Order of Battle: World War II, U.S. Pacific, Specialisation tech tree analysis, Part 4

This is the last post for specs evaluation.

It is deliberately just a stub to facilitate navigation on the "Last Post" list.

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Order of Battle: World War II, U.S. Pacific, Specialisation tech tree analysis, Part 3

I spent some time trying to optimise the specs purchase order. This is most definitely a product of prior knowledge not available to a blind player. Figure 1 is a list of all missions indicating the Command Points allowed during the Deployment Phase and does not reflect eventual alterations during the mission.

Figure 1 - Mission CPs

War Plan Orange 3 and Bataan are fundamentally land battles that can't be enhanced by any specs currently available for purchase. The Marshalls-Gilberts Raid mission is the first where specs start to make a difference, together with Coral Sea and Midway, because that's when ships and aircraft are introduced in a meaningful way.

Up to Marshalls-Gilberts we'll earn 21 spec points, Coral Sea 28 points and Midway 35 pts. Purchasing Block Construction is a must (3 pts), Pilot Rotation is also critical (15 pts because it requires Flight School) and both Radars (10 pts), for a total of 28 pts.

Ultimately I settled on:

Flight School prior to WPO3 (5/7); at this point I hadn't yet decided if I would deploy 5th "Hickam" Sqdn but just in case...

Radar I and Block Construction prior to Bataan (13/14); these are irrelevant for this mission and the points could be banked until the next one;

Radar II prior to Marshalls-Gilberts (18/21); and

Pilot Rotation (which has just become available) prior to Coral Sea (28/28).

It would have been nice to have Scrambling (10 pts) at Midway, I had to settle for War Economy (33/35).

Landing Craft Infantry will be available for Guadalcanal (38/42); it will be more relevant for the next mission but it is definitely more advantageous than Female Laborers at this time;

Proximity Fuse for New Georgia (45/49);

Scrambling for Philippine Sea (55/56); this is the last aeronaval-centric scenario and thus the obvious choice for the last "air power" spec;

Landing Craft Tank for Leyte (62/63); the mission starts with a major landing on a defended shore, activating a bonus for disembarking tanks is topical;

Female Laborers for Okinawa (68/70); and

Air Offensive for Tokyo (75/77).

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Order of Battle: World War II, U.S. Pacific, Specialisation tech tree analysis, Part 2

Hello once more and welcome back.

Figure 1 is a mosaic depicting the whole specialisation tech tree (I'll be abbreviating specialisation/s to spec/s). The underlying screenshots were taken before the Pearl Harbor mission. Yes, it is possible to access the spec tech tree that early. The clue is in the color code for each spec's cost: they are either red (the release date is in the future or there's a prerequisite spec not yet purchased) or orange (not enough spec points available for purchase). As the first mission grants seven points and the only specs purchased are the ones from the Boot Camp campaign, any spec costing seven points or less would be showing in green.

Figure 1 - Tech tree

There are nine horizontal lines indicating the starting moment for most missions. The lighter background references specs available as of the Pearl Harbor and War Plan Orange Three missions (they are almost simultaneous) and the Tokyo (last) mission occurs after/below the bottom edge. I only bothered identifying the mission if additional specs became available with that mission.

Figure 2 originates from me poking around the csv files (it beats having to write all that stuff myself). Tech, Date, Require(ments) and Cost come from the specialisations.csv file while the Mission and mPts (earned Mission Points) come from whatever notes I had lying around. Include and Valid are the result of my choices and I will be explaining them shortly.

Figure 2 - Timeline

These two figures combined relay the basic information to tackle the spec tree:

a) albeit there's no in-game disclosure of the number of missions in the campaign that information is readily available at the Slitherine's game page (only their names and order are disclosed);

b) there's 23 specs with a total cost of 153 pts; of these we already purchased three for 15  pts leaving 20 specs costing 138 pts;

c) after completing the Pearl Harbor mission we're granted seven spec pts; after the Boot Camp campaign it is reasonable to expect the same reward after each mission; that translates to 77 usable points from eleven missions because after the twelfth mission the campaign ends;

d) also after completing the Pearl Harbor mission there's ten specs immediately available for a total cost of 65 pts.

Even if we were playing blind it is quite apparent that there won't be enough points to purchase all the specs so choices will have to be made. Let's start picking specs without bothering as to when to buy them.

Figure 3 is my very first pick. Not only it is the cheapest but it means that all ships will be cheaper to buy, upgrade and especially to repair. 3/77.

Figure 3 - Cheaper ships

Figure 4 is my second pick. We really don't know what experience actually does i.e. how it affects combat. There's that nagging gut feeling that tells us that more is better than less. Aircraft being given a 2'000 pt leg-up is consistent with previous choices and is required for "Pilot Rotation" i.e. cheaper and/or less damaging repairs. The third spec will take some time to become available and being able to deploy one more aircraft may be handy. There's a caveat: we're not assured that there will be enough funds to actually fund that extra unit. 22+3=25/77.

