War in the Pacific Alpha screens

“War in the Pacific: The Struggle Against Japan” is a completely new strategy game, based on the “Uncommon Valor” engine. The scale is 60 miles per hex and losses are individual vehicles, aircraft, guns and squads. Since half the planet Earth is covered by the titanic Pacific struggle, the game is massive in scope, covering thousands of ships tens of thousands of aircraft. Virtually every ship, air group and battalion sized or larger troop formation is covered in exacting detail. Massive, yet simple to play, as the computer tracks all the factors and the interface allows the player to concern himself with only the degree of detail he prefers. Phases are one day, composed of two 12-hour impulses. A turn is composed of 1 to 7 phases, at the player’s discretion. He may also choose continuous play and may interrupt that by pressing a key. Minimum hardware suggested includes a 200 Mhz Pentium, a 4 MB video card; 64 MB of RAM, a sound card and 500 MB of hard drive space. Windows 95 or later is required. The game plays in full screen, 800x600 true color mode. The game has naval detail never before achieved in a game of this scale. Besides critical hit locations for all weapons platforms and any radar installations, individual armor locations and a wearth of performance and characteristics data, each ship’s crew has an experience rating for day and night combat. Every ship from mighty carriers and battleships down to gunboats, has a commander with his own strengths and weaknesses. The game includes hundreds of ships chosen from over 300 ship classes from the Dutch, French, New Zealand, Australian, Japanese, American, Siamese and British navies. These include fully functional torpedo boat tenders, submarine and seaplane tenders, gunboats, river boats, destroyers, mine layers and mine sweepers, light cruisers, heavy cruisers, capital ships, submarines, tankers, cargo ships, transports and many others. Ships take incidental damage from rough weather and mishap, as well as battle damage. All have proper steaming ranges, based on accurate fuel consumption ratings and fuel stowage capacities. Ships can be formed into task groups of up to 15 ships, although smaller ships and smaller task groups are harder to spot. Radar can be used increase the chances of surprise. Task groups can be given a variety of missions, including cargo, aircraft transport, surface action, bombardment, air combat, mine sweeping, mine laying, anti-submarine patrol and troop transport. Task groups can be given orders to return if attacked or to ignore attacks and continue on the mission, to stay on station or to return to base after mission completion. They can be given orders to go to a base or a location at sea or to attack an enemy fleet or to follow a friendly one. Submarines may be orders on combat patrol or assigned special operations missions, including troop or supply transport, mine laying or night bombardment. The game deals with aircraft in a similar fashion. A wide variety of aircraft are included in the game, ranging from the awkward P-39 and the nimble Zero, to the heavy hitting B-29 and the extremely fast and powerful Corsair. Pilots and crews are tracked separately from aircraft and have individual skill and fatigue ratings. When aircraft are in short supply, they can be placed into the pilot pool reassigned to other groups. In other cases, there may not be enough pilots or crews for the available aircraft. Every group has a commander, whose inspiration characteristic can help reduce fatigue and get more aircraft into the air. Air formations can be assigned up to two mission options, a primary mission and a secondary mission, each morning. Each formation may be assigned a different target or mission. Missions include combat air patrol, search, anti-submarine, sweep, escort, attack airfield, attack port, attack troops, training, camera recon, naval interdiction and supply transport. Seaplanes and cargo aircraft can also transport troops. They can also be assigned to fly at a specific altitude. Air groups from aircraft carriers, battleships and cruisers can also be transferred to bases and air groups at bases, if properly trained can be transferred to aircraft carriers. Aircraft are very useful in locating and attacking enemy fleets or bombing enemy bases and airfields. Combat air patrol can brunt the effects of an air attack or even turn a group around, if they deal out enough damage. Air strikes may not find the target at all, especially in bad weather or against naval targets at extreme range. Each base operating aircraft will need crews to repair and reload the aircraft. These are called base forces and in addition to maintaining the aircraft, they maintain the airfield and runway. A shortage of support units in the base force can ground many of the aircraft stationed there. Airfields are rated according to the runway. A small dirt field will produce many more crashed landings than a large concrete runway, even among experienced pilots. And, of course the player will have to keep the forward bases well supplied, if the air groups are to be of any value. Troops are needed to maintain and garrison bases and to deprive the enemy of his bases. So, troops are handled with care. There are a goodly number of different types of land-based units. The unit counters are mostly on division level, but there are many independent regiments and battalions. These are all represented by different unit counters and have different capabilities and include engineers, combat squads, Marine squads, support squads, air support sections, Sherman tanks, Stuart tanks, motorized forces, a number of mortars and field artillery and many others. There are a myriad of different organizational tables of equipment for the various units. For instance, the Sasebo 5th AA Battalion has: 75mm AAA x 4, dual 40mm AAA x 2, 13mm AAA x 10 and 14 support squads. Troops may be ordered to move, attack or build fortifications. Engineers may also expand airfields or ports or repair damage done to these. Vehicular travel, while rapid, is limited to primary roads. Foot troops can travel on secondary roads or up to 50 miles into the jungle or mountains of China. Anti-aircraft units can shoot at aircraft or troops. Medium and heavy artillery can target units for bombardment and can also shoot at ships, as can costal batteries. All land-based units have leaders and are also affected by leaders to whom there unit is subordinate. Troops use a lot of supply and keeping them supplied can be quite a challenge, if within enemy bomber range. The game uses a novel automatic supply system. The player can create supply fleets and place then under computer control. The fleets will then try to go back and forth, supplying bases, as needed. Since the system is not abstracted, the player may take control of these fleets at any time. Large land based battles are possible and the fight to defend or conquer India and China There are several campaigns included with the game, which can be played against the computer opponent, hot seat, by secure email or by TCPIP. The player can choose between three icon sets and a number of options concerning limited intelligence, music and sound effects, the length of pause between messages, the types and number of messages shown, the length of the turn and other factors allow the player to tailor the game to suit his playing style. So far, campaigns include a 1943 campaign, two 1942 campaigns, a 1941 campaign, a battle for the West Indies campaign and a few tutorial scenarios.