WitP:AE Demo

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

I haven't seen one. Does one exist?

[Currahee]

I haven't seen a demo; nor does the game (which I have, and am now getting familiar with) seem to have a tutorial, like WITP did. There's so much to the game, I'm not sure where a demo would start.

But it's an excellent game, I would venture to say the best there is, and although as Mike pointed out to Jobu88, it is very detailed and very immersive, it's also strangely playable; even in a very large scenario, after micro-managing the first move or so, you can sit back and watch the game unfold, in a way that's hard to do with, say, TOAW III, where every move is a new round of scrutinizing detail. Grigsby's games are not (usually) I go, you go, but each side plots moves, and they're played out and observed in a common "resolution" phase. This makes for a relaxing start to each turn, and reduces the amount of management required. I look forward to each move; I love TOAW, but sometimes in a large scenario, I heave an audible sigh before I get started. Not so in WITP.

This game started as SSI's War in the South Pacific, 1986, for Apple II (64k). The entire game was on one 5 1/2 " floppy, one side the game, the other side, the scenario. Came with a highly detalied, very fine print, 16-pg manual, with in some cases, more detail than the present electronic manual; it contained a lot of the formulas/algorithms, many of which have never changed. The graphics were primitive, but the game was basically there! One-day turns, which could be interrupted at 1, 4 or 8 hour pulses to change/update orders. No mouse interface, you had to hotkey, but God was it fast. It worked great, but as you can see, would not be easily translated to the entire war for the entire Pacific, as most of us won't live long enough to fight WW II in one-hour pulses.

It was later ripped off by another publisher, as Battles of the South Pacific; Grigsby ignored that, moved on to other things for a few years, but finally came back to it, ca. 1992, and expanded it to the entire Pacific, and it became Pac War, but that was a flawed effort, because the publisher (still SSI) forced Grigsby to go to weekly turns only, abandoning the daily turn cycle. This was pre-internet, we chatted it up on Delphi, and some brave souls, in the AOL forums. Well, it just didn't work, primarily because of the detailed timing nuances involved in carrier vs carrier battles. But the graphics and certain strategic elements were refined, and the whole Pacific was now in play....and also, the whole war, 1941-45.

Enter, then WITP- back to daily turns, with day & night, and day actually broken into half-day cycles for air ops....but the human player can't interrupt the daily cycle, so just issues commands a maximum of once per day...an elegant solution, allowing less human input than straight half-day turns, but still letting the carrier engagements play out realistically, and permitting a nice mix of day & night engagements.

In some ways it is indeed a monster, and I don't disagree with anything Mike said in his posts to Jobu88; but I'd hate myself if I didn't plug the game, there's nothing like it, and AE just makes it better. It has literally been in development for 25 years.

So buy it, and don't start with a campaign game; start with Coral Sea, and play it several times from each side. Read the manual, play the game, re-read the manual, re-play the game, re-read the manual, etc.

Then, move up to Guadalcanal. By the time you get through that, someone will have ported some of the other, shorter WITP scenarios to AE. Marianas, Rising Sun, etc. It has a good scenario editor, with its own PDF manual.

But at some point, maybe a year or two from now, start the big campaign game with someone you can trust not to flake. It'll be a milestone wargaming experience of a lifetime.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

Thanks. I used to have Uncommon Valor. So I have seen some of the detail in just that smaller effort. I know he had plans to do a Med game but don't know why he stopped that and went into the East Front instead. Personnaly, it wouldn't hurt my feelings to see EF, Med and West Front eventually done and combined for a massive ww2, but would think that it would only be playable as a team game if that is even possible in the game now. I think also, that a ww3 and even a ww1 would be pretty good too. I'd rather see a ww3 before 1 any day, with actually all the countries in the world involved. I've played the older Pacific War before and enjoyed that one. So I figured this one had to be better. I was going to get WitP when I saw AE in development and decided to wait. Once things get better, this one will definitely be coming into my collection.

Can this game be played with teams?

[Currahee]

It should be playable in teams; the move can be saved at any point, and multiple times, before the resolution phase, so it could be saved and shipped to next team member; and when the resolution replay is generated by the Japanese player, he could send to multiple recipients for viewing.

There would be some advantages, especially being able to assign China, Burma and Manchuria to someone who's able to spend some time on them. On the other hand, there could be long periods of boredom in some theaters. And a lot of logistical coordination, to get supplies and fuel where they go. Not to mention ships and units! I would think shipping would have to be centrally allocated by a team captain; but it should be doable. Would be fun to try!

[Mike Abberton]

Based on the Matrix forums, there are several people playing the game (and WitP before it) in teams. Most that I have seen are 2x2's. Typically the Allies divide it by east and west, one takes the US and the Pacific (historical NorPac, CentPac, and SoPac areas) the other takes the Commonwealth areas (India, Burma, Malaysia, Australia) and the Dutch Indies (as long as they last). The Commonwealth player typically takes China as well, because of the interaction of Burma and China. Dividing Japan is a little more up to the players, although I have certainly seen a similar east/west division there too.

And also, while my posts to Jobu88 might have seemed cautionary, I do not want to give the impression that I wouldn't recommend it to someone, as long as they know what they are getting into. Like Currahee, I look forward to each turn that comes through, although I might disagree that the combat replay is relaxing, especially if you're expecting a carrier battle that turn. :)

Currahee is correct about another thing. While there is a lot of micromanagement, some things, once set in motion, do not require direct intervention each turn. Unlike a TOAW, SP, CS, OpC and similar I-GO-U-GO games, once you tell a task force of ships or a division of troops to go somewhere, they move on their own. You don't plot one day's movement each turn. It's not a bad idea to scan by them each turn to make sure they are behaving, but you don't have to move them yourself. So, you do have "quiet" turns sometimes, although I like to use otherwise quiet turns to do some of the non-daily maintenance items that can pile up (sending supplies to out-of-way bases, going over ships in repairs, or production).

Mike