Well, Ryujo is 2/7/3 at 10,600 tons compared to o 11,190 so they are pretty much the same.
I think 2/7/3 is fair.
It is Ryuho that got screwed. We followed RB's lead from Shoho on that one. And on Zuiho too. It looks like we tried to beef up Zuiho with SA's, but that kind of armor difference is a long stretch.
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The last sentence has an "as" that seems like it should be a "before." (Unless she was under the cruiser's fire whilst being abandoned?)
Boy, you had me in a state for a minute or two! The cards have always said "Carrier" including the WotC cards. I checked!
I did a little more careful reading and it turns out there was more to her sinking than I thought. She was dead in the water from air attacks so other ships in the fleet took turns trying to take her under tow. But continued air attacks kept blocking the effort. Finally the remaining IJN ships were ordered to leave because the US fleet was approaching. The wiki article says "No survivors were permitted to be rescued" and the captain and entire crew went down with the ship. The article doesn't detail exactly who decided no survivors could be rescued, but from many other WWII stories I think it was official government policy or "cultural standard."
I have revised the flavor text accordingly
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Shoho as a data point is suspect. I think a bit of pop-culture-history might have slipped in.
I agree the costing of Shoho was not seemingly "consistent." But RB was more interested in balancing the two sides with the first deck and inevitably for a game like this he didn't get it perfect. The most glaring case of bias was the F4U Corsair and the George IMO. Nowhere to hide on that one.
If you want to go to 8 vital that is fine with me. Looking at Princeton (10,662 tons) might also be instructive, but it had armor while the others didn't. So 9 would clearly be too high.
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