Total War 1941 -1945 ToT scenario released

Hi Techumseh,

I didn't necessarily mean to imply that I wouldn't consider making any changes but simply that after the last couple of months of testing I was a little saturated with the scenario at this time. I'm always interested to hear what players have to say and how they believe my scenarios can be improved.

I have to admit I didn't fully understand the high attack/ firepower relationship till now. It's something to think about.

I'd certainly be interested to know if you ever successfully breached the Japanese inner defense line and trigger the event of the same name because I'd be curious to know if you had to deal with the subsequent Kamikaze attacks and whether you felt they were too strong.
 
...V-1s on the other hand, are more dangerous than historically, and should probably stop after Antwerp is captured..

Given the limited number of unit slots in the game you have to think of the V-1 units as a combination V-1/V-2 rockets. Originally, I did make them weaker but found their attacks to be so negligible as to be inconsequential and therefore useless in terms of the game.

Though I agree overall that these weapons had minimal destructive capabilities during the war, they did have a significant psychological impact on the Allies, the British in particular. As I may have mentioned in one of my Battle of France threads, significant military resources and efforts were diverted by the Allies to remove the threat these weapons posed. It's in those terms that players should see these weapons in the scenario.

As such, although non-historical, I chose to increase their attack value, again with the primary goal of making the human player's task more difficult.
 
Manilla? Please see American Events near the end of Readme. Sorry, I should have been more specific. My apologies.

I seem to be involved in a worst case game as the Germans captured Plymouth in June 1942, London in July, Birmingham in September and Liverpool in Jan ‘43.

However, the Americans did retake Plymouth in September. That set up a neat transatlantic conveyor belt with Liberty Ships and a couple of bombers based in Newfie, able to safely move 24 units from Boston to Plymouth every turn. Consequently, I adopted a Germany first strategy because the Japanese were quiescent in the Pacific.

The German capture of London reduced freight payouts by ~60%. The 19 Freights delivered in November returned only 4100 gold. Ratz!!!! However, when the last critical tech, Heavy Armor (M26 Pershing), was discovered in Jan ’43, science was cut back from 80% to 20% so as to increase taxes from 2 to 1000 gold monthly. That, plus 1000+ from freights should put the US weapons production in high gear.

I was fortunate enough to see exactly how the Germans try to capture British cities. In November, Portsmouth was garrisoned by 2 AA, 2 GI and 1 USMC as well as a few units that were not involved in the fighting - 1 B-17, 1 Bomber and 1 moderately damaged Battleship (all vets except the GI’s and the Bomber). All-out attacks by 9 German aircraft destroyed the 2 GI’s and the Battleship wiped out the USMC. In return, the Germans lost 8 aircraft and the Battleship. The lone German survivor was a dinged up Stuka. Without the 2 AA’s that shot down the 8 aircraft, a German victory would have been certain. Air attacks on Portsmouth continued, although on a much reduced scale.

After keeping London, Birmingham and Liverpool free of German units for a number of months in the hope that the Brits would retake them, I finally got fed up with their inactivity and took the cities April ’43. Left the Germans in London because it is the key trading city for the Americans.

Overlord took place in April ’43 in the Pas de Calais – there is nothing of value in Normandy. When the dust had settled, the Stars and Stripes flew over Antwerp, Paris, Cologne, Hamburg and Berlin. Munich and Copenhagen were taken the following month. The Germans certainly did have some neat wonders.

Looking ahead to the Pacific, I have a couple of serious questions;

Can P-47’s and P-38 operate from carriers? Otherwise there is no way to get the P-47’s from the mainland to Hawaii. Historically, F-6 Hellcats and Corsairs filled the ground attack role in the Pacific.

I want the Suez Canal to be usable by US ships. Is it OK to divert it past the city of Suez? Once the Germans have been destroyed, I really think it stupid to ship US units from the Mediterranean across two oceans to southeast Asia..


As in the case of Germany, I believe in going directly for the head of the snake so Tokyo and the Home Islands are the next stop.

BTW, how is one supposed to transport the Atomic Bomb? Island hopping?
 
It would not be difficult to make both the Panama and Suez canals passable for both US and British ships. In the case of the Suez, change the square NE of the city to ocean, re-route the road to Jerusalem and plant a US mine (D=99) in the new ocean square. The same can be done with the squares SW or SE of Panama, except that the mine would be British.

