Fleet Commander: Pacific

While I would love to give this title a positive review, I can´t! No updates, no news from the dev or publisher, and worst of ALL, they keep selling the game! If any changes happen any time soon, I will then update this review. Steam should really do something about these EA games with no updates after a silent or more year. It´s just not fair play for us faithful Steam users! Thus no more Avalon Digital games for me!

面白く遊べます。AIは弱いと思いますが、その方が気楽に遊べてよいと思います。AIは弱いといっても非常識なほどおかしな配置はしないので、不愉快ではありません。不満な点はクリックを間違えた時、取り消せないことです。哨戒艦を配意する時、港をクリックしてから不要な艦を除外しなくてはならないのですが、指定した移管以外の残りの艦艇を出動させてしまうミスが最初のうちは良く起こります。そんな時は再度データをロードしてやり直すのですが、UNDOが1回でもできると簡単に修正できるので助かります。

I had a pretty faithful recreation of Midway in my last game. It didn't go as well for the American's as did the original. It was a long war.

If you've ever played Avalon Hill's Victory In The Pacific, this is the same game with some nice tweaks. It is almost a rule-by-rule, line-by-line, scene-by-scene copy of this classic war game. Staying true to the source material with a few upgrades. The Allies now have off map areas to fall back to, if needed. Repairs, combat, deployments are all kept quick and simple. Graphics are nice. Kinda hard to improve there but it would be nice to have a closer view of the combat. Maybe a few cinematics of attacks and such. Minor complaint. The music seriously needs to have a larger selection. Again, minor. My only real concerns are the UI and the AI. When selecting a base, the pop-up screen showing what is based there covers a large portion of the strategic map. Although this doesn't prevent moving your view to see what you want to see, it can be annoying. The AI needs a little work to be more 'intelligently' aggressive. The AI knows to focus on amphib units but doesn't focus on patrolling ships as much as I think it should. And its habit of sending single Japanese light carriers on solo raids is how you get single Japanese light carriers killed very quickly. Overall, I love the game. Just needs a little tweaking to improve AI performance. Once the devs get this game perfected, I'd love to see them tackle more of Avalon Hill's great naval combat games: War At Sea, Jutland, etc. Imagine a video game version of Enemy In Sight and Naval War. I'd love to see this company's version of 6th and 7th Fleet!

Unplayable. I cant center the gameboard map on my screen. Absolutely no help in fixing it whatsoever from the Devs,

Like most everyone else, I really appreciate the reimplementation of Avalon Hill's "Victory in the Pacific"/"War at Sea" system. Like some earlier reviewers I've found the methodology for dividing forces a little sensitive -- the game would benefit immensely from a "back" button to eliminate play errors incidental to quirks in the user interface. The tutorials are not terrifyingly helpful -- its been a long time since I played the board game, and playing the computer game felt a bit like trial and error. Is there some reason why the VP values of sea zones aren't readily visible to the players? For those of you unfamiliar with the original games, this is a "buckets of dice" game trying to roll 5/6s with all the major capital ships of the war actually represented. Since this is an area control game with limited spaces, it has sort of a vibe of chess mixed with push your luck of blackjack -- how thin can I spread my fleet for points. Do I want to concentrate my fleet for the mother of all battles? Reinforcements come in on an historical timeline. So there is a built in historical assymetry as the IJN starts strong but attrits, and the US and Commonwealth Forces ramp up towards the end of the 10 turn game. In spite of a few rough edges, I really am enjoying Fleet Commander. I find the game tense, challenging and exciting in all the ways a good wargame should be.

I like this game, but I've got one big issue and that is when I have full victory points (That being 30) it doesn't end at all. I hope that this issue could be fixed in the future as I think it has lots of potential.

Ein wirklich tolles Spiel. Man kann den ganzen Pazifik-Krieg mit und noch einzelne Szenarien durchspielen. Ganz große Klasse

I loved Victory in the Pacific as a kid, and this is basically the digital version of that excellent strategic-level wargame. But it's still early access, so there are some very rough edges. The tutorial in particular needs work, as the tutorial text gets obscured by the various informational boxes, making it impossible to read the tutorial information, or even click "Next". This game has a ton of potential, however, and I hope they are able to further refine it, because the underlying wargame is a lot of fun and actually gives realistic results (the Japanese run rampant for the first few turns, then the tide starts to turn). I always enjoyed playing the Japanese to see how much mayhem I could cause before the inevitable flood of USN CV's start showing up in late 43.

Current state announced by the Devs is accurate : UI works (well, but a few enhancements - like undo with "cannot undo" warning, bigger counters on the map and display VP info in all areas - would be welcome), but AI is definitely "basic" (I played the campaign on each side and won crushing victories). I will post in the forum a few suggestions to enhance the AI. I never played the original boardgame (rated 7.2 on BGG) but played many others related to that theatre. Enough to say that the game captures very well - for such a short game - the crucial aspects of the Pacific War. I have some doubts, however, about the balance : playing always second as the US, which receives tons of reinforcements, is not fully accurate (it was not true until Midway, and did not produce such large effect) and might give too much of an advantage to a competent US player. Maybe some randomness, leading to some turns where Japan goes second (at least for the raids) would be better. That said, a better AI will definitely justify a buy, even at full price for those interested in the WWII Pacific Theatre.