Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Butcher on July 20, 2012, 09:17:17 AM
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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.
(http://www.367thdynamitegang.com/upload/butch/action.jpg)
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.
(http://www.367thdynamitegang.com/upload/butch/java.jpg)
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.
(http://www.367thdynamitegang.com/upload/butch/york.jpg)
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!)
(http://www.367thdynamitegang.com/upload/butch/devil.jpg)
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.
(http://www.367thdynamitegang.com/upload/butch/brit.jpg)
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.
(http://www.367thdynamitegang.com/upload/butch/38.jpg)
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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.
:salute
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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.
:salute
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.
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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. :p
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what game is this
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what game is this
War in the Pacific Admirals Edition by Matrix Games
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sounds pretty sweet makes pacific storm allies look tiny
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I'm into turnbased strategy as well, but have never moved on after "The Operational Art of War" because of its versatility. :old:
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 :)
(http://www.the-strategist.net/RD/scenarii/map/Operation%20Neva%20-%20Leningrad%201944.jpg)
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what is the difference between this game and the original War in the Pacific?
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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.
(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/games/320/20090916085704.jpg)
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).
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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.
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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.
(http://www.matrixgames.com/files/games/320/20090916085704.jpg)
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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
I usually play Colonel or Field Marshall depending on how active I am playing, but for now tournaments haven't had much interest as it did few years back, I had to drop it from 4 categories down to lieutenant and General, basically score is tallied up by how many objectives you capture and units destroy, to give you an overall points - whats fun is generally most won't survive on field marshal, but the idea is to see how far you can go before a decisive loss. Oh we start out at Fall Weiss and play it out to either Win or defeat, if you lose you get ranked, ranking is pretty far simple, great bunch of players I played with, I think i lost every tournament in Field Marshall and only won one in General, few in colonel.
funny - I did lose my first tournament that I started in lieutenant mode, LOL Operation Husky crushed me instead of falling back on the russian front.
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I bought the War in the Pacific-AE, and for the life of me, the font in the game is simply unreadable because it is blocked out with white blocks where the text should be in battle reports. Makes it very difficult to play as I can not tell how things are working.
The game is all the way updated, so not sure what is wrong with it.
Any suggestions Butcher?
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(http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q260/1grayeagle/games/HoI3_FPW_Jan1941_UberAllesJa.jpg)
Hearts of Iron III
You can control any country from 1936 onward.
.. I command the Reich.. and do not make Hitler's disastrous mistakes.
Japan is my only ally, just plain waxed Italy my own bad self along with Spain, British Isles, Vichy France ..etc.\
Brigade level, I setup 4 brigades per division, 5 divisions per Corps, 4-5 Corps per Army.
They are pretty tuff :)
Note the date and what is goin on. -evil grin-
It is my jumpoff date for Barbarossa.
I took Moscow a year later, along with Stalingrad ..Jan 1942..
..Russia surrendered in May 1943 in this campaign.
The challenge is keeping the momentum going,
putting enough boots on the ground, enough Navy in the water, and enough interceptors/tactical bombers/naval bombers
.. I do not pursue heavy tanks at all and not a whole lot of fast ground forces.
..instead I focus on infantry developement heavily.
-GE aka Frank
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I bought the War in the Pacific-AE, and for the life of me, the font in the game is simply unreadable because it is blocked out with white blocks where the text should be in battle reports. Makes it very difficult to play as I can not tell how things are working.
The game is all the way updated, so not sure what is wrong with it.
Any suggestions Butcher?
Ok that is an issue, basically you need to modify your startup file War in the Pacific Admiral Edition.exe
There is set commands to change that, you can change the size of your screen and font etc
for example! here is mine: "C:\Games\War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition\War in the Pacific Admiral Edition.exe" -px1680 -py1050 -cpu1 -dd_sw -archive -f
Ok now I will give you the commands for this:
-px -py
To have any effect x must be greater than 1024 and y must be greater than 768. If values less than or equal to px=1024 and py=768 are used the original values of 1024 and 768 will be substituted.
Examples:
-f -px1920 –py1200 for a 1920x1200 monitor in full screen mode
Other Switches
-colorBlind : Support for color blindness
-deepColor : Enables 32 bit color, intended for Full Screen mode
-altFont : Enables alternate in-game font (Lucida Sans Unicode)
-w : Windowed mode
-wd : Windowed mode, daily autosaves
-ww : Windowed mode, weekly autosaves
-fd : Full screen, daily autosaves
-fw : Full screen, weekly autosaves
-r : Show Roads
-autosave : Daily autosave
-archive : Put data reports in archive directory
-skipVideo : Skip the intro video when starting the game
-fixedArt : Will not use rotating images
Here's what I would add behind your shortcut to your desktop AS An example so you can work off it.
"C:\Games\War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition\War in the Pacific Admiral Edition.exe" -px1600 -py1280 -cpu1 -dd_sw -archive -f -altFont -skipVideo
This puts the game at 1600x1280 view, with Alt fonts, weekly saves on your combat report, try this and see what happens-
Basically you only need to add "-px1600 -py1280 -cpu1 -dd_sw -archive -f -altFont -skipVideo"
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Oh I strongly recommend using -fd command, Full screen DAILY autosaves - this saves your command after each execution of turn.
I made a huge horrible mistake once of not having this, and did a half a day turn, executed it and it was corrupted when I emailed my opponent, when I came back - he emailed me said I needed to resend it -
except my turn wasn't even saved, it reverted, took 3 days to send 1 turn heh.
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Great post, I'm still playing the original combat mission series, but now that I have a new pc I'm going to get the new combat mission games.
Any body still playing these games up for a PBEM?