Flames and Steel (official thread)
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@Cernel Why? Northern and Southern Pomerania have never been formal divisions of the province, it was divided east/west (Hither and Farther Pomerania). And Neumark's placement doesn't look wrong to me.
Let's compare the map
The latest iteration of the map.
with a 1941 map for the Great German Realm
I'll firstly say that, yes, if the Neumark would still exist, that would be by far the best name for this territory, especially connection wise. Indeed, the "Neumark" territory in the map closely resembles the eastern part of 1941 Brandenburg merged with the southern part of 1941 Pomerania: that would be more or less the old Neumark.
Unfortunately, not only by 1941 the Neumark is gone (as that can be said of Bavaria and Austria too and others), but it really means nothing as it is even dismembered into smaller subsets of two different territories (Pomerania and Brandenburg). The reason why I like Bavaria and Austria but not Neumark is that the former are obvious and unambiguous sets of existent territories, whereas the latter is just nothing any longer.
The territories of Pomerania and Neumark as drawn are together (meaning if they would be a single territory) Pomerania as the closest thing that they can be as of 1941 (even though there is the problem that Neumark borders Lower Silesia), meaning that that the closest thing that the territory drawn in the map and labelled as "Neumark" can be in 1941 is a part of Pomerania (next close would be a part of Brandenburg, but then Brandenburg would be adjacent to West Prussia). "southern Pomerania" is not a division of Pomerania: it is the division of Pomerania which the map makes, meaning the southern part of it as it happens to be split in the map. I said "northern Pomerania" and "southern Pomerania", and I assumed that the lower case would have hinted that those are not formal divisions. I could have said "seaside Pomerania" and "inland Pomerania" or "lower Pomerania" and "upper Pomerania". None of these are formal (as far as I know), so whatever works.
Now I can see that the argument here would be "Why are you splitting Pomerania as a name in two things which have no basis as names (and you just made them up) when you have an historical division with the name Neumark?". The point is that first of all it has to be a division of Pomerania: it cannot be just Neumark. In this case, the only name I would find acceptable is "Pomerania - Neumark" (next one being "Brandenburg - Neumark"). This would mean saying that this is the part of Pomerania corresponding mostly to the old Neumark, but I think that this would look very ambiguous unless maybe we call the other part "Pomerania - Stettin" or "Pomerania - Pomerania" (with the ambiguous meaning of what used to be Pomerania before the addition of the Neumark), neither of which I also like.
However, I can see that you may want to have the name "Neumark" with the meaning "this is the region corresponding to the eastern part of Brandenburg and the southern part of Pomerania which used to be Neumark". To me, that makes no sense, so I would rather call it as something meaning the southern portion of Pomerania or the eastern portion of Brandenburg, with a definite preference for the former. If not "northern Pomerania" and "souther Pomerania", then "Pomerania - Stettin" and "Pomerania - X", where X would be Neumark or the name of a city or something in there.
If splitting Pomerania in twain, I would actually much suggest splitting Pomerania (meaning the merging of the area which is currently split between Pomerania and Neumark) on the Oder river rather than how it is split now or any other way. The only problem with this is that the western portion would be rather small but not actually here considering that Pomerania is way over-reaching on the west (which is great in this case, so you can have enough space for units in the western part), so having the Oder river as the border between the two Pomeranians would be just fine (and way better than the current drawing also considering how history went down). Done that, you can call them a number of MUCH BETTER ways. I would suggest "Stettin" (also since this would comprise a lot of territory which is not Pomerania) and "Hinder Pomerania" respectively for left and right of the Oder, but of course they can also respectively be "Hither Pomerania" and "Hinder Pomerania".
So, if you can just merge the Pomerania and Neumark territories into a single one and then do the split on the Oder river instead, you will have both a better map (both for politic divisions and for topographical/military reasons) and better names there.
I appreciate the thought and effort you've put into a post like this. Below is my response.
Note the existence of Spanish Morocco.
