Pacific Crossroads Developer’s Preview
By Doug McNair
June 2010

During a post-performance chat on David Letterman, musician Tom Waits once remarked that his kids won’t let him help them with their homework anymore. Asked why, he said, “Well ... I ... made up a war.” To that I say: Good on you, Tom! It’s good to mess with a kid’s mind every now and then, just so he doesn’t grow up believing everything he hears. And as for me, it is one of the joys of working at Avalanche Press that we get to make up wars all the time.

Our most recent effort in that vein is Pacific Crossroads, our new Great War at Sea game exploring what might have happened if the USA had gone to war with Japan in the years right after World War One. The operational focus of the game is the sea area north of Rabaul, where US Navy forces would have had to fight their way past a string of Japanese island bases to relieve the vulnerable American colony of the Philippines. Pacific Crossroads presents all the naval forces that would have participated in these battles, keeping the unit types basic but still interesting so the game can serve as an introduction for players new to the Great War at Sea series. New ships like the American 1910 battle cruiser design are present, as are the battle cruisers the Americans feared Japan would acquire from the Royal Navy. The logistical issue of fuel use is also very important in this game, since most of the operational map is open water and the Americans have only one naval base on the board. The American player will have to deploy colliers and oilers carefully to get his fleets to their destinations without running out of fuel.

Battle Scenario One
Fast Cruisers
April 1919

The United States Navy lagged behind those of other nations in building fast scout cruisers; those planned for the 1910 program ultimately were not built. The Japanese, meanwhile, built a class of light cruisers along the same lines as the British Town class. These two cruiser types would have clashed in the first stages of any fleet action.

Developer’s Commentary

A cruiser duel in which the American cruisers are somewhat outclassed but their destroyer support is superior to that of the Japanese. I gave the Americans the initiative since they have no secondary guns and will therefore need to get the jump on the Japanese if they are to get within firing range. A player wins by sinking at least one enemy cruiser and scoring more VPs than the opposing player. Any other result is a draw.

Battle Scenario Two
Assault on Guam
April 1919

American war plans counted heavily on Guam's availability as a refueling point on the road to Manila. The Japanese knew this — they could read a map — but did not plan to confront the Pacific Fleet so far forward, instead readying themselves for a decisive battle in their own waters. Yet every plan is subject to modification, and an early assault on the vital American way station at Guam would surely have been a tempting option to Japanese planners.

Developer’s Commentary

Mike originally designed this as an operational scenario with a Japanese invasion fleet seeking to unload transports on the sole American naval base at Guam. That didn’t work because there was only one small invasion objective. American forces would just set up a coastal defense blockade of Guam and wait for the Japanese to come to them, making the operational portion of the scenario irrelevant. So I turned this into a battle scenario that would look just like the combat that would come at the end of the operational scenario. It’s a blockade-running scenario like those we have in Black Waters and Great White Fleet, with the Japanese player scoring VPs for each transport that exits a specific edge of the map by the end of play and the American player scoring VPs for each Japanese transport that fails to do so.

Battle Scenario Three
Raid on Truk
May 1919

The Japanese naval base at Truk was a major threat to the American supply line to the Philippines. Close enough to US shipping lanes for easy raiding but far enough from the US base at Guam to allow for screening of Japanese movements, Truk had a ring of barrier islands protecting its harbor and coastal defense guns as well. Despite the attendant risks, a bold American commander might have risked an attack on a foggy morning to catch the Japanese cruiser squadron at anchor and eliminate the threat to the US lifeline.

Developer’s Commentary

This is a scenario I designed myself with the intent of recreating the Truk Lagoon on the GWAS tactical map. The scenario is an attack on an enemy harbor like we did in Cone of Fire with Admiral Graf Spee’s cruiser squadron attacking the British fleet at Port Stanley. It’s a dawn raid so the Japanese are still raising steam, and the number of Japanese ships that can move increases as the game progresses. All ships of both sides can escape by exiting the map, and the American player wins by scoring at least 10 more VPs than the Japanese player. Any other result is a Japanese victory.

