War in the Pacific (Admiral's Edition)

[Te Kaha]

Is there anyone playing this game, or pondering to buy it?

Am asking because I am thinking about buying it, but reading the reviews, this title seems to have such a depth that you can more or less forget about real life... I'm married with kids...

Opinions?

[eddie]

I have the original version of WitP, so get ready for lots of detail and micromanaging,lol If you like those things in a sim, then go for it! But,keep 2 things in mind before you do-

1-Check to see if your family has any problems with you being in front of your pc for long extended periods of time,like on weekends, during holidays, meal times, etc.

2-Make sure your employer will put up with you missing a day here and there, and ask him to overlook your appearence when you show up late, and looking like you haven't slept or shaved in about 3 days!:rotfl2:

[Torplexed]

Is there anyone playing this game, or pondering to buy it?

Am asking because I am thinking about buying it, but reading the reviews, this title seems to have such a depth that you can more or less forget about real life... I'm married with kids...

Opinions?

It's not for the faint of heart. I've played the Coral Sea scenario and the Guadalcanal one, but have yet to take the campaign game plunge. It certainly helps if you have a deep abiding interest in the subject matter of the Pacific War, as it was hardly an even contest as time goes on and Japan slowly gets buried by Allied material advantages. The toughest part is tackling the situation in China where the Allies are blessed with many, many almost worthless Chinese units on a long meandering front. Happily there is a campaign scenario now where this sector remains mostly quiet, so you don't have to micro-manage it. If you play as Japan you really have to struggle to manage Japan's industry well as most resources are overseas and you never seem to have enough merchant ships.

I do like the little touches they have added. Your ships in combat can take damage from each other as well as the enemy in the form of collisions. The Pearl Harbor attack can be a one day affair or go through several days of repeat attacks. The "improved" fog of war means it may be months before you confirm through intelligence that an enemy ship you think you sank in battle did sink...or was even that particular ship. All in all well done. :cool:

[Arclight]

Still considering getting this for Christmas. imho it's the ultimate naval sim, if you have the time to play it. The scale is just mind-boggling. :o

[Te Kaha]

Thanks for the input, gentlemen. Just one more question, how long does it take on average to play a single turn?

[Torplexed]

Thanks for the input, gentlemen. Just one more question, how long does it take on average to play a single turn?

I've heard of some people taking many hours if not a whole day with the first turn as you have to set invasion and strike force convoys in motion as Japan, move aircraft forward from rear areas to better bases, start loading troops and supplies in follow-up convoys, move subs to likely interdiction points, fortify far-flung bases, decide which ships to convert or stop production on, start expanding airfields and ports, lay mines, set optimum aircraft patrols, set priority for which ships receive repair first, etc, etc. If playing as the Allies you have to react to all these moves in a similar fashion.

Once past that point it's not nearly as bad as task forces and ground regiments often many turns to reach their destinations. Maybe an hour or even less for a turn if not much is happening. Although it doesn't hurt to keep a note book of what is going where for why as the one-day turns means that supply convoy you loaded with P-40 fighter planes on December 8th in San Diego on the US West Coast won't arrive in Sydney, Australia until February and you may have forgotten where you intended those aircraft to go from there, or even that that particular convoy existed. :D All those subs take a bit of micro-managing too.

[Dowly]

Jebus! Who has time for games like this? :o

[Torplexed]

Jebus! Who has time for games like this? :o

Real strategic level game micro-management freaks. :D Which I'll admit to being guilty of at times.

I was born in Japan and lived for several years as a youth in Okinawa so I've always been deeply interested in the Pacific War. Plus, the game system seems to fit the theater real well.

[Dowly]

Is there a demo or something? I dont mind games like this, but they gotta be goooood for me to keep the interest up. :hmmm:

[Torplexed]

Is there a demo or something? I dont mind games like this, but they gotta be goooood for me to keep the interest up. :hmmm:

No demo unless you want to pick up the original WITP which is probably cheap now. I can direct you to the forum for WitP Admirals Edition.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=528

However, it's an old school war game originally released in 2004 without much in the way of animation or visuals. You're basically at the position of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or Imperial HQ moving lots and lots of little flags around the giant table top map. There's some very simple animation for combat, but a lot is left to the imagination. The AARs are probably useful to read at first.

