Grand Strategy Best turn based Pacific games

[chuft]

I usually stick to boardgames for my historical wargaming, because I have found the computer ones tend to be too detailed and slow paced to hold my interest. A big exception was Hubert Cater's Strategic Command, which played as fast as Panzer General but felt far more realistic to me.

Following games by this designer were published by Battlefront with a hideous DRM which kept me away from the series for a decade.

Well Strategic Command 3 finally came out (Strategic Command WWII: War in Europe) and it is being carried by Matrix, so finally the Strategic Command series is free of the obnoxious Battlefront DRM. I didn't get it right away because of some foolishness with the hardbound manuals costing $20 to ship, but being free from Amazon, but Amazon was out of stock, etc etc. I kind of put it aside for awhile and figured I'd wait till the manuals were back in stock, and maybe a patch came out, and forgot about it.

Well today two things happened.

First, I got an email Matrix is having a sale, 30% off everything. So I think it's time to get SC3. But it got me wondering if I should get anything else while I'm at it.

Second I saw this picture, which is of a boardgame covering WWII in the Dutch East Indies, Borneo, Malaya etc.

I have always wanted a game that covered this part of the war, especially the initial Japanese expansion. The problem is the area is so large, and the forces involved so small, that to do it justice you really need a scale which for boardgames is completely impractical. As you can see from the pic, this is not something you are going to set up and play on your table. It's cool yet totally impractical.

So I am wondering, are there any good Pacific computer games which would let me play this part of the war in detail? Unlike most of the Pacific war, this is one time where the forces were so small on both sides that micromanagement, combined with a gigantic map, might actually be appropriate.

Would War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition do a good job at covering this campaign (Dec 41 - May 42) ? Is it fun to play or just a behemoth that is more work than it is worth?

Are there any other Pacific games which are fun yet detailed enough to cover the early months of the Japanese expansion in a meaningful way? I always get the feeling the Allied forces got some bad luck and could have done a lot more damage if a few things had gone differently, since the Japanese were doing a lot of things on a shoestring.

Any opinions on Pacific war games appreciated. The only one I played was Carriers at War, ages ago, and it seemed kind of boring - you search for the enemy and if you find him, launch then watch the animation of the attack, which usually is not accurate and you get inflated reports of damage inflicted. Which is realistic, but kind of strange to watch planes inflicting hits that didn't really happen, so what is the point of watching the animation? Anyway, please let me know your thoughts on the playability and fun of any Pacific games that would cover the early period of the war, before the US forces got gigantic.

Thanks. I am trying to tell the difference between War in the Pacific, Pacific War, War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition (all 3 of which seem to be by the same designer), Storm over the Pacific, Order of Battle - Pacific, etc. There are games like Uncommon Valor which don't have the word "Pacific" in the title which are harder to find. Let me know your favorites.

 

[Sranchammer]

War in the Pacific is a monster - if you are obsessed with that epoch, it's heaven.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Pacific War by Gary Grisgsby is the original one, runs on MS-DOS and quite dated. Mechanically sound of course but the AI isn't that amazing.

War in the Pacific is basically the same game but redone in modern times, with some features added.

War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition is basically the enhanced/ultimate edition of that. If you are after serious grognard wargaming, then it's your best bet. Nothing else comes even close.

Alternatively, there is The Operational Art of War series. It's modular so there are a number of scenarios depicting various battles of the Pacific but as far as I know, there is no grand campaign for that theatre, as TOAW engine was never very good at modeling naval combat, despite being outstanding for ground combat.

 

[mbv123]

I think War in the Pacific is your best option. Never played it myself because I know I'll never have the patience and willpower to sit through a single turn, but it covers everything to every single detail from 1941-1945.

 

[chuft]

A single turn? How long does a turn take?

 

[mbv123]

From what I've read, a single turn could take you hours, especially if you like to micro literally everything. Also the fact, that a single turn is only a day ingame (you're playing through the whole WW2) , it can take years to finish a single campaign. It's a monster of a game.

 

[Nutria]

Uncommon Valor is a much smaller version of War in the Pacific focused on the Solomon Islands & New Guinea. It's still so huge that it's just on the edge of what I consider to be playable, but I like a lot of its systems. It actually includes stuff like mine warfare and air transport that you don't get to see too often in wargames. I had some fun with the early scenarios where you're just trying to hold on to Port Moresby and Guadalcanal.

The Operational Art of War is pretty useless in the Pacific because its logistical model is so primitive. If you can trace a supply line over land back to a supply point then you're supplied. That's it. And like Garfunkel said, it's not good at naval combat. No scenario involving island hopping is going to work in TOAW. I do remember playing one scenario about the Arakan campaign in Burma that was pretty good but that's it.

