Kull
Posts: 2625
Joined: 7/3/2007
From: El Paso, TX
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Andy Mac
THANKS KULL MUCH APPRECIATED - I AGREE THIS IS THE SCEN I PLAY MOST OFTEN AS IT DOESNT RUIN IMMERSION QUITE AS MUCH
1) Lily Ki-48-1b: The IJA bombers are a real weak point. The AI sends them at you in waves (both land and sea), but even when they get through the damage is minimal and easily repaired. Against TFs especially, a bomb hit is pretty rare, and thus never a concern. When I see Sallys, Sonias, Helens, and Lily IIa in the attacking groups? Big yawn. But Lily 1b is a dive bomber and that's a whole OTHER story. If they get through (sometimes a big if), they'll ruin your whole day. More of these would be good, and just as important is to make sure they don't upgrade to something that's inherently less dangerous.
2) Nick Ki-45 KAIe: In a similar vein to the above, I'd been running convoys into the teeth of Japanese air attacks near Burma and while the air battles overhead were meat grinders, the IJA bombers were never a threat. And then one day these attack bombers showed up. Holy cow. 6 of 8 got through and easily sank 4 of 8 xAKs in the convoy. It felt like "Day of the Dorniers", except these are the Japanese version! You want the Allied player to start worrying about air cover and the need for more and better surface escorts? Spread more of these around.
3) Sonia & Lily IIa: God, these are useless! The only benefit they provide is to serve as training opportunities for Allied pilots. If you need candidate units for more Lily 1b and Nick 45e units, here's where they should come from.
AGREE WITH 1 - 3 BUT DONT WANT TO BRING THEM IN TOO EARLY AS A PLAYER HAS TO BE ABLE TO OPERATE AND STRIKE BACK IN INITAL OPENING SO WILL BRING A FEW MORE SQNS ON LINE A LITTLE EARLIER
Thanks - that will definitely help.
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4) Nick Ki-45 KAIa: Allied 2E and 4E night bombing is pretty effective, and I've never lost a single plane to the AI's Night CAP. I don't know if the AI will use them properly, but think about making the Ki-45a into a dedicated Night Fighter with an upgrade path directly to the 45d version (already an NF). It can't be worse than the current situation and might help, maybe a lot.
JUST GOING TO BRING A FEW SQNS OF D MODEL IN EARLER
From a timing perspective, the allies don't have enough airframes to do serious damage until the B-24 and B-25C upgrades begin to take effect. So if the D's start to arrive in January 1943, that would be a good time.
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5) Type 95 Depth Charge: Every ship that carries these should have an upgrade option to the Type 95 Mod-2, at least by the middle of 1942. Or just start with the Mod2 as the baseline ASW device. Japanese ASW is definitely better in this scenario (more "E" class types, from the look of it), but this would make the other platforms (the PBs in particular) less useless.
AGREE AND DONE
6) National Pilot Experience: In Scen 102 the Japanese have moderate gains to the average in 41, 43, and 44, and a MASSIVE improvement in 1942 (compared to Scen1). Think about extending the 1942 improvement into 1943. Air battles in 1942 were absolutely brutal, but the difficulty tapers off in 1943, right when the Allies begin their main advance. Continuing to face a flood of top notch Japanese pilots during this critical year would be a real bonus to "degree of difficulty".
AGREE AND DONE
7) CD guns for Japanese BFs: Not a huge deal, but with few exceptions the Japanese units can't really damage attacking naval units. In related news, anything that derails the ahistorical "rotating bombardment force strategy" would be a benefit.
ADDED TO SOME BUT NEED TO BE CAREFULL NOT TO OVERLOAD ATOLLS
8) CD Supply units: Also think about adding some generic CD units which carry fuel and supply (similar to those which appear at Capetown), and are set to withdraw after a few days. These should appear at "supply-challenged" locations to help the Japanese hold out longer in the face of isolation or siege.
ALREADY IN THE SCEN FOR JAPAN LCU'S CAN ARRIVE WITH LARGE SUPPLY STOCKS SO DONT NEED CONVOYS
9) Island Dot base clean-up: The AI has done an excellent job in capturing the majority of Allied dot bases that lie "behind enemy lines", but there are a few exceptions (this is in Scen 102): a) The entire Dutch archipelago stretching from Sarawak to Singapore was never conquered, b) the three Nicobar islands south of the Andamans, c) Sarmi on the north coast of New Guinea and d) Sintang in central Borneo (not an island, but still uncaptured).
FIXED IN AI SCRIPT I AM TESTING NOW
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Edit: One more, how could I have forgotten?
10) Dutch subs and US S-class subs: These things are vastly overpowered in AE, especially when compared to what they actually did during the war. One solution is to give them all a durability of "1". You want to send them into the heart of Japanese controlled regions? No problem - just be aware that it's "one and done" in the event of an ASW attack.
THIS ONE NOT GOING TO DO I DONT WANT TO TAKE AWAY FROM ALLIES
That probably was an extreme solution, LOL. But the way these subs are used as a non-historical offset to the early war Allied torpedo problems is a personal Bete Noir. So in this case we aren't talking about "taking things away" so much as "making them more historical". To that point, here are a couple of other options:
- The two S-boat classes have existing upgrades in October 1942. Why not give them Fleet-boat torpedoes (Mk-14) at the start of the game as well as during their 4/42 upgrade, but then switch them to the historical Mk-10s as part of the 10/42 upgrade? It makes the S-boats less effective in the early war, which is as it should be.
- The Dutch have 18 submarines at the start, and historically half of those were sunk or scuttled by March 1942. Spare parts and certain ammunition replacements were a big problem. Similar issues affected the Dutch LCU and air units, and the Devs acknowledge this by placing time limits on most of their device/airframe availability. The same does NOT apply, sadly, to the Dutch Submarine force, and accordingly it operates effectively for the full duration of the war. Particularly in the early war the Dutch subs are vastly more deadly then they ever were historically. These subs deploy only two models of torpedo (53.3cm and 45cm), of which only the 45cm is used by another naval unit, the Dutch PT boats (which also were historically ineffective). Both torpedoes also have the lowest dud rate (10) of any Allied naval torpedo. So the simplest solution is to change that dud percentage to 80 (same as the MK14s) but it will stay that way for the duration. As it should, because the Dutch subs were largely ineffective from beginning to end.
One other thing to consider:
11) Unit Victory Point values: What makes this scenario so effective is all the "extra stuff" the Japanese get. The downside is the Allied player is going to rack up a lot more naval and air kills in the process, and by definition that means the Victory Point total increases quickly. It might be more work than you care to take on, but reducing the Japanese unit VCs would be an effective way to offset that.
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