2013 - AAG 40 League

[Jennifer]

@Gamerman01:

Oh, crap, there’s more!  Just found this out in my game with Infrastructure - had to reload and play as him to see exactly how the engine handled this.

It royally messed up Rocket attacks (the sound effect is awesome - the rules application - not so much)
See #2 through #4

This is what happens when you put your life in the hands of a robot.  As I said, absolutely NONE of these problems happen in Battlemap!  There are no pretty sound effects, but you could play the wave files yourself if you really wanted too, and the graphics arnt as good, but Battlemap is so simple, I can use it on a smartphone!  (Yes, that means even the crapple can run it, I believe.  Course, I wouldn’t trust a crapple if my life depended on it, hell, specially if my life depended on it!)

[gamerman01]

I know, Jenn, I was one of the last bastions of ABattlemap myself and endured some teasing because of it.

However, there are major drawbacks to Battlemap, most notably:

1. If you want to be sure your opponent isn’t doing something illegally, you have to check every move he makes, and compare maps.
2. It is much faster and easier to make a move on Triple A, mainly because the dice rolling is much faster.  Also, you don’t have to verify that your opponent rolled the dice correctly.
3. To see history, you have to pull up a previous map and look at it.  In Triple A, you can rapidly look through a game at any point you want with a click.  It’s like comparing movies to snap shots.

And my personal preference item
A) In battlemap, the territory color remains the same - for example, France is always blue and East Poland is always red.  It looks MUCH better when the color changes with the owner, and it is much easier to see who owns what in Triple A.

HOWEVER
Battlemap gets the nod, big time, when it comes to seeing units in territories, because sometimes units are completely hidden from view (like Z92 when there is a lot of stuff in Gibraltar) but in Battlemap you can put your units exactly where you want them, all the time!

ALSO
You can’t tell ANZ boats apart from USA boats in Triple A unless you go to territory tab and hover over the zone, and sometimes you have to go scroll down through the list of units.  No such problem in battlemap.

[boldfresh]

@Gamerman01:

I know, Jenn, I was one of the last bastions of ABattlemap myself and endured some teasing because of it.

However, there are major drawbacks to Battlemap, most notably:

1. If you want to be sure your opponent isn’t doing something illegally, you have to check every move he makes, and compare maps.
2. It is much faster and easier to make a move on Triple A, mainly because the dice rolling is much faster.  Also, you don’t have to verify that your opponent rolled the dice correctly.
3. To see history, you have to pull up a previous map and look at it.  In Triple A, you can rapidly look through a game at any point you want with a click.  It’s like comparing movies to snap shots.

And my personal preference item
A) In battlemap, the territory color remains the same - for example, France is always blue and East Poland is always red.  It looks MUCH better when the color changes with the owner, and it is much easier to see who owns what in Triple A.

HOWEVER
Battlemap gets the nod, big time, when it comes to seeing units in territories, because sometimes units are completely hidden from view (like Z92 when there is a lot of stuff in Gibraltar) but in Battlemap you can put your units exactly where you want them, all the time!

ALSO
You can’t tell ANZ boats apart from USA boats in Triple A unless you go to territory tab and hover over the zone, and sometimes you have to go scroll down through the list of units.  No such problem in battlemap.

Supposedly there is an option to change the color of each power.  Havent tried to find it.

[Jennifer]

Granted it’s easier to roll dice.  However, I object to the statement that it forces you to move correctly. lol.  No seriously!  I know of a few instances where it still lets you break the rules!  You’ve even pointed them out yourself in Veqyrns thread! Â

I am not sure if I like all the flair of TripleA either.  Too reminiscent of Hasbro’s failed debacle of both Axis and Allies and Iron Blitz, heck I’m sure some of the piece models came from there! Â

But yes, having the entire territory change color to the new owner is nice.  Not necessary since the control marker updated the income in Battlemap.

And for that matter, finding the menus of what you wanted is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much easier in battlemap!  Want to know everyone’s income at a glance?  Cash on hand chart.  Want to know overall situation of the board?  Statistics chart.  Can’t remember exactly what you need to get an objective?  OBJECTIVE CHART!  Not to mention, unless I missed it somewhere, it’s possible in battlemap to grab five or ten off a stack really easy (as it would be on a real game board) but TripleA you have to click it a half dozen times to get 5 units, or almost a dozen times to get 10 units off a stack.

