Air Power vs Ships.
This is something problematic in all of the Strategic Command I experienced when it matches with ships.
On the ground it works but when it projects power against naval assets it's just underwhelming.

It should be prohibitive to operate with naval assets in seas where the enemy has air control.
A ground air unit is how many planes? 300? 500?
These are more than enough to destroy a fleet, not a single naval unit - over the course of 1 turn which spans days.

Carriers instead are overpowered. A CV has how many planes? 90-100 for the first class carriers pretty much, less so for others til 30ish for some CVE / CVL. And a player can even decide how to set these planes??? Suddenly they are all fighters or all bombers ...
Carriers should have a -fixed- air wing, and it should be neatly inferior to Land Based counterparts.

You need also to understand that a tiny island can harbour 1 air unit maybe; 2 if it's large enough ... that's a useless setup because an amount of carriers can move, attack, attack again and maybe move some more, once there is a strong enough CV team that will blast away any land based air unit around; or in an alternative scenario amphibious units will just pound from the sea the air unit that will take hits over hits and be destroyed.

The application we found for land based air power is uncannily odd... in my Japanese game there is a massive presence of Japs around Rabaul and New Guinea - with ground units in Port Moresby and ships blocking the way to Rabaul and a bunch of land based air power nestled behind that wall so it cannot be easily reached by invading forces. Also, as a relevant note, that's not an atoll, thus there is chance to bring HQ to boost the air units and pack them in relative abundance. Still - they need a LARGE portion of the Japanese fleet around to work with.
My opponent simply packed up North Australia with fighters and other assets where he too can pack them and use them for cover for the operations to come (he tried and failed to invade Port Moresby, some muck ups on his end though!)


The mechanic here simply does not work in general.
Exactly as in the Strategic Command Europe the Royal Navy could simply sail into Italy and hound the Regia Marina, or hug Hamburg and bombard the German Navy in the baltic. In no way it should be a viable strategy to just sit around enemy coastlines with CV based airpower unless the superiority in air is massive.

Carriers need to have weaker stats vs anything that's not a ship, and a mandatory fixed air setup (the mixed option).
Land based planes needs to be more effective vs ships.
Land based planes should have some reaction strike during enemy turn IF enemy surface vessels come into range.

What the Allies can do early on?

That's another crux, or better a strategic dilemma.

Besides 'contain' to take initiative may be frustrating. To grab quickly an unguarded atoll ... that's a possibility, of negligible impact (I lost Eniwetok early on, it has not changed my life). Admittedly Japan is short of troops (so much that I feel Japan needs to start with more garrisons around its own holdings; if you strip of 300-500 production to build garrisons around early on you'll miss push to do things while you can... that's not adecision, garrisons should be there already, end of).

The Allies can try to garrison this or that place quickly - I managed to sneak a unit in Guadalcanal which made the enemy fail to capture it... that's also where in mid '42 the US fleet went, and got destroyed. Sure I got 2 Japanese CV and 1-2 more naval units of theirs, plus the SNLF invading; but the US got -everything- they had as surface vessel except a BB and a DD smoked. And maybe a CV that just arrived bythen. But I remember I lost much, much more than what the Japs had. A fighter too was lost, as it was sent to the airfield of Guadalcanal and got smashed by the invading forces.

In India the enemy was blocked - I remembered not to defend the coasts ( Sounds silly right ? ) because between Amph + invasion with full supply the impact is much worse than to fight lightly inland. That's still part of the 'contain'.
I've not bothered to try the Doolittle raid.

Somehow the Jap fleet must have suffered greatly in airpower at Guadalcanal because the UK CV was dominating the skies around Ceylon and the British BBs prevented further reinforcing after the Japs got ashore with 6-7 troops / hq in the eastern coast of India. But that's where the gimmicks of the game come handy.
US planes can just operate from US to India in 1 turn; and there is a handy expedition of 1 HQ and 2 Corps of the US that arrive just in time to act as firebrigade anywhere Japs are (except China, as pointed above). But achieved that - eliminating the Japs from India, the offensive potential of the Allies was nihil.
US needed a new fleet while Japan has one (that I assumed repaired).

I did some invasions but they were clumsy and ended up poorly for the expeditionary forces.
I impute that to my present ineptitude.
But it is a question I have in my mind - could have I had offensive operations across '43 of grand magnitude (except China, which as written above gradually turned into a steamroller where I had China).

One economy, one technology

This is a point I like and appreciate - the fact that the tech levels of all the Allies are varied - and factually are a subtle dent to their economy.
If you think that each of their power has to tech say Infantry Weapons individually - that's 150 per token per nation; Japan needs only own tech.
I like it and it is a force that balances out the otherwise verily different economics.