 

[TripJack]

a single turn is only a day ingame

you can increase it to 2 or 3 days per turn

 

[GarfunkeL]

The Operational Art of War is pretty useless in the Pacific because its logistical model is so primitive. If you can trace a supply line over land back to a supply point then you're supplied. That's it. And like Garfunkel said, it's not good at naval combat. No scenario involving island hopping is going to work in TOAW. I do remember playing one scenario about the Arakan campaign in Burma that was pretty good but that's it.

The logistical model is slightly more complex than that but you're essentially correct (there is a diminishing returns rule that varies with distance from rail/road and supply points).

 

[Luka-boy]

A single turn? How long does a turn take?

It depends on the day. A day without much going on where you just have most of the units moving around as planned and routinely patrolling/bombarding can take as little as half an hour once you finally get used to the game. A day where a lot of shit is happening or you're planning a big operation will easily take more than an hour, maybe two. The first day of each month can take hours since a lot of shit gets updated and you need to check things like new recruits, training results, production etc.

By the way, the old PTO games (PTO 2 being my personal favourite) can sometimes scratch the need for some strategic Pacific action.

 

[rezaf]

An almost beer and prezels wargame about the period is War Plan Pacific. It's really fairly lightweight, but also nicely depicts the core challenges, at least as I remember it.
Basically, the Japs need to secure oil supply and cut the allied supply route to australia, the allies need to prevent that from happening and wait for their massive reinforcement advantage to kick in.

Unfortunately, it's a Shrapnel game, and we all know how their pricing policy works...

 

[chuft]

I don't know anything about Shrapnel but when I tried to research that game before, the system requirements looked like they stopped several releases of Windows ago. Like, Vista was the last OS mentioned.

What are "the old PTO games" ? Are you talking about Nintendo games?

 

[mbv123]

Also since it's semi-related to the topic, how is Order of Battle: Pacific?
I enjoyed Panzer Corps and since it looks like a Panzer Corps reskin set in Pacific (I'm fine with that), it might be worth a try.

 

[Galdred]

An almost beer and prezels wargame about the period is War Plan Pacific. It's really fairly lightweight, but also nicely depicts the core challenges, at least as I remember it.
Basically, the Japs need to secure oil supply and cut the allied supply route to australia, the allies need to prevent that from happening and wait for their massive reinforcement advantage to kick in.

Unfortunately, it's a Shrapnel game, and we all know how their pricing policy works...

Indeed, I had quite a good time with it, until I lost the manual and could not reinstall it.
It was abstract and lightweight, but at the same time, it represented logistics well IMO.

 

[Delbaeth]

In the very same vein of War in the Pacific, there's War Plan Orange, using same engine, occurring during a hypothetical war between Japan and US during the 20s.

I don't know what GAM/SystemSoft games like the Taiheiyou no Arashi are (and the Artdink wargames were real time).

By meaning the "Old PTO", I believe it's the PC old ones (especially PTO2) - while I used to play strategic games (not that one) on consoles when I was teen, I tend to prefer their PC counterparts (UI, controls, resolution).

 

[Endemic]

Pacific General is fun, albeit it suffers from a lack of detail and heavy abstraction much like its Panzer General siblings.

 

[rezaf]

Also since it's semi-related to the topic, how is Order of Battle: Pacific?
I enjoyed Panzer Corps and since it looks like a Panzer Corps reskin set in Pacific (I'm fine with that), it might be worth a try.

It's more than a simple reskin - OOB has a supply mechanic that shakes things up quite a bit. It's fairly simplistic, but still. Cutting enemy units from supply (and preventing that from happening to your own units) plays a distinct role, as does finishing off enemy units in a timely manner (moreso than in PzC). Naval combat is a bit weird, but workable once you get used to it.
Things are similar enough that, if you enjoy PzC/PG, you'll likely enjoy OOB as well.

However, I'd not recommend the mainland china campaign. From what I understand, a huge problem China's otherwise numerically very strong army had that it's troops broke very easily and were poorly supplied/organized/commanded/whatever. None of that is modeled, and thus it's a bit of a grind, and many missions end up playing out quite similarly.

If you are okay with PG/PzC, I'd strongly recommend the IJA Campaign mod for Panzer Corps, created by modder bebro, who is now actually working for the Arirstocrats (the studio that developed OOB).
A word of warning: the first two missions are BRUTAL, as you face the Red Army with infantry and a few japanese paper tanks, but difficulty is absolutely ok beyond that.