[DeepSix]

No offense to anybody, but IMO if SH3 - even played at just 50% reality - is "easy" for a player after late 1943, that experience is the exception rather than the rule. For me the AI destroyers are tough enough - although I would agree that there's a need for better strategic AI (just as with weather).

In fact, my problem is that with SH3 by the end of '44 or '45 I can almost count on getting killed - from my point of view the AI is actually too hard; the lethality of ASW goes up too much, while the general skill of the AI does not. Same with planes. In SH3, if you see 1 and shoot it down (late war), the AI will respond by sending 2 or 3. Shoot those down, it sends 5 or 6. The more you shoot down, the more it throws at you, until you there are too many and you have to dive. Lethal, yes. Realistic, no.

So for me the problem with SH3 is, IMO, that the ability to survive falls into a linear progression from "so easy it's ridiculous" in the early war to "virtually impossible" by the end. That's just my two cents - but I rarely play the game on 100% real so my perspective may be skewed as a result.