Some Thoughts About War in the Pacific (And Mini-AAR)

Few days ago I got myself a copy of War in the Pacific. I spent some time familiarising myself with the scenarios, campaigns and game mechanism, but in the end it didn't matter much because I had previous experiences with Uncommon Valor. After a while I decided to start Grand Campaign (1941-1946) with historical AI, Japanese strategic surprise, submarine doctrines and all options that made the game as close to historic reality as possible.

I chose to play Allies because I don't consider myself to be such a great gamer to prove Isoroku Yamamoto wrong. This way, the game is very challenging at the start when the Allies get clobbered and very rewarding later when the American industrial might comes into play.

So far, I managed to go only through the first day – the one that that would live in infamy. Things didn't turn very differently than real history. Again, Japanese wrecked Pearl Harbor with two battleships being sunk (California still floats but is in really bad shape and might not survive the next day) and almost entire US air force in the island either destroyed (some 200 aircraft) or damaged. They paid for that triumph with some 28 planes. Clark Field on Philippines was also wrecked. Japanese managed to capture Batan Island and Wake Island, the latter much faster than historically. British fared slightly better during their defence of Singapore and one of their pilots, despite having an obsolete Buffalo, even managed to down a Zero in air-to-air combat.

I think that the game is great (apart from somewhat unfortunate choices of music), but I'm not sure whether I would have patience and time to play the game or write regular AARs on this blog.