Finally, we can bomb Pearl Harbor!

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That completely understandable though I would probably use pearl harbor as a metric for what a good, unopposed attack would look like. This is completely deleting fleets under air cover which it really shouldn't.
Air defense is disabled during the first initial strike, just fyi

Also I guess this test is done during optimal conditions where a large portion of the fleet (or the entire fleet for that matter) is in port, the carriers are in range unopposed. I think normally you would see the fleet being spread out, some at sea, and not everyone being at the same port.

I will admit that balancing it to being actual useful, fun to use (from a gameplay perspective) while also having it not being too powerful is certainly a difficult task. I can only speak for myself but my hunch is that seeing these optimal conditions in the actual game is gonna be rare, so you kinda have to balance it for sub-optimal conditions as well, since that is what I think people will experience most of the time, but it is something that we will have to see.

As always, community feedback is key to balancing these things, and I look forward to see people using this in gameplay scenarios :)
 
I've wondered the mission's effect on aircraft on the ground. I have a feeling it doesn't allow for the destruction of masses of parked planes, but I haven't ran any tests. Actually I'm not sure if damaging planes on the ground is even possible in HoI4. It was in previous HoIs, but planes were on-map units there.

I questioned it myself and did some test runs. Now there is some weirdness. Technically it is possible. I just can't get it to work in Vanilla. 2.000 Tier 3 strat Bombers bombing airfields cannot destroy a single enemy plane on the ground. Now you might ask how do I know it is possible?

Millenium Dawn apparently got it to work:

b23537392d1ca5f127822dc637b463e0.jpg
 
I questioned it myself and did some test runs. Now there is some weirdness. Technically it is possible. I just can't get it to work in Vanilla. 2.000 Tier 3 strat Bombers bombing airfields cannot destroy a single enemy plane on the ground. Now you might ask how do I know it is possible?

Millenium Dawn apparently got it to work:

b23537392d1ca5f127822dc637b463e0.jpg

Very interesting, thank you for testing.
 
That completely understandable though I would probably use pearl harbor as a metric for what a good, unopposed attack would look like. This is completely deleting fleets under air cover which it really shouldn't.
Pearl who? You mean the Hawaii Ridge Port :p ? Or maybe that's a Japanese code name.

But yes, I'm pretty sure the Americans at Pearl felt it was pretty overpowered, too. I'm sure they'd have loved to do the battle again, and so things very differently. As would the Russians who lost two thousand planes during the opening days of the war, and all the countless thousands of sailors who lost their lives to u-boats in the Atlantic Ocean. Some weapons and strikes are just incredibly powerful, and... they probably should be.

Again, I don't own La Résistance, but as far as I've understood, can't you invest in counter-intelligence so that you have a chance to prevent the enemy from launching surprise attacks like this? Otherwise, I suppose you could just spread your ships out across different ports. Then all we need is some incentive to actually station them close to the action even though this puts them at risk.
 
Pearl who? You mean the Hawaii Ridge Port :p ? Or maybe that's a Japanese code name.

But yes, I'm pretty sure the Americans at Pearl felt it was pretty overpowered, too. I'm sure they'd have loved to do the battle again, and so things very differently. As would the Russians who lost two thousand planes during the opening days of the war, and all the countless thousands of sailors who lost their lives to u-boats in the Atlantic Ocean. Some weapons and strikes are just incredibly powerful, and... they probably should be.

Again, I don't own La Résistance, but as far as I've understood, can't you invest in counter-intelligence so that you have a chance to prevent the enemy from launching surprise attacks like this? Otherwise, I suppose you could just spread your ships out across different ports. Then all we need is some incentive to actually station them close to the action even though this puts them at risk.

The point is that it's about 5 times as effective as a strike under perfect circumstances was historically.

It shouldn't have to be countered by other means to reduce this absurd effectiveness.
 
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Nobody is expecting exact replication of Pearl Harbor and I’m aware OP gave himself good bomber variants (though the Japanese had good bombers too)

But even with that in mind Pearl Harbor is a historical benchmark that we can look to and say “ok, how did a highly trained navy perform in this sort of operation in a situation that was literally a best case scenario for them?”

In that best case scenario (minus the carriers being out to sea) they sank 4 capital ships. OP sank *20* with only 50 more planes, while facing active air cover of *800* fighters.

That needs some work. It’s definitely not something that should be top priority as I’m sure you and the other devs have more important things to be doing, but I’ll be very disappointed if results similar to these are WAD and they aren’t adjusted at some point down the line
Moreover, Pearl Harbor didn't even sink four capital ships in game terms: everything that wasn't the Arizona was refloated and headed to the docks (though the Oklahoma never got repaired). In game, "sunk" means "the ship is lost with no chance of recovery", which is by far not something that happened at Pearl (or at Taranto, even).

Looking back at it from our perspective, port strikes were actually rather useless for the purpose of permanently putting ships out of commission: between all the ships sank at Pearl, Taranto, and Alexandria, only the Arizona was declared unrecoverable, and the Oklahoma and the Cavour could have been repaired, had there been the will to do so. In fact, I'd go as far as to suggest that completely sinking ships in port should be pretty difficult - though even reducing an entire fleet to 1% strength is going to keep it out of the games for a fair while.
 
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Looking back at it from our perspective, port strikes were actually rather useless for the purpose of permanently putting ships out of commission
....

