Posts made by kaufschtick

@superbattleshipyamato said in Is it more accurate?:

I’m deciding whether to buy the game. I’m planning on buying it on one condition:

That it’s more accurate than Axis and Allies.

Axis and Allies is great, but there are many glaring inaccuracies in the game compared to real life (give heavy tank options!).

So is War Room more accuarate than that game? I see these games as shocholarly tools to investigate realistic what ifs for World War 2. To do that, the settings and mechanisms have to be realistic, and the game looks promising.

If this isn’t what I’mlooking for, do you have any good ideas? Thank you!

The short answer in my opinion is, yes.

It is more accurate, more representational, and a more realistic model of the situation.

@Sean.C:

Lets say it’s a KJF game, or at least it starts out that way.� � Japan takes India on J2 with it’s starting fleet and starting land units from islands and the mainland, and has been buying subs since J1 (5 at a time).� � What can US do to counter a mass amount of Japanese subs?� � Then once the US fleet in the pacific is gone, and there are 15 Japanese subs parked in SZ56, how do you get back into the fight?� �

How you get back in the fight after a start like that is to start a new game.

If the US Pacific fleet is gone, and Japan has been buying 5 subs a turn on J1 through J3, and you lost India on J2, then that strange noise you’re hearing in the background would most likely be the proverbial fat lady singing.

We played our 1st two games yesterday and the night before, both Axis wins. Still too early for me to say with any confidence about the game balance though. It’s a new game, with a  new set up and it’s going to take quite a few playings to exhaust all the ideas I saw from our first 2 games before I can start to make a call on game balance.

Certainly, reading the experiences of others in their games on here is something I watch closely until I feel I’ve seen enough myself through actually playing the game. My drinking partner Tim & myself logged about 150 actual playing hours on PAC40 before we sent in a final verdict on that one (OOB). We wound up playing about 18-19 hours the past two days. Another 5-6 game sessions like that usually lays it all out, one way or the other.

To be honest, the VC conditions seem doable in this version. We played total victory (which we almost always do), but the 9/10 VC conditions seem to offer another route to pursue.

@jim010:

I would understand that if there was enough time to complete games to give feedback.  A chance to find the best strategies and then see if there are counters.  At this rate, we will end up with another unbalanced game.

I went out to Dayton a week and a half ago, played a game of the (then) Alpha+1.0 with my drinking amigo Tim. The game took us some 20 hours to finish (lots and lots of beer drinking - Axis win), and when I got back home in Columbus, I looked online and the Alpha+1.0 set up had changed already!

I’ve been trying to keep up with things on the Harris site, but man, things are changing faster than I can keep up with.

We’re just kinda hangong back now, waiting to see if the Alpha+1.0 “express” thing finally comes rolling to a stop sometime soon.  :-D

For the record, we like the Alpha + 1.0 better than the OOB version, by far.

Good Luck on the revision work Larry! :-)

@knp7765:

I have a few thoughts.  First, I LOVE the new scramble rules.  I always thought it was silly that airbases that weren’t on islands couldn’t scramble.  The limit of 3 ftrs or tacs is good too.  No one should be allowed to scramble 10+ planes.  The new rules for British territories is much better.

Agreed. :-)

@knp7765:

The new Axis victory conditions I’m not so sure about.  I like that it does make the Allies deal with Japan and not just pour everything into Europe and ignore Japan.  However, it seems odd to me that Germany and Italy could get smashed by the Allies yet Japan grabs 6 Victory Cities and it is an Axis victory.  If you think about it, that’s not too big of a stretch for Japan.  They start the game with two, then Manila, Hong Kong and Honolulu are within Japan’s grasp which would give them 5, although admittedly Honolulu would be somewhat tougher with the US fleet in the way.  After that, they just need 1 more city to win.  San Francisco is nearly impossible unless the USA player really screws up.  However, Sydney and Calcutta are very possible, especially since by this time Japan should be making some major $$$.  I still think they should have to hold it for 1 full round however.

We’ll see how the new victory conditions pan out. At first glance, I like it. The global game should be just that, global. To iggy the Pacific and go KGF…well, why not just skip your game of global and just play the European side? Global means global, so I like what I’m seeing with that.

@knp7765:

One rule change I don’t understand is the AA guns being removed if that territory is captured.  Why?  I don’t understand the reasoning for this one.

AA guns have gone from being a complex defense against strategic bombing raids to being an additional land game piece more representing AA defences for Army units. I don’t understand why they didn’t make this change long ago. I like it.