Figure 4 - Air Power

Figure 5 is my third pick. I can't find the words to accurately convey the force multiplier that ship's radar becomes. Aircraft already have a range-6 radar that usually translates in a range-3 visual plus a range-3 radar. I don't remember if the improvement becomes a range-11 radar or a range-8 one (-3 visual and -5 radar). "Scrambling" is good every day of the week and at times may turn out a life-saving Hail Mary (take-off movement is IIRC only half of normal). "Proximity Fuse" is a passive ability and its value is marginal i.e. I need to explain the specs I won't pick. 25+25=50/77.

Figure 5 - Radar

Figure 6 is my fourth pick. Being able to field a (very slightly) larger force is an obvious benefit. There's no guarantee that one will be able to afford to field said larger force though. 11+50=61/77.

Figure 6 - Force size

Figure 7 is my fifth and final pick. Up till now only "Scrambling" added combat capabilities (IIRC take-off efficiency becomes 7/10 rather than 5/10). The true power of "Landing Craft" is to allow the disembarking unit to attack any adjacent enemy unit (or mortar them in the case of Heavy Infantry). The efficiency at which the attack is conducted is the pertinent landing one. 14+61= 75/77.

Figure 7 - Landing craft

At this point I would like to point out that other than the 7/10 take-off efficiency for "Scrambling" all the information is either readily available to the blind player (in the descriptive tooltips) or can be deduced from having played the Boot Camp campaign (e.g. aircraft radar, disembarking efficiency, standard take-off efficiency).

I have thus spent 75 pts acquiring specs and am left with two unused and unusable points. Let's now look at the eschewed specs.

Figure 8 are my "Not good enough" specs.

Figure 8 - Not good enough

"Drop Tanks" is already available for purchase. If one gives more weight to the recent experience of Pearl Harbor and short-legs land-based fighters than to the "Fleet Command" tutorial mission this looks great. In the words of Admiral Akbar, "It's a trap". Reading through the list of missions one will find "Coral Sea" and "Midway" as the fifth and sixth scenarios and while one might not readily associate "Philippine Sea" to "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" the campaign's very name "U.S. Pacific" should at least hint to the importance of naval aviation. While carrier-borne aircraft can deploy from land bases, land-based aircraft cannot deploy from ships (battleships and cruisers can deploy/support some reconnaissance aircraft). The carrier-borne fighters we've encountered so far (two variants of the F4F Wildcat) already have 12-fuel and they're more likely to have to return to base for repairs than for refueling. I might consider dropping "Proximity Fuse" to take "Drop Tanks".

"Damage Control" is a passive ability. It does not promise invulnerability to severely damaged ships. They might be sunk regardless. I believe that careful management of one's "battle-line" may be more conducive to the survival of those ships. If they are "unlucky" they will sink and I'll mourn them. In any case I wouldn't drop "Proximity Fuse" for this one.

"Liberty Ships" is also a passive ability. Trouble though is that the ships it benefits should already be kept out of harm's way and if they're being targeted the player's not doing his/her job properly. I also trust the designers to provide enough Supply Ships to adequately feed my troops. I definitely wouldn't drop "Proximity Fuse" for this one.

Figure 9 are my "Worthless" specs.

Figure 9 - Worthless

"Wolfpack" applies to submarines. The U.S. Navy submarine force, once they sorted out their ineffective torpedoes, was instrumental in destroying Japan's economy in World War II. In the U.S. Pacific campaign they are at best a distraction.

"Combat Box" applies to strategic bombers. These are very expensive units on a par with battleships and carriers. I can't find enough resources to even buy a strategic bomber before the last two missions of the campaign. They are useful but not enough to merit this expenditure in research points.

"Advanced Aeronautics" sounds good until one learns that its sole effect is to make the P80 Shooting Star available earlier. It is an expensive ($160) land-based jet fighter with good combat stats and the fastest fighter available to the player (at 17 movement points) but is hobbled by a paltry 9-fuel. Again not a spec that I would trade "Proximity Fuse" for.

"Nuclear Fission Bomb" is in my opinion a very expensive gimmick. It becomes available just before the Okinawa mission, the bomber is a single-use unit which obliterates the target unit and severely damages all adjacent units. Now, which two (at least) other specs that I picked would have to be left out?

Other than "Advanced Aeronautics" and "Nuclear Fission Bomb" I feel that my reasoning for discarding these specs is accessible to a blind player i.e. does not require prior knowledge of the game. Or I could just be rationalising my own biases.

This post is long enough as it is, I will explain how I prioritise the picked specs in the next one.

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Comments on this post are disabled. That's just for ease of management. They will be enabled in the last post for each mission.

Order of Battle: World War II, U.S. Pacific, Specialisations tech tree analysis, Part 1

Hello and welcome back.

In these posts I will be evaluating the U.S. Pacific specialisations tech tree.

On a technical note this first post is just an administrative stub and so will all future missions' first posts to keep the "first post"'s list a manageable aid to navigation.

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Comments on this post are disabled. That's just for ease of management. They will be enabled in the last post for each mission.