Battle Scenario Four
Strategic Warfare
June 1919

A resupply operation to the Philippines would have been complicated by the long sea route involved. Even the largest American transports would not have had the fuel capacity to make it all the way there from Hawaii, so the Americans would need to construct a coaling station on Wake Island in preparation for war with Japan. Even that would have gotten most transports only as far as Guam, so without large colliers the American convoys would be inviting attacks from Japanese raiders prowling the waters around Guam. Sinking American colliers would therefore be a Japanese strategic objective just as important as sinking the actual merchant ships carrying supplies for the Philippines.

Developer’s Commentary

This is a standard convoy-raiding scenario, with two state-of-the-art Japanese battle cruisers attacking a large American convoy escorted by an older battleship plus an assortment of older support vessels. The burden of victory is on the Japanese player, who must score many more VPs than the American player to win. Any other result is an American victory.

Battle Scenario Five
Battle Wagons
July 1919

In the years just after the First World War, battleships still remained the measure of a nation's naval strength. Both Japan and the United States expected to send their newest warships into battle against one another, whether in a large fleet action or a smaller, even nastier affair like this one.

Developer’s Commentary

This is a small battleship duel, with two battleships per side plus destroyer support. It’s a good opportunity for new players to learn the mechanics of GWAS tactical combat while getting a feel for how destroyers can help protect and threaten larger ships.

Battle Scenario Six
Lone Wolf
July 1919

Much of the U.S. Navy's impressive heritage involved commerce warfare: protecting its own or destroying that of its enemies. Japan had much less experience in this type of warfare, but her naval planners knew that heavy escorts had been considered necessary for American troop convoys crossing the Atlantic. Just as the Americans had detailed older battleships to protect their troops, so could the Japanese be expected to react in the Pacific.

Developer’s Commentary

Another standard scenario type to help new players learn the game, this one has a lone American battle cruiser attacking a Japanese convoy escorted by one old battleship plus a small number of destroyers. I allowed each player to set up one ship per hex if desired so that the small number of Japanese escorts would have maximum freedom of movement against the single, fast American attacker.

Operational Scenario One
To Guam and Beyond
April 1919

The Mariana and Caroline Islands lay across the sea route from Hawai'i to the Philippines; any American attempt to relieve its Far Eastern colony would have to pass near these islands. The American War Plan Orange did not envision reducing the Japanese bases along the way: once the fleet had passed on its way to the Philippines, follow-up convoys would still be at risk from the Japanese bases in the former German colonies of the Central Pacific.

Developer’s Commentary

The American transports don’t have the fuel capacity to make it all the way from Hawaii to Guam, and the one collier that Mike had assigned to the American convoy couldn’t refuel a whole convoy that size by itself. So I went with the aforementioned idea that the Americans had constructed a coaling station on Wake Island in anticipation of war with Japan. That would get the convoy onto the map with just two fuel boxes expended, and the remaining fuel aboard the small transports would get them to Guam but not to Philippines (any ship needs three fuel boxes to get there from Guam). Then I went with victory conditions that reward the Americans for unloading transports at Guam but reward them better for getting transports off the west edge that have at least three fuel boxes remaining. This adds an extra level of strategy to the scenario since the Americans will have to refuel their transports either at Guam or by collier if they wish to get any transports off the west edge. To help with that, I added AX11 Orion at Guam and let her have a supply mission if the American player wishes.

Operational Scenario Two
Raid on Rabaul
April 1919

The Anglo-Japanese Alliance did not necessarily commit Britain to fight alongside Japan, but the Japanese would have been able to draw support from British-controlled ports. Would the United States allow these “neutral” bases or succor their enemies, or would they strike first?

Developer’s Commentary

Balancing this one was tough. I had to make bombarding ports a significant source of victory points to encourage the Americans to do it, but I couldn’t have everything hang on bombarding three out of the four ports available to the Japanese in this scenario because the Japanese would just put their whole fleet on coastal defense missions around a couple of ports and thus keep the Americans from getting to victory. On the other hand, Japanese merchant shipping densities are low in this part of the world, so American fleets with raid missions will need to burn a lot of fuel to rack up any significant victory points on the Merchant Location Table. So I gave the Americans a collier with a supply mission that can start at sea, thus allowing the American raiders to burn lots of fuel finding merchants and then refuel without having to go back to Guam. I then went with a VP threshold that’s low enough to give the Americans some flexibility on how to win the game. They can win by sinking a lot of merchants plus bombarding just one port, or by just bombarding ports if desired.

