Battle of Midway

clightning

Warlord
Joined
Mar 26, 2010
Messages
104
Dear all,
I'm trying to make a scenario of the Battle of Midway. The reasons that I want to make it are, first, it shall be a simply and easy task (at least I thought so), second, it seems to have been overlooked by the community so far, and there is hardly any completed work that focus on sea-air battles.
But soon I found it's not that easy.

First, scale. This scenario requires a very simple map: almost all waters but a few tiny islands. But problem is, what scale? I first try to make it as large as possible, each square equals 6 miles (so that's roughly the eye sight range), each turn half an hour. So the fleet moves 5/turn (60miles/hour) and planes at 25/turn (300miles/hour), and the IJN fleet start at somewhere 60 squares (180 miles) north west to the Midway island at 1st turn (AM4:00), close to their historical time(AM4:30)/position to lanch the first strike.
But the problem is, I soon found that CIV2 program was not designed for such large scale: the AI IJN fleet simply idle there or began to retreat to the home city (a symbolistic city owned by Japan). The Move Unit event didn't seem to work well neither.
So I have to put IJN fleet much closer to Midway, and down scale the whole game, but
first, too much down scale may ruin the very essence of the game: search, hide, and timing; second, there is still a large portion of the IJN fleet that try to return home.

Second, stackable terrain or not?
for such a tactical focused game, I thought un-stackable would be better, as so it requires careful positioning of your forces and screening enemy, rather than simply gather everything in one stack. But I found the AI too often stack too many forces, only to be wiped out by a single shoot.
But on the other hand, if it is stackable terrain, then a Carrier destroyed does not mean it sunk with the planes onboard.
I think I can make each Carrier linked to a city, and the onboard planes are support by this city. And, once that Carrier is destroyed, a event shall make sure the city is lost.
Is there any better ideas?

Third, aircraft issue:
Historially, a Carrier can only launch or recieve limited number of planes in a limited time, and this is one important issue, so it is better to let all your Carriers to strike together. I'm thinking if it is possible to make some multi-files-trick, to make some planes un-useable in the first turn.

Forth, these are the units in plan so far:
USS Enterprise, nil, 2, 5.,0, 0a,15d, 2h,2f, 25,0, 1, no, 000000010000001
USS Hornet, nil, 2, 5.,0, 0a,15d, 2h,2f, 25,0, 1, no, 000000010000001
USS Yorktown, nil, 2, 5.,0, 0a,15d, 2h,2f, 25,0, 1, no, 000000010000001
IJN Akagi, nil, 2, 5.,0, 0a,15d, 2h,2f, 25,0, 1, no, 000000010000001
IJN Kaga, nil, 2, 5.,0, 0a,15d, 2h,2f, 25,0, 1, no, 000000010000001
IJN Soryu, nil, 2, 5.,0, 0a,15d, 2h,2f, 25,0, 1, no, 000000010000001
IJN Hiryu, nil, 2, 5.,0, 0a,15d, 2h,2f, 25,0, 1, no, 000000010000001
F2A Buffalo, nil, 1, 25.,4, 9a,3d, 2h,2f, 1,0, 3, no, 010000000010000
F4F Wildcat, nil, 1, 30.,4, 12a,4d, 2h,2f, 1,0, 3, no, 010000000010000
TBD Devastator, nil, 1, 25.,4, 30a,2d, 2h,2f, 1,0, 0, no, 010000000000001
SBD Dauntless, nil, 1, 25.,4, 24a,3d, 2h,2f, 1,0, 0, no, 010000000000001
B-17 FlyFortress, nil, 1, 30.,8, 0a,12d, 2h,2f, 1,0, 0, no, 000000000000000
PBY, nil, 1, 25.,8, 0a,2d, 2h,2f, 1,0, 0, no, 010000000000001
A6M Zero, nil, 1, 35.,4, 14a,4d, 2h,2f, 1,0, 3, no, 010000000010000
Nakajima B5N, nil, 1, 25.,14, 30a,2d, 2h,2f, 1,0, 0, no, 010000000000000
Aichi D3A, nil, 1, 25.,14, 24a,2d, 2h,2f, 1,0, 0, no, 010000000000000
Destroyer, nil, 2, 6.,0, 12a,12d, 2h,2f, 3,0, 2, no, 100000000000000
Cruiser, nil, 2, 5.,0, 20a,20d, 2h,2f, 10,0, 2, no, 000000000000000
Battleship, nil, 2, 4.,0, 30a,30d, 2h,2f, 25,1, 2, no, 000000000000000
Submarine, nil, 2, 3.,1, 30a,6d, 2h,2f, 6,0, 0, no, 000000000001000
Freighter, nil, 2, 3.,0, 0a,6d, 2h,2f, 2,4, 4, no, 000000000000000
Flak Battery, nil, 0, 1.,0, 9a,6d, 2h,2f, 2,0, 1, no, 010010000000000
G.I., nil, 0, 1.,0, 9a,7d, 2h,2f, 2,0, 1, no, 000000001000100
IJA., nil, 0, 1.,0, 9a,7d, 2h,2f, 2,0, 1, no, 000000001000100
Radar Wave, nil, 1, 40.,1, 0a,0d, 2h,2f, 15,0, 0, no, 010000000000001

Most units are self-explaining. Some special cases are:
B-17: they have a 0 attack value, which seems wierd, but historical fact is, their high altitude attack can hardly hit fast moving ships. So I decide to make them faster tougher recon planes compare to PBYs.
The last one, "Radar Wave", is a recon unit to present the radar advantage enjoyed by US. Each US Carrier and Midway have one this unit, and it is forbid to change base after a "recon flight".
Any suggestions?

And, most important, the Fifth, is it possible to add more "flavors", other than the simple combat, and event news report? Any suggestions?
 
I had this trouble with making whole fleets aggressive in my Empire of the Rising Sun scenario. To be honest, I can't quite remember if I actually came across or had suggested a solution that actually worked. I'll have to take a look back at that one for you.
 
I had this trouble with making whole fleets aggressive in my Empire of the Rising Sun scenario. To be honest, I can't quite remember if I actually came across or had suggested a solution that actually worked. I'll have to take a look back at that one for you.

Thank you Patine. And, is there any download link to your scenario? I'd like to have a play test if you don't mind:goodjob:
 
I've been looking over my EotRS scenario, and I'm not quite sure if the event.txt files are actually complete enough as it currently is to play to the end. Still want a look?
 
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