@Cernel said:
@Schulz said:
Just because Revised and WaW failed to provide the US with a balanced strategy between two fronts doesn't mean it can't be done on other maps.
You can still have an undivided USA and make pursuing both oceans simultaneously as viable as KGF or KJP. It's simply better to give the US player the option of how to divide their resources between the fronts.
WaW failed to achieve this due to:
The Hawaii factory.
The USA being closer to Japan than Germany/Italy.
Japan being divided while Germany is not strong enough.
All you need is to not make the same mistakes that WaW did. A much stronger Germany will already naturally force the US player to commit at least part of their resources to Europe.
I did not say anything because did not want to be too assertive but completely agree with @schulz here. I think that splitting the United States into Atlantic and Pacific is a very crude and historically wrong way to have this country going both oceans. It is true that in many games you see the United States unhistorically focusing almost exclusively on Atlantic or Pacific, with at most the choice to go in one direction or the other, but it would be much better to find other less forceful ways to allow that to happen. One way, for example, may be making Pacific into the better choice (by giving value to the Dutch East Indies and having the Japanese Empire being much weaker than the United States, so that the United States can handily win in Pacific using less than half of its total production) but making possible to place only very little in there through severe placement limits especially for ships. Having very low placement capabilities and even production in the West Coast is actually not necessarily unhistorical as back then the western part of the United States was a lot less populated than today both absolutely and relatively to the East Coast, so much so that most ships used in Pacific were actually launched from the East Coast. For sure, Hawaii should not be able to place anything at least at start game.
I definitely hear what both you and @schulz are saying. You guys are not wrong. Also, I'm not going to object to anyone providing honest feedback about this. I've never done anything like this before, I'm going to make mistakes, and it's valuable feedback when people point out what they believe those mistakes to be.
However, in literally every map I've ever played, the U.S. goes KGF or KJF. No mixed strategy, pretty much ever. Okay, maybe Global, with its victory conditions for the Axis, is a partial exception. But number 1, I didn't want my map to have Global-like victory conditions. Number 2, even with Global it's normal for the U.S. to send enough to one theater to dominate it, while sending just enough to the other theater to prevent the Axis victory conditions from triggering.
I will grant that maybe the WAW map could be tweaked to induce the U.S. to produce a mixed strategy instead of its usual KJF. Maybe. What you've described in your post is a method of achieving that which might or might not work. Even with your modifications, I believe that the U.S. could still pursue a version of KJF. It would build more expensive units to optimize unit placement capacity. Air for the U.S. Pacific Fleet's carriers could be flown in from the Eastern U.S. Land units could be built in the Eastern U.S. and plod their way west. This would mess with the U.S. Pacific unit mix big time, it would make KJF more cumbersome, but (especially if you're weakening Japan's income) this would not necessarily solve the problem of KJF.
As individual maps, NWO and The Rising Sun have a divided USA. Germany deals with the eastern half of the U.S. in NWO, and Japan deals with the western U.S. in The Rising Sun.
So now imagine this. You're combining NWO and The Rising Sun together, with a few simplifications, to create a WAW map. Imagine having to choose between two options. Option 1: you combine the two halves of the U.S. together. This means the U.S. will always choose KJF or KGF. Option 2: you keep the U.S. divided into two halves. The eastern half is anti-Germany, the western half anti-Japan. This results in a European theater playing out kind of like NWO, and a Pacific theater playing out kind of like The Rising Sun.
I know you'd want an Option 3, which you described in your post. But if Options 1 and 2 were your only two options, which would you prefer? Option 1, with American conquest of Japan, German conquest of the Soviet Union, and a late game Axis stack and Allied stack competing against each other in Asia? Or option 2, where you're legitimately getting a late game Pacific theater and, separately, a late game European theater?
Even if your Option 3 was implemented perfectly, I'd say it has a less than 50% chance of doing what you'd want it to do. And that would be assuming you're using Revised rules, as WAW does. The rules I'm actually using have nothing to do with Revised. If I'm using your Option 3, then with every technology, I'm asking, how does this affect the U.S.'s ability to go KJF? Industry adds +2 to factory unit placement capacity. Strategic bombers techs make strategic bombing raids more effective. P-51 Mustang tech adds +2 to the range of American advanced fighters, and allows those advanced fighters to escort bombers for strategic bombing raids. (With a max of four escorts per factory being hit.) The Superfortress tech gives the U.S. access to a very powerful strategic bomber type as a special unit. Compared to a normal strategic bomber, a Superfortress has more hitpoints, longer range, and does far more PU damage when bombing.
Your Option 3 is a delicate balancing act. That balancing act is far more difficult to achieve when you have technologies like these increasing the U.S.'s ability to go KJF.
Yes Option 2 is heavy-handed. No question there. Ahistorical? That's more debatable. Historically, the U.S. dedicated about 33 - 40% of its war effort to the Pacific, and the remaining 60 - 67% to the war in Europe. Option 1 gives you one United States (historical) which always goes KGF or KJF (ahistorical). Option 2 gives you two United States (ahistorical) which forces the U.S. to fight on both fronts at once (historical).
