Best posts made by DoManMacgee

@FranceNeedsMorePower said in Why Should I Buy U.S.A. Infantry?:

@DoManMacgee I think the French tank should hit on a 4 or less and defend on a 3 or less. I feel 3 for attack is to low maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe if this was a Normandy/Bulge game, but not NA. From what reading I’ve done, Free France didn’t have access to competent Allied tanks until 1944. During the time period this game takes place, the Free French were using “hand-me-downs” from the Allies, for lack of a better term. Putting the French Tank to 4 attack would put it on-par with the British Tank in terms of cost-effectiveness which is probably a bit much when they can move and attack immediately.

I won’t cite chapter and verse for you, but other rules demonstrate that you cannot unload.

1. Non-Combat Movement can only be performed under two circumstances:
   a. Air Units that need to land after having participated in combat.
   b. Any unit that did not conduct a combat move

2. The scenario you have described implies that a Combat Move did indeed take place (whether it was the loading of your Land Units onto the Transport or the act of moving the Transport into the enemy Sea Zone).

Therefore, as your Transport and the units on it conducted a Combat Move, they cannot offload during the Non-Combat Movement phase, as per point #1 above.

I’m sure someone smarter than I will provide exact rulebook citations. Sorry, but your Australian/Kiwi friends are in a bit of a bind.

Part 1

Scott Van Essen Said:

Scott Van Essen: At his first all-hands meeting, our (then new) president Chris Cocks (who is a huge fan of Axis & Allies) said (paraphrasing) “we should try new things and push the envelope, like what if we did Axis & Allies … and ZOMBIES?” As it turns out, we had been bouncing that idea around the office for years, so that little nudge was all we needed to put together a team to do some exploratory design. As it turns out, it didn’t take us long to figure out that we were onto something really fun.

I almost think that Chris Cocks said the Zombie bit as a joke, and everyone just kind of went with it. I was expecting some well-thought out plan about bringing in a younger audience but this is just silly.

Scott Van Essen Said:

Initial design went for several months. We would try new mechanics for a couple games or even just a few turns. We very quickly got to the core three mechanics (destroyed units turn into zombies, cards drop zombies all over the map, and the zombie attack dice). The first two went through several iterations I’ll discuss in more detail later. The dice were almost unchanged from Ryan’s brain to the box. At first, the zombie dice had two ‘A’ sides, two ‘D’ sides, and two blank sides. That was a bit too lethal, and we strongly considered going to 8- or 12-sided dice to adjust. We realized that having a bias against the attacker brought the lethality level down to the right spot and set us up for my favorite dichotomy—that zombies are helpful to the defender in the short term, but harmful in the long term.

Honestly, I would have probably preferred the added “lethality” (which is not a real word, apparently). It would have certainly gone a ways towards accomplishing the stated goal of “breaking the typical A&A stalemate”.

Scott Van Essen Said:

There wasn’t nearly enough cost to having zombies everywhere. I wanted there to be a constant risk and drain on your resources when they were around and for players to need to clear them out. We added the zombie attack phase and put an IPC symbol on the dice. Now, when the zombies attacked, if they hit a D, they hit your troops, but if they hit an IPC, you lost the money, representing the economic damage that comes from zombies in your town. This was a fantastic concept but an awful execution. First, it was very fiddly. You’re constantly making change and taking IPCs away one at a time. The second was that it created weird situations where zombies could drain you for more than the value of the territory they were occupying. I wrestled with this problem for a while before I got to the idea of zombies capturing territories. This was one of those moments where the game crystalizes. Whole sections of rules evaporated as we realized that we could rely on the systems that the core game provided to us…

It’s a shame they didn’t study the “core rules” more, because they could have saved themselves a lot of grief by basing the Zombies off the Convoy Rules from G40. Something like having each Zombie in a territory lower its IPC value by 1, up to the value of the territory. Again, this would have helped “speed up and streamline” the game, as the income levels of each country would be crippled quickly if the Zombies were left unchecked.

Scott Van Essen said:

She and Creative Director Shauna Narciso looked to take the best elements from previous versions of the game, but they were particularly excited by the Revised Edition (2004) map with its bold colors, rich palate, and strong easy to read lines.

At least the graphic designers had good taste. Revised has the best map aesthetic in the series, hands-down. Zombies is close, but the stupid blood splotches kill it for me.

