War in the Pacific AE

[Butcher]

Well some know I'm a huge wargamer and do tournaments for Silent Hunter, Falcon 4, Panzer General etc - my PBEM for war in the pacific finally hit september 1943 after a year of playing and a break here and there.

Basically AE is a turn based wargame, where every turn is 1 day during ww2 - you start December 7th and finish whenever you meet a criteria in points - you literally command thousands of units, while the allies have a fixed factory production - the Japanese player can control his factories.
He can decide what engines and aircrafts to build, as well as ships - does he trade aircraft or another Yammato battleship? Basically the game is centered around Japan needing the oil.

We did a custom scenario, that allows the Japanese player to actually get a Late 1942 production list (for example what if the Japanese started september 7th 1942 to start the war instead of december 41?) He gets all his production bumped for one year including plane sets, we still start december 7th.

Turns out, he miss managed some of his warships and pilots - while he does get later version of Zeros, I wore them down with early war aircraft, losing 5 planes per kill.

Here some photos after a year long struggle:

I pushed hard into Java once I got hellcats on the carriers, Fuel is a major problem for both sides - Balikpapan and palembang are major oil centers, with Batavia and Soerabaja having refinaries I can convert the oil to Fuel - Anyhow this is the heart of the action, the red ! indicates I need supplies - my 5th AF moved here for time being and been flying b24 missions.


Here's a look of the overall war, I pushed the japanese out of Guadalcanal, and Pacific - however he still controls Rubaul, Truk and the Marianas which I will not go near for now.


Here's my lead Carrier Task Force the Yorktown CV-5, Yep there are quite a few carriers with her, this Battlegroup can launch over 600 Fighters, 600 Dive bombers and 300 Torpedo planes, while she also have replenishment carriers that can carry 24 fighters and bombers each - so even if I lose 100 fighters I can cover the loses.


Here's a look at the devils triangle - I secured Shortland with the Marines, and moved them to Madang while Australians retook Lae, I am in a rebuilding process because Aitape and Wewak are heavily defended japanese bases, plus truk is barely north so he's geared up to protect these areas. Speaking which the red ships to the right are his carriers, busy sinking some of my supply ships (grr!)


Here's a list of one of my British battlegroup, I pulled the Prince of Wales and Repulse out of Singapore before they got torpedoed, I kept them locked up on the west coast for a year and now they are busy bombarding the hell out the pacific.
I had a choice of either attempting to interupt the landings near Singapore and get these warships sunk, or salvage them for latter on, it was a smart choice.


Finally here's a photo of just one of my many airgroups, a P38G unit based in JAVA, with average skill of 71 they are well trained pilots and have seen combat (58 kills) which is a good thing for moral and fatique will stay down enough I can keep them in combat otherwise they must be withdrawn.

[mbailey]

I know this is going to be a stupid question, but whats the learning curve on something like this.......It looks really intresting, and something i would really like to get into.

 

[Butcher]

I know this is going to be a stupid question, but whats the learning curve on something like this.......It looks really intresting, and something i would really like to get into.

 

Very steep, I would think twice as much learning as aces high - the manual is roughly 400+ pages. Although its more about micromanagement then anything else.
I haven't found a game out there, that gives you the most time per your dollars like this, I think its on sale for $80 right now (i went back and checked my bills, I actually paid $130 for the game). As i said I spent over a year in this one PBEM alone, I have two Japanese PBEM's going, one which is going on my 2nd year (real life) of playing it.

You average average 30 minutes to an hour per turn - on average, reading combat reports and intel is far more the daily routine. Sometimes you won't get combat for weeks.
The First turn is actually the worse turn of them all, having to put convoys together and task forces - it can take a few days to put together, after that it depends what you are going to do (i.e allies you pull as much out of philippines as you can etc)

It has quite a few small scenarios for learning, they actually teach quite a bit, but there is no real tutorial, you have to simply jump into the action and learn as you go, even a small scenario can take weeks to finish (guadalcanal or even coral sea).
Things like putting fighters on Combat air patrol, PBY's on search - only in areas that are combat do you have to really micromanage, for example I leave all fighters at 40% cap and 20% rested (however you do have to watch for fatique and other things).

Took me 6 months to learn things down, the AI actually is quite fun to play, although after a few times going through it you can see some flaws - thus is where a great PBEM base comes in, some excellent players in it.

[Karnak]

Pulling the PoW and Repulse out isn't even inaccurate, you just made the decision in time whereas in reality the British made the same decision about 12 hours too late. 

