Posts made by mtngoatjoe

You guys seem to play quite a bit, so you’ll get a handle on the rules pretty quickly. In the mean time, I would suggest not playing with any house rules. The game is very ballanced as-is, so give it some time before you change things up. We played two games last weekend, same teams on the same sides both games: the Axis won the first, and the Allies won the second. Like I said, it is a very ballanced game. We do use the optional rule for industrial bombing raids, but that is listed in the rulebook, so I don’t consider it a house rule.

We’ve talked about moving up to the the Global 1940 game, but the fact is that we’re finally comfortable with the 1942 rules, and since we only play once every month or two, we’ll stick with what we’ve got for a while. I never liked winning or losing because of a rule issue, and now that we’re familiar enough with the game, outcomes are decided on strategy and to some extent, dice. Our games are very interesting; no house rules needed.

@ragnarok628:

well now that’s interesting.  i’ve literally never bothered with the pacific islands as japan, is this a bad thing?  especially hawaii.  always seemed like it wasn’t worth tying up the transports and troops for the 4 rounds or whatever it would take to get them all.  not that i wouldn’t mind the extra income, but i felt it was more urgent to pressure russia.

Hawaii, Australia, and New Zealand, are worth 4 IPCs. If Japan gets them fast, then that can add up. Also, If the UK gets Borneo, then Japan has to send the transports anyway.

I said Finland, but I meant Norway. I do think Finland should be a separate territory that automatically switches sides depending on who is winning.

Anyway, I guess it comes down to what the Allies think will be more economical: Save the battleship, or save AE (and by extension, all of Africa).

I also hear a lot of people talk about sending Japan towards Africa. When (what round) do they usually do this? If you save Africa from Germany, does it just compel Japan to move faster? And if so, is it worth it (or even possible) to hold Japan off? I would think the earliest Japan could get to Africa would be J4 or J5(assuming the UK sinks the Japanees transport UK1).

It sounds like some people say they can save and hold Africa long enough that an R1 sub buy is better than saving the UK battleship. And now that I wrote it out, I’m inclined to believe that.

I hear a lot of people saying that the R1 sub buy is a good way to go. But I’ve also heard a lot of people talk about taking Finland in R1 to save the UK battleship. Any thoughts on which one is a better way to go?

@coorran:

I’m not an expert at converting images and I need some help. When I try to print a map (on our printer) from the pdf file, as a “patchwork” of 8 pages, it freezes…

You may need more RAM. That PDF is pretty big. Try it after a fresh restart. You could also try printing it one page at a time.

Ok, Here is an Excel Spreadsheet version of my IPC Tracker. I have not tried this in an actual game, but it seems to work. If you find any bugs or typos, please let me know and I will fix them. Download the file at https://files.me.com/mtngoatjoe/yhgc63

I do not think it looks as good as the Numbers version, but part of that is because I did not have a lot of time to work on it. Also, I created it on a computer running Windows in Spanish. And since I do not speak Spanish, it was a bit of a process just to get this far.

Let me know what you think of the graphs. I have mixed feelings about them, but they solved some design problems.

Let me know what you think!

Those are really nice… I’ve been wanting to add something like that to my games… 12$ for 8 can add up pretty quickly… Say 16 stands for major powers, 8 for minor, 1 for China (speaking about Global of course) per country? Thats about 11 sets of 8, so $132. Kinda sucks you have to drill though, I’d much rather super glue it somehow, easier/quicker process.

My cousin used magnets because of cost. Since you never really know how many air units each country will need, using magnets allows the flight stand to be used with any country that needs it.

The flight stands I mentioned above already have magnets in the tips, so they are more expensive. Cheaper options that require you to attach the magnets yourself are:

• http://www.litkoaero.com/products/10-Count-Numbered-Dial-and-Pointers-%28Set-of-10%29.html

• http://www.litkoaero.com/products/1.375-inch-Hex-Acrylic-Flight-Stands%2C-25-ct.html

There are many other options available, so take a look around on that site.

@Bunnies:

@Zhukov44:

I disagree, Russia rarely has enough fighters that it can avoid using tanks or artillery for trades.  If you compare attacks with 2 inf 1 arm or 1 inf 1 arm to 2 inf 1 art or 1 inf 1 art, you find that not only are the attacks with armor more likely to succeed, they are also more likely to inflict casualties on defense.  The math is complicated, but arguably these advantages are worth the sacrifice of 1 ipc.