[Dowly]

Thanks mate, will have a look. :salute:

[eddie]

Have to mention this Dowly, if you get the original WitP, don't expect a whole lot from the AI. It was supposed to be fixed, but they decided they would have to rewrite too much of the code, and that's one of the main reasons the AE came out, easier to write new code then fix the old. That sim is best played against a human opponent, they have had some great times doing that.

[Gibbons]

WITP is not really a sim. It is turn based, and as noted it is definitely for someone who likes detail.

For instance, you can give units, ranging from commando size to divisions, a future objective for which they will begin to prepare as if they are training. Their training progresses from 0-100. If you just load them on a transport without preparing them and dump them on some atoll they will take horrendous casualties. Also, if you don't use proper landing craft and instead say load them on a cargo ship, which unloads slowly and with alot of confusion, they will take higher casualties, much like the real war. It is also best to have an HQ (headquarters) unit with the invasion force as it reduces their confusion and boosts their fighting ability some. Tip: As soon as you get a new ground unit at one of the staging bases like San Francisco or Karachi, immediately give it a target to prepare for. Even if you change it later at least you have them getting ready for SOMETHING rather than twidding their thumbs.

If the island has any defensive guns you need to send fleets there to pound the base into submission before invading, and/or include some cruisers or battleships with the invasion fleet to absorb defensive gunnery and fire back.

The first year is pretty much a holding action for the Americans as everything they have is outclassed by the Japanese, especially the aircraft. And you don't have alot of stuff where it needs to be. So you'll spend the first few months loading transports at San Francisco/LA, Karachi, to build up forward bases and resupply and reinforce Australia. Moving bomber and fighter groups to forward areas (long range bombers can fly from SF to Pearl, but fighters and smaller bombers have to be loaded on transports and shipped there. It all takes time. The replacements for lost aircraft are also slow at the beginning, and the experience level and morale of air crews is low so losses are relatively high. If you send a bomber group to bomb a base and they take high losses, morale drops alot and you then have to idle those squadrons or groups for a week or two to allow them to recover.

At the start the Jap carriers and planes far outclass the U.S. stuff so any direct confrontations will not go well. The same for any contact between U.S. carrier TFs and longrange land-based bombers.

The first order of business (when you start a whole-war campaign) is to load up tranports and get supplies and fuel moving from the U.S. mainland and Karachi to Pearl and Australia. Pick a few of the larger Aussie bases and make them main supply depos, keeping them supplied with the maximum supplies and fuel, then distributing from those out to any forward smaller bases. All transports should be either loading, unloading, or moving at all times. I use Noumea, Brisbane and Broome in the south Pacific, and Colombo and Diamond Harbor near India.

The first few turns take more than an hour and as noted you could spend hours if you wanted to. After that the time diminishes down to as little as fifteen minutes. Depends how 'hands on' you are, i.e. if you want to check every single unit every turn. If not the turns can go quickly.

If you like the detail this game is great. One of the best done of the Pacific War. It isn't perfect but it gets close enough.

Gibbons

[Maserati]

Tip: As the Allied player, hold on to Rabaul. I've had some fantastic battles around that spot. The Aussies have just enough to put a defense force with a little air cover on the island before the IJN shows up in force. it totally breaks the back of their Southern strategy.

Raiding supply routes with carriers is also a big plus, I nailed a fleet HQ and all the transports carrying it once.

[Arclight]

Cool, an actually decent manual! Remember those days? :lol:

[Torplexed]

Cool, an actually decent manual! Remember those days? :lol:

Yes...it is a nice manual. Just a shame they couldn't have substituted the 'Printed in China' label on the back with one that says 'Printed the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.' ;)

[Arclight]

Lucky me, don't have any such label. :hmmm:

It's gonna take me a week before I end my first turn. :lol:

[Egan]

Seriously thinking about buying this. Having decided to probably permanently pass on HOI3 I have a gap in my schedules for a decent and detailed strategy game. I know it's not exactly the same game as HOI3 but to me thats a major plus point! I have a copy of Uncommon Valor around somewhere that I loved but this looks crazy good.

The one downside is the price. Obviously if they are going to the trouble of printing a full colour manual I should support that but it's nearly 60 quid by the time postage is added in....not a cheap shot by any means - regardless of how many years I'll be playing it for.

[Raptor1]

Pass on HoI3 permanently, what's so wrong with it?

Anyway, from what I've seen now (Which is not nearly close to everything), I can already recommend WITPAE if you have the time to spare playing it and the patience...