@knp7765:

Two things I definitely disagree with are the Major IC rule and the Submarine rule. 
First, the Major ICs.  I can understand not allowing players to build brand new Major ICs on foreign territories (eg.  USA on Norway).  My problem is not being able to upgrade a captured IC from minor to major.  That part doesn’t make sense to me.  Say Germany pulls off Sealion and captures UK.  The UK IC gets downgraded to minor.  Why wouldn’t Germany be able to upgrade that IC back to major.  For one thing, Germany would still have to pay the 20 IPCs to do it, which would negate some of the plunder they got from capturing London.  Also, if any country captured a major IC that wasn’t an enemy capital, like USA capturing Western Germany or Northern Italy, they wouldn’t even get any plunder IPCs but would still have to pay the 20 IPCs to upgrade.  Secondly, it seems to me if you are holding such valuable enemy territory, you would be able to make use of it’s resources for your war effort and thus be able to upgrade the IC from minor to major.

I agree completely with the new rule. Even if a country captured a valuable center for production from an enemy, they still produced all their major armaments in their own country. It is ridiculous for Japan to be able to produce major fleet units out of Singapore, and likewise for the US to do the same in Norway. As far as I’m concerned, allowing minor complexes is a stretch, so the new restriction on major complexes is completely justifiable. I like this new rule too.

@knp7765:

As for the new Submarine rule, that makes even less sense to me.  Say you are commanding a submarine and along comes some enemy transports loaded with troops and equipment all by themselves with no enemy warships guarding them.  You aren’t going to take a shot at them?   When there are no warships to harass you?  COME ON!    Troop transports should be escorted by at least one warship.  The original rule forced players to commit escorts for their transports or suffer the consequences.  Plus, there is no guarantee that the sub’s shot will hit any of your transports since they still only hit on 2 or less.  I don’t think repealing this rule was a good idea.

I like this rule too. Submarines in WWII were not used, nor were they any good in defense. They were an attack weapon. Allowing the defense shot allowed players to use subs to defend land territories against amphibious invasion unrealistically. Submarines should be restricted to being used offensively in their own players turn. I agree with this change too. :-)

A very interesting discussion here, and a very good point on the strategic bombers vs ships sidebar.

As far as the minor IC in Egypt, I am in agreement that the British need to get past the spector of Sea Lion before they can entertain thoughts of a minor IC in Egypt. Then there is the possibility that said minor IC could be seized by the Italians.

AAG is bigger and longer than AAP, and we’re only getting half as many reps in on the game as we did with AAP. That & the Pacific side setup went from the Chinese Menu to AFR to Alpha. So we’re just now getting steadied up on the alpha set up and begining to record some plays with AAG.

So back to the Egyptian minor IC, it has come to our attention as well, but the situation in North Africa and elsewhere have so far conspired to keep anyone from placing one there.

Aside from that, the British already have their S. African IC. That complex, along with a transport, works really well for the British. We’ve even seen the British transport from India move over to the S. African complex to help move the troops north much more rapidly than by just the one lone transport.

As far as the strategic bombers, I agree with the poster who commented that it depends on the aircrafts payload. This game is too abstract to try to make any hard conclusions as to what exact type of aircraft are being represented and what their capabilities would then be.

The American B-25 & B-26, the German Ju-88 & Japanese Betty are good examples of aircraft that were capable of performing a wide variety of missions including both high level bombardment and low level shipping attacks. The British operated a fair amount of American a/c types (Hudsons, B-25s, Catalinas), so in game terms, it’s plausible to say that they could be operating US built aircraft with this capability as well.

I tend to look at the strategic bomber gamepiece as representing multi engined aircraft, not necessarily strictly 4 engined a/c. The tactical bomber game pieces, I tend to view as the single engined bombers and attack a/c. Now before you say it, I know, what about the Mossie game piece! I think the Typhoon would have been a better choice as far as a game piece selection, but hey, the Mossie was an exceptional plane capable of just about any type of mission from being a fighter to a medium bomber.

As far as strategic bombing goes, we’ve seen none in all our games of AAP & AAG to date. Certainly an option we should keep in mind to try using more, especially in bombing naval and airbases. But the escorts and interceptors rules have fairly well neutered the strategic bombing. Now keep in mind that that statement comes from having played a zillion games of AAP where the Japanese used to operate nearly as many aircraft as they did infantry! With the alpha set up, this has changed. That and the a/c numbers in AAE are much less numerous as they were originally in AAP. So we may see the strategic bombing option resurfacing a bit, who knows?