My candidate for the unit to change to a mine would be the TBF Avenger, an effectively useless aircraft because it can ONLY attack ships (damned it I can figure out how you do this). Historically, it was used for both bombing and torpedo attacks. Similarly, the Japanese Kate could carry either a topedo or bombs. Alternately, spawned Partisans could replace useless spawned French infantry, thereby freeing up the French Infantry slot.

The capture of Cologne with its Great Wall wonder makes for an easy conquest of Germany but does pose interesting problems on how to attack Messina, Tunis and Tripoli. It is quite easy to raze all three cities and negate the events linked to their capture.

The Readme is silent on which aircraft can or cannot operate from carriers. Could you please amplify on this. Similarly, is there anything wrong with using carriers to simply transport bombers from port to port for whatever reason.

I apologize for the unorthodox approach that seems to be making a mess of an excellent scen.
 
The Readme is silent on which aircraft can or cannot operate from carriers. Could you please amplify on this. Similarly, is there anything wrong with using carriers to simply transport bombers from port to port for whatever reason.

I understood only the heaviest bombers are not to be operated from carriers.
 
Hi Agricola,

You brought up a lot of points which I will try to answer as best I can (Q. and A.):

Q. I seem to be involved in a worst case game as the Germans captured Plymouth in June 1942, London in July, Birmingham in September and Liverpool in Jan ‘43...

A. This is a COMPLETE surprise to me. This situation NEVER occurred in any of the games I played. This is even more surprising in that the Germans only start the game with one Battleship. As such, I'd be curious to know if any other player experienced a similarly dramatic situation.

If yes, I might have to revisit the defenses of the British Isles when playing as the American human player. Maybe add an extra veteran A.A. Battery to each city on the British island.

Q. After keeping London, Birmingham and Liverpool free of German units for a number of months in the hope that the Brits would retake them, I finally got fed up...

A. You are correct in your statement. I've seen this happen where the British AI refused to occupy an empty city. Unfortunately, there is no way to compel the AI to act.

Q. The 19 Freights delivered in November returned only 4100 gold... That, plus 1000+ from freights should put the US weapons production in high gear.

19 freight units in November. That seems like a lot. You didn't confirm if you were following house rule #4, i.e. no rush buying or re-homing of freight units.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the game mechanics again, but by my calculations the American player has the ability to built a maximum of 29 freight units in his cities. Why? Because each city has the ability to built a maximum of 3 trade routes. After you've built your last trade route in a specific city, new freight units built in that same city will only produce a food route which doesn't produce any gold payoff when delivered to another city. When you add all the available trade route spots in the American cities I come up with 29 available routes.

Q. The Readme is silent on which aircraft can or cannot operate from carriers. Could you please amplify on this. Similarly, is there anything wrong with using carriers to simply transport bombers from port to port for whatever reason.

A. It's simple, all aircraft types can operate from aircraft carriers except for the heavy bombers, i.e. the B-17, B-29 or Avro Lancaster. These bombers were simply too large to operate or even be transported on carriers. There are sufficient cities and airbases around the globe to allow these bombers to transit from one destination to another.

Q. Historically, F-6 Hellcats and Corsairs filled the ground attack role in the Pacific.

A. There aren't enough units slots in the game to allow for all the possible options. As a designer you have to make choices.

Q. I want the Suez Canal to be usable by US ships. Is it OK to divert it past the city of Suez? The same can be done with the squares SW or SE of Panama, except that the mine would be British...

A. I thought about making the tiles next to Suez and Panama navigable but decided against it because I didn't want the Axis naval forces to be able to transit by these routes as well. Besides, though it certainly would have been convenient to allow such movement, I never found it an insurmountable problem. It was just a question of properly planning my naval movements ahead of time.

Q. My candidate for the unit to change to a mine would be the TBF Avenger, an effectively useless aircraft because it can ONLY attack ships (damned it I can figure out how you do this).

A. With regards the TBF, as Techumseh indicated I simply added the submarine flag to the air unit, which means it can only atack other naval unit out in the open ocean (not in ports). Why did I do this? Because, I wanted an air unit that was sufficiently powerful enough to attack enemy battleships and yet prevent the player from using this same overly powerful unit against ground targets. For my part I used and operated them with my US Pacific Fleet and found they came in quite handy on a number of occasions.

