Are you a top player ?

[Guest]

If 99% of the strategies you find on the Internet make you laugh, congratulations, you are a top player.

[cystic crypt]

@Anonymous:

If 99% of the strategies you find on the Internet make you laugh, congratulations, you are a top player.

except maybe for Don’s essays . . . .

[alamein]

I use a simular strategy for UK to defeat germany, a british carrier on T1. the german’s air force is slowly and methodically chewed up by the Uk navy (who cares how much it costs, if those fighters can’t help in the east germany is defeated in T4 or T5 every time). interestingly enough though this strategy doesn’t work in the Iron Blitz comp. game. instead of defending, my US fighter bails for canada. and also why is it that I can isolate japan to it’s home Island in T5 but can’t conquer it until T12??? the Iron blitz su-=-!

[StrongBad1988]

why can’t you take it until turn 12? does japan just keep building all infantry? if this happens (assuming germany is already dead) then build IC’s in manchuria, kwantung and frenchindochina and build 3 bombers there per turn and just strategic bomb em so they can’t build any units. then you just build up an invasion force and take em out

[alamein]

that’s exactly what i did, but by the time my forces were assembled, I had to feed them peice meal against like 30 infantry divisions. it took like 5 turns to wear them down. makes you really appreciate the old ‘a’ bomb.

[StrongBad1988]

the thing is, if i get to that point in a pc game playing against the computer, i just quit and start a new one. it’s stupid to play the last 20-30 min just building up and attacking the computer in japan

[alamein]

yeah it would seem so but it was my first time playing the Iron blitz and I wanted to see if i would get some medal or ranking or scoring - something to justify the torment, but nooooo, just some lousy newspaper clip with some jargon that I can’t decypher.

[StrongBad1988]

:lol: the newspaper. the first time i beat the game (5 min after i got it) i was expecting something good too, but instaead i got some crappy newspaper that informed me that i had just won the game, and to my suprise, i unlocked another crappy scenario which is incredibly easy to beat (it makes it sound tough; just britain and russia vs germany and japan, but the AI still stinks and britain gets like 50 IPC’s and russia starts off w/ like 5 fighters and twice as much infantry and they own all of europe except for eastern europe and germany, and england owns western europe) i have no idea why hasbro interactive (i think they made the game) didn’t make the AI any better, or why they didn’t add some cool stuff, like some scenarios that will actually take me more than 3 turns to win.

[CaveDog]

The original A&A for PC was so buggy and easy to beat I havn’t bothered with Iron blitz. I started playing SSI’s Panzer commander and Steel panthers instead but I pretty much mastered them so I’m back to A&A for awhile.

When I play the A&A PC version, I usually just let the other side have their way for a few turns until I’m in a fix and it looks one sided. That makes it more interesting.

[Loki]

The first time I played each side the game was effectively over by T2. I had axis victory in T4. Even with the patch the AI is still really stupid. It doesn’t understand how to defend units or how to attack an enemies weak point. If there is no one else to play, I end up just playing myself.

Despite all that there were so many other problems with the game. So many places the game forces you to click or make a choice when there is no option. For example, if the enemy has rolled 5 hits and you only have 3 units, it still makes you choose which ones you want to die. Moving ships in groups is also a pain in the butt.

I’ve also found that the game freezes when you attack the British battleship in the med and then try and land a unit on Gibralter with the troop transport.

Does anyone know if people have taken the time to hack into the code for the game and fix some of these bugs or improve the AI? That would be great. Or if anyone has modded the game to implement the AA Chess rules, I’ve always wanted to try that too.

[StrongBad1988]

i don’t even think it’s worth fixing it… i just don’t play it at all aginst the cpu, i just try to play on the zone(even though almost no one ever plays blitz on the zone) or wait until the weekend so i can play against my friends

[alamein]

loki ok I’m no genius, but, how can the game be effectively over in t2? that’s like GERmany taking Karelia and then calling it a day. Yeah I can put a whoopin on the old 'putin machine… but T2? that’s bringing the big wood. and I will agree, I’d much rather play against my friends too, but I’m propably a bit older than most of you, so it’s a bit harder to round up four people for an eight hour aXX whoopin.

[StrongBad1988]

alamein i got the game, and if you can take karelia on G1 you have a very good chance of taking moscow on turn 2. i’ve had games against the AI where i’ve had england alone take germany on turn 2. the AI is so retarded they can’t do anything to stop you from winning

[Loki]

Exactly, against a human I wouldn’t have made the bold comment to say the game was over in so early, but the AI is so bad that once it gets behind it can never regain the advantage. By the second turn I had taken a lot of Asia, a good part of Africa, Karelia and had just performed a hit and run on Russia.
I didn’t mean that I had achieved victory conditions by T2, just that I knew I was going to win.

Thing is, against the computer you can be really agressive because it won’t exploit you stretching your resources and doesn’t recognize how things you do change the map and strategy. For example, you can build industrial complexes and it doesn’t seem to effect the computer’s strategy. It doesn’t try and capture the territory or defend against how it changes the game.

Oh well, I guess unless the game got so popular that a deep blue AA computer was built we’ll have to keep wooping up on other people. :D

[StrongBad1988]

i hope the company that made the game makes a better version with better AI, b/c iron blitz stinks like crap

[alamein]

agreed! :D

[StrongBad1988]

do any of you know if they are planning to make a new one?

[Tinker]

I tried to find out from Hasbro/Avalon hill if they had plans to rerelease but I just kept going in circles when trying found out whom to ask. I was pointed to a site called Wizards.com as someone who controls the software but that lead me right back to Hasbro???

[StrongBad1988]

just try asking alot of people, someone is bound to know

[Guest]

Question: Are there plans for a new release of A&A on CD by Avalon Hill, MB, Infogrammes, Hasbro or any other company currently or in the past associated with the code for the original release and/or Iron Blitz?

Answer: No.

Q2: Are there any other alternatives now, or in the near future?

A2: Yes, possibly, probably, maybe, depends upon your point of view.

An initiative has been started within the community, actually by one pretty innovative guy, to build an entirely new open source program for A&A. This project is called Triple A. It more or less works right now for standard A&A play. It is envisioned that the engine could propel any number of offshoots, variants etc.

I am not sure how much activity is still occurring on this project. It is an interesting idea, but has not been well received within the A&A clubs….mostly because the CD is still accessible, because the clubs have figured out workarounds for the bugs, and because of concern over the clubs potentially violating copyright laws if they endorse this project.

So, I suspect the developer would welcome hearing from any of you. You might want to test this out and provide feedback.

The Triple A site is here:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=44492&release_id=102458

A little discussion from Don’s boards about TripleA is here:

http://pub6.ezboard.com/faxisandalliesessayfeedbackaxisandallies.showMessage?topicID=1045.topic

Hope that answers the question.

SUD