Yeah that’s also true, though it kind of makes sense since 1940 was the last scenario to offer something substantially new in a while. Everything since has been mainly reissues or retcons. 1942.2 and Zombies are both basically reissues of Spring 42, which wasn’t all that different from Revised. 1941 is basically a really stripped down simplification of Classic. So since AA50 came out only the 1940 maps really put a new spin on things. 1914 is clearly pretty different, buts its not a WW2 board, so is kind of marked out on account of that probably. If any of the reissues had been really well balanced and offered much more strategic depth than the Revised game they’d probably have seen more staying power, but the playpatterns and overall look/feel were still remarkably similar. I mean I guess we got the defenseless transport and the new bombing mechanics, more expensive tanks, and a cruiser unit that nobody buys, but they also ditched the tech and national advantages from Revised, so its debatable how much the mid-scale 5 man board with a total war start has really evolved in the past 15 years since Revised camed out. Not surprising if most people are still on a 1940 kick, since that was definitely an evolution, but 1940 still isn’t very serviceable for introductions. Its too long and the rules overhead has a learning curve like a cliff hehe.
I don’t see any reason though why we couldn’t take a board on the scale of 1942.2 or AA50, and have that as a more universal starter board that can be built into something more impressive with expansion materials. Or even with a starter board closer in scale to Global, but modular so that you can stage in the complexity.
When you combine the Europe and Pacific boards you end up with a map that has like 4 times as many game tiles as Classic or 1942.2. To me having more game tiles (a bunch of additional tt and sz) doesn’t really necessitate all the baseline rules complexity we see in 1940. What I mean is that you could surely find a way to make a more limited and much faster 5-6 man total war scenario, still with a larger game map more on the scale of global, and it wouldn’t be that much harder to learn than 1942.2 is currently. People have done exactly that designing custom scenarios with different start dates. But it just wasn’t really built out with that kind of modular approach in mind, and so nothing official on offer there. But I’m sure had they done it in a more modular way there’d probably have been more continuity if it was built off the same base mapboard.
For example, they could have sold a single Global Map starter set that had all the basic materials and rules designed for a much simpler introductory game that could then be built into a more complex hydra like G40 via expansion, but they didn’t really go that route. Both 1940 maps are separately still way more involved than any of the mid scale 1942 maps, and combined even moreso.
We’ve seen over successive editions how new units, mechanics, full player nations etc can be grafted onto what is still essentially a beefed up Classic game, so I imagine all that could be handled via expansions provided the basic map was well designed and durable and didn’t go out of print after just a couple years.
Honestly the main impediment to creating that kind of game that I’ve seen is that Larry was just a little too rigid with his conception of the production spread and the IPC values on the printed maps. It means that the map is constantly redrawn and values are redistributed, with considerable variation over successive editions, but still fixed for any given map. Its the same with VCs. Those could just as easily be game markers that could be added or moved around to accommodate things like adding in a new player nation. You could also do simple things like attaching an IPC value beyond the printed value of territory (or even sz) with things like game markers that can be moved. Simple rules could likewise allow for ways to re-balance the same game map for different scenarios depending on the desired scale or level of complexity.
Just spit-balling, but lets say that the starter map had no VCs printed on it but came with more VC tokens/markers than were actually needed for the base game. Then you add in say Italy or whoever, drop a token on the right territory with a simple rule that says any VC territory is worth +1 or 2 ipcs or +X over the printed value if its a capital and you’d have a way to get a new thing going without having to reprint the entire map. I can just think of a lot of ways it could be done with a more adaptive plan from the outset, so that periodic revisions or expansion scenarios could be issued (officially, not just as like HR stuff by committee) with everyone on basically the same page and not having it go obsolete quite so quickly.
Again though, I think that whole franchise model would be way way easier to develop if it was done digitally in tandem. Again so that everyone can be on the same page, and the testing and feedback, and dissemination of new materials would be easier to coordinate.
@JuliusBorisovBeamdog said in Grand Plans, 3rd Edition?:
This is very insightful, Black_Elk. I’ve passed your concerns to the development team.
