Posts made by Argothair

Argothair

Darth Maximus, I agree with you that using swingy, mandatory, high-TUV battles in round 1 is a terrible way to introduce variety into the ‘starting’ position. I’m not convinced that reducing all the front line territories to 2 infantry and 1 destroyer is a good solution to that problem – if you suck all of the variety and risk out of round 1, then round 1 is going to be a boring waste of time. If the map is designed so that the attackers can each easily take a specific number of territories, then there’s no suspense to the battles for those territories. I don’t want to spend an hour rolling dice just to see if our starting defenders manage to rack up 0, 1, or 2 hits against the enemy before getting steamrolled.

I could maybe see using that kind of setup to teach beginners how to play, so that they can get a feel for the mechanics using some low-stakes, low-stress battles before things really heat up, but it’s not a setup I’d want for the mainline game.

My preferred solution to round 1 swinginess is to move the big fleets further apart from each other. I’m not a stickler for rigorous historical accuracy, but given the 1942 start date, the game could have easily gotten away with shifting the British Indian fleet west into the Persian Gulf (so it can escape from the Japanese if it wishes), shifted the American Pacific fleet south from Hawaii to the Solomon islands (so that the so-called ‘Pearl Harbor’ attack seriously inconveniences Japan by putting its units out of position), and concentrating the German subs in the North Sea instead of in the central Atlantic (so that Germany can choose whether to set up a wolf pack for a turn 2 sub attack, or to retreat the subs and turtle in the Baltic, instead of just automatically sinking most of the Atlantic fleets on turn 1).

I’m much less concerned with swinginess in Ukraine or West Russia. Maybe Russia should have another artillery unit in the Caucasus to help smooth things out, but honestly if your Russian strategy has no chance of recovery after taking a couple of unexpected hits in West Russia, then maybe you need to either (1) play low luck or (2) adopt a more conservative strategy. The OOB setup doesn’t require Russia to stake the game on any particular attack, and if you choose to spread your forces thinly enough that you are in fact betting the game on round 1, then I say you have to be prepared to accept the consequences. Similarly, there’s nothing Russia can do on turn 1 that knocks Germany out of the game – Germany has incredibly deep reserves and an interesting choice of strategies no matter how well Russia does in the opening battles.

Argothair

It’s also interesting (and sobering) to reflect on all the failed attempts to balance the game back toward KJF attempts. Black_Elk is onto something when he says to reduce the number of territories in central Asia, and Marine Iguana is right when he says that China needs a 2 IPC territory so the US can build a factory there. I think the trick is to split the difference – have a “Western China” that’s worth 2 IPCs and insulated from immediate Japanese attack by a pair of 1-IPC Chinese territories to its east. That way the USA has a territory that’s both defensible and worth defending. If you smush all of China into a single landlocked 4-IPC territory, then Japan can attack it turn 2 with all available forces, and either it falls or it doesn’t – there’s no room for maneuvering or positioning.

UK IC, less profitable pearl harbor, and expectation that UK and US atlantic fleet are sunk R1 are consistent with making KGF less rewarding and KJF more viable.

The India IC definitely helps with KJF. I’m not sure pearl harbor is noticeably less profitable in 1942.2 compared to other editions. Letting the Germans sink 80%+ of the Allied Atlantic fleets on turn 1 makes it more expensive to KGF, but to a certain extent giving Germany the ability to achieve initial Atlantic naval superiority simply forces the Allies to go hard or go home against Germany.

In previous versions, when the Allies could take it for granted that they’d control the (smaller) Atlantic, the Allies could send as many or as few IPCs as they wished to harass Germany. Maybe the Allies would use 1 transport to annoy Algeria or Norway, or maybe the Allies would use 8 transports to sack Berlin, or maybe anything in between. Now, with the Germans in control of the Atlantic, if you’re not going to build a big enough fleet to re-take the Atlantic, then you may as well not bother building an Atlantic fleet at all, and if you are going to sink 50+ IPCs into defensive naval arms, there’s really no way to recoup your investment other than by sacking Berlin.