[Egan]

Pass on HoI3 permanently, what's so wrong with it?

I liked it at first but started getting frustrated with it. This has happened to me with a couple of Paradox titles over the last couple of years. It's not an issue with bugs - bugs happen - but a general feeling it's not what I'm looking for any more. Hey, I liked it about a thousand times more than I liked 'Rome' but it just seemed to be missing some quality that pulls all the great ideas in it together.

Permanently was the wrong word perhaps. I'll probably take another look at it once the inevitable expansion comes out but for now it doesn't do it for me.

[Egan]

OK. Just bought it. Once my heart and wallet recover from the price (£70?? :wah:)and I finish downloading the updates I'll have a quick look tonight.

I reinstalled Uncommon Valor for the first time in years the other night. All that did though was make me hungry for the whole theatre.

Can't wait to get the printed manual. it looks like required reading and I always prefer to do that with a hard copy.

[Torplexed]

OK. Just bought it. Once my heart and wallet recover from the price (£70?? :wah:)and I finish downloading the updates I'll have a quick look tonight. Can't wait to get the printed manual. it looks like required reading and I always prefer to do that with a hard copy.

A quick note. There are some major changes to the interface and pilot management that come with the updates that won't be in the printed manual. They are in the "Manuals" folder of the game as Adobe Acrobat Files.

[Skybird]

How is stability and bugs in WitPAE? I've recently re-engaged in several really tough correspondence chess matches again, and I feel like I could get interested in another, different longtime strategy effort as well.

[Egan]

Finally had time to burn through the Coral sea scenario tonight: I got my ass kicked and no mistake. Lost the Yorktown, lost a bunch of cruisers and destroyers, the Lexington was losing the battle to stay afloat on her way down to Brisbane and the Japanese flag was flying above Port Moresby. Not a good night.

On the plus side my subs puts torps in quite a few IJN ships including one of their carriers. I can see myself getting obsessed by the Submarine war when I play the full campaign. It still feels pricey to me but I think I'm going to be playing this for years so I can't complain too much. I wish my hard copy would come so I can get my hands on the manual.

@Skybird. I admit I don't have too much experience so far but the game seems very stable to me. The official forums don't seem to be reporting too many issues but they are still patching and updating. Doesn't seem too bad so far.

[Skybird]

Do updates interrupt running campaigns: must they be restarted or can the running match (save game) be carried on? That's an issue especially if you do the full campaign (which I assume is included).

Nothing better than having invested some days or weeks of micromanged playing the game, being in the middle of the campaign, and then the update kills the match prematurely. If that is the case I probably would wait another year or so before getting into it.

[Egan]

Do updates interrupt running campaigns: must they be restarted or can the running match (save game) be carried on? That's an issue especially if you do the full campaign (which I assume is included).

Nothing better than having invested some days or weeks of micromanged playing the game, being in the middle of the campaign, and then the update kills the match prematurely. If that is the case I probably would wait another year or so before getting into it.

That I do not know. What I do know is that there is at least one major patch to come but I have no idea of the timescale.

[Torplexed]

Finally had time to burn through the Coral sea scenario tonight: I got my ass kicked and no mistake. Lost the Yorktown, lost a bunch of cruisers and destroyers, the Lexington was losing the battle to stay afloat on her way down to Brisbane and the Japanese flag was flying above Port Moresby. Not a good night.

Yeah...the same thing happened to me when I first fired up that scenario. The trick to win is to cripple the Japanese invasion fleet so they won't have enough troops to take Port Moresby. Your goal is not sinking the Japanese carriers but the Japanese troop transports. :cool:

Put Lexington and Yorktown close to each other headed NW with 50% of fighters on CAP and search planes from all fleets and ground based planes searching E and NE to try and spot the invasion fleet when they sail around the eastern tip of New Guinea to get to Port Moresby. Send your surface fleet of cruisers to Port Moresby, using the CV fleets for cover. If you are lucky, you will pounce on the PM invasion fleet before the Japanese carriers spot you. If you succeed, then run south. You don't want to stick around to slug it out with the Shokaku and the Zuikaku. They have better fighters and torpedoes.

[Torplexed]

Do updates interrupt running campaigns: must they be restarted or can the running match (save game) be carried on? That's an issue especially if you do the full campaign (which I assume is included).

Nothing better than having invested some days or weeks of micromanged playing the game, being in the middle of the campaign, and then the update kills the match prematurely. If that is the case I probably would wait another year or so before getting into it.

