pac 3.2

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chuck
Posts: 28
Joined: Fri May 18, 2001 8:00 am
Location: Melbourne Australia

pac 3.2

Post by chuck »

Hi all,

Good to see this great game lives on after nearly 15 years--which is as long as I've owned it.

I have a few observations about 3.2, though, having just fought through a campaign against the Allied AI--well almost!

The first one is--when does it end? It's Feb 1946 and the game shows no signs of ending. I flicked through the update docs and couldn't find that it had been changed. At the moment it's a stalemate with the score 190,000 to 110,000 (in favour of Nippon of course!) but the IJ ability to land decisive blows on the US is just about at an end--and vice versa.

Point 2, the Allied AI went mad in late 44 and tried to punch straight through to Port Moresby without taking any intervening bases--all held by me. The slaughter was something to be believed--10 CV, 12 BB, 50-odd CVE (sinking these puppies by the bushel), dozens of cruisers etc. For pretty much no loss--3 CV and 4 CVL. Anyone know why this is happening?

Point 3, Japanese production has pretty much ceased even though there is about 200k in the resource pool and 30k in the oil bank. This is crucial as the merchant navy is basically destroyed--but despite having an intact homeland and plenty of stuff, no more DD, MCS or TK replacements. This makes no sense. Japanese production should only collapse if there's a good reason to do so.

Point 4, love the added aircraft types (last time I played was 2.x something). But they seem to have a lot of trouble sinking soft targets. I thought (battle of the bismarck sea for exmample) that undefended merchantmen were mincemeat. Not so! I resupplied Johnston Is with 10 Africa Maru, and 3 Allied TFs disposing of 12 fleet carriers managed to sink just 6 of them in five airstrikes--4 got away. This is nuts. OTOH, the same carriers later punched through to Kwajalein, destroyed all the land based and CAP around and about, and sank 2 CVs and a CVL at anchor while mauling my two Air Combat TFs to the point of uselessness.

I have no idea how a 1000 pound bomb can bounce off an MCS, but this is what seemed to be happening.

Point 5, Out of memory error inspecting carrier air groups. Can Nothing Be Done???

Point 6, there definitely seems to be a bug around terrain types and airbase sizes. Is the game still being worked on?

Point 7, LCU magically appearing on atolls 3000 km from Japan wherever the HQ happens to be located. This is a pretty easy way to reinforce hotspots if you trouble to read the arrival dates out of the file. I didn't and was surpised to find about half a million men I didn't know about hanging around the South Pacific, presumably working on their suntans.

Point 8, is there any documentation on how the ToToTo scenario works?

Point 9, very irritating, Allied air groups keep turning up in Sydney even when owned by Japan. LCUs keep turning up in Calcutta, but this is fair enough as it requires you to garrison India with something resembling a serious amount of troops.

Point 10, the kill multipliers seem to be screwed up--in 1944, nothing, in 1945 it seemed to be 1.5 and 1946 it seems to be 2. I should think that if Japan is still in the fight in 46, that should be a win right there. As it is, it's taken the AI until this point to win back Midway and it seeems to have run out of ideas. On the other hand, it still has more than a dozen carriers and their escorts left and there no serious way to attack--the flak now is more or less invincible.

And, if anyone is still working on it, some suggestions:

1. Display reinforcements arriving that turn, and where.
2. Display aircraft characteristics in the production and air group Change (type) display. There is no documentation on a lot of the new types, I don't know what they do or what their vital stats are.

Anyway, this is still a terrifically absorbing experience after all these years.

Congratulations to Gary G and Matrix!

Chuck
Nothing kills like overkill...
chuck
Posts: 28
Joined: Fri May 18, 2001 8:00 am
Location: Melbourne Australia

RE: pac 3.2

Post by chuck »

OK, found two items after a more thorough look:

point 10 is in the 3.2 doco after all--kill multipliers move back two years.

Is this really a good idea? It's hard enough to win as Japanese already! I would suggest that if there is a 3.3, they perhaps be put back to the original--unless you allow Japanese industry to keep functioning and expanding if it can.

point 8 was in Obc Key.txt. This is a pretty ugly hack around a problem that I posted about the last time I was on this forum 5 years ago, i.e. to have a historical Pearl Harbour strike and everything else up for grabs. AFAICT, you need to get every last LCU onto every available AP at the start to even have a prayer of winning as IJ, even aginst the AI, never mind another player.

the really stupid part is that I tried the pac 3.2 'Historical' first move, and 3 times out of 4 it attacked some lame convoy, and sank about three merchantmen.

The ideal we should be aiming at is:
TF1 already constituted and in position on Dec 7th, mission locked in
Allied turn 1 should be computer controlled, and the computer should not be emptying Pearl.
Japanese player can dispose other forces as seen fit.

