Was this game play tested AT ALL?

[Adlertag]

@Krieghund:

I can’t really comment much on the playtesting process for reasons of confidentiality.

Oh my God, is this a beer & pretzl -game with plastic toy soldiers, or is it some super secret military prosject ?

[ithkrall]

@Adlertag:

@Krieghund:

I can’t really comment much on the playtesting process for reasons of confidentiality.

Oh my God, is this a beer & pretzl -game with plastic toy soldiers, or is it some super secret military prosject ?

Its still a commercially sensitive programme of work, and Im sure Kreighund signed a non disclosure agreement. He probably isnt legally allowed to say squat.

Just standard business practice.

[Lucifer]

I can understand this non disclosure issue before a game is released, but not afterwards.

Personally, I don’t have a big problem with Japanese units in Moscow, and Japanese ftrs in Berlin/Rome, for me, I would only be disappointed if the game was not substantially better than Revised, and it is much better even with flaws we did not expect.

For realism, we can only have so much, but the end product should/could at least have some minor adjustments which is more towards what we wanted AA50 to be like.
For me it’s like a complex chess game, 1vs1, who can move the pieces/units better than the opponent. But it is also a WW2 theme, and it is better with a little more realism, both for warfare matters and specific WW2 factors. We got improvements from the Revised version, but not enough, imo.

Maybe having Japan attacking Russia is a lesser evil, for the real WW2, what the hell was the Japanese thinking before they attacked the US in 1941  :roll:  :-)

[Flying Tiger]

@Adlertag:

@Krieghund:

I can’t really comment much on the playtesting process for reasons of confidentiality.

Oh my God, is this a beer & pretzl -game with plastic toy soldiers, or is it some super secret military prosject ?

LMAO, thanks for that Adlertag.

Krieghund, I can only assume the playtesters forgot about the battle of Midway, Guadalcanal, The taking of The Philippines, Iwo Jima, because none of this shit is happening in my games. If they wanted a European war why didn’t they just make one and call it “Alternative history: The really really huge war in Europe”? You could ask Harry Turtledove for tips.

[Veqryn]

There is no benefit to taking these islands, either for japan or for the usa.  even National Objectives do not solve this because Japan is going to want to take the Philippines, East Indies, Borneo, and Kwangtung anyway just for the money.  The NOs should have skipped these and only dealt with the non-moneyed islands.

[critmonster]

@Veqryn:

There is no benefit to taking these islands, either for japan or for the usa. The NOs should have skipped these and only dealt with the non-moneyed islands.

I couldn’t agree more

[Omega]

East indies and Borneo should be worth 1 ipc each. Then, put the 6 ipc somewhere that is truly worth that much, like Australia or Canada

[Lynxes]

Back to the topic!! I think the NOs do something to encourage a Pacific conflict, what’s wrong is the set-up which is skewed towards the Japanese. They just have so many units compared to the Allies that it’s often not worth to try and fight them. AA50 did strengthen the US fleet somewhat, but they gave the Japanese 9 fighters and 5 transports which is too much.

So, back to the idea of bids being placed in China or on TTs or sz:s bordering Japanese at-start units. Would a bid of say 4 inf in Yunnan and 1 Destroyer at the West coast make the game more like it was meant to be from the start?

[Bardoly]

@Lynxes:

Back to the topic!! I think the NOs do something to encourage a Pacific conflict, what’s wrong is the set-up which is skewed towards the Japanese. They just have so many units compared to the Allies that it’s often not worth to try and fight them. AA50 did strengthen the US fleet somewhat, but they gave the Japanese 9 fighters and 5 transports which is too much.

So, back to the idea of bids being placed in China or on TTs or sz:s bordering Japanese at-start units. Would a bid of say 4 inf in Yunnan and 1 Destroyer at the West coast make the game more like it was meant to be from the start?

That might be a titch too much, but I think that you’re on the right track.

[Veqryn]

I would rather see a Pacific USA naval bid than a bid anywhere else.

I think a cruiser along side Western US or with the BB in Hawaii, along with a Submarine added to the Carrier force near South America.

[Lynxes]

/Veqryn

So you’re more into the idea of bids being forced in TTs or sz:s next to Japanese at-start forces? And in this way naval bids like what you propose would be chosen. The crucial question is if bids should be guided or not since unlimited bids will go to EGY or KAR, of course.

[Lucifer]

I think the US should have more naval units in sz 44, it takes 4 turns to sail to Italy from sz 44, and even longer to the Baltic sz.
I don’t favor forced bids, but if players desperately wants more action in the pacific, bidding Chinese infs, and/or US naval units in the pacific makes it easier (for allies) to wage war in the pacific.

I did some calcing, and it is $47 in the pacific with NOs. Not all of this cash is easy obtainable, but even with the original setup, allies will get hurt if they leave the pacific altogether.

