Triple A Game Feedback

I would really like to here the communities take on this subject. Praises and criticisms. I realize I’m late to the ball, but here I am and I’ excited about getting into this game.
Here is my take.

This board and map are great.

I love the hugeness of it; this thing is just massive.

The geography and how that effects play was very well thought out. Africa is squashed down abut as much as possible and there is more room available in Europe as one could have reasonably made without completely distorting the world map. The point being , the map still looks like the world while still being able to provide effective space for game play- that is a tough balance to achieve.

The idea of making the Himalayas and Sahara impassible was inspired. Of course they are impassible to large armies. If the Axis want to do damage to the British Empire in Sub Saharan Africa, they need to either turn the corner at Alexandria or win the Atlantic or Indian Oceans.

The neutral spaces are very well done. More on that when I review the Neutral Countries.

But the main thing the map gets right is what it’s supposed to get right, it provides the right geometry to promote good game play. Their are major regions and regions within those regions and each set has its own keys to being manipulated for offense and defense. That makes for interesting game play.

Even better, I haven’t found any rinky dink ways of manipulating the geography in ways that don’t feel true to the intent of the game/WW2. The space in the Pacific is an obstacle. The Space of Russia is an obstacle. As they both should be. The benefit from gaining Scandinavia is big, but its not a game changer. The Far East or the Black Sea can’t be used as some unanticipated flanking move. One doesn’t want to be tied down to replaying WW2 as accurately as possible, but one doesn’t want to completely break with reality either.

Every game I play I learn new things about this board. I’ve played 4 intensive games with myself and am still feel like I am a long long ways from mastering the geography of this board. That is a good thing.

Certainly there are things I could quibble about.
The names for the Chinese Provinces could be better. In that , as someone who lives in China, I would prefer the proper current Pinyin names for them, A westerner defiantly made this game. But I understand they are trying to keep with the Pre 1949 feel for the region and using the terms the west used back then; so ok.

Having Kazakistan so far south is a bit weird.

There are times where I wish certain spaces were larger; I’m looking at you Bessarabia and SZ110. But most of my spatial problems stem from my style of game play which is still rooted in monolithic stacks of enormous proportions which worked well in the Axis and Allies of old.

Which brings me to my biggest opinion about this board. This board is infinitely superior to the previous incarnations of Axis and Allies.

This is a very good and interesting game and it starts with the map.

What are your thoughts?

I think the point is to save time in global games. By far round 1 is the slowest round because you are shuffling and merging and re-stacking everything. Even though you more or less know the set up after a few games it takes time because there are units everywhere. This is very much true for Germany, Russia and japan but goes for all other nations too. For france you set up a bunch of units which are removed instantly.

After Round 1, there are units in maybe half of the initial territories and this must save a lot of time.

I have played something like 80 games face to face and 7 on Triple A

@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

Use the same colors as Diplomacy. Problem solved!

I have uploaded so called war cards as well. Very simple but they can be used to keep track of who is at war with who.

To be found at www#mediafire#com/download/oeby87i8esm122e/A&A_G40_War_Cards_-_pdf.tar.gz, where the # needs to be replaced by a . [dot]

And of course the odt’s: www#mediafire#com/download/hy940rd23pi23v0/A&A_G40_War_cards_-_odt.tar.gz

Enjoy

Thanks for your input! I ran A&A (three different versions) today and it went pretty smoothly. I’m looking forward to trying the Global 1942 setup next time I play!