Topic: Coming soon: War in the Pacific, Struggle for Japan, an After Action report

[AcePylut]

Picked up this game, as soon as I got the mechanics of it down, I'm going to replay WW2 history right here on the computer.  This game covers the entire Pacific War (Dec 7th 1941- Aug '45), including the China-Burma-India theater.  The scale is individual ship (down to individual PT boats), aircraft squadron, and ground based regiment detail.  So needless to say, with such a scale for individual units for a war that covered half the world... it's quite massive.

I'll be playing it in one day turns... and you'll all get to see what happens.  I plan on starting this sucka in a month or two.

[IndyShark]

Sounds like fun!

[Vipre]

This from Matrix Games?

[AcePylut]

Yeah.  Kinda the "big brother" to UV.  Pacific War was the historical subject I've been interested in since I was 5 years old.  Admirals Edition is coming out in June, changes hex scale from 60miles to 40miles.

Gimme a month or two to get up to speed on the differences between UV and WITP, upload a couple of the "more realistic" mods, and lets see what happens.

Me, I just wanna drop an atom bomb on Japan.  Gonna have to go through three years of war to get there though

[Vipre]

I have to give major credit to Matrix. I keep a rewritable cd around with a constantly updated copy of Steel Panthers: World at War on it. No naval aspect, but storming islands as the Marines is oh so satisfying.

If they could just mix Strategic, Operational and Tactical levels into one game I'd be hooked.

[AcePylut]

Me 2!

Matrix Games makes some great grog games, I must say.  Uncommon Valor, well heck, when I was like 5 years old I watched MIdway and got into the Black Sheep Squadron TV Series, so I was hooked on the battles in the South Pacific from that date.  Cops and Robbers?  Cowboys and Indians?  No, me and my brother played Japs and Allies.  UV was great to fed that addiction.

I also have Highway to the Reich, which in itself is a really fun game.  It's a RTS game, as in Real-Time-Simulation.

War in the Pacific, well the 70$ price tag turned me off, but since I had a little $$ left over from Xmas... I've got it now

[Hexx]

I've looked at it- does it have the sort of "open ended" builds/research or is it more fixed?
ie- Can Japan (say) build up more carriers and fewer  batleships, or develop turbjets?
CAn either side get the a-bomb?

[Lloyd007]

I don't have the game but reading all the AAR's on the Matrixgames forums is fascinating. Dark Side of the Moon is hilarious.

Building seems to be fixed but flexible for Japan i.e. there are only X destroyers/cruisers/carriers but there are plenty to build and you won't be able to build them all unless you have a dynamite economy. Research is similar for Japan.

Allies production is fixed which does cause problems wrt some aircraft designs if you mess up badly ie you have 100 produced of your crappy 1941 aircraft in 1944 but only 100 produced of your great 1943 aircraft as well which leads to some entirely implausible situations. As the allies you get more stuff than you know what to do with later in the war though...

[AcePylut]

Allies can get the bomb.  Something like 1 per month starting in July '45 or so.

Problem with the bomb is that for each bomb you use after the second one (I think), you automatically lose a "victory level".  So if my points would have given me a decisive allied victory, and I use three nukes, I only get a "(whatever level is below decisive) allied victory".

But I don't care. Bastards shouldn't have attacked us, and I"m going to nuke 'em.

I plotted my first turn (dec 8th) yesterday - after messing around with the game for a week "figuring it out".  Took me 4 hours.  But that's just the first turn.  Supposedly, that will drop to like 15-20 mins per turn once things get going.

[AcePylut]

I like the AAR's over there on matrixgames too, except for the ones that just post the combat reports. 

[Dracho]

I have this game and I've never had the time to invest to get beyond spring '42.

[AcePylut]

Well if it's like I play UV, then I'll play it heavy for a while, take a break, come back, take a break.

My only question is... do I start an AAR "now" (i.e. in a month or two), or wait for Admirals Edition (coming in Summer 08) and start one with AE? 

[Hexx]

Remember most wargames need a few patches after they're released, so more likely Winter before it's running.

[Dracho]

Wow.. that Admiral's edition looks interesting.  Your post made me dust this off, and after the latest patch, it seems to play a little easier.

[AcePylut]

Seems pretty smooth so far on my system.  I decided to load the CHS Mod and NikMod Air to Air, cuz they kinda answer "every single plane on CAP flying all the time" sort of thing.

[Dracho]

Mods?  Where did you find them?

[AcePylut]

In reading the AAR's, I found out a lot about how the various mods affect combat.

Then I clicked on the stickied thread about "links for WITP" (whatever the name is), and looked in the mod section.  There are some links to various mods there.

I loaded up the CHS and NikMod.

CHS requires a slightly extended map, and has a more accurate OOB.  The NikMod addresses Air to Air combat, and stops some of the silliness in air to air... specifically... if you set, for example, 100 fighters to CAP, all 100 of those fighters will attempt to make an intercept on every strike that comes in.  This isn't accurate, as this basically means the planes fly from sunup to sundown with no need to land and refuel and such.  Nikmod restricts how much CAP actually files (in addition to the % you can set in the AirGroup orders page), but that, of course, could lead to heavily outnumbered CAP... and given the "stock" A2A engine, numbers really matter in that instance... so the mod also reduces losses your CAP takes (to simulate the fact that bomber escorts don't pursue fleeing fighters 'much'). 

Basically, in stock WITP, when you decided to take a base (or vice versa), the Air battle for that base would be decided in a couple-three days.  With NikMod, that battle can take weeks, which is far more accurate imho than stock.  So that's why I went with NikMod on top of CHS.

Also, reading the forum, these two mods seem to have the least amount of detractors.

[Vipre]

Best of luck on this. I looked through the manual and walked through the tutorial scenario and that is a lot of details to manage. Total control over the entire Pacific is hard for me to imagine.

[AcePylut]

YOu just pick it up?

I played a bit of it's older brother Uncommon Valor, so I was able to skip past a lot of the manual and tutorial...

It takes me about 30 minutes to plot a "normal" turn.  I suspect that on turns where I'm plotting a major action it will take longer... but basically, in that 30 minutes, I cycle through all my bases and check on all my tf's.  Most of the time I just "check to make sure it's ok" (as in, my supply tf from LA to PH travelled 3 hexes, and it's half way there, nothing to change, no boats or subs around, continue onward... next tf...) and adjust my flight squadrons.

I'd imagine that those turns where I"m taking major actions (plotting an assault on Rabaul for example) will take longer.



First turn is definitely the biggest turn so far.  Gotta plot everything on that turn.  Phew.

[Dracho]

It takes a lot less time if you put the British in India and all of China under computer control.  The game lets you be a total control freak, or not so much.