And US can be threatened by the polar express, note, any decent allied player will not lose WUS, but it will tie up US forces to protect it’s mainland.
Japan has to expand a lot before any polar express is powerful enough to make an impact, but from several rnds into the game, Japan can get a foothold in mainland Asia, and at the same time keep Alaska for a few rnds.

But the most important factor is that Germany+Italy is usually stronger than UK+Russia, I think the game is meant to give US incentives for fighting mainly in Europe, the problem is that naval units are very expensive, even a sub cost the same as two infs, so it is too expensive to fight a two-front war. Bidding naval units for US in the pacific can help solve this issue.

[Lynxes]

But, surely, Subotai, you don’t expect people to bid for units in the Pacific theater if they are allowed to place units in Europe which are much more cost-effective IPC per IPC?  :?

[Krieghund]

@Captain:

@Adlertag:

@Krieghund:

I can’t really comment much on the playtesting process for reasons of confidentiality.

Oh my God, is this a beer & pretzl -game with plastic toy soldiers, or is it some super secret military prosject ?

Its still a commercially sensitive programme of work, and Im sure Kreighund signed a non disclosure agreement. He probably isnt legally allowed to say squat.

Just standard business practice.

Exactly.

I had many long conversations with the powers that be about precisely what I was allowed to say, both before and after the game was released, in order to give you guys the maximum possible amount of information.

[DarthMaximus]

I’m not sure how long AA50 was tested or how many different testers there were, but we’ve been playing competitive games (tourney-league) here for 7 months  and one thing I’ve noticed is it is incredibly hard to duplicate results to test long term playouts.  I’ve seen lots of similar attacks but very rarely have I seen games with the exact same dice rolls for G1, R1, and J1.

Now that could be one line of thinking, more variety in rds 1-3 over how will things look if we get to rds 6+.
Afterall, it is a boardgame designed to be played FTF with up to 6 players on a weekend with your buddies, on-line play is 1-1 for the most part.  One player working 3 countries is much more effiicient then 3 different players.

So, on-line is much more competitive in that “funness” may be sacrificed at the higher levels of play so that you can win the tourney, win the league, have the best record, etc.  I’m not saying the game isn’t fun for a person that wins a tourney or goes 16-0, what I’m saying is at some point winning becomes more important over things like the historical nature of the game, playing muli-player, or if KGF is better than KJF, etc.

Testers have a limited time, we have years if needed to find all the bugs.  :-D

[Lucifer]

@Lynxes:

But, surely, Subotai, you don’t expect people to bid for units in the Pacific theater if they are allowed to place units in Europe which are much more cost-effective IPC per IPC?  :?

You’re right, but I personally prefer open bids, b/c for me it’s about winning the game. But for players who want more action in the pacific, and mainland Asia, force bids can be a good solution.
It will be more like a “house rule” for bidding rules, in contrast to the TripleA lobby environment, TripleA warclub ladder and here on A&A.org (PBF games). Historically, players have been using open bids, with some regulations.

I won’t change the rules, but many people play with one or more house rules, and if a playgroup is unhappy with some aspects/theaters of the game, then this force bids option can be a good solution.
As the game designers say, there’s no problem in using house rules if all players agree, and if it makes the game more interesting.
For AA50 or AA42 to be less 100%-KGF-like, there has to be much more radical changes then we see from Revised to AA50.

[gamerman01]

@Veqryn:

There is no benefit to taking these islands, either for japan or for the usa.  even National Objectives do not solve this because Japan is going to want to take the Philippines, East Indies, Borneo, and Kwangtung anyway just for the money.  The NOs should have skipped these and only dealt with the non-moneyed islands.

But USA has NO for Midway, Wake, Hawaii, and Solomons (any 3).  A Japanese NO includes Solomons (no IPC value) so the game design does give more incentive than ever for the 0 IPC islands.  Not enough to sucker the USA into fighting a losing battle in the Pacific, but more than before nonetheless.

I agree too much value given to Borneo and East Indies.  They were 1’s in “classic”.  Boosted to 4 to give some extra income to Japan since all countries were beefed up a bit for revised, but now Japan is too powerful in AA50.  In this thread, we have as a group determined that Japan is too powerful with 9 fighters and 3 carriers, about 4 transports, and no enemy complexes anywhere closer than Moscow or San Francisco.  Recipe for domination.  Let me put it this way.  I run out of Japanese control markers, so I went to get my classic set and took ALL of the Japanese control markers from it.  I still don’t have enough.  I’m playing solo, so the playing ability of Japan and her enemies is roughly equal.  In all my 1941 games Japan gets to about 60 IPCs income plus NO’s and completely takes the US out of the war by continuously threatining and attacking California, and trading Western Canada.  All this while easily taking over all of China, Northern Russia, some of Africa, all of Southern Asia, with absolutely no retaliation from anyone.  There’s nothing to do but help topple Russia faster or tie up the Americans.  The Americans are closer (remember 3 carriers, 9 planes and a lot of transports) and easier to attack quickly with big forces, so that’s how my games go.

