Teaching People How To Play

[habs4life9]

Hi, I’m wondering if anyone has advice on how to teach the game to people who have never played it? People typically do NOT want to read through a 30-page rulebook, and just want to get down to playing. I would not know how to play the game if I had not read the entire rulebook, so I don’t really know how to teach people who don’t want to read it. I start by explaining how far units can move, and their attack and defense values. That’s easy enough for most ppl to grasp, but then there are the rules for air unit movement, submarine combat, the transport rules, bombardment, strat bombing, all of which I cannot explain without people getting bored and wanting to play another game. I can’t teach it as we play because people do not have this prior knowledge of unit movement, and so I have to make all the decisions (purchases, movement, the whole thing) and they just end up rolling dice as I say and not really learning the game. Some of you MUST have come across this problem of wanting a pick-up game of AA and having nobody else present know how to play. What can I do to ease the learning process?

[Zhukov44]

Maybe just play a little mini-practice game before the real game.  Give each side like 20 units, and then each side practices using those units turn by turn.

What is needed is a small-scale A&A game where the units and their uses are the same, but there is a much smaller map that is far quicker to play, and is intended as a 1-1 game.

[Krieghund]

I’d give them enough quick basics to get them started, then teach as you play.  Let them make mistakes and learn from them.  You may not get through a full game the first time, so you can stop the “practice game” at some point and either start again, time permitting, or wait until your next session.

[reloader-1]

I do a mini-game - I demonstrate first how units fight - I grab 1 infantry and 1 tank vs 1 infantry and 1 tank, and we “roll” a battle. We move up to a 5v5 battle afterwards.

then, I explain movement - simple, and then I talk about sea units.

Lastly, I explain how you purchase units. I am always ready to help out with hints DURING a game, and I point out things I am doing so the other player knows how to respond.

[Veqryn]

I would love to see a very short guide on how to play a general game.  We need something 1-5 pages that we can include with TripleA, on how to play the games.  It would be a short into and primer to how to play Axis and Allies type-of-games.
It would have to assume that the player has no prior board game experience, not even risk.  And also assuming that they are probably going to play their first game or 2 against the AI, so they won’t have any humans around to ask questions to for a while. 
Does anything exist?

[fanofbond]

I learned how to play on dday. Itwas a very good way to learn especially with the cards telling how everything works (mostly). Then I got aa50 and that is what I teach people on. I first explain the pieces by showing what they look like(the hardest pieces to reconize by sight for a begginner are the destroyers and cruisers ) then we set up the game. Then by using aa50 info on the nation cards it makes it easy to go through the turn sequence and explain all of those parts. I usually just explain basic combat and then as senerios play out in the first game I explain the more complicated stuff such and subs and amphibious assualts. That is basically what I do and it seems to work pretty well but I would rather they have of read the rulebook and errata before so I don’t need to spend the time explaining things for a few hours and we play on.

[SunLiRen]

Here, I just made it for ya. I’ll make an even better version for ya later. My roommates buggin me for another minimap game. It’s pretty addicting. You just have one side and your opponent gets one as well. You can buy an Indus Complex in any of the 5 territories to create a navy as my roommate requested. Anyway, player’s aid is set up. Each of you get 34 IPC’s to start off with. I’m currently addicted to land battles. Anyway, I’m off to play some more! Enjoy! Oh yeah, I specifically made it to be printed out on an 8 (1/2) x 11 piece of printing paper. Just print it on “Landscape Settings”. Anyway. Both of you start off with 34 IPC’s.

[Hobbes]

If you have 3 players another possibility is to play it using the AA42 map with everyone going solo (no allliances allowed).

Give everyone some initial units (1 of each unit) to place on their home territories (UK, Japan, Madagascar). Each capital is worth 8 IPCs, the other territories are worth 3 IPC (neutrals included, with the exception of Sahara and Himalaya). Play it until a capital is conquered or someone quits, usually the latter.

[habs4life9]

Thanks for the replies guys. I didn’t mention that the guys I was trying to teach most recently were also drunk and had no patience, lol. I will never bust out my game again with drunk people, UNLESS they all know how to play. I might’ve lost a few pieces too in all the hooplah, damn it.

[fanofbond]

Good thing you weren’t playing pac40 and lost jap tacky bombers lol

[St. Louis]

Go to a games workshop store. Teach one of them how to play, trust me they wont mind a 30 page rulebook

[fuglunkx]

I just go over the rules as we play. Before we start the game I tell them how IPCs work, how each turn goes, and how you win the game. I also go over how the battle system works by using the infantry’s attack and defense as an example. I talk about unit special abilities as their use arises such as the subs special abilities or bombing raids. Obviously they wont be experts on their first try but I have a group of gaming friends that only learned how to play like two or three months ago and we have had some pretty good games since their first try.

[Lucifer]

For TripleA there is the minimap which is good for people who have never played A&A or TripleA, but for F2F play I don’t think TripleA is good for absolute beginners, b/c TripleA handles all the rules, but for strategical lessons, the Revised, AA42 and AA50 maps, TripleA is excellent for both beginners and reasonable decent players to learn more about strategy.

[kbudm]

When I first learned, I just played a game. Just dive right in. Understand how money works and attacks and go from there. Even though there is a comprehensive rule book, this game is about strategy and that’s something that you just pick up as you play.

[habs4life9]

I believe some sort of tutorial is necessary. I think I’d start with opening up the board and letting them look at it bare, to see the territorial ranges and values of each power. Then I’d explain how the money works, and then each units’ cost and movement, and unique unit rules. Obviously there are some unit rules (especially with sea) that a new player could easily forget about in-game, but that’s part of the learning process. Then I’d give everyone their cards and let them set themselves up. At least that much prior knowledge before they attempt to start playing I think, and from there they can learn strategies as they go.