Pomerania divided into Hinder Pomerania and Hither Pomerania. To address @schulz 's point, the border between Warsaw and Krakow is now longer, making it clear those territories actually border each other.
Here is France, redone. Also note the stronger neutral garrison for Switzerland.
There were some changes I didn't make. Mostly I didn't want to create more territories east of Berlin, west of the Soviet Union. I did not believe that new territories in that region would improve game play. But I was willing to redraw borders for existing territories, at least to a limited degree.
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Mostly I didn't want to create more territories east of Berlin
I don't think you needed to have 3 territories for West Prussia, Danzig and East Prussia either. I would have suggested 2 territories there instead of 3: one being "Danzig - West Prussia" and the other one "East Prussia". The border can be really wherever sensible so long as Danzig is in the former and Koenigsberg in the latter.
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@KurtGodel7 Gibraltar working like Suez is very debatable. I would say hell no for Gibraltar and I would tend to still say no in case a single alliance owns every territory on that strait (meaning owning both Gibraltar and Morocco with your drawing to block enemy movement).
What I mean is, for example, that, if Germany would have had the Bismarck fully repaired in Brest and then moving through the strait into the Mediterranean, Gibraltar itself would not have impeded that happening (of course, the ships in Gibraltar could have).
If the question would be whether you can fully close the strait with mines once you have Gibraltar, I'm not feeling qualified enough as a miner to answer that...
(but surely no in case the strait is contended, for example the Axis controlling Gibraltar and the Allies controlling Morocco)The matter could be made some clearer with a more correct depiction of the situation, like having Spanish Morocco (maybe Tangier too, but I would consider it being part of Spanish Morocco thus avoiding having it on the map) and Gibraltar being limited to what it was rather than covering the entire European part of the strait.
I'm anticipating that the European theater of this map will feel a little like New World Order, and that the Pacific theater will feel a little like The Rising Sun. In New World Order, it's normal for there to be a naval competition between the United States on the one hand, and Germany/Italy on the other. If the Axis loses this competition, the American fleet enters the Mediterranean. At which point life becomes very hard for the European Axis.
Currently I'm concerned that the European theater could be unbalanced in favor of the Allies. If I allow Gibraltar to serve as a gateway to the Mediterranean, then that allows the Axis to get out of that naval competition--so long as it is able to hold Gibraltar. My thought is that Italy should take Gibraltar on its first turn. Then turn it into an Axis hard point, and thus prevent Allied entry. Britain and America Atlantic can still exert good pressure on Germany in the west. But not the kind of "cut Italy's throat" pressure that would have been the case with an American fleet in the Mediterranean.
If it's a choice between good game play and historical realism, I'll try to achieve both. But, if I'm pushed into a corner, if I have to take one or the other, I will take good game play.
As for historical realism: I acknowledge that treating Gibraltar in this way is a stretch. It was difficult for coastal guns to hit fast moving ships, even with late war advances in radar. Ships sailing into or out of the Mediterranean would have been within range of the coastal guns, but the majority would have gotten through. I am doing this because I think it's best for game play, not because it is a maximally accurate depiction of history.
Am I 100% certain this is best for game play? No. If it seems like this rule hinders rather than facilitates a good, competitive game, I'd be open to changing this.
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@KurtGodel7 They could probably use a bit of a buff to deter the AI from invading them right away. Germany could take Switzerland or Spain's border provinces on Round 1 with just the forces from the neighboring territories, Britain could probably do the same with Portugal, Leon, or Andalusia if it brings a transport and planes.
I think it would be good practice for invading the neutrals to require about one turn of setup by moving in enough forces from other territories, so that the enemy player might see it coming and prepare countermoves if they choose.
Also, Gibraltar having a border that extends all the way to Portugal is definitely an error - it should only touch Andalusia.
I've fixed the Gibraltar error.