Scott Van Essen said:

This felt so obviously right that we initially tried to get by with only that mechanic. Unfortunately this led to way too many Zombies on the German-Russian Front and in East Asia, and far too few Zombies everywhere else. So, we made zombies only come from Infantry units rather than all types, which got us to the correct generation rate, and we added card-based deployment of zombies to spread them all over the map and push players to fight everywhere.

Funny that the problem with the Ostfront and mainland Asia still plagues the finished product and is a huge component of the overall balance problem with this game. Perhaps they should have done a bit more balance tweaking prior to launch.

Scott Van Essen Said:

Our creative direction on the game was that these were not “viral/infectious zombies”, but instead were “dark magic” zombies, so the second iteration of the cards had the concept of portals to the underworld that were popping up all over the world. Each of these portals had a 1-in-6 chance of spawning a zombie each turn, and the zombies could spill over into adjacent territories. This required additional pieces and a lot more rules, but more importantly the play was wrong. Instead of players rushing to portals to close them, they just wrote that territory off as forever lost.

Given that the mere existence of the Zombies got half the community’s panties (am I allowed to say “panties”?) in a collective knot, I wonder how bad the outrage would have been if they actually went with this concept. It sounds like something straight out of DOOM.

The other aborted ideas here make me think that the finished product is so much better than what we could have wound up with.

I’d like a map/scenario editor myself. I’ve tried for ages to get the one in TripleA working but I’ve never had much luck. Probably my own fault for being too lazy to look up a guide or ask for help, though.

screenshot for reference:

I already tried using different JVMs on my local (JRE6/JRE7 but it looks like TripleA will only run with the baked-in version of JRE that it ships with (which seems to be a modified JRE7). I don’t have the source code for TripleA so I don’t have any more helpful information. Trying “Report to TripleA” gave me a link to the following thread:

https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/10031

Interestingly, the github thread notes that the problem was resolved but with a caveat:

The effect of this fix is:

* You still can't post on current NodeBB-versions
* You now cannot even start PBF games in current stable as after entering PBF-details you get back to 2.5.22294: NodeBbTokenGenerator#checkUser:104 - java.lang.ClassCastException #10031

* As a consequence players can no longer use any workaround as they cannot even use MARTI dice.

We are trying to use the MARTI dice server in this game but other games on this site are using those same dice so I don’t see why it would be an issue here and not anywhere else.

Only other symptom I’m getting that might be useful is that, when I try to click links from within TripleA, I get errors like the following:

(1/2)

Got this one when trying to click a hyperlink from within the program.

(2/2)

Got this one when trying the “View Forum” button in the game menu.

If you need anything else from me that might be helpful LMK.

People will say it’s too dicey (and they have a point, it can very easily go pear-shaped for you if you get unlikely rolls. Battle calc gives you 58% chance of success (all of the Nazis die and at least one Soviet survives), 24% of failure (all of the Soviets die and some Nazi surface-vessel survives), and 18% chance of partial failure (all Soviets dead, all Nazi surface-vessels dead, Nazi transports survive)).

I make a similar play R1 in 42SE to destroy the Baltic Fleet and make it impossible for Germany to take Leningrad G1. I imagine you’re going for the same sort of idea here, since Leningrad is both a Victory City and contains a Factory, so delaying Germany access to both, even if it’s just for one turn, can mean the difference between dying to a Moscow crush and UK/US air units arriving in Moscow in time to survive into the late game.

I guess you need to evaluate how your opponents typically open the game, and how much of a bid you’re giving the Allies. If you can get a high enough bid, an extra Fighter pretty much makes this opening strategy 100% safe (~92% chance of success).

@Argothair

It isn’t. At least OOB Revised is better. It takes a 7 bid to Axis OOB to balance Revised. It’s taken 10 Years of house-rules to make G40 something even remotely resembling balanced, and there’s still no clear consensus on how to solve the Axis-bias the game has. IIRC Siredblood and the 42 scenario are the only ones that are even close.

Balance aside, I like being able to finish a game in under 5 hours.

To G40’s credit, the larger, more detailed map gives way to more strategic options for casual play (I say casual play because there’s only one truly relevant strategy from what I’ve observed, Italy-Germany can-opener your way to Moscow while Japan spams Aircraft Carriers to accommodate it’s massive starting air force).

