2 players??

[madquest8]

I guess that rather than spend my time trying to convince one or two other people that ‘my plan is the best’ I would rather spend my time trying to outwit a single opponent in a game of tactics and skill, something that is lost when you are arguing with the ‘rabble’ over whether to attack germany or reinforce russia.

For me, whether it is an accurate reprsentation of WWII or not, I get more fun out of the game in a one on one situation, rather than ordering or being ordered about .

Maybe it’s because my main opponent and I are pretty evenly matched, and taking on another player is a handicap that neither of us would look forward to, Among the gamers I know , any game with three people playing the Allies would be an automatic Axis victory, perhaps it’s different if you have opponents who are happy to co-operate with one another… but if that is the case, it’s like playing against one opponent anyway ! :wink:

[Imperious Leader]

Yes but the great value of winning the victory is to convince others that your plan is best, If your not able to coordinate other people and get them to do as you see best, the task becomes an exercise in statistics which is not really outwitting but using the “math” in the game more effectively than your adversary. Strategy is not achieved because it becomes less flexible and prone to standard openings. The victory is a sour one because you only proved you have played enough games that you understand the math behind the game… and its not really “outwitting” anybody, but rather just playing more games and learning what works and what does not.

I see the success on more levels which is also to prove by playing well independently and communicating your own plan to others as a huge “diplomatic” aspect of the game thats lost by playing 3 players positions.

The strategy become more dynamic if you got somebody playing  differently so you must adjust your plan to accommodate various situations and become flexible and dynamic to problems outside your control—with the aspect of psychology and communication as your aid to enrich the strategy by adaptation.

So like playing 1 on 1 basketball, You take the place of post player, outside shooter, key defender, rebounder…except you got nobody to pass the ball to. You also lost the aspect of reaction to different things getting thrown at you that are beyond the 'math" of the game but a crucial part of what being a good strategist is.

would you not like to outwit your team members and the opposition to the point where they are following the outlined plan?

To be a leader you got to take command and force the issue and the best strategist should know how to do this on both an individual and interpersonal level.

Then i guess by extrapolation in the business world advisor’s and partners working together for a common goal is not as effective as one man rule. AS far as i can tell its more enriching to have the concept:

“The team united is greater than the sum of its parts”-

[Hobbes]

@Imperious:

The game is for 5 players or the intent is to have 2 teams of players each with different ideas competing to create the same result. Thats why i like the game.

Do you like playing risk with 2 players? monopoly? Third Reich?

Why should this game be any different?

But the beauty of Axis and Allies is more complex and unpredictable than risk or monopoly (never played 3rd Reich), thus it can perfectly allow for fun and challenging 2 player games.

I completely agree that a 5 player game is much more dynamic and unpredictable than a 2 player one. But the key issue to me is time.
A 5 player game takes hours and hours, which is something that most people don’t have the luxury to spend. All the bickering and negotiating and so on take a lot of time. Meanwhile the guy who just finishes his turn waits and waits and waits until he can play again.

Plus since you can’t have that much games (because of the hours they take) the players don’t have much opportunities to advance their skills (I’m not talking tournaments here, just friends gathering together to have a game since it can be difficult to find players with the same engagement on the game). Thus, you can end up with 1 guy on either/both sides who is the expert (because he’s more engaged and takes the time to read forums like this one) and all the other players will follow his lead/advice. Is that much different from a 1v1?

And btw, I’ve stopped playing LL games exactly because I got tired of endless calculations and preset plans. I also agree with IL’s point that those take out the fun, but I respect those who prefer for the game to be more like chess. However, that does not mean that everyone who plays 1v1 is a LL fanatic.