I did initially give the Japanese their equivalent torpedo bomber the Kate. But as Techumseh indicated the AI simply doesn't know how to use them so I removed them from the Japanese OOB.

With regards, replacing the TBF with a mine unit instead to allow the transition between Suez and Panama I will need to think about it, though as I indicated above it doesn't seem like a major problem.

Q. The capture of Cologne with its Great Wall wonder makes for an easy conquest of Germany but does pose interesting problems on how to attack Messina, Tunis and Tripoli. It is quite easy to raze all three cities and negate the events linked to their capture.

A. You can never fully anticipate all the possible strategies the different players can follow. Historically speaking once the Allies had breached the Rhine is when the German defenses really started to completely collapse. As such, Cologne seemed as good as any German city to put the wonder in.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but doesn't the citytaken trigger remained turned on once a city is captured even if it is subsequently destroyed (particularly if you are using the continuous flag)?

Q. BTW, how is one supposed to transport the Atomic Bomb? Island hopping?

A. As I indicated in the ReadMe, you can carry atom bombs on carriers. You simply aren't allowed to launch the atom bombs from the carriers to attack cities, i.e. you can only launch atomic attacks from cities or airbases.

Besides, in the Pacific, you can easily hop from San Diego to Honolulu to Kwajalein to Saipan without using an aircraft carrier. In the Atlantic, you could easily use the airbases on Newfoundland and Ireland to transit the bomb (provided they aren't occupied by British units).

Q. I apologize for the unorthodox approach that seems to be making a mess of an excellent scen.

A. Unfortunately it's all related to how you use the freight units and are able to maximize the gold payoffs they provide within the game mechanics. We've had this discussion in previous threads. I believe the benefits they provide are simply too great for a player of your caliber.

I see only 2 options to counter such a strategy 1) to eliminate the freight units from the game entirely thereby removing the huge cash payoffs they provide or 2) insert a house rule that forbids the rush buying of units.

In the first option, this can easily be done when creating a scenario that has a short time span and where economics don't play such a crucial role (my Battle of France or Battle of Iwo Jima scenarios for example). But in a strategic level game you want the player to have to deal with this aspect because it impacts not only his gold balance, but his science and the level of happiness of his citizenry.

With regards the second option it's been my impression that players are vehemently opposed to such a rule as they like to be able to have the flexibility to rush buy units. I believe I've indicated, for my part, that I'm against such a tactic as I find it unrealistic but I don't want to impose my personal style of play on others.

If I may be so bold as to throw you a challenge. Try to play a game without rush buying a single unit. You may rush buy all the city improvements you want. I think a player of your skill level might even find it more challenging and fun.
 
Hi Techumseh,

I want the Suez Canal to be usable by US ships." Ditto Panama by the British. On the other hand, ships shouldn't move through the Dardanelles unless they control Istanbul.

I'm not certain why you would want to transit British ships through Panama. It seems as though that's a much longer route to take than through the Mediterranean, Suez, Indian Ocean.

I kept the Dardanelles opened because I didn't want the Axis to have a land route to invade Turkey.
 
Hi Techumseh,



I'm not certain why you would want to transit British ships through Panama. It seems as though that's a much longer route to take than through the Mediterranean, Suez, Indian Ocean.

I kept the Dardanelles opened because I didn't want the Axis to have a land route to invade Turkey.

Moving trade units and empty transports between Pacific and Atlantic ports.

Can the Germans attack the neutrals?
 
I seem to be involved in a worst case game as the Germans captured Plymouth in June 1942, London in July, Birmingham in September and Liverpool in Jan ‘43.

After giving it some thought, the simplest solution to this problem, as Techumseh suggested earlier, would be to remove the paradrop flag from the German Fallschirmjäger unit. But I would be inclined to only do so when playing as the American player. The flag should remain in place when playing as the British (the human player is equipped to mount an appropriate defense in this case).

As such, the German AI can still wreck havoc on the British and American defenders in England without having to rely on the British AI to mount an adequate defense of the island. Since the German doesn't have any Freighter units in the North Sea or France and the German airborne unit could no longer paradrop the British islands would be safe from invasion.

In the meantime, players who've already downloaded the scenario can easily make the correction to their US Rules.txt file by replacing the current Fallschirmjäger values:

With paradrop flag:
Fallschirmjäger, nil, 0, 1.,0, 9a,5d, 2h,1f, 7,0, 0, Feu, 000000101000010

Without paradrop flag:
Fallschirmjäger, nil, 0, 1.,0, 9a,5d, 2h,1f, 7,0, 0, Feu, 000000001000010
 
Moving trade units and empty transports between Pacific and Atlantic ports.

