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