Having said all that, we’ve really never had a problem with the strategic bombers being used against ships. To try to change that in this game system would be going to a level of detail that the game makes no attempt to represent in the first place.

As far as Sea Lion goes, we’ve tried it a few times, and from our experiences, it seems like a classic example of risk vs gain. We’re not experts at Sea Lion, but it comes not without its own risks. A block of SZ112 & needing the Japanese to hold off attacking in the Pacific being the obvious risks, not to mention the Russians.

We haven’t seen this to be broken though. I will have to look for some threads on this topic, as it seems that we may not be executing Sea Lion as efficiently as folks like Jim010. From our gameplay, it’s just another decision point for the players to make.

The British Royal Navy around England, I saw mentioned earlier. In every single game of AAG, Germany took Paris with ground forces (only one game saw Normandy attacked on G1, other than that, Normandy has been left to T2), and the Royal Navy around England has been wiped out by subs and air, every game.

Ah hell, it’s right in the rulebook!  :oops:

Time for another eye checkup! :-D

In global, if the Axis capture Sydney or India, do they still collect all of that capitals IPCs?

I ask this because Japan gets a +5 IPC bonus for each turn it controlls either of the two above “capitals”. So do they get this bonus income in addition to collecting the unspent IPCs of whatever capital they take?

Tim and I won’t have another game session until the week of the 22nd-28th, and to be honest, this is the third or fourth endorsed version I’ve read about in the past week or so. Tim went to GenCon to get the Europe version he saw they were going to be selling there, and bumped into Larry (they didn’t have the game). They exchanged a few minutes of conversation in which Larry basically said he wants to make the changes to put an end to the J3 India Crush.

I’ve played so much AAP40 that the thought of play testing who knows what, just doesn’t really get me all fired up right now. I mean, Tim and I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 actual game hours now, and most of that has been so in favor of the Japanese that it just isn’t even remotely fun anymore.

Tim’s fire for the game is still burning hot, so we’ll play, but I’m curious to see what changes will take place between now and the week after next when we get a chance to fire it up again.

That thread over on the Harris site is changing faster than I can keep up with.

I will say this though, Larry is one cool dude, and his heart is in the right place as far as I’m concerned. So I’m kinda hanging back to see where Larry leads this “project” to stamp out the evil J3 India Crush! :-D

Hobbes, is the OP the official version now dated 8-12-10 of the changes he’s leaning toward? The last I saw he had a list of like 10 things he was considering. Tim and I were going to just pick a couple and play test them. But it looks like the OP has combined several of the items off the list into one larger set up change. Is this the main consideration now, or just one of several?

I guess I could just get off my butt and go over to the Harris site and look myself, but that thread took off to like ten zillion posts from where it was last week, I need the readers digest version! :-D

@gamerman01:

Here it is, straight from the horse’s mouth

“Well, to be clear… At this point I’m not sure what the change(s) would end up being, frankly, all that remains to be seen. I feel that my ultimate objective is to create a situation where a 1st turn Japanese attack is only a viable option, and not, as I think it is now, the best option.”

Larry Harris, 10:02 PM CST 8/1/10

Word.

@gamerman01:

Hey, guys, when I asked Krieg about this same thing, he made a VERY interesting point.  Depending on timing, you could bomb an enemy Base and it would then be unusable to their ALLIES until the base owner’s next turn.  So you can effectively disable the capability without your enemy being able to fix it.  You heard it here first.  :-D

Ah, another advantage for Japan, just we needed… :wink:

@jim010:

I have just as many hours on this as Kauf and others both online and with friends.

But I will say this - after playing this much for entertainment, I’d say the money I spent on the game is a bargain.

Well, I might be tempted to go there too with that line of thought, but not quite. I actually shelled out the $99.99 for this one, and for that price, I ought to be able to pick it up and play it whenever the mood strikes my friends or myself, by my way of thinking anyway.

@jim010:

… and after having played this game so much, I am getting bored with it, and will likely finish up the couple of games I have left and move onto Europe - and try the India crush there in the global game.

We are at the same point, at least I am, regarding getting bored with AAP:40.

However, it appears that Larry has just endorsed a set up change that may change things around.

@special:

If i understand the rules correctly, it is a high risk operation with very low gain

That’s the way we see it.

@special:

Unless i have read the rules wrong, i really don’t see the point of such SBR’s, unless maybe at the very end of a game…

Well, you must be reading the rules the same way we are, because we came to the same conclussion.

@bugoo:

no no, anyones planes can scramble, i ment making Mayala into a fortress would require that planes can scramble from a coastal airbase.