I understand, but it seems like such a rare occurrence, at least in my play testing. Did you envision using this route in a significant manner. Doesn't the Indian Ocean - Mediterranean route make more sense?

Can the Germans attack the neutrals?

When I originally started building the scenario 3 years ago, I envisioned that you could select any power to play, including Germany, but realized after a while that the AI could never adequately represent the British or American player.

Later, during my testing I realized the German AI occasionally liked to built battleships in Bucharest. If I shut off the Dardanelles these units would be stuck in the Black Sea.
 
@TOOTALL

Q. The 19 Freights delivered in November returned only 4100 gold... That, plus 1000+ from freights should put the US weapons production in high gear.

19 freight units in November. That seems like a lot. You didn't confirm if you were following house rule #4, i.e. no rush buying or re-homing of freight units.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the game mechanics again, but by my calculations the American player has the ability to built a maximum of 29 freight units in his cities. Why? Because each city has the ability to built a maximum of 3 trade routes. After you've built your last trade route in a specific city, new freight units built in that same city will only produce a food route which doesn't produce any gold payoff when delivered to another city. When you add all the available trade route spots in the American cities I come up with 29 available routes.


A. Regarding freights, I have followed the house rules to the letter and never spent a single piece of gold on rush building freights. Your numbers are undoubtedly correct but I saw no point in mentioning that no freights were delivered in October and only 3 in September so by November there was a considerable backlog of udelivered freights. There following is a not so simple explanation for the anomalously large November delivery.

Prior to capturing Plymouth in September, I had a complicated system of stacks of empty freighters and a bomber, just SE of Newfie (A), S of the airbase on Greenland (B), and SE of Iceland (C). So, after 4 freights were loaded on a freighter in Boston, they were then chained at A, B and C. From C they were freighted into the first big bay in Britain, landed on a plains square with a RR and moved to London and delivered. The freighter returned to C. To finish the turn, single freighters were then moved from C to B, B to A and A to Boston, thereby restoring the situation at the beginning of the turn.

With the capture of Plymouth in September, I began replacing freighters with Liberty Ships and moving transfer points into an approximately straight line between Boston and Plymouth. A consequence of this was that there were only 3 freights delivered in September while 9 Freights remained in Boston at the end of the September turn.

In October, Point A moved to 9 squares E of Boston, the maximum bomber range from Newfie. In the stack were 19 Freights and 5 other units on 4 Liberty Ships. Consequently, no freights were delivered in October.

The 19 ( 9 in Boston at the end of September plus 10 completed in October and November) Freights were delivered in November. IMHO, the delay was worth it because the delivery route was simplified to Boston – Point A – Plymouth and 16 Liberty Ships (4 in Boston, 8 at A and 4 in Plymouth) could handle the transfer of 24 units per turn, very necessary for the buildup to Overlord.


Q. If I may be so bold as to throw you a challenge. Try to play a game without rush buying a single unit. You may rush buy all the city improvements you want. I think a player of your skill level might even find it more challenging and fun.

A. Thanks but no thanks, for several reasons. I have rush bought city improvements only when they are needed and worth the cost in terms or increased shield production, the ability to build vet units or to rapidly repair damaged units. Buying unneeded improvements would be a waste of scarce resources. Also, a number of useful improvements are not available in this scen.

There are obvious constraints on the number of shields that a city can produce and, as the number of built units and the number of shields needed to support them increase, the number of shields available for building units decreases. A unit that initially can be built in a single turn will eventually require two or more turns.

This goes counter to what really happens as a country switches from a peacetime economy to wartime and continually builds up its armament industry and speeds up the delivery of units. The only way to at least maintain production is through rush buying.

Finally, playing any of your scens is challenge enough for me.:goodjob:

Q. You can never fully anticipate all the possible strategies the different players can follow. Historically speaking once the Allies had breached the Rhine is when the German defenses really started to completely collapse. As such, Cologne seemed as good as any German city to put the wonder in.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but doesn't the citytaken trigger remained turned on once a city is captured even if it is subsequently destroyed (particularly if you are using the continuous flag)?


