About as close as getting all secondary objectives on Guadalcanal.

[TowerNCT]

First post, yay!

I want to post this here to immortalize how close I came to NOT getting a major victory on US Pacific Pearl Harbour for the first time in 8 or so runs on Fleet Admiral difficulty for this specific scenario (or scen? I see that shorthand here a lot. Is that like a custom here? Or are you armchair generals/admirals that lazy to not type "ario" after? XD).
Captured on Fleet Admiral [Difficulty V].

Also, I have a question for the experienced players. I know you can get 15 spec points before Pearl Harbour. Has anyone found a decent use for those 15 points at Pearl Harbour? Like "Drop Tanks" spec or "Scrambling" spec. Are they worth using at Pearl Harbour if you immediately switch to the Philippines afterword? You will use them after the Philippines though. My current plan for this run is to spend those 22 spec points (15 + 7 after Pearl) on "Field Medics" and "Specialized Training" since that seem more prudent for Warplan Orange and Bataan; the latter getting "Tank School" for getting a vet 1 Stuart to help there.

OOB_WW2_Pearl_Harbour_One_HP_battleship.jpg (508.25 KiB) Viewed 777 times

As typical of a new user, I was stumbling to figure out how to add an image. I angered the server by sending forms too often. Sorry!

[GabeKnight]

Personally I woudn't waste any of my spec points on the "school"/experience branch. Except the one leading to "pilot rotation" maybe. Plane combat is expensive and experience invaluable.
The "field medic" spec also is a waste of spec points, if you ask me. The jeep is useless and the few RPs you're getting back from retreating units aren't worth the high price either.

What you can always use are specs that give you more command points. Also the radar specs are very useful in the Pacific scens.
(and yeah, we "armchair generals/admirals" are "that lazy to not type 'ario' after"...same with "ialisation" )

PS: What's up with the title of your thread and its content? Is there a connection somewhere...?

[TowerNCT]

Personally I woudn't waste any of my spec points on the "school"/experience branch. Except the one leading to "pilot rotation" maybe. Plane combat is expensive and experience invaluable.
The "field medic" spec also is a waste of spec points, if you ask me. The jeep is useless and the few RPs you're getting back from retreating units aren't worth the high price either.

What you can always use are specs that give you more command points. Also the radar specs are very useful in the Pacific scens.
(and yeah, we "armchair generals/admirals" are "that lazy to not type 'ario' after"...same with "ialisation" )

PS: What's up with the title of your thread and its content? Is there a connection somewhere...?

You got me. I'm lazy too.

Thanks, GabeKnight! I personally, however, have always gone for those specializations for my first picks since they seem off the bat helpful: vet 1 improves my units, which against an over-strength foe, is great in improving combat efficiency and give me some flexibility in giving out regular repairs to my core units. It'll be an awhile until I'll use land units again after Bataan so I prioritize saving points to spend on my navy. I am all with you on not deploying the jeep, that thing isn't even useful as a regular jeep scout so I often disband it to get those extra pennies. Maxing my income is really the only reason I went for "field medic" because US Pacific early to middle is all about being cash smart. I see it posts around the forums too but you are really scraping the barrel for cash, so, I hoped if I could get extra cash from my units (non-core preferably) being in combat then dashing!

I never really saw interest in more command points. I don't know, I rarely ever give attention to that side of the tree. I was more entangled with getting "scrambling" or more radar, as you said, specializations that improve my overall combat efficiency for all my troops (land, sea and air) instead of trying to add an extra percentage with just one more unit. I feel like I need to give an example because I'm confusing myself here thinking about it. Like, if I had one unit in my army and I was given a choice between two upgrades; one would give ALL my units a flat 15% combat efficiency boost, while another gives me a brand-new unit. If you think the extra new unit in terms of an efficiency boost like the first upgrade, then I would go for that extra one more unit because I have just DOUBLE my army fighting efficiency instead of gaining just a meager 15% boost. Now if I had 20 units. Then one more unit is arguably giving me less than if all my units just gain 15% more efficiency. This is why I never gone for more command points. I prioritize reaching the cap as best as I can, fleshing out a proper order of battle and specializations I feel give bigger boosts to my whole army than having one more unit. Also, again, this is US Pacific early. I'm poor. I just made it to Marshall-Gilberts Raid and I'm already trembling for Coral Sea.

[TowerNCT]

PS: What's up with the title of your thread and its content? Is there a connection somewhere...?

The title is exactly as it says. I picked that title because the nerve racking of only barely getting a major victory at the thinnest thread is there between my original post (which I mentioned I rarely get) and US Pacific Guadalcanal on Fleet Admiral. I only ever gotten the secondary cities captures on the last turn and the race up the coast is excruciating without my ships; fighting fortified enemies on a time limit of 15 turns without naval support as the ships are busy not dying often frustrated me. US Pacific Guadalcanal is the hardest mission for me and I have come to despised it. I despised it so much that I even start utilizing a new tactic for me of using my government-issued Australian Commandos--that I ever used to destroy bridges--to destroy the bunkers beforehand by sneaking them past enemy lines and even making minefields to funnel Japanese attackers into my jungle of death.