My biggest suggestions for how to design a ‘mainline’ A&A map that encourages KJF are:

Ensure the USA has a defensible, 2-IPC spot for a Chinese factory
Ensure the UK has a 2-IPC spot for an Australian factory that’s close enough to Borneo and East Indies to actually threaten them
Ensure the USSR has a 2-IPC spot for a Siberian factory and enough starting income to use it without throwing the game
Shift the money islands “east” relative to India and China so that the same Japanese fleet can’t defend India, China, Japan, and Borneo.
Reduce the Japanese starting income so that they can’t throw fighters away on unimportant battles, attack Siberia, China, India, and the Pacific at the same time, and still win on all four fronts. Force the Japanese to choose and conquer some economically valuable territories before they become a juggernaut. Starting income should be something like Tokyo ($6), Manchuria ($3), Shanghai ($2), Indochina ($2), Borneo ($3), East Indies ($2), Philippines ($2) = $20 starting cash. The Japanese had a huge army/navy relative to their neighbors, but they couldn’t afford to quickly replace it if it was destroyed, nor could they afford to match a serious US naval buildup while also winning wars on the mainland. An American decision to commit 30+ IPCs to the Pacific should pretty immediately force the Japanese to either accept a stalemate on the Asian mainland or to accept the loss of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Argothair

The cash bid is an interesting way of approaching things, especially if you like the battles that occur in the opening on the OOB setup. Personally, I enjoy getting to place my bid before the game starts as a way of shaking up the opening theory and keeping things diverse – but, then, I’m not the one carrying an encyclopedic knowledge of A&A opening theory in my back pocket!

I think 25 IPCs would be more than enough – I’d play the Allies every time with a $25 cash bid. If you give it all to the British, they have $56 to play with – allow $9 for max infantry in India, and you still have $47 left to buy two carriers, a fighter, and a destroyer. You can drop that in the Channel on round 1, fill the fourth carrier slot with an American fighter, build destroyers and transports on round 2, and then invade France or Leningrad on round 3.

Another option is to give it all to the Russians, leaving them with $49 income on their first turn – enough to buy 4 inf, 2 art ($20) for Leningrad and Stalingrad, plus 3 tnk, 1 ftr ($28) for Moscow. You should be able to hold Stalingrad and trade Leningrad indefinitely with that kind of start out of the gate.

Argothair

One time I used an 8 IPC bid to put an American artillery in Szechuan and a British artillery in India. I sent over about 3 Russian infantry to reinforce China, sacrificed the British Indian transport to deliver 1 inf, 1 art to Yunnan, and sacrificed the British carrier and fighter to kill one of the Japanese transports, landing the fighter in Yunnan.

Japan ignored all the extra forces and used a standard opening in China, so I was able to build a factory in Sinkiang and protect it long enough to crank out 3 American tanks. The factory actually never fell to the Japanese – it was taken by the Germans pushing through Archangel and Evenki past a relatively weak Russia. The British were able to liberate the factory, but only by diverting a stack of tanks from India that could have been better used in the Caucasus. I was able to build another couple of American infantry out of the factory, and after that the Americans had better stuff to do with their cash than keep fighting over China.

Did I get my money’s worth for the 15 IPC on the factory? Hard to say. I wouldn’t say a Chinese factory is never useful in 1942.2, but it’s probably safe to say that it’s not a serious part of optimal play.

Argothair

The proposed changes look interesting and fair to me, but what’s with all the talk about science? Are you just kidding around? If not, can you explain how your algorithm works, or give us a link to your formula?

[Note: I tried to post a similar comment earlier today, but it does not appear to have stuck. My apologies if this turns into a double-post.]

Argothair

If I were starting from scratch, I’d use the d8 – I’d prefer to have a little more room than than the d6 allows for badass units in my unit list, but I don’t want to have to do the math in my head to try to calculate my expected hits when I attack with three units that hit on 13, two units that hit on 9, and four units that hit on 5.

Without designing a whole system, can you give us a sketch of your reasoning? What kind of attributes do you have in mind that would make the hassle of using a d16 worthwhile?

Argothair

Hi Cow,

Your changes look reasonable enough, but what’s with the “scientifically proven formula of game balancing?” Are you just kidding around, or do you actually have a formula? If you’re using some kind of algorithm beyond just counting starting TUV, please explain it (or link to it) so we can see how it works.