"permanently" is a not "reliable" word in wartimes ( except killing or sinking ). If the enemy has to put many ships in repair, so that my fleet rules the sea and therefor I could beat him; the word "permanently" has its truth proven.
Sure this depends heavily on the situation, but all things did so in war-times ;)
 
"permanently" is a not "reliable" word in wartimes ( except killing or sinking ). If the enemy has to put many ships in repair, so that my fleet rules the sea and therefor I could beat him; the word "permanently" has its truth proven.
Sure this depends heavily on the situation, but all things did so in war-times ;)

But that's not relevant to what we're talking about: game rules. When a ship is sunk in-game it's gone. You have to rebuild from scratch. Sure it may take a while to repair damaged ships but the tactical advantage that gives is completely irrelevant to the fact of whether the ship is gone or not.
 
But that's not relevant to what we're talking about: game rules. When a ship is sunk in-game it's gone. You have to rebuild from scratch. Sure it may take a while to repair damaged ships but the tactical advantage that gives is completely irrelevant to the fact of whether the ship is gone or not.

Sorry I disagree; I know, "time" is not mentioned in the game-rules. But in games like HOI4, time always plays a significant role.
And the tactical advantage, the enemy can not use those ships for a certain time-period ( doesn't matter whether he repaired or build new ones) is not completely irrelevant. Sure the advantage of sinking ships is better, but the repair do not only give me time ( for my naval-invasions, transporting troops via convoy etc... ) , it also takes dockyard space in enemy production line ( repairing or continuing building new ones ).
 
Sorry I disagree; I know, "time" is not mentioned in the game-rules. But in games like HOI4, time always plays a significant role.
And the tactical advantage, the enemy can not use those ships for a certain time-period ( doesn't matter whether he repaired or build new ones) is not completely irrelevant. Sure the advantage of sinking ships is better, but the repair do not only give me time ( for my naval-invasions, transporting troops via convoy etc... ) , it also takes dockyard space in enemy production line ( repairing or continuing building new ones ).

This isn’t a matter of opinion. A ship that can be repaired in game is not sunk. A ship that is sunk in game cannot be repaired and is gone forever.

You gain an advantage from damaging enemy ships. That does not change the fact that sinking enemy ships is a different thing and should be balanced as such.

That’s all there is to it, and your feelings on the matter are irrelevant. The fact that this is a dispute at all is rather silly
 
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This isn’t a matter of opinion. A ship that can be repaired in game is not sunk. A ship that is sunk in game cannot be repaired and is gone forever.

You gain an advantage from damaging enemy ships. That does not change the fact that sinking enemy ships is a different thing and should be balanced as such.

I didn't say anything different.

That’s all there is to it, and your feelings on the matter are irrelevant. The fact that this is a dispute at all is rather silly

I didn't say anything about score-points of sinking ships or what ever do you mean. I only talked about the consequences for the game going on.
 
But yes, I'm pretty sure the Americans at Pearl felt it was pretty overpowered, too. I'm sure they'd have loved to do the battle again, and so things very differently. As would the Russians who lost two thousand planes during the opening days of the war, and all the countless thousands of sailors who lost their lives to u-boats in the Atlantic Ocean. Some weapons and strikes are just incredibly powerful, and... they probably should be.
The Russians were really just bad pilots. The Finish obliterated them as well, in outdate fighters no less.

As for Pearl Harbor(Naval Station Pearl Harbor is the official name) the damage was massive but not much of it permeant. We refloated and repaired most of the ships sunk. It is the ultimate problem with attacking ships in port is that its relatively shallow water. The amount of total losses here is excessive but I'm sure it'll be tuned down.
 
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What I like about the option of Coordinated Strike, is it opens up the idea of surprise attack in the game. I am sure there are some of us who could see how surprise attacks could be used historically to catch enemy planes on the ground, armies in their barracks, misdirected naval invasions like Normandy, and of course, fleets in port. For those playing minor nations, the surprise attack could be great fun for smaller games.

Just getting the idea out there, may lead the developers to come up with some fun options in game. It could also make the spy game a little more relevant to those who would like to see some direct results of their efforts.
 
It is the ultimate problem with attacking ships in port is that its relatively shallow water.
Yep, that's the gist of it. There are only two ways to get unrecoverable wrecks out of a port strike: either the ship - somehow - capsizes, or there is a magazine detonation that damages her beyond the simple act of sinking. A grand total of two capital-size ships suffered this fate in WW2: Arizona (detonation) and Utah (capsized). The Utah was not a commissioned battleship by the time Pearl Harbor happened - she was a training ship, IIRC - so she counts for size for example purposes, but she didn't make for a battleship casualty of the attack.

If the ship settles on the bottom while standing - which is, by far, the most common occasion - then the damage can be patched up and she can go to the drydock to be repaired, which doesn't take a lot more than 6 months at worst.
 
Now the Japanese AI needs to learn to do it as well.
Honestly I think it should be a decision for Japan, give them a decision for when they're at peace with the US but have a CB, it immediately conducts a very effective port strike on Hawaii and simultaneously declares war on the US
 
Honestly I think it should be a decision for Japan, give them a decision for when they're at peace with the US but have a CB, it immediately conducts a very effective port strike on Hawaii and simultaneously declares war on the US
Please no. Makes as little sense in a sandbox game as a decision that deletes the 6th German Army at around the time Stalingrad should have happened. A player or AI getting to sink my ships because they actually put in the time, resources, and effort to plan and prepare an effective surprise attack? No problem.

Japan waving a wand and vanishing my ships, regardless of how well I'm doing at intelligence, AA, and readiness? No thanks.

The British decision to sink the French fleet makes sense because there's no way to implement bombing missions on friendlies in HoI4 at the moment, and scripts ensure that France is defeated/neutral at the time (or already in Axis, if you don't pay for that bug fix). With the USA, you're perfectly able to plan and organise a naval strike yourself, with the tools you already have. And if the AI can't, magical band-aids aren't the solution.