Why are the allies so gimped lately? Why transports suck?

[Slackaveli]

i’m considering just HRing a transport defense. they can be fodder and every group of 2 trannies defend at a 1. so unescorted singles are a free kill, groups of 2 get to roll for one 1 and as soon as it’s down to one tranny it’s essentially a freebee. If tye trannies are w/ a fleet they are fodder till the last lone tranny, which is a freebee. Get it? What do ya’ll think? Best of both world’s imo.

[Hobbes]

@knp7765:

The Allied victory took much longer than the Axis victories, something like 12-13 rounds. The Axis victories took roughly 5-7 rounds each

I also share this idea, that Allied victories take longer than Axis ones. I felt it already on 1st Ed., where the Allies  win by securing Africa and earning more than Axis while preventing Russia from falling.

The game flow of 2nd Edition further enhances this. The Axis can achieve a VC victory easier than the Allies (the Allies need to conquer 3 VCs and retain all of their starting ones) and during the first rounds the Axis’ objective is basically to use their advantage on starting units to increase their income.
The Allies need to stop the Axis from reaching parity income levels and Japan has a lot more difficulty to increase its income here. If they are successful during the 1-5 game rounds in doing so afterwards the game balance switches since eventually it becomes impossible for defeat the Allies superior numbers.

[Cow]

I also share this idea, that Allied victories take longer than Axis ones. I felt it already on 1st Ed., where the Allies  win by securing Africa and earning more than Axis while preventing Russia from falling.

omg I get it now, you always played the income game in revised.

Look most games are not played the way you play it.

Russians charge full steam. buys 4 armor and arty or 3 inf 3 armor. kill ukraine and west russia with every available unit. bring everything toward russia/caucasus from the pacific side. If germany stacks karelia, russians all in, same for ukraine or belorussia. From west russia you skirmish karelia/belo/ukraine. meanwhile the brits are either A) dropping norway round 1 B) dropping algeria round 1 with usa and germany has like 50/50 odds as killin the fleet or algeria. UK could shove 2 fighter 1 bomber at 2 sub 1 tran and 1 dd or use the bomber to take back egypt or fly all the air in range of sinking the germany transport/battleship in africa. carrier/dd should always attack the lone transport japan has. the australia transport either takes new guinea or brings new zealand to australia and threatens borneo. Sometimes uk will attack FIC or borneo same turn if egypt defended itself.

Japan will eventually churn out armor and go to take russia, usually the allies rush berlin out of the game before japan falls, hence the 7-9 bid the axis get in revised… which either A) goes toward holding karelia G1 or B) gets placed in africa to blitz

Now, if you play the turtle game. there is a huge problem. 1) the turtle game usually involves usa shuffling units to africa and those units marching toward caucasus/india while the uk shuffles archangel to russia. - It is not hard for germany to stack karelia and strafe your archangel drops.  - germany can rush caucasus alternatively - japan has 2 battleships so usa will have it hard trying to march its way in time.

Plus germany doesn’t have to keep units at west europe. He can make a good push to hold west russia and if germany holds west russia, caucasus is done, and when germany has caucasus, that is not good, because then the income starts to even out. Sure you could say usa will have 6 bombers 1 germany, but japan can do the same thing to america from alaska.

none the less the income game was always boring. I am disappointed that you play that way, when the allies can just rush berlin no problem and win outright. Now maybe if the axis started turtling right off the bat, would I go, you know what… how about I just make more money and win that way. Usually that is not the case.
~

Anyway that was a rough analogy of how revised was played. Usually players rushed. I understand the forum games are much more conservative, but it is not representative of live games people play in real life. No one does that, because there is this popular game called monopoly that is based on income. The triplea lobb is half n half, which is cool, because there is a good mix of play styles. As well as a good mix of dice and low luck games.

Aggressive strategies do work in both dice and low luck for revised. You can ask Bayder, if he ever comes back lol.

~ Enough of revised talk, back to the topic, which is this latest version of 1942~

The problem is for this version of 1942, is that it takes too long before usa and uk drops in on europe or japan does what japan does. It is a very lackluster game.

Aside from russia 1 and uk 1, the allies don’t get to do many attacks.

I wouldn’t wish the allies on my worst enemy, it is pretty boring. It is worse than final fantasy 13. Even if you win as the allies, you won defending, good job, a nutless monkey could have done that. There is no joy in the allies, it just sucked away.

This game isn’t even playable for half the board gamers I know. It is bad. I have to change lots of things so that the game allows for more aggression.

I am taking this rulebook and throwing it in the trashcan. I can make this a better game. I am sure you can make it better too.

~
I put up with global, was a nice little guinea pig, but now this is stupid.

Don’t get me started with 1941 either. I have to fix that too.

