Leedsunited40 Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 Long time HoI and Time of Wrath player.....is Pacific Theater worth it for realism and gameplay? What are its assets and failings? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaMonkey Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 One man's assets is anothers failings. Try the demo! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill101 Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 SeaMonkey gives the best advice, try out the Operation Z scenario in the demo and see what you think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon_j_rambo Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 Failings: There is only about 3 players actually playing the game. We're playing the Vypuero World Campaign. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hubert Cater Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 Looking at the customer list I think it is safe to say there are significantly more than 3 players playing the game even if they are not regular forum contributors. Fact is more people are playing AI in the SC2 series nowadays and I think that is a strong reflection of the improvements the games have seen in recent years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xwormwood Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 If you can call it a failing, than i would mention that there is only one great campaign: Operation Z, beginning with Pearl Harbor 1941. While every other SC2 release had several campaigns, PT offers only one. Operation Z is fun to play, of course, but in the end this campaing burns out much, much sooner than other SC2 campaings as you have only this one. The AI is good as usual when it acts in the more classical landwar, but pretty limited when it comes to great scale naval invasions and how to win them. At least that is my experience. A problem that wasn't never solved in any SC game. In a game against the AI this wouldn't have to be a problem if the human player would be allowed to switch the playing side, as he could take over to play a good invasion while the AI could play his former side for the time being. But it is not possible to change sides in the game. So no easy help here. If you like SC / SC2, than you should buy PT, because it brings a fresh theater of operations, the pacific war, with some good ideas and improvements. The best improvement is that carriers have two strengths bars: one for the hull / the ship, and one for the planes. This improvement is excellent, even though strangely enough limited only to the carriers. There are several scenarios coming with game, but i never loved any SC scenario, as they lack a linked campaign mode a la Panzer General and the other good Panzer General features as well. So in short: pro: good new feature: the carriers have two different "lifes" / strength bars fresh theater of operations and one very good campaign the AI knows how to fight a good landwar contra: only carriers got the good new feature only one campaign the AI still has problems to get a good naval invasion done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon_j_rambo Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 Failings: There is only about 3 players actually playing the game. We're playing the Vypuero World Campaign. The context of my statement has to do with the number of opponents who play Human vs Human (being PBEM or TCP/IP). I have "No Comment" about A.I. games. As a customer & a gamer, I play Human vs Human. I enjoy interacting with people in emails, the Forum, & TCP/IP. The statements written are opinion. Camp Rambo, Team USA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wushuki Posted October 25, 2009 Share Posted October 25, 2009 There are definitely a large number of good improvements to the game, such as: Increased importance of terrain, more choices in what fronts to focus upon and more useful strategic bombers. Unfortunately, in all honesty however it is not as great as the other games of the series. The main problem with PT in my opinion is that the engine and rules that worked so well for Blitzkrieg, WaW and PDE, do not really work that well in the pacific. For example, for the earlier games it was great that loading units in transports costed significant amount of MPP. You also needed to send a HQ with the invasion and sufficient troops to do 10 damage to a unit. This made land invasions expensive and difficult and that is exactly how it should be. In PT however these rules don't work, because you should be busy with small scale island hopping. If you don't send a headquarters and several troops land invasions are doomed to failure. So this means that if an island is guarded you'd have to spend either hundreds of MPP for a tiny island that provides no real benefit or just forget about capturing them. This is even true for using your air force as you'd have operate these units and transport a headquarter as well as special forces. The majority of the islands will remain unguarded however as small units are not present in the game and units can be put to better use elsewhere. This doesn't really add to the gaming experience either. Taking over half an empire without having to fire a single shot doesn't really reflect the situation in history. Navy battles are the other weakness. While land battles are fantastic in SC, naval battles are not nearly as much fun. In the other games of the series this wasn't so much of a problem, because sea battles played only a minor role compared to land battles. But the pacific theater is far more focused on sea battles and the lack of a very good seabattle system really becomes a problem here. Perhaps others disagree with me, but while I had and still have a great time playing the others of the series, PT never really managed to reach the same high level of gameplay as those games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xwormwood Posted October 25, 2009 Share Posted October 25, 2009 Wushuki, you made some excellent points. Naval battles and invasions always were somehow the week spot of any SC version, and remained it till today. But i wouldn't agree with your last sentence, as i enjoy PT very much. Maybe in SC3 Hubert dares to rethink the naval war concept. Until than i enjoy what we got served. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calvin9 Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 Hello - in Pacific Theatre and Operation Z I noticed that the computer's turn was taking quite a while to complete, especially as the years go by - in SC Weapons & Warfare this was never a problem. Any suggestions to help overcome this? This is my first time on the forum so I hope I am doing this correctly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xwormwood Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 Hello calvin9, and welcome to the SC Forum. You did everything fine and without any mistake. Pacific Theater is the most advanced SC game engine, and it offers the biggest maps. I presume that this is the reason why you have longer intervalls of watching the AI planning its moves. The best solution to enhance the speed is probably a faster computer. If it comforts you: i have to wait longer as well. The next SC (World Map) will offer probably a faster AI. On the other hand it will offer bigger maps as well, so the result might be at least not faster computer turns. Have you installed the latest patch? Do you use an ATI graphic card and a 32bit colors resolution? Than you could switch to 16bit colors, that might help a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill101 Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 Hi Calvin9 If you go to Options; Settings, there is an option for Video Acceleration that should speed up the AI a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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