Patch Suggestions
 

I think the game is wonderful and I enjoy playing, but the Sea Lanes Victory is too easy for Japan. What about a patch making the Victory conditions more difficult, even as an option.

For example, Japan must hold all three of the sea lane islands for 6 mos. as opposed to one and/or must have a 6 mos. or 1 year oil surplus and positive oil flow in addition to the sea lanes.

And/or the AI could be patched to attempt to retake the sea lanes bases more aggresively.

What about an option to delete the sea lanes victory condition entirely.

The game is quite historical, in that Japan can create havoc (with surprisingly historical geographical limits) until US production kicks in. But as the victory conditions now stand, Japan can win too often.

Re: Patch Suggestions
 

Patching in the option to require one, two or three of the sea lane victory bases for victory would be great. Possibly a slider to increase the amount of months they must be held also.

Re: Patch Suggestions
 

The patch will address this with a change in the Allied AI dealing with the Sea Lanes. Watch for the patch to come out fairly soon.

Re: Patch Suggestions
 

You can eliminate (or make more difficult) the Sea Lanes VC by editing a scenario file right now with the release version of the game. The product page has a link to the Scenario Mod doc. There are two basic things you could do to change things for the VC.

One, you could increase the number of turns needed for Japan to control the Sea Lanes. The SeaLanesScoreNeeded property controls this. It is the number of consecutive months Japan must control a functional Sea Lanes base to win (and defaults to 6). Set it at 10 or 12 to make it harder for Japan (or higher to make it really, really hard).

The second thing you could do would be to eliminate it altogether by converting the Sea Lanes bases into normal bases. Setting the sealane property on the three bases (Espiritu Santo, Fiji, and Samoa) to 0 will turn the victory condition off completely, since there would no longer be any bases Japan could control to trigger it. However, this will tend to reduce the South Pacific to a backwater.

The patch does make the allies more aggressive at retaking them, and should be out very soon.

Thanks,

Re: Patch Suggestions
 

How about getting some randomness into the game. Make each game different...

Make the Sea Lane Victory Condition range from 5 months to 9 months?

and

Make the B-29 Bombing Victory Condition range from 22 to 30?

NOTE: the specific number is kept hidden from both players for added drama.

Re: Patch Suggestions
 

Very interesting suggestion. The Japanese Survival victory has a random component right now to keep players from knowing exactly how many turns they have left. That also adds a random element to the B-29 bombing issue, since even though you know how many points you need, you don't know how many turns you have to get them.

Adding some randomness to the Sea Lanes might be a good tweak. Too late for consideration in the 1.0.1 patch, but I'll keep it in in mind for any future updates.

Thanks,