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WW II in the Pacific
I played this conquest as Roosevelt of the Americans. It was quite a different experience than any I have had in Civ. Imagine sitting down at the computer and blindly taking over someone’s game (and a purposely poorly played one at that) about 200 turns in. It is wildly disorienting at first. Not only do you start with around 100 different units, but they are largely naval units with a handful of air, ground and anti-aircraft. Many of the units are already at sea on their way to … something … I couldn’t quite tell. And except for a few industrial powerhouse West Coast cities (and they are powerhouses) your “civ” consists of lots of small island holdings throughout the map.
The game starts at the “end” of a turn. Since I am able to tell the future, and suspected something bad was going to happen next turn, I started the conquest by simply taking stock of each city, changing build orders (“hold on a minute governor, you’re building libraries?”), and getting a grasp on the layout the map and my unit positions. Then I hit the “end of turn button”. I do not want to give away specifics of the initial Japanese attack, but it was quite a different experience seeing AI marines and paratroopers take part in massive attacks – not to mention coordinated AI naval movement. And because this was not “my game”, but one that mimics the surprise and (as note above) poorly defended cities of the Pacific Theater, you get a bit of an initial waxing. And when you start moving air and naval units to your defense, you will note with some distress the large stacks of the Japanese fleet which seem to be situated in the fog of war, everywhere right off your Pacific holdings poised for a second wave.
Some quick and random thoughts:
The light tanks are very cool, with excellent sound and graphics, but (I don’t remember the stats) less powerful than their regular counterpart. Marines are beefed up, which is quite excellent.
You start without Amphibious Warfare (which was first tech I researched), any transports to speak of, very few land units, and are outmatched on the sea and in the air, so taking back holdings is no cake walk.
It took me a while to get a grasp on that level of naval warfare, and I certainly have not completely. In the average Civ experience your navy has never been that important, and certainly not that large, so this was as exhilarating as it was daunting, and I made plenty of stupid unit losing mistakes.
There are a couple of workers in the game (very randomly placed), but I found no real use for them.
Locked alliance is an excellent concept. I am looking forward to the Modders getting their hands on that.
The game starts at the “end” of a turn. Since I am able to tell the future, and suspected something bad was going to happen next turn, I started the conquest by simply taking stock of each city, changing build orders (“hold on a minute governor, you’re building libraries?”), and getting a grasp on the layout the map and my unit positions. Then I hit the “end of turn button”. I do not want to give away specifics of the initial Japanese attack, but it was quite a different experience seeing AI marines and paratroopers take part in massive attacks – not to mention coordinated AI naval movement. And because this was not “my game”, but one that mimics the surprise and (as note above) poorly defended cities of the Pacific Theater, you get a bit of an initial waxing. And when you start moving air and naval units to your defense, you will note with some distress the large stacks of the Japanese fleet which seem to be situated in the fog of war, everywhere right off your Pacific holdings poised for a second wave.
Some quick and random thoughts:
The light tanks are very cool, with excellent sound and graphics, but (I don’t remember the stats) less powerful than their regular counterpart. Marines are beefed up, which is quite excellent.
You start without Amphibious Warfare (which was first tech I researched), any transports to speak of, very few land units, and are outmatched on the sea and in the air, so taking back holdings is no cake walk.
It took me a while to get a grasp on that level of naval warfare, and I certainly have not completely. In the average Civ experience your navy has never been that important, and certainly not that large, so this was as exhilarating as it was daunting, and I made plenty of stupid unit losing mistakes.
There are a couple of workers in the game (very randomly placed), but I found no real use for them.
Locked alliance is an excellent concept. I am looking forward to the Modders getting their hands on that.
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