I can offer a really useful and detailed response for classic (2nd ed.), but I haven’t played First Edition. Are the two similar enough that a 2nd edition example would be helpful?
When and where was your first game?
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I’m just interested in hearing your story about your magical first game.
I remember my first game. I was either 9 or 10 when my cousins first picked up A&A about two months ago. Whenever I met them, they would comment on how great the game was and how cool the pieces looked (we were all still young). So my brother and I finally got together and went to their house to see what all the commotion about. First, I had never really heard of WWII before. All I remember was that it was some war set in the 1950’s where Nazi followers got together to start another war to avenge Hitler’s death, who had died in the previous war. That and the Japanese took over Hawaii and whatever I learned from the Indiana Jones series. :wink:
When it came time to pick countries, I got second to last dibs and chose UK (the only other country was USSR and my cousins said it sucked since it could be attacked from both sides). In the first game, the Allies got their hearts torn out of them. Russia crumbled and I was getting witchslapped all across Africa and Asia (my IPC count had dropped well below 20 before the game was over :x ). My purchases were mainly, “Ooooo… is that a battleship!? I gotta buy me one of those! :roll: ” The only shining moment I had was when my transport destroyed an ftr attacking it. :D Luckily America was able to make its presence felt since the Axis suffered victory syndrome and settled on tech rolls (that was when I was introduced to a little history lesson called D-Day).
However, just the experience of the game was incredible. I had played Risk before, but this game was superior to that and any other wargame I had played up to then. Wait… come to think of it, I think A&A and Risk were the only two wargames I played up until then! 8) But if you ever want to introduce a new player to the game, be easy on them and don’t give them a country like UK. It was devastating to see each territory I owned fall over like a stack of daminos. :cry:
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About 1986 or 87
When I was in High School (a long long time ago) I started to hang out with some guys that had been playing all types of Military strategy games for several years. Like most of us I started with a game of Risk.
After a couple games of Risk, one of my friends got Axis and Allies. They had played Third Reich quite a few times and they all had their favorite countries. So, I ended up with America.
That first game my strategy was pretty aimless. We won but it was definitely not due to a masterful strategy, we just made less mistakes. I went out the following week after scraping together the money and got my own copy. I would play the first 2 or 3 turns for hours trying to develop the perfect strategies and then the perfect counters. I remember coming up with the “Operation Sealion” move and using it once successfully, but that type of move usually only works once I guess you could say I was hooked right away.
After college I got busy with work and starting a family so I didn’t play much. But last year I got curious and looked on the internet to see what I could find. Now I play on a board at least once a month with the group I put together and I play a little on the net.
By the way before Highschool I thought WWI was against Napoleon and WWII was against Hitler :D
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Ahh… so you already had a playing group to begin with. You can say Axis and Allies was what began my love for other wargames.
“By the way before Highschool I thought WWI was against Napoleon and WWII was against Hitler”
Haha. Good one! :wink: At least that was better than me way back when I started playing. All I knew was that Napoleon was a really short midget that came up with Neapolitan ice cream!
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hey strangers, my first a&a huh? well unlike yall that didnt know much about the specifics of ww2, ive studied it for about gaa 7 yrs i guess it makes now, almost 8. but when i was 12 i already knew bits and pieces like who the powers were, why each country was fighting and a brief description of the leaders.
passing by a gaming store i saw a&a and was intrigued bc i had studied war for about 2 yrs then and wanted to get it. but i looked down at the price tag and if i remember right it was 50$. so u know how thats like a zillion dollars to a 12 yr old so i scraped and scrounged finally making enough money and bought it. i didnt fully understand the rules at the time but thats ok, i realized i didnt have anyone to play w/ so it collected dust for a yr. :D
then one day passing by i got a&a for the comp finally. so i brought it home and installed it and the first time i played as germany. got raped sooo badly it wasnt even funny. :( i held out for like 10 turns building solid infantry but yeah i died and japan almost took over the us and russia. us had this thing about where they never defended home :wink:
but yeah now im 19 and know more about ww2 then yall know about ur own families and good at a&a:D, hope so after studying it for 10 yrs almost :wink:
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Seems like you started out of the computer? Were you able to introduce A&A to any of your other friends?