Thanks,
Argo

Argothair

It sounds like you’ve got a good handle on some of the basic strategy ideas. Here are some more things to think about:

What is America doing while Germany builds a ton of planes and Japan sends tanks to Moscow? If Japan is building 4+ tanks a turn and sending them west, then by turn 4 America should be able to waltz in, smash the Japanese navy, and grab both Borneo and East Indies. Alternatively, America could build carriers and destroyers to help protect the English Channel for a British invasion, or America could build bombers and strategically bomb Berlin.
Are you retreating the Siberians so quickly that Japan’s tanks go unopposed? It’s usually worth sacrificing an infantry per turn so that the tanks can only move one space at a time. Even if Japan builds a factory in Manchuria on turn 1, that still means tanks land in Manchuria on turn 2, so the tanks shouldn’t even be able to attack Moscow until turn 6.
When Germany goes heavy on planes and subs, that means Britain has an opportunity to shift to the south – consider building a factory in Egypt, and cranking out some tanks of your own in Egypt and India. They can be used to reinforce Moscow, or as a nuisance attack to slow down the German drive in, e.g., Archangel or Ukraine.
Are you making good use of your AAA guns and fighters? Putting 2 Russian AAA guns and 2 British fighters in West Russia while evacuating your tanks from West Russia to Moscow can make Germany think twice about a large, early, air-heavy attack there. Even if Germany ultimately takes the territory, it might just be way too expensive for Germany to be a good trade.

Argothair

CWO_Marc, yes, the black areas are impassible, mostly for topographical and political reasons, but also partly to give some structure to the map – it would have been possible for the major powers to invade Mongolia, but with Mongolia closed, Asia has a much more strategically interesting shape. If you open up too many areas then Asia and Africa just become this formless enormous mass.

Frederick, thanks for the kind words. I can see that by popular demand, I’ll have to put Washington DC back on the map, which is fine – it can fit nicely between the Northeast USA and the Southeast USA. I left it out on purpose for game balance; the Germans shouldn’t really ever have a viable attack on Washington, and so making a Washington a victory city further adds to the already high count of starting Allied victory cities. Still, I guess people like to dream – I’ll put it back in.

Black_Elk, I didn’t originally intend to have only 4 spaces between Manchuria and Moscow, but now that I’m looking at it, I think it works for me. It almost mimics the path of the Trans-Siberian Railroad – you’ve got a direct beeline across Russia’s southeast, and then lots of space to go wandering in Russia’s northeast. I absolutely would want to give Russia enough starting troops in the east to hold out against a Japanese attack, and maybe forcing Russia to hold the ‘railroad’ will help deter KGF players from just immediately marching all their Siberian soldiers west. Also note that Russia can set up a roadblock at Omsk (a factory) and Novosibirsk – if Russia can hold those two territories (or hold Omsk and trade Novosibirisk) then the tanks aren’t going to get through to Moscow on any northern route. I am a little nervous about having Manchuria connect to SZ 60 – I would rather that tanks unloaded from Tokyo be one space away from Manchuria; I didn’t realize I’d left that connection open. What do you think about extending the Korean border west so that it cuts off Manchuria’s port access?

Argothair

The 1942 map.

Argothair

All right, here’s another attempt at some of the same ideas, this time using the more realistic “Jason Clark” base tiles. My big innovation here is that all bold circles are victory cities, and vice versa – that way you can tell at a glance who’s winning and where your targets are, instead of having to squint to find the little red VC markers underneath your troops.

Note that all victory cities contain starting factories, which are not separately shown on the map. Some non-VC territories also have starting factories, which are shown on the 1939 map.

When conquering a territory with a factory, the factory is automatically destroyed, however, you are free to rebuild the factory on your next turn if you still control the city. Turn 1 Conquest, Turn 2 Build Factory, Turn 3 Recruit new units. That way there’s a bit of a delay in the city becoming 100% yours without the need for an extended ruleset about contested territories.

As always, let me know what you think!

Argothair

That’s my goal too! Very well put, CWO_Marc. I want “to allow players to have fun with history while still staying recognizably within history.”

One challenge I’m running into along the way is the trade-off between (1) bringing interesting detail to large territories, and (2) leaving large territories big enough to be significant.

A perfect example is India. It barely makes sense to refer to “India” in the 1940s – the subcontinent was a complicated mess of different ethnicities, languages, provinces, loyalties, and climates. India was enormous. The idea of tanks blitzing from Persia through India to Burma is a little ridiculous; there’s umpteen mountain ranges and jungles and deserts and canyons in the way. The idea of conquering all of India at once in a single campaign is also a little ridiculous; any invading army would wind up subjugating or co-opting different provinces at different times. So I have an urge to split India up into mulitple territories, like flashman suggests.

