Global Team game when it comes out!

@seancb LoL just give me the state , date, place and time. That sounds amazing.

good point kruzfeld I agree the bid balances perceptions, especially in the tournament

Another approach to picking teams is to draw for teams of 2/1 2/2 2/3 etc. (and/or experienced team leaders) then after teams are known, agree upon assignments within that team.

@Argothair:

My play group is very considerate about trying to (a) identify when the game isn’t much worth playing anymore, and then (2) accurately describe the likely outcome of the game.

Right, like there are no hard-and-fast rules about “oh, you lost your capital, or you lost Cairo, or you’re making 30 IPCs less per turn, so it’s game over.” Instead we look at the board and try to see if there are battles or campaigns coming up that are likely (>10%?) to make a dramatic impact on the state of the game, especially campaigns where the underdog is going on the offensive, or where the apparent favorite is in danger of being pushed back if they lose a key attack. E.g. it matters a lot whether Germany has one stack next door to Moscow, with nothing to reinforce it if that stack is destroyed, vs. a steady stream of reinforcements and a huge stack next to Moscow. In the former case, Moscow could recover if it fends off a German battle with 80% odds to take Moscow. In the latter case, even if Moscow pulls out that 20% from the dice, they will still have 80% odds to die one turn later, so it’s not a big deal. The former position is interesting and worth playing on if we can manage to find time for a second session; the latter position is not interesting and the game should be called.

When we call a game, we don’t insist on unconditional surrender. Instead, we try to agree on what the game looks like. For example, “the Allies are way ahead, but the Axis still have a slight chance.” Or, “It’s hard to say for sure who’s winning, but it looks like the Axis have a slight edge.” Sometimes we don’t always precisely agree – one side might claim the Allies are ahead by “a little” while the other side might claim the Allies have “a significant lead,” but so far we have always at least agreed on which side has the edge, even if not by how much.

Hey!  I am in your play group and what you are saying is…. basically right.  Although have we played global together?  Don’t recall honestly

@Make_It_Round:

I think it is possible, however tedious, to count the number of meaningful choices that players have in any given game, and to guess at one’s enjoyment threshold in terms of these.

It is utterly impossible to count the number of meaningful choices that players have in any given game because each “meaningful choice” is a product of the other “meaningful choices” that were made previously. Furthermore, each “meaningful choice” is then subject to all of the possible dice outcomes, and thus multiplied by all of those possibilities and then multiplied by all of the “meaningful choices” offered by the various non-combat possibilities as they are determined by the dice outcomes. As you can see we get into these massive factorial situations where we are multiplying massive exponentials by even more massive exponentials until what is essentially infinity.

To make a comparison: In chess there are only 20 possible moves to make on the first turn. (16 pawn moves and 4 knight moves) The opponent is faced with the same. So the possible combinations for the opening 2 moves (1 each) in chess is 400. None of which are absolutely stupid. there are 8,902 possible moves by 2 each and by move 7 there are almost eleven MILLION possible positions. That’s without dice, with only 2 players, with a much much much more limited scope for unit movement, no scope for adding units and far far fewer spaces.

Now you asked about the “meaningful choices”. Some work has been done in this regard in chess and it seems that in the average game of about 30 moves (moving a single piece at at time. There are over 4.5 MILLION games outcomes in smart competitive situations. Now, multiply that by the factor of dice, multiple movement of units, game spaces, purchases and the fact that most AA games will see over 100 times that 60 units move factor and you have an utterly infinite combination of outcomes.

Which is part of the reason it is so much more entertaining than chess.

…or maybe just because we get to play with little tanks and planes.

I think it was a great one-time move, and you happened to have an opponent who used blockers well at a critical time. Experienced players would see this happening, and the potential for it, as it unfolded, so it would best be used against inexperienced foes.

A nice idea! After all, it was your war. It’s good to try unconventional things and see how they go.

Got pretty lucky on dice for China.  They are down to 5 Inf co-defending with 3 UK Inf and 2 UK Tanks on the last hold before an easy march to India.  Plan is to hit India on an amphip assault next turn.  Should be possible if the dice go my way.

You misunderstand my post - there are only ever four powers, with the neutrals acting just like OOB, but with different alignments.

It really should be:

1939- June 1941 Four Power game (Allies[UK & F], Axis[G & I], USSR, Japan)

Becomes three power game after June 1941 (i.e. USSR joins the Allies)

Becomes two power game after December 1941 (Japan joins the Axis)

It’s reasonable to assume that the USA only ever joins the Allies, and that (before June 1940) Italy only ever joins the Axis.  The position of China is tricky, since we don’t want to exclude the possibility of an Allied/Japanese alliance, but where does that leave China - a neutral that the other powers (i.e. not Japan) can send aid to without it being a DOW on Japan?

They be coming soon.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=16012.75