A returning player's thoughts

[Numdydar]

I was not pleased with the game at release and put it aside and figured I'd never play it again. I started playing World at War with the TRP mod (which is great but not ready for SP yet, MP is good though, but it is actively being worked on) and thought why not look at Warplan Pacific again.

I started a game as Japan on Normal with Small Fleets and won a major Axis victory. Below are my thoughts on the game.

Overall
The game is in much better shape now I was pleased to see. The Small Fleet version should be the default as typically TFs only had 2-3 fleet CVs due to air control issues in the TFs area and using Small Fleets allows this to happen more often. Plus, it is hard to attack all the TFs that you want to at times, so I really recommend using this version when you play.

Game start
Japan needs to start with more oil in the stockpile as they had built up a six-month supply of oil before the war started. The game allows about 3 weeks before oil runs out which is way too short. I would suggest at least a 50% increase in the starting oil pool to better reflect the historical record.

Ai
The Chinese AI seems to be pretty solid. The UK not too bad, but the US is terrible. But the game notes stated this would be the case, but I was surprised at how bad it was.

I had a major effort to block supplies to Australia, but I seldom found anything to sink. As far as I could tell the AI made no effort to send any shipping along the indicated path on the map. So, building subs and increasing sub tech as Japan is pretty worthless. I was placing my subs between New Zealand and Australia as a FYI.

The Allied AI made zero effort to raid my convoy lanes at all ether. I also invested heavily into ASW and buying Escorts/Merchants for no reason as well. I think I lost 2-3 merchants the entire game and not a single escort.

India
I took 4 armies and several divisions into Burma and pushed the Allies back and took Calcutta and stopped there. The Allies never attacked my position even though they had a huge advantage in both troops and planes. The only thing they did was bomb resources. I thought they would invade Burma and cut me off, but they never did.

My game plan was to go after China, so I did not have the resources to do both China and India. I actually do not think India is even doable as Japan as it is so open with a large coastline.

China - Where do I start?
I did overrun China, but it was hard to do. And it is something you need to decide at the start of the game to do. As you will not be building much else other than land units to do this. I only built one CV group the entire game. As you push the Chinese back, a lot of your units will be just protecting your supply lines which is realistic.

But the issue is the game does a poor job with unit efficiency in China. I had units sitting on rail line next to an HQ and not next to enemy units and their efficiency would only go up a few percentage points a turn. The same was true for air units. The losses to efficiency are too great and the gains too small. So, I think there is a major issue with how this all works in China. The other areas of the game, DEI, PH, etc. do not seem to have this issue.

Along these same lines, once China surrenders, the entire supply system in China/Manchuria goes haywire. Units that were in supply are now completely cut off as all the Japanese control areas before the surrender switch to neutral? The only hexes that Japan controlled were hexes where the units sat.

I had to move units along all the rail lines to convert them back to Japanese control AND wait for them to get fixed again.

The surrender also messed up the supply in Manchuria as well. No idea why. Units that were fine before the surrender now had 'No supply source' or 'Basic supply'. Even when sitting on a rail line next to a HQ in a city. Turn before all was good. Turn after supply messed up. Never figured out why as I could rail units around in Manchuria with no problem.

A Bomb
Never happened. The game requires Saipan to be Allied controlled. Well, the AI bypassed it so no bomb for Japan. This should be changed to allow multiple locations to be used rather than just one like how World at War does.

Everywhere else
Had some major naval battles throughout the game which were really fun. Again, really recommend the small fleets game version.

Rabaul and surrounding areas were never really contested. Major battles for the PI and Turk happened. The DEI was invaded once, and the 30-point oil field was captured. Fortunately, no port was captured so was able to get it back after a few turns.

Japan was invaded with very strong forces in the last turns of the game. It would have been interesting to see if the Allies could have captured a port of not.

Final thoughts
The China surrender/supply issue and the efficiency issues should be looked at as those were the only major issues I found in the game play. So, a good job was done on improving the game to this point. Of course, if you do not go after China hard then these issues will not have an impact on your game play. But if you do go after China, be aware of these so you can plan accordingly.

[stjeand]

Numdydar,

Welcome back...

To comment...

I have only had oil issues early twice then figured out what I needed to do to fix that. Giving Japan to much oil early means they are able to use to much air to early. That needs to be kept in check.
If you take the DEI on time the issue is mute.

I agree regarding the US AI...the problem is you would need a Cray computer to compute the 10s of thousands of options available. I don't even know how it could work at all to be honest.
I played the AI a couple times to learn then quickly moved to playing others since they provide a much better challenge.

Japanese subs are NOT useful to attack other than

India requires US intervention or luck to survive...AI won't be able to do that but a player can for sure.

China, I have always beat down pretty badly...enough to keep them out of the war.
Efficiency is a straight forward recovery but in China well...during snow you get very little back and to be honest that is good. To much back would slaughter the Chinese really quickly.
Check the guide as to how much efficiency returns...as I said in the winter it will be a couple points per turn IF you are low.
Against a really good Japanese player I am not sure the Chinese can hold out. Well I have not found someone that could.



To be honest I was NEVER planning on playing other people...I normally just play AI but found it to be SO much better against a human that I stopped ever playing the AI.

[AlvaroSousa]

If you like send me the game so I can look at the supply issues and UK in Burma.

Allied A.I. is INCREDIBLY difficult to do. It follows 2-3 paths with multiple options but it gets messed up if the Japanese do something wonky. Even in the War in the Pacific forums they have this problem against the Allied A.I.

The A.I. does the island hopping to get the ports it needs. But if the Japanese player back ends them and invades somewhere behind their lines it throws them off.

Send me the save so i can look at it.

Playing the Allies should be better. A.I. is better, well should be, at playing the Axis than the Allies.

[Numdydar]

I did not do anything to cut off the US forces. I went to the Solomans in 1942 and never went any further.

The AI did take the Marshels but I did not contest that. After my initial expansion, I just stayed put and reacted to what the US did.

I cannot imagine how hard it is/was to get the US AI to do what is does now, regardless of how bad it does. The fact that it can make moves and attack at all is pretty amazing.

I sent you the file right before China surrendered. I hope it helps.

[generalfdog]

To me the AIs biggest issue in either game is on land being encircled to easy, which I am sure is very hard to code shoot there are human players myself included who allow that to happen, and a general lackluster attack when they are in the ascendance. And at sea putting navies at to much risk from lba