But when I split India up because it’s special, that actually lessens its strategic value: now all its territories are worth $1 or at most $2, and no one territory is essential. If the defender tries to stack up in part of India, you can probably ignore him and just move through other territories; if the attacker launches an invasion of India, it’s not going to do any real damage on the first turn. Ironically, the best way to get players to fight over India and treat it like a big deal is to leave as one territory worth $3, so that there’s no comparably good sites for a base in the region, and so that any players trying to pass through the region will need or at least really want to go through India.

The Big World map and New World Order maps solve this problem by having several hundred territories on the map – their idea for how to make India both detailed and interesting is to split India into 8 or 9 different territories, and then pick a couple of those territories to be high-income territories or victory cities or factory sites or chokepoints. I don’t like that solution for two reasons: it makes the map too dang big, and I don’t care enough about Baluchistan or Bihar province to want to fight even one whole battle over it, let alone keep trading the territory back and forth while scheming about how to win control of it once and for all.

Is there a fourth way? Does anyone have tips on how to appropriately balance these concerns when designing a map?

Argothair

Very interesting discussion on this thread – nice to have so many serious historians and cartographers!

Black_Elk, do you think my map would be significantly more appealing if I used the base tiles you most recently provided? I agree that it’s more geographically accurate, but I worry that players who are primarily familiar with A&A (and much less so with actual politics) would have difficulty recognizing some of the regions. I also am not confident of my ability to draw sea zones intelligently across the whole map – I’ve tried that before at home, and failed, even by my own standards.

CWO_Marc, what are some key changes you would make to help push back against cartographic determinism? I’m very interested in giving players as many plausible options as possible to take the war in different directions, rather than just mechanically reproducing minor variations on the historical conflicts. What territories need to be expanded (or collapsed) in order to make that happen?

Flashman, I like your labelling suggestions for Tripolitania and Indochina, and will switch them on the next draft. Do you know of another name for the area to the east of Leningrad that would be both recognizable and more accurate than “Karelia”? I’m also cautiously interested in your refactoring of India – my concern is that by splitting it up into 3 territories, you would deprive the British of a meaningful base / factory / center of operations in central Asia. We could increase New Delhi’s production to $2, but even then, the rich territory no longer borders the Indian Ocean, which stops the British from laying down ships in India – not fun for strategic game play. As a final thought, have you considered designing your own map? You always seem to have crisp illustrations ready to support your ideas – I bet if you designed a map, people would have a lot of interest in it.

Argothair

1: I honestly hadn’t thought of that. With 4 German bombers at Japanese airbases, I agree that a sub-heavy American strategy is garbage. I was relying on Japan not having a local can-opener.

2: What I have in mind is less ANZAC sneaking in to kill transports (I agree that skilled players would not leave any such transports lying around), and more ANZAC sneaking in to take money islands. Even if the Japanese fleet is only 2 sea zones away, that leaves room for the US to substitute an American destroyer for the Japanese blocker in the intermediate zone, potentially screening off the ANZAC transports from the Japanese navy. But again, that doesn’t work if German bombers can just pick off the American destroyer before Japan even moves.

I posit that it is very difficult for two very experienced, equally skilled players playing US and JP against one another to find themselves in the situation where the US can, before A6 or even A7, get the drop on the JP fleet. Even on A7+, if you have been fiddling in the Atlantic, it may not yet be possible to begin a decisive move, which will end up losing you the game unless Germany/Italy has already been fairly well crushed.

So is this a claim about the game being unbalanced? Are you saying that whenever Russia retreats its Siberian infantry, Japan should declare war on J1 and will thereafter enjoy favorable odds for an eventual victory?

Argothair

I simply wanted to get a better idea of what your own priorities were with regard to geographic accuracy.

Fair enough; sorry if I laid a guilt trip on you.

The answer is that no, I don’t care much. I know where Iraq is and when Pakistan was founded, but I don’t feel any special need to show that on the map. The map is also missing Syria, Palestine, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Ceylon, Taiwan, Sakhalin, the Aleutian islands, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Guyana, but I’m cool with that. I’m not sure the name “Kenya” was used until shortly after World War II, but, again, that’s OK with me. I’d rather use a name that contemporary people are familiar with and can relate to than a name that’s more historically accurate but more obscure, like Tanganyika.

Argothair

Thanks for the detailed feedback! Probably more than my thoughts deserve on this board. :-)

If I’m going to contribute anything much to the Atlantic as US, I’m for dumping the initial 52 into the Atlantic and then going straight 100% Pacific from then on, or at most 8-12/turn (on average) in the Atlantic, if even that.