Another point in G40’s favor (again due to the massive and detailed map), is that the possibilities for customizing/house-ruling the game are endless. That’s probably why no other A&A Game since (42SE, 1914, zombies) has been able to replace G40 as the community’s favorite.

@thrasher1 said in Thoughts on the Scott Van Essen (Lead Developer for AAZ) Interviews:

Regarding Event Cards: I personally would like to see an Events Cards expansion for the standard version of Axis and Allies. For now this is A&A 1942 Second Edition of course.
My friends and I thought about this in the early days (1990s) a lot. Why not simply add a deck of cards to the game. Would be rather cheap to produce by MB/Hasbro.

I have the opposite opinion of you, but that’s only because I have a bias against event cards in war games. I do understand that several successful war games (Memoir 44, etc.) use cards as an integral part of their design, so I get where you’re coming from.

If we’re going to talk about the G40 line, I might as well throw out my personal wish. Give us a 1939 (or even 1936) scenario. I love the idea of having a few turns to prepare for the war in your own way, as opposed to being handed a largely predetermined set of units by the developers.

It would let you explore zany what-if scenarios to your heart’s content, too.

@panther Panther,

Using the latest github build worked. Thanks for the quick feedback.

Sorry for not checking the support subforum before asking you directly.

@Argothair:

To really boil down your advice, you’re saying to skip the attack on the British Home Fleet and the American Pacific fleet in favor of sending maximum Axis air toward the center of the board

Center board pressure, yup.
Only exception to the whole “not hitting the UK Home Fleet” bit is that I make sure to dive on the SZ12 Fleet (The DD/CRU pair). Taking that out gives the UK one less bombardment, gives Italy a chance to get its “clear the Mediterranean” NO, and might make the US think twice before storming Morocco US1.

Anyway, onto the nitpicks/discussion:

@Argothair:

Britain can pretty easily bring 4 land units + 3 air + 2 bombards to attack France.

That’s true, but think of the typical Allied strategy in AA50. Most players try to land in Norway and drop an IC there. If UK is spending its time diving on France it delays this factory until they decide to divert the resources needed to occupy it.

Additionally, devoting everything 100% to a France landing B1 implies letting the Baltic Fleet and surviving German Subs live. If UK does this and Germany landed its air force in-range you could be looking at a pretty bloody G2 attack on the UK Fleet (unless UK buys like a CV or some other big naval force B1).

I’m not saying that leaving France in shoddy shape is necessarily a good idea either, and I definitely see the downsides of having to tether a 10+ INF/1-2 FTR stack to France for most of the game.  It really does take away from the Russian front if I can’t cripple the Soviets economically in the first 2-3 turns.

Holding France isn’t 100% necessary either. It sucks if I don’t have enough punch to retake it on G4/G5, but if Moscow falls round 5 and the Allies are in France/Italy, that still should come up an Axis win once either:
A: Germany takes Russia’s lunch money and builds a massive land force in Europe.
B: Japan’s tank stacks flood into Europe to save Germany’s bacon.

@Argothair:

Second, it’s not clear to me that you can kill the British Indian fleet J1 AND shut down China hard AND and take India on J2.

Fair warning before I describe my order of battle here, bids change this strategy completely. I probably wouldn’t recommend something that’s basically a cheese in a tournament setting with bids because an experienced player would definitely recognize that India is a key position that the British need to hold at all costs if they want to keep Japan’s income from exploding.

Fair warning #2, the image I’m looking at for the setup is blurry, so forgive me if I get the SZ #s wrong (I try to describe the physical location).

That being said:
J1:

• Most of the East Indies Fleet (CV/BB/1 FTR, the other FTR is going to Yuunan), FTR from SZ51 (Caroline Islands) Vs. India Fleet (DD/CV/FTR), idea is to do this battle last and take casualties based on how other battles go (i.e. if everything else went perfectly take the ships as casualties to maximize available planes, if things went poorly elsewhere keep the navy around to transition into a normal Japan game.  Calc says 92% chance of attacker win with 1-2 casualties expected for attacker.

• Manchuria INF, 1 Kisangu INF (2 leftover), Japan FTR (it can’t reach Burma anyway) (Total: 3 INF, 1 FTR) Vs. Suiyuan (2 INF).  Calc says 94% chance attacker wins. At least one INF should survive. Yes, I know this means completely abandoning Manchuria to the USSR for a turn, but unlike older versions of A&A the Soviets gain 0 IPCs from attacking Manchuria, just one extra Chinese INF and the temporary deprivation of Japan’s NOs if they fail to counterattack the following round. In fact, I want the Russians to come at Asia as hard as they can because it means those 6-8 INF (possibly more if they funnel troops into Persia or Western China) won’t be in Moscow/Stalingrad when they’ll be direly needed rounds 3/4.