For game balance, it might be helpful for the Axis to quickly turn Spain into a stronghold. Of course, Britain is likely to invade somewhere. Like NWO, that somewhere could be Scandinavia, France, or Spain. In my test game I chose for Britain to invade France, and America Atlantic to invade Spain. (Which is also what I personally would do if playing NWO.)
Britain is able to exert good invasion pressure quickly. Stronger neutrals in Spain would slow down the initial German conquest of it. Thereby making it easier for the Allies to take away Spain. If the Allies own Spain, that's a very good base from which they can push east to take more of Europe.
If the Axis is able to be strong in Spain, then the initial America Atlantic invasion would need to occur in northwest Africa. An Operation Torch, if you will. America Atlantic's income grows over time. Partly that's because of an income nerf. It's most nerfed early game, and the nerf decreases gradually. On round 10 there is no more nerf. But partly its income increases by researching new technologies.
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Why not also give bunkers the ability to fire at ships (minus subs)?
Also, the Berlin-Krakow and Berlin-Warsaw distances are roughly the same in the real world (the latter being slightly closer). I would reduce the Berlin-Warsaw distance to 2 and the Berlin-East Prussia distance to 3.
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If I recall correctly, he doesn't have an actual Bunker unit, it's a Trench one that takes hits adds defense to other units, but it doesn't actually shoot.
Giving land units the ability to hit ships is something that has to be handled very carefully because of the cost ratios. If they can be built cheaper and spammed faster than warships, anti-ship defenses will end up becoming unassailable.
The only case in TRO where I decided to give a land unit a ship-hitting ability was Italy's Marines with a Decima MAS tech, where it's an offensive action they can only do on their turn, not an anti-invasion defense.
If you want to have any sort of coastal artillery unit that hits ships, it needs to be balanced by either high price, low hit probability, or a strict stacking limit per territory that allows fleets to outscale it.
The Europe map honestly looks pretty good at this point, I think it would probably be more productive to move on to improving other WIP areas since you're relying heavily on Claude usage.
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Mostly I didn't want to create more territories east of Berlin
I don't think you needed to have 3 territories for West Prussia, Danzig and East Prussia either. I would have suggested 2 territories there instead of 3: one being "Danzig - West Prussia" and the other one "East Prussia". The border can be really wherever sensible so long as Danzig is in the former and Koenigsberg in the latter.
I agree. Two would suffice. That said, the proximate cause of the war in Europe was a disagreement about who should own Danzig. With that in mind, I wanted a territory with that particular name. This is the one instance for the entire map where I had a territory added beyond what I thought was necessary for game play.
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@KurtGodel7 Well LOL, even though I think the name "Danzig - West Prussia" is better (and would personally use that), you can just call it "Danzig" (and not have "West Prussia" anywhere). It's of course your map, but I would also say that - in this case - I think that "Danzig - West Prussia" does not actually mean "Danzig und Westpreussen", but more like "West Prussia" being sort of subordinate: the main name of the territory being Danzig, and West Prussia being there as a secondary name. Practically, I'm guessing that the name is more like "Danzig (West Prussia)". Of course, I don't actually know. It's sort of like "Muenchen - Oberbayern", where I guess they do not actually mean that Muenchen is not in Oberbayern but more like they wanted to have both names for some reasons.
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Why not also give bunkers the ability to fire at ships (minus subs)?
Also, the Berlin-Krakow and Berlin-Warsaw distances are roughly the same in the real world (the latter being slightly closer). I would reduce the Berlin-Warsaw distance to 2 and the Berlin-East Prussia distance to 3.
This would not make sense from a realism standpoint. The initial unit is a trench. Cost 3 PUs, 2 hitpoints, defends on a 0. Bunkers tech upgrades its defensive value to a 1. A word like "bunker" implies that someone poured concrete. It does not imply that anyone installed the large, powerful guns necessary to attack enemy warships.
In an earlier post I mentioned the idea of coastal guns. For an amphibious landing, there would be two rounds of combat. Battleships and maybe cruisers would fire at coastal guns, and coastal guns would fire back at the battleships and maybe cruisers. Destroyed units would be removed from play. Then any remaining coastal guns would get to fire at the invading transports. Coastal guns would be less expensive than battleships, both for firepower for the money and hitpoints for the money.