That sounds fine to me – it’s not that I recommend spending 18 IPC per turn; it’s more about spending roughly 80 IPCs over turns 1-5. You need enough IPC in the Atlantic to create a viable fighting force, and not so much IPC in the Atlantic that your Pacific navy can’t get the job done.

If you do sacrifice the ANZAC boats, japan kills them with planes and subs, and is still sitting the bulk of what they have on the Philippines J3 keeping you from doing much of anything useful at all A3.

You’re not wrong. I still think getting to Caroline on A2 is worth the ANZAC sacrifice. Although you can’t make any useful attacks on A3, you are at least tying the bulk of the Japanese navy down to the Philippines, so that it isn’t available for shore bombardment, creeping up on India, ferrying troops to Amur, etc.

If you have all subs and bombers with only a smattering of other units, Japan will just withdraw just barely out of your immediate reach, then wait for you to move closer, counterattack, and destroy all those subs defending on a 1 with absolutely amazing effectiveness, they wouldn’t even need much more than half of their navy/air to do such a thing.

So, yeah, if you find that all your subs are being attacked by the Japanese navy, then your sub tactics are not working. When you’re advancing west as the US with subs and bombers, you need to use destroyers to screen the relevant naval zones, so that Japanese boats can’t get through to your main sub fleet. When you’re not advancing with subs and bombers, the point is to dead zone a bubble of sea zones around your fleet, giving your transports a chance to circle clockwise to the south of your fleet, running from Hawaii to Caroline to Solomon to Sumatra, so they can approach the money islands even if you don’t win a huge set piece naval battle. At the point where Japan withdraws “just barely” out of your reach from the Carolines, they’re now four sea zones away, which cedes a whole lot of territory.

Argothair

CWO Marc, if it’s important to you, then I’ll change the names to Iraq / Persia and North-West India. Geography is part of how we know what we’re looking at, which adds to the fun factor. I’m willing to change borders, too, where that makes sense – I just don’t want to add lots of tiny territories where soldiers won’t fit. I did in fact change several borders in response to Flashman’s comments.

Frederick, you can vote, that’s fine. I’ll work on numbers for the sea zones.

Hessian, I could split up indonesia into four territories (five if you count Malay), but I don’t think it’s appropriate given the relatively low unit count I’m going to be aiming for on the setup – if I split up the islands, then Japan needs four transports to take Java, Celebes, Borneo and Sumatra in one turn, but with four loaded transports you could go crazy on the mainland, for example, land in Burma and take India on turn 2. As a compromise, I might just split “East Indies” into Java and Sumatra – there’s plenty of room in the sea zone, and it could be kind of cool to have two island territories in the same sea zone. That’s something other maps haven’t really done.

I’m not going to transfer the income from the small Pacific islands over to Indonesia, because I want to reward players for island-hopping across the Pacific.

Argothair

I’m a rank (as in stinky) amateur at A&A 1940, but here’s my two cents for how America can respond to a J1 DoW:

