Profile of Nalano

Thoughts:

- Third German faction could contain all the self-propelled guns from CoH1. Germans loved their Wunderwaffe.
- lol Italians; srsly might as well have Romanians - they saw more action, but really, both were mere blocking forces used to shore up secondary lines than actual armies, and were most often the weakest parts of the overall lines.
- Japan DID have a very sizable mechanized army. It just had no heavy armor because it spent 12 - twelve - years fighting the Nationalist and Communist Chinese armies in Manchuria, who were themselves using loaned WWI equipment from America and Germany (!). The two times Japan actually did fight an enemy with medium and heavy armor in maneuver warfare was at the beginning of the war - the Battle of Khalkhin Gol, which included cavalry and sword charges against tank columns - and at the end of the war - the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria, which was a curbstomp battle that was completed inside of three weeks. It's lopsided in the extreme, and the Pacific islands weren't better - as the forces there had no strategic depth, no armor to speak of, no support and no reserves. Basically, they were fanatical blocking forces being taken apart in detail after the initiative was lost forever.

Personally, I love the idea of a third faction being comprised of blocking infantry protecting glass cannons, but only because I love playing the Soviets, and the Soviet war machine would eat that up for breakfast.

If you want Afrika Korps, or an Italian campaign, or Japanese island-hopping, you need to basically have a separate game entirely, or at the very least limited campaigns using period forces, so as not to overwhelm those armies with late-war heavy armor. A Japanese faction would work well in tandem with, say, a US Marines faction, where medium armor IS the heavy armor - essentially an American faction where you pull all the punches. Otherwise no dice.

Once again quoting history, while knowing nothing about their independent weapons and how they would translate in game. Seriously stop with the history discussion. By that equivalent I should get 20 T34s for ever P4 the german player builds.

No, I'm not going to stop quoting history. Why?

Because the Germans and Russians were at least comparatively matched. It was actually a question of who would win the war. By contrast, there was no question of who would win between Japan and the USA or Japan and Russia when it came to a ground war. There was no great battle on land where the tide was turned between those forces. There was no Stalingrad or Moscow equivalent. There wasn't even a back-and-forth like in North Africa, Ardennes or the Netherlands.

Likewise, there is simply no matching the equipment: Japan was simply outclassed on land. They managed to sweep colonial garrisons that basically had no armor, and then were themselves swept back when actual fighting forces came.

The game has a loose connection with history, it's true. But it still has a connection. Just how far should the suspension of disbelief be stretched for you? Hell, I don't even know why you're so hostile to the historical angle, since I gave you two scenarios where your wish could actually work.

But nobody wants to see Chi-Has go against IS2s. It's just laughable.

Russia versus Japan would be silly. The Battle of Manchuria was a curb-stomp. The Battle of Khalkhin Gol was also a curb-stomp.

When the Americans reached the Philippines, Japan was already in a downward spiral from which it would never recover. America didn't hardly even deploy any tank destroyers on Japanese-held lands because they weren't necessary.

That said, I believe if you want to fight in the Pacific Theatre, there are two options:

A) USMC vs IJA. This would require two things: 1) Maps that are particularly difficult for tanks to navigate, and 2) non-mirrored scenarios. That is to say, you can have a VP match where Japanese have the high ground with an artillery position, and the Americans have a beachhead, but not, say, the other way around.

B) IJA vs RoC(GMD/CCP). This would be a more evenly matched idea. IJA would have its light tanks and mechanized infantry, and the RoC would have the numbers and a hodgepodge of donated interwar tanks. This is, after all, where most of the IJA was tied up while the IJN was fighting the USN.

It's a rare commander for a reason.

Oh god I hope that's not the reason.

It needs a forge/craft system where you can do things like transmute 3 useless duplicated common bulletins into a random uncommon item, and so on.

I can already imagine:

Three hours gameplay per common item.
Three common items for one uncommon item.
Three uncommon items for one rare item.
Three rare items for a commander.

3*3*3*3=81*8=648 hours to grind all the new commanders.

And the sick thing? That's still better than the current system.