WW II in the Pacific

[Panag]

Originally posted by publius
I was actually disappointed at how few VPs you needed to win, esp as Japan. I actually won in I think 12 turns on regent, by that time I controlled Borneo and New Guinea and everything north of them, plus Wake, Midway, and Pearl (won before I could take Hilo). I managed to sink 3/4 US carriers without losing a single plane... couldn't find the Yorktown.

hi ,

its just to easy and to small , .......

guess one shall have to remake it , ......

have a nice day

[Kull]

No doubt about it WWII Pacific is a visually stunning production......but as a scenario it's something of an embarassment. That may seem a tad harsh, but as an experienced Civ2 scenario designer, I know whereof I speak.

1) Starting City Build Lists: This is simply unforgiveable, since it automatically forces the player to waste a lot of time changing these to something more realistic. Why are islands in the Pacific building libraries that take 80 turns to complete - in a 50 turn scenario? Is there even ONE player who won't change this? Why are some of the Japanese cities in mainland China building "Guerillas"? These take 30+ turns to build and are upgradeable to "Nippon Infantry" which takes 20+ turns to build! Duh? I could go on, but you get the idea. While not a game play flaw, this kind of design error is OBVIOUS, and when things like this slip through the cracks, odds are that there's worse to follow.....such as...

2) Pearl Harbor: I hardly know where to begin with this "battle". In 8 different test runs from both the American and Japanese perspectives (using a variety of different difficulty and aggression levels), there were more games in which NOT A SINGLE SHIP TOOK A HIT (3) than games that sank a battleship (1). The AA ratings of all those ships in the harbor also cost the Japanese between 2 and (at Sid Level) 8 of 18 aircraft. The only way to actually sink the US Fleet is to bring the Japanese Fleet in close for a round of Naval Bombardment - a VERY dangerous strategy since all "unsunk" US ships are fully repaired on the following turn. When the inevitable (and non-historical) US Naval response occurs on the next turn, the only salvation for the Japanese player is that half the fleet disperses either randomly or on sub hunting missions. If this thing ever goes back for redesign, I'd recommend several design changes, to include removing the AA capability from ships in port, adding more aircraft to the Japanese assault force, eliminating the two US defense fighters (c'mon guys..there were essentially no US planes in the air at Pearl Harbor!), and doing something to ensure that the US ships don't fully repair after one turn in port.

3) Defense Fortifications: This is a real problem in China, because there are quite a few serious fortresses intended for the Chinese player. Unfortunately, if the AI is running the show, the Chinese troops abandon them all on the first turn! Bad enough, but now the Japanese player (if he's human) can simply use them as stepping stones to take out the Chinese cities much sooner than was historically possible.

4) Native City Inhabitants: Sadly, there are none. It's most egregious in the Japanese held Chinese cities (how hard would it have been to make all the people Chinese?) As for the colonial civs, one design option would have been to create at least one generic SE Asian civ that would have served as the population basis for all the colonial cities (Dutch, British, & US). This isn't simply an eye-candy issue - Native populations can't be conscripted (which is by far the easiest way for the Japanese player to add to his infantry totals in China).

5) Two Variants: As any scenario designer well knows, it's extremely difficult to develop a scenario that's playable by all civs - especially WWII scenarios. It's no accident that the best scenarios from top designers like Captain Nemo (Red Front and Second Front in particular) were designed to be played by only one civ, thus allowing the designer to "weight" the scenario to counter (or accomodate) the usual AI idiocies. From that standpoint, it seems clear that WWII in the Pacific would have been a much better scenario if it came in TWO versions - one to be played as the Allies, and the other as Japan. Easy? No...but a relatively simple realignment of force structures would have gone a long way to helping each AI respond in a manner that's at least remotely historical - something barely present in the current design. As an example, I also played this scenario as the Dutch - probably the weakest possible civ - and didn't lose a single city (and was even able to reconquer the only part of the Phillipines that the befuddled AI had even bothered to take).

There are definitely some good points to this scenario - clearly a lot of research went into it and the art and map are nicely done. But compared to what this could have been, WWII Pacific is a real disapointment.

