Order of Battle: Pacific has now an official release date

[BanzaiCat]

Here's some impressions.

I played the game last night. I only wanted to do it for maybe 30 minutes or so and do some other things, but I ended up playing it most of the night instead of just a brief time (maybe 2.5-3 hours or so). I didn't expect it to draw me in as quickly as it did.

I played the first few 'boot camp' scenarios. There are many of these tutorial missions, all interconnected, to get through if you want to explore the basics of this game. They are pretty simple and small at first, but ramp up in size and difficulty fairly quickly. I went through the first three, then saw there were more tutorial missions to go through. I got a little tired of 'intro' scenarios and wanted a taste of the real thing, so I then started up the Japanese Campaign.

The Japanese Campaign starts with the air raid on Pearl Harbor. Before you think it is a cakewalk, it most certainly is not. I managed to sink a lot of the ships in the harbor, but I took heavy losses in aircraft. So much so that the game made it a point to tell me how heavy my losses were and how that would have an effect on Japanese military fortunes, or something like that. I realized I pretty much screwed the pooch and would have to be more careful, so before that first mission ended I quit. (The last turn, the Americans shot down two more of my aircraft, and since you don't really start with a lot of them, things were no doubt made much worse for the future.)

One thing I'll mention is, this game does look and feel like Panzer General. I know that will turn a lot of people off, and will engage a lot more. Don't let this fool you, though; this is a much more polished version of that game system. The similarities are impossible to ignore (units start with a '10' strength, move around a hex-based map, conduct combat, capture objectives, you can build new units and repair damaged ones, and in the Campaign you can take along a 'core' set of units through each battle). There have been a lot of PG clones over the last few years. That all said, this is one of the better iterations of this system I've played. Then again, I enjoy Pacific War-themed games.

It's not for groggy grogs. It's simple, straightforward, and has a lot of features that you might like. The fog of war feature, for example, is not full; there's a band between what your units can see and what they cannot see, that is a few hexes wide and will display an icon if an enemy unit is present. You can't see what it is, but you can see if it is a ship, airplane, or what have you. As opposed to an 'all or nothing' FOW, this is pretty cool.

Another pretty cool (even if minor) thing is that aircraft can, of course, occupy the same hex as naval or land units. If you want to attack an enemy ship, for example, you park your aircraft overhead and then attack it. However - that's just for bombers. If you want to conduct a torpedo attack with, say, a Devastator, you need to move it NEXT to the ship you want to attack, not over it. (I made this mistake once - ONCE.) However, you might think the bomber over the ship will block it from other bombers, too - what if you have more than one that you want to attack with? Once a bomber attacks, it can move one hex in any direction - essentially, clearing the airspace over the target. So technically you can attack several times. You just gotta remember to clear the airspace first. If you go and select another unit and move it, and realize 'oh crap, I forgot to move that bomber,' you're hosed - the bomber will stay where it is.

Naval combat is a little odd. I have to do some more reading but my impression is, if you move a ship and then attack, it's unlikely to cause damage (or significant damage). The closer it is, the better the chance of doing damage. If a ship stays put and continues to trade shells with the enemy, it seems the chance of higher damage increases. Again I could be wrong but that seems to be my impression of it.

When landing troops on a beach on, say, an enemy-occupied island, you will probably have a Supply Ship. You need to move these adjacent to a beach hex, and the units that land will be supplied. Once you capture a port (or maybe a city, but I'm not clear on all of the supply rules), the Supply Ship doesn't need to stay on station any longer. Supply is important to the game, but it's not overwhelming to comprehend.

I enjoy managing the sea, air, and land aspects of this game. Everything seems to tie in pretty well and it doesn't feel like a giant game of rock-paper-scissors (though it is, in a way, since some units are much more effective against certain units than others). I like very much landing troops on a beach, and having them slug their way forward to fight it out. Then again as I said, I enjoy Pacific War-themed games, and the island-hopping, straight-up fighting of brutal island combat is particularly interesting to me. If you're 'meh' on the concept, you probably won't enjoy it as much as I have.

The game is, overall, pretty great in my opinion. I intend to return to it this weekend. I'll probably repeat all of this on the next GrogCast, too. :)

[bbmike]

Nice write-up BC. Thanks!  O0

[Barthheart]

Oh great... another game that sounds interesting and will cost me money... 

Is the campaign a bunch of linked set scenarios or are you able to direct where the war/fighting will go?

[BanzaiCat]

Barth, I've not played far enough to see, but I think they're linked. The tutorial missions are.

I forgot to mention something. If you don't complete a secondary objective in one mission, it could come bite you in the butt in later missions. In the tutorial, there's one secondary objective dealing with sinking an enemy cruiser. If you do not, it will show up in the next mission. I think that's a pretty neat feature.

[spelk]

Thanks for the impressions Banzai, did Panzer Corps have any supply considerations at all?

[Gusington]

I think with a few screenshots BCs above post qualifies as an initial impressions piece...thanks BC!

