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incbob -> RE: January 18h, 1942 (5/13/2021 5:15:46 PM)
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First Impressions after my first AAR, Air Raid, has ended.
I am a huge Pacific Theatre fan. I have read just about every book on it, and many that few have heard of. (Look up Sydney Pash’s The Currents of War. Great book!!)
I have played WiTP:AE. In fact, I started with WiTP long before Gary Grisby got involved with Matrix Games.
I did not Beta Test Warplan Pacific (WPP). I have no relation to Alvaro or Matrix Games.
I played WarPlan, now WPE, when it first came out.
I am a casual Grognard.
Okay. I might be a fanboy. You have your warning. I probably want this game to succeed as much as Matrix games and Alvaro. Why? Because I finally have a WWII Pacific Theatre game I can play on the computer.
WPP is very much a 1.00 game. It is brand new. It doesn’t have any, or at least any I have seen, game killing bugs, but still needs polish. It needs balancing and the rework that comes when players first get into a game and start breaking it. It needs to be played. Remember also that this is a ONE man studio. This is a game that would take large companies a while to get right.
Most games just cannot get the Pacific Theatre right. They are either simplistic and abstract everything, like Axis and Allies (good game though, lots of fun), or they are like the Strategic Command series from Matrix Games. Good game, but they end up treating naval combat like land combat with water. This does not work and why I do not care for either their WWI game or the Pacifiic/Global game.
Before WPP if I wanted a good Pacific Theatre game, I had to play a board game or War in the Pacific (WiTP). WiTP is a monster game. 1 day equals 1 day, 1 gun equals 1 gun. It is almost as if the creators did not abstract anything. Great game, but honestly not for me. As someone said on the forums, people play it for years just to get a couple of Carrier versus Carrier encounters. If you don’t mind a single campaign game lasting 6 months to multiple years, if you don’t mind complex level 10 games, then WiTP is for you.
WPP is much more like a board game. It has different rules but remind me of the old Avalon Hill Rise and Decline of the Third Reich games or maybe like the classic monster game The Pacific War: The Struggle Against Japan 1941-1945. It plays very much like a board game, but on the computer, with and built in AI. WPP abstracts things that would require micromanagement, like a board game does, but leaves you free to control units, like you want to do.
WPP documentation is woeful. I am sorry, but it is true. The manual gives the bare necessities and is better now that it has been updated. It still leaves some areas and questions as to how things work. Part of this is because though it is easy to move units on the screen their interactions are complex. The game very badly needs a “Let’s Play/Tutorial.” I have never recorded or streamed gameplay, but I might try for this game, but I am still learning and have some questions myself.
Tips.
-- Understand the type of game this is. It looks simple but it is not.
-- Play the Allies first. I am starting an AAR as the Japanese and it is not how you want to start learning the game.
-- Understand that this is not a game of equally matched opponents. This is a game where one side will have dominance, then there will be a short period where they are nearly equal, then the other side will be dominant. The goal of the game is to see if you can hold off the other side while they are dominant and take more advantage of the time you are dominant.
-- As in the real life, Air Power rules.
-- Fleets and air power move further than you think.
-- Make sure you know what mode your fleet is in before you move it. Fleet mode means you can and will get into combat.
-- For production you need to think 6+ months ahead.
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