I have been playing around with different configurations for a custom table and wanted to note some things I’ve landed on that I really like. A main one thing is having the map mounted so that it can slide around as needed on top of a bigger playing area. My table is 65” x 95” in total with a 5.5” arm rest around the outside and the middle is a recessed neoprene surface. I have the OOB Global map mounted on 1/2” rigid foam with a 1/2” aluminum frame around it. This allows the map to slide up close to whoever’s turn it is, but then be in the middle so both players can roll dice In front of them without disturbing the map and in easy view of the other player. (Plus we like lots of room to roll the bones). This ability to adjust the surface along with a standing height, makes it comfortable for long uses because you can move around more and don’t feel as tied down.
Things I’ve learned and changed from original design - I originally used too big of a frame for the map and mounted it on too high of a foam block (you can see these pictures at the bottom) - it made it hard to see the other player’s dice and the big frame took up too much real estate. My global map is mounted on much thinner foam (the framing is bad, you can see if you look closely) but I also used much thinner aluminum angle for the frame. This gives just enough grip when needing to move the map around (I use furniture slides on the bottom, which glide very nicely on the neoprene) but doesn’t make the whole thing too bulky. Having it an inch or so off the surface keeps the dice off, but isn’t so heigh that you can’t see the other player’s dice rolls. When playing other versions (such as Zombies) the board is much smaller, but it can easily swap in and out on the same table since it can move around where ever it is needed or be pushed aside.
I originally made it normal table height, but found long reaches while sitting were harder and it just felt cramped. Standing height with a bar stool is a great way to have the best of both worlds.
The 5.5” rim around the table itself gives you a nice arm rest that doesn’t interfere with the gaming surface. I’m playing with how to best add some cushion to this part - open to suggestions. Sometimes I just lay a piece of leftover neoprene on it.
Dice bounce nice on the neoprene and stay off the floor. It also feels nice and has enough give to allow things to slide but be picked up easily. Wouldn’t definitely go with neoprene again as a surface covering.
I made the drawers open to the inside of the table so you can stay hunched over the action while accessing and stowing stuff away. 50/50 on whether I would keep this if I were to do it again. If I were doing it again, I might try to build customer drawers form scratch using actual drawer glides, but that was beyond my ability when I first did this, so I just used clear plexiglass boxes with aluminum pulls mounted on them. It’s nice having them clear, and I was happy with how the pulls came out, but without glides they can be a little fussy sliding in and out of their slots.
I originally designed the table so that I could put a cover surface back on top when not in use, but find I don’t really ever do that, so if I were to do it again, I might not mess with that part (I never even finished staining those as you can see in the pictures).
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Ideas for a Digital Game Manager
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As part of a school project this year, I’ve begun working on a program to assist players while playing Axis & Allies.
This version will be designed for Axis & Allies Global 1940 2nd edition and will take care of time consuming tasks such as calculating income and simulating battles.
The current features to be added are as follows:-
Calculate and manage player income
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Calculate cost of units, buildings, etc.
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Simulate dice rolling for combat and research
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Manage turn order
If anyone has any thoughts about this program, or can suggest any features, it would be great to hear from them.
I’ve also created a short survey that people can look at if interested:
://surveymonkey.com/r/9HNSH5L (add https) -
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That sure sounds like a fun school idea. I heard once that people in Israel play DnD with paid DM’s as part of a school club, uh, sign me up!
While there is certainly room for some play aides (though many have been created here), the big challenge here is that electronic aides tend to be too different than the experience of playing the game live, and no more functional than manual calculation or rolling. If people want to play a fully electronically-mediated game, they can play Triple A, or they can play dozens of other types of computer games. But triple A is in my opinion, too chunky and unwieldy to make it engaging to play. Even a much more polished version would need an AI, which have been notoriously bad in strategy games.
In short, people who want to play a live game tend to be attracted to AxA. People who can’t find space or players for a live game have to spend 12 hours at the keyboard playing a 1990 war simulation. To add some electronic aides to the TT wargame sounds fun, but even with a tablet, it would feel very “videogamey”.
I’ve tried to pass a tablet around containing an e version of a game I do not own (Shadows of Waterdeep). I think the game is excellent; it was $7 on the tablet and $60+$60 for the board game. Still, no one wanted to play with the tablet, or use it when there was an app available.
