Strategies to shorten turn lengths

[Nippon-koku]

The fastest games I am generally involved in have pretty much all the ideas listed above.

• Russia movies it’s far east troops and then Japan and Germany go at the same time
• if there are two allied players US and UK will go at the same time (only exception is when there would be a major US battle happening that may affect how UK wants to handle itself)
• Italy and Anzac go at the same time

If you can master this then you’ve significantly cut down the play time.  I also like the idea Elk suggested about swapping the combat move and purchase phase.  As I think about it, Ike and I frequently play that way!

[Witt]

Basically, once you buy, your combat moves are considered set, and can’t be altered. Think of it like this, combat move, pause to consider purchase, then roll the combats. This does something in the game flow, that really does seem to encourage a more rapid pace.

I have always played like this in face to face games.

[Witt]

@cyanight:

That’s an excellent idea Black Elk.  I agree that will help speed up play.  I know playing TripleA via email/forum I have reloaded the game after making combat moves because I wanted to change my purchase.  There is always something you forget to purchase based on combat moves or so it seems to me anyways.

Always annoys me with AAA.
I usually do a go in Local (wasting hours), just so I do not mess up my purchases for the real Live game. Feels like I am forever going in circles.

[Black_Elk]

As I recall, this option has existed for tripleA mods since at least 2011. It was a phase order idea implemented in the tripleA game NWO, and discussed as a general idea for larger maps in TripleA even before G40 came out. I can remember reading a conversation about this stuff with Comrade Kev and Veq a few years ago. I imagine there is probably a tripleA mod of this by now for G40.2 floating around somewhere.

I think the general principle is sound though, since many of the delays you encounter in game, have to do with purchasing decisions. Or, as is sometimes the case in large maps with very involved turns, that players buy something, then forget why they bought it, and make a mistake somewhere. This leads to yet more delays, as they then have to replan everything during Non Com to try and salvage their botched purchase haha.

In FtF games what this sort of playstyle prevents, is the situation where players conflate the Combat Move and Combat Roll phase. So for example, a player says, “OK well I know I want to do this, so lets run this battle real quick” and then after seeing the results they decide “Oh wait, I forgot to run this other battle, so lets do that now.” This happens a lot in FtF games, where you don’t have a computer to enforce the strict separation of phases. Here what you do is insert the Purchase phase between them, so there is this natural pause in the action, and then the rolls. It gives a really nice pacing to the flow of the game, a more accelerated pacing.

Of course in tripleA, there is also a problem of conflating combat movement and non combat movement (since the engine doesn’t enforce this). If you play tripleA you’ve probably seen this happen quite a lot, or been guilty of it, or made a mistake because of it yourself. By sneaking the purchase phase between combat move and combat roll, you also help to delineate Combat movement from Non-Combat movement, and encourage players to wait until non combat to make non combat movements, which can also help.

Basically what it does is help to prevent a lot of common mistakes that players make as a result of the purchase position in the phase order, and shifts that purchase phase to a position where you’re less likely to make mistakes. Less time consuming mistakes = more time spent on the action, or at least I believe that’s the idea behind it.

[WILD BILL]

That’s a good suggestion Black_Elk about moving the purchases between combat move and actual combat (regardless of it being a time saver or not for other reasons listed). Purchases are used to keep your lines reinforced (moving forward), or to replace units you may lose in your combats (air comes to mind). Many times you don’t realize the units you’re putting at risk until after the combat move phase, and at that point by rule it is too late to do anything about it (purchase phase over). That is when the time continuum gets all whacked out because you start waffling, or asking to make changes (like you pointed out).

With that said, most groups will encourage players to at least start looking at their purchases as the player before them are taking their turn (you might not be able to start moving units etc…). Should this still be allowed, because it can help keep things moving, but it could also lead to making changes which could defeat the whole purpose of the phase change LOL. So should you still start your purchases early (opponents turn), but just don’t give it the final seal of approval until your combat moves are done? I would like that, but I tend to be the one that takes a lot of time LOL

[WILD BILL]

@ShadowHAwk:

We use 120 dice in 4 different colors, mind you the small kind of dice.
This means that most battles we can collect our dice and throw them all at once and count the hits.
It saves a little bit of time each round of combat takes about the same amount of time, saving 10-15 mins a round still is a nice time saver.

Nice

[barney]

Here is a altered global xml with the purchase phase inbetween combat move and battle.

your welcome Wittman

Here is a updated objectives properties. You will need to rename by dropping the .txt at the end before you put it in the Global zip.

The objectives won’t show up on the menu without it.

ww2global40_2nd_edition CBFP.xml
objectives.properties.txt

[Witt]

Thank you, Barney. Will look later.

[Sire Fred]

In our game group, we use a diceroller application on I-Pad. It’s easier and faster than throwing dices. Big battles are resolved quickly this way.

[WILD BILL]

@Sire:

In our game group, we use a diceroller application on I-Pad. It’s easier and faster than throwing dices. Big battles are resolved quickly this way.

NoNoNoNoNo you didn’t just say you let a computer roll your dice in a FTF game. Such a thing would never fly in our group. If that’s the case you should just skip the whole set-up and map etc…and drag out your laptops on the kitchen table play on AAA. Having the dice in your hand and taunting the other side is part of the experience.

[barney]

Have to agree with Wild Bill

It’s like playing craps, yahtzee or any dice game. One can “tune in” to the dice:)

[Sire Fred]

The classical excuse for defeat is no more it’s the dices fault but now it’s more the I-Pad fault.

Seriously, it’s really helps to speed up the process. No more dices fall overboard. Small battles are resumed like this. A cruiser and a destroyer attacks an enemy destroyer. We roll only one time. The first two dices of the row are the attackers and the third is the defender and we go down the rows until a winner is declared. And big battles resolved themselves in 2-3 minutes.

We have a maximum of eight hours each time we play because of family obligations so each tricks we find to speed up the process is welcome.

I like this thread. We already use some of the hints presented here but we got some additional ones to include in our future games.

[barney]

Yea I’m sure one can have a “hot” or “cold” I-pad as well :)

I’m sure it speeds it up quite a bit.

[baron Münchhausen]

Probably can add this Houserule:

Our fastest game ever
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=34868.msg1350898#msg1350898