The potential invader makes up for this with mobility. A single battleship/transport fleet can threaten multiple hard points, and each hard point would potentially need to be defended with coastal guns.
As cool as all that would be, I chose a simpler game mechanic. Any units arriving by water have to wait until the second round of combat before they can fire. (Exception: Marines get to fire on the first combat round, as do Japan's equivalent of Marines.)
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If I recall correctly, he doesn't have an actual Bunker unit, it's a Trench one that takes hits adds defense to other units, but it doesn't actually shoot.
Giving land units the ability to hit ships is something that has to be handled very carefully because of the cost ratios. If they can be built cheaper and spammed faster than warships, anti-ship defenses will end up becoming unassailable.
The only case in TRO where I decided to give a land unit a ship-hitting ability was Italy's Marines with a Decima MAS tech, where it's an offensive action they can only do on their turn, not an anti-invasion defense.
If you want to have any sort of coastal artillery unit that hits ships, it needs to be balanced by either high price, low hit probability, or a strict stacking limit per territory that allows fleets to outscale it.
The Europe map honestly looks pretty good at this point, I think it would probably be more productive to move on to improving other WIP areas since you're relying heavily on Claude usage.
In a recent test game, Britain had a large fleet of transports. Germany had four hard points to prevent invasion. Britain didn't need to overcome a hard point to invade: there were other places along the coast for it to unload its units.
But, let's say I introduced coastal guns, as well as the associated game mechanic. That creates a race between Germany and Britain. If Germany wins the race (that is, if its coastal guns are stronger than Britain's battleships), Britain will just unload/invade a territory that isn't a hard point. Problem solved. Germany just tied down a lot of PUs into coastal guns which could otherwise have been spent on its eastern front. But, suppose Britain builds a strong battleship fleet, and those battleships can exert more force than the coastal guns at a given hard point. Britain's response should be to unload one unit as an invasion. The goal would be to trigger a combat between the battleships and the coastal guns, with the British player knowing this would do more PU damage to Germany than to Britain.
To avoid this problem, some would say I should limit the number of battleships which can fire at coastal guns to the number of units actually invading. Drop off only one infantry? Only one battleship gets to fire at the coastal guns, but all the coastal guns get to fire at the battleships.
Suppose Britain has 10 battleships, and drops off 10 infantry. This triggers full combat between the battleships and the coastal guns. Germany loses some coastal guns, Britain doesn't lose any battleships. Then there is combat. The infantry don't get to fire on the first round (arriving amphibiously), and they won't survive until the second round. But, the battleships get to bombard. Assume those 10 battleships inflict 6 hits. Sticky hits, so those 6 hits kill 3 German trenches. At the cost of 10 infantry, Britain has taken away 3 trenches plus some coastal guns.
Don't get me wrong. All of this would be a cool thing to add to the game. I just don't know that the game needs any additional complexity at this point.
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@KurtGodel7 The coastal guns honestly sound like more more trouble than they're worth in order to get the balance right. Unless you think it'd be a really fun enhancement to the gameplay that you're determined to see through, it's probably safe to skip it and just give the invaders the round one penalty you have in mind.
Off the top of my head, the only major WWII warships I can recall being sunk by coastal forts were the cruisers Blücher and Königsberg during the invasion of Norway. Realistically, coastal defense batteries should be able to deter small raids, but not pose a serious threat on their own to a large invasion fleet.
But, suppose Britain builds a strong battleship fleet, and those battleships can exert more force than the coastal guns at a given hard point. Britain's response should be to unload one unit as an invasion. The goal would be to trigger a combat between the battleships and the coastal guns, with the British player knowing this would do more PU damage to Germany than to Britain.
