Ironclads 2: War of the Pacific

I consider that it is a good game. Old school! Now such games are not made any more.

I hate it when historic games that I really want to play turn out to be an unpleasent mixture of mind----ingly complex , and just plain silly.And can not get the sea and the ships to look half as good as they are in the now pretty ancient "Empire Total War". Ironclads2:war of the Pacific to me is alas a big nah.... This is the third game I have brought in this series and they are too quirky to be any fun.They just don't seem to get any better and why no tutorial yet again.? The set up with the ports is too complex and not even very functional..Trying to control ones ships is far harder than it needs to be. It does not even look nice so I certainly do not recommend this game..

quirky strategic level commands are impossible to figure out. Ship combat is average at best.

(This review applies to all of the Ironclads 2 games) So I swore I wasn't going to buy any more Ironclad games but oh Lord, the sale tempted me and I fell . . . The thing is I REALLY want to like these games. It's an era of naval warfare where things are changing rapidly and lots of interesting and sometimes unique vessels are being built (google 'Novgorod' or 'Vice Admiral Popov' to see what I mean). At its base it's not a really bad game. All of the titles would benefit from a tutorial, but there is a game manual on line at least. Here are my current problems with the game: Shipbuilding is incredibly slow (admittedly that's realistic but it slows things down considerably) and you can't generally afford to buy new ships. As with Ironclads 2 American Civil War, there are no range indicators. Any 19th century gunnery officer worth his seaboots could estimate range to within two to three hundred yards, but the average gamer can't. It would be nice to have at least rough range indicators. The biggest problem by far though is the fact that, you gather your fleet and launch an attack on an enemy port that is almost undefended, and when the battle begins, every major unit in the enemy fleet is suddenly present and far from outnumbering the enemy, you yourself are outnumbered . . . So how the hell did they get there? Fly? Teleportation? Public transportation? This was the biggest flaw in I2 American Civil War and I am disappointed that it is still present. If Totem Games fixes that huge flaw I will happily change my rating for negative to positive.

Good campaign and the naval battles are good fun. I have completed the campaign as Chile, ramming tactics with their battery ironclads is a great tactic. The game is quite good at simulating a war between two poor south american nations (poor in comparison to USA vs CSA). The ironclads are precious assets whereas the armed steamers are essentially cannon fodder. My only criticism is that the game has a feature wherein you cannot repair a ship that has less than 5% damage. This makes sense at first but one of my Ironclads, Cochrane, had taken little damage but the hit taken was below the waterline. This meant that when I started a battle with this ship it sank before I could even engage the enemy. 7/10

Very stressful and dynamic scenario. You can not make a single mistake. I generally like a Ironclads series, so I forgive her all the weaknesses. I recommend this scenario to true fans of sea battles!

Pitting forces of Peru and Chile against, this game is strange mix. On one hand, there's strategic map where various ships and ground forces move about in highly abstract fashion. Moving from one port to another is quick and merchant ships are represented as tokens in the port. If port is blockaded by enemy forces, you can't enter it, but you can bring your own ships and force a battle. This mode is played on map sheet, where you move counters around and build defences on ports and new battleships. Naval battles are conducted in real time. Ships are rather slow and clumsy (some more than others) and it takes a bit planning ahead to manage your forces effectively. After pounding each other for some time, somebody usually catches a fire or starts leaking more than is healthy and is eventually destroyed. Very rarely you might see a critical failure that criples or destroys the ship quickly. I liked this slow, nerveracking, slugfest of ironclads. Little ships steaming about and slugging out with cannons on a bright blue sea look really nice, albeit nothing truly spectacular is expected from the graphics.

!NOTE! I've played a couple of these games and the DLCs by now. To get the full picture you should look out for my other reviews on other IRONCLAD games. +The game is an improvement over IRONCLAD II Civil War. +/-While the game does take place about 20 years later than IRONCLAD II Civil War, the fact you and the enemy are almost within striking distance of eachother from the start of the battle is very optimistic, given ships of the period would be able to spot eachother about 8-10nm in advance... and people are still using SB guns. +/-The game has some major balance and rework done. For better or worse. +/-The game cost 0.99 on sale... even if it's bad you lose close to nothing. -The game suffers heavily from being an IRONCLAD game... Mechanics work at random.

El juego esta diseñado muy intencionado y no es equitativo, si tomas la campaña de Chile los barcos y sus capacidades estan limitados con respecto a la campaña peruana, lo que implica una tendencia de que bando se quiere a fuerza que gane.

Let's one last look at a game that has been out 4 years and perhaps slightly miss understood. It has some strengths and some things they will need to improve. PROS Historical: It is an accurate simulator and goes outside the norm of today's redundant wartime themes. There was not just WW1 and WW2, but interesting conflicts as history lessons of the different time periods and scenarios. Game play: Much more complex than it looks. I kept thinking why did they present the map in a table format and it answer was the time period and its a board game. The AI is strong, once you learn how and what to do, you will have your hand's full. Combat: I put this as a plus because it gave you two options of fast and long play which can fit the player's style of play. Price: This is not up to the massive presentation games of the naval warfare found in other games today and felt outdated. Its simple table top presentation is not overpriced for the game of this complexity. The additional DLC content give you a grand scoped of different scenarios to fill your fancy. Map: Its a table top presentation I get it, and with a google tutorial I found online, helped a lot on the controls and map movement. See con Models: If your expecting World of Warships craftmanship forget it. The models both on the table top map and in the simulation get the job done. We are spoiled by today's graphics. CONS Camera: Once you figure out the map movements your fine, but the lack of modern camera angles, spin, easier movements would have helped tremendously. Players should not have to work this hard to get multiple vantage points even of a table top. Engine: A better engine choice might have given them better choices in modeling, graphics and functions. Its all in the details and compared to the vast developers that their up against, games like Cold Waters, Atlantic Fleet, World of Warships, and others make Ironclads seem outdated. However, it gets the job done for the price. Tutorial: Though they eventually added a manual and someone did a functions tutorial, your customers should not have to go to college or go all over the internet to find help on game functions regardless of the price. Players found a way, but they should not have had to. Slight Con for me Limited: It is one track minded in its game board presentation. There is no pvp, I can't set up my own scenarios, or multiple outcomes to the strategic simulator. Final Thoughts on Totem's Ironclad series. I gave Ironclads 2 and its full content a passing grade despite its learning curve. A developers are only capable of what their capable of doing and maybe in the future they up their game in graphics, scale and execution. Ironclads 2 War in the Pacific is like playing with your model toys when you were a kid and today's gamers have better refined choices for their short attention spans in Naval warfare than Ironclads can maintain. I am sure they will learn from their mistakes and hopefully their next evolution will be a better production that this improved version was. I for one enjoyed Ironclad 2 for what it was, not what it was not, especially for the price. See the VIDEO in discussion to see if the game play is for you and google that tutorial online on game controls. My final grade 2.1 out of 5