[boldfresh]

@Cmdr:

Granted it’s easier to roll dice. � However, I object to the statement that it forces you to move correctly. lol. � No seriously! � I know of a few instances where it still lets you break the rules! � You’ve even pointed them out yourself in Veqyrns thread! �

I am not sure if I like all the flair of TripleA either. � Too reminiscent of Hasbro’s failed debacle of both Axis and Allies and Iron Blitz, heck I’m sure some of the piece models came from there! �

But yes, having the entire territory change color to the new owner is nice. � Not necessary since the control marker updated the income in Battlemap.

And for that matter, finding the menus of what you wanted is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much easier in battlemap! � Want to know everyone’s income at a glance? � Cash on hand chart. � Want to know overall situation of the board? � Statistics chart. � Can’t remember exactly what you need to get an objective? � OBJECTIVE CHART! � Not to mention, unless I missed it somewhere, it’s possible in battlemap to grab five or ten off a stack really easy (as it would be on a real game board) but TripleA you have to click it a half dozen times to get 5 units, or almost a dozen times to get 10 units off a stack.

Jenn no one uses abattlemap for global.  NO one.  So lament away but it aint comin back  :wink:

[gamerman01]

The same stats are in Triple A also a click away.
One major fault with Triple A, though, is that the income does not reflect NO’s  :-(

Jenn, if you are clicking multiple times to get multiple units, it just means you don’t know about all the functions of Triple A.
You can control click to move a stack.  Shift click to move everything in a territory.  If you shift click a sea zone and move to a land territory, it will only move the ground units, so that is handy.
If you don’t want a whole stack, no problem.  You click ELSEWHERE in the territory and it brings up a dialog box to select (you can type the number) the exact number of units you want to select.  Voila.

I mainly meant that Triple A enforces a lot of rules, like movement limits on airplanes, that Battlemap does not.
In Battlemap you have to check everything - including the opponent’s math.  You can’t buy 12 infantry with 35 IPC’s in TripleA but in Battlemap you can.  So there is a lot of error checking in Triple A.

If you want to play with Battlemap, you’re going to have to play Karl, or play with yourself.  I don’t know anyone else who would be willing to.

[Major Major]

I played battlemap a ton back during revised and even played global with it when triple a was too glitchy and rules were changing daily, but in a game this size playing by battlemap is just too slow.  I’d rather have two boards set up and play by skype now.  TripleA is just too much smoother for online play than to do battlemap.

[gamerman01]

Krieghund just confirmed…

I was correct about #3 on the list…

So now we have to do rocket attacks manually if we have more than 1
And Triple A does rocket attacks in the combat movement phase instead of the combat phase  :roll:
Also, Triple A doesn’t allow multiple attacks against one facility, which is legal.

So basically what I’m saying is to do rockets correctly according to the rules, you’re usually going to need to roll them on the forum and edit.  Like with mixed SBR’s and AAs

[Major Major]

Thanks g-man.  That list is very helpful.  With the number of people playing now, maybe we can get the awesome guys doing the coding to take a look!  They’re so smart and easily flattered that I’m sure they will do it now!

[gamerman01]

Go ahead - I’ve already tried before
You have permission to use that list.  It would be fabulous if they fixed most or all of those things on that list.

[Jennifer]

Also if they could give me the things I liked about battlemap back, like having the charts surgically implanted on the map so I can see them without having to do weird menu trees, oh and be able to shift click or control click or shift+control click to get certain stacks of units off that would be great too….you know what, why don’t I just go back to battlemap?  I don’t like the features of TripleA except the map coloring and the not typing my dice on the server and I am okay with not having either of those…

:P

Sorry, but I’m hungry, tired and been on hold on the phone for over 38 minutes now so I also have no patience!

[Major Major]

Jenn,  give tripleA a chance, once you learn its idiosyncrisies, I swear it is 11 times better.