Some other data that may be useful is the results of last years tournament at GENCON. The tournament used the new set up/“patch” created by Larry to help balance the game
Changes from the Out of the box setup are:
Added UK-DD to Sea zone 7
Moved UK-Cruiser from Sea Zone 14 to Sea Zone 13
German Bomber in Germany moved to Ukraine
Remove 1 German sub from Sea Zone 5
Added 2 UK Infantry to India (Total now 5).from
The tournament results with this setup are below
( from http://www.headlesshorseman2.com/gen-con.html)
1942 2nd Ed. Games (all games 4 :45 min in length)
Bid 8 to Allies, 4 turn game, Allies Victory = 9VC’s/Surrender
Bid 6 to Allies, 7 turn game, Allies Victory = 8 VC’s
Bid 11 to Allies, 4 turn game, Axis Victory = Surrender
Bid 8 to Allies, 4 turn game, Axis Victory +3 Victory Cities
Bid 7 to Allies, 5 turn game, Axis Victory +3 Victory Cities
Bid 6 to Allies, 5 turn game, Axis Victory 10 VC’s.
Bid 6 to Allies, 7 turn game, Allies Victory 7 VC’s
Bid 6 to Allies, 7 turn game, Allies Victory 9 VC’s
Bid 7 to Allies, 5 turn game, Allies Victory 7 VC’s
Bid 8 to Allies, 6 turn game, Allies Victory 9 VC’s
Bid 5 to Allies, 4 turn game, Allies Victory +3 Victory Cities
Bid 2 to Allies, 4 turn game, Axis Victory +3 Victory Cities
Bid 6 to Allies, 4 turn game, Axis Victory +3 Victory Cities(Finals game)
The bid is how many IPCS worth of free units or extra income was given to the allied team.
@Black_Elk said in Grand Plans, 3rd Edition?:
I mean I guess we got the defenseless transport and the new bombing mechanics, more expensive tanks, and a cruiser unit that nobody buys, but they also ditched the tech and national advantages from Revised
You’re really selling it, Black_Elk! Tell us what else you like about 1942.2! :-)
@Black_Elk said in Grand Plans, 3rd Edition?:
To me having more game tiles (a bunch of additional tt and sz) doesn’t really necessitate all the baseline rules complexity we see in 1940. What I mean is that you could surely find a way to make a more limited and much faster 5-6 man total war scenario, still with a larger game map more on the scale of global, and it wouldn’t be that much harder to learn than 1942.2 is currently.
I think there’s definitely some room for a modular starter map that has lots more ‘tiles’ than, say, 1941. I think once you get up near the Global 1940 scale, the amount of table space you need to set the thing up, in square feet, is excessive for a starter game. Not everybody has a giant living room table that they can reserve for a full day of gaming; it’s a barrier to entry if the flagship map is so big that casual players won’t even be able to set it up.
That’s just a quibble, though – I strongly agree with you on the missed opportunities for a modular map with a moderate size, lightweight rules that can expand to become more complicated as players get more sophisticated, and digital integration.
@Striker So that’s an average bid of 6.6 IPCs for the Allies, but the Allies still only pulled off a 7-6 win record, and two of those wins were called on time with only 7 Allied VCs. The 6 Axis wins all featured at least 10 Axis VCs and included the final match. Seems like pretty good evidence to me that the game is still biased toward Axis even with the 1942.3 setup changes.
@Argothair said in Grand Plans, 3rd Edition?:
Seems like pretty good evidence to me that the game is still biased toward Axis even with the 1942.3 setup changes.
That has been the consensus of veteran players yes.
Haha yeah Argo got me there. I guess I was just pinning for a little more in the cook book with a main starter board. I think a lot could be still be achieved with the 1942.2 map as a basis, especially if the production spread could be adjusted or the economy scaled in a different way. But then the trick is broad adoption, which seems like it only ever comes with some sort of official nod. I don’t know though maybe A&Aonline could find a way to get something out there once established. Toolset, still at the top of the wishlist :)
@Black_Elk said in Grand Plans, 3rd Edition?:
But then the trick is broad adoption, which seems like it only ever comes with some sort of official nod.
