@johnnycat I saw the same thing but wasn't sure if it was just me, cause I slid into Azores on the first turn, but then I think after the turn when Brazil went to USA control it changed to no go.
Haven't played in forever and I was watching the Olympics so not fully focused, but I tried a couple outs with USA and Japan Solos just to try and recall what all was going on.
For neutral tiles, was mostly just observing what the computer did, but still not sure about how Neutrals are handled. Like I almost feel like it'd be simpler just to block those tiles out of play entirely. Otherwise it seems like there are some spots being attacked pretty regularly. The Soviets attack the Turks pretty reliably on their first turn, Germany tends to attack into Catalonia or Southern Sweden on their second or third turn, but the AI rarely comes out ahead when that happens. I wonder also if it might be dragging their calculations down? Trying to account for all the Neutral TUV on the board? Not sure, but I think it'd be rare to have the neutrals being much of a factor for either side, except when the AI goes after them and bleeds off a bunch of hit points that way.
I grabbed a save at what seemed to be the inflection points.
2024-7-27-1941-Global-Command-Decision_Elk_USA_round_8.tsvg
2024-7-27-1941-Global-Command-Decision_Elk_Japan_round_4.tsvg
For the first game as the USA that point came at about round 6-7 when I was able to stack into Southern Italy. The computer Brits went pretty hard vs the Italians in North Africa which helped clear the way for us. They were also pretty relentless along the Atlantic Wall, so there was never really a D Day, just sorta continuous fighting in coastal France. I went heavy on the cruisers to try and get something cooking. Threw pretty much everything into the Med to shore up North Africa which seemed the most straightforward. I liked the idea of trying to get something going up North out of Iceland, and South out of Brazil but ended up just sending most of the cruisers across the middle vs Italy hehe. I think it would make sense to have Iceland and Greendland as a way to funnel fighters across the N. Atlantic, or to stage forces into the UK from that position. Trying to get a secondary hub going somewhere, before the wind up in France, but I'm not sure that really happens unless the USA has some industry to pad the starting forces or to pull attention up that way. Maybe having fighters in those locations at the outset so they're thematically represented via the starting units? Otherwise I think it's a bit far afield especially with the M3 fighters. The most direct line to European production is just to take Gascony or Brittany. I think I would probably do that naturally and entering the Med is sorta like only cause I want to see a N. Africa campaign. I think it makes sense to clip Italy a bit, so they don't go monster, but I think just backing up the Brits in France with a Major Factory would have been simpler. Might try that next time
For the first game as Japan the turning point was a bit sooner, I'd say J3-4 with the Chunking take. Here just throwing everything towards Yunnan seemed the simplest way to get a leg up. The front in China feels sorta like dominoes, where once you attack you need to attack another spot too or else risk a big counter. I think the only safe stack I saw was just going all in Kunming to do the push Yunnan thing. Japan has like way more transport capacity than they could ever use, but I tried to keep them in position to shift units from the North to the South. I think trying to chase down the Chinese on the first turn is a bit rough, so instead I just let them come at me along the coast and then clapped back. The Pacific Allies got a break when I decided to pull off New Guinea and pretty much ignore them. Instead I sent the IJN to go blockade the West Coast of the United States. I think it can be a bit hard to parse what's going on with blockades as the blockader, when it's happening to you then we get the popup during collecting income, but it's harder to tell how much income you're taking from the enemy.
For factories, I like the approach for Japan to downscale them a bit, there are so many on the board at the outset that I think it does take something away from the build up. I think having more tiles that are capable of supporting medium and heavy factories but which don't start with a factory on them would be good. There are a few spots that can support the small factory build out for most factions, but it's the Medium and Heavy factories that really set the playpattern. I think having to buy them to hit the production scale-up mid game makes sense for everyone. Say Japan in Chosen maybe, or Italy somewhere closer to home. USA felt good in terms of scale, but I still like the idea of them having a hub up North to stage into Europe a bit more from that direction.
I didn't catch any actual bugs, like errors or anything firing off aside from maybe the neutral thing, but that's been switched around before so might just be I misremembered how it worked. For the bomber aircraft though I did see some weird stalemates. I think the unit should not be able to hold/contest a territory by themselves. I've seen it happen a few times before where a lone bomber parked in a tile will stalemate the battle preventing the attacker from taking the tile even with a large ground army. In a situation where infantry are attacking, even if they have a malus from terrain or whatever, the bombers should maybe be auto-killed just to avoid situations where they can fly in to stalemate the smaller battles as a way to lock the opponent off the tile. The lone fighter in a territory with bunkers is similarly very tough to kill sometimes. Or maybe it's the terrain effects from forest and such, but just seems it's too simple for aircraft to stalemate a tile by themselves.
Good times though, I still had fun trying to iron out the kinks! Nice work
I'll try to do some heads tonight or tomorrow. For the spelling errors hopefully not too tough to tweak, let me know if I missed anything else.
Best Elk