Operational Scenario Three
Tip and Run
May 1919

Once the Great War ended, neither the Americans nor the Japanese altered their fundamental assumptions about a future naval war in the Pacific. Given the short distance between American and Japanese bases in the Marianas, compared to the vast stretch of ocean between San Diego and Manila, had the Americans wished to seek battle the German "tip and run" method might have yielded results.

Developer’s Commentary

This is a more intricate setting of the same concept as in Raid on Rabaul. Here instead of just a small raiding force, the Americans also have a support force consisting of many battleships that are released from port on the turn after the turn when any Japanese capital ships are contacted at sea. The Japanese also have a large battleship force, so the Americans can win either by sinking merchants and bombarding ports or by catching a Japanese battle fleet at sea and defeating it.

Operational Scenario Four
Convoy to Rabaul
June 1919

Use of Rabaul would give the Japanese a string of naval bases right across the projected American line of advance to the Philippines. But the sleepy, Australian-administered port did not have facilities and supplies to support fleet operations: these would have to be brought from Japan. And the Americans would not sit back quietly while the Japanese conducted their buildup.

Developer’s Commentary

Mike’s original scenario design allowed the Americans to score victory points by raiding Japanese merchant ships and bombarding ports. But due to the relative shortage of forces on both sides in this scenario, I nixed those rules to keep the focus on the Japanese resupply convoy. The addition of fuel issues to the scenario makes this possible: The Japanese convoy must have started at Okinawa given its point of entry, so it would have burned four fuel boxes by the time play begins. That means that the slow transports have just one fuel box remaining while the fast transport have three. So the slow transports would have to stop at Saipan to refuel, but to make it more interesting I gave them two colliers which lets them stop at any island to refuel. The fast transports will also have to refuel but can make it as far as Truk before doing so.

This all gives the Japanese player plenty to think about on the way to Rabaul, and it also means that I had to add some Japanese forces at Saipan to protect the convoy from immediate attack by the Americans while they’re refueling. That will give the Americans something to dodge while trying to go for the convoy. I also had to give the Americans a collier with a Supply mission since they will also likely need to refuel during play.

Operational Scenario Five
Through Ticket
June 1919

The first wave of the American relief force headed to the Philippines would find the Japanese waiting for them in a string of fortified island bases. From these bases, Japanese forces would strike the American fleet and attempt to whittle down its strength. The Americans did not intend to be slowed by these tactics, with orders to take a "through ticket to Manila."

Developer’s Commentary

I added two oilers to the main American force since some of their battleships and all their destroyers are oil-burners in this scenario. Then I cut the game to 70 turns to keep the Americans on the move. The Japanese player receives the full VP value of any American warship that fails to exit the west edge for any reason by the end of play (due to being sunk or otherwise). The Japanese player wins by sinking at least one American battleship or battle cruiser AND scoring more VPs than the American player. Any other result is an American victory.

Operational Scenario Six
Supply Train
July 1919

American war plans held it vital to relieve the Philippines from potential Japanese attack. That would mean not only sending a powerful relief fleet across the Pacific, but a steady stream of supply convoys to follow. Japanese doctrine focused on the coming great naval battle, but the thin American logistical artery would have been a tempting target for what light surface forces could be spared.

Developer’s Commentary

This is a scenario with random American convoys entering the east edge of the board and scoring VPs by getting off the west edge. Mike’s original scenario design had no American forces starting on the board, and that didn’t work for me because it would give the American player nothing to do but wait for his convoys to get hit. So I added the Guam cruiser squadron to deal with Japanese raiders and then altered the pool of escorts available to the entering convoys accordingly. Then to compensate for the added American forces, I gave the Japanese a few more ships and also let them use dummy fleets to confuse the Americans as to their location. Then I cut the game to 90 turns since the last of the American convoys will be off the west edge or sunk by then.

That covers it for Pacific Crossroads. Tune in next time for my commentary on another new product about a made-up war, Polish Steel!

Pacific Crossroads is shipping now! Order your copy TODAY!