Empire of the Rising Sun

[our_man]

What's to stop the player from simply disbanding these units in SE Asia cities and building their army there? Why would you need to bother sending the caravans back to the home islands at all?

[Broken_Erika]

If you include the type-4 Chi-To and the Type-4 Ha-To make them very expencive, beacause very few of them were completed.

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by GePap
I just got an idea that I have never seen, but could be very effective to simulate Japan's immense need of foreign goods- make a lot of Japanese units, specially ships, somce planes, and tanks VERY expensive, except for cargo ships, which should be very cheap: This means that Japan's innitial military is difficult to replace due to cost- then, grant Japan a lot of free event created caravans as they conquer South East Asia, and then more as events every few turns-obviously the Japanese player can ferry these caravans homeward to convert into units. This makes being able to send these caravans to japan the difference between anemic military production, and production able to compete with immense US production. This also means that if the AI is able to cut off the shipping lanes with subs or by taking certain islands, Japanese military production suffers dramatically.

Obviously, if the AI could be made to use thse caravans correctly, the ability of a US player to choke Japan off by destroying its shipping lanes would make victory far easier. I don't know if that is very possible.

It's a good idea, but the AI probably won't get the caravans on ships. And it would be a lot of micro-management for the human player. An incentive approach with immobile sea units might be a way to go. If the Japs kill an American ship then the Japs get money and vice versa. The ships could pop up in certain parts of the map where you would have to protect them. New ships are only created once the old ones die.

[Broken_Erika]

Good idea, i know in the board game "Axis and Allies europe" there are allied convoys that the germans could capture.

[Case]

Originally posted by GePap
Finally, why not a spot for the Matilda II? It was very commonly used by Commonwealth forces in the theater once they were no good for the western front, but could easily beat any Japanese tanks that took the field in any useful numbers.

The only use of the Matilda II in the Pacific Theatre was by three Australian tank battalions in 1944-45 where it was used as an infantry support tank. The Sherman alone should be suficent to model Allied armour, especially given that the war in the Pacific Theatre was largely an infantry war.

[Broken_Erika]

didn't the australians use m3 lee/grants long after they were replaced by m4 shermans?

[Patine]

Thanks for the advice, GePap. It's certainly worth considering. Well, here's my beta ToT units file (in gif format here), so let me know what you think.

@fairline: Sorry, but I didn't read your info on your ToT units existence, so I did use MGE units with cleared tops, but they fully retain the sigs.

[Patine]

Note that the empty slots are intended for when I find a Yamato-class Battleship and a USS Enterprise (and I don't mean the Star Trek ship).

[Patine]

@fairline: Clarification: I didn't read your info before I finished the file; it wasn't deliberately ignored. I can see a misunderstanding in the previous wording

[AGRICOLA]

The F6F was a very fine fighter, but does it really deserve 2 slots in your units.gif?

The A-bomb certainly looks impressive. However, I find the sight of one heading for its target somewhat hard to believe. There it is, in the middle of the Pacific, apparently held up by levitation and propelled by the wind.

You might consider doing what another developer did. He used a B-29 icon, added some red paint to wing and rudder surfaces to distinguish it from a regular B-29 and labelled it "Atomic Bomber". It performed just like a nuclear missile.

[Case]

Originally posted by Broken_Erika
didn't the australians use m3 lee/grants long after they were replaced by m4 shermans?

Yeah. In 1942-1943 the Australian Army had no less then three armoured divisions equiped with M3 Grants. However, they never left Australia, with the armoured units which deployed to the Pacific in 1944-45 re-equiping with Matildas before leaving (it was, correctly, believed that the lighter and better armoured Matilda was a superior tank for jungle warfare and the Matildas performed excelently in New Guinea, Bouganville and Borneo).

Australia never adopted the M4 Sherman, with tests showing that the Churchill was better suited to Australia's needs in the Pacific. At the end of the war our first battalion of Churchills were en-route to Australia from Britain.

BTW Patine, I wouln't include the Sentinal tank - only 90 were ever built, and they were only ever used in training units as the M3 was freely available by the time the Sentinal design was finalised. Only a single Sentinal AC4 was ever built, and it was only developed for experimental purposes (the Brits were interested in finding out how a 17 pounder gun would work on a medium tank chasis. The excelent performance of the AC4 lead them to develop the famous Sherman Firefly).

I also wouldn't include the Wirraway as it had no impact on the war whatsoever.

If you want to include several Australian units, my sugestion would be that you have an AIF infantry unit and a Milita infantry unit - while the AIF was composed of volunteers the Milita was a conscripted Army used for the defence of Australia and New Guinea (it was almost as good as the AIF though, so the stats should be the same).

The B-17 should be replaced with the B-24 - after early 1942, no B-17s were sent to the Pacific, with the longer ranged B-24 proving to be the better bomber in the theatre.

[Broken_Erika]

B-24's are hard to find, there are plenty of b-17's, b-25's and b-29 but very few good b-24's

[Broken_Erika]

this is the only b-24 i ever found

anyone up for a remake?

[Patine]

@AGRICOLA: The redundant F6F was actually an error of copying and pasting from the source files; another US plane was supposed to take one of those slots. As for the A-bomb, I think you're probably right about the whole imagery; an altered B-29 would likely do better.

@Case: I should probably adjust my layout of Australian units, to be honest. Maybe replacing the AC4 with the M3 and the Wirraway with the Kittyhawk (if I can find good ones of those).

@Broken_Erika: Thanks for the B-24. Like she said: anyone up for a remake? Please?

Thanks to all three of you for your help!

[Patine]

Except they will be bitmaps (more colours!) and that your scenario should be made with the default ToT sprites deactivated. (Catfish provides a cool file that does this on his 'Catfish's Cave' site)

Can someone please give me a link to Catfish's Cave to find this utility? It's not on the Apolyton, CivFanatics, or Cradle of Civilization links list. Thanks!