Obviously, I’m new to the forum so if this isn’t the right place to post this please move it.
My uncle and I have played the 1986 version of the game for years but it’s become fairly boring as most of the ‘best’ first turn strategies are pretty well set and the allies win as long as the Axis powers don’t get a really good roll in the first couple turns. After failing to convince my uncle to play A World at War I’m wondering what is generally considered the most balanced version of the game.
As a side note, please don’t answer one of the mini-games like battle of bulge we’re more interested in the large-scale games. If the answer is 1940 Europe than that’s okay. ie. The game has to deal with at least one whole theatre.
Hi GenQ
since you’re familiar with A&A I would suggest Anniversary
oh that’s where you are too : ) cool
How are the 1940 versions? More or less balanced than the Anniversary Edition?
Thanks for the suggestion.
balance seems to be more player level than map imo. If you wanna go big go for Global. If you have a balance problem you can give a bid (extra units), more dough or technologies if you want.
Others will chime in I’m sure : )
G40 by far. A lot more depth than prior versions. That’s if you have the space to leave the board set up though. Not very 1vs1 friendly. Anniversary 50 would be a good go to if you have to clean it up after an afternoon of play
Classic is awesome!! If its gotten stale, 42 2nd ed is a good bump. More territories and new units. Should take about same time but adds new strategies. Anniversary is next bump. Italy is new power and china totally revamped from classic plus new units. GLOBAL. A beast!! 9 powers and a bunch of new units.
Dont get 41. Thats a massive step down from classic.
There were also expansions from gamers paradise for classic. Out of print for a long time so really hard to find. Had special forces, destroyers, paratroops, cruisers, artillery and bunch of other stuff. Most of that is incorporated into 42, anniversary and global. You could look for the rules online and buy sculpts from hbg, but probably easier to get new game
I agree with Bob.
AA50 is just the step below Global 40 or Pacific40 / Europe40.
AA50 also provides two setups: 1941 and 1942.
Time of play seems similar to Classic, IMO. It depends a lot on play style.
There is a lot to discover with AA50, including China and Italy.
Do you know Bob where to find WW2 The Expansion rules, on line?
I only have paper rulebooks.
What do you mean by balanced GenQ87?
None of them are balanced in the sense of the axis and allies being equally well placed to win using the “out of the box” setup.
However these boards are full of suggestions for changing that setup to balance the game. The “best” IMHO is to use a bid system. Each player bids an income boost in turn to take the disadvantaged side. Player A might bid 20 ipcs to be allies. Player B then either agrees to that or bids less to be allies. The player that bids least to be allies then places units to the value bid on the board before the game starts.
This approach can be used with any of the A&A variants.
@Private:
What do you mean by balanced GenQ87?
None of them are balanced in the sense of the axis and allies being equally well placed to win using the “out of the box” setup.
However these boards are full of suggestions for changing that setup to balance the game. The “best” IMHO is to use a bid system. Each player bids an income boost in turn to take the disadvantaged side. Player A might bid 20 ipcs to be allies. Player B then either agrees to that or bids less to be allies. The player that bids least to be allies then places units to the value bid on the board before the game starts.
This approach can be used with any of the A&A variants.
By balanced, I meant the one where, given two players of equal skill 1v1ing, the win rate for the axis and allies would be closest to 50-50. With the bidding system, I guess this would equate to the game system that usually has the lowest bid? It’s an interesting idea to bid.
All the Axis and Allies game aren’t complicated rules-wise so I’m not overly worried about complexity, especially considering the basic mechanics have been kept largely the same since the original. Space and keeping track of everything going on on the map might be a challenge for the Global version, and there’s the price. I’d probably be most interested in either the anniversary edition (the one that was just re-released, it’s abbreviated AA50 it seems?) or half of the global map. Doing some research on my own it seems that AA50 has a slight Axis advantage and the global game has a larger axis advantage. I’m currently leaning towards AA50.
I do like Anniversary myself and have heard others claim it as the best. It may be more balanced than some of the other variants, but I would still play it using bids to allocate sides.
Sorry, a little off topic…
@Baron:
I agree with Bob.
AA50 is just the step below Global 40 or Pacific40 / Europe40.
AA50 also provides two setups: 1941 and 1942.
Time of play seems similar to Classic, IMO. It depends a lot on play style.
There is a lot to discover with AA50, including China and Italy.Do you know Bob where to find WW2 The Expansion rules, on line?
I only have paper rulebooks.
I dont know where to find an E version. I have og books. I dont have a scanner. Maybe you could scan and upload if someone interested.
I read somewhere that 1941 setup was more balanced toward Allies, while 1942 setup is more toward Axis.
Actually, Baron, 1941 is also biased towards the axis. I would normally take an 8 bid to be allies, which is more than R’s starting income in this version.
Thinking about it (referring back to GenQ87’s comment re looking for the version with the lowest bid) the allied bid for 42.2 and 40G are approaching R’s starting income in each of those versions.
In Anniversary I would take allies for rather less than that, which makes that the “most balanced” in this sense.
Do others agree?
Think I’ll go with the anniversary edition. Thanks for the help.
