Best way to divide a three player game.

@Rongor said in Is there a way to engage in air war only?:

I would like to air attack these enemy air units on that enemy island. Can I do this without the tanks sitting on that same island defending against my air with their 3 or less rolls?

It seems that bombing enemy ground forces is also quite risky. I am a bit surprised that any ground units defends against air attack with the same capability as it would against enemy ground forces…

Welcome to the forum. The concept of the game is that you attack in hostile seazones and/or in hostile territories. And when you attack there you attack everything. You can’t choose to attack only a part of the units present there (except bombing raids - here you choose to attack a facility).

So an “air only battle” is not part of the rules (except maybe the one round dogfight between bombers, escorts and interceptors in the special case of bombing raids).

Hi,

It looks like the 2nd edition rulebooks for AA 1940, both Europe and Pacific, contain the AA Global 1940 rules at the end, with only “minor” game mechanics differences vs. Europe or Pacific (as most Global aspects pertain to managing the merging or expansion from one theater of war to the Global situation).

Is it therefore a fair approach to look for good explanations of AA Global 1940 to understand Europe or Pacific ?

I totally love Board Game Nation’s wonderful series of tutorials on AA, https://youtu.be/IKyWaC0vrtM, because they give detailed examples with dice throws which are very didactic, but they cover 1942 2nd edition, and it appears that there are differences (for instance, strategic bombers get a +2 on strategic raids in 1940, but not in 1942 (at least BGN’s topic on raids doesn’t apply +2 in their example…), and air battle prior to bombing is with 1 attack AND defense in 1942 while interceptors get 2 as defense in 1942. This makes strategic bombing MUCH less efficient in 1942…)

Disregard the first post, I need to update for the new SE set up and rules.  Something of sufficient quality with both rule changes and setup should be stickied for those who bought AAP40 earlier.

I agree that China/ANZAC seems to work best as the 4th player.

I will point out the obvious: players should be planning their next moves during the other players’ turns. (and refining them as the situation changes. i.e. the Jap player moves a DD during non-combat to block your planned attack.)

When it comes to purchases everyone should be ready to IMMEDIATELY plop down the new units as soon as their turn begins. Very rarely should someone have to think what to buy in a 4 player game.

The disadvantage of more than 2 players is lack of coordination between the allies. The knock on the original game is that it was a 2 player game masquerading as a 5 player game.

Yeah but it wouldn’t be any fun, don’t cut off your nose to spite your face, if you get what I mean.

@MaherC:

@zarnak

So you guys are taking a game that most people already believe is Allied favored, and making it even more so?

I pity your Jap player

In my second game Japan overran India by turn four.  China lived to turn 7.  That’s with the first turn income NO boost.  Japan owned the Dutch East Indies for a good while.  It’s income matched US/ANZAC put together and it was a nail biter for a good while with Australia repulsing attacks.  He finally made a tactical error with his navy that allowed the economic seesaw to finally move towards the allies.  With the DEI, China, and India Japan has an income in the mid-70s.

Besides- if China is at war with Japan since 1937 and gets 6 bonus IPC for having the Burma road open - and it’s open to start.  Why not?  And the scramble rule as is is not popular either.

What about using DDs in conjunctiion with SSs?  The subs can soak hits in the early rounds right, for only 6 IPCs instead of 8 IPCs.  I understand the extra #3 attack over a #2 gives the DDs a slight plus for the IPC cost, but i think adding a couple subs could give a small bonus to the final numbers.

@bigopfer:

You are totally right Plum, the game is not worth the money they charged. The map IS amazing, the gameplay IS really fun. But you nailed it with the boxes, paper money, IPC chart, cardboard pieces, lack of tac bombers. I mean, I paid basically the same money for this game as I paid for my copy of AA50 and this AA40 Pacific is missing lots of the quality that AA50 had.

Exactly!  I was totally content with how they presented AA50.  Everything was high quality and all aspects of the game and its components were top notch.  Totally worth the money I spent on it.

While this game certainly has some high quality aspects about it, (especially the game play, which is all that really counts in the end) there are so many small blunders it’s really frustrating.  The income chart is what gets me the most.  It seems like the day before they shipped the game out somebody realized “Oh crap!  We forgot income charts!” and then threw together the first thing they thought of and tossed it in the box.  I’m surprised they weren’t scribbled on a piece of notebook paper.