First off, locate the manual to the game that exists in your steam contents folder. Check it out for info on all icons in the game and other screens I reference in this guide.

When you start the game you will have several options for countries and maps possible. Keep in mind that while you can play any country available as Human, your gameplay experience may be limited by your selection. For example, the country of Vichy in the Pacific Campaign map is nearly useless and will not have enough production points to do much other than spectate.

Other countries may simply lack other vital aspects required to be much fun to play, or can face overwhelming odds, and your first experience playing the game should not be one of frustration. Choosing Japan in some late war maps with very few turns can be an extreme uphill battle, for example, even in easy mode, because the victory conditions are very difficult to meet (knocking the US off the map completely).

For your first game you should play the Tutorial. Scroll down until you find it in the list of scenarios. Click *next turn* to begin. Make sure you follow every step exactly, and if you are asked to deploy a unit in a city, make sure it is precisely in that city, then click next turn again and it will proceed.

If you enjoy producing your own units and a large campaign that is rich in variety and that will take many hours to play, I suggest playing Japan in the Pacific or China campaigns eventually once you are used to the game. Perhaps play an ally as well, like Manchukuo (a puppet state of Japan, historically). If you want a quick battle to try first, however, try the USA in a map like the first Guadalcanal scenario.

I personally find more of a challenge and interest in the game playing Japan, since the game allows you to alter history. You could also play the Republic of China and defeat the Communist Chinese and the Japanese. That said, the game will throw historic curve balls your way, like insisting that Japan obtain resources like oil (which can be seen in parentheses next to some named hexes).

SotP is not a particularly simple game to immediately pick up and play, but once you get used to where things are you will be zipping around between units easily.

First off, if you are playing a big map, make use of your scroll wheel on your mouse. Zooming out will reveal flag icons for each of your units. This is a good way to track where everything is, especially if you are playing Japan in a China map, which can be very large.

You may want to change your units in preferences also to the "Sprite" option. Some of the unit graphic types do not properly show the red attack arrows during unit attack since they cover up too much of the hex. Some of the other icons are a bit too abstract to give the feel of controlling real troops. It's a personal choice, but I prefer "Sprites" for Unit type, and leaving the map as "Normal".

Use your Units button on the lower left to check the status of all of your troops - its the top button that looks like a tank. It shows you all of your units and their available Action Points. Look for units that have unspent action points. Thats really all you need to look at. You can see the rest of the vital data by clicking the Unit Panel button on the top right of the screen.

The Unit Panel is your friend. This button provides a nice little photo of your unit along with several buttons and info, including your action points, your unit strength, and options available in non-greyed out buttons. You can do all sorts of vital things with this panel, such as make your land units into an amphibious group (if you have the points). Amphibious groups can get behind an enemy and do not require a port to land.


Mostly you will want to use the Reinforce button. This looks like a little gas can with an X in it. It is the most important button in the game, in my opinion! Never take a unit with 0.3 health into battle if you can reinforce it first. You want your units to be at about 1 health or more typically.

You will also see unit *effectiveness* in the Unit Panel. If it is 50 percent or less you are probably stranded and without supplies. You will do terribly in battle.

For Battle, use the Battle Panel -- click it before you click on your own unit, then click on an enemy. It will show a red arrow and show you your attack chance of success. You want to overwhelm the enemy 2 to 1 usually to avoid losing troops. You can also click two or three of your own units before clicking the enemy, and gang up on an enemy unit for better odds.

The air units have bomb icons and attack airplane options, but these are covered in the Tutorial. Make sure your air units are reinforced -- if you take a bomber with only one plane into battle you could lose the whole unit and it will be very expensive and time consuming to replace.

Buying units is also covered in the tutorial, but a key point to keep in mind is that you want to have units appear within a reasonable timeframe and for a cheap cost if possible. You can get a small infantry unit quickly, then later upgrade the unit to a larger size. The upgrade happens immediately

The naval interface is completely different than that of ground and air units, and it can be confusing.

There are sea *zones* around the map and your naval units will exist within them. You will also see a visual representation of your naval groups on the map, but you wont see every individual unit in a group depicted like you would on land unless you are watching a naval battle. The group will be represented by a major icon like a carrier, but subs and patrol ships could be attached to that same group.

The best way to see what is in a zone is to just click the yellow rings in an ocean zone that represent the zone. You will see all of the available ships.


Submarines are basically blocking ships that act automatically. Patrol boats are similar. The ships that really do the most damage are Battle and Carrier ships. Carriers will give you the option of an air strike, and Battle ships give you the Bombard option.