Whew, gotcha! I thought, OMG, don’t tell me we’ve been playing that wrong!  :lol:

@bugoo:

As for J1 java you keep the fig from the carrier, and add the fig from formosa that attacked the UK BB/trans, just lose a bomber if UK gets a hit.

You still hit Phi with 2 Inf, 1 Art, 1 Arm, 1 Tac.  Thats 5 hits, with 13 punch vs 4 hits with 9 defense, or really good odds.

Right, that’s how I see it, just checking. My thing is that we’ve seen games where the Japanese attack the PI with 2 x Inf, 2 x Arty, 1 x ftr & 1 x DB, and have just only taken the PI with 1 land unit.

You definately would want to swap out one of the Arties for a tank if the ftr doesn’t go in.

I could see the Japanese taking this fight on the chin from time to time though. Anyone out there with one of those battle calculator deals have the numbers on this one?

@bugoo:

Edit: Minor counting mistake, coulda swore another plane somewhere could reach phi.

I went over to my buddies place this past Monday evening, in Dayton, and when I got there, after some time drinking a few beers and playing the game, we hopped online here to see what the scoop was on the J3 India crush from Jim01.

We were already getting a little silly, and Jim threw out the abreviation Phi for the Philippines, and Ind. for India.

Well, for us around here, Phi. is the abreviation for Philadelphia, and Ind. for Indiana. So we were having some fun with Jim on that in one of the other threads… :lol:

People who are drinking to the point of getting silly, like we were that night, should refrain from posting… :-D

I would think that the Japanese may also want to consider placing some kind of IJN pieces in SZ36 as well. If the two Brit transports get moved back. Otherwise the big Japanese airbase in Kwangsi may get a suprise attack, complete with an off shore shelling! Just think if the British BB gets moved back as well!

One thing is for certain though, the British infantry in Singapore would be safer in Borneo with an airbase than in Singapore. Plus, they’d be protecting more British IPCs.

Or the British could pull them (British Singapore garrison) back to Burma on B1, I wonder what that would do to the J3 India Crush? I think I read something about moving the troops up from India to Burma on B1 to try to deny that territory as a Japanese air base.

Going to Borneo with a UK airbase looks real promising though, if the Japanese were to not respond on J2, they could be in real trouble from that point forward.

@gamerman01:

@kaufschtick:

Oooh, I don’t see that happening.

The Prince of Wales & Repulse.

Only one small detail.  The Prince of Wales wasn’t sent to Singapore until 1941, from what I found researching it.  I posted this on Larry’s site - wonder if he’ll respond.

Whoa, nice “quick fact” there! :-D

Hell, I’d be happy enough if the transports got moved back!

How do you “rate this thread” to make the little stars pop up by it in the forum index?

This is a huge developement, IMHO.

I’m going to have to head over to the Harris website and see if my account is still active over there…

Oh, yeah, after 230+ hrs on this game, and being right to the point where we might be giving up on it, I’m gonna have to go grab a beer too! :-D

@bugoo:

For that you would need to be able to scramble from any airbase, which you should be allowed to do.

So you’re saying that only British planes can scramble from a British airbase?

Is that official?

Are you saying that US planes can’t scramble from New Zealand?

@bugoo:

As far as a J1 take of Java it would still happen, as would a J3 take of India, its just a question of what it would cost.

Well, by my way of thinking, if the Japanese go to Java on J1 with two ftrs, then that leaves the PI attack at 2 x Inf, 2 x Arty & 1 DB? Is that right? I’ve already seen games where the Japanese only take the PI with 1 land unit, now reduce the attacking dice by a “4” shot!?!

I would think this battle would then fall under the plausibility of the Japanese having fair odds to not win it. What, maybe even as high as 1 in 4, the US holds? The Japanese may even have to start taking the tank, as they wouldn’t want to be down to their last unit as a plane.

@bugoo:

Now if he’ll endorse the BB/Cruiser swap as well, then we really got something going.

Oooh, I don’t see that happening.

The Prince of Wales & Repulse.

@johnnymarr:

Per LH 8/1/10

Have the 2 UK transports begin off India, instead of off Malaya.

I see the merit it this suggestion. The UK navy without a surviving transport is like a junk yard dog with no teeth. Other than barking… what good is it?

This simple adjustment will offer many more dynamic options to the UK player as he desperately tries to hold back the Japanese onslaught.
I like it.
I will also lobby for this setup change to appear on future print runs of the game.

Thanks

Holy Crap! Is this for real!?!