A. Don’t know for sure, but how would the program know who razed the city?

__________________
Excerpts from the Manual of the Civilization Fanatic :

Money can buy happiness, just raise the luxury rate to 50%.
Money is not the root of all evil, it is the root of great empires.
 
@TOOTALL
Unexpectedly, it was all over but the shouting on Turn 28, March ’44.

An American expeditionary force (8 Battleships, 2 Carriers, 19 Liberty Ships, 114 assorted ground units and ~ 40 P-47’s and P-51’s) landed at Sapporo. After the initial landings by USMC units, M-12’s rapidly overran the rest of the Japanese home islands.

When subsequent air recce revealed only a very few enemy ships, I began to wonder if some major disaster had decimated the powerful Japanese fleet – i.e. an Oriental version of the Bermuda Triangle bug in MGE and TOT
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=90131).

Sure enough, backtracking to the save at the beginning of March, I found a powerful stack of 30 naval units in the Sea of Japan. 90% of Japan’s major fleet units were in the stack, including 3 Yamato and 6 other Battleships, 3 Carriers and most of its Cruisers and Destroyers. Unfortunately for Japan, one crummy destroyer in the stack was homed to Sapporo.
Consequently, as soon as Sapporo was captured, the entire stack went poof.

That was the end of the scen as far as I was concerned because fighting Japan without a navy would have been as much fun as taking candy from children. Besides, I already had 10 points more than the 41 needed for a decisive US victory.


GENERAL COMMENTS

I suspect that it is easier to play the US than Britain, both for the protection provided by the oceans on both sides, its enormous industrial capacity and possibility of fighting Germany and Japan sequentially rather than at the same time. Britain would be much more difficult because of its spread-out empire, relatively fewer industrial cities and need to actively fight Germany and Japan simultaneously.

The only serious question about the scen is why are all the continents except Australia joined up as a single unit. I can see why it should be so for Europe, Asia and Africa but why should there be a land bridge between the Americas and either Europe or Asia? It does cut the freight payouts considerably.

Thanks to FDR’s New Deal (Womens’ Suffrage) I had no problems with unhappiness except when the huge convoy (170+ units) from San Francisco to Sapporo ended a turn in mid-ocean. Then I had to temporarily increase my standard 20% Luxuries to 40% to ensure that no cities became unhappy. No big deal.

The neutrals were not a significant bother. No Mexican units advanced northward, the Canadians only staged a few overflights, and in Central America, a couple of units moved towards Panama but caused no real problems. In Russia, however, I had to establish a continuous picket line of GI’s along the line Konigsberg – Warsaw – Kiev – Dnepropetrovsk – and eastern end of Crimea to keep out the hordes of Soviet soldiers looking for a better life in the west.

Overall, this is a good scen but definitely not quite in the same class as your Battle of France 1944 and Iwo Jima 1945 which require a great deal of thought and planning to play well. Good job!
 
Hi Agricola,

As always I appreciate your honest and frank feedback. I believe it helps make me a better designer, at least I hope so.

As I indicated on a few occasions, this was actually my very first attempt at designing and as such the original core of the scenario didn't benefit from the subsequent experience and knowledge I gained with my other games. I did work very hard in the last few months to try and updated it to make it more fun and challenging but obviously didn't entirely succeed. I did encounter some unusual behavior on the AI's part that I tried to correct, unsuccessfully. Case in point:

When subsequent air recce revealed only a very few enemy ships, I began to wonder if some major disaster had decimated the powerful Japanese fleet – i.e. an Oriental version of the Bermuda Triangle bug in MGE and TOT

Thanks so much for letting me know about this Bermuda Triangle bug. Now I finally understand what happened and, more significantly why it happens primarily to the Japanese AI.

During my scenario testing, I always add up all the powers units OOB at the end of each game I play (total of each unit type remaining versus total of each unit type killed and compare them to the total of each unit type each power started with). In this manner, based on whether I felt the game was too easy or difficult I can adjust the OOB of each power.

The first time I detected an unusual behavior was when I noticed the Yamato super battleships seemed inexplicably to disappear from the unit count, even though I never got the event message stating they had been destroyed during the game.

Later on, as you indicated, I noticed a couple of times during my testing as the American player, that a large part of the Japanese fleet seemed to disappear into thin air, usually near the end of the game. Looking into my saved games I would see that on one turn the units would exist and the very next turn have disappeared.