I’m not sure that’s totally accurate! I think we as a community of players underestimate ourselves. I know that the friends I game with are usually willing to try mods that I’ve designed, and I’m willing to try theirs. Corpo42 has hosted a Bay Area Anniversary tournament with some modest rule changes for the last two years that’s drawn broad attendance, and SiredBlood in Orange County made his own Global 40-esque map and ruleset and tech tree for a tournament that also got good attendance. Balanced Mod 3.0 currently sees about as much play as OOB Global 40, and several years ago I believe New World Order (another unofficial map) was one of the most commonly played games on TripleA. So when people make good games, I think other people are usually pretty willing to play them.
One place where I do see the community lacking is in organization and consensus-building. The people who are interested in house rules (myself included!) spend a lot more time creating their personal favorite versions and arguing about them on the forums than they do systematically playtesting and reviewing other people’s mods. You don’t really see “committees” set up to design games very often, much less committees set up to vote on or approve new games as “semi-official.”
In my opinion, that’s what it would take to shift games even further away from OOB toward games that are more responsive to player feedback: if we’re not going to be dependent on the Word of God from Avalon Hill or Larry Harris or whatever, then we need to rely on the Word of the Majority from some sort of board or committee or general membership that has high enough status/prestige within the community that they can say “this game is official” and the game becomes accepted as a result. People might follow the board’s leadership if the board is full of very high quality players and designers, or if the board pumps a lot of energy into organizing leagues and tournaments, or if the board includes skilled programmers and artists who can make very pretty games, or if people see that the board is using a thorough, fair, transparent review process to evaluate new game designs, or some combination of the above.
Right now, though, we don’t even have the beginnings of that kind of Board – the people running their various regional tournaments aren’t even trying to coordinate their rules, and the people running the axisandallies.org League are totally agnostic about house rules (you can play a league game with whatever house rules people do or don’t agree to), and the people maintaining the tripleA software are running a neutral platform that can accommodate any and all game designs…so nobody’s really even trying to develop a “moral counterweight” to Larry Harris’s moral authority as one of the original designers.
I think we could wait until the stars grow cold for someone like Larry Harris or an Avalon Hill executive to officially bless a variant Axis & Allies game – if they were interested in acting on constructive criticism, they could have fixed their mainline map on any of their last three tries. They’ve got no special need to listen to feedback from die-hard fans like the people who post on this forum, because they’re making good money from ongoing sales to casual players, and they’re generally well-respected in the community. If we want a new and improved mainline map to catch on more broadly than with just a local group of friends, we will have to do the hard work of building a consensus around that map by ourselves, without help from the corporate owners of the intellectual property.
@Argothair said in Grand Plans, 3rd Edition?:
One place where I do see the community lacking is in organization and consensus-building. The people who are interested in house rules (myself included!) spend a lot more time creating their personal favorite versions and arguing about them on the forums than they do systematically playtesting and reviewing other people’s mods. You don’t really see “committees” set up to design games very often, much less committees set up to vote on or approve new games as “semi-official.”
In my opinion, that’s what it would take to shift games even further away from OOB toward games that are more responsive to player feedback: if we’re not going to be dependent on the Word of God from Avalon Hill or Larry Harris or whatever, then we need to rely on the Word of the Majority from some sort of board or committee or general membership that has high enough status/prestige within the community that they can say “this game is official” and the game becomes accepted as a result. People might follow the board’s leadership if the board is full of very high quality players and designers, or if the board pumps a lot of energy into organizing leagues and tournaments, or if the board includes skilled programmers and artists who can make very pretty games, or if people see that the board is using a thorough, fair, transparent review process to evaluate new game designs, or some combination of the above.
Really good points. And I agree too, something more or substantially new for 42 coming down from the og seems kind of unlikely at this point, but I guess what I was hoping for in terms of nods for mods, would be more like promotion and support for that kind of stuff on an official digital platform by the developers/team. Then I suppose a board like you say, where the coolest stuff can rise to the top, highlander style, so others have an easy way to see it. Balanced mod for G40 is a cool example of how something like that can work when enough people agree to agree. I don’t know what kind of tools we might get, if any, but it would be rad to see something like that take off for 42, even if the scale was more modest. Then maybe it finds its way back somehow into a physical release, after being proven entertaining in the digital arena where fast feedback is easier to gather. I think there is a lot of potential for more back and forth between digital and physical design like that. Just depends how much the customizing aspect of the table top and current online community is embraced when it goes digital legit. Fingers crossed for something that lets us play around outside the box a bit. Like a map or scenario editor with an intuitive UI for altering some of the behind the scenes stuff, so we could experiment, that would be hella exciting.