Anyone know whether this can be done?
Nothing kills like overkill...
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Capt. Harlock
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RE: pac 3.2

Post by Capt. Harlock »

ORIGINAL: chuck


The first one is--when does it end? It's Feb 1946 and the game shows no signs of ending. I flicked through the update docs and couldn't find that it had been changed. At the moment it's a stalemate with the score 190,000 to 110,000 (in favour of Nippon of course!) but the IJ ability to land decisive blows on the US is just about at an end--and vice versa.

Point 2, the Allied AI went mad in late 44 and tried to punch straight through to Port Moresby without taking any intervening bases--all held by me. The slaughter was something to be believed--10 CV, 12 BB, 50-odd CVE (sinking these puppies by the bushel), dozens of cruisers etc. For pretty much no loss--3 CV and 4 CVL. Anyone know why this is happening?

Point 3, Japanese production has pretty much ceased even though there is about 200k in the resource pool and 30k in the oil bank. This is crucial as the merchant navy is basically destroyed--but despite having an intact homeland and plenty of stuff, no more DD, MCS or TK replacements. This makes no sense. Japanese production should only collapse if there's a good reason to do so.


Point 5, Out of memory error inspecting carrier air groups. Can Nothing Be Done???


Point 10, the kill multipliers seem to be screwed up--in 1944, nothing, in 1945 it seemed to be 1.5 and 1946 it seems to be 2. I should think that if Japan is still in the fight in 46, that should be a win right there. As it is, it's taken the AI until this point to win back Midway and it seeems to have run out of ideas. On the other hand, it still has more than a dozen carriers and their escorts left and there no serious way to attack--the flak now is more or less invincible.

And, if anyone is still working on it, some suggestions:

1. Display reinforcements arriving that turn, and where.
2. Display aircraft characteristics in the production and air group Change (type) display. There is no documentation on a lot of the new types, I don't know what they do or what their vital stats are.

Anyway, this is still a terrifically absorbing experience after all these years.

Congratulations to Gary G and Matrix!

Chuck

The game does continue for quite a while; I seem to recall it can run to the end of 1947 to allow the jet-powered fighters a chance to appear. I would claim a moral victory at this point if I were you. Unfortunately, some of the features of the game are "hard-wired" rather than properly calculated. I have had experience with the Japanese National Oil reserve dropping to 4,000 and staying there for no apparent reason. It would seem that the game assumes a collapse of the Japanese economy after mid-1945 no matter what. Likewise, the AI is probably hard-coded to go for Port Moresby if it's still in Japanese hands, assuming that the Solomons will have been re-taken by then.

I agree with you 100% about the Kill Point Multiplier!

The out of memory error has been looked at by a large number of people, including myself. Read through the "sticky" thread on getting Pacific War to work under Windows 2000 or XP. You will also find hints for Windows 9X systems. The trick is to get as much free DOS memory as possible, mainly by adjusting the settings in the "config" and "autoexec" files.

As for aircraft statistics, see if you can find the "Lost Files Thread". There should be several useful text files. Even more information can be had from the "pacwared22.xls" file, but it needs Microsoft Excel or some other compatible spreadsheet application to open it.
Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn't every war fought between men, between brothers?

--Victor Hugo
chuck
Posts: 28
Joined: Fri May 18, 2001 8:00 am
Location: Melbourne Australia

RE: pac 3.2

Post by chuck »

Thanks Capt. Harlock--I did find the thread about getting pac to work under windows, and I tried some out without success. But I found an alternative solution, which is to use dosbox. It all works fine in there. I couldn't get around the memory problem any other way.

If you're not familiar with it (and I haven't seen it mentioned in the forum), http://dosbox.sourceforge.net. The only issue is that the screen gets kind of elongated, but I'm still messing around with the graphics config to see if I can sort it out.

So--is there still any work being done on pac? Since it's now a free download, I'd assume not, though it seems matrix might still be making a little money off the boxed version. Is it time for the copyright holders to consider open sourcing it??? That'd be cool...and I can't see that it would cannibalise sales of the newer games, due to the antique GUI and style of the game. But it would sure make the grognards happy!

chuck
Nothing kills like overkill...
chuck
Posts: 28
Joined: Fri May 18, 2001 8:00 am
Location: Melbourne Australia

RE: pac 3.2

Post by chuck »

I was unable to find the Lost Files thread, anyone have a link?
Nothing kills like overkill...
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Capt. Harlock
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Aircraft Statistics

Post by Capt. Harlock »

Sorry for the delay. I finally came across my old text file of aircraft statistics, for those without access to Excel.
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Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn't every war fought between men, between brothers?

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Skipjack
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RE: pac 3.2

Post by Skipjack »

I too have been amazed when what should be hard targets (DD, CL, CA) can be crippled and/or sunk with ease by air strikes, when MCS take so much more to deal with. The game doesn't allow for a battle of the bismarck sea to take place in it's current version. The closest I saw was in version 2, when B25 Mitchells could carry 2000 lb bombs at short range - killer!! I haven't seen anything like them in version 3.
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