[Imperious Leader]

Well then to sum up the situation:

1. 2 players is viable if you pressed for time

2. To gain the full measure of playing AA and the dynamic of “dealing” with partners fighting a common enemy and the adaptation required to alter and revise strategy according to shifting occurrences allows a much greater measure of the art of strategy. Without it the game falls victim to countless calculations that are akin to saying " My Schlieffen Plan is better than yours!". This is not at all what a true test of strategy should become. Otherwise you got a finite game with finite plans that can work. I would much rather have somebody make mistakes and you have to recover with a counter move to throw off the disadvantage, then the other side commits an error…The only way to win is to force mistakes and i feel that two players aren’t always playing with creativity, but rather with some preconceived notion in their head of what they MUST do to win demonstrated by home study. That results in caution in play and longer games. When you have variables and different minds working on the same problem you have multiple efforts to the same goal, resulting in quicker play results (granted once diplomacy/debate has subsided).

If you got one guy playing one side he can concentrate only on his part as offering a solution to the puzzle of how to force victory. This offers greater insight and better long range plans on his part and also removes those gaffs during the game where you forgot to leave a man in west USA and Japan just got paid. Thats also a terrible way to lose/win but it occurs much more often when doing 2 v 2. I think it has turned into this only from the internet standpoint ( AAA), but OTB its largely remains a team effort.

[newpaintbrush]

I prefer to play 1 on 1.  I think 1 on 1 is perfectly viable, in spite of what IL says.

As far as “strategy” goes, whatever.  If you’re playing as one of three Allied players, both your Axis opponents are veterans, and your allies are noobs, you are gonna go down, especially if your noob allies think they have some Klever Plan and won’t listen to you.  Think you got some strategy that’s gonna overcome two stubborn noobs on your team?  Pah.  You can talk about the “art of strategy” until you’re blue in the face, but your pretty words won’t win you the game!

[Imperious Leader]

Then your not a good strategist because Axis and Allies has different nations to play allowing for different point of view requiring coordination of more than pieces, but interpersonal skills in leading your team to victory by the weight of psychological factors which prove your military leadership more adept. It is entirely possible to pull a “hells kitchen” and Gordon Ramsey the team to produce that which they cannot do alone, and in turn make you a truly great skill in the art of leadership.

Take a valueless, unproven group of noobs and win against veterans is by far a greater victory than to sort out your LL notes and dice rolling calculations and stuff you printed off from AA.org and sit alone in the room plotting out everything and knowing the results of all these battles ahead of time… you are basically playing a boring mental edifice. I suppose its fun from a bean counting point of view, but if your measuring who exactly is the best strategist you probably should look at the kind of game where its more dynamic. Now luck factor offers this only partially because if the result is not good you need to adapt, but to have a players on both sides who are full of creative ideas bring something more to a game. You may even be the noob on your team and learn something, which is more important experience in developing skills.

I know this is not convincing you but i offer it only to consider the other point of view.

[Crazy Ivan]

IMO, More than 2 players is a beer and pretzel game, not to be taken too seriously.
If you want to prove your skills, then you should take on just one opponent at a time. Once you show that you can beat everybody consistently, then they must concede that you are the best player.
  But, for the fun factor, a multiplayer game is what you want, as long as everyone agrees that the game is just for fun, and nobody should get their feelings hurt by getting razed for making a dumb more, as it is just all a part of a multiplayer game.

[newpaintbrush]

“but if your measuring who exactly is the best strategist you probably should look at the kind of game where its more dynamic.”

Really.

So I suppose it would be MORE strategic if you decided to throw drunken cats at your Axis and Allies board.  Arguably, such a game would require FAR more strategic decisions and be FAR more dynamic, requiring decisions regarding what sort of beer your cat prefers, what sort of beer you prefer, whether or not a cat can be classified as a biological weapon under the Geneva convention, the moral implications of using cat-based weaponry on plastic civilians, possible legal implications involving the ASPCA, as well as such mundane variables as age, size, and weight of cat, air-speed velocity, and all this even before considering the question of how knocking variable pieces off the board would affect the Axis and Allies game (or how throwing drunken cats around would affect, say, your marriage.)