Usually, I would agree that Russia does not need more fighters.  But in the context of a R1 two-fighter attack against Norway, followed by a G1 carrier/destroyer at Baltic (the OP mentioning the R1 two-fighter Norway attack, and myself mentioning the G1 carrier/destroyer at Baltic), you’re looking at R2 and R3, at the least without UK/US support at Norway, and Russia with a single fighter.

This ignores the scenario that when attacking with 1 Russian tank against 1 German infantry (after earlier rounds of combat), that Russia can choose to keep attacking with good chance of good results, but that with 1 Russian fighter against 1 German infantry, the Russians should almost always retreat.  So there are some advantages to tanks vs fighters.  But I can’t just ignore the IPC differential either.

I like the flexibility of using fighters and infantry. But of course, this strategy depends a lot on what happens with the other players. If things are going poorly for the Allies, then Russia will definitely like having the fighters for defense in the later rounds. This is especially important in a protracted game. If things are going well for the Allies, then I think tanks are a better purchase. I don’t always use this strategy, but I like it.

Good catch on Brazil! I’ve updated my link with the correction. Please let me know if you spot any other mistakes.

This spreadsheet is basically a rewrite that simplified the formulas (they used to be really ugly and unreadable). But now they are much shorter and easier to manage. I haven’t used this version for an actual game yet, but I thought I’d smoke tested it enough to post here. On the positive side, at least my formulas were adding things up correctly! All I had to do was change the IPC value for Brazil and the U.S. went from 40 IPCs to 42.

Shock and awe!!!

I’ll be interested to see how you make it work in Excel. There are differences between Numbers and Excel; each has it’s strengths and weaknesses. Excel is designed to crunch numbers. Numbers is designed to make numbers look pretty. Anyway, please post some screenshots so I can see what you come up with.

I’ve used my spreadsheet three times. The first time was to work out some bugs and my buddies gave me a lot of crap because I was using a Mac and they are all Microsoft employees. Once I got the bugs worked out, the next two games went very smooth, but my buddies still gave me crap. For the fourth game, I didn’t use it, and my buddies seemed strangely disappointed every time we had to calculate how much to pay someone  :-|

I’m bringing it to the next game and I’m hoping to hook my laptop up to my buddy’s HDTV. We play in his family room and I think it would work pretty well.

I’ve quickly checked into adding a reset button, but I haven’t figured it out yet. I don’t think it’s possible with the version I have. Apple is supposed to release a new version of iWork soon, so maybe I’ll upgrade and see what happens. At a minimum, with the new version, I’ll be able to update the name of the territory and the IPC value with the color of the country that owns it. With the version I have, I can only change the color of the cell that shows who owns a territory.

My cousin bought them on the web somewhere, so I can’t help with that. They are very similar to these:
http://www.back2base-ix.com/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=67&review=write

His were pretty cheap, but I think 8 for $12 is a pretty cheap since they have magnets in the tips.

The ones in the link have magnets in the tip, but my cousin’s didn’t. So, he bought a bag of small, rare earth magnets and glued them to the tips of his flight stands. Then, he glued small flat (really thin) magnets to the bottom of his planes. I’m not sure where he got those, but they came as a sheet, and he just cut it up. The planes sit on the flight stands really well. I’ll try to post better pictures after our next game.

Just like in the link above, his flight stands came in two heights.

He also glued a strip of the flat magnets to the tops of the carriers, and that makes a world of difference when moving carriers around.

I don’t know exactly what it is, but it all just adds a whole new element to the game.

No, they are just dial counters that came on the flight stands. We don’t use them, but you could use them as counters to indicate the number of planes or the number of movements a plane has made. Any way you go though, the flight stands are really nice  :-)

I wasn’t so much bored, as I had some free time and needed to work on my spreadsheet skills. If you have a Mac and Numbers '08, you can download the file: files.me.com/mtngoatjoe/mo1660.numbers.zip

It’s a bit too complicated to export to Excel, and I don’t have Excel, so please don’t ask for an Excel version. Sorry.

I used it a couple of times. My buddies gave me crap about it as I worked out the bugs, so I stopped using it. Then they asked where it was. Since they all work at Microsoft, I took that as a bit of a compliment.

Anyway, if you want to make an Excel version, you’ll first need to figure out how to make a popup menu and apply conditional formatting so that it changes color depending on the country selected.

