Matrix Games Forums

This is the first time I got to play the new version of Pacwar (dont ask) so forgive me if this is a dead issue. Anyway it is May 1942 and I currently have a saved game where on the very next turn 5 US carriers take on the 11 Jap Carriers of Ceylon. The Brits have Columbo, the Japs have the other base on the island with Bettys and Zeros. I have run the turn 10 times and more often than not "Midway" occurs and a conflageration occurs in the Imperial Navy and at most I only lose 2 CVs. Particularly vunerable ships are the Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu, and the Ryujo. The Kaga has blown up with ONE SBD hit four times. Likewise, the Hiryu and the Akagi are prone to critical hits with 1000 lb SBD hits. In the regular game, the Akagi and the Kaga could withstand dozens of hits.

What changed

I would say the previous beatings the Kaga could absorb were a bit ridiculous, but as it stands now I dont think the game is very fun or challenging if the Kaga is always going to explode and sink with a single 1000 pound bomb. I understand there is always a bit of exhaggeration on these forms and perhaps "always" isn't the right word, but I swear I ran the turn 10 tens and 4 times the Kaga blew up from one hit. The average results from the ten runs at the turn were:

2 Jap CV and 2 Jap CVLs sunk.
2 US CVs sunk.

Averages sometimes dont tell the story, half the time I lose only 1 (2 others damaged) and 5 Jap carriers are destroyed. A little too good for being outnumbered 2:1 AND subject to attack from escorted Bettys.

Well, American carriers were better than their Japanese counterparts. Could the game be simulating a surprise attack with planes on deck? This is before the IJN gets radar, I believe.

When you run a turn repeatedly from the same setup, doesn't the game generate the same sequence of random numbers, and therefore, the same results?

I seem to remember an old post where someone was complaining they ran a setup with a Pearl Harbor attack repeatedly and got virtually identical results every time. If I recall correctly the answer he was given was that the computer keeps coming up with the same sequence of random numbers while the turn runs, and therefore you get the same results.

Can any of the PacWar veterans comfirm or deny this idea?

If this was true, I'd assume doing things slightly differently, a few more or a few less air attacks in China for instance, would throw off the sequence and give you a different result. You could test that theory if you desire.

I don't know if this is true with 2.2, but it didn't used to be true. I tested 1.22 quite extensively on this, and found that adding and then deleting a single ship in a TF made a world of difference in the fate of the TF. I doubt that the game engine was modified for version 2.2, so i would expect that it was operational factors, as Nimits implies: this was a period of definate US technical superiority, as the game counts it. The US has radar and the Japanese do not.

I have lost many USN CVs to a single hit in various playings of the game. I always attributed this to the "Midway" factor of having ready planes on deck in a carrier battle, even though this is nominally below the scale of the game.