[Tracerfi]

what game is this

[Butcher]

what game is this

War in the Pacific Admirals Edition by Matrix Games

[shermanjr]

sounds pretty sweet makes pacific storm allies look tiny

[LLv34_Snefens]

I'm into turnbased strategy as well, but have never moved on after "The Operational Art of War" because of its versatility.

I released my latest scenario for that less than two months ago: The Soviet winter offensive at Leningrad in early 1944 at 2.5km/hex scale. If anyone is up for a game let me know. Only a couple of thousands units to move each turn

[Wildcat1]

what is the difference between this game and the original War in the Pacific?

[titanic3]

what is the difference between this game and the original War in the Pacific?

http://www.simhq.com/_naval/naval_037a.html

Starts on page two.


Looks like fun if you got a lot of time. Another game that's similar to this (and one of my first), 12 O'Clock High: Bombing the Reich.

All about the air war in Western Europe and the Mediterranean. Some campaigns take 7 turns (Big Week), others takes 600 turns or more (plans leading up to D-Day). Big Week takes about 2 hours to complete, plans leading up to D-Day takes about 6 months, just for that single campaign. Turn based game mixed with RTS, you set out your sorties for that turn and then once the turns begin, you can either force a sortie to land early, change their waypoint, or tell them to intercept a different unit, you can bomb just about every target that was ever bombed in WW2 (railyards, factories, cities, road junctions, army divisions, headquarters, V-bases, ports and U-boat pens). The AI controls the ground movement according to real life and what you do in-game (they'll be set up exactly as it was during D-Day with most of the forces located near Calais IF you focus most of your bombing there. If you decide to bomb the areas around Paris and Caen the most, then the German divisions start moving towards that direction.) Very fun game. I actually never managed to beat the entire game, I remember reading somewhere that it's about 2 years worth of game play, just for a *single* play through). 

[Butcher]

what is the difference between this game and the original War in the Pacific?

They added a boatload of changes between the two game, basically taking a complex level from 5 for WITP to 10 in WITP:AE.

That and the AI got a major overhaul, in WITP it was rather stupid, in AE it had 4-5 different ways of playing the game, anything from Aggressive, Turtle, Historical etc.

but honestly once you figure out the AI and the game, its time for PBEM.

[Butcher]

http://www.simhq.com/_naval/naval_037a.html

Starts on page two.


Looks like fun if you got a lot of time. Another game that's similar to this (and one of my first), 12 O'Clock High: Bombing the Reich.
(Image removed from quote.)
All about the air war in Western Europe and the Mediterranean. Some campaigns take 7 turns (Big Week), others takes 600 turns or more (plans leading up to D-Day). Big Week takes about 2 hours to complete, plans leading up to D-Day takes about 6 months, just for that single campaign. Turn based game mixed with RTS, you set out your sorties for that turn and then once the turns begin, you can either force a sortie to land early, change their waypoint, or tell them to intercept a different unit, you can bomb just about every target that was ever bombed in WW2 (railyards, factories, cities, road junctions, army divisions, headquarters, V-bases, ports and U-boat pens). The AI controls the ground movement according to real life and what you do in-game (they'll be set up exactly as it was during D-Day with most of the forces located near Calais IF you focus most of your bombing there. If you decide to bomb the areas around Paris and Caen the most, then the German divisions start moving towards that direction.) Very fun game. I actually never managed to beat the entire game, I remember reading somewhere that it's about 2 years worth of game play, just for a *single* play through). 

I have beat it once, Italy campaign you can beat it in a few days at most, the european campaign takes a while to beat - you have to focus on your targets of opportunity, for example railroads, uboat pens, eventually you upgrade with mustangs to start bombing factories deep into france and germany.

[Bodhi]

Have any of you played the new Panzer Corps series?  It is definitely not as involved and is more of a new version of the Panzer General series.  I have enjoyed it.

[Butcher]

Have any of you played the new Panzer Corps series?  It is definitely not as involved and is more of a new version of the Panzer General series.  I have enjoyed it.

Yep I beta tested it and played the entire campaign through, quite a great series actually, I don't have any of the addons though, I do have all the mods.

I do run a tournament through Matrix for Panzer Corps series, but the last months one was canceled due to lack of interest

Kind hoping they somehow redo the Cross of Iron series, I loved Close Combat 3 and ran a tournament for it for years, Cross of Irons didnt generate enough interest though

[Bodhi]

I have all the addons too date.  They really add a much more immersive campaign.  At higher difficulties, it is an absolute challenge to ensure you do not waste points on units and needlessly take losses.  I am looking forward to the western addons, those should be a tremendous amount of fun. 

Let me know the next tourney you run for Panzer Corps, if I have the time, I will definitely play.