Upon further research, I realized that the Japanese AI usually liked to park a substantial number of its naval units in the East China Sea, particularly in tile [150,52]. My first thought was maybe this tile was some kind of mysterious Bermuda Triangle tile that the AI didn't like so I decided to try and force the Japanese AI to move out of this area by instituting a series of recurring monthly 'MoveTo' commands (see the 'Japanese naval moves in Pacific' section in the events file). That seemed to have limited results as the Japanese fleet would only appear to move out when enemy naval forces would approach the area.

Without any other idea, I decided, as a last desperate solution, to convert the hex [150,52] from an ocean to a land tile but as you confirmed that didn't resolve the problem.

Now I understand why the units would only disappear near the end of the game. Being a traditionalist, my strategy would always follow the same path from game to game, i.e. concentrate on Europe first while slowly grinding down the Japanese outer defenses first (hopping from island to island, Guadalcanal - Rabaul - Kwajalein - Admiratly Islands - Palau - Saipan). Since none of these outer islands ever built naval units or have any naval units homed to them there capture by the American/British wouldn't have any effect on the naval stack on tile [150, 52]. I imagine it's only when I captured one of the inner islands (Taipei, Okinawa or Kagoshima), any one of which might well have built a naval unit during the game, that the naval stack at [150,52] would be destroyed.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but if I understood the thread on this topic properly, this problem wouldn't occur if all the Japanese units were homed to NONE, i.e. it's only when there is a mix of homed and non-homed naval units in the same stack and one of the homed naval unit's city is captured that the entire stack is destroyed.

If that is the case, I believe I can resolve this problem by 1) making all starting Japanese naval units homed to NONE and 2) removing the Japanese AI's ability to build naval units in its cities and rather randomly generating it's naval units through the events file instead (all homed to NONE). I just hope I have enough space left in my event file to do so.

In this manner, I hope to be able to resolve the disappearing act and generate the naval units away from the East China Sea . The reason this isn't a German AI problem as well is that most it's subs are event generated and homed to none and that its fleet is much smaller and due to the proximity of allied naval forces much more aggressive and therefore much less inclined to loiter around in stacks.

On the subject of the MoveTo command, can someone explain why it doesn't seem to work in case of the Japanese naval units, i.e. they don't seem to want to move out of the East China Sea and appear to be parked there during most of the game. Example of one of the MoveTo' commands:

;--- Sea of Japan to Okinawa
@IF
TURNINTERVAL
interval=1
@THEN
MOVEUNIT
unit=AnyUnit
owner=Japanese
maprect
156,40,160,40,160,48,156,48
moveto
167,39
numbertomove=ALL
@ENDIF

An American expeditionary force (8 Battleships, 2 Carriers, 19 Liberty Ships, 114 assorted ground units and ~ 40 P-47’s and P-51’s) landed at Sapporo. After the initial landings by USMC units, M-12’s rapidly overran the rest of the Japanese home islands

This is a huge force, one I imagine primarily bought with the gold generated by your Freight units. It seems to confirm more and more in my mind that Freight units are simply too powerful a tool in human hands and shouldn't be part of any scenario.

Nevertheless, the end run strategy was one I feared players (you especially:king:) might use against Japan, i.e. bypass the outer islands and go straight for the homeland. I initially tried to remedy this by adding bunker units to the Japanese cities but as I indicated in an earlier thread the AI would, much to my frustration, continuously load these units on transports and ship them off the island. If anyone knows of a solution don't hesitate to let me know.

Unfortunately, unlike with Germany I couldn't remove the transports from Japan's OOB as the AI, surprisingly, actually uses them to invade different islands in the Pacific.

The other frustrating item, is that the AI also has the tendency to load any ground unit built in Japan on freighters and move them off the island, thereby weakening the home island defenses. That's why I decided to add the outer defenses breached event which builds new units in Japan through the event file and removed the AI's ability to build new freighter units, once this event is triggered, to try and prevent any further off loading of units from the island. I probably should increased the number of units generated through this event all the same.

I also generate a number of units when any one city from a specific set of Japanese home island cities is captured. I should probably increase that number as well. I should probably increase the number of Kamikaze as well.

I suspect that it is easier to play the US than Britain, both for the protection provided by the oceans on both sides, its enormous industrial capacity and possibility of fighting Germany and Japan sequentially rather than at the same time

I originally thought it would be more difficult to play as the British as well but actually found it to be the opposite. I believe the primary reason for this is that Britain benefits greatly from its myriad overseas bases, which makes it a lot easier for it to move its troops from one theater of operations to another with possibly the exception of Australia. Personally, I've found this remote island continent challenging to defend against the Japanese (particularly if you don't use the rush buy unit capability).

