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 War in the Pacific: Admirals Edition or "WITPAE" to it's friends is a grand strategy game covering the struggle between Imperial Japan and the USA and friends from the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 all the way through to the end of the war with the Atomic bombings in 1945. Every single ship, plane and ground unit which participated is included in painstaking [some would say too much] detail and it could quite possibly be one of the most involved games ever made. The 'grand campaign' sees you lead one side to the ultimate victory or defeat and games have been known to take literal years to play out - just check out Grey Hunters day by day LP's where he plays the whole game through and posts every day what happened. Yeah, every day for five years.  This is the entire game map covering a not insignificant chunk of the world. Wait What? What is going on? Short version is this is a Goon vs Goon LP in the style of the various combat mission LP's or Yooper's Japan vs Soviets CMANO LP. I'm not crazy enough to try a full campaign. This will be a Screenshot based, audience participation LP of a much smaller section of the game. Namely the campaign for the famous island of Guadalcanal, the Solomon Islands and the Australian army's 1942 offensive in what is now Papua New Guinea.   Here's what the game has to say about the scenario. Historically the Japanese, despite inflicting roughly equal casualties to the allied forces suffered a comprehensive defeat across the board and it was essentially the beginning of the end for their Empire. However the game we will be playing is... not quite how it was historically. As a result of the battles of Pearl Harbor, the Coral Sea and Midway being relatively less devastating both sides have more ships, planes and men available to commit to the campaign. All in all I expect this to be something of a bloody mess but I hope we can make it into an enjoyable one! We will be playing from 6th August 1942 to 3rd April 1943 as supreme commanders of all Japanese or Allied troops in the following area:  The game is complicated as all hell but I have been playing it on and off for about a decade so I will be on-hand for explanations and able to distill your orders into the game to hopefully make your units do what you want them to do so  no experience is needed to participate.Even more excitingly Goons will be commanding BOTH SIDES! That's right! What I need from you right now is for you to sign up providing the following information in a thread post and input it into the appropriate spreadsheet linked below. 1) If you have the game/experience with it. 2) Desired side [ALLIES/JAPAN]. 3) Desired faction within your side. For Japan the factions are the ARMY and NAVY and for the Allies they are the COMMONWEALTH & US ARMY and the US NAVY. Both sides and their factions will have different, not necessarily complementary, objectives within the campaign they want to meet. ALLIED SPREADSHEET JAPANESE SPREADSHEET Also please include if you have the game, I will be providing the turn files as it progresses so ideally I would like at least one person on each side to have the game and be able to do a deep dive for info their teammates want. [Click the banner for the appropriate thread]   We will also have a discord with restricted channels for both teams located HERE. The main thread (this one) is now closed to participants as of the second page.
Saros fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Feb 3, 2019 |
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Nov 18, 2018 18:59
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RESOURCES WITP-AE Manual WITP-Tracker a very useful tool is available here. Relative naval strength across the Scenario How to give orders and the basics of interpreting WITP screens. Baseic's of Bases [SIC] Ground units, casualties, preparation and MALARIA Air Missions Transporting troops and Cargo Air, Submarine and Fast Transport Lucky ship spreadsheet. Ship types and codes: code: (VT-6 historically got wiped out at midway and it's happened to them again in the LP).  
Saros fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Feb 13, 2019 |
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Nov 18, 2018 18:59
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Awesome, been looking forward to this! 1) Jossar 2) Nope, no experience with/ownership of the game. Pretty sure reading the Grey Hunter LPs doesn't count. 3) Desired side: Allies 4) Desired faction: US Navy 5) Lucky Ship: The USS Astoria. Hopefully lasts longer than 2 days in, this time!
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Nov 18, 2018 19:08
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1) Sniper4625 2) Only experience is LP-readin 3) Allies 4) US Navy 5) None yet
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Nov 18, 2018 19:11
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1) Reggie 2) None at all. 3) Sunrise Land (Japan) 4) Japanese Navy 5) No clue! No preference.
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Nov 18, 2018 19:13
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1. Yooper 2. Own the game, limited scenario experience 3. Japan 4. Army 5. There are no lucky ships where I'm going.
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Nov 18, 2018 19:34
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1) Triggerhappypilot 2) I have the game and have finished the grand campaign before 3) 大日本 4) IJN 5) Seaplane Carrier Nisshin
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Nov 18, 2018 19:35
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1) Acebuckeye13 2) Nope 3) ALLIES 4) US NAVY 5) The Big Motherfuckin' E.