Then you’ll need a cell for each country that adds up all the IPCs for the territories they control. My code looks like this:

• =SUM(SUMIF(C4:C34,“Russia”,B4:B34),SUMIF(G4:G13,“Russia”,F4:F13),SUMIF(K4:K33,“Russia”,J4:J33))

The SUMIF commands look at the first range of cells in the parentheses (the popup menus), and for the popup menus that equal “Russia”, then it adds the IPC values listed in the next range of listed cells (which are to the left of the popup menu cells.

For the victory cities, I do a little bit of visual trickery to keep things looking nice, so you can’t usually see these cells in the screenshots. Basically, the Victory Cities and IPCs summaries are separate tables sitting on top of the table with all the popups. I don’t think it’s possible to do this in Excel, so you’d have to use a separate sheet. In the screenshot below, I’ve moved the tables and showed the underlying cells.

Anyway, I list all the territories that have victory cities and set the cells to the right of them to equal the corresponding popup menu. Then I have two cells, one each for the Axis and Allies, that has the following code:

• =SUM(COUNTIF(F23:F34,“=United States”),COUNTIF(F23:F34,“=United Kingdom”),COUNTIF(F23:F34,“=Russia”))

• =SUM(COUNTIF(F23:F34,“=Germany”),COUNTIF(F23:F34,“=Japan”))

The COUNTIF function basically looks at a list of cells and adds up the number of times the content of the cells equals the specified text. If you do this for each partner and add the results using the SUM function, you get the total number of victory cities each side controls.

Well, that’s about it. Questions, comments, and suggestions are appreciated.

Ps. Maybe I do have too much time on my hands :-\

These aren’t the best pics, but playing on a big board is awesome!

Thanks IL!!!

I don’t have time to play a lot, but after playing Revised on GTO, one game of '42 made me a believer of the new rules. I think the submarine rules are great, and transports are finally treated right.

Ok, I found a low quality version that isn’t good enough for printing, but it will give you an idea of what I did. When I had the originals, I printed them at 8x10 inches at Costco, and then laminated them. They work OK, but I really need WWII photos for all the units.

:x I tried finding my files last night, but they’ve been lost. I’ll have to make new ones (sometime in the distant future when I get the time). Sorry  :-(

Ok, so this won’t be of use to everyone, but if you have an iPhone, and you’re new to the game, this might be of interest.

To get started, enter the number of IPCs you have, your industrial capacity, and click submit. Then press the “+” and “-” buttons to buy your troops.

It won’t let you add more units than what you can afford. But when you exceed your industrial capacity, that field with simply show a negative number. It won’t stop you from adding more units.

This is not an App. It is an html file that does local calculations. Nothing is sent to a server. It’s formatted using tables, and I know that’s bad form, but I don’t have much in the way of CSS skills (maybe later).

The only phone I have is an iPhone, so that’s all I’ve tested it on. It’s pretty standard html, so I would hope that it would work on other platforms. It works in IE on a PC, so maybe that is a good sign. Your milage may vary.

Constructive criticism is very welcome, but don’t tell me it’s stupid just because you can add up all your purchases in your head. This is a tool for beginners who haven’t memorized the cost of each unit, and may not remember to keep their industrial capacity in mind.

files.me.com/mtngoatjoe/ncwuur

A good battle board is useful for large scale battles or for newbies. I created two 8x10 inch battle boards (one for attack and one for defense) that had photos of real-world units (printed at Costco and then laminated). I didn’t have time to find WWII photos for everything, so some things, like AC, are more modern photos. My buddies claimed they were a little confused because the photos didn’t match the game pieces, but I didn’t think it was too big of a hurdle. Ultimately, I would like to get WWII photos of all the units.

Also, I made the boards big because I wanted to use tokens to represent the units. We’re all big guys, and moving the units off the game board, onto the battle board, and back onto the game board is a bit of a pain. If you’ve got lots of dice or tokens, this seems to work ok. Next time, I want to build a tray (kind of like a utensil tray in the kitchen) with photos on the bottom of each compartment. This would hold the tokens better. But with a 2 year old daughter in the house, this won’t happen for another 16 years or so!

My cousin had a map printed that’s about 4x bigger than the original, so the only time we really need a battle board is at the end of the game when we have huge unit stacks.

When I get a chance, I’ll post the battle boards I made. Maybe someone will find them useful.