PRO
strong artificial intelligence
beautiful models of the ships
interesting historical subject
shorter battles in the manual mode
variability and gameability
reasonable price

CON
there is no multiplayer
there is no custom battle mode
there is no training mode (only a manual)

I RECOMMEND THIS GAME to fans of historical war games

Attention! This game can look as a stupid and cheerful strategic game for mass audience. It absolutely not so! This game the representative of the died-out genre of difficult, long and serious naval simulators. If you never heard about such games as Jutland or Distant Guns, then leave at once...

I haven’t spent much time playing strategy based games. It turns out that Totem Games Ironclads 2 Series was a good way to introduce me to the hardcore naval sim genre; it’s a gem of a strategy game. War of the Pacific has captured my interest and imagination because put simply, a lot of thought and effort went into the game. This is evident with the numerous battle options and the brilliantly constructed campaign aspect of the game. Player interaction and plausible outcomes are paramount in the development of the game. The options for play and surroundings are numerous and allow quite a bit of freedom for any player and computer to enjoy smooth enjoyable game. Ironclads is very imaginative but not intuitive strategic game that will satisfy not only the first time strategy game player like me, but the battle hardened strategy game players.

The most compelling aspect of gaming the War of the Pacific is a "what if" situation that would involve a battle of Chile's two ironclads Blanco Encalada and Admirante Cochrane vs Peru's two ironclads Huascar and Independencia assisted by one or both of Peru's Monitors Manco Capac and Atahualpa. Unfortunately, for some bizarre reason, the game designers started the time period of this game after the loss of the Huascar and Independencia (note that the painting used for the game's webpage shows the Huascar). Then, to make up for this omission, the game's designers inserted the ironclad Pachacutec for Peru, which didn't historically exist but appears to be modeled after the Independencia! Moreover, in an apparant effort to balance play, they added the naval corvette Callao and the armed transport ships Pachitea and Isluga on Peru's side while ignoring Peru's historical naval corvette Rimac (Chilean transport that was captured very early in the war and converted into a naval corvette) and the armed transport ships Oroya, Chalaco, and Limena. Bizarre indeed!

The game would be more balanced and fun if the game's designers kept to the historical ships, especially the Huascar and Independencia. Without them it is a rather strange and historically disappointing game.

Maybe the designers will fix this with a patch??? PLEASE???

At its most basic, Ironclads 2 War on the Pacific is a decent real-time strategy title based at sea, giving you a reasonably comprehensive degree of control over your ships (more than you would expect for an RTS anyhow). Its combat system isn't as complex as you would perhaps expect from a naval warfare title.

When deciding whether to purchase War on the Pacific therefore, you should consider whether you want a game that does map-level strategy and battle-level sim more than adequately, but not spectacularly.

Ironclads 2 War on the Pacific gameplay is nicely detailed, and much more so than that of rival games of the likes of Distance Guns.

(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.

Not all the elements of Ironclads 2 War of hte Pacific have gelled into a satisfying whole, but enough good gameplay is in place to make this a worthwhile game for any nautical buff. It's certainly the best sim of its type on the market now. Better still, Totem Games has established a solid tradition of refining and improving their products over time. As they bring this Ironclads series into different ages of warfare, it'll be interesting to see how it evolves. As it is now, it's a damn fine start.

Game can be tough! I lost my only ironclad playing for Peru on 10 turn. I was trying to repair by ship been under fire, when I was able to stop machines to balance water pomp it was too late. I'll try to play without it but I think I lost the game ...

Game play on tactical map much faster and interesting, but luck of ship not gives you a taste of the naval battle system in full its power, I think. But still good enough!

A really interesting conflict that only die-hard naval fans have ever heard of. Game plays really well if you like table-top naval wargames. It's not a fast paced RTS with ironclads, but is really fun for those people it was designed for. If you want to play arm chair admiral in an interesting setting then this game is for you. It's a short game, and I wish there was multiplayer, but for under $10 it was worth it for me. There is no in game tutorial, so unless you have previous experience with Ironclads 2, read the manual first.

Good game. Very strange turned based system. "We-Go" mode? Nope! "I-Go-You-Go"? Nope! It works well, but by the strange rules.
Battles of the ships were pleasant to me. It would be desirable that seriously damaged ships were given in captivity. It is very boring to chase them.

The UI and thinking behind the map interface is abysmal.