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Nov 18, 2018 19:43
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1) Cuddlebadger 2) No experience whatsoever. 3) Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere 4) IJA 5) DD Yukikaze
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Nov 18, 2018 19:44
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1) FrangibleCover 2) None, but I can look at pictures of it without recoiling in terror so that's better than other, saner people. 3) Desired side: Allies 4) Desired faction: Commonwealth 5) Lucky Ship: HMAS Canberra, for similar reasons to the Astoria. If I'm relying on her, she can't sink instantly at the start of an engagement... right?
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Nov 18, 2018 19:49
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1) Serpentis 2) Own the game, but no experience beyond recoiling in horror at Pearl Harbour 3) Allies 4) US Navy 5) USS South Dakota, hoping she has a better showing this time than historically.
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Nov 18, 2018 20:04
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Pharnakes Owned/moderate experience IJN IJN Yamato
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Nov 18, 2018 20:15
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Claiming IJN Takao for lucky ship.
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Nov 18, 2018 20:41
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I'm in. 1) Gervasius 2) No experience with the game whatsoever apart from reading Grey's LPs. 3) Allies 4) US Navy 5) USS Fletcher
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Nov 18, 2018 23:30
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If anyone needs help picking a ship...
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Nov 19, 2018 00:37
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1) Epicurius 2) Nope 3) Japan 4) Army 5) None
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Nov 19, 2018 01:01
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1) Not Alex 2) No experience 3) Japan 4) Navy 5) Hiei
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Nov 19, 2018 04:39
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oh, neat. i'll do it. hoping for a low-level position by the way, what is IJN 'ground command' (as a position's called in the spreadsheet) responsible for in this scenario - are there landings by the SNLF or anything? if so i'd actually like to be in the NAVY's 'ground command' section 1) oystertoadfish 2) do not have the game, have never played it, have read most/all of like a half dozen LPs and AARs of the grand campaign over the last decade or so 3) JAPAN 4) ARMY 5) Kirishima. although maybe an army person shouldn't have a favorite ship. are there landing ships in this scenario? i assume the destroyers moving troops around are represented, i've read about that in books. i should pick a landing ship oystertoadfish fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Nov 19, 2018 |
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Nov 19, 2018 05:35
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1) Horsebanger 2) Don't own it., watched a god awful hour long video on gameplay once. 3) Allies 4) US NAVY 5) Lucky Ship: Washington Horsebanger fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Nov 19, 2018 |
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Nov 19, 2018 08:36
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Which fleet gets dibs on the Village People?
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Nov 19, 2018 08:48
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Yooper posted:5. There are no lucky ships where I'm going. On the contrary! There are Imperial Japanese Army [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Akitsu_Maru]aircraft carriers[/url],landing ship, docks much like the ones of today's Gator Navy, and even submarines! oystertoadfish posted:by the way, what is IJN 'ground command' (as a position's called in the spreadsheet) responsible for in this scenario - are there landings by the SNLF or anything? if so i'd actually like to be in the NAVY's 'ground command' section You even have the parachute naval infantry. With only a month's training as paratroopers! Although they don't yet have their rifles that break in half, so you'll just have to hope their Type 99s don't get airdropped into a swamp on accident... Japanese inter-service rivalry really was a hell of a thing...
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Nov 19, 2018 09:33
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Remember, IJN! If you tak eGuadalcanal, the IJA wins! Remember, IJA, if you don't ake Guadalcanal, the IJN wins!
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Nov 19, 2018 10:09
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1) Randomcheese3 2) Own the game, reasonably experienced 3) Allies 4) Commonwealth 5) HMNZS Achilles
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Nov 19, 2018 12:16
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Bacarruda posted:On the contrary!  Works for me! Those guys sure took the IJA/IJN rivalry thing to a new level.
