Posts made by souL

@hakan:

In my next game I will buy one German bomber + infantry the whole game. Just to test how effective they are (with NO, optional rules and the A&A rev. tournament rule for Heavy Bombers). It will be interesting. Has anyone already tested it against a strong player? If so, how did it work?

You can’t test ANY “I’m going to do JUST x…” against a strong player because a good player can adjust to almost any strat like that.  For example, a good Rus player will take advantage of your lack of mobility, and with the 12 cost bmb being your only attacking units put on the board, he’ll widen the front and force you to spread your expensive attackers.  By the time you clear territories, your inf will mostly be used up at half their maximum effectiveness because so many will be lost rolling at 1.  The Brits could make your life a living hell just dropping a few inf into nwe too, if there aren’t any attacking units other than bmb.

Well, that’s what I wanted to make sure of originally, thanks.  For some odd reason I thought I’d read somewhere else in the FAQ that those territories were originally under JP control and subject to that in '42.  Thanks for clarification.

First, let me get 100% verification.  In the 1942 setup, any territory under Japanese control at the start of the game aside from Kiangsu and Manchuria are considered valid for the purposes of collecting the UK national objective “control any territory originally under Japanese control.” right?

Well, at the start of either game kia and man are both Japanese controlled, though they’re considered chinese if they fall into allied hands.  kwa, bur, sum, sol, brn, phi, ngu, wak, and mid are all clearly controlled by allied powers in the same fashion that kia and man are in 1942 are in every conceivable way yet they’re treated differently for the purposes of this NO.  I guess I just want to know why.

It seems like the real meat of the playtesting was put into 1941 with NOs, because that scenario is the most balanced.  The Axis absolutely need them.  Without them, it’s KGF mania and with JP collecting 15 IPC less per turn, that’s an entire IC worth of units they’re not pumping into Russia or one less full transport going to American shores.  It’s already pretty difficult to win when the Allies are well coordinated and goal oriented.

count me as for the HB change if we play tech.

I’m back out on the market for some '41 competition.  I prefer NOs and no tech.

That sucks, I beat Chrono Trigger every way by the time I was 16–definitely one of the best RPGs of all time.  I haven’t busted it out in about 3-4 years.  Current SNES RPG:  Breath of Fire III.

Ya guys, the book’s a masterpiece and the movie’s just ok.  An HBO miniseries would have probably been the best place to set this story… you could have made 4 1-hour long episodes and just churned out exactly what the novel put down on paper.

I find that most people who read the book back when it was released enjoy the book a lot more, and they were the ones seeing it as soon as they could.  Younger readers and people who didn’t read Watchmen until they were well into comics already tend to like it less because so many other comics have taken from this story over the years.  I ask them, “So did you like it?  Wait don’t tell me, it was a lot like other stuff you’ve read.”  Inevitably, that’s the case.  Considering everything, it’s about as good as this movie could have been, while staying faithful, without alienating everyone but the hardcore fan.  I still enjoyed it, and aside from the new Silk Spectre I thought the movie was acted and cast really well.

In if there’s room.

Ok, now back to the overall thesis that you’ve turned the thread into.  While you believe that it’s comics and fantasy that have the propensity (check it out, proper usage!) to turn an otherwise normal child toward a life of failure.  Of which, I’d say success and failure is also subjective and only applicable on a personal level and thusly renders the discussion moot entirely.  What if the goal of the slothful comic-book reader is to spend as much time as possible in the depths of his imagination?  It would fail to define success for you, but not for him.  Still, I digress.

I’d point toward the general nature of the human race as the proper medium for your anger at sloth as it relates to not leaving your parents’ basement.  The Roman Empire probably barely saw comic 1, and in the end their citizens were among the most slothful in recorded history.  Why?  It’s human nature when you’re on top to get greedy and lazy.  When people are handed things in life (a comic could apply just as much as a pack of baseball cards, a video game, or a World War II board game when talking about hobbies) early in life, their disposition toward working for things is likely to lower.  I’m no geneticist, but I’d be willing to wager genes have more of a role to play in this than anything you’re talking about.

Its also obvious to me that their is absolutely no reason to feel defensive about my opinion, unless you feel some truth to it on your own because in my experience when that happens it could mean that the value of this opinion is making some resonance. If it was false i suspect nobody would care to even discuss it. But i have to answer so many questions that i wonder.

Just like the mighty resonance the world takes toward bigots, fundamentalists, racists, and sexists just further validates the truth in their statements?  LOL.  They all make the same mistake of over-generalizing.  I’m telling you I worked at a comic book store that had over 200 subscribers between three locations and of those I met, which was over 80%, I would certainly not say the plurality of them still lived with parents, as you did.  I mean, all you did was throw this general blanket on the group and it isn’t backed up by any factual information of any sort.  My sample is small at 200, but from all the drivel and dregs you feel that are associated with the industry, I’m fairly confident my sample is close to 200 people larger.

