Posts made by 8d88

@klykke89 I think length depends a lot on the skill balance of the players. So far we only played it once, with a pretty skilled group of players, and it took an entire day. I think had we not been learning we would have resolved the game but I think it would still be 10-12 hours. We do tend to drink and banter a bunch though.

@squirecam thanks

@Azimuth yeah, I understand the challenge, I’m a graphic designer and I was playing around with a circular map design when I stumbled upon yours. I still might finish my design as I was incorporating some map changes I found interesting. But so far I think I’ll need some blow up boxes or something to make it work at a reasonable size.

@Azimuth it caught my attention because I have a round table in the living room that’s about 120cm in diameter so I was thinking if a round map could work at that size it would be cool, but would require a lot of distortion I imagine. Would be curious to see where your map is at now.

@siparo does anyone know know what the standard bid is towards the Axis in this game?? Looking to test it out with a group for the first time and my initial impression is that it is heavily weighted towards the allies, although keeping Japan in check is going to be quite challenging.

@vodot Yeah, definitely seems like the US would need some kind of economic boost if they have a split economy. I bet playing like this would be more historically accurate and more fun, especially with more than 2 players.

@vodot That’s a nice tip for a teaching game. I’m pretty sure in classic I at least hassled the player in a given ocean a bit rather than completely abandoning it. In a 2 player game is guess it doesn’t matter as much but playing with 4 or 5 players it’s feels odd for the US just to fight on one side of the board.

An alternate setup might be interesting where the US player is forced to fight both sides of the map. Perhaps with a split economy and/or shutting down the Panama canal.

@gregkamp Yeah, same feeling here. The situation where the mind control ray does have some power is when you are capturing new territories with a small force and there is a zombie or two left there after battle.

The way I understand it, once battle is finished you capture the territory, next in your non-combat the remaining zombie in your new territory can be pushed out and into enemy territory.

But I feel like this is still by far the weakest tech, seems like it should be cooler than this, maybe in testing it was too powerful and they nurfed it or something.

So far I feel like Z-4 explosives are crazy strong and the zombie mind control is super weak.

Are there any viable 2 ocean strategies for the USA?

Has anyone tried putting edge markings on the chips to make chip stacks more readable?

Since I don’t use the green chips throwing a green chip under a special unit is a good reminder of the technology, definitely helped us remember after too many beers.

@baron-Münchhausen Definitely makes the initial sea battles or taking Egypt easier for Germany. But would give Russia more options.

@Imperious-Leader sorry, no pics this time but the table did feel like this was a way better way to begin the game. Gets the game going a little quicker and with zero 9-12 anxiety for either side. Seems like it would be more fair for tournament play also.

@thrasher1 Yeah, I think we need to look at this game as a different beast and not through the lens of the core games. While this strategy is crazy and overpowered mitigating hordes of zombies throughout the war campaign is clearly an extra challenge for the Axis (more so than the allies) that can’t be ignored if you want to take and hold territory. If Germany simply wants to take Russia out of the game quickly and take Russian IPCs they are welcome to rush Russia, but yeah, this will become a zombie controlled territory most likely. The end result would still benefit the axis but not at greatly as in an 1942.2 game.

I don’t see this immediately as a flaw, but as a characteristic of the game.
But I really don’t see how the axis have any chance to mitigate zombies properly without zombie technologies.

I understand wanting to limit luck for tournament play but I don’t see this game being a great tournament game at all, although it could be fun to play at a conference with enough beer is flowing.

For tournament or otherwise it feels like there needs to be a reliable way to acquire zombie tech that isn’t based on randomly drawing cards. Creating zombie stacks is obviously a benefit for the defenders, so the attackers should probably be rewarded too for taking on stacks of zombies. Perhaps granting a zombie tech for x number of Zs killed in a single battle either in addition to or instead of the cards.

I’d also like to see the technologies a bit more evenly balanced.
Maybe I’ll post in house rules instead of clouding the discussion here, but I think some community rules could lead to a better second edition for this game.

I think the Z42 variant has much more potential to be fun and needs even more attention/refinement. Larger national budgets should make the game feel a bit less swingy.

I was skeptical but I think is the first bold attempt at creating an A&A game in an alternate universe and it will have to undergo revision to become solid. And by solid I mean a fun romp of a beer and pretzel experience. I will never take a game of this too seriously, but I will laugh more during sessions of AAZ than any other war game and there will be some interesting tactical situations at times. But some refinement is clearly needed.

@DeathByDice Yeah, in ranked matches I still tend to play it out and see how well I can counter the situation but in other games I suggest just resetting the board so we can have a good game. The only thing that’s worked at all for me so far is having Russia pump out infantry and the other allies send as many fighters and tanks there as humanly possible along with a med or northern shuck.

I made a post for a house rule to eliminate this in live games. I’m sure this problem accounts for much of the 10% win discrepancy between the axis and allies. Personally I’m happy if Russia can at least take Ukraine with 1 unit and escape with the fighters. But still, I know I’m in for a tough game if that happens and west-russia doesn’t go fabulously and my opponent is strong. You have to do the west-russia battle first so you know if you need to retreat quickly out of Ukraine.

While I really appreciate the general balance improvement made by the Gencon 3.0 rules update the 9-12 opening situation feels like the most fragile part of the game. I think there’s still room here for a 4.0 setup of some kind. Gencon 3 feels like a patch (necessary but not perfect) when the setup probably could use a bigger update.

@Faramir It’s not that I think Russia is too weak necessarily, I’m not sure, but I would like to see them have some more strategic options in general. So far I think playing Russia is more interesting in this version than in classic and revised but it would be nice if playing Russia was a bit more fun and flexible. I’m not an historical accuracy fanatic but I’m curious to know if Russia was really this vulnerable in real life, my guess is they probably weren’t. I like the suggestions from Imperious Leader here. Giving Russia a bomber and Letting Germany keep their bomber safe was something I was considering.

@Imperious-Leader That’s what I was thinking, yeah. Going to try it out in a live game in a couple days.

@lilkdrizzle My interpretation of the argument is that Russia is just too handcuffed

I live in Leuven. Belgian folks are welcome to contact me. I’m Canadian (English-speaking) but I’m fluent in Dutch too.