[FarAway Sooner]

The AI does a ton of simulations in the background to find out what its best options are. I talked to the AI programmer and he thinks the unit must've determined that your next turn's attacks would kill it no matter what. The best remaining move it could find is to try and cut supply or run away. Of course from a human POV that still isn't an obvious decision, as sitting still and hoping the opponent doesn't attack (for whatever reason) makes more sense.

That is the historical self-destructive tendency of the Japanese.

Sadly that excuse is invalid because there are no Japanese in the training scenarios  ;)

If it wasn't Japanese and this was just a training scenario, maybe it was a poorly trained USMC unit fresh out of New River that took the Marine Corps enthusiasm for a lean logistical tail a little too enthusiastically?     :)

[jomni]

Here's some impressions.

Naval combat is a little odd. I have to do some more reading but my impression is, if you move a ship and then attack, it's unlikely to cause damage (or significant damage). The closer it is, the better the chance of doing damage. If a ship stays put and continues to trade shells with the enemy, it seems the chance of higher damage increases. Again I could be wrong but that seems to be my impression of it.

Ships lose fire effectiveness when they move then shoot at the same turn. Rationale is When a ship moves (towards or away from the enemy), the amount of guns that can shoot (front turret or aft turret only) is less than the amount of guns when shooting at the sides (front, aft, etc.).

[BanzaiCat]

Here's some impressions.

Naval combat is a little odd. I have to do some more reading but my impression is, if you move a ship and then attack, it's unlikely to cause damage (or significant damage). The closer it is, the better the chance of doing damage. If a ship stays put and continues to trade shells with the enemy, it seems the chance of higher damage increases. Again I could be wrong but that seems to be my impression of it.

Ships lose fire effectiveness when they move then shoot at the same turn. Rationale is When a ship moves, especially towards the enemy, the amount of guns that can shoot forward (front turret only) is less than the amount of guns when shooting at the sides (front, aft, etc.).

Makes sense to me. Only thing is I didn't see it applied 'universally,' which is why I called it odd. Seemed that sometimes you could get a good shot in and sometimes hammer an enemy with little effect. I'm sure there's more going on under the hood and I'm fine with some randomness in my game, so no worries there.

[Apocalypse 31]

This is the last Slitherine game I'm ever buying.  >:( I'm done with this company, their false advertising and over-pricing.

Only TWO cooperative multiplayer scenarios. Is this a JOKE? 
The developers kept pushing the ability to play cooperatively during pre-release, even going so far as to publish a 3-part AAR and twitch streaming.

No modding. All of the resource files are packed, and require 3rd party software to extract/pack- that we don't have. Again, developers claimed the game was easily modified during pre-release. The only reason Panzer Corps is still around is due to its modding community. This game has limited playability - short campaigns, and very few multiplayer scenarios - it won't last long.

This is strategy-lite, at best. Terrain plays no part in combat. For example, tanks have the same effects in urban environments than they do in open terrain.

Even on the hardest difficulty, the game is incredibly easy. The primary objectives are entirely too easy to accomplish, the only challenge comes with the secondary objectives - but then who cares.

I've waited a long time for this game - when it was first announced in October 2013 - now the developers have nothing but excuses for their shortcomings. "It's a small team" and "more content will come". Those are excuses, and not something I'm interested in - ESPECIALLY with the price tag that went on this product.

[Jarhead0331]

I can attest to the addictive quality of this game. Once you start playing, it will be hours before you come up for air.

I think the system is a really good one in certain aspects, and I would like to see different eras modeled with the engine. I think this one would be great for Cold War era games, like Korea and Vietnam.

Still the gripes of Apocalypse31 are valid, so YMMV.

[Apocalypse 31]

I can attest to the addictive quality of this game. Once you start playing, it will be hours before you come up for air.

I think the system is a really good one in certain aspects, and I would like to see different eras modeled with the engine. I think this one would be great for Cold War era games, like Korea and Vietnam.

Still the gripes of Apocalypse31 are valid, so YMMV.

The engine is nice. There are some oddities with the animations; Infantry movement looks weird, and some of the impact animations are wrong (they seem to be randomly used - even if the game shows a 'miss' animation, you can still get damage. vice versa)

I would LOVE to see more era's. Cold War? Yes, please. Even in the Panzer Corps engine.

YMMV.

(Your Milage may Vary)

I agree, and I will say that I think Slitherine is slowly shifting their market. I feel like more of their games are focused on the strategy-lite crowd. Tablet/Phone gamers instead of a more serious crowd. This is just another drop in the bucket for the tablet-gamer crowd. I think most of my disappointment comes from false notions that I had from the pre-release advertising; mainly Cooperative Multiplayer and Modding.

I will continue to play Battle Academy 2 cooperative multiplayer - there's a development team that got it right.

[Barthheart]

WOW! $47 CDN... on sale! No time soon here.... 

[Apocalypse 31]

WOW! $47 CDN... on sale! No time soon here.... 

This game should be no more than $20 - especially with the lack of content that it offers.

[Cyrano]

Apoc...I am incredulous:  Are you in earnest when you say terrain plays no part in combat?  In a WWII game?  In the PTO? 

I am going to stealth into the Slitherine base in the middle of the night and delete all the PG code from their servers.  An intervention is needed...

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)