Still trying to figure out how to quote from the last page using my phone. Guess the formatting is a little different now. The mysteries of the new forums hehe. But yeah, super Nova explosions
One thing I wanted to add about having a toolset editor is that maybe it would allow for one or two of the major tournaments like GenCon to simulcast digitally, maybe with online participation too, or at least have the finals archived digitally, so people could see the round by round for those, with the key stuff summarized. Like one dude on the sidelines with a laptop editing/recording the broad strokes at the close of each round into an A&Aonline game file to preserve the action for posterity. Or better yet a big online tournament to coincide with the big physical one, where everyone uses the same tourney set up world wide for one day, or one week or whatever, so the experience is more shared and accessible for people in remote locations that can’t make the drive. Technically can be done already, but I think something like that might get more traction when the online product is all official-like.
Taking the time to reply to this because it’s a well thought out reply to what I originally commented and goes into other areas I see as great opportunities for this new, digital edition of A&A.
@Black_Elk said in Grand Plans, 3rd Edition?:
1940 was the last scenario to offer something substantially new in a while.
IMO Zombies and 1914 both brought a lot of new things to the table, but the community despised the whole “Zombie” thing and never really gave it a chance. I’m not sure why 1914 wasn’t well-received but I’d probably agree with you that the non-WW2 setting means the game loses one of its core audiences immediately (WW2 buffs).
Agreed that 42/42SE are just poor man’s revised clones. At least 42SE tried to be different by changing the map, but really that just resulted in making one of the worst-balanced games in the franchise.
I don’t see any reason though why we couldn’t take a board on the scale of 1942.2 or AA50, and have that as a more universal starter board that can be built into something more impressive with expansion materials. Or even with a starter board closer in scale to Global, but modular so that you can stage in the complexity.
I agree with this 200%. I think this where the most potential lies with the new online platform. They can add new maps and tweak the IPC values, borders, etc. of existing ones to improve balance in a way that simply isn’t possible with a physical board game.
When you combine the Europe and Pacific boards you end up with a map that has like 4 times as many game tiles as Classic or 1942.2. To me having more game tiles (a bunch of additional tt and sz) doesn’t really necessitate all the baseline rules complexity we see in 1940. What I mean is that you could surely find a way to make a more limited and much faster 5-6 man total war scenario, still with a larger game map more on the scale of global, and it wouldn’t be that much harder to learn than 1942.2 is currently.
Agreed on basically all of this. The trend I’ve seen with other playgroups’ House Rules is that they add more rules/units/etc. to the existing G40 Baseline. The others in my playgroup can barely keep up with the baseline rules of something like AA50, so G40 is simply too overwhelming for them (even though it’s not really that complex compared to “”“real”“” war games).
Again though, I think that whole franchise model would be way way easier to develop if it was done digitally in tandem. Again so that everyone can be on the same page, and the testing and feedback, and dissemination of new materials would be easier to coordinate.
I didn’t quote the rest of your post because, to me, this is the meat of it. The logistical nightmare of creating a “starter edition” and releasing different expansions for said “starter” edition is easily solved by using a digital platform instead. TripleA works because of basically this principle. There’s just the core A&A Rules Engine and the capability to add custom maps/scenarios. In the hands of a professional developer with (presumably) WoTC’s Blessings, it should be (relatively) easy for them to eventually get every edition of A&A made available on this new platform and create new maps/scenarios as needed. Community mod support would be nice but is probably just a pipe dream.
@Black_Elk said in Grand Plans, 3rd Edition?:
Fingers crossed for something that lets us play around outside the box a bit. Like a map or scenario editor with an intuitive UI for altering some of the behind the scenes stuff, so we could experiment, that would be hella exciting.
Yeah, absolutely, having some type of editor would be a mandatory feature for me. As far as I can tell from the preview photos and descriptions, right now Axis & Allies Online is not offering me any features that I want. The software only includes one game – 1942.3 – and you can’t edit that game in any way. Well, I don’t want to play 1942.3 using out-of-the-box rules, so, right now, I have no interest in playing Axis & Allies Online. I wouldn’t bother downloading Axis & Allies Online for free, let alone purchasing it on Steam.
