Dear all, good evening/morning!
To answer quickly, for volume 1, a series of 30 to 40 scenarios is planned - you might only play one side, but it doesn't mean experience has to be dull and repetitive. These are basically made of three different kinds:
- The basic, classic ones, based around historical action and narrative. Some of them will be longer than others and might propose different starting point (for instance when it comes to the early May action: full Coral Sea starting on the eve of the Tulagi Raid, later on the Day Shoho Died & or simply the Final Confrontation with CarDiv5). Let's say that's one third.
- The variants: these are classic encounters with a twist. Examples, using Midway: different (and random) vector approach for KB at Midway, CarDiv5 & Lexington available at Midway, Zuikaku at Midway, IJN surprise at Midway with Saratoga joining the fray, Yorktown joining Point Luck late, etc... You get your second third.
- The hypothetical scenarios: Wake relief moving forward, Enterprise & Yorktown coming across Japanese carriers during the early raids, Doolittle raid's TF-16 getting closer to Japan undetected but coming across a Japanese Task Force, CarDiv 5 striking at the Watchtower landings, possibly Blue on Blue fleet problems, etc... And that's a final third.
When it comes to maps & battles, Pearl Harbor is sadly out of the picture for now, along with some other areas. We will focus on actual US carrier activities between December 1941 and January 1942 (pretty much all the way to the evacuation of Guadalcanal). Pearl Harbor - as will the Dutch East Indies/ABDA, the Indian Ocean and the Aleutians - will be kept for the second volume centered on the IJN. Naturally, the release of Vol.2 will mean that new scenarios will be available for the US side too (and hopefully by then adversarial Multiplayer will be a thing). As you can see, the whole PH battleship row is missing, and so are the IJN slow BBs. These will join the roster in Vol.2, along with a sizable chunk of the Royal Navy and other forces (such as the missing Dutch & Anzac units that have fought in the new areas). Vol.2 will also extend the time frame generously into 1943.
Besides, Volume 1 will come with a random battle generator and a full scenario builder (the kind of tool we will use ourselves for creating the original scenarios) because we can.
There you go ^^
Thanks everybody!