[Panag]

hi ,

some people should take a look at the CIV II " tora , tora , tora scenario , ......

and lets hope some one or a group remakes this WWII scen on a bigger map with more civs and options , ......

its a great game , but just to easy and to simple , thats a bit of a shame since the full capacity of ConQuests is not used in this scen , .....

have a nice day

[Raghnall]

On the PTO scenario...I lost my first attempt as the U.S. but won handily on the second attempt. I'll have to up the aggression level and/or my game level now to make it tougher, but what a hoot!

Here's some findings that I think are crucial to winning quickly as the U.S.

Step one. Mobilize your economy for wartime production. I forgot to do this in the first game, and as the only non military figting unit build I need to do is an Airport, there is no reason not to do so.

Airports! - You need Airports on the Islands you take as fast as you can get them. Either pop rush 'em or build workers to create them. On a one square island though, it will have to be poprushed I think.

Techs -
1st - Amph Warfare. Can't win w/o it. (Well at least it will be a LOT harder)
2nd Advanced Flight (you want Heavy bombers and I've noticed that land based Fighter Bombers on Air Superiority seem to patrol out further than I'm used to seeing normal civ fighters go. It was rare (if ever) for me to see an interception happen two squares away from the city a plane was based at, but I see this regularly now with the Fighter Bombers, so that's a big "I'm not sure but I think so".
3rd Fission (If you want the bomb in time)

4th Airborne - (you can switch with Fission if desired).

5th ... nothing ... collect lots of money for pop rushes and gifts for your allies.

I don't waste time on the Academy techs. Heavy tanks weren't a fixture in the Pacific theatre, light ones will work just fine for you with their increased speed. The benefit of the Destroyer tech...well the game is only 50 turns, 1 destroyer every 12 turns, would be 4 max and that only if it were built on turns 1 or 2 (impossible) so at the cost of getting Amph warfare right away you could get the Naval Acadmey for 3 destroyers during the course of the game. Not worth it to me, so it is skipped.

Destroyers however are worth building- build some of these early. They can carry 1 land unit and are faster (speed 7) then transports. If you need a light tank somewhere quickly (seems you can't airlift tanks) a chain of these are a way to get it there. DD's can also "see" SUB units, so you shouldn't lose a CV to a sub attack with a DD in the group.

Be generous. Give your allies lots of bucks. I took money from my allies in the first game. China crumbled quickly that way. By giving China stuff (techs and money) she seems to be a tougher opponent for the Japanese. Also seems to prop up the Brits and Dutch too. I've found the Dutch are willing to trade techs 1 for 1 which helps. I've never found the Brits to get a tech that I need before I do. Probably because the Brits might be taking the same research path I am?

Carpet bombing. When invading an island with Marines, bombard it until each unit is down to 1 sp. Makes it so you can take the island with one transport loaded with four marines, and not take too much damage back. In this way, you should be able to after a few turns divide your forces into two groups. Each with roughly 2 BB's 2 CV's 2 CA's 2DD's, SUBS and a transport. Start Island hopping as fast as possible.

Also, if you find you hit an Island with Japanese naval forces in port, bombard with ships first (they will get the naval units down to 1sp) and then use planes to finish them off.

Basically, I take an Island with only four marines as stated. Occupy the Island with the marines (while any damage heals) and after the resistence ends, I pop-rush an Airport. Once that is done, an MG Battallion get's airlifted in, and the marines load up for the next Island. I will actually try to improve this on my next go round, by having an MG Battallion ready to go aboard a Destroyer so it can move in before an Airport can be built and the Marines can move out faster.

Get two of those groups moving, you'll be on Japan's (and the Phillipines) doorstep in no time.

Also, I forgot to mention this, but I try to evacuate all the CA's and DD's in and around the Phillipines after the first turn. (SUBs remain to cause what damage they can before being sunk) But in so doing, I make sure I cause damage to any Japanese surface fleets encountered along the way. I don't get all of them out, but sinking Japanese transports in the first few turns really hurts their cause. What does get out, makes it's way back to Perl for a refit and then becomes part of the second group of Island hoppers.

In my second game, I kept Manilla throughout the game (which btw has the forbidden palace, so it can produce units relatively quickly). To keep Manilla, pop-rush MG units early and keep them in the city. Drafting also helps.

[Panag]

hi ,

yeah it would have been nice to see carpetbombing , and not only in the scenario , ......

have a nice day

[Dis]

I'm finishing the intro scenarios right now. I'll probably do all these in order. So even though I started this one, I'll start a new one when I'm done with all the others.

my question is this

Has anyone used nukes?