You know why I have to fix it? Because I can’t trust the developers to do it, that is why.

[Cow]

Maybe, I am just blowing steam, because the latest iterations are not living up to its predecessors.

I am sure this is better than classic, but for a casual audience, classic had less rules and was very straitforward for a general audience to play. So you can crack some beers open and just play, even if you got the axis which usually lost, you at least knew you were screwed off the bat in most games and japan would sit there and be like, “do it, just attack karelia, be a champ.” And so you bought armor and swung in the next round, no guts no glory style. Now that was fun, although very predictable, but still fun.

[Bob_A_Mickelson]

@Cow:

I also share this idea, that Allied victories take longer than Axis ones. I felt it already on 1st Ed., where the Allies  win by securing Africa and earning more than Axis while preventing Russia from falling.

Look most games are not played the way you play it.

Speaking frankly, if you review your own thread you will find that it is you, not Hobbes who is the minority. I am in no way commenting on the validity or invalidity of your strategy. I’m just pointing out that your assumptions of what “most” players do have been consistently inaccurate. Your gaming group is obviously not a reflection of the A&A gaming community as a whole.

[Hobbes]

@Cow:

I also share this idea, that Allied victories take longer than Axis ones. I felt it already on 1st Ed., where the Allies  win by securing Africa and earning more than Axis while preventing Russia from falling.

omg I get it now, you always played the income game in revised.

Look most games are not played the way you play it.

Russians charge full steam. buys 4 armor and arty or 3 inf 3 armor. kill ukraine and west russia with every available unit. bring everything toward russia/caucasus from the pacific side. If germany stacks karelia, russians all in, same for ukraine or belorussia. From west russia you skirmish karelia/belo/ukraine. meanwhile the brits are either A) dropping norway round 1 B) dropping algeria round 1 with usa and germany has like 50/50 odds as killin the fleet or algeria. UK could shove 2 fighter 1 bomber at 2 sub 1 tran and 1 dd or use the bomber to take back egypt or fly all the air in range of sinking the germany transport/battleship in africa. carrier/dd should always attack the lone transport japan has. the australia transport either takes new guinea or brings new zealand to australia and threatens borneo. Sometimes uk will attack FIC or borneo same turn if egypt defended itself.

Japan will eventually churn out armor and go to take russia, usually the allies rush berlin out of the game before japan falls, hence the 7-9 bid the axis get in revised… which either A) goes toward holding karelia G1 or B) gets placed in africa to blitz

Now, if you play the turtle game. there is a huge problem. 1) the turtle game usually involves usa shuffling units to africa and those units marching toward caucasus/india while the uk shuffles archangel to russia. - It is not hard for germany to stack karelia and strafe your archangel drops.  - germany can rush caucasus alternatively - japan has 2 battleships so usa will have it hard trying to march its way in time.

Plus germany doesn’t have to keep units at west europe. He can make a good push to hold west russia and if germany holds west russia, caucasus is done, and when germany has caucasus, that is not good, because then the income starts to even out. Sure you could say usa will have 6 bombers 1 germany, but japan can do the same thing to america from alaska.

none the less the income game was always boring. I am disappointed that you play that way, when the allies can just rush berlin no problem and win outright. Now maybe if the axis started turtling right off the bat, would I go, you know what… how about I just make more money and win that way. Usually that is not the case.
~

Anyway that was a rough analogy of how revised was played. Usually players rushed. I understand the forum games are much more conservative, but it is not representative of live games people play in real life. No one does that, because there is this popular game called monopoly that is based on income. The triplea lobb is half n half, which is cool, because there is a good mix of play styles. As well as a good mix of dice and low luck games.

Aggressive strategies do work in both dice and low luck for revised. You can ask Bayder, if he ever comes back lol.

I play as I like to play and as it makes me win :)
I’ve actually played bayder several times on TripleA (never won him though) and he was a master of Revised. But he would switch between both aggressive and passive - he would also be trying new stuff all the time- and if your opponent is playing for income and his strategy is winning then you adjust your own strategy and vice-versa. It’s all a matter of the right conditions and also to force your opponent to play in a style that he’s not used to. Bayder also controlled that by almost only playing Low Luck but he would respond to your moves.
This is why critiques such as above: "I’m disappointed that you play the income game’ are meaningless to me. Actually, I’d be glad to disappoint you during a game - because it means I don’t play like you expect me to play, where you are confident of your abilities, which can give me an advantage. So, I’m already starting to defeat you even before I roll the dice :)
And from my experience on A&A (including TripleA and GTO), if you play the long-term game you have a better chance of winning, because you know the long-term effects of certain actions and how to use them to your advantage. Haven’t you ever heard the phrase: “amateurs discuss tactics, professionals discuss logistics”? That pretty much sums it up for me.