If you want to avoid this kind of cheese, you might be able to turn the Coastal Battery into a building instead that doesn't get shot at in combat but does get captured if the province is taken. That would also be a natural way to put a one per zone limit on its placement. It could have AA style fire (1 die each at up to 3 ships, or however many targets you think is right).
If you think Claude can write some more complex rules, you could have the BBs take bombardment shots at the Coastal Battery first - if they score enough hits, they don't destroy it, but instead suppress it, and prevent it from firing. You could have the degree of suppression scaled to the number of hits it takes.
For instance, you've given the Coastal Battery shots at 4 targets by default. The British BBs arrive and bombard first - they score 2 hits, so now the Battery only takes 2 shots at enemy ships.
Making it a building also allows it to be a strategic bombing target, giving the enemy an alternative way to deal with it instead of just sending their ships in to slug it out head to head.
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America Atlantic's turn, round 7.
Note that the British and Atlantic Americans are exerting good pressure on Spain. Italy has turned Gibraltar into a hard point. The Gibraltar territory itself was too small for many unit stacks, so there is a box to the left of the Gibraltar territory to indicate its units. Note that Italy's units are defensive: trenches, heavy guns, a few infantry or conscripts. America Atlantic gets an income nerf. It receives 30% of its true income on round 3, 40% on round 4, and so forth, until eventually growing to 100% of its income.
The thing to note of this screen shot is that America Atlantic already has three factories in northwest Africa. Also it has discovered Industry tech. That means that each factory has +2 to its unit placement capacity, so long as the underlying territory is worth at least 2.
Over in Asia, things seem to have gotten a little stagnant. Japan has thoughts of breaking through in China or against the British, but both tasks are proving tougher than expected.
The source of Japan's problems in the north is the Soviet factory in Vladivostok. If Japan could crack that, it could conquer significant land area in the eastern Soviet Union. But that will be a tough nut to crack.
Japan has conquered most of the East Indies. It hopes this income will let it achieve a breakthrough on at least one of its fronts.
America Pacific has built a good fleet, and it has neutral farmed Mexico. Its neutral farming ambitions do not stop there. Next up: Honduras.
In the east, the German force in Gomel is locked with the Soviet force in Bryansk.
The Soviets had been neglecting their northern front a little. The Germans punished that by destroying the Soviet force at Tikhvin. The Soviets appear to be able to hold at Archangel.
Italy could envision itself as the proud new owner of Cairo. While the Italians have an offensive posture on that front, the British have been putting up a very good defense. Britain has been helped by industry tech (more unit placement) and recently gained Raj tech (3 free colonial militia per turn for India).
Japan has proudly built its first Yamato battleship! Also it built two SPCs. Each will produce a new fleet carrier every other turn.
Why are there random conscripts here? Because the Soviet Union unlocked Conscription 1 tech. Now, each Soviet factory produces 1 free conscript per turn, as long as the underlying territory is worth at least 9 PUs. This is good for five conscripts per turn. The Soviet Union would very much like to gain more techs in this category. It looks forward with eagerness to getting Conscription 4 tech--although that won't come for a long time. The Soviet player has prioritized the conscripts over getting free KV-1 tanks (although it would like to receive those also).
The Allies have opportunities to shift forces between the European and Pacific theaters. The Soviet Union decides how much to allocate to its eastern front. Britain decides how much to place on its factories in India, Africa, and Australia, versus how much to place in Britain itself. Units built in western India can be shipped west to fight Italy in Africa, or they can go east to fight Japan. Neutral farming is also a decision about front allocation. If America Pacific farms the Latin America neutrals, that is a decision to allocate more to the Pacific. If America Atlantic neutral farms them, that's a decision to go more heavy after Europe.
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@KurtGodel7 The coastal guns honestly sound like more more trouble than they're worth in order to get the balance right. Unless you think it'd be a really fun enhancement to the gameplay that you're determined to see through, it's probably safe to skip it and just give the invaders the round one penalty you have in mind.
