Have you ever tried other versions of A&A?
Yea, I’ve tried a lot of 'em. Some friends and I even made some up. They’re fun in and of themselves, but not in the same way. While some alternative rules have been very well thought out, and could have been fine if were ‘the originally official rules’, I just can’t get past them as being something of a novelty thing. Basicly, that’s what I did when I was young and played A&A so much I got bored with it. Like playing with your food when you’re full. But now, after 15 or so years and a career and family, A&A time is a rare and priviledged event, requiring moved mountains to make time for. So, I don’t so much care wasting those opportunities on alternative versions. Plus, I’ve recently introduced my neighborhood buddies to it, they’re new and shouldn’t try them yet.
But, yea, I remember trying several different ones, including the notorious ‘double blind’, and that one drove me nuts. he he he Yea, yea, it had it’s validity in mimicing the stealth of real war, but it was a labor to play and too far separated from strategy and too much like the metaphorical equivelant of swinging your fists in a darkened room hoping to clock your enemies chops. I even won a game like that and couldn’t appreciate it because I felt like it was a hollow victory, beating someone’s ignorance and not their intellegence… it’s sort of too irrational if that makes any sense.
I feel there already is too much that relies on the luck of the roll already, and to inject even MORE luck into the game just makes it just… too freakish. If you notice, everyone harps on how it makes the game more like ‘real war’, but those games always end with the most unrealistic results. Always. Like a Japanese armada taking over Washington DC at the same exact time a US armada takes over Berlin… just too kookie for me.
I de-rationalize the whole notion that urges the side of players that like double blind on the fact that the superpowers had a much greater idea of where the enemy was and in what numbers than you give credit to. Enough to accept the real rules as actually being more realistic than double blind’s opposite extreme. Mind you, there were plenty of broken codes, spys and recon to make it acceptable to not use double blind. Think of this too, perhaps even players themselves are ‘mislead’ in their own and other’s strengths as well (in the sense of inflated numbers and grand-scale strategic miscalculations), justifiying why sometimes 3 fighters can get lost to 1 transport alone. Even the regular rules seems to sort of make a very good arguement that even as players are sitting there looking right at their own and their enemy’s forces, they indeed are looking with no more or less accuracy than the real powers did back in the real war, expressed by how sometimes exaggerated results can result from conflicts.
See what I mean?
Anyway, it’s hard to discribe really, but regular rules are okay by me and alternative rules are something of a turn-off now. It’s like I tell folks when trying to not only describe A&A to them, but quickly describe it and what makes it such a hit and fun to play…“A&A is great because of it optimizing the greatest number of strategic possibilities with the simplest rules and gameplay better than any other game in history.”
No need for new rules in my book.
Who taught you English?
he he he
I know the rules. But, I’m using the ‘double blind’ alternative rules of English. Got bored of the regular rules.
:wink:
