Ed and I played the modified version. I played Japan adn Ed played PRC
I launched my E2, but left her over the A/B, when an Orion came ready after 10 minutes I moved it South to a position East of Taiwan (figuring PRC could not overfly Taiwan!).
My sub picked up an unknown sub doing 5 knots and crept in to intercept.
My two surface vessels were racing to join up for some much needed mutual defence.
A pair of F4s came ready which I used to chase a AEW plane (but it was too far away) and to find three fishing boats and an escort.
The Airborne P3 moved in and fired 4 ASMs on the escort which sank.
Meanwhile my sub had reached a position behind the unknown submerged contact and fired 2 torps. Both hit.
I then started to detect Flankers, and strengthened my CAP with F-15s, with a mix of Sparrow and AMRAAM. The F4s were fired upon, and returned fire, but the Sparrows missed and the Alamo did not. Lost two F4s.
I detected a low flying 460 knot plane flying to my Frigate, and moved F15s to intercept. At the moment they switched on the radar they detected 2 ASMs. Both were shot down by AMRAAM as was the launching plane (probably a Badger).
By now I had landed the P3 (out of missiles) and put up an other, this time north. My sub was cruising to the last known position of the Fishing boats, reloading tubes with Harpoon.
More Flankers were detected. I mistook their slow and low flightpath for an attempt to get close to my E2 or fighters. My F15s moved in to intercept and actually fired first (Sparrow). Then my now joint up ships reported ASMs. This time the ASMs were detected very late and destroyed my DD (the one I was not allowed to lose).
Sparrows killed both Su27s, but lost 3 F15s too.
As the sky was clear from Flankers, I moved the E2 west from circling my own airbase, and quickly found the Fishing boats again. Sub-launched Harpoons sank all three, while my P3 detected a 30 knot DD and fired ASMs at her as well.
At this point neither Ed nor me could fulfill our vicconds, and called it a draw.
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Comments:
The game was fun! Not to large yet with lots of air, surface and subsurface action (btw the unknown contact I killed were tuna!)
Story is good too.
The game is quite balanced. My Sparrows and AMRAAM were a good match for the Alamo's, and both sides seem to have similar offensive and defensive firepower.
However. the game seems almost unwinnable, as both sides have a lot of Anti Ship Missiles (on FS-X, P3, sub, Su27, DDs and Badgers) and not enough CAP carrying food AAMs to have a continuous and strong CAP over the fishing boats (PRC side) and the DD (Japan side). The planes have to RTB when out of missiles and therefore the Protect Friendlies vicconds ('protect the three fishing boats' and 'do not lose the DDs') are almost impossible to fulfill. From PRC side, making the run to the Senkaku islands and back to the PRC coast undamaged seems very hard.
I'd suggest either rethinking the vicconds (allow a lot more losses) and/or provide much stronger Air defence (Kongo maybe and a similar ship on PRC side) and fewer ASMs (not on P3 and sub for example).
Vicconds are a great too to make a scen with dfferent units on both sides balanced, and I hope that the testplayign thats being done will help you to set the vicconds so the game remains balanced and becomes a bit more easy to win (or actually harder to lose!)