[Jennifer]

@Infrastructure:

Jenn,  give tripleA a chance, once you learn its idiosyncrisies, I swear it is 11 times better.

I’ve been giving them a chance since 1.2.  They’ve had chances, I even gave mapview a chance, but honestly, I always come back to battlemap because it’s quick, light, doesn’t require any processing power, it runs on every platform imaginable, it never crashes and it’s got everything I need in one convenient place.  Heck, you can even edit the map and put your own charts on, it’s just a bmp file!

The only thing battlemap cant do that tripleA can, when it comes to playing human vs human, is roll the dice.  But Djensen gave us a dice server specifically to handle that one minor detail!

Hell, I usually force my game group at home to use battlemap since it saves the hassle of setting up and putting away the board! lol.  (Although Jim and David are both itching to freaking use the pretty TripleA since it also means we don’t have to take out my dice.  Not that I don’t own 48d6 dice of various colors so you can call a color for different units and roll them all at once…or deal with those massive infantry stacks!)

[boldfresh]

jen, you can play 5 games a year on battlemap if you can find someone to play with you - or play yourself.  if you want any significant play, i’m going to step out on a limb and say you better get used to tripleA.

[Jennifer]

@Boldfresh:

jen, you can play 5 games a year on battlemap if you can find someone to play with you - or play yourself.  if you want any significant play, i’m going to step out on a limb and say you better get used to tripleA.

Not a very dangerous limb.  I know, the prettiness finally beat out the functionality.  However, I don’t have to like it!

[gamerman01]

Added 6b to the list  :-(

Noticed in a game today that when Triple A (properly) has aircraft fire separately in a fleet battle involving subs because they cannot hit subs, it unfortunately (improperly) requires a casualty choice prematurely.

Yet another reason to roll (fleet battles involving submarines) outside of Triple A  :-(

Assuming Infrastructure didn’t, I will now send this list to Veqryn…

Triple A problems.doc

[Karl7]

Question:

Is DS Kelly’s calc reliable?  Or is the one built into tripple a better?

Just lost huge battle that DS Kelly said was 98%.

[Karl7]

Never mind.  Issue was resolved.  The calcs are similar in their results if you actually apply the SAME number of units…  :lol:

[Jennifer]

@Karl7:

Question:

Is DS Kelly’s calc reliable?   Or is the one built into tripple a better?

Just lost huge battle that DS Kelly said was 98%.

Don’t be DISSIN my DS Kelly!  I’ve relied on that for AGES and still do.  I don’t trust TripleA, it’s too PRETTY!

[Jennifer]

As for issues in regards to league:

You can alter your CMs to your heart’s content UNTIL you ask for scrambles or OOLs.  Once the defender has committed (and before dice are rolled) you are committed.
If you start rolling dice and forget a CM or want to change a CM you are SOL.  The die is cast (pun intended) and you are committed.
Now you can finish your combats and do your NCM.
Your NCM is committed when you post your build order.  Until then, you can still alter it.
Your build order is committed when you post your income.

Note:  Illegal moves can only be changed up until the start of the next turn.  Once you start throwing dice, the mistakes of your opponent are committed, you have in essence - agreed to accept the illegal move.  This is only to prevent issues like saying “wait, how did you get your transport there, you moved 3 spaces without a naval base 7 rounds ago!  We have to fix it…” etc.  I feel this is an issue that does more damage than just allowing the mistake.  We’re going to assume mistakes are MISTAKES not efforts to cheat.  Of course, if a pattern of this behavior becomes evident, then you should report it to myself or DarthMaximus (g’luck, he’s on vacation!  I’ve yet to hear of him returning, so…it’s me or nothing for now!)

If YOU, as the contestants in the game in question, decide to allow a correction, then YOU are stuck with it.  I admit that I will almost always allow an opponent to fix something like forgetting to annex a friendly neutral or walk into an undefended territory if they forget.  Failing to realize I had another airbase and can scramble 6 fighters and the odds are HORRIBLY against you now, I probably won’t (unless you agree to give me a mulligan. lol.)  Of course, as the attacker you have the option to retreat after the first round, so you’ve got quite a bit of advantage anyway.  Mistakes, after all, can be attributed to the “fog of war” no?