• 2 Kisangu INF (the other went to Suiyuan, see above bullet point), Manchuria FTR (Total: 2 INF, 1 FTR) Vs. Hupeh (1 INF). 98% Attacker.

• Transport from Japan picks up INF+Tank, BB from Japan, CRU from Philippines -> SZ61 (South China Sea), Kwangtung INF + Transport + bombard (Total: 2 INF, 1 Tank, 1 BB, 1 CRU) Vs. 1 Fukien (1 INF). 99% Attacker.

• FIC (2 INF, 1 FTR), Japan Bomber, Formosa FTR (Formosa->SZ61->Fukien->Yuunan->NCM to Burma), SZ36 (East Indies, the rest of the fleet engaged the Indian Navy) FTR (SZ36->SZ37->Burma->Yuunan->NCM to Burma) (Total: 2 INF, 3 FTR, 1 Bomber) Vs. Yuunan (2 INF, 1 FTR).  Calc says 99% chance Attacker win with 4 units surviving. If I get lucky I won’t lose 2 units but I’m not afraid to sacrifice a FTR or two to keep China down.

End result (key territories):

• Burma: 1 INF, 5 FTR (one from Manchuria, one from Formosa, one from FIC, two from SZ36 (East Indies), 1 Bomber.

• SZ35 (India): 1BB, 0-1CV, 0-1FTR (the FTR from SZ51 (Caroline Islands)).

• Manchuria: Empty.

• SZ61 (Off China): 1 TT, 1 BB, 1 CRU, potentially other ships.

• Fukien: 0-2 INF, 1 Tank

• FIC: IC from buy.

J2 you’re looking at 1 INF, 5 FTR, 1 Bomber Vs. whatever UK brought to India. If UK swings absolutely everything in range like you suggest (3 INF/1 AA from India, +1 INF from Persia, +1 FTR from Egypt, +1 FTR from Australia), then India will hold until J3 (1 INF from before + 2 tanks from FIC (J2 buy) + the IJN transporting the land units from Fukien + bombard will overrun whatever UK can possibly bring).

So it may have been a bit bold of me to suggest that India will “definitely fall by J2,” but it is possible if UK’s priorities lie elsewhere.

As for the strategy being “unstoppable,” I’d hardly call my plan unstoppable, but it does have a certain appeal to it if the first 2 rounds go smoothly.

Axis are considered to have a massive advantage over the Allies by experienced players. The imbalance is so great in the Axis’ favor that the community has spent the better part of the last decade crafting alternate rulesets, setups, and strategies in an effort to combat this, which has only been partially successful.

I’ll let others comment on the specifics (and there are several stickied threads discussing those specifics), but in-general:

• Germany - Kill France turn 1, but move most of your units towards the border with the USSR. Build Tanks, Mechs, and Air Units. Try concentrating your units in one or two main groups rather than spreading them thinly. From turn 2 on advance your main army one-tile-at-a-time through Russia. Generally speaking, follow one of these paths:

  Path A: “North”: Eastern Poland -> Belarus -> Smolensk -> Russia
  Path B: “South”: Eastern Poland -> Western Ukraine -> Bryansk -> Russia

  This plan, if uninterrupted, will win you the game by turn 4/5, long before USA’s economy can make any serious impact on the game.

  The main force should not concern itself with territories like Novogrod (Stalingrad), Eastern Ukraine (factory location) and Volvograd (Stalingrad). Send minor detachments to scoop up those locations as you make a beeline for Moscow. You will be assisted in your mission by the Italians (see below), who will take territories before your main army, allowing you to Non-Combat-Move your planes along with your army.

• Italy - Largely ignore the Mediterranean Theatre. Instead, focus on building Mech and Tank units, which will make a beeline towards Moscow on the same path I described above for Germany. What Italy is going to want to do is kill the lone Infantry units standing in the territories blocking your path. If this is not possible (because the Soviets put their entire army in said “next territory”), the Italians can simply hold their position for the round, and the Germans can destroy the main Soviet army with their far superior numbers/strength. Aside from this, Italy’s job is to make the best use of its starting navy to defend itself against Allied attacks.