Unit Transport ships and Amphibious Landing ships can get "lost" in your fleet if you are not looking for them. Make sure you land your transports in a friendly city where they can be useful, and make sure your amphibious troops land somewhere to suprise and enemy. Keeping them in a fleet where they will eventually be vulnerable to attack makes little sense. Get the troops on land. Change history! Land US troops on mainland Japan, or land Japanese troops in Hawaii.

Air strikes are particularly useful and can actually damage harbors directly, so you can attack Pearl Harbor directly and have an impact on the US fleet, even if you dont see a ship in the harbor. Try to watch the effects of attacking the harbor next to Honolulu or Hong Kong after a carrier air strike. You will see a broken anchor icon and some stats on the damage dealt. Bombers can have a similar effect.

Bombardment is a mixed bag, but it does reduce effectiveness of enemy troops, and enemies with reduced effectiveness are easier targets -- the effect is temporary, however.

Again the most confusing thing about Naval units is that you dont see a direct relationship to where individual units are on the map, so you will need to familiarize yourself with the Naval action panel, click on individual units in the panel, and see the *air strike* option pop up for carriers, for example.

If your group is getting heavily damaged, take the whole fleet out of the zone, or create a new fleet with a small group and move them back to a Harbor at home. There you can repair them, though this can be slow and costly.

1. Make sure you keep a line of supply to your troops at all times. You can see a dotted line surrounding an area of hexes around your unit. You want that supply to extend back to a nearby city or town. If you stray too far from that city or town then you will be out of supply, even if your line is unbroken. Being out of supply will dramatically decrease your effectiveness, and you will be unable to win battles versus a more effective and supplied enemy.

2. Move into empty enemy cities whenever possible. Cut around an unsuspecting enemy and cut off his supply. If you see an opening, go for it. You will establish a new base for supplies, and this is vital to survival.

3. Not all named hexes provide supplies. Some provide rare resources, but your units will want to take a nearby city to get supplies.

4. Gang up on enemies whenever possible, and outnumber them 2 or 3 to 1. Dont go into battles with a 1 to 1 ratio. Attack and destroy weak enemies until they are overrun.

5. Reinforce and upgrade units when possible. Go into battle at full strength for maximum effect.

6. Bombard and air strike enemies to soften them.

7. Recon areas with aircraft before you assume an enemy city is empty. Recon is a *free* activity that you get with bombers, fighters, and carriers.

9. If you are flush with production points, put some points into research where you are weak. Only do this in maps with over 30 turns. Otherwise it will not progress fast enough to make a difference. For example, if you have little in tanks, put some into that and make sure you are maxed out in the stack of coins after a few turns so the research progresses faster. If you have many units already, just keep reinforcing and upgrading them instead in the beginning to keep them alive. If you can raise your research later, great, then you can level all of those surviving units up.

10. Use amphibious landing groups to take enemy territory and break supply lines. These are incredibly useful in getting a landing force over to the other side of a map, but remember not to strand your troops in a place where no city can be taken easily, no ally exists, and a tough enemy waits. You will run out of supplies and become ineffective.

11. Mechanized units are great, especially upgraded, because they can cover a lot of territory and are relatively inexpensive. Upgrading a mechanized unit in levels (assuming you have the research) can result in armored cars, allowing you to travel quickly and pack a punch.

12. Use Strategic Redeployment when possible. It can get units to where you need them quickly in a pinch.

The PBEM feature is pretty simple. You enter player's names and e-mail addresses. When the game tells you to "send the file to Player X at e-mail address X" you do so by zipping the entire new PBEM game folder and sending it to that player who must then put the folder (and overwrite the old one) in the appropriate location in his common Steamapps folder. See the screenshot below.

I highly suggest creating a shortcut on your desktop to the subfolder in Steam so you don't have to navigate to it each time you get a new turn. Also make note of what "turn" you are on in case someone screws up and starts and finishes someone else's turn by mistake.

A game can easily be "co-op" versus AI and does not need to be a versus game. You could have one player play Japan, and the other play Siam, Manchukuo, and Inner Mongolia. Or the USA and Australia or Great Britian. The point is you can play the same alliance if you choose.

To have the same player play multiple nations just choose that player's name in the dropdown list when you select "Human".

If all goes well you will be PBEM'ing in no time.

Note that the game will produce an error if you have a duplicate PBEM game folder name, so make your game names unique!