@bugoo:

One fun ‘trick’ i can see doing with that against the India crush would be an airbase on boreno, and putting UK’s 5 planes, along with 4 inf, and 1 ANZAC plane there turn 1.  Then on turn 2 you can get the other 3 ANZAC figs and 2 US planes there.  Would keep Japan away from 9 IPCs for awhile and be a big danger to there fleets.  Not sure if it would work out as well as i think it would though as Japan can use ground based planes to attack the SZ (deter scramble) and carrier based planes and carriers to hit the island.

You could also get the 2 US bombers in there as well on US 2…every little bit helps when you are talking about a potentially game altering move.

That could be a real problem for Japan! The airbase part being huge as a force multiplier along with 4 Infantry! They would have to take it on J2, as the alternative of allowing the ANZAC and US reinforcements to reach Borneo with an airfield would be unacceptable. Least the Allies establish a “Truk” of their own on Borneo.

It is also going to make the Japanese have to go to Java on turn one to avoid the air stack there, now with 4 British Infantry. That would make a J1 attack on the PI extremely risky as the only 2 Japanese fighters capable of reaching the land battle in the PI on turn 1 are needed on the Japanese CV in SZ42.

Would you risk a CV w/ 1 ftr, a BB & a DD against the British attack of 1 CA, 1 DD, 3 x ftr & 1 DB on turn 1 as the Japanese?

This one “simple change” as it is described, could make the J1 attack something to think about again.

I would also be very interested to know if there has been any playtesting done on this? A neat suggestion it may be, but a British stand in Borneo seems way out of whack with the whole Singapore thing, as it actually happened.

I’m thinking they may want to move the British transports to SZ 38 instead.

B1 Amphibious attack on Vietnam (the Japanese would be forced to screen SZ 36)?

I like the idea of being able to reinforce Singapore though.

B1 amphibious & air attack on Kwangsi!?!

British could even land on New Guinea right off the bat if SZ 42 was clear?

@gamerman01:

Well, you guys have logged an awful lot of hours on it already, so I wouldn’t call that a failure.  Just make a tweak to the setup and it’s a balanced game.

That’s for sure, we have played the dog snot out of it. Immediate  US 40 seems to still be the way to go for us for now. But we’d like to be playing the game the same way everyone else is playing, you know?

@gamerman01:

The global game will not have any of these issues, except for the curious China deal.

We shall see.

I’m starting to form the strong opinion that this game was very poorly playtested.

I don’t think AAP is going to see any more table time after the European side comes out. That’s a shame too, it would’ve been nice to have had the option to game just the Pacific if the mood struck.

This makes me wonder whether the Europe stand alone version is going to have the same game balance and set up issues. I’m starting to have flash backs to the original Pacific & Europe versions… :|

@cond1024:

After reading the posts it seems this title is wrong, it should read how to perform the India crush, cause I’m not seeing any counter arguments. Jim any ideas how to counter?

Well, a lot of folks like myself haven’t really played much with this strat, so we gotta see it before we can wade in on what to do against it. Me?, I’m gonna take Jim’s word for it…

@jim010:

I don’t claim to win every time, as s#!t happens and mistakes are made, but I do claim I’ll win 3/4.

We’ve already got so many Japanese wins in on this game already that it isn’t even close to being funny.

At this point, it’s kinda hard to get excited about yet another Japanese super strat.

I just got back from Dayton the other day after three days of gaming and beer drinking with Buckeyeboy. 8 hours of gaming Monday night, a marathon 16 hours Tuesday, and 8 more Wednesday. I lost track of how many hours we’ve spent on AAP:40 at 150 hours. We’re somewhere around 230-250 hours played  by my nearest guess now.

This past week we went back and played some OOB games, we looked at Jims J3 India crush, and a big air stack in Singapore Allied defense.

I’m kinda spent on the game at this point.

Larry made the comment that he liked a challenge as the Allies, and that the Japanese may have been made too powerful.

I like a challenge too, but after a while it just gets to be no fun playing the Allies. And it even gets to be no fun playing the Japanese too. When you have a winning strat that works as the Japanese, it gets boring after a while. The Allies get frustrating as you have to play error free and get some help from the dice.

I hope Europe comes out soon, because I’m just to the point where I find myself wanting to just throw my hands up and walk away from AAP:40.

Wrong set up charts, not enough Japanese dive bomber pieces, so much errata and rules clarifications it made my head spin, and all to come to the point that the game has some serious set up and balance flaws.

It all adds up to not much fun as a game, for me.