WPP: AI, does it work?

[Von_Altair]

Hello! I found this game by accident, after reading awesome dominions3 gameforum. I tryed WPP demo and it feels good. A simple very good quality tactical game which may have long lifespan.

I am wondering how AI works after recent patch. Does it offer good challenge or is it just a training partner for a real human vs. human games (if MP is supported)? AI always has been important for me with all tactical games and if AI is a good one, I usually buy the game.

A small but important issue may be the price. Human nature likes to compare what he/she will get with his/her pennies. No offence here, but this game looks a bit expensive for its "level of detail" (ok I've seen only a demo, retail mayby different). Let me explain my point of view. If you are going to buy a car, and a salesman offers you a honda civic and a red shining ferrari with the same cheap price. Which one you would take, honestly? With "level of detail" I mean something like new game Empire: Total war which costs 39.99... about the same than WPP. For me the price doesn't matter too much, since I am an old bastaad and have good economy running. Still, I have seen so many excellent games falling in fog, just becose they have been overpriced at start.

Von Altair
Anno Domini 2009

[S.R. Krol]

Originally Posted by Von_Altair

I am wondering how AI works after recent patch. Does it offer good challenge or is it just a training partner for a real human vs. human games (if MP is supported)? AI always has been important for me with all tactical games and if AI is a good one, I usually buy the game.

Unfortunately how challenging an AI is ends up typically being a subjective question since it depends on how well the player performs. Playing against a human is usually better (and is true with any computer game) but then again, there are a lot of bad gamers out there.

To get a sampling check out the reviews (which would be pre-patch), and some of the AARs and such. I think you'll find that while no one is claiming that the AI is Skynet, no one is saying it's a pushover either.

A small but important issue may by the price. Human nature likes to compare what he/she will get with his/her pennies. No offence here, but this game looks a bit expensive for its "level of detail" (ok I've seen only a demo, retail mayby different). Let me explain my point of view. If you are going to buy a car, and salesman offers you a honda civic and a red shining ferrari with the same cheap price. Which one you would take, honestly? With "level of detail" I mean something like new game Empire: Total war which costs 39.99... about the same than WPP. For me the price doesn't matter too much, since I am an old bastaad and have good economy running. Still, I have seen so many excellent games falling in fog, just becose they have been overpriced at start.

Von Altair
Anno Domini 2009

Obviously we'll disagree that it's overpriced. Hey, if it was a board game it would probably be ten or twenty dollars more. And really you can't compare the cost of game X to game Y. I mean, heck, your average vapid console game costs twenty dollars more than WPP, but I guarantee you'll get more longevity and enjoyment out of WPP than Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad (game I just pulled from the Metacritic list).

Ultimately the price someone is willing to pay for a game is what they feel is fair. War Plan Pacific has been quite popular from even before it was released (it was our best selling pre-order in many years) so the price point hasn't really been an issue.

[MarkL]

I think the AI is well balanced for the game type it is.

No glaring problems nor really hard. This meant to be a quick play title and it fits the bill very well.

A good small game with no real bugs or problems. Sure it could be improoved on but so can every game ever released.

This is a good solid title for my money, If the games scope interests you and you are looking for a title that does not take forever to play you will not be dissapointed. Well I was not anyway.

Cheeras MarkL

[Von_Altair]

Bought the game and what enjoy it is! Played 4 hours in row!

Possible bug or mayby problem in my computer:

There is a strange blue screen (the same colour than base screens are) appearing now and then after I click on some bases like Home Island or Formosa. Full blue screen pops up and nothing happens, no matter if I click any button. Hovewer if I alt-swap to desktop and back to the game, everything looks normal again. What might cause this? No other program ever acted like this.

Other than this, I can warmly prefer this awesome game to everyone!

My computer: Intel CoreDuo E8500 3.16Ghz, 4GB RAM, GeForce8800 and Windows Vista 64 with SP1

[S.R. Krol]

Good to hear that you're enjoying it. The blue screen issue is a known problem. Here's what John says about it in his postmortem:

Light Blue Screen Of Non-Death (LBSOND): Reported a couple of times in beta, this issue has also hit a few customers. We’ve never been able to consistently repro in house, so at the moment have no clear path to a fix. Since this bug does not crash the game and display can be restored by minimizing and restoring the window, it falls into the “annoying” rather than “debilitating” category. Still, annoying your customers is not a good business strategy, and we need to find and fix (or work around if it is a DX issue)this bug.

XNA: Although XNA probably plays a part in two of the three major technical issues(installation and LBSOND), overall it has worked out quite well. Of course with the knowledge gained during a full development cycle, there are many things that we could “do better next time” and we shall.

There is a patch in the works but I don't know if he's been able to track this particular thing down yet or not.

[Von_Altair]

Imperial strike against the Giant goes well. After taking Borneo, Singapore and Java, our ships are getting enough oil. Then we keep Hawaji ja Ceylon raided while we managed to advance all the way to Fiji. Up there Imperial Navy decided to stand and fight and moved everything up there including convoys. 2 Major fight occured and the results are here (Sealines 5 month cut, 1 remain!):



Looks like AI works quite good, but there is one major problem with it. If AI is doing invasion, it is continuing it, no matter how badly it goes. Both fights went bad for USA, but they keep coming to beaches without chances (1.5:1 surface advantage did go to 1:3) while most of its capital ships sunk. Just becose amphibio unit survived. Looks like AI doesn't stop attack if landing unit is up, no matter if the rest of the fleet is going down. I think this needs some attention.