Well I didn’t starting studying WWII (in depth) until at least 8th grade. Before then I was much more interested with modern warfare with tactics and weaponry. To me, WWII was some antique war that was wayyyy over hyped. When my parents took me to Pearl Harbor when I was 12, I had paid no attention whatsoever to any monuments like the USS Arizona. Looks like I could never be so completely wrong in my life.
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well unlike yall that didnt know much about the specifics of ww2, ive studied it for about gaa 7 yrs i guess it makes now, almost 8. but when i was 12 i already knew bits and pieces like who the powers were, why each country was fighting and a brief description of the leaders. …
…but yeah now im 19 and know more about ww2 then yall know about ur own families and good at a&a:D, hope so after studying it for 10 yrs almost :wink:
I had those Ideas when you were still having nap time in pre-school. ;)
My first game of A&A was 16 years ago. I’ve studied WWII quite a bit since then. :) Like I said it was a long long time ago.
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nah the name got me :lol: ive always been asocial so never had any friends and the people i ‘talked to’ they liked chess so i got into that really hard and got really good but they never wanted to learn a&a. one of the best high schoolers in the state :D
yeah ww2 was one of the pivotal wars in human evolution whether people admit it or not, showed us how low people can stoop to get what they want.
good example is the beer hall peutsch of 1932 if i remember right, somewhere around there. ww2 really is a fascinating subject to study, i pref it to the new junk :D im old school :Pbut hey i had a fun preschool :wink: :wink: yeah just bc uve had more yrs under the belt doesnt mean nothing :) i could take ya at ww2 8)
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I dunno. :roll: The only problem is that history isn’t like math or science or english. History comes with experience. I know people who are smarter (SAT’s blah blah blah…) than me age wise, but when it comes to history, it’s easy to outrace them. Remember, there’s straight hard facts (ie who was president in so-and-so, what happen in so-and-so) and the little, more subtle facts (why did Hitler’s chauffer drive backwards, famous WW2 weapons). And the little known facts take time to learn – years. Unless you study WW2 day and night, it’s hard to catch up to 10+ years.
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Beer Hall Putsch was in 1923, friend! But maybe that’s what you meant to type…1932, 1923 —a dangerous mistake to make :o
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yeah thoughht i put that :o was like half asleep at the time anyways so the simple fact i said it was in the 20th century is a miracle beyond itself :P
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I realy don’t want to argue somthing as silly as who knows more about what. From what you write we actualy sound some what similar, even though your still a pup ;) I prefer my own company but this is exactly the reason I could never get better at chess, I could never find any one to play.
On of the reasons I come to this site is for the WWII discussions. When a group of people start to discuss a topic that all have studied and are interested in there is always something to learn. I am fairly certain I will never know everything about war but it is fun to try:)
It is apperent that you have just read or heard something about the Beer Hall Putsch and are dieing to enlighten us all so why don’t you go over to the general discution forum and do so?
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Yeah, it’s impossible to know everything at war. Take A&A. Thirty years later, it’s still being discussed and new strategies are being made to “perfect” their technique. That’s what makes your very first game so important – it’s a long term investment
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^_^ i agree from the lil pup :wink:
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My first game was with a “young men’s group” kind of a Boy Scouts thing we had at church. We studied teamwork and general strategy and stuff. The “Scoutmaster” brought A&A once and we had a blast! He made a compilation of classical war music and brought it too. (“Mars” “Imperial Death March” and others.) That really gets you going you ought to try it! I was hooked.
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Ha, haven’t seen you for awhile. :wink:
Teaching tactical war history at church!? Isn’t this like forbidden or something?
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I forgot my password and was running around on the keyboard like a chicken with it’s head cut off until I decided to check that email thing that you get when you first start your account. :oops: Anyway, I’m back.
It is not your typical church, and besides, it wasn’t actually during church… I guess it does sound strange, we had fun though! :D
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I belive military topics are quite popular in some religons, the mormons for one. At least that is what I understand.
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Nah, I was just teasing about the the church stuff. It’s just that most religions are like, “fighting is wrong!” :wink:
Anyways Bang, great ta have ya back. :roll:
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It really ticks me off when Christians say that war is wrong. I agree that many wars are wrong, started for stupid reasons by stupid people, but there does come a time when “right” must be upheld against the “wrong”. A lot of times it comes down to a moral decision, and if the Church was doing it’s job we wouldn’t take a whole lot of time deciding!
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Ha, it just depends what religion is more “right” to make moral decisions. However, there are sometimes war is inevitable and can’t just sit around and condone what is going on.
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