I'm not sure I'm sold on if we need a catch up system for the Allies. I think a big part of the reason for my failure is I simply failed. You took it the Battle of the Atlantic to me hard and set me back considerably because of that. I think I've upped my game recently and have a pretty decent system coming in to play, but I wish I hadn't squandered assets early. It IS possible for the Allies to simply lose because they are out played, which is what happened here.
My concern is that each game of OTR lasts months, not days. Imagine if we were both busier, and were just playing 1 turn per day. We could potentially be at the point where we either write off 30 days of buildup and preparation, or playing out a game for 3 months where every attempted air raid gets shot down. Perhaps our game is not quite at that point yet, but it could be. I think OTR has to be played to be learned, and since we don't have an AI to play against, learning is going to be done in the first part of the game, so mistakes will be made. What's more, we can't really expect someone to play very many games of OTR in their "career," so writing off the first couple games as a learning experience could be writing off most of the games played. Also, with our small community, rookies will be facing off against veterans, so mistakes on one side won't necessarily be balanced out by mistakes on the other.
I also think this game has a bit of a vicious cycle problem. If the Allies don't secure the Atlantic, they get fewer convoys in. With fewer convoys, they have less planes. With fewer planes, they can't attack ports successfully, which in turn means they receive fewer convoys compared to the successful game. Similarly, if they don't successfully gain points attacking the Germans in the early game, the Allies don't receive their points driven reinforcements, so they can't do damage to gain their next reinforcements. This latter problem could be solved or at least mitigated by giving reinforcements on certain turns if the points are not achieved before that.
Maybe instead of a "reset", we give the Allies some smaller bonuses like the Germans get from their critical industries. In particular, the Germans get 109s to keep 35% of Allied fighter strength, and will also always have 3 wolf packs (as long as they have the appropriate critical industries). Maybe we need something like that for the Allies. Say, the Allies will always have 8 night bombers, or something, so they can always be at least a little dangerous.
I think given that the Spits only move over 3 turns, and 20 spaces each, there's really no harm in bringing their numbers up to parity with the German single engine fighters. I'm thinking about raising them up to about 30 aircraft from the 13. I think that, coupled with the fact that the Germans shouldn't be able to swamp the skies with French-built aircraft, should make a mini-daylight Blitz much more costly in future games.
If you're in agreement, I'd propose that I simply create an additional 17 squadrons of Spitfires at 151,1 (the top edge map border) on my next turn so that it takes me several turns to put them in place and you get to adjust your strategy to their presence and we call it a day.
Go ahead.
I'm not sure what you've experienced with this, but from my few German games now I think we need to increase the distance they move (they tend to move over 1 space most of the time, so they're immediately spotted. For that matter I have many aircraft seeing 2 tiles which probably isn't a great idea for the Germans given they can move stuff between maps.
I think a rules change to get rid of the sees two spaces and an events change to ensure the bomber moves at least two spaces would make it much more difficult to pick these up. I haven't found it very hard to find your bombers either when the mechanism has engaged.
Yes, planes are often immediately visible after they "escape". I'll make the fix.
1. Is the German score system too generous?
- JP German score = 489 (not the aircraft score - the German score that brings more troops/ships)
- Prof. Garfield German score = 792
I don't think the Germans have a hard time building their score in this version. I might scale back how many points they get for certain items in the future (they get substantially more points than the Allies now).
I don't think that the German and Allied scores are comparable, since the Allied score advances the plot, and the German score doesn't. Also, the Germans have to get their score early in the game, when they have power. That said, maybe the points should be scaled back a little.
I have implemented (but not yet released) the events so that the Germans need 1500 points to carry units to England in their task forces.
2. Do the Allies need the ace unit that can attack without drawing a reaction?
- I found Experten to be very useful as the Germans. The Allies might benefit from having one type of unit that could get the jump on fighters. In my German game, I treated the Experten cautiously and had them return home. I note Garfield hasn't (though I haven't had an opportunity to kill one yet) but in any event, the Allies likely wouldn't have this option as they'd be going the distance, so the ace would be more vulnerable than the German Experten.
- If this is added, would
@Fairline have two more unit skins up his sleeve? I'd let you pick the British ace skin
(I'm thinking rather than an individual, a squadron. I think the P-47 already is in 56th FG markings which I'd think would be the U.S. ace squadron, so I'd need a non-56th FG P-47 to swap out).
As the Allied player, I didn't miss them. Also, with combat rotation, it makes less sense for the Allies to have super experienced units. The Allies should be able to simply bring a couple sacrificial aircraft, and then attack formations. I suppose it would be worthwhile to make sure the Allies can do some damage if they are short of aircraft, so if you think it would be fun, then go ahead and put them in. However, as I recall, the original idea of the experten was to give the Germans something 'fun' to use, since they would spend the last half of the scenario getting ground down.
3. Should the Me110's rockets be payload?
-The Me110 already doesn't draw defensive fire from bombers which is useful but I find having a unit that can run around launching rockets repeatedly to be a bit overwhelming at night. Should the Me110 get medium guns as a primary attack and have the rockets be secondary?
I don't know that I've ever had ME110s fire twice without landing in between (or, at least having had the opportunity to land). Perhaps it happened in England a couple times or something. Be careful about adding payload, since in daytime, I was about to ask you why I would use an ME110 over a JU88C, and then I realized the former doesn't have a payload restriction.