No WITP AE update (to date) has required a restart, though some changes (primarily date changes) do not take effect until a new game is started. I don't expect any of the code changes currently being looked at would only work with a fresh start, they should apply to ongoing games as well.

[Skybird]

Thanks. The game is marked on my list for some time later this year, then.

[Raptor1]

When I first ran the Coral Sea scenario, I managed to bomb Shoho and the Japanese transport fleet to oblivion (Well, a couple of half-crippled ships managed to unload at Morsbey, but not nearly enough troops to take it), then the 5th KS came out of nowhere and obliterated both my carriers without me so much as sighting them, at which point I withdrew the rest of my ships and let the Japanese troops landed at Port Morsbey waste themselves in a few ill-fated attacks.

[Arclight]

Ditto. With the carriers gone it feels like a Phyrric victory though. :-?

[Egan]

Yeah...the same thing happened to me when I first fired up that scenario. The trick to win is to cripple the Japanese invasion fleet so they won't have enough troops to take Port Moresby. Your goal is not sinking the Japanese carriers but the Japanese troop transports. :cool:

Put Lexington and Yorktown close to each other headed NW with 50% of fighters on CAP and search planes from all fleets and ground based planes searching E and NE to try and spot the invasion fleet when they sail around the eastern tip of New Guinea to get to Port Moresby. Send your surface fleet of cruisers to Port Moresby, using the CV fleets for cover. If you are lucky, you will pounce on the PM invasion fleet before the Japanese carriers spot you. If you succeed, then run south. You don't want to stick around to slug it out with the Shokaku and the Zuikaku. They have better fighters and torpedoes.

In my second run through last night i basically sent the two carrier groups west and north and absolutely slaughtered the invasion fleet. They had already started landing troops by that point but without the ships the ground forces kinda just sat there and got taken apart. Although neither of my carriers were damaged, i was pretty shocked by how badly their squadrons got mauled; by the end of the second day of attacks on the invasion fleet, both Dauntless squadrons were down to a couple of aircraft each. I think I have more reading and playtesting to do before I get comfortable with altitutes, mission settings and so forth.

Aside from that, I never got a sniff of the IJN carriers nor did a single one of my subs even spot an enemy ship. Aside from this It all went pretty well. I might have a look at the Guadalcanal scenario tonight.

[Egan]

What a game. I'm still playing the Guadalcanal scenario but having a blast. Still having problems figuring out land based supply movement but i'm sure I'll get there. Currently up to mid December '42 and thinking about invading Shortlands.

The big turning point so far was on the 10th of September when my carrier task-force ran into the IJN task-force by mistake. They put both the Saratoga and Wasp into the ship yard (Sara is still there but I could bring her back to readiness if I really needed to,) and I thought I was in real trouble but I managed to sink both the IJN CV's. The first one took 5 torpedo hits and a bunch of thousand pounders, and went down very quickly. The second survived until the next morning with heavy damage but died under repeated air attacks.

With those two out of the way I could suddenly move troop and ships with relative impunity. It altered the whole balance of power and allowed me to get GC running as an effective airfield. I've got about 4 DB squadrons and a couple of fighters there now. Once I've decided about Shortlands I'll move the heavies up and start thumping Rabaul.

The two things I've learned so far are: advice wise, the best thing to do is get a sheet of paper and a magic marker and write 'Get the carriers!' on it in block capitals then stick it up somewhere you can see it. The second thing is: Betties terrified me at first due to there extremely long range but the thing to remember is that you can blow them up by throwing lit matches at them. They're kind of brittle..

Has anyone noticed that the Allied torpedoes seem a tiny bit more reliable since the last patch? Seem to be getting slightly better results with them than before.

[Raptor1]

I'm also running the Guadalcanal scenario (Now that I've managed to get a draw as the Allies in The Thousand-Mile War), but this time as the Japanese. Quite heavily botched the initial operations, half the initial CA force damaged after a failed attack on the beachead (Tried to do a Savo Island-style massacre, but the Allied carriers were still there when I came in and severely damaged my ships before I could inflict too much damag; did put a couple of CAs out of action in the night engagement though.) and the Rabaul fast transport force obliterated by air attacks a day later.