I say all of this with respect and goodwill for the software designers, who seem to be working hard and trying to listen to the community. If anyone from Beamdog is reading this, I want you to know that your software could be a really exciting, useful gaming platform…but that you won’t get there just by thinking positively and hoping that the modified version of 1942 Second Edition (known around here as 1942.3) is a good “middle-of-the-road” map. It’s not a good middle-of-the-road map. It’s a bad middle-of-the-road map that makes thoughtless compromises and achieves many of the worst features of both ends of the spectrum. 1942.3 has enough rules and enough territories to be daunting for new players, but not enough strategy or fairness to be satisfying for experienced players. It’s not a good idea to start with an unmodifiable version of 1942.3 and then work on adding minor editing capabilities months or years down the road as a sort of ‘bonus’ feature. Those editing capabilities are part of the minimum feature set that you need to have a product that will attract significant support from serious A&A players.
Right now, switching platforms from TripleA to Axis & Allies Online would be a huge downgrade for me. TripleA supports both live and asynchronous play of 30 different maps, with house rules and editing and a working lobby. Axis & Allies Online supports 1 map, with no house rules and no editing, and it’s one of the worst A&A maps ever released. I’m pleased to see new options entering the market, but those options will have to get much better before I consider playing them or recommending them to my friends.
argothair,
Is there a map you like, one that you are thinking of? I would like to blow up Europe, the Med, Eastern Russia and the area around the Burma Road. I would also like piece markers for the plane movements.
You seem a little cynical. I’m guessing there are plans in the works for a new release. I’m hoping that the game after that can be more of a hybrid. I am sure some of this info is making it’s way to the top.
I’m on @Argothair 's side on this one. Making things worse is that djensen confirmed in the other thread that this is 42SE OOB, so there’s not even the LHTR to fix the balance issues.
However, I’m not going to take as extreme a position as Argothair. I still plan on buying the game in the dim hope that it’ll either spur the creation of another A&A Title, or that the online platform will improve down the road.
@crockett36 said in Grand Plans, 3rd Edition?:
argothair,
Is there a map you like, one that you are thinking of?
To be fair, Revised is a more-balanced and less-nuanced 42SE, and AA50 is a slightly-more complex but infinitely superior 42SE. Either of those would have been preferable as a starting point in my mind.
I understand Beamdog’s choice though, as 42SE is the most “modern” edition the developers are most familiar with (Revised is like 15 years old at this point, Classic is over 30).
Here’s an interesting but possibly off-topic thought I had. According to the interview Beamdog gave djensen, development has been going on for >2 years, from a time before the reissue of AA50. Is it possible that 42SE was chosen over AA50 because no one from Beamdog was aware the game even existed?
Proposal. we do this thing for each of the the games. If 6 to $10 is the average bid for 42 2 what are the purchases? Would t a m vaan. His suggestions help 42.2. I believe he suggest a tank and a plane or Russia at the Capitol and we could use Ivan’s, Russian Infantry has a handicap. then we use a r g o t h a IR. His suggestions 4 simplified strat bombing AA guns and submarines. We investigate s i r e d. Blood Tech development and present this to Larry as the new starter set. I forgot to mention we play testing we promulgated you show it to the right people getting it on the triple capital a. And then we petition those on high.
Even if 1942.2 isn’t my favorite map ever, I still feel obliged to hop onto this one, since I really want to see the digital model succeed for A&A and I think this is probably the best opportunity we’ve had yet for something official. Just having access to a potentially much larger playerbase via steam is pretty exciting. GTO doesn’t exist anymore, and in any case it reminded me more of a parlor game free for all, having A&A bundled up with like backgammon or whatever. TripleA, while I love it and have put years into the thing, is still limited in who it can reach. Its great for people who already know Axis and Allies and are willing to tool around, but not as much for attracting new players. I think there are a lot of new people who might across Axis and Allies online via promotion on steam or from the publishers at Wizards and such, and the fact that beamdog will have tutorials and a single player mode for learning the ropes is definitely a good thing. I’m just hoping it has enough staying power out the gate to keep veteran players engaged, which is where a toolset/editor is really key.
