Axis and Allies Classic 10 part series on YouTube

@AcesWild5049

That you are mirroring what you are criticizing: in dismissing Don’s essays because of their flaws and his arrogant tone, you are doing the same thing to him that you accuse him of doing. It makes you sound like you are just getting into a pissing match with someone who isn’t even around anymore to rebut you, and thereby diminishes the otherwise sound reasoning you’ve shown.

In video 9 I clearly state, “You’re better off playing your own style, playing against different people and not closing yourself off to other ideas” or words to that affect. So again, I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about.

This is a perfect example of why I think the condemnation is hypocritical. You are saying that Don’s essays closes people off to other ideas - but in so doing, you are implicitly closing people who take your recommendation off to Don’s ideas and the positive contributions he made to Axis and Allies strategy historically, even if some things are outdated now. The message that comes across is that you are being just as clear cut as 20-years-ago-Don in your own way, just with a different perspective.

Whatever good comes from those essays can be found out by the players themselves after playing 10-20 games even by players who are starting from 0 experience.

This is certainly not the case; many thousands of people who had been playing Axis and Allies in local playgroups in the 80s and 90s never discovered for themselves some of the ideas on Don’s essays. Even on these forums there’s a reply in the pinned thread that links to Don’s essays from someone in 2014 who seems to have learned a lot.

Also, I’m not going to argue the point further; I was just trying to point out that until video 9 your disagreement with Don was mostly in rebutting points that you disagreed with, but that video 9 makes you seem a lot more petty, and I was trying to give you the outsider perspective that I feel like it diminishes the rest of your more reasonable criticism. If you don’t see the need to change that then so be it.

@AcesWild5049 said in Axis and Allies Classic 10 part series on YouTube:

I hate bids and won’t comment much on that.

I’m not sure about the hating of the bids. Without a bid, the original game of Axis and Allies is pointless other than playing for novelty sake.

The balance issue was settled through about 100,000+ games in two clubs in the late 90’s to early 00’s. This was via CD in 3rd edition. As for 2nd edition, players have been playing via mail and then email since a few years after the game came out iirc. 3rd edition balance is 17-20 and 2nd edition is 20-24 for bids. 5 games may not show this, but thousands and thousands do. I mean, if USA can run full pacific and have no issues (I’m clearly winning the last game we were playing that you conceded) then you can see that a bid is needed for Axis.

Again, if you aren’t interested in the game being balanced then no biggie, just not sure what the point is of playing such an imbalanced game.

It wasn’t hearsay tho. I was an officer in one of those clubs. There was even war club (forgot about that one). For PBEM there was IAAPA and AAMC to name only two clubs (those were 2nd edition, and I believe existed well before the CD came out – had their own dice servers).

I believe that war club, spring1942, and BOP each had over 1000 unique members through the years, but I can’t remember the exact numbers (that was 20 years ago now).

I have all of the General of the Army essays still on an old computer. But of course with no bid none of those would make any sense…

RR has a bid as well.

We all played those games consistently until the wee hours of the morning. We have moved on, but it’s not hearsay. I know that the spring message boards used to be around on an archive. Just start googling things and they will pop up.

The online games gave us the opportunity to show what live play could not do as easily – give us a very large statistical sample very quickly. But the lack of unique people posting on this thread I think shows you that we have all moved on to more balanced versions of the game.

DAAK, the place I played in the mid-2000s, does have some public statistics you can see that clearly prove the point:

http://www.daak.de/statistics/index.php?sprache=e

Unfortunately it does not record the average bid amounts, but I can attest that the vast majority of these games did in fact have a bid for Axis, as every game I played in had one, usually over 20 IPCs worth: typically in the range of 21-24.

Even with that, there was only a 47% total win rate for Axis over 6000+ games. This is much more cogent data than any single player can collect.

I like the game with the bid but if you are determined to prevent players from changing the starting setup, then I agree, you just need to move to one of the newer versions of Axis and Allies that are theoretically more balanced. I have yet to pick up and learn any of the newer ones but I am interested in doing so at some point. If you’re interested in playing a learning game of G40 (which seems to be the most popular current iteration) with me after our current Classic matches are over I’d definitely be up for that.

DAAK, I forgot that one and it’s probably one of the oldest…

A nice bridge game to G40 is the anniversary edition. It’s not as overwhelming and games don’t take as long. I mean, G40 is awesome in and of itself, but it’s also a lot to take on all at once.

I think I need to pull out the anniversary edition again and take another look.

There was that 1942 edition as well, but I never played it. And, of course, AA Revised was considered “4th edition” iirc.

Germany needs a bid of at least 2-3 infantry with RR and 2 hit BB with no naval occupation rule.
Russia builds 8 men
Russia attacks the Baltic probably gets one hit, then SS submerges
In Kariella, you need 2 fighters, 2 either tanks or (defend at 2 units), plus 16 Infantry= 20 units
You can try for playing on the margins with 18-19 units, with 2 tanks in novo with 2 infantry ( idea is the tanks reach most spots) and 7 Inf in Yakut.

Germany builds only men, or 3 tanks-rest men

@Imperious-Leader said in Axis and Allies Classic 10 part series on YouTube:

Germany needs a bid of at least 2-3 infantry with RR and 2 hit BB with no naval occupation rule.

So with Naval occupation if you got ships in the sea zone where naval are deployed, that player cannot ever place new units until somebody clears it? How can you be against that? Japan can take the west coast sea zone and USA never has a chance?