DaveB
Posts: 151
Joined: 8/4/2003
From: Forres Scotland
Status: offline
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Andy and Gem are both spot on as far as my own experience goes -
The first turn takes hours to set up, to optimise your response to the PH attack, further turns are often 'same as yesterday with a few tweaks' and take 20 mins. I've saved a 'first turn' as Allied and as Jap, so future games I can get into the play quickly without having to do all the same stuff over again. (This will still take an hour, as every restart will involve a slight ideas change in some area....but it won't take 3 hours as much of the job is pretty obvious).
Playing as the Allied player v AI is much easier than playing as the Jap v AI. As allied you have a year or so of being pushed around while you build forces up, but that's split into a couple of months where you are definitely fighting rearguard actions and getting your act together then the next few months gradually getting onto an even standing and beginning to push back. Apart from ensuring you have convoys running supply and fuel into areas you want to use as main bases your supply problems are really minor....
Run big convoys from the US West coast and Karachi to major bases like Pearl, Brisbane and so forth, smaller convoys from these bases then keep your forward operating bases supplied, and feed troops into theatre to build up garrisons (to withstand assault) and base facilities (engineer troops to expand airfields, ports, forts) and the US supply job is pretty much sorted. As the Jap you need to strip resources and oil from conquered territory etc and feed it into your economy, plus balance armaments v aircraft and so forth, and there's a lot more Excel work and juggling to do AS WELL AS actually putting troops into the next hex to expand the empire.
You learn a lot by simply doing, and learning by mistake - in my view you learn 10x faster (at least) by losing offensive air (for example) due to lack of supply the first time it happens than you do by reading any manual... the "manual support" you get here is fantastic frankly, ask why your minesweeper only has vanilla ice cream on Tuesdays and somebody will post a menu for the 38th MSF Flotilla for Dec 1944 along with a schematic for the ice cream machine fitted to that model of minesweeper. So make mistakes, ask here why X, Y or Z happened if you can't figure it out by reading existing threads (or, in extremis, the manual), and play a few game years to learn the ropes before starting a fresh 'this time for real' game.
Don't be afraid to restart - after a short while you will probably be tempted to try some mods like CHS or Big B, or to at least turn the air to air slaughter down via Nikmod, or to use one of the extended maps that adds places like Aden.... it's a great game, and there are some really good mods around to improve it further. We all learn in different ways, you'll enjoy learning and you'll probably get sucked into becoming a complete geek on WW2 Pacific ops. (Assuming that warning isn't too late <g>). I understand that WW2 Pacific ops geeks get sucked into Witp oddly enough....
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Basic noob help - 
You may not have gleaned that I was engaging in some tongue and cheek facetituousness. 
It is best to play a few shorter (not full map) scenario before taking the leap into the full campaign game to get use to game mechanics.
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