So my next question:
I guess mega mods like Ralles and FOTRSU don't allow the player to play as Japanese submariner or in other ships?
Are there mods that do allow that form of play?
Being quite new to the Silent Hunter series, I'm really impressed. I'd have to say SH 4, even just vanilla, is about as close to "perfect" as any game I've ever played. Of course no game can do everything, but the extent to which a game fulfills the limited intent it is designed for is what I mean by "perfect." SH 4 seems to do what it intends to do better than most games I've ever played. When I combine this with the facts that: (a) it manages to create seamless game play across huge expanses of time and space and (b) does a reasonable job of conveying the texture of obscure, subtle and complex historical war time dynamics, I conclude that it is in the very top 1% of games I'm aware of.
Not sure I'd call it my favorite yet, though it vies for that. It doesn't cover enough of the operational and logistical dynamics, nor are the character elements as rich as I would like for it to vie for favorite.
With all that said, I'm really surprised it took me this long to learn about this game, and I'm also surprised that Ubisoft has yet to build expansions on this engine that add additional WWII era naval and air warfare dynamics.
Long-term, I would love to be involved in developing a game that combined the best elements of the Silent Hunter series with something like
War in the Pacific. There is already a precedent for this type of game design, the
Battle of Britain II Wings of Victory game, in which the player can play the game at the level of a strategic commander, handling the distribution, and to some extent crewing and logistics of air groups, or play as a crewman on a specific aircraft, or both.