If i was taking an opinion of yours and telling you it was stupid, you would very well post something back and you know it.

Kind of like when you tell people comic books are for children, right?  You’re just defending your position against my

1. The artistic value of these ‘comic book movies’ cannot conceive to produce anything but low level entertainment… the entertainment of popular culture which in this age is entirely commercialized to the point where its only sustaining public satiation for gluttony and not having much value in terms of sustaining more profound meaning and message.

I’m assuming you mean “for myself” at the end of that ellipsis there.  I mean obviously the opinion of “good” and “bad” art is just that essentially.  Don’t even get me started on art as a whole, talking about it is like dancing about architecture.  In any case, “meaning and message” is obviously profoundly different from person to person.  Doing more than discussing these things is akin to a “smash your fingers with a hammer” competition.  No one’s going to win.

2. Most of the people who like these movies are kids and young people, and the shear propensity of these movies in the last 10 years can modify behavior in people, because frankly movies DO influence people for better or worse. Most of these movies involve stories that involve somebody committing violence and lots of action and special effects. I just have the opinion that movies of this type cant possibly produce the types of feelings and emotions that can be evoked by a serious movie…“Lawrence of Arabia” the “English Patient”, because they are so contrived and contain so many situations that rely on action plot devices to keep kids and 40 year old adults who act like kids entertained.

This, however, IS a point we can debate a little bit.  This movie is not intended for kids, as it’s rated R.  The novel was rated R.  Watchmen, the novel, invoked many thought-provoking emotions inside of me.  It’s dark, gritty, and forces you to take a look at the human race as a savage species.  Its characters are complex and flawed, and the “superheroes” you get to watch clearly are not that.  Again, Time voted it one of the best 100 novels written in English in the past 83 years.  And it had the disadvantage of being sullied by illustrations  :roll:.  There’s a reason for that.

“shear propensity”  What does that even mean?  I mean I’ve laid off the poor vocab use for most of your responses because it’s really childish but I’m truly lost here.  It’s just jabbed in the middle of a run-on and you’re trying to say something about comics which I just can’t figure out.  I mean The tendency these movies have to cut has modified the behavior of people over the past 10 years?  shrug

A historically accurate game would be boring and too complicated.  Don’t worry about things that don’t make sense and enjoy what appears to be a pretty well balanced game at this point.

We gamers and comic book readers around here appreciate your generalizations, we really do.  Broad strokes and narrow minds.  I mean my D&D group contains 2 union pipefitters, an engineer, 2 teachers and a principal.  So trapped in our own fantasy worlds we can’t raise families of our own or hold down jobs.  In my younger days I worked for him a few days a week and ya, he had two lawyers who were subscribers.  He has a few customers who still smoke pot and live at home too but that’s society as a whole.  You’re drawing from what experience?  I knew a man who was a gun nut, loved nothing more than historical wars but spent all of his time painting miniature tanks and replica models of zeroes.  He went to civil war reenactments and cooked in a restaurant.  He lived at home, too.

Watchmen was the only graphic novel to appear on Time’s 2005 list of “the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present”.  Go ahead, toss it under that blanket, you’ll miss out on a fantasy world that raises so many “real-world” questions you’re so fond of.  Well enjoy the story’s complexity and grittiness.  So you classify this in with your stupid, angry, green men and some of the institutions that help YOU define taste will tell us what we already know, it’s a good piece of literature, illustrated or not.

As for the movie itself guys & gals, I saw it and it’s fiercely loyal but just fails to hit that same peak the novel did.  Rorschach is one of my favorite characters of all time.

@Danger:

Other than that Heavy bombers are here to stay and Battleships with AA guns?? I’m sure the guys at Pearl Harbor wish they had that much firepower also.

Or more Cuba Gooding Jrs.

clarification:  attacking forces, may they withdraw any number of units or must they withdraw all or none?  While I’m at it,  I remember glancing over someone talking about retreating amphibious assaulting units, did I miss something there or is that rule the same as it’s always been?

There should be a UK dd in that fight too, Jen.  Plus, with the buy in turn 1, the 3 carriers are vulnerable in the only place they can stop, SZ 50.  The attack on 3 dd and a fully loaded carrier will likely glean a few zeros before your counter.  3 subs can go tee off on the carrier horde that’s stopped in 50 and the 3 bmb and ftr can clean up the BB/Crs or you can gang up on the carriers if you want to take care of the rest of the fighters.

At least this way you’ve already started in on it in large part and it’s only turn 2.

