The Pacific Theater of World War II has defied game design. It’s easier to model land combat than naval warfare. Individual battles like Iwo Jima or Guadalcanal can be done, since they are traditional soldier on soldier stuff. But the grand sweep of the theater has none of the stable front lines of tanks and men. The combined land/sea/air operations stand in the way of elegance, especially when computers allow you to model everything you need.

All of which makes War Plan Pacific daring in its simplicity. Drawing on the old Avalon Hill board game Victory in the Pacific, KE Studios brings a board sensibility to a wargame problem and never apologizes for the abstraction. Like many of the best wargames of recent years, WPP starts with basic game premises (victory conditions, movement and supply) and builds a game that is not a realistic history, but is a convincing impression of the theater.

WPP is all naval combat. Yes, the Allies can eventually unlock B-29s, and aircraft and marines do a play a supporting role. But the game is about moving fleets of ships from one node to the next. If you destroy an enemy’s base, you can prevent him from using it as a staging area, but it also keeps you from sticking your fleet there until you send convoys to build it up. For much of the game you will be debating whether or not it is worth the risk to send a particular damaged ship into combat; will it survive long enough for its guns or planes to make a difference?

The clarity of the victory conditions are what make these decisions so important. Though they can win by cutting off Australia, the Japanese mostly have to hang on. They can do this by securing a stable oil supply; each turn they control an oil lane extends their durability. The US can bomb Japan into submission or reduce their oil supply to zero – no fuel means no boats. You always know what you have to do to win, and thanks to the excellent manual you pretty much know how to do it. All you need are the fleets and the plan.

Of course, this does limit how replayable the game is. Once you’ve hit on the winning formula for both sides, WPP loses a little of its luster. Add in the temptation to simply mass a super fleet in the Central Pacific and WPP runs the risk of undermining all the standards that strategy and wargamers have come to expect of their games. The computer will occasionally mix things up – there is no guarantee of an AI strike on Pearl Harbor, for example. But once you’ve played the main scenario a few times and assembled a super fleet of 12 carriers and 15 cruisers, it can be a little wearying to keep going back.