[MrMalachiCrunch]

“amateurs discuss tactics, professionals discuss logistics”

Has got to be one of the best quotes if not THE best quotes.

[Cow]

Speaking frankly, if you review your own thread you will find that it is you, not Hobbes who is the minority. I am in no way commenting on the validity or invalidity of your strategy. I’m just pointing out that your assumptions of what “most” players do have been consistently inaccurate. Your gaming group is obviously not a reflection of the A&A gaming community as a whole.

You can just spectate most of the revised games played, it is not passive. When revised was big, most of the games were not passive at all.

I’ve actually played bayder several times on TripleA (never won him though) and he was a master of Revised.

Everytime I beat Bayder it just ended up with him flaming. It was so much fun trolling him after. The extreme low luck thing drove me nuts, the spreadsheet, and all that… was a little nuts… just way too much effort to just play a game. So I played 1 game of ELL with him just to entertain him and it proved to be too much. I ended up doing little stupid battles I normally don’t do just to rack up some ELL points so I can win a battle that mattered with closer to 100% odds. LOL. Next thing I knew he came back with a new system that couldn’t be exploited as much.

Bayder was a master of low luck revised, but he lost games… lots of them too, but he didn’t play everybody. That guy was too much.

[Cow]

Considering I play hyper aggressive, ELL screwed me up really hard.

I’ll entertain you with a low luck triplea revised game. Hop on the lobby. I haven’t played one of those since aa50 came out. You can probably tell that by my last revised game with functioneta, lol. I still remember all the different openers though.

It really sucks that the allies lost so much steam, their potential to be aggressive is diminished. It sucks.

[Hobbes]

@Cow:

I’ll entertain you with a low luck triplea revised game. Hop on the lobby. I haven’t played one of those since aa50 came out. You can probably tell that by my last revised game with functioneta, lol. I still remember all the different openers though.

No thanks. After Spring 1942 1st Ed. came out I stopped playing Revised, the same way I retired from Classic when Revised came out. I rather play something new than going back to the old maps and strategies :)

[MistuhJay]

@Cromwell_Dude:

Agreed. I never can go back to Classic or Revised. I am curious though if I will prefer 1942.2 over 1942.1.

Heh, I feel slightly guilty that my copy of Revised (all I had the last 8 years) is being neglected due to 1942.2.

[Cow]

Everything gets neglected with aa50 sitting around. Even the newer maps.

Hell, even online I can host a game of aa50 and someone will join in 2 minutes or I could sit and wait an hour for global.

I hate the revised version without the transports defending, that is the most predictable version they ever printed. Not sure what people set the allies bid at, revised was around 9 axis, not sure if people bid or how much for the allies.

[Cow]

So from what I gather, you guys like this edition simply because it is something new. hmmm

[Hobbes]

@Cow:

So from what I gather, you guys like this edition simply because it is something new. hmmm

I own AAP&E40 and AA50 but the Revised/Spring 1942 were always my favorites because they are simpler and easier to play. And since they are all different editions to me the new one is always an upgrade. On 2nd Edition they went much further than from Revised to AA42.1 and it is forcing me to rethink all strats, which is healthy and a bigger challenge.

[MistuhJay]

@Cow:

Everything gets neglected with aa50 sitting around. Even the ne

Don’t worry, man. At this rate, Axis & Allies 50th (52nd?) Anniversary Second Edition will be out by Christmas.  =D

[Cow]

I just like both sides being able to have aggressive and defensive strategies available.

[MajorTaylor87]

With all the different unit options coming out recently I can easily see A&A moving to a 12 sided die. It is getting to the point where you need a bigger spread in attack and defend to really create niches for all the different pieces. Especially if you want to incorporate HBG’s or FMG’s pieces.

[Hobbes]

@MajorTaylor87:

With all the different unit options coming out recently I can easily see A&A moving to a 12 sided die. It is getting to the point where you need a bigger spread in attack and defend to really create niches for all the different pieces. Especially if you want to incorporate HBG’s or FMG’s pieces.

The more complexity you add, the harder it gets for new players.

[Slackaveli]

@MistuhJay:

@Cromwell_Dude:

Agreed. I never can go back to Classic or Revised. I am curious though if I will prefer 1942.2 over 1942.1.

Heh, I feel slightly guilty that my copy of Revised (all I had the last 8 years) is being neglected due to 1942.2.

it’s worthless now, bro, just as 42 2nd will be the minute 52anny hit’s!

[MistuhJay]

Lol! Maybe we should establish an annual moment of silence for all the obsolete versions of AA we’ve accumulated over the years?

“Ah, Classic. How I knew ye…”