Establish a limited goal for yourself in Europe, and stick to it. Your ability to be effective in the Pacific depends on rapidly building up a US Pacific Fleet that can defeat the Imperial Japanese Navy; until you at least get to the naval break-even point, all the IPCs you drop in the Pacific are earning zilch for your team. That means you can afford to send 15 - 18 IPCs / turn across the Atlantic, tops. Any more than that and you’re not really playing a KJF strategy; you’re playing a muddled grabbag that happens to lean toward the Pacific. What can you do with 16 IPCs per turn? You could build a Mediterranean naval squadron to help the UK sink Italy’s surface boats, flipping a couple of national objectives your way. Or, instead, you could land troops in Morocco to march east across North Africa, helping to relieve Egypt. Or, instead, you could land troops in Norway to take away Germany’s bonus for Swedish ore. If you hold Norway, you can build a minor factory there and start marching troops over to Leningrad. Don’t try to accomplish more than one of these goals in the first five turns, and don’t try to invade the western European mainland – you just don’t have enough cash.
If the Japanese swing their boats way out of position to take the Philippines and the East Indies on J1, you can probably afford to stack your Navy in Hawaii on A1, and you may be able to move out to the Carolines as early as A2. If it helps you seize the harbor a turn earlier, consider sending ANZAC destroyers to act as blockers to help keep the Japanese navy out of position. It’s very much a race.
If the Japanese are more careful with their fleet positioning, then you won’t be able to get to the Carolines until A3. In that case, spend ANZAC’s income on a couple of loaded transports so that ANZAC can take control of the Carolines in case the big navies wipe each other out.
There’s really not much you can do with UK Pacific or China when Japan starts mowing them down on J1. The Burma Road is going to be closed early and stay that way, and UK Pacific is going to be very short on income. Just play conservatively – use single infantry blockers as appropriate to help slow down Japanese mech. inf. / tanks, and otherwise be constantly on the retreat. Don’t throw away your armies just to make a point, even if it wins you an important territory for one turn. It’s not glamorous or fun to lose every battle, but just by keeping significant infantry reserves in your rear, you (a) force Japan to commit large numbers of infantry and transports to keep resupplying the south Asian fronts, which takes away from Japan’s naval purchasing power, and (b) have the option of reinforcing Moscow or the Middle East during the middlegame with your surviving infantry.
Build lots of American subs. Because ANZAC can deliver loaded transports from close range, and because you have some airbases along the way to help with your fighter/bomber logistics chain, you really don’t need to protect an American carrier fleet against Japanese attacks. It’s cheaper to build a force that’s made up mostly of subs and bombers so that you can sink whatever Japan sends out to guard the islands, letting ANZAC pick off the actual Japanese ground forces. Do keep one loaded American transport someplace safe (Hawaii at first, then later the Solomon Islands) so that you can retake the Philippines or capture Java and build an American industrial complex there without having to wait for the transport to arrive from San Francisco.
Ask the UK Europe player to make it a priority to help Moscow survive until turn 6-7, so the Siberian reinforcements can arrive. If the UK player has a choice between propping up India and propping up Moscow, you definitely want to go for Moscow – India is going to be small no matter what in this type of game, and the whole point of retreating 18 inf, 2 AA guns before they even clash with the Japanese is to get them safely to Moscow – don’t let the Axis pick off Moscow before they even get there.

Argothair

OK, here’s the second draft! Thanks again to everyone for all the helpful feedback.

Frederick II requested setup charts – is anyone else interested in seeing setup charts? If so, please vote up this comment or say so in a reply. If I get at least three people who want to see a setup chart, I’ll make one for 1939, and if I get at least five people, then I’ll make one for 1943, also.

Flashman, I just wanted to take a minute to acknowledge a couple of your suggestions that didn’t make it into this draft. You proposed a German port on the North Sea and a German enclave near Kaliningrad / Konigsburg. As a matter of history, you’re absolutely correct. The downside to adding in these tiny territories is that it further crowds a section of the map that is already very fiddly without doing much to enhance the available strategic options. In my opinion, the extra historical accuracy is not worth the price of having to crowd the soldiers in northern europe so closely together that they wind up knocking each other over. My philosophy for A&A in general, and this map in particular, is to try to maximize the strategic options while still respecting the fun-factor of seeing conflicts that at least remind us of conflicts from World War II. Some players prefer to get a simulation of history that’s as realistic as possible, and that’s fine, but that’s not what I’m trying to do here.

Argothair

All board game covers lie about the playing time, because a game is awesome in proportion to (how many cool features it has) divided by (playing time). I find that doubling the playing time printed on the box usually gives me a good estimate for how long it takes to play the game with experienced players. If everybody’s new or if some people aren’t even familiar with the relevant genre (euros, wargame, auction, etc.) then figure triple the printed time.

I’ve never tried A&A '41 because it looks too simple to me to justify the setup time, but my games of Revised, Anniversary, and 1942.2 typically take between 6 and 20 hours to finish, depending on how the dice go and how aggressive the players are. I had one game that went on for several days because we kept arriving at new equilibria – at one point, Japan built an industrial complex in Novosibirsk while America built an industrial complex in Norway. It was a little silly, but it was also fun dancing around each other for multiple rounds – almost like one of those screwball comedies where you can’t wait to see how they’ll keep running with the same theme and push it to yet another level of insanity. I’ve had other games where the Axis were down a few territories (e.g. north africa, west russia, indochina) and had no significant counterplay after turn 5, and so we called it early – nobody took any capitals or was close to winning on victory cities, but it was still obvious which way the wind was blowing. In general my favorite A&A games have been games where I trusted my opponent(s) enough to play until we called the game by mutual agreement. The hardest part of finding that trust has usually been finding opponents who are willing to come back to a game on a later date if necessary!