@Crinklybog:
I’m looking for a game that would be best suited to a family of five, hoping to ‘step up’ from Risk and Risk:Europe. We’re not too bothered about the complexity, we can learn!
I’m thinking A&A 1914 simply because of my interest in that period- however; are there other versions that’re considered ‘more fun’? 1942 seems like another good bet. What is considered the best version on the forums?
An important thing to keep in mind is that the 1914 game is a non-standard A&A game. It’s set in WWI, not WWII; some of its mechanisms are very different from those in more conventional A&A games; its sculpts are completely different; its map is not global in scale (it depicts for the most part Europe and Africa); and unlike the conventional A&A games it does not include a major naval war in the Pacific. It’s an oddity, in much the same way as the three WWII local-campaign A&A games (D-Day, Battle of the Bulge and Guadalcanal) are oddities.
The more conventional A&A games are the WWII global-level games (and their close cousins, the theatre-level Europe and Pacific games). If it’s important to you get get a feel for what the “main evolutionary line” of A&A board games is, those would be the ones to play. In terms of simplicity and scale and duration of play – going from simplest and smallest and shortest to most complex, biggest and longest – the scale starts with 1941, followed by 1942 2nd edition, then Pacific 1940 2nd edition, then Europe 1940 2nd edition, and finally Global 1940 2nd edition, which is the game you get by combining Pacific 1940 2nd edition and Europe 1940 2nd edition.