Matrix Games Forums

Great advice, I really appreciate it. I don't know how I managed to overlook the air destination order! Once I manage to get the hang of things I can see this being my most played Grigsby title.

Thanks again.

As a relative newb, the best advice for you who just purchased WITP:AE. Disabuse yourself of any Omnipotent Arch-admiral leanings. This game has lots of hidden data and "fuzzy" numbers (combat reports, sinkings, etc.). Furthermore, if you can't hack your units refusing to follow your orders to the letter, this is NOT the game for you... unless of course you can manage to turn over a new gamer leaf and embrace the UNCERTAINTY. There's lots and lots of it. Having said all that, I believe the payoff is worth the time and money investment, particularly at $16 US.

If I'm playing against the AI, and say being strategic in my thinking, but not obsessive. How many hours to finish the long campaign?

ORIGINAL: painless42

If I'm playing against the AI, and say being strategic in my thinking, but not obsessive. How many hours to finish the long campaign?

HOURS!! My dear dear boy. It's measured in months and years....GP

LOL, let me re-frame. If I spend an hour a day, would I finish in less time than it took to complete the actual war in the Pacific?

ORIGINAL: painless42

If I'm playing against the AI, and say being strategic in my thinking, but not obsessive. How many hours to finish the long campaign?

Depends on how much micro-management of all those units you do. Some people will set an air unit to attack an enemy base and leave it like that for a week - risking heavy pilot and aircraft fatigue and higher ops losses. I check every turn and rest them when needed. It takes longer per turn and thus per game, but I have no timeline I have to keep. Playing against a human opponent would raise pressure to complete turns quickly.
btd64 is right about the months and years for a grand campaign.

Two weeks ago I bought the boxed set at $113. NOW it's on sale for $16?!? I must say I am pissed off.

ORIGINAL: painless42
If I'm playing against the AI, and say being strategic in my thinking, but not obsessive. How many hours to finish the long campaign?

Answers can vary wildly here. You can play 1 or 4-day turns. You can be obsessive about the number of turns and flip them quickly while not stepping away from the game (it takes a lot of time to get back and recall all the stuff happening), or you can be obsessive about your pilot training and subs (darn time sinks). Watching a turn takes me from 10 to 20 minutes, placing orders - from 10 minutes to infinity, but usually around 20 I'd say. YMMV

Also most of games against AI are abandoned long before the victory screen, when it becomes clear how the win is achieved and only rather boring going through the motions remains. "The win" again depends on how you see it for yourself. My longest AI campaign was almost until 44 since the aim was to capture the entire map as Japan. Some of the Allied campaigns ended quickly (in 42) with the destruction of KB and invasion of Home Islands. But then there are user-made scenarios with much more assets on the AI side, those can play for quite some time.

I almost always play against the computer. I can get through a campaign game in about 2-3 months of real time. I do two-day turns, no combat animations, lowest possible settings for messages, pay 5% attention to the sub war, pay 5% attention to China, let Japan run free for six months, deal with pilot training about once a month, set-up automated convoys all over with very little maintenance, etc. You can put as much time as you want into it. One reason I have shied away from PBEM is I'm worried I'd spend way too much time on the game.

Cheers,
CB

ORIGINAL: painless42

LOL, let me re-frame. If I spend an hour a day, would I finish in less time than it took to complete the actual war in the Pacific?

Just watching the turn resulution after the orders phase can take 15-20 minutes when there is a lot of action, even with message delays set to just a second. I have seen surface actions that lasted for what I felt were hours (maybe 5 min in reality).

The orders phase can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 10 hours or more, depending on the level of control you want to exercise.

The first turn is the most time consuming, orders needs to be given to practically all land, air and naval units, plus base construction and - for the Japanese only - industry management (that is if you seek optimal performance - you don't need to do everything on day one, it's a long war after all). For a PBEM, spending 3-4 days on the first turn optimisation is not unusual.

Now this is truly a paycut in price. Recently retired so I'm going for this one.
Guess I will have to live until I'm 90 to get the Campaign Game to the time I can invade Japan or nuke them. Always known Grigsby has been the true champ on detailed wargames, but this takes the price. Almost thought I was expected to order groundcrews to fix the tires on a P-40 fighter. This is truly micromanaging porn. [:'(]
Some in this thread talk about how many hours it takes to complete. Gosh it takes days even to understand all the details and make the moves for the first turn.

In times like this with CoVid-19 this game must help us all over this Annus Horribilis.
[&o]

My only fear is it will just be too overwhelming.

ORIGINAL: RSchall08

Two weeks ago I bought the boxed set at $113. NOW it's on sale for $16?!? I must say I am pissed off.

Unfortunate - but many of us on this forum were advising interested players to wait for the Xmas sale, so we tried.

I bought the game with CD and paper manual (no longer available) about 10 years ago for $86 Cdn. Never regretted it or felt I did not get value for the money. My cost per hour of play has many decimal points before the 1. But if you have a friend you want to get hooked on the game so you can play them, tell them about the sale!

ORIGINAL: clamel

Now this is truly a paycut in price. Recently retired so I'm going for this one.
Guess I will have to live until I'm 90 to get the Campaign Game to the time I can invade Japan or nuke them. Always known Grigsby has been the true champ on detailed wargames, but this takes the price. Almost thought I was expected to order groundcrews to fix the tires on a P-40 fighter. This is truly micromanaging porn. [:'(]
Some in this thread talk about how many hours it takes to complete. Gosh it takes days even to understand all the details and make the moves for the first turn.

