War on the Pacific Admiral's Edition

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by kstanb

You said, work out convoys............please don't tell me that auto-convoys are not working....

I am a new player, but from what I've seen, the auto-convoy system is as dumb as a box of rocks. I started using it in my grand campaign, but after a while I couldn't take it anymore. I repeatedly caught it sending convoys and destroyers between San Francisco and L.A., using valuble ships, and exposing them to Jap torpedos when both ports had thousands of tons of supplies, and could move whatever they need by rail. It would certainly be nice if you could trust the AI to do some of the more tedius chores, but that doesn't seem to work in this game.

[Raptor1]

Pardon my slightly belated reply, I was away without any methods of accessing the interpipes. I do not know how I managed to survive that horror. Anyway...

Originally Posted by Egan

No, you aren't going to see a game like WiTP:AE Again. I'm not trying to take anything away from War In the East. I know from plenty of people who have played it that it's a great game. The same goes for the fantastic Panther Games releases like Battles from the Bulge. But the fact is that so many of it's features, from one day turns to the quite terrifying level of micro management, are not going to be making a return again. As a whole, from the pilot management and logistics up, we're talking about a level of complexity that leaves virtually all the other Matrix titles behind. It's already been mentioned that any future WiTP 2 will be more similar to WiTE in terms of structure. So yes, I'm pretty sure that we are not going to get a game that takes two years to complete the campaign and immerses you in the sort of stupidly detailed mass-micromanagement to the level that you can (manually) reassign every single pilot in every squadron that fought in the Pacific campaign whilst simultaneously forgetting your quartermasters warning that a tiny level one atoll somewhere southeast of the malarial zone - on which is based a single company of naval support and a single yard patrol boat - just "ain't gonna feed itself."

The reissues are one thing, and it's good that there is a publisher that is willing to invest in older titles, but - and there are exceptions - a lot of the Matrix catalog looks badly dated. One of the reasons I love BftB so much is that it seem to me to be a conscious effort to move computer wargaming into a new place and do new things that don't rely on what was possible 40 years ago on a table top strategy game. It's an amazing title and it's one that I should play more of, especially now the expansion pack is out.

I'm not really sure that WitE is any less complex than WitP, they just focus more on features which are relevant to their theater. For example, WitE has much less detailed squadron management and an abstracted naval system, but it also has quite a few areas in which it is quite a bit more detailed than WitP, like land supply, railroads, partisans, not to mention everything related to actual land units and their chain of command. I'll admit that it doesn't really have anything I can compare to WitP's squadron and pilot management as far as micromanagement goes, but given the ludicrous amounts of units (Depending on which side you're playing, maneuver units go down to individual regiments with company and battalion attachments) and other things you have to keep track of that doesn't really seem that important.

In my experience it doesn't take any less time to finish a WitE campaign than it does to finish in WitP (Though I haven't played either all the way through yet, so I can be wrong). Even though the turn scale is bigger and it has less turns for a complete campaign, the amount of stuff you have to do in every single turn is much greater. For example, just managing the counter-air attacks at the start of the first German turn of the Barbarossa campaign can literally take you hours, though thankfully you can ask the AI to do it for you and go do something else for a while.

Incidentally, Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich (Also by Gary Grigsby and Matrix), has both one day simultaneous turns and some truly ridiculous micromanagement. And if you're looking for a game that takes years to complete...

[Egan]

If it really takes much the same length of time to complete a campaign in WiTE as is does in WiTP then I've been misinformed. Are the turns not a week in length rather than 1/2 days?

As for the rest of the features, it sounds like a very good title. I keep meaning to pick it up but I'm spending a small fortune on records at the moment so it's a little out of my reach for the time being. It's one that I've been meaning to buy for a long time now. Do you have the expansion pack?

I think I'll probably redo my first statement to this: Gary Grigsby, you won't see the likes of him again...

Seriously, the man has a quite terrifying history, doesn't he? I imagine this thing that has a head like the Mekon and lives in a tank filled by liquidized operation reports and history books. I'd say I wonder what he's like to go for a pint with but I doubt he probably gets out much.

I've always fancied playing Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich but I've only got one life (currently) and playing WiTP is exhausting enough.

I'm looking forward to the first hard information on War in the West, whenever it finally appears.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by Egan

I've always fancied playing Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich but I've only got one life (currently) and playing WiTP is exhausting enough.

I was interested in this, but if it isn't shorter than WitP, I have my doubts. Just because a game is about WW II, doesn't mean it should take as long as WW II.

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by Egan

If it really takes much the same length of time to complete a campaign in WiTE as is does in WiTP then I've been misinformed. Are the turns not a week in length rather than 1/2 days?

As for the rest of the features, it sounds like a very good title. I keep meaning to pick it up but I'm spending a small fortune on records at the moment so it's a little out of my reach for the time being. It's one that I've been meaning to buy for a long time now. Do you have the expansion pack?

I think I'll probably redo my first statement to this: Gary Grigsby, you won't see the likes of him again...

Seriously, the man has a quite terrifying history, doesn't he? I imagine this thing that has a head like the Mekon and lives in a tank filled by liquidized operation reports and history books. I'd say I wonder what he's like to go for a pint with but I doubt he probably gets out much.

I've always fancied playing Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich but I've only got one life (currently) and playing WiTP is exhausting enough.

I'm looking forward to the first hard information on War in the West, whenever it finally appears.

The turns are indeed weekly rather daily, so by absolute number of turns the campaign is much shorter. However, WitP has plenty of times where a turn consists of nothing more than checking reports and looking around while your units execute their orders, while in WitE you have to manually push hundreds or thousands of units around each turn while managing unit attachments, coordinating air activities, checking reports and various other things. So, while the amount of turns is shorter, I think the actual time it takes to complete the campaign more or less evens out.

PBEM would be a different matter as that usually goes at the same pace even if individual turns take longer, but I haven't played either WitE or WitP in PBEM yet, so I wouldn't know. Maybe I'll find an opponent after I finish my current TOAW PBEM game (Ah, that reminds me I have to continue updating my AAR too).

I do not have the expansion yet, unfortunately. There's been too much stuff I had to buy, but I'll get it at some point. The BftB expansion is first on my list, though.

As for Gary Grigsby. Yes, I think that should be an accurate description of him...