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Nov 19, 2018 13:09
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A crash course in WITP command The turn cycle WITP turns happen in two phases, namely the Day and Night phases. The important bit for you to remember is that things happen in roughly this order. [Night] Aircraft relocate [Night] Ships move then perform missions, fight, unload troops etc [Night] Aircraft fly night missions [Day] Ships move then perform missions, fight, unload troops etc [Day] Aircraft fly Morning missions [Day] Aircraft fly Afternoon missions [Day] Ground units move [Day] Ground units fight Ships move twice per day - once in the day and night phases so it's entirely possible to do things like dash in under the cover of darkness and unload troops or bombard then retreat before the sun comes up and enemy aircraft are able to locate and strike at them. Commanding Ships: Okay here we go, here is what's called a 'unit card' - in this case for the British troopship Indomeneous. As you can see there are various stats associated with each and every type of ship, in this case it's a fairly simple one. It goes from A to B and can pick up troops and cargo so it's an xAP, simple right?  . See the second post for a big list of what collection of letters means what sort of ship. 1 and 2) Speed: The number is knots it can make and the number in brackets is max hexes per phase [two phases per turn, day and night]. Cruise speed can be maintained indefinitely and uses a normal amount of fuel while full speed uses exponentially more fuel [depends on speed] and damages engines and systems with extended use. Generally cruise is for everything except combat situations or emergencies. 3) Special stats and carrying capacity go here. In this case the Indomeneous can load 1300 men and 1850 tons of cargo. 4) Endurance in miles at cruise speed and fuel percentage as well as other misc stats like tonnage, durabiity and armor. 5) Ships weapon. As you can see even transports have a couple of guns, albeit crappy ones. Range is in meters, penetration measures how much armor the weapon can penetrate and ammo is how many combat rounds the ship has remaining. 6) Various info about the ship like name, ownership, crew experience and the captain and his stats. That's right every ship has a captain whose stats effect its performance on top of the crew experience.  Here is the New Zealand Light Cruiser Achilles. A slightly more complicated ship but we will focus on one thing for now, she is slightly damaged. 1) Ship damage of which there are four sorts. -First system damage. This is a catch-all for ship systems like fire control, pumps, crew status etc. If it reaches 100 the ship si functionally disabled and will probably sink. -Second flood damage. This represents a % of how much of the ship can flood before it sinks.This is what actually kills ships and comes in two flavors - minor and major. MAjor damage is permanent damage and represents stuff like sections blasted away or beyond repair, it can't usually be fixed outside a shipyard. Minor is more insidious and represents flooding of the ships that's not actually permanent so it can be brought under control and reduced by effective damage control. -Third engine damage. Basically what it says on the tin, major and minor is similar to flooding as minor can often be fixed underway but major cannot. -Fourth is fires. Doesn't actually sink you itself but inflicts ongoing system damage which can leave your ship a helpless hulk. 2) Achilles is currently docked so this is the repair and repair type info. 3) Speed again, notice the huge gap between cruise and max as Achilles is a military vessel.  The famous Enterprise. As she is a carrier there are couple more things she has that other ships do not. 1) Plane squadrons! The format is [Number of planes] [Plane type] [Number of pilots] 2) Plane supplies! Fairly obvious - she can embark 90 planes but has only 86 at the moment. Sorties are how many more times she can fly a plane in combat representing things like bombs, avgas, ammo etc being limited. To resupply she has to return to a major port. Finally the Torpedo count. Carriers carry limited torpedoes, in this case only her Avenger planes use them so she has enough for two full strikes using torpedoes before running out. Task forces: Basically a task force is a group of ships formed to move around the main map.  See those little icons, they represent carriers and multiple task forces [TF's] in the same hex.  For example this is the Carrier WASP and her escorts. 1) Hexes the Tf will move per half turn phase for Max/Cruise speed. 2) Fairly obvious - the ships that make up the TF. 3) The Task force commander and a quick summary of it's capabilities. 4) The task force type, different types can perform different duties. 5) Various settings, the most important being speed. This can be Cruise, Mission or Fast. Cruise and fast mean it operates at those speeds [restricted by the slowest ship in the TF] while mission means it will cruise about but dynamically sprint if ordered to do something dangerous.  Here are the different types of TF's. We can deal with their various quirks as necessary. Ordering Task forces:  This is the WASP task force. in the screenshot I have clicked on it which brings the rings and highlishted hexes. It has been ordered to move NW at 'mission' speed so 15 knots unless it gets into trouble. The rings represent how far it can travel in the turn, green for the night phase and yellow for the end of the day phase and the yellow highlighted hexes are it's path. You can set up to three waypoints or designate a patrol zone for ships [good for subs] or simply order your TF to follow another TF. If you were commanding this TF I would expect orders something like this. I'll highlight the important points.  - Mission speed, remain on station, Air defensive configuration - cover the incoming tranports. -Clearly drawn move order with desired speed. Or orders to follow a specific TF. -Whether to withdraw or remain at the destination. -Any special orders like unload troops or send aircraft to attack a base or for surface combat ships. -For carriers - Air arm orders. They can be as specific as you like but generally offensive/defensive configuration and if you want to bomb any ground target will be enough. Remember strikes launch from your final location not from where you are at the start of the turn. Air units: Planes unsurprisingly fly from airbases or carriers Bases are the flags on the main map and Airbases with planes are denoted with the small X symbol shown. Mousing over gives you a black box with what's actually present at the base.  Lets go have a look at one of the plane squadrons at the base.  No. 76 squadron, Royal Australian Air Force. Flying Kittyhawk IV fighters. 1) 14 fighters ready and two undergoing maintenance. To the right is squadrons history like planes lost, kills etc. Below is similar stats for the pilots. 2) Max range is ferry range, they can fly this many hexes to another airbase. Extended radius is max range for a combat mission at reduced effectiveness and Normal range is normal combat range. 3) Their mission, Fighters have three usual missions. CAP [Combat air patrol] Where you set a % of the squadron to patrol and intercept enemy planes. Escort where they try to link up with friendly bomber flights and escort them on their missions. Sweep where they fly over an enemy hex and go hunting for enemy planes, best used to tangle with defenders of enemy airbases.  All plane types have stat cards like shown. We can get into the specifics if needed. Attacking with planes: Lets have a look at this Avenger torpedo bomber squadron flying off CV Enterprise.  To be honest I am happy to manage the minutiae for you. The main point to remember is regarding naval strike [attacking enemy shipping] missions. Unlike other attack target missions you can't set a specific target as ships all move so you don't know what will be spotted/in range by the time you launch planes so you simply set a max range for your strike. for naval strike you can also set an alternative mission for the afternoon air phase so if no enemy ships are detected in range they will perform this mission in the afternoon. In this case the squadron is set to attack ships but if no ships are found it will go bomb any enemy airbases in range. You can limit it to bomb only specific enemy airbases or hexes. As an example say you had some bombers at Townsville and you wanted to stage them forward to Port Moresby and attack the japanese airfield at Buna. If you were lovely you could draw me a picture like this.  I would also accept words only but I will be inputting a good number of orders every turn o pictures make things much simpler! Ground units So these little X's inside boxes icons represent ground units in the game and are color coded for their sides.  Here is the 30th Australian Bde.  1) The components like infantry squads, artillery etc that make up the unit. 2) As it's in the same hex as a Japanese infantry unit it can attack. Bombard is just skirmishing with artillery, deliberate is a 'normal' attack and Shock attacks try overwhelm the enemy with an aggressive attack. Shock can be better for taking ground or forts but you WILL lose more men. 3) Disruption and Fatigue. As these go up your effectiveness goes down. 4) How heavy the unit is, 3038 men and 798 tons of cargo if you were to load it onto a ship. Finally the Assault value listed is basically how many combat units it has i.e. infantry squads or tanks. Artillery are not included in this! The basics of ground combat is you move into a hex with an enemy unit and then give attacks orders. Terrain is a huge factor as well as forts, in this example the 30th Australian is on the Kokoda Trail - a mountain hex which gives 4x terrain bonuses to the defender. Pushing enemy units out of here will be very hard. Finally if a hex has a railway troops can use 'strategic movement' where they pack up and go via rail. Only really applicable on the AU mainland in this scenario.  Here is the key for movements speeds, hexes are 45 miles across so will take a few days to walk across. Saros fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Nov 19, 2018 |
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Nov 19, 2018 16:21
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Both thread are now open to players! This thread remains open for now so please don't discuss objectives or force compositions yet.
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Nov 19, 2018 16:49
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1) Ron 2) I followed Grey’s war in the east and WitP almost from the beginning. Tried  but don’t have the threshold for pain to actually learn the game3) Allies 4) US Navy 5) USS San Francisco CA-38
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Nov 19, 2018 19:22
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I'm happy to swap over to US Army btw
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Nov 19, 2018 19:29
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This looks like it'd be a pretty fun thing to participate in, but I have absolutely no experience with WITP and I don't want to gently caress up anything important. Maybe I could take a minor role in the Commonwealth. 1) Name: Radio Free Kobold 2) Game? Experience? Hell no! on both counts. 3) Side: Allies 4) Faction:    5) Lucky Ship: Nope. All my favorites are either latewar boats, already sunk, or on the other side. Radio Free Kobold fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Nov 19, 2018 |
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Nov 19, 2018 21:51
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Oh shiiiiiiit yes. Fantastic. Will sign up shortly.
