A Classic
What makes a classic game a classic? "Victory in the Pacific", a 1970s era Avalon Hill game, has more going for it to being considered a classic than simply the passing of more than three decades of time from its design date. I believe it was one of the first war games to use an area control design and determine victory by the accumulation of victory points over the course of time.

Components:
The board is made of a durable cardboard with a bright and easily legible map of the pacific ocean and associated land territories.


The Game Board At the Start of Turn One

The pieces are "old school" wargame with cardboard square counters representing the main surface ships, marine units, and air units that participated in the Pacific Theater during World War II. The ship counters are double sided (one side representing the ship performing a patrolling role and one side representing the ship in a raiding role). Each ship counter has a representational images of the specific ship class as well as each ship's name and game abilities (attack factor, armor factor, and speed.)

There are also some smaller counters used for book keeping activities such as: damage counters to keep track of the accumulated damage a unit may have suffered, control markers for islands, ports and sea areas, and a couple of POC markers (Points of Control.)


Book Keeping Counters

The Japanese and Allied player each have an easy to use reinforcment reference card.


Japanese Reinforcement Chart

There is of course a rules manual.

Objective of Play:
The goal of VITP (Victory in the Pacific) is to have a positive POC balance at the end of eight turns. I believe the scoring mechanic of acquiring a turn by turn accumulation of victory points (POC in this case) was relatively unique for the time for war games at the time.


Overview of Play:
Players gain from zero to three POC for each sea area that they control at the end of a turn. Control is awarded to a side having at least one patrolling ship or an air unit left at sea in the area at the end of all combat. Each sea area has a set POC value and may be worth a different amount of POC to each side. If no side has a surviving patrolling ship or operational air unit in a sea area then that sea area awards no POC to either side and it is considered uncontrolled for the next turn. I believe this area control mechanic was also fairly unique in the war game arena at the time VITP was made.

Turns play starts out with each player receiving their reinforcement units (or starting ships) and placing them on the board at the location indicated on their card. The Japanese player then places their patrolling ships, the allied player places their patrolling ships, the Japanese player places their raiding ships and then the allied player places their raiding ships. (Note: this simplified turn order does not take into account the placement of air units, marine units or the submarine counter but provide sufficient coverage for an overview of the game.) The onus of making first allocation of units is on the Japanese player but this disadvantage is balanced for at least the first four turns by the large naval force advantage of the Japanese player. The allied player should eventually gain the naval force advantage but it will take time, time in which the Japanese player will try to build up an overwhelming POC lead.

Difficult Decisions
The tension in the game comes from the difficult choices each player has to make in deciding which ships they will use to patrol or raid with and which areas to allocate them to. Committing too many ships to patrol duties leaves the player inflexibile to deal with the strategic possibilities available to a player with lots of raiding units. Committing too many ships to raiding leaves the player vulnerable to not obtaining the POC for controlling a sea area as only patrolling ships may claim control of a sea area at the end of the turn. Spreading ships out to thinly leaves them vulnerable to being overwhelmed by superior enemy fire power, but congregating too many in any one sea area may well mean forfeiting valuable POC to your opponent in other sea areas.

Adding to the decision difficulty is the possibilty of an enemy marine unit conquering one or more of your islands and turning them into their airbases for use in future turns. This may make a sea area that is not so crucial to control for the POC it affords more critical to allocate units to so that you can turn back an enemy beach invasion. Also, any islands or ports that are in a sea area controlled by the opposing player for two consecutive turns are automatically considered conquered by the opposing player. The Hawaiian Islands or even Japan itself can fall to this method of conquest so again some sea areas that are not necessarily critical for the POCs they provide can become the areas where the biggest sea battles are fought.

A final consideration that is often used in deciding where units should be placed is the fact that ships may not pass through sea areas that were controlled by the opposing player at the end of the previous turn. Players, especially the Japanese player, often use the control of sea areas to estalish an outer shell of influence so that they can control the inner areas with just one or two units (conversely, the allied player may sacrifice units on an area in an attempt to simply break control of an area so that they can threaten to raid Japanese internal areas the next turn.)