In times like this with CoVid-19 this game must help us all over this Annus Horribilis.
[&o]

My only fear is it will just be too overwhelming.

The game is daunting, but not overwhelming if you realize that it will take years to learn everything (the nuances are incredible!) and just treat it like a long journey where you are making progress as you go, even if you have to backtrack at times.

Start small.

Though I did jump straight into Grand Campaign...did so with previous WitP too. That is a daunting prospect, but AI's feelings don't get hurt if you replay turns when making a mistake.

Small scenarios are good way to start, though.

One of the best new player tools is Kull's Allied Setup Spreadsheet.
Kull has spent untold hours putting this together (along with a Japanese version) and updating it along the way.
One tab at the bottom explains the way the data is put together and intended to be used. The others are the actual Day 1 moves separated by Region (alphabetically). Of course his moves are just suggestions, but I just made a copy of it and I make my own changes to that version. I have it pulled up and just ALT-TAB between it and WITP:AE. Extremely useful learning tool. Also included are a Allied reinforcement schedule (with suggested use in some cases).

I can't play a whole lot, so doing a turn one from scratch generally takes me a couple of weeks to a month depending on how many hours I can set aside. YMMV of course. I tend to be anal retentive about developing a plan and ordering units about the pacific, so... yeah.

Can't recommend it enough, Kull deserves an award in my opinion.

ORIGINAL: painless42

LOL, let me re-frame. If I spend an hour a day, would I finish in less time than it took to complete the actual war in the Pacific?

If I only spent an hour a day, I wouldn't be able to finish the war in my lifetime.[:D]

ORIGINAL: RSchall08

Two weeks ago I bought the boxed set at $113. NOW it's on sale for $16?!? I must say I am pissed off.

Sorry about that, but you should've checked here before making the jump. We've have set you straight.

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

ORIGINAL: painless42

LOL, let me re-frame. If I spend an hour a day, would I finish in less time than it took to complete the actual war in the Pacific?

Just watching the turn resulution after the orders phase can take 15-20 minutes when there is a lot of action, even with message delays set to just a second. I have seen surface actions that lasted for what I felt were hours (maybe 5 min in reality).

The orders phase can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 10 hours or more, depending on the level of control you want to exercise.

The first turn is the most time consuming, orders needs to be given to practically all land, air and naval units, plus base construction and - for the Japanese only - industry management (that is if you seek optimal performance - you don't need to do everything on day one, it's a long war after all). For a PBEM, spending 3-4 days on the first turn optimisation is not unusual.

A lot of good advice from a lot of very talented and helpful veterans.

I am a relative newbie [8D] I have owned the game a "few years" only. Please consider

i) reading the manual pdf
ii) play the introductory scenario to learn mechanics

I have played 3 Official Campaigns now *albeit the first attempt was an aborted game in mid 1943 when further reading of forums, further helpful advice from these talented vets, made me realize how many details I had missed, and how many mistakes and unnecessary losses I incurred.

My Answer: to Painless the OP

I have never completed a full OC in less than ~ 1 year (11 months - 14 months recently). That would certainly be averaging more than 7 hours per week.

A full OC in my opinion is Dec 7 till the liberation of Tokyo / Osaka or Sept 1 1945 (the signing aboard the Missouri) - which ever comes first. Depending upon your experience and expertise you may achieve a major or strategic victory in (43?) (44?) (45?) where your points ratio dictates it.

Your ability to limit yourself to 1 hour per day will be the biggest factor in addition to your desire to micro manage assets and keep track of short term tactical objectives (fights, sieges, raids) verses long term strategic objectives (consolidating air, naval and ground forces to invade the Marianas for example).

Interestingly I think it will be very hard to limit yourself to 1 hour turns 'early in the war' with so much to organize, position, and plan for the long term i.e. consolidating troops, bases, upgrades, and building Divisions, TOE, etc. In the early (41/42) and mid years (43) of the war it often takes me an ~ hour "just to review" where I last saved and where I have to follow up my turn. Your ability to keep good notes for yourself will help.

In my opinion learning the Order of Battle, and upcoming available troops, ships, squadron, and equipment upgrades is the largest learning curve. Even for those with 'above average historical interest and knowledge'. Learning to factor these into your plans is a significant learning curve.

Ironically (in my experience) turns at "end game" (44 +) become simple despite having triple + the number of assets. Experience plays a part but additionally by late war you are more organized against your long term objectives and follow up becomes simper. In early war it may take me hours to plan " a turn". In late war I can often plan "days over a few hours".

Challenges for "wargame experienced" Newbies verse the AI

i) update the AI from threads linked in these forums

ii) consider playing a "no reload" campaign or a '1 mulligan per year' campaign. That is if you chance a Carrier Battle and you loose important assets - suck it up like Nimitz (or Tojo) and carry on. [8D] Or use your 1 self imposed mulligan but then wait till next year.

iii) Ship movements off map (or the edge of map) should be at normal speeds and escorted properly even though the game permits them to be practically invincible

iv) PDU (Player defined upgrades) OFF. Play with the assets Nimitz had (or Tojo)

Just picked this up. Was a big fan of WitP. I can't find a way to set the resolution or run in a window. Any ideas?