In fact, a real strategist - a REAL strategist would not only be able to adapt to such a situation, but would thrive, yes?  Perhaps you are such a strategist, IL?  Seeing as how you are able to control factors that OTHER people would perhaps think were not under your control, you must indeed be a master of strategy.

I give you a popsicle stick, a stick of chewing gum, a paperclip, and forty-two seconds.  I would like the report of how you conquered Switzerland with these resources on my desk by Friday.

[Imperious Leader]

I would not bring the example of cats to prove points about games…

And up until now the thread was productive.

I’m out.

Have a nice day.

Meow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yosTIwbFjzM

[Crazy Ivan]

:-o
Me thinks that Bunnies P Wrath is too smart for his own good. :-P
But that’s my opinion.
     I will smite thee for outragious sillyness!  :-P
     And, later on, I shall appauld thee for
                 OUTRAGIOUS sillyness!  :-D
Because we are not allowed to do both in the same day. :x

Now then, does anyone have a rebuttal to my post before all of this Outragious sillyness.  :?

[dezrtfish]

@Crazy:

IMO, More than 2 players is a beer and pretzel game, not to be taken too seriously.
…

But, for the fun factor, a multiplayer game is what you want, as long as everyone agrees that the game is just for fun, and nobody should get their feelings hurt by getting razed for making a dumb more, as it is just all a part of a multiplayer game.

This is the way I play most often, emphasis on the beer, I don’t need to prove I am Hannabal reincarnate, I just want to pretend to rule the world while drinking beer and sh!t talking with my buddies. :-D

[madquest8]

So does anyone want to participate in a 5 player play by forum game ? :mrgreen:

[jsp4563]

@Mr:

So does anyone want to participate in a 5 player play by forum game ? :mrgreen:

Occasionally you will see 5 player games in the “Play Board Games” forum.  Each year we have a doubles tournement 4 players each game.  They are a lot of fun, and all the stuff IL was saying about convincing your partner to follow “your plan” is true.  I know my partner and I have had some heated discussions on which strategy to pursue…he’s usally right. :-D

[Amon-Sul]

@Imperious:

I would not bring the example of cats to prove points about games…

And up until now the thread was productive.

I’m out.

Have a nice day.

Meow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yosTIwbFjzM

IL, we would like you to join or 5 player game

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=11681.0

What say you

[Imperious Leader]

sure…join gleemax, dL the software and we can play on the real map that does not look like a comic strip. After badminton training (about 11PM) ill be available.

AAA is not quality IMO.

[cyan]

@Crazy:

:-o
Me thinks that Bunnies P Wrath is too smart for his own good. :-P
But that’s my opinion.
    I will smite thee for outragious sillyness!  :-P
    And, later on, I shall appauld thee for
                OUTRAGIOUS sillyness!  :-D
Because we are not allowed to do both in the same day. :x

Now then, does anyone have a rebuttal to my post before all of this Outragious sillyness.  :?

I thought NBP’s comment was funny. what he said was true but I think IL is just saying you have to be able to react to unexpected surprises and adjust. (i believe that is an important part of strategy being flexible but it isn’t the most important)

[FM_Rommel]

Personally, I think that both options have their advantages.
Sure, playing one on one has something ‘chessy’(and I mean the game :lol:) about it. It’s like you’re trying to get inside the mind of your opponent, deducting his strategy as he/she makes moves and try to make his plans part of your masterplan. It’s fun, it takes a lot of mental work but it’s worth it.
Then again, playing 2 vs 2(I’ve never played with 5 people, and for this I apologize  :wink:) has a lot of good features too. Two minds see and think of more than just one. Putting your ideas together will often result in a better plan than either of you thought of, and defeating 2 of your friends(who are your intellectual equals, at least concerning A&A :roll:) gives an enormous satisfaction. Beating two people who think together to defeat you is something special, at least to me.

To sum up. There will always be people who prefer one or the other, but I believe that each has its charm, and therefor such discussions are a bit pointless. And to end with a golden oldie: “Live and let live”(Unless your opponents are playing on the Allied side, in which case, kill the bastards :evil:)