Review Dec 20 2008

[JMHawkins]

gdrover,

Thank you for the detailed feedback. We'll look into the issues you mentioned, but some things to consider about a few of them:

1)the Sea Lanes issue: as Uncle Joe said, the bases need to be functional in order to cut the sea lanes. This may be counterintutive and perhaps needs a better explanation, but the sea lanes aren't cut because the Allied ships can't call at the ports represented by the bases. Rather it's because the Japanese can base raiders and bomber aircraft at the bases to interdict commerce. But that requires the bases be functional for Japan. Try sending a convoy (along with patrolling ships) to Fiji for a turn or two and see if that triggers the countdown.

2) speaking of convoys building bases, you do need to send patrolling warships along with the convoy for the convoy to work. But you are the second person to specifically mention Luzon having trouble, so we're checking into it.

3) Was the Prince of Wales In Port or part of a patrolling TF? Ships in port are harder to sink that ships in TFs. Its the "settle into the harbor mud" issue, such as several of the BBs at Pearl Harbor. The last several points of damage are harder to come by in port. However, a ship in port will not prevent an invasion (in fact a successful invasion will scuttle it). Singapore is a large base though, and large bases can sometimes soak up more than one transport group without falling (though two should usually do the trick, but you may have gotten unlucky).

6) The Allied AI will usually try to avoid a decisive battle early, but it may have gotten fixated on Singapore trying to cut off the oil. Was your oil supply below 2 or 3? The AI may have thought it could starve you out for an early victory. Especially if it suffered losses in the first battle (or two), it may have deicided the only chance was to go for the oil victory, else it wouldn't have the ships left to survive until the influx of reinforcements. But point noted about the experience.

Thanks again,

John Hawkins
KE Studios

[gdrover]

1) I was absolutely wrong here. After re-reading the manual, it became clear that I needed to make the bases operational to cut the line of communication. Played again last evening and it worked fine. Suggestion: Make this clearer in the pop-up help. It is stated in the manual, but the wording is a bit murky.

2) Also something I missed, but Luzon is still broken.

3) I suspected as much and assumed that this was the logic behind this. (I thought dry-dock could also be an explanation). However, there should be a built-in limit to how many hits a ship can take and still be repairable. In my example above, the Prince of Wales took over 100 hits after being down to the minimum hits. I would suggest re-looking at this formula as a 'saving throw', and/ or put a limit on how many hits it can take after reaching the minimum (like a second invisible strength bar) to avoid impossible situations. LOL - I mean after 100 hits, the ship would have disintigrated! One other thought: A ship that is down to the minimum like that should not stop or negatively affect an otherwise successful invasion. Not like its a stationary battery when its that messed up.

6) The oil supply was somewhat low at first, but was at +2, so it went up quite quickly. It also seemed like the AI didn't go after Java, which I quickly realized and stopped trying to defend, which allowed me to concentrate even more power for the Singapore battles.

All this said, this is a great game. Congratulations! truly outstanding work.