I understand that in 1941 Japan had a lot of fighters and carriers and everything.  I guess you could say the Japs got majorly “diced” at Midway, which evened things up in actual history.  In the '41 scenario, that hasn’t happened.

I guess I’m looking at the game a bit differently than when I originally posted this topic.  If you set up a game based on the actual military positions in the world in 1941 and ignore actual historical events, and one country moves at a time, the Axis are in a position to take over the world.  Russian winter is not a factor.  Midway - didn’t happen.  Biggest successful decoy of all time in 1944 in UK in preparations for D-Day - nonfactor.  The fact that after a few rounds (of game time) almost all experienced Japanese pilots had been killed - makes no difference.  The fact that Japanese tanks were not equal in any way to German and American tanks - not accounted for.  I’ve learned to just appreciate the game for what it is - a fun wargame to play.  It’s almost best to throw history out the window and forget about it, and start rolling those dice.

[gamerman01]

@Subotai:

For me it’s like a complex chess game, 1vs1, who can move the pieces/units better than the opponent. But it is also a WW2 theme, and it is better with a little more realism, both for warfare matters and specific WW2 factors. We got improvements from the Revised version, but not enough, imo.

Maybe having Japan attacking Russia is a lesser evil, for the real WW2, what the hell was the Japanese thinking before they attacked the US in 1941   :roll:  :-)

One “slight” difference between A&A and chess.  When I attack your queen with my pawn in chess, the queen is dead.  The A&A version of chess would have you roll dice first.  If I roll a one, i get a hit, if your queen rolls a 5 or less than you get a hit.  :lol:

Japan attacked Pearl Harbor pre-emptively to prevent the entire US fleet from eventually coming after them and crushing them.  They attacked Pearl Harbor to get an easy kill of a bunch of battleships, so in their mind they would have some kind of chance of surviving their own imperialism.  The American carriers, however, which turned out to be the real “kings of the sea”, were all mysteriously absent from Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.  This is one of the main reasons some believe the higher ups in the USA (like the President) knew the Pearl Harbor attack was coming and allowed it to stir up the public support for the war which simply was not there with no attack on the US.  I think the Japanese naval codes had already been cracked at this point too, so some conspiracy theorists believe US command knew the attack was coming.

But anyway, I agree with you that it was not a good move for Japan to sucker punch the most powerful industrial nation (and most innovative) in the world which was trying hard to stay out of the war altogether.  Admiral Yamamoto recognized this immediately (he was probably against the attack in the first place) when he famously said that “I fear all we have accomplished is to awaken a sleeping giant”.

[Flying Tiger]

@Lynxes:

Back to the topic!! I think the NOs do something to encourage a Pacific conflict, what’s wrong is the set-up which is skewed towards the Japanese. They just have so many units compared to the Allies that it’s often not worth to try and fight them. AA50 did strengthen the US fleet somewhat, but they gave the Japanese 9 fighters and 5 transports which is too much.

So, back to the idea of bids being placed in China or on TTs or sz:s bordering Japanese at-start units. Would a bid of say 4 inf in Yunnan and 1 Destroyer at the West coast make the game more like it was meant to be from the start?

An extra DD at WUSA will deter nothing. I would still throw 2 fighters at it and a DD and 2 fighters at Pearl Harbor. The outcome is the same.

I think for history sake the PH attack must happen. The Japanese did not attack any US warships just off the western coast. That is why I would be for a DD at PH and a Cruiser at WUSA. A DD at PH changes nothing except it makes the Japanese attack it with more than 2 fighters and a DD. This eliminates the WUSA attack. I am for historical accuracy in the 1st round after that though it’s anyones game and anyones stategy.

I seriously cannot believe the playtesters allowed the Japanese to sink both fleets at PH and WUSA. It’s a no brainer with the setup as is. Pathetic actually.

Let’s refresh…With my setup the Japanese will have to throw 4 fighters and the DD at PH, losing the DD . If they try to throw 2 fighters and a DD at it they may lose. Maybe they throw 3 fighters at it and win but then what do they do with the 4th fighter? Attack a DD and a Cruiser? I don’t think so.

[Bardoly]

Why not simply replace the sz56 transport with a cruiser?

That is somewhat historical in that the US was not militarily ready at the time to start amphibiously assaulting islands.  This also makes it harder for Japan to attack sz56, and it actually takes away some of Japan’s incentive to attack it since there is no free transport there to destroy.