Off the top of my head, the only major WWII warships I can recall being sunk by coastal forts were the cruisers Blücher and Königsberg during the invasion of Norway. Realistically, coastal defense batteries should be able to deter small raids, but not pose a serious threat on their own to a large invasion fleet.
But, suppose Britain builds a strong battleship fleet, and those battleships can exert more force than the coastal guns at a given hard point. Britain's response should be to unload one unit as an invasion. The goal would be to trigger a combat between the battleships and the coastal guns, with the British player knowing this would do more PU damage to Germany than to Britain.
If you want to avoid this kind of cheese, you might be able to turn the Coastal Battery into a building instead that doesn't get shot at in combat but does get captured if the province is taken. That would also be a natural way to put a one per zone limit on its placement. It could have AA style fire (1 die each at up to 3 ships, or however many targets you think is right).
If you think Claude can write some more complex rules, you could have the BBs take bombardment shots at the Coastal Battery first - if they score enough hits, they don't destroy it, but instead suppress it, and prevent it from firing. You could have the degree of suppression scaled to the number of hits it takes.
For instance, you've given the Coastal Battery shots at 4 targets by default. The British BBs arrive and bombard first - they score 2 hits, so now the Battery only takes 2 shots at enemy ships.
Making it a building also allows it to be a strategic bombing target, giving the enemy an alternative way to deal with it instead of just sending their ships in to slug it out head to head.
I agree that I should not add coastal guns. I'm at the point where I need to not add more complexity to the map. The sample games I've been playing flow smoothly, and are not bogged down by complexity.
If I did want to add more complexity--which I don't--but if I did, one way to achieve that would be the Battle of the Atlantic. The Battle of the Atlantic would exist as an abstraction. Each turn, Germany could send subs into the Battle of the Atlantic. Britain and America Atlantic could send destroyers in. Any units sent to the Battle of the Atlantic are there permanently. They cannot return to the main map. At the beginning of each game round, the German subs in the Battle of the Atlantic would fight the Allied destroyers. Combat would last for two rounds. Destroyed units would be removed from play. Any German subs that survived that combat would impose an economic penalty on Britain and America Atlantic. There would be a cap as to how much of a penalty each nation would receive. If, say, Britain's cap is 15 and America Atlantic's penalty cap is 20, then the first 15 PUs of economic damage done would hit Britain, and the next 20 Pus of economic damage would hit America Atlantic.
Later on, Germany gains the ability to have Type XXI U-boats as a special unit. Sending those to the Battle of the Atlantic would be very cool. Maybe each normal sub would impose a penalty of 2 PUs, and each Type XXI would impose a penalty of 5 PUs. Something like that.
But, I have no plans to actually implement this idea, because it would be added complexity.
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Or, you can scrap the coastal battery idea entirely and make the air units more cost effective against the ships.
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KurtGodel7 said:
I agree that I should not add coastal guns. I'm at the point where I need to not add more complexity to the map. The sample games I've been playing flow smoothly, and are not bogged down by complexity.
If I did want to add more complexity--which I don't--but if I did, one way to achieve that would be the Battle of the Atlantic. The Battle of the Atlantic would exist as an abstraction. Each turn, Germany could send subs into the Battle of the Atlantic. Britain and America Atlantic could send destroyers in. Any units sent to the Battle of the Atlantic are there permanently. They cannot return to the main map. At the beginning of each game round, the German subs in the Battle of the Atlantic would fight the Allied destroyers. Combat would last for two rounds. Destroyed units would be removed from play. Any German subs that survived that combat would impose an economic penalty on Britain and America Atlantic. There would be a cap as to how much of a penalty each nation would receive. If, say, Britain's cap is 15 and America Atlantic's penalty cap is 20, then the first 15 PUs of economic damage done would hit Britain, and the next 20 Pus of economic damage would hit America Atlantic.
Later on, Germany gains the ability to have Type XXI U-boats as a special unit. Sending those to the Battle of the Atlantic would be very cool. Maybe each normal sub would impose a penalty of 2 PUs, and each Type XXI would impose a penalty of 5 PUs. Something like that.