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There is an APP out there called 1940 Warchest which is very good. Some things you could add to it though would be a victory city tracker. Possibly a price reference for units and maybe even a battle tracker that would allow you to keep track of how many are in a battle. We use the board on big ones and sometimes that can be unwieldy. Maybe like a dice calculator you could just enter how many you start with and then say how many hits were scored by rolling and then the app would tell you to take off 10 infantry. Just a few ideas that we would definitely test out for you.
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No dice roller ever!! That is for me to decide my fate.
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Thanks for all the feedback so far.
I was also thinking of adding a feature to keep track of how many IPC’s players earn at the end of their turn. This would start at the amount earned on the first turn of the game (if no action was taken), and could be changed by small amounts as territories where captured or taken, and as national objectives where completed (could be tracked similar to Warchest). This would mean players wouldn’t have to add the income of each territory each turn.Another idea was to use a digital map to track who owned what territory, and calculate the IPC’s earned from that. This would also allow for national objectives to be automatically tracked. However, this seems to complex for what it’s worth, and won’t work very well on mobiles, so unless people really want this feature, or have reasons that make this worthwhile, I’ll probably stick to the first solution.
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Great idea, here is what we do:
I built a spreadsheet in Excel that calculates NPCs, adds IPCs and calculates national objective income. Has a filter on the list of territories so after each battle is announced they are entered and any power changes are made after the battle. Some national objectives have Yes/No questions fields (for at war, sea zone, etc. conditions).
We connect the computer to a tv. Keeps everyone on the same page for battles to be fought and income.
No dice calculator: use dice towers with different colored dice to represent each attack/defend values so we can roll for all units involved in the battle at once.
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Great idea, here is what we do:
I built a spreadsheet in Excel that calculates NPCs, adds IPCs and calculates national objective income. Has a filter on the list of territories so after each battle is announced they are entered and any power changes are made after the battle. Some national objectives have Yes/No questions fields (for at war, sea zone, etc. conditions).
We connect the computer to a tv. Keeps everyone on the same page for battles to be fought and income.
No dice calculator: use dice towers with different colored dice to represent each attack/defend values so we can roll for all units involved in the battle at once.
Thanks for the info, listing territories seems like a good idea, as it’s very straight forward and doesn’t require using a map.
For national objectives and victory cities, I was thinking of tracking them through checklists, with territory based conditions being affected by changes in territories.
There is an APP out there called 1940 Warchest which is very good. Some things you could add to it though would be a victory city tracker. Possibly a price reference for units and maybe even a battle tracker that would allow you to keep track of how many are in a battle. We use the board on big ones and sometimes that can be unwieldy. Maybe like a dice calculator you could just enter how many you start with and then say how many hits were scored by rolling and then the app would tell you to take off 10 infantry. Just a few ideas that we would definitely test out for you.
For references, I thought it could be really useful to include references for commonly used rules, such a combinations of units, etc, as well as info such as prices and movement values for units.
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To determine the performance level required for this software on PC, I was wondering what kind of systems people where using, such as operating systems, computer models, hardware component, or anything else performance related.
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For a Face2Face game some electronic aids would be usefull
Keeping track of income ( so you dont have to write it down )
Who does write it down? I would think those that didn’t get the paper money would either buy some off eBay, buy battle bucks, print their own, get the chips or use play money… pen and paper is for that other Wizards of the Coast game (something with a bunch of Ds in it).
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I write it down!
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@Private:
I write it down!
Much sadness… :cry:
If you don’t want to shell out any dough on some game money, would you want me to send you an image file so you can print some Axis and Allies money on your printer?
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Thanks for the offer Wolf. Please do send some REAL money and I’ll use that. :-D
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We use poker chips. They are beer proof and don’t tear easily. They are very resistant to pizza grease too.
It would be nice to have an app or program that lets you calculate your unit purchase.
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or coins
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Hey there,
I worked with a friend to created and release the warchest apps some time ago. We went down the same road you did but had to scale back the project as no one was interested in supporting the app and there was not enough interest in the concept to merit the hundreds of hours we put into it.
Not saying there isn’t an opportunity but it seems very few people that would actually use the app are playing AA.
One suggestions is to focus on Ios. We had thousands of downloads compared to less then 30 on Android.
If I can help provide any direction let me know.
Good luck!
Frank
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Thanks for the offer, however the design I created for this project has already been submitted so unfortunately I won’t be able to change much until the project is completed.
While I hope there will be some people who find this software useful, it is only meant to be a small scale project as part of my software class so I don’t mind if there isn’t great support for it.
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