"Victory in the Pacific" Topic

"Victory in the Pacific is a simple strategic wargame covering the Pacific Theater of WW2. It is a successor to the system developed in War at Sea which covers the Battle of the Atlantic.

The game divides the Pacific into 13 sea areas. Each turn the players move their ships, land based air and marines from the ports and bases (which are located on the borders of sea areas) to one of the areas.

Ships can either be patrollers (the only ships that will take control of area after battle, but they must commit their move first) or raiders.

After all ships have been moved, the players dice off determine whether a day battle (where air power is decisive) or night battle (when ship board gunnery rules) is fought. After a number of rounds, until one side or the other retreats or loses all of his ships, the player with patrolling ships left takes control of the area and a scores a number of "Points of Control".

The Japanese will almost always take a large lead that will be inevitably turned back by the Americans as they get large numbers of carriers as the game goes on."

YouTube link

See here
link

Have anyone tried this game?

Amicalement
Armand

Yes, played it 30 years ago… But it was never as good as war at sea.

Greetings

I actually preferred it to War at Sea, simply because you get more ships.

Then my friends and I got the bright idea of using poster board to make the American Atlantic coast along with the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, and then put War at Sea and Victory in the Pacific together. Goodness we played the hell out of that game!

Double vote for this being better then War at Sea. WaS simply did not have the slugfest nature that this game did. The Japanese have to strike hard early on till the inevitable Midway setback occurs and then they have to fight to hold what they have taken.

I really ought to get this out and play it again.

A classic board wargame. I had a lot of fun with it back in the day, and I'd play it again if I could find an interested opponent.

I have a version that's all tricked out as The Two Ocean War, with all the ships from War At Sea plus additions like the French Navy and the Greek Navy – basically, all the world's capital ships and heavy cruisers, plus a lot of land based air. Lots of fun.

Fun game. I was looking at this one earlier in the week, actually.

I played the heck out of my copy at the time. Fun and fast.

I played both WaS and ViP. Two very different games IMHO. Like them both. Never combined the two but I saw a published indie expansion recently which does that and am thinking of resurrecting the games.

Yeah, I leaned more towards ViP too. I enjoyed it when I was younger. I got my boys to play it and they liked it.

I seem to remember an issue of The General where they gave you additional ships to cutout and mount onto card stock. I think one ship was the Arkansas. Anyone else remember this?

Used to play this loads and War at Sea too. I preferred War at Sea as I found it a more balanced game. Victory in the Pacific always ended with an allied victory and wasn't much fun for the Japanese player. Both good games though.

Texas Jack, there were a bunch of variants for WAS and VITP printed in "The General", some of them with addtional ships, or ships with different values, or additional maps. The best of these were folded into the third-party variant that I mentioned earlier, "Two Ocean War".

You can probably find most WAS and VITP variants, as well as many strategy articles in this online archive of "The General" magazines:

link

I always enjoyed playing the Japanese in VITP, 'cause it was so much fun romping and stomping in the first few turns, before the tide turned and inevitable defeat loomed.

Loved playing this back in the good old days. And its still there in my bookcase. I reckon I won more games as the Japanese than the Allies. There were some nifty tactics you could use to really b****r up the Allied progression across the board.

Many thanks for your comments boys.

Amicalement
Armand

I remember an issue of the General that combined WAS and VIP. They called it "Victory at Sea" ;-). Played both many times. Rather fun game.

Thanks Zippy, great link, and CampyF, thatīs the issue! The resources here are truly amazing

By the way, there is a seller (not me) on ebay that sells a 2 CD set that has Volumes 1 thru 32 of "The General" on it. A very cool thing to have, IMO.

The old issues of The General contain a mountain of wargame information.

Before you buy those CDs, there's a link (posted on BGG) to a PDF archive of most/all issues of The General.

As a former AH employee and (minor) contributor to the magazine, I cheerfully remind folks that at one point we gave specific permission to make copies of out of print articles for personal use. It's all out of print now, baby, and there's no one being cheated out of royalties. Not that the Dotts ever paid those for articles in the first place. :)

Played it many times. Great game.

I just checked. Victory at Sea was in Volume 14 Issue#4.

It can be downloaded here:

link

Hth,

John

Thanks John!

Wow, that is an amazing issue! Not only does it have Victory at Sea, but also the Richthofenīs War maneuver cards. I have fond memories of both, but I forgot they were both in the same issue.

Great game, played the copy I had to shreds.
Have a new copy now.

I'm basically using the stats and values for the ship for a table top naval game of WWII (along with the stuff from War At Sea for the European theater. Using it for my 1:1200 ships. Will be debuting at a playtest at "The Weekend in June Next Month" in Lancaster PA.

My game also has an alternative system to calculate ship values.

I had all the add-ons and game expansions from the General. Unfortunately I loaned out the game to a friend once and he sold it at a convention. Said "he forgot" it was my game.

Actually the add-ons for War At Sea I think ruined the game, way too many ships with the French Fleet- though the Italian Frogmen were neat.

Victory in the Pacific brought home to me that even if the Japanese had sunk the entire fleet at Pearl Harobor at sea so they couldn't be repaired, they still got creamed!

OSchmidt, with friends like that,you donīt need enemies!

I did something similar with Richthofenīs War that you did with Victory in the Pacific. I modified the rules a bit, got rid of the hexes, and played it using my 1/300 minis. Great fun! I thought about using the old Jutland rules with my Navwar ships, could be fun.