Clearly people here would probably rather have seen AA50 and the 1940 games on offer within the same kind of framework, but I can see why that might have been a tall order. The challenge of developing a Single Player mode for either of those maps (AA50 or G40) is much more complex, because of the rules overhead. Then again having a Single Player mode wouldn’t really be necessary for either of those as long as you had a basic pvp multi-player option for the larger boards. Keeping 1942 for introductions and SP mode vs the AI, which is I think what they’re going for, but then having the more complex boards available for when people really want to sink their teeth into the thing.
Still I agree, to drum up immediate excitement 1942.2 was a bit of an odd choice, but if there is a way to mod it, or the promise of other boards to come, then I’m an easy sell hehe.
@crockett36 It’s true that I am a little cynical. Like everyone else here, I play Axis & Allies for fun, and I enjoy the games, and I believe we’ll all continue enjoying the games, so in that limited sense I have an optimistic view of things. Basically everything will be OK and we’re all going to keep having fun with this game we like, which is good. I don’t want to lose sight of the bigger picture.
That said, I think because people have fun with their hobby, or because people are just positive thinkers in general, they wind up with these unrealistically positive views of what’s likely to come out of the pipeline from Avalon Hill. Avalon Hill has literally never released a game that was balanced out of the box. None of the releases are balanced. Revised was close, and that came out in 2004, i.e., 15 years ago. You know what else came out in 2004? Ticket to Ride, Power Grid, and Betrayal at House on the Hill. This is a long frigging time ago. You think Days of Wonder would still be a household name today if all of their games since Ticket to Ride had been borderline unplayable? Avalon Hill fans – i.e., us – are some calm, patient, tolerant mo’ fo’s. For people who like to pretend to be taking over the world and slaying millions of enemies, we sure have a peaceful, mellow attitude.
Honestly, I think the best starting map to promote with A&A software would be the version of Pact of Steel that includes Italy and China. If we have to go with an officially published map, I’d pick AA50. If we have to go with an officially published map with no bid, I’d pick Revised.
@Black_Elk said in Grand Plans, 3rd Edition?:
I think there are a lot of new people who might across Axis and Allies online via promotion on steam or from the publishers at Wizards and such, and the fact that beamdog will have tutorials and a single player mode for learning the ropes is definitely a good thing.
Yeah, my guess is that the primary target audience is new, casual players who aren’t really familiar with A&A – maybe they heard about it once from a friend who plays over the table, but they’re being drawn in by ads on Steam or while playing Magic:TG. That’s fine; there’s nothing wrong with mass-marketing a game and focusing on what casual players will want. However, I seriously doubt that even casual players will enjoy 1942.2 out of the box for more than a few plays if there’s no option for a bid, a mod, or editing. I also think that the interviews from Beamdog so far don’t admit that they’re focusing on casual players – the marketing pitch says that people like me are supposed to enjoy this game. So, that’s part of why I’m pushing back: if the game is for people like me, then it’s not ready yet.
@crockett36 said in Grand Plans, 3rd Edition?:
We investigate s i r e d. Blood Tech development and present this to Larry as the new starter set
I’m flattered to be included in your plans for a new starter set, but part of my point is that Larry Harris is not a useful resource for further A&A development. Any plan that depends on getting Larry Harris to officially bless a set of balanced, dynamic house rules is very likely to fail. We tried fixing Global 1940 with Larry Harris to get the Alpha +1, +2, and +3 rules, and then the 1940 Second Edition rules, but none of them were balanced; they still require huge bids. Ultimately it was the Balanced Mod 3.0 rules, made without involvement or approval from Larry Harris, that created a stable, balanced version of Global 1940. Similarly, Larry tried fixing Spring 1942 with 1942 Second Edition, and then he tried fixing it again with the ‘tournament rules’, aka 1942.3, and, again, the game still requires a bid and is, if anything, more boring than ever, because players are now forced along one or two very narrow strategy paths. Larry Harris has done some great work in kickstarting the A&A franchise, but he’s either unable or unwilling to add any further value to the mainline A&A maps. His “War Room” game looks pretty cool, and I wish him the best of luck with that new franchise.
