Mantis you are forgetting that A&A or its children, are games where you roll scads of 6 sided dice.
You get to make a number of sound looking choices, but in the end, you are stuck rolling scads of 6 sided dice.
Some days a brilliant strategy pays off, then others the same idea falls flat on its face, simply because the dice said bugger off.
I have conquered the whole globe with each and every country, and also had each and every country prove to be worthless garbage.
One day I can do no wrong, and then the next game nothing will go right at all.
I have watched veteren wargamers get their side trashed by a newbie on their first game (actually most of my friends hate newbies as a result hehe).
Funniest game ever was when we finally got my ole A3R buddy to play. Heck even his "ally" the japanese player was in on the joke. My friend was used to playing the Axis in A3R and therefore was all ready for a predictable game.
He was going to "show us how it was done".
Sadly he attacked aggressively, but he didn't see some of the games nuances. He only lasted three turns and the Russians were kicking him out of the game hehe.
I hate Computer A&A only when we are talking playing it solo against the machine. Under those conditions, it is not worth the space on the hard drive. If you lose playing the AI in A&A, you generally don't let anyone know eh.
But it is a fine way to play the game online as it is as usable as the board game in those circumstances.
I am slighted in favour of the Pacific one though. But that is only in recognition to how hard it is to find a satisying game computer or otherwise for the Pacific.
Sure there are good games out there, but it is getting one that the purchaser likes that is the key.
I think it is near impossible to not like A&A Pacific.