jwolf
Posts: 2493
Joined: 12/3/2013 Status: offline
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I'll venture an opinion for you. I am a rookie WITPAE player, in my first campaign. The game is excellent, very deep and also very intricate. Mastery will take a long time; just mastering the interface will take quite a while. Many details are frustrating for a novice but are more fulfilling for those who know and understand the system better. Some details seem opaque to the novice but in fact become clear after a season of learning. Other details really are opaque by design because the actual war was that way, too. As the supreme commander you give the orders to each land, sea, and air unit ... but these orders are filtered and interpreted by the game engine and the results may or may not be exactly as you intended. Naturally, experienced players are much better at getting the results they want, but it's simply not possible to have 100% tactical control over the entire Pacific theater. Further, weather, terrain, and enemy action can change your plans and movements, often for the worse. The interface is IMHO very mouse click intensive. To a great extent this is unavoidable in a game of this complexity, but certain things one would naturally like to order en masse are not possible without a lot of individual clicks on each unit. The whole campaign (actually there are several, with different historical assumptions and settings) is almost overwhelmingly complex for a beginner. Fortunately there are some smaller scenarios, though I personally wish there were more of them. I highly recommend that you read some of the great AARs in the WITPAE forum. That is the best way to see in advance what is the scope of the game, how the players plan and execute their operations, and the often surprising results when the opponent does not follow the plan.
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