@barnee thank you

@djensen I’m only on round 2 so it is hard to say if they are good or not, but so far every play from them seems fine. Yes I am aware that developing an AI capable of playing a complex game like A&A is rather difficult.

I have watched very advanced players on YouTube, so I am aware they can play really fast, especially the first turn. However, this is something else. In a matter of seconds, all purchases, combat moves, combats and non-combat moves are resolved, like max 15 seconds.

If it is not an AI playing, my second guess is that I am not able to watch them play live and what I see is a short playback of everything they made during the turn. I don’t know why that would happen though. I was still connected to the game because the other player was online, so I wanted to play live.

@cwglee51 It’s in the downloads. I made it. Very elegant balancing mechanic. France goes first. No bid needed. No pressure.

bid for allies 46.

@Daaras Sorry, I was traveling, and am back today. I will send you my round tomorrow I hope…

@gamerman01 @VictoryFirst

Though it might be more fun to go over this live on the call, in the interest of preserving posterity and to sharpen the discussion…

You made a horrifyingly effective Pacific strategy for the USA. I have to reshoot my classic videos to address this and how you fought in the Pacific. I’ve never been compelled to reshoot a video series but I absolutely have to now. I was delightfully appalled to be a victim of it and will be copying most if not all of that strategy going forward. I’ve seen plenty in the Pacific. I know about Wake but I’ve never seen anyone execute it with such deliberate, controlled moves. For example, the more common Pac strat until now was to build a strong fleet and float around with one or two guys to capture islands. The flaw in that is the japanese just need to kill the infantry with their air power and its basically over.

You combined a push on Wake with what i call “still birth” and pushed and choked japan so hard in the beginning i could barely keep in the game even with overall positive dice favoring me. And you did this WITHOUT building IC. omg!

This is turn forced me to realize that tech favors the pacific (jets and super subs) and to compute what each breakthrough would mean in the pacific every turn until I had to throw for tech or lose. So by transitive property you made me learn a bunch of stuff about tech and its employment I would otherwise never have uncovered.

I have played this game CONSTANTLY for six years and all that is a first. You schooled me. Only luck and dogged experience and LUCK again saved me. I raise my glass to you. I’ve never been so humbled in a game of Classic or Axis and Allies in general.

@cds https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/42372/world-at-war-captain-walker-vs-cds

@The-Captain

Exciting!

Okay so I love Axis and Allies, and 1942 Second Edition is my absolute favorite! There are a couple problems though. One, the game is long. That goes without saying. Usually the Axis must win during turns 6-8 otherwise it becomes hopeless against the allies, yet the game can continue to stretch to 12 or more turns until the Allies achieve victory even though it is hopeless for the Axis. Second, many veteran players will tell you, the OPTIMAL way for the Allies to win is to commit to a KGF or KJF strategy (Kill Germany First or Kill Japan First respectively) to win the game for the allies. For the Axis, it is the Moscow pincer. The math and mechanics of the game essentially dictate the strategy. My personal problem with this is that takes away the spirit of the game as a World War 2 simulation. I mean, in World War 2 the US could not simply ignore Japan and commit 100% of its economy to fighting Germany. So I started exploring a few new ways to shorten the game length as well as keep gameplay and strategy more organic. I would love to hear the communities thoughts on these!

Time Limit: The game is capped at 7 turns. The game ends regardless of board state at the end of the USA’s turn 7.

Immediate Victory

Axis: Control 9 Victory Cities, INCLUDING one of the following (Moscow, London, Washington, or Calcutta) at the end of USA’s turn.

Allies: Control 10 Victory Cities (including Berlin or Tokyo) this wins ONLY if the Axis has not achieved the below economic victory conditions in which case the game continues until the end of Turn 7.

OR if the Allies hold 11 total Victory Cities at the end of USA’s turn, this triggers a win no matter what.

Once the Time Limit Expires:

Economic Victory For the Axis If no one has achieved the above victory conditions by the end of the US turn on Round 7, the Axis win if:

Germany has an income of 50+ IPCs

OR Japan has income of 42+ IPCs

OR their Combined Total is 92+ IPCs.

Containment Victory For the Allies
If none of the above economic conditions are met at the end of USA’s Turn 7, the Allies win. They have successfully contained the Axis powers and liberated/protected major portions of the World, and would no doubt go on to win the war.

My justifications. These new objectives force the Axis to not only play for objectives, but to also commit to other campaigns. Germany will have to work hard to protect Europe, Win the Africa Campaign, and fight to take Russia’s territory. Japan will have a vested interest in protecting it’s Pacific islands while also consolidating the mainland.

For the Allies, USA cannot afford to ignore Japan, it will have to work hard in the South Pacific and main land Asia. The UK also cannot afford to lose Africa. So if the Allies attempt a KGF strategy and it is successful by turn 6, but Japan has ran away to 45+ IPC’s (super easy to do when Japan is ignored) then the Allies have until the end of Turn 7 to contain Japan and take away enough territory to get its income below 42.

Again, my desire is to make the game feel more like World War 2 and keep strategy organic and interesting. Avoid the KGF and KJF strategies, and keep the game timed. I would love to hear some thoughts and possible suggestions for these new victory conditions!

@Darth-Vahl The latter part of the description threw me for a loop, but no he cannot play this move, as the ship isn’t in a friendly seazone (at least, during a battle). Hope this helped!

Friends at BGN did a nice “How To” and the supply line sections covers many such scenarios - a nice visual walkthrough: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AAMObMRJBMA&pp=ygUOQmduIHN0YWxpbmdyYWQ%3D

@Everythingman2 Very useful!

I enjoy my solo games but playing with other humans would be nice

@barnee wow that makes no sense to me. Not from a playability issue. These games are awesome and sometimes talking about “realism” gets in and that can be fun… but playability is the main issue to me. Are we having fun and all playing with the same set of rules and such.

The idea that kamikaze planes are added to a game, or not, is fine either way. IT IS FUN right?

But to state that such a feature is restricted to NOT target a single sole unescorted transport just makes no sense to me. But that is my opinion. THANKS MATE

@axis-dominion sounds good fire it up whenever you want

I’m only seeing this now, but it looks pretty cool! However, it seems pretty unbalanced overall. A lot of this comes from the fact that Japan is no longer fighting the Soviet Union and that the UK doesn’t have much recourse when it comes to fortifying the front lines. Here are a couple of changes I would make to this setup:

Set China to its OOB 1942 Setup: China already gets steamrolled in a standard game, but with Manchuria free? Woof. With more units at China’s wing, while they may still get beaten badly, at least it isn’t as terrible as it could be.

Give the UK an Industrial Complex in India: Due to Britain not having the resources to garrison their land, give one IC to India! According to your Turn Order, this may end up impacting Japan’s initial spread. To fix this…

Japan Goes First: This basically gives us the OOB turn order, with Japan going first, Britain going second, America going third, and the Chinese going fourth. This is simply a more effective turn order when it comes down to Japan’s initial expansion.

Haven’t playtested these changes yet, but they should improve the balance of this variant to a degree.

(Also, sorry if this counts as necroposting. I didn’t want to create an entire new topic just for my personal thoughts on this post.)

@aequitas-et-veritas

I promised next game to another player once I wrap up another game or 2. Will check in with you later when I have some more availability.

@dawgoneit Maybe when I wrap my other game up we can swap sides

Hi,

I’d really like this map file (Please respond to my emails Contango). I’ve been solo-repping this map on TripleA for a while now and want the opportunity to play over the board. If anyone else has access to the map file, please contact me.