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Just finishes my first Pacwar Game as the Allies. It was the 41 Campaign with Historical Start and player help set to even.
It ended with an Allied Decisive Victory on 12/19/43. The early end was due to the high number of Allied Kill points and the low number of Japanese production points (only 2448).

At game end, I had conquered New Guinea, all of the Solomons including Rabual and Kavieng, the Caroliines, Truk and all of Malaya except Singora. I had just taken Saipan when the game ended, and also had Medan. I had not touched any of the Phillipines, or Indonesia except for Medan, Ambon, and Halmahera.

The game followed this progression: The Japanese were extremely slow getting the Solomons and New Guinea. I retreated everthing to either Australia/Port Moresby or India whichever was closest, building up strong air bases in PM, Tricomalee, and India. In New Guinea, only as far south as Madang was captured, and NO army units were ever left there. It was reconqured without a single battle. Early on though, several carrier groups were sent at the Port Moresby airfield resulting in the loss of 1 IJN CV and 3 CVL. The main Solomons battles were over New Georgia and Shortland which took me several months to overcome. This was the most intersting part of the game. During this time Rabaul and Kavieng were built up with lots of air battles, and Transport TFs colliding. The only carrier battle of the war occured with a surprise USN reaction move. The IJN lost 2 CVL and had 2 CV severly damaged while the Hornet and Wasp were sent back to San diego as floating wrecks. By now it was early 43, and between using the old PH BBs to bomard targets, and the lack of IJN CVs (most were either sunk or damaged going after land bases) I just kept the chain moving through Rabual-Kavieng-Truk while simultaneously working the Carolines and snapping up all of the small stuff. Towards the end of 43, I would use SIGINT to see what ports were full and raid them with 3-4 CV TFs, sinking lots of MCs and TKs to build up Kill VPs.

In India, I retreated to Rangoon to make a stand, and to my surprise got booted back to Mandalay. 1 IJA Division was sent to Mandalay, but I forced it to retreat and then hoarded everything there to try and retake Rangoon. For several turns as my time approached, I queried SIGINT to tell me the army strength and always got no troop information. Sure enough, when I moved in it was undefended. 3 Divisions immediately appeared there the next week and it took me a year of bombing the Bangkok depots and repeated attacks to dislodge them. In Dec 43, I took Bangkok.

In the Indian Ocean, 2 IJA divisions were landed on Port Blair where they stayed for the entire game. An engineer was never sent to them. Transport TFs were sent to attempt a landing at Tricomalee, but the air groups there would pound them into retreat. This happened 5 or 6 times before the AI gave up. It never used its CVs to try and force a landing.

Eventually I found Medan unguarded, landed there. I tried to take Palembang, it was loaded. I moved across the straits to unguarded Kuala Lampur and found Singapore guarded by only 60 squads. Game ended as I was mopping up the peninsula. Cool thing here was the the IJN sent a big bombardment TF over with the Yamato and Musashi which was intercepted by all of the British heavy ships. Both of the Big IJN BBs survied though while Resolution went down and Price of Wales was 80% damaged.

For anyone who is still reading at this point I just wanted to point out some of my observations on the game and ask some questions:'

Mainly I was disappointed that it ended so soon. Does moving to max Jap help make this
significantly more challenging? Am I wsating my time?

Heresome observations I had:

1. The SIGINT is SO powerful. Made it easy to find unguarded areas or full ports and pound them. Realistic I'm sure, but the AI doesn't seem to recognize that it exists.

2. The AI also seems to underestimate ground based air power. It would send TFs where they could be pounded to bits, and when they were it just sent another one. It would also sent TFs with one CV and a CVL into range of 2 or more bases with 4-6 groups of planes there to get beat on.

3. The AI kept tons of ships in ports right on the front line, even when the base had no air cover to fight off a carrier raid.

4. At the end of the game 586 MCs, 189 APs, and 105 TKs had been sunk, but to my surprise, when I changed to both Human to look and the IJN situation there were still plenty of these ships in the pools. I wonder if you can ever really create a Japanese shipping problem? Even with ships left in the pool, 5000 was the highest I even saw on oil and resources were only 2732.
Both seemed extremely low.

If you are still reading at his points, thanks alot and let me know what you think.

The problem is, that the AI for the Japs is very bad.
In my last game as Allied, the Combined Fleet take all tankers and no one is left for routine convoys.

Wait for the first time the AI goes towards Pearl. If your not ready it can scare you. The AI has several ways of playing (all of them share common weakness-placing AP/MCS where allies can bomb) but the Southern and Central Pacific plans can cause problems for a while.

Try playing a PBEM game against a human opponent. You may find that a bit more challenging and exciting.
-Tom

My first game has played out almost the exact same way. Except the japs couldn't take Bataan and moved the mass of the combined fleet to pound it.
I captured Rabul, that got there attention and I was waiting for their counter-attack and destroyed them. I've been running rough shod over them ever since.
At what point do they surrender? They are not getting any oil. I've captured palembang, singapore, jolo, all indonesa, marcus, iwo jima. Bataan and wake never fell.
The oil reserve for japan never gets more than 5k because each time it gets over 4k one thousand can be used to make 10000 fuel for ship and plane use.
It's Oct. 43 in my game if i can get a surrender I'd like to try a PBEM game but I prefer the allies.
Does SIGNET work in PBEM games?

SIGINT works very well for PBEM games, although there is a period when the number of targets can drop to only one or two. You don't always get the imfo you are looking for on a base, particularly on ships in port or in TFs. Sigint is great for spotting LBA and LCU, however, and this is really the most important information. Without it, against a human Japanese you would have a hard time advancing.

I agree that PBEM between at least two humans is really where this game shines. It can also be played in a round-robin fashion with more than one player on each side. You simply forward all the files around the group along with the "VCR" file.

SIGINT works very well for PBEM games, although there is a period when the number of targets can drop to only one or two. You don't always get the imfo you are looking for on a base, particularly on ships in port or in TFs. Sigint is great for spotting LBA and LCU, however, and this is really the most important information. Without it, against a human Japanese you would have a hard time advancing.

I agree that PBEM between at least two humans is really where this game shines. It can also be played in a round-robin fashion with more than one player on each side. You simply forward all the files around the group along with the "VCR" file.