• Japan - Kill Calcutta and occupy the Philippines/Dutch Islands (modern day Indonesia) as quickly as possible, largely ignoring the Chinese Theatre. By accomplishing this, you eliminate the only true threat you face on land in your region, the UK Pacific Economy (as the Chinese units can’t leave China and can only build Infantry and Artillery). Doing this while also scooping up the islands I mentioned above greatly boosts Japan’s economy to such a drastic extent that they will be nearly on-par with the Americans, allowing them to build a steady stream of Aircraft Carriers to house the incredibly large number of planes they begin the game with.

  Once Japan is making ~as much money as the USA, they can move out their navy in the direction of ANZAC (or Cairo, if the European Axis haven’t managed to take that territory). More often than not Japan will win the game on the Pacific board by occupying Calcutta, Sidney, and Honolulu, provided that Germany doesn’t win first by knocking out the Soviets.

@655321 said in Thoughts on the Scott Van Essen (Lead Developer for AAZ) Interviews:

Good questions, I’m going to give them a shot.

@DoManMacgee said in Thoughts on the Scott Van Essen (Lead Developer for AAZ) Interviews:

• Did WOTC know/care/acknowledge that releasing AAZ has caused a rift in the community?

I didn’t see any acknowledgement of this in the interview. I’m speculating that they knew and didn’t care.

Sadly, this is my take as well. All “we” got was a slight nod at the end of the interview. Something about a “focus test group” or whatever. I imagine that was the party that DJensen and others attended a while back.

The attitude for this makes sense, though. Casual buyers make up a far greater portion of the sales figures for these games than the dedicated crowd.

• Did the game actually sell well (I doubt we’ll ever get a true answer to this)?

The closest thing I can find is on Amazon dot com, where as of today 2/9/19, AAZ is rated #616 in the top selling board games category. By comparison, here are rankings for other AA games:

AA50 reissue is currently ranked #314 in the top selling board games category.
AA Europe 1940 2nd edition is #1,059.
AA 1942 2nd edition is #1,102.

So Zombies seems to be about the middle of the pack right now. It was probably selling faster when it was first released. I’m not surprised AA50 reissue is still selling more, that one’s the best.

Are Amazon’s metric’s based on a time frame or on “all time” sales figures?

I was intrigued by these stats, so I took some of my own (for today, 2/11/2019):
41: “#243 in Toys & Games > Games > Board Games”
AA50: “#367 in Toys & Games > Games > Board Games”
AAZ: “#663 in Toys & Games > Games > Board Games”
42SE: “#743 in Toys & Games > Games > Board Games”

E402E: “#1,164 in Toys & Games > Games > Board Games”
1914: "#1,178 in Toys & Games > Games > Board Games "
421E: “#10,132 in Toys & Games > Games > Board Games”
P401E: “#13,821 in Toys & Games > Games > Board Games”

I didn’t bother with the spin-offs or AAC/Revised (because all of them predate Amazon being a major player in shipping/eCommerce)

I also didn’t bother with P40 2E or E40 1E, as E40 2E and P40 1E outsold their counterparts and are thus the better representative of “G40/G402E” as a whole.

Depressingly, this shows that 41 is the king of the hill as far as pure sales numbers go. However, AA50 has amazing sales numbers (especially given that it’s a limited release item), so I’m hopeful that the next A&A edition will be a 42 3rd edition or something like that. On the scale of AA50.

• Is A&A dead?

I bet sales are up right now across the entire AA franchise thanks to AAZ.

Based on the sales figures from earlier, I don’t think you’re wrong.

• Is A&A condemned to exist only in the form gimmick-laden and/or “casual-friendly” editions forever?

Remember that AA50 reissue is the hottest selling AA game right now, and that’s hardly a gimmicky/casual version.

41 would like to have a word with you. AAZ may also surpass AA50 if it’s sales numbers continue to climb.

However, I think that comparing 41 and AAZ to the other A&A games is partially unfair. Those two benefit from:

• Lower price tag ($40 USD compared to 60+ for other editions)
• Presence in major retailers (Wal-Mart, Target, most bookstores, etc. have dozens of copies of 41 and AAZ lying around).

AFAIK, no other (recent) game in the franchise has has presence in major retailers, instead being condemned to hobby shops.

