War in the Pacific Admirals Edition

[Stealhead]

Anyone ever played "War in the Pacific Admirals Edition"? My wife gave me a copy as an anniversary gift a couple days ago and I just got the time to actually play it. All I can say is that if you are a WWII PTO buff or are a grognard you will love this game it is insanely detailed very historically accurate you can even select when you start a game if the USN torpedoes are reliable.

I have to say that this game is pretty advanced though you really get the feel of having to manage a war in and around the largest ocean on earth.Another ding is the price it sells for $80.00 so it is a bit pricey but if you are hard core into war gaming and really have much interest in the PTO it is wroth the cost of admission.Oh and it of course has submarine operations.

I have always wanted a war game that would allow me to play as Japan that actually is realistic from a historical standpoint just to see if I really can win at last I have one.I personally think that you can do it but several operations must go your way perfectly.

[Raptor1]

Yes, it's horridly expensive, but it's a great game. Egan has a rather nice multiplayer AAR around here somewhere even...

Also check out Gary Grigsby's War in the East, which is WitP:AE's Eastern Front equivilant. Those two are probably the most detailed WWII wargames ever made...

[Dowly]

WitE is amazing! Picked the smallest scenario apart from the tutorial one (Road to Minsk IIRC)
and it took me 30-40 minutes to move 1 army of the 3 or 4 I had.

I've heard WitP is even "worse" in that the stock scenarios are ridiculous in size.

[Stealhead]

I honestly have not been as excited by a war game since I first played PTO II on the SNES back in what 95 or 96 that was a pretty good game all things considered and it got me into war games I just picked that one up on a whim it was about the PTO so I grabbed it there was one copy at the base BX.

I saw the War in the East on the Matrix games sight that looks pretty damn good as well of course $80.00 but honestly that is not so bad if you really like the subject matter and you clearly get a ton of playability from such a games as well.

For me vastness is a good thing I enjoy all that though Im sure you guys do as well or you'd not even know what I was talking about.

I read on a youtube clip for WiTE so guy posted that it took him 2 hours to move all of his armies he was playing as the Germans and it was the first day of Barbarossa.


There is another one called "War Plan Orange: Dreadnoughts in the Pacific 1922 - 1930" that looks pretty interesting.

[Egan]

Originally Posted by Raptor1

Yes, it's horridly expensive, but it's a great game. Egan has a rather nice multiplayer AAR around here somewhere even...

Also check out Gary Grigsby's War in the East, which is WitP:AE's Eastern Front equivilant. Those two are probably the most detailed WWII wargames ever made...

The AAR of my PBEM against the mysteriously vanished Happy Times is right here. Probably safe to say it's pretty dead now, unfortunately.

As Raptor1 says it's expensive, although it appears to be a darn sight cheaper than when I bought it. The price is the downside.

The upside is that it is the most stupidly detailed wargame I've ever seen. I love it. I'm actually starting a new Allied game against the AI but plan to find a new partner one of these days so I can try it as the Japanese side.

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by Dowly

WitE is amazing! Picked the smallest scenario apart from the tutorial one (Road to Minsk IIRC)
and it took me 30-40 minutes to move 1 army of the 3 or 4 I had.

I've heard WitP is even "worse" in that the stock scenarios are ridiculous in size.

Ah, you get used to it.

There's a (pretty famous) TOAW scenario called Fire in the East which has the whole Eastern Front at a Regiment/half-week scale. It has about about twice as many turns and around 3 times as many units per side (Especially for the Axis) compared to WitE, now that's a pain to handle...

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Egan

The AAR of my PBEM against the mysteriously vanished Happy Times is right here. Probably safe to say it's pretty dead now, unfortunately.

As Raptor1 says it's expensive, although it appears to be a darn sight cheaper than when I bought it. The price is the downside.

The upside is that it is the most stupidly detailed wargame I've ever seen. I love it. I'm actually starting a new Allied game against the AI but plan to find a new partner one of these days so I can try it as the Japanese side.

I would be up for that but I will need to get the feel of the game a bit first.

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

I read on a youtube clip for WiTE so guy posted that it took him 2 hours to move all of his armies he was playing as the Germans and it was the first day of Barbarossa.


There is another one called "War Plan Orange: Dreadnoughts in the Pacific 1922 - 1930" that looks pretty interesting.

The starting turns in WitE take a long time for the Axis because they have to execute a ludicrous amount of moves and air attacks (Well technically you can leave those to the AI, but it still takes a while). After that it's more manageable. The Soviets start out with very little to do as their lines invariably collapse, but they have a lot more units to manage later on.

I have War Plan Orange as well. It's based on the original WitP so it doesn't have Admiral's Edition's new stuff, but it's pretty well detailed and has a very nice premise. It also shouldn't be very expensive. I hope they make an updated version of it at some point...

[Arclight]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

I honestly have not been as excited by a war game since I first played PTO II on the SNES back in what 95 or 96 that was a pretty good game all things considered and it got me into war games I just picked that one up on a whim it was about the PTO so I grabbed it there was one copy at the base BX.

Same for me, except that I still haven't gotten around to playing it much... The manual is always on my desk, permanently within reach. Page through it now and then, but haven't gotten much further than that.

