Matrix Games Forums

Dear Forum,

My first post to the forum - hope that you dnt mind my beginner's question.

After havging tried the tutorial, I choose to play scenario 5 as US against the AI (playing as Japan) - the reason that I wanted some usccess in the first few games - and later on I can then switch to Japan for a harder time.

It is now mid october and I have conquered most of Solomon Island (there are few thosand Japanese troops at Shortlands - who I'm trying to get rid of). I recently got Buka - installed some planes and 20 PT boats there. The AI must have felt something coming because suddendly Rabaul only has something like 40-50 smaller boats - no DD, CL etc. - and hardly any AK, AP etc.

Question is - what to do next? It is possible to take Rabaul at this stage? (For me it seems like an awfull lot of troops there). How do one soften them up?

Or am I better off fighting for Guinea - where nothing has happens since the start of the game - apart from that by B17's are bombing ships and planes in Lae into dust.

I still have my CV's (one slightly damaged) and so does the AI. I see the AI's carriers once in a while - but have only scored few hits on one or two of them.

As I see it, the AI is out of bombers - there are almost none of them in Rabaul or in Kavieng - Truk may have some - but very few.

So - how to proceed? Open for suggestions. Please ask for details if I'm missing something.

Regards
rudbeck

The aggressiveness of the AI is directly related to the difficulty rating. I use "Hard" most of the time. "Very Hard" allows the AI to have a spy at General HQ and know what you are doing. [X(]
Going for Rabaul is usually not a smart thing to do. IRL, the Allies avoided it because of the amount of troops there and it became a self-supporting POW camp. [:D] You want to go around the strongest bases and do like MacArthur.

But, you could take a long look at Kavieng. Recon. Recon. Recon. Find out what is there. And, IIRC, it is in bomber range, and P-38 range, perhaps, of Truk. You could pay a price for it, but you also could neutralize Rabaul, and threaten Truk. Wild, perhaps, but..