The only serious question about the scen is why are all the continents except Australia joined up as a single unit.

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by joining Australia up as a single unit?. Australia is an island/continent that is part of the British Commonwealth. Joined up to what? Are you talking geographically, militarily, politically?

In my next thread I will prepare a list of changes I'm planning on making. As always I'll be happy to get any feedback.
 
Nevertheless, the end run strategy was one I feared players (you especially:king:) might use against Japan, i.e. bypass the outer islands and go straight for the homeland. I initially tried to remedy this by adding bunker units to the Japanese cities but as I indicated in an earlier thread the AI would, much to my frustration, continuously load these units on transports and ship them off the island. If anyone knows of a solution don't hesitate to let me know.

2 ideas:
- unmovable bunkers: why not make them naval units with 0 move; they couldn't then be loaded on transport. You need to adjust their stats (as naval units don't defend really well in cities) but that shouldn't be too difficult. Only problem I can see is: do the naval units defend only after all ground units have been killed, no matter what their stats are? Might be worth a try...

- bypassing the outer islands: if those unmovable bunkers in Japan proper are homed to outer islands cities, then bypassing those islands might be less interesting...

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by joining Australia up as a single unit?. Australia is an island/continent that is part of the British Commonwealth. Joined up to what? Are you talking geographically, militarily, politically?

I think he meant that all land masses were considered as 1 continent (aka a single "unit") except for Australia. Nothing more

Note: I had never heard about that "Bermuda triangle" bug, very interesting! :eek:
 
@TOOTALL

Q. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but if I understood the thread on this topic properly, this problem wouldn't occur if all the Japanese units were homed to NONE, i.e. it's only when there is a mix of homed and non-homed naval units in the same stack and one of the homed naval unit's city is captured that the entire stack is destroyed.

A. You are correct.


Q. An American expeditionary force (8 Battleships, 2 Carriers, 19 Liberty Ships, 114 assorted ground units and ~ 40 P-47’s and P-51’s) landed at Sapporo. After the initial landings by USMC units, M-12’s rapidly overran the rest of the Japanese home islands

This is a huge force, one I imagine primarily bought with the gold generated by your Freight units. It seems to confirm more and more in my mind that Freight units are simply too powerful a tool in human hands and shouldn't be part of any scenario.


A. It definitely was NOT primarily bought with gold from Freights. I did the numbers for the last year of the game, from March ’43 until Feb ’44. The US raised a total of 39,000 gold in that period from three sources:

Taxes less costs --- 18,350 (47%)
Freights --- 11,750 (30%)
Sale of improvements --- 8,940 (23%)

Furthermore, the bulk of the M-12’s, M26’s, P-47’s and P-51’s that participated in the attack on Japan were veterans of the European campaign. When the main part of that campaign ended in Nov ’43 with the US in control of western Europe, North Africa and most of the Ukraine, these units were shipped or flown posthaste back to the US. The last German holdouts in Athens, Adis Ababa and the 3 cities in Norway were left for British events-generated units and locally built units to mop up.



Q. The only serious question about the scen is why are all the continents except Australia joined up as a single unit.

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by joining Australia up as a single unit?. Australia is an island/continent that is part of the British Commonwealth. Joined up to what? Are you talking geographically, militarily, politically?


A. Geographically.

From THE GREAT LIBRARY ----------------- TRADE

Step 4) Apply the TwoContinentBonus. If the two cities are located on different continents (i.e. they have different continent numbers following their X,Y coordinates in the location field) then double the Base Payment derived in step 3.

Step 5) Apply the SameCivPenalty. If the two cities belong to the same civilization, then halve the value from Step 4. (Remember when doing this division by 2 to discard any remainder.)


The continent number for North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa is 1.
Consequently, the game considers that New York, Berlin, Vladivostok and Johannesburg are on the same continent and does not apply the 2 continent bonus to freights from North America to continental Europe, Asia or Africa.

The problem arose at the time the map was created and both North America and Asia were extended to the northern edge of the map. I am not aware of any easy way to fix this.

Because Britain is land mass 4, London is the preferred “trading city” as long as it is held by the British or Germans.
 
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