That has to mean it's awesome, right? When you spend more time with the manual than it takes to finish other games.

[Torplexed]

I played it a LOT last year. Got to mid-1943 as the Allies, with Japan as good as beaten but with many turns to go to make it official. It's an awesome game, almost it's own universe since there is so much minutiae to deal with. But the full campaign takes so long to play. I always thought it would have been the perfect game when I was a teenager and had few responsibilities to compete with it, or for when retired. (like that's ever gonna happen now.)

Originally Posted by Stealhead

I have always wanted a war game that would allow me to play as Japan that actually is realistic from a historical standpoint just to see if I really can win at last I have one.I personally think that you can do it but several operations must go your way perfectly.

Might be doable against the AI, but is gonna be real tough against a human Allied player. You have to score those early victories quick with some pretty limited and scattered land forces and the avalanche of reinforcements and goodies the Allies get as the game wears on is overwhelming.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Arclight

Same for me, except that I still haven't gotten around to playing it much... The manual is always on my desk, permanently within reach. Page through it now and then, but haven't gotten much further than that.

That has to mean it's awesome, right? When you spend more time with the manual than it takes to finish other games.

I know the feeling sometimes with complex games I like to sort up jump in feet first and read the manual as I go along.It might take me a while to get the feel for the game though school is in session again and my daughter uses the same PC that my games are on so I will only be getting maybe a few hours a week of gaming time I should really just buy her a basic PC at some point but then again I'd still be busy with school related activities I get that duty because my line of work slows down a bit in the winter months.

@Torplexed yeah I think "winning" as Japan would be pretty hard against a human player unless the other player knew nothing about WWII.

@Raptor War Plan is $40.00 I think so cheaper than WitP or WitE.

How about Gary Grigsby's Eagle Day to Bombing of the Reich is it any good?It looks decent.

[Egan]

It depends on what you mean by winning. A good IJN player can certainly get a points victory - the famous Autovictory - but, imo, they have to fulfill certain criteria in order to achieve it.

I think Autovictory is only possible before mid 43 when US and Allied production tips the scales permanently into their favour. After this time Japan has virtually no chance because, quite simply, the US can replace virtually everything he loses. Japan can't.

Before this point, Japan stands a good chance if the player is good enough. I think he must commit, even before the game starts, to one of three options: Take Australia; take Pearl and several other high value secondary bases; take India. To the best of my recollection no one has achieved the last of these three options so far. The IJN player would also have to decisively beat the Allies in a succession of naval battles to garner the points from the sinking of capital ships.

Stealhead, If you are just starting out I recommend you play the Guadalcanal scenario a couple of times as a tutorial. It's a great starter because it gives you experience and training of several key facets of the game straight away: Amphibious assaults and operations, land combat, setting up airbases and maintaining your LBA umbrellas, carrier ops and supply movement. All of these are important but in the grand campaign in might be months before you get a chance to try some of them.

[Stealhead]

I suppose that the Japanese basically had that plan of action but they never got the chance to delay the US Navy for very long and things did not go their way from the start.I have read that the Japanese had originally planned to send an additional wave at Pearl that was to focus on destroying the fuel storage depots at Pearl but they where concerned that the missing US CVs might be near by so they chose not to.I think they made a poor decision because destroying or even seriously damaging those fuel depots would have seriously effected US Navy operational ability.

I am trying out the Coral Sea scenario at the moment I managed to sink the Lexington in and I did damage the Yorktown in another attack.I am doing ok so far I have not landed troops at Port Moresberry yet so we will see.There is not much to work with in this scenario though so I think I will try out the Guadalcanal scenario it does seem to have more to work with and learn.

I did find a very nice little site made by some Australian(or maybe Kiwi) guy who went and made several videos showing you how to do things.

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

I suppose that the Japanese basically had that plan of action but they never got the chance to delay the US Navy for very long and things did not go their way from the start.I have read that the Japanese had originally planned to send an additional wave at Pearl that was to focus on destroying the fuel storage depots at Pearl but they where concerned that the missing US CVs might be near by so they chose not to.I think they made a poor decision because destroying or even seriously damaging those fuel depots would have seriously effected US Navy operational ability.

Admiral Nagumo's operational orders were flawed in not designating these depots as priority targets in the first place. In fact, during the war game rehearsals of the attack, many of the planners stressed the importance of a quick getaway following the initial strikes. Tomioka Sadatoshi, chief of the Operations Section of Navy General Staff, had told Nagumo to get his ships home intact at all costs. Another consideration was that the morning's second wave attack on Pearl had taken the day's heaviest losses against increasingly heavy American anti-aircraft fire and had inflicted far less damage with the smoke and fires obscuring targets than the first wave had. Japan's supply of elite pilots was limited and slow to be replaced.

And as you mentioned, Nagumo was also worried about being ambushed by the missing American carriers, a fear that was not entirely unreasonable considering what would later happen six months later at Midway.

[Stealhead]

I understand that Nagumo tended to react poorly when a challenge to his original plan occurred and that he was at times overly cautious I guess the lack of direct orders in that case in addition to the fact that the primary targets where not present meant that the US dodged a serious blow.