I doubt Avalon Hill will try to compete with the depth and complexity of Global War 1939, But after releasing AAZ they will probably revisit a more complex/traditional game in the lineup, maybe do an AA1942 3rd edition, or maybe an AAG 1940 3rd edition.

I feel that a 42TE is more likely. That or something ambitious like “A&A 39”. Who doesn’t want to relive the myth of German Tanks gunning down Polish Calvary (this obviously never happened but is perceived as fact by pop culture).

I don’t expect (or want) WOTC to attempt to compete with GW36/39. There’s just no point and no profit to be made from it.

I also read somewhere that Avalon Hill wants to publish a new AA console/computer video game. I’m guessing it would be simpler than AAG 1940. Would an AA game on the Xbox/PS be embraced or rejected by the hardcore wargamer crowd? Would it be popular with the casual console gamer crowd and maybe bring some of them deeper into the wargaming scene?

I read that it was a planned release for mobile/tablets. Not consoles.

• How did WOTC balance the game?

They claim to have done lots of playtesting but I think the Axis have an advantage thanks to the rule that only 1 capital needs to be captured to win.

The rules say that 1 captured capital ends the game, and Moscow is usually captured easily. I quickly implemented a house rule that says 2 capitals need to be captured to win. This gives more balance and the allies are more likely to win this way (it also gives the zombies a bigger chance to win), but it increases the game time by at least a few hours. I think Avalon Hill did the 1 capital wins rule to keep it light, short, and accessible. The AAZ rulebook invites bringing in rules from other games in the AA franchise so I think a 2 capitals wins house rule is a good way for more experienced players to go.

I disagree with your balance assessments based on games I’ve played, but I’ve only played about 15 games so far (and two of those were before I had a 100% grasp on the rules). That’s far from enough to make an assertion one way or the other.

@djensen said in [Q&A with Axis & Allies Online Developers, Beamdog]:

Were there any interesting challenges about building this game that you would like to share?

@Cody said:

One of the largest challenges the team faced was how to approach implementing a lot of the finer and explicit rules like Fighter and Aircraft Carrier obligations. To paraphrase, In Axis & Allies 1942 2nd Edition, players need to ensure that when Fighters are committed to a movement or combat, that they have a valid location to land. Normally in 1942 2nd Edition, players need to pre-establish where their Fighters will land, especially if the unit they are landing on has not been mobilized yet. Creating a digital version of this, this very quickly become a logistical nightmare. The easier solution would have been to limit player options behind the scenes, but to new players who are still unfamiliar with the rules, that was not an immediately readable or understandable solution, so we had to rework how we handle everything behind the scenes in order to showcase to players why they could or couldn’t do something with a unit, be it a fighter or even just an Infantry.

@Trent said:

Early in the development of the game we did an analysis of the rules and plotted out how the user interface would work in most cases. Then we hit transports. From an interaction mechanic, transports are exceptionally involved. Not only can you move a transport during the combat round, but you can initiate an amphibious assault through an occupied sea zone, but only if you win the sea zone battle. From a state management and combat scheduling standpoint this starts to get complicated. When you add in the possibility of the transport carrying an Anti Aircraft Artillery and attempting an amphibious assault and the other unit dying in the assault, the AAA cannot win the combat, creating a complex rules scenario. The joy of written rules and exceptions is they can be easily interpreted by people when playing the board game. The complexity of building a simulation which can deal with all the edge cases and potential odd outcomes continues to grow over time. Additionally, the challenge of creating a capable Artificial Intelligence player who can comprehend those rules and play them well is daunting.

Sounds like they could have just hit up the TripleA Devs, haha. That’d probably be a legal nightmare, though.

@the_good_captain
Game History

Round: 1

    Puchase Units - Italians
        Italians buy 1 fighter and 2 infantry; Remaining resources: 2 PUs; 

    Combat Move - Italians
        1 infantry moved from Somaliland to British East Africa
        1 artillery and 1 infantry moved from Libya to SZ 17
        1 artillery and 1 infantry moved from SZ 17 to Albania
              Italians take Albania from Neutral_Allied
        2 artilleries and 3 infantry moved from Venice to Tuscany
        2 artilleries and 6 infantry moved from Piedmont to Tuscany
        2 artilleries and 6 infantry moved from Rome to Tuscany
        1 infantry moved from Naples to Tuscany