Combat
If there are opposing forces in a sea area then combat occurs. One of the biggest impacts on the outcome of an individual round of battle is decided before shots are even fired, and that is the determination if the battle will take place during the day or at night. Each player announces whether they want the round of battle to be a day action or a night action. If both players agree on day/night then that is when the battle is held. If the player disagree then the resolution is made by the roll of a six sided die. This roll is modified by +1 for the player wanting a day action and +1 for the player (if any) who had control of the sea area prior to the beginning of the battle. With these modifiers it is usually possible to predict with some confidence whether most rounds of battle in a given sea area will be day or night rounds.

During day battle rounds only air units may attack (this includes land based air units and carriers.) During night battle rounds only ships may attack using their surface gunnery factors.

A round of combat begins by first assigning each unit to fire at an opposing unit. Each unit then rolls a number of six sided dice equal to its combat factor (air factors are used during day combat rounds, surface gunnery factors are used during night rounds). A roll of five disables an enemy unit (and forces it to return to base at the end of the round) and a roll of a six or greater hits the enemy. Each hit allows the attacker to roll another six sided die to determine how much damage is done. Damage is cumulative. If the cumulative damage done to a unit is greater than its armor factor then the unit is sunk (unless the unit is in port during an air raid in which case its armor factor is doubled when deciding whether the unit is sunk or not.) A combat round is considered simultaneous so the opposing player then allocates all of his ships (sunk this round or not) to attack and resolves their attacks.

Combat continues round by round in this day/night determination, allocate and resolve attacks manner until all units of one side are destroyed or one player chooses to flee. Fleeing ships can be pursued by the opposing player with ships that have the same or greater speed factor.

Air Raids


Battleship Row

VITP begins with the map set to represent the Pacific Theater as it was on December 7th, 1941. The rules for placing and moving ships on the first turn is different than all other turns to reflect the surprise attack nature of the IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy's) actions against the allies. During the first turn the player controlling the IJN can place as many of their carriers as they want (except the Hosho) in the Hawaiian Islands sea zone. Carriers placed in the Hawaiian Islands can launch an air raid on Pearl Harbor. For two rounds of combat the Japanese player gets to allocate all of their air craft carrier attacks factors against the US ships on battleship row in an attempt to devestate the US old battle wagon fleet. A similiar two rounds of air raids also occurs against the British and minor navy ships in the Indonesia Sea Area.

The Allied Ships, for the most part, cannot move on the first turn (the exception being the Australian ships and a couple of other cruisers.) The US aircraft carriers and their supporting cruisers are place at random (or left off board until the next turn) according to a die roll against a "location uncertain" chart.

The effect of varied success of the initial Japanese air raids and the placement of the "location uncertain" US carrier groups makes the opening turns of the game varied and provides some freshness right from the start as the players have to adapt to the whims of fate.

British and Minor Allies


Minor Allies

The inclusion of, and movement/basing restrictions on, the British, AUstralian and Dutch units give the allied player a sense of the US having allies but also an understanding of the fact that the US faced the Imperial Japanese Navy mostly on its own (Unlike the war in Europe which had a force expenditure that was much more balanced between all the allies (though the Russians paid the highest price of the allies in terms of casualties.))

My Rating:

I rate this game out of five.

Conclusion:

VITP's early adoption of accumulated Victory Points (POCs), area control, and innovative patrol/raid and day/night mechanics qualify it, in my mind at least, to be considered a classic wargame (and I use classic in its very positive sense.) VITP broke some new ground when it was introduced. The game does not cover the war in China or have a very detailed or realistic combat system but to me it does a great job of providing a strategic feel for World War II in the pacific. It gives a good sense of the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, the importance of islands and ports for waging an effective war and the military advantages for the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The reason that airplanes (and their associated carriers) became kings of the sea over the old battle wagons is also shown.

If I have four hours to play a war game this one is always towards the top of my list. Anyone who is interested in an intermediate level wargame view of the Pacfic Theater during WWII will probably love this game. It is fairly balanced, requires some significant skill to win and has enough luck to allow for some interesting swings of power.