I’m not doubting their obliteration, but crunching the numbers the IPC’s lost against the BB on average are lower.  If the DD is in the battle, that’s 8 IPCs hit 2/3 of the time in round 1.  The Russian stack averages 2.33 hits on 3 IPC units–5 1/3 IPC for the BB (6.66 for a fighter only attack), 7 IPC for the inf.

Also, why is America building but never advancing?  If I’m left with a completely unmolested fleet outside of sz 50, I’m certainly making my presence felt US1.  Alas, the only way to really prove that is on the board though.

Yes, the Russians are dead and the units they’ve taken with them are generally on par, IPC wise, of those taken by the US BB.  My argument is the long range ramifications of JP are at least two-fold worse for leaving that BB around, up to and including fighting for the big money in the SW Pacific.

Firstly, if 50 is cleared but not taken… depending on what’s in that SZ, it’s vulnerable to BB, bmb, ftr.  It’s not entirely appetizing, but if it’s just the BB, I’m going to take my shot to kill it in 1 turn at 0 value loss to America.  I’d also be tempted to just send the ftr and bmb at it, but that’s probably a poor risk as you’re giving up anything that stays there, anyhow.

Realistically, anyone who rolls the backbone of a good naval fleet across the world and out of action for a couple of turns needs their head examined.  Japan has told the Americans what they’re going to do with their game, leaving them a nearly fully functional fleet in the Pacific.  I mean, did you even send anything at SZ 56?  If not, the fleet’s already going to be on par with whatever JP wants to throw at them.  If not, it’s still VERY much a threat.  That fleet, in particular could be REALLY effective gathering in SZ 46 (2 inf if trn 56 is alive, 2bmb, ftr on sol from US, 2 inf from brit) and shipping out from there.  My first turn US answer to that is 3 subs, ftr and a bmb dropped in Pacific theater.  Sure, that fleet inf 46 attack able by many planes in 61 and any ships that are in 50, but there are a few key points to this.  Any aircraft wanting to attack this hearty fleet (BB soak, 2-3 destroyers before you’re doing any good dmg) from SZ 62 will FORCE a carrier to stop in sz 51, in range of the build of US, and the bmb and ftr on land in the solomons.  Sol’s in a bit of danger and loses SOME punch if the US trn isn’t there, but if JP wants to send every unit that can reach a 0 cost territory in turn 2 after sending a ton of their units at a 1 cost territory in turn 1, they’re just not doing acquiring the wealth they NEED to compete with the US.  Along with beginning to chip away at the substantial unit advantage JP has on them int he start,

Of course, playing without NOs allows you to ignore Phi and by extension, US, a bit more.  I do seem to remember this was all predicated on you saying you play without NO… and when Haw is worth 6 to JP turn 1, Phi is worth 7 to the US and is part of another NO for JP, they tend to get ignored less.  Still, no NOs tends to favor the Allies a bit more, and that’d make fighting for big money territories like EI and Borneo all the more appealing for the US/UK.

The Soviet 7 inf stack = 21 IPCs, and seven dice for 2 if attacked in J1.  The US BB = 20 IPCs and 1 die for 4.  It’s a no-brainer to me, I want that Soviet pile attacked if I’m the allies.  The BB is infinitely more useful when it’s got other ships with it instead of stranded alone in sz 53.  Also, for 1 IPC more the Soviets are going to get a shot at killing MANY more Japanese units, and if he brings more than 3 ground units, you’re doing much too well in other places to worry about the lack of value of the units you kill compared to the ones the BB might (or might not) kill.

Not only that, it’s leaving even more American or British units alive because every land and air unit fighting for that 1 IPC territory on turn 1 isn’t going at a 2 or 7 IPC Phillipines, Hawaii which is the only real way to complete a first turn 3 NO grab for JP, 4 IPC Borneo, 4 IPC EI, Kwangtung/New Guinea which completes the 2nd NO. 2 IPC burma, SZ 35 which is very valuable to the Brits.  AFAIC, the 7 inf Red stack is about the LEAST of JP’s worries on turn 1.  America and Britain need to be taxed or you’ll find yourself monetarily dominated VERY quickly in the Pacific.

Date:  Feb 11, 2009
special rules:  NOs
Victor:  Allies by concession
Game Length:  6 turns
Bias:  souL v. Uberlager… I don’t know exactly but I certainly could have played better.
Description:  Total and utter failure in the Atlantic theater.  The Germans lost 3 battles in round 1, including to the two inf in Epoland, Egypt, and SZ 12.  Italy also failed to take Egy when it was reinforced.  This, of course, is a recipe for the Allies to do what they like to Germany.  Lots of fume and bluster but couldn’t not save Germany in time.  Resignation after the stark realization that the Allies landed the final financial blow in France at the end of turn 5 and wasn’t going back under Axis control.