But, I have no plans to actually implement this idea, because it would be added complexity.
Okay, a modified version of the Battle of the Atlantic idea. Don't worry--I'm not going to add this to Flames and Steel. There needs to be a lock on adding additional complexity.
That said . . . the Battle of the Atlantic could be an abstraction, as I wrote in my earlier post.
- There would be about ten sea zones within this abstraction.
- Each individual sea zone would have its own economic damage cap.
- PU reductions would be applied to either Britain or America Atlantic, depending on which sea zone the subs were in. German subs in the Caribbean, for example, would cause economic damage to America Atlantic.
- Blind allocation. Germany would move its subs around these sea zones without knowing where Allied destroyers were going. Britain and America Atlantic would move their destroyers around these sea zones without knowing where German subs were going.
- After the blind allocation, there would be a two round naval battle for each sea zone with both Axis subs and Allied destroyers. Any subs surviving the naval battle would apply a PU reduction to British or American Atlantic income, depending on the sea zone they were in.
- Germany would have a choice: "Do I spread my subs out in an effort to maximize economic damage? Or do I concentrate them in an effort to win the naval battle in whatever sea zone I am in?" Likewise, Britain and America Atlantic would have this same choice with respect to their destroyers.
This could be really cool. A game within a game, as it were. Germany could unlock technologies to increase the damage cap of each sea zone. Britain and America Atlantic could unlock technologies to help with this also. But I feel like I've already added the right amount of complexity to Flames and Steel, and I don't want to add this additional thing, however cool it might be.
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Or, you can scrap the coastal battery idea entirely and make the air units more cost effective against the ships.
In a normal TripleA type map, it would be, "I have more air than he has ships. Therefore I will kill his navy on my next turn!"
With Flames and Steel it's not quite so simple. There are two flavors of air unit: fighters and bombers. Several different types of fighters: fighters, heavy fighters, advanced fighters, early jets, and jets. Several different types of bombers: dive bombers, torpedo bombers, medium bombers, strategic bombers, flying wings, and Superfortresses.
Suppose that Germany had an idea of using air to sink the British fleet in the English Channel. During the "allocate bombers" phase it sends in torpedo bombers (the best choice for anti-naval), dive bombers, and even a couple medium bombers. This bomber allocation is revealed to the Allies before the "allocate fighters" phase. During "allocate fighters," all three of Germany, Britain, and America Atlantic allocate fighters to the upcoming battle.
Then there is a two round dogfight, where Axis and Allied fighters shoot at each other. After the dogfight, any Allied fighters which survived are now able to shoot at German bombers, using their interception value. German bombers shoot back, using their air defense value. Destroyed units are removed from play. Damaged bombers are considered aborted and do not get to fire at surface targets. But, any German bombers which weren't destroyed or aborted then get to fire at Britain's ships. British ships actually hit by bombers get to fire back. Those which weren't hit are considered too far away from the combat to participate. This lasts two combat rounds.
The Pearl Harbor attack consists of eight Japanese torpedo bombers attacking five American Pacific battleships, plus some other ships. America Pacific has little or no air defense against this. Those eight torpedo bombers hammer the Pearl Harbor fleet hard. Remember that battleships take five hits to kill! Japan loses 0 - 1 torpedo bomber in the attack. The fleet at Pearl gets hammered hard during the air phase, and then on Japan's turn the IJN comes in to finish it off.
In my play test games, Germany would sometimes build fighter type aircraft for its western front. But it stopped short of building bomber-type aircraft for that front, because the money for that was needed elsewhere. The fighters gave it reasonable defense against Allied strafing or strategic bombing raids. Germany would also need to defend Italy's West Mediterranean transports against Allied air. For that it had fighters in Madrid. Probably having a single battleship in that sea zone would have made sense also, in case any Allied bombers got past Germany's fighters. Germany should also have built a heavy fighter or two, because those have a better interception value than normal fighters.
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