Amphibious Invasion Range & Spotting Ranges

Spotting ranges must be a bit larger I feel. Most capital ships have recon planes that they can launch around and 1 hex seems really small in general as spotting range.

Also in no way Amphibious Invasions transports should have a range superior to air recon of bombers. It should be entirely out of question.
Amphibious invasions should be -short- in range. There should be a hard cap in turns of how long a land unit can stay embarked in a transport too. I know there is a mechanic to drop supply points but that's not exactly effective.
There should be a real meaning about 'island hopping' in general.
I know it may invalidate some strategies or require some tech level for the Hawaii to be invaded if so.

Ground units and air units attacked by an Amphibious Unit at sea should shoot back. Think of coastal batteries, or air units taking off and retaliating / firing at the invasion barges. That attack should not be a 'scott free attack'.
To defend on the beaches (by that I mean the 'coastal hex' and not litterally the beach) should not be a hindrance!

[MoongazerSlitherineSSL]

Absolutely agree on China. It is an easy target that becomes very dangerous with time, it holds a lot mines and industrial cities, it blocks the railway, it is absolutely risk free for Japan player to push there, so there is no reason not to do it from the first turn.

[AlbertN]

Not 'risk free', Japan chooses where to invest the cash. Simply the 'risks' are tradeoffs where the W.Allies can possibly gain grounds elsewhere - I'd say more it's a case that gains in China are more permanent, while anything gained in India or Australia is subject to counterattacks and being lost.
I've not written it earlier but yes, as you pointed out the railway block is quite relevant simply due to how ports work. To enable southern ports to repair to full ships is quite handy - if the rail can get a continuum til Singapore or Siam.

[MoongazerSlitherineSSL]

Not 'risk free', Japan chooses where to invest the cash. Simply the 'risks' are tradeoffs where the W.Allies can possibly gain grounds elsewhere - I'd say more it's a case that gains in China are more permanent, while anything gained in India or Australia is subject to counterattacks and being lost.
I've not written it earlier but yes, as you pointed out the railway block is quite relevant simply due to how ports work. To enable southern ports to repair to full ships is quite handy - if the rail can get a continuum til Singapore or Siam.

Compared to naval invasions, it is risk free. Even simple landing can result in a random number of losses, I am not even talking about recon, supply, logistic strikes, surprise naval attacks and quite a lot things that can result in your entire invasion force being left behind and dead. Chinese simply cannot do something like that to IJA, China is an open book, you see their every move. You don't even need to build anything, just take the armies from Manchuria and place garrisons there in their place. If played correctly, Japan won't lose a single unit to Chinese ever, while continuously pushing them.

[Platoonist]

Spotting ranges must be a bit larger I feel. Most capital ships have recon planes that they can launch around and 1 hex seems really small in general as spotting range.

Some excellent points. It's too late I'm sure, but it would have been nice if there could have been an additional air unit type added to the game to represent the ubiquitous "flying boat" naval patrol planes like the Japanese H6K Mavis, USN PBY Catalina or British Sunderland. Maybe such a unit could have had the ability to base in a port hex like a naval unit and perform aerial recon missions but not have the ability to bomb much more than submarines. Since they often had very long ranges, they were well suited to the naval patrol or ASW role. Even the ability to base on a coast hex would be good since it could free up space on a one-hex island for a land garrison unit.

[Nginear]

Some excellent points. It's too late I'm sure, but it would have been nice if there could have been an additional air unit type added to the game to represent the ubiquitous "flying boat" naval patrol planes like the Japanese H6K Mavis, USN PBY Catalina or British Sunderland. Maybe such a unit could have had the ability to base in a port hex like a naval unit and perform aerial recon missions but not have the ability to bomb much more than submarines. Since they often had very long ranges, they were well suited to the naval patrol or ASW role. Even the ability to base on a coast hex would be good since it could free up space on a one-hex island for a land garrison unit.

This is essentially the function of the US' blimp unit.
I'm in the process of converting Elessars' giant Pacific map over to Pacific, but with the Devs added ideas. I'm using the blimp as a "sea plane" unit for all nations.

[Platoonist]

This is essentially the function of the US' blimp unit.
I'm in the process of converting Elessars' giant Pacific map over to Pacific, but with the Devs added ideas. I'm using the blimp as a "sea plane" unit for all nations.

That sounds like an ideal slot for a seaplane unit. That way most nations would gain the superior naval spotting ability. Realistically, I don't think the US Navy was too keen on using its blimps for much more than convoy escort/ASW duty. They had marvelous endurance, but scouting an enemy fleet or airfield in a lumbering gasbag with a top speed of 78 mph sounds like a suicide mission more in the Japanese ballpark.