[Dis]

Okay now I'm done with this one, and finally done with all of them. Took a few weeks as I have to work unfortunately.

Libraries? I started this scenario twice (once when I first got it to check things out- I only played a few turns). I did not notice any american city building libraries. All my cities were building war materials- though not the one's I wanted. I quickly switched them around.

The amount of VP's feels right for the americans. Historically I don't think the americans took much more than the islands back. I'm certain they never landed on Indochina, Mainland china, or Korean peninsula. And neither did I.

I played on regent level. Almost too easy a difficulty level. Mainly because of the AI's inept handling of naval forces. I built barracks in Manila- this seemed to be key. I then built machine gunners. I never lost Manila the entire game. I kept my tank and artillery within the city the whole game and used the arty to bomb any incoming troops (and there were 1 or 2 every turn). I did lose the northern Philappines city very fast, and same with the southern ones. I didn't lose the western one though (the one with no garrison)- they weren't too interested in that city- neither was I- a useless city. I lost Guam and Wake Island though.

I can't remember all my builds. But I concentrated mostly on navy and air force in the beginning. I built a couple of transports. Amphibeous warfare was my first tech for obvious reasons (though the americans should start with this tech- or at least have some marines stationed in San Diego). Once I researched that, I built marines and researched the improved armour tech. After finishing that I alternated having 2 or 3 cities building both marines and medium tanks- I wanted a more combined arms approach. I then went for advanced flight and jet power techs.

I should mention on the very first playable turn I did load up the transport with what available offensive units you can (not the city garrisons) and started him on a southern route accompanied by a destroyer and cruiser. I took a very southern route to avoid trouble. These eventually took a VP Japanes island south of wake island.

I'm going into too much detailed here. I will say I did not strike blindly at the Japanese fleet as I did in my experimental game a few weeks ago. I insted consolidated my fleet. I did approach the fleet near pearl harbour, but they retreated. I had complete dominance of the Pacific ocean throughout the rest of the game until the very last part when I parked my fleet next to Formosa and the Northern Philappines city. I lost a lot of aircraft because of the fighters on their carriers, but I was taking lots of theirs out as well. I took a couple of carriers out as well.

I also loaded up 2 transports full of marines and med tanks and used these to take Wake Island, Guam, okinawa, and another island or two between midway and Japanese mainland. My initial force (aided by naval and air power) took back the philappines city, another island, and a dutch city that was taken by Japan. Eventually I took the northen Philappines city when I consolidated some forces and got more reinforcements. And as I said above I took Formosa. By this point I traded for Aiborne tech that gives paratroops with the Dutch. I built an airport in Manila and Wake island (I think- it was the island very close to Tokyo). I was using paratroopers, med. armour, artillery, marines, machinegunners for defense, and naval/air support at this point.

Anyways what I'm most happy about is me taking Tokyo. I used the airport and another invasion force (from reinforcements from mainland) and landed next to Tokyo- which was lightly defended. After a couple of turns it fell. The game fittingly ended the next turn with a Victory Point victory.

I took nearly every Japanese island. There were a couple of small islands north of Formosa towards Japanese mainland. But they weren't VP locations. I took every other Japanese holding in the pacific- even the non VP locations. And taking Tokyo was icing on the cake, I just felt good taking it . To me, this seems like a fair amount of VP's for america to get for victory. I don't know how the VP's will play out as Japan though. It might be too few, because if I play Japan, I know the ai will make no attempt to take islands so far away. Playing as Japan would be real easy I'd imagine.

The Japanese ai did take the initial island surge, but then concentrated on mainland china/indochina. At the very end of the game they finally succeeded in taking Hong Kong and Singapore. Other chinese, indonesian cities went much earlier. Though china still had interior cities.

The dutch or British would be more interesting. I may play as them, though I'm not sure if they have any chance of winning.

Overall I like the combined arms warfare. In the regular game I rarely do much warfare in the modern age- I'm sick of it by that point . I'm happy to get the game overwith at that point. This is the most I have used air power and naval units. I like that. Too bad the ai does not seem to understand how to control the seas. Sure they finally did move their fleet out when I approached the Chinese mainland (they didn't seem to have any fleet when I approached Tokyo- they were all down south). But I hurt them bad with air and naval bombardment- they did not attempt to sink any of my ships. And they did retreat after I damaged them badly. I also sunk many ships in port . There is no excuse for that.