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Nov 20, 2018 13:23
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1) Woodchip 2) Have the game, played the full campaign 3) Allied 4) US Navy 5) USS Wasp CV-7, such a lucky number Woodchip fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Nov 20, 2018 |
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Nov 20, 2018 17:10
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BASES & SUPPORT TROOPS [e]The pics aren't loading - ill fix it when i'm home All those little flags dotting the map are established bases, a lot are just level one ports with limited growth potential which is why the good airfield sites (like Guadalcanal) are so valuable. Bases themselves have three things associated with them. Airfield Level, Port Level and Fortification level. Airfields: All hexes with an airbase have a level of 1-10 with 1 being a dirt track and some tents while 10 is multiple fully equipped aerodromes in the hex. The airbase level effects everything about flying from the hex but the two major things to remember is that planes can 'overstack' and when they do they receive penalties to all operations out of the airbase. The limit is 50 'engines' per airbase level so a level 1 = 50 and a level 4 = 200. The game counts the number of engines on planes based in the hex to calculate this so a B-17 heavy bomber uses 4 points and a single engine fighter only 1. This is not a hard limit but penalties increase fast as you go about 10-15% over the limit. The second is that smaller airfields (level 1 and 2) can't support bombers while level 3 means they will fly with reduced bomb loads. The second thing needed to operate planes out of an airbase is ground units present with 'aviation support' troops. Each squad of 'aviation support' represents enough mechanics, ground crews etc for one plane a having less than the required number means planes repair slower and you may have reduced numbers available for strikes (especially for bigger bombers). Ports: Port sizes follow a similar progression to Airfields. The size imposes limits on a few things, for example the biggest ship tonnage that can dock there. You wont be able to dock huge carriers or ocean liners to small piers and unloading troops, supplies and especially heavy equipment like tanks and bulldozers will be very slow on small ports. They also effect rearming ships with ammo although this can be mitigated by specialist auxiliary ships. In this scenario anything bigger than a Destroyer (4" - 5" guns) will struggle to rearm outside of Sydney/Noumea/Rabaul/Truk. Both Airfields and ports can be damaged by air attacks or coastal bombardment which impedes their operations and said attacks will also hit ships and aircraft present at the base. Aircraft losses to an enemy bombardment Task force breaking through to shoot up the airfield can be absolutely devastating. Forts: Fortifications provide a defensive bonus to any ground units in the hex belonging to the base owner. they range 1-9 but anything over 5 is basically full on crazy fortress levels so I doubt we will see it. they also delay attackers as successive fort levels need to be over-run. Building bases: Bases are built by ground units containing 'engineers' and 'engineering vehicles.' Most large infantry units and general support units have at least a few but specialist engineering units like USN SeeBees will provide the bulk of your building capacity. It's simple enough, move the engineer unit to a hex and tell it to build any combination of Airfield/port/fort and they will do so over time (provided they have sufficient supply). Hexes with a small Green/Red dot in the center are potential bases that do not have anything built on them yet, once they have something built this will change to the appropriate side flag. Damaged bases will cease any new construction until the damage is repaired and the rate is dependent on the number of engineers present. Max base sizes. All potential base hexes have maximum Port and Airfield sizes associated with them representing how good a site they are for the base types, this is the number in brackets when they are moused over. You can build up to three levels over what it says is the max but it gets much more expensive to do in both time and supply to represent things like extending runways into the ocean or deepening ports via dredging etc.
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Nov 20, 2018 17:54
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Looking at the sign up sheets both sides still need more commanders. I'll join up with the USA. 1) LLSix 2) Only experience is LP-readin 3) Allies 4) US Navy 5) USS Iowa LLSix fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Nov 20, 2018 |
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Nov 20, 2018 18:59
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1) Pthighs 2) Yes. Have completed Allied grand campaign against AI 3) Glorious Nippon 4) IJA 5) Kirishima
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Nov 20, 2018 19:28
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Gewehr 43 Yes, played thru Guadalcanal 2x Allies US Navy USS Sterett
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Nov 20, 2018 23:27
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So good news and bad news. Turns out I have been by accident doing all the scenario specific modifications to an old, very obsolete version of the Guadalcanal scenario. The bad news means that it will be thursday before I have the time to finish redoing the changes to an updated version of the Scenario so the initial turn will be delayed slightly. The good news is that this means I will have a chance to incorporate some extra stuff based upon player feedback. Head over to your threads for voting on what extra goodies you want me to give you!
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Nov 21, 2018 01:11
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So I'll just choose a lucky ship for this and for that I shall choose the mighty and powerful PT-112. May she be the scourge of the Japanese Navy.
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Nov 21, 2018 05:34
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Giving the Allies working subs is going to be ridiculously brutal. Like 1944. Good option.
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Nov 22, 2018 05:04
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Witpae is $30 on the annual sale.  http://www.matrixgames.com/store/product.asp?gid=351
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Nov 22, 2018 07:26
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Woodchip posted:Witpae is $30 on the annual sale. Just came here to post this. Thirty American buckaroos is as cheap as it's ever going to get so if you're on the fence now's the time.
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Nov 22, 2018 09:23
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