Luckily I got my revenge in a late naval battle in late August. First North Carolina and Enterprise were put out of action by submarine attacks and forced to retire. Then the 5th KS and the Baby KB came in north of Malaita and smashed the retreating American carrier force, sinking Wasp and a few smaller ships in the process. My carriers pursued to the southeast of the Solomons, finding Saratoga and obliterating her. Then I ordered a few bombing runs into and around Espiritu Santo (I think I hit some transports and a couple of minor craft), but an Allied submarine put a torpedo into Zuikaku and I had to pull out.

This massive defeat of the Allied carrier force allowed me to stream a large surface fleet, with battleships, cruisers and destroyers, and obliterate the airfield on Guadalcanal, ending the threat to my supply runs for the time being. Though I kinda botched up the supply planning, hopefully I can fix it without causing too much damage to myself in the process.

Getting mixed results from my ground troops. My troops held Lunga for about a week or two before retreating, and my troops on Tulagi held it until about the end of the month (I think there might even be some survivors still fighting there, or they were just annihilated a couple of turns ago); I landed reinforcements and plenty of supplies in Tassafornga after the naval battle ended, so I shouldn't have trouble holding on to it for the time being (Especially if I can intercept the Allied supply/reinforcement runs). By comparison, the heavily outnumbered Australians on the Kokoda Trail are mopping the floor with my assaults; think I need to consider another naval invasion attempt on PM...

[Egan]

My only complaint with the game, and it's really no real issue at all, is that it didn't ship with more of the smaller scenarios. I've downloaded the Marianas one and 'Buccaneer' but I'd love to see one with maybe Leyte gulf or Okinawa. Even a couple of later starting grand campaigns might be good.

I'm itching to start the full campaign though. Maybe a run through with 'Quiet China' on until I find my feet.

I'm beginning to get excited by 'War in the East' coming out in the summer. Barbarossa with this level of fidelity should be something worth playing.

[Egan]

The 7th Australian div. captured Buna on Dec, 16 1942. They seem to be having problems supplying bases after all the ships I've sunk. I got intel at the start of October that at least two regiments were moving to Guadalcanal and I got my carriers and battleships there before they arrived. Over the course of three days I was credited with sinking over 50 ships, including several cruisers. It was horrible: constant air attacks backed up by the surface combat TFs picking off whatever tried to run. They had air cover from Rabaul for the first day and then nothing.

I also made a classic mistake. I forgot to withdraw 4 squadrons on heavy bombers in November and by the time I realised it at the end of Demember I had paid the cost in political points. Not good. Not good at all. I learned my lesson though...It's going to be a while before I can change any more unit HQ's and ship them out to GC. .

[Egan]

Well, I've reached November 1942 in the full campaign as Allies against AI Japan and it's going Ok. I've been both lucky and careful so far and have sunk far more of his ships than he has mine, thanks in no small part to my habit of getting divebombers into contested locations and the incredible Dutch Submarine Fleet who have sunk three IJN CVL's, a battleship, several cruisers and numerous marus. For my part I've got both Hermes and Hornet in dry dock along side many cruisers but I have actually lost nothing other than a few cruisers, destroyers and a bunch of merchies - mostly to those demonic Bettys.

I lucked out on the first turn roll and never lost a single battleship (even the worst damaged was back in action by May...but have lost more submarines than I would have expected. Fair enough, several of them fell to the KB when docked, mostly when it launched a surprise attack on eastern Oz and caught me totally unprepared. The only sinking that has 'upset' me so far was Freddy Warder in Seawolf who was notching up some impressive tonnage and was third or so behind Thresher and S-43 ( I've tried to pay attention to the sub war as you might expect.) Seawolf got smashed up just off Milne bay by IJN escorts and got caught again the next day as she tried to make it to a friendly port. She actually survived the second attack but was never going to escape and was ordered to scuttle the boat.

Landwise. I'm prepping for the invasion of Guadalcanal and Tulagi (D-Day is New Years Day 1943 as long as I get supplies and transports in place. The troops are training at Luganville ( now known as Leatherneck Island by the other services due to the sheer number of Marines there,) and I'm building up Buna, Merauke and Darwin to support future ops. In Chittagong, the Chindits are preparing for my first Airborne operation of the war. They will drop into Burma in about a months time just prior to my first large scale attempt to take back what's mine.

It's taken me a very long time to get supply convoys going but they seem to be working now. I wouldn't mind more fuel getting to Australia but aside from that I'm doing fine. I'd be happier if I knew the current location of the Japanese Death Star, though. Still, you cant have everything.