    Combat - Italians
        Italians creates battle in territory Venice
        Battle in Venice
            Italians attack with 1 infantry
            AustroHungarians defend with 3 artilleries and 6 infantry
                Italians roll dice for 1 infantry in Venice, round 2 : 1/1 hits, 0.33 expected hits
                AustroHungarians roll dice for 3 artilleries and 6 infantry in Venice, round 2 : 3/9 hits, 4.50 expected hits
                1 infantry owned by the AustroHungarians and 1 infantry owned by the Italians lost in Venice
            AustroHungarians win with 3 artilleries and 5 infantry remaining. Battle score for attacker is 0
            Casualties for Italians: 1 infantry
            Casualties for AustroHungarians: 1 infantry

    Combat Move - Italians
        Turning on Edit Mode
        EDIT: Adding units owned by Italians to Venice: 1 infantry
        EDIT: Adding units owned by AustroHungarians to Venice: 1 infantry
        EDIT: Turning off Edit Mode

    Place Units - Italians
        1 fighter and 2 infantry placed in Rome

    Turn Complete - Italians
        Italians collect 14 PUs; end with 16 PUs

Combat Hit Differential Summary :

Italians regular : 0.67
AustroHungarians regular : -1.50

Like I said over IM, I screwed up and misclicked when trying to swap out the Italian INF for a Neutral one to avoid combat in Venice. I edited the Italian and AH INF back in during NCM Phase.

Like with B/F, will post save after USA1.

@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Has Anyone Played This ?:

2. Its hex based system

That’s a point of interest in and of itself. In A&A Hexes only appeared in Battle of the Bulge but most wargames use them, so they’re not completely alien to me. Are there bonuses in combat for flanking the enemy or penalties for moving your units into the enemy’s “Zone of Control”?

Adding to the above is the introduction of a Cobra “Weather Dominator”, allowing to turn hexes with water into ice (i.e land) hexes at the cost of 1 reinforcement point (basically IPCs). They’re generally used to faciliate the land movement of Cobra-Destro units and bridge areas.

This seems neat. Good gimmick to make games more dynamic.

One huge change that I’m still getting used to is that ships, aircraft, and land units occupy hexes that contain both land and water together, attacking and defending with each other (with some small exceptions). As such, amphibious assaults are made with ships and land units fighting together, and most battles (especially over islands) are conducted with all air, land, and sea units fighting together.

Yeah that one sounds very strange. Land units being able to freely shoot at ships seems very off.

The unit selection

The asynchronous units sound very interesting. Honestly I wish the mainline A&A games did this as the different powers were better at different things during the IRL WW2 (the North Africa game seems like a step in the right direction with different stats for different nations’ units (compare the tanks between the different sides for an easy example).

Infantry work in the exact same way, but they only cost 2 reinforcement points, so it’s easier to spam.

Probably not a good thing but the stacking limit might somewhat mitigate the usefulness of spamming outside of blocking.

Each side has national advantages (although they’re not called that), encouraging certain moves.

Are they optional rules or mandatory?

All powers have a base, which essentially acts as their capital, which is where all units a power buys are placed (with some minor exceptions) and the capture of one base on the other side instantly leads to victory for the capturing power. Interestingly each side has a “shared” base, where units from two powers on the same side can be placed.

I know basically nothing about GI Joe other than the absolute bare basics. Is the game 2v2 or is their an uneven number of powers (example: most A&A games are 3v2 (R/B/A Vs. G/J)?

There are 2 ways to win: Capturing bases (I would compare this to a capital capture in normal games) or getting enough victory points from the board, the latter of which is both the most likely scenario of victory and similar to an economic victory in some Axis and Allies house rules.
Classic has economic victory as one of its official win conditions (for Axis) and its probably my favorite victory condition in the series. Big plus for me there.

4. It’s pretty fun. The round limits and victory conditions keep the games short and avoid the kind of prolonged deaths losing powers in Global 1940 experience. The changes provide an interesting twist, while what’s kept from other games make it easy for returning players to understand the rules.

If the game reaches the round limit and no one wins with one of the previously stated methods (capital/economic), how is the winner determined? Is it a draw?

5. I would put it in between 1941 and 1942. Definitely one of the simpler Axis and Allies games. Probably most similar to D-Day of the games I’ve played in terms of complexity.

Sorry to ask a follow-up on this one, but to narrow the scale to the “lighter” A&A games, which of the following (assuming you’ve played them) would you say this is closest to (complexity-wise). Disregard the actual quality of the games. I’m only asking about scale/complexity here:

41
Zombies
Classic
Revised/42 1st Edition
OG Europe
42 2nd Edition
OG Pacific

EDIT: Sorry, butchered my original post because I typed it on my phone. Hopefully this is more readable.

@Xlome_00 If America goes 100% KGF Japan wins on the Pacific board in 5-6 rounds. I can’t go into specifics because I don’t play G40 competitively but this is the typical experience from everything I’ve seen regarding the game.

@taamvan You’re assuming that US goes full 100% KJF. While I prefer that route myself in most A&A games, most players don’t go that route.

I think the larger culprit behind the issue you’re getting at (Japan doesn’t have enough income to fund a steady stream of land units to the mainland) is that it’s crippling for Japan to not be allowed to build a mainland IC. In basically every other A&A game, Japan builds an IC in either Manchuria or the equivalent of Kwangtung. That side-steps the issue of Japan needing to waste money on Transports.

If I had to make up a Japan strategy for AAZ on the fly, I’d gamble on an all-in after India. If Japan can take India it can use the Recruitment Center there to produce INF. 2 INF/Turn isn’t much, but it’s units you don’t have to waste transports on.

However, as @Striker points out, we are in agreement that Japan’s weak start is a major factor in the massive advantage the Allies have in this edition. I also agree with your notion that the Zombie Attrition decimates Japan’s starting forces in a few turns. That’s why I suggested giving ART to the Manchuria and FIC stacks. That would be enough to lower the Zombie count on Japan’s front yard (if the Japan player is willing to take the ART as casualties before the INF during strafe attempts on R1/B1). The lower initial Zombie count would in turn preserve Japan’s starting strength, which would give them more expansion routes in the opening rounds (a faster takedown of China or a takedown of India would help push their income into relevancy).

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.

@the_good_captain These attempts at sniping fringe territories really aren’t going my way…

Game History

Round: 2

    Puchase Units - French
        French buy 2 artilleries and 7 infantry; Remaining resources: 0 PUs; 

    Combat Move - French
        1 artillery and 4 infantry moved from Portugal to SZ 14
        1 infantry moved from Spanish Morocco to SZ 14
        1 infantry moved from Gold Coast to Togoland
              French take Togoland from Germans
        1 infantry moved from Tunisia to Libya
        1 artillery, 5 infantry and 3 transports moved from SZ 14 to SZ 17
        1 artillery and 5 infantry moved from SZ 17 to Piedmont
        4 artilleries, 1 fighter and 13 infantry moved from Burgundy to Piedmont
        1 infantry moved from Picardy to Burgundy
        1 fighter and 6 infantry moved from Paris to Burgundy
        1 artillery and 2 infantry moved from Belgium to Ruhr
        4 artilleries and 13 infantry moved from Belgium to Picardy

    Combat - French
        Battle in Piedmont
            French attack with 5 artilleries, 1 fighter and 18 infantry
            Germans defend with 1 infantry
                French roll dice for 5 artilleries, 1 fighter and 18 infantry in Piedmont, round 2 : 8/24 hits, 10.50 expected hits
                Germans roll dice for 1 infantry in Piedmont, round 2 : 1/1 hits, 0.50 expected hits
                1 infantry owned by the Germans and 1 infantry owned by the French lost in Piedmont
            French win, taking Piedmont from Germans with 5 artilleries, 1 fighter and 17 infantry remaining. Battle score for attacker is 0
            Casualties for French: 1 infantry
            Casualties for Germans: 1 infantry
        Battle in Ruhr
            French attack with 1 artillery and 2 infantry
            Germans defend with 1 infantry
                French roll dice for 1 artillery and 2 infantry in Ruhr, round 2 : 0/3 hits, 1.33 expected hits
                Germans roll dice for 1 infantry in Ruhr, round 2 : 1/1 hits, 0.50 expected hits
                1 infantry owned by the French lost in Ruhr
            Germans and French reach a stalemate
            . Battle score for attacker is -3
            Casualties for French: 1 infantry

    Combat Move - French

    Place Units - French
        2 artilleries and 7 infantry placed in Paris

    Turn Complete - French
        French collect 30 PUs; end with 30 PUs

Combat Hit Differential Summary :

French regular : -3.83
Germans regular : 1.00

B2 next.