NOOb questions

[Guest]

Hi
I’m really a nOOb at A&A. Haven’t played it yet but I have read the rules a couple of times. Now I have a few questions.

Liberating terr, how does this work? I mean is it only the terr you own at the start of the game that will be liberated if your ally take them or are also neutral countries you have taken control of included?

What optional rules should you apply to get a more balanced and/or fun game? Please give a short description of the rule and why it should be used. I understand that RR is a must (and also historically correct). Bidding is a bit hard for a nOOb to pull off but, in average, how much more IPC should German start with to make things even? Placing new naval units in enemy controlled sz sounds OK, as well as submerging subs. Anything else?

[Ozone27]

I posted a long response but the forum didn’t take it! What gives? Check back soon!

Ozone27

[Ozone27]

Tried it again. Again got “Invalid_Session” after writing a loooong response. :evil: Oh well…

Ozone27

[BigBlocky]

Ancient chinese proverb talk of man who use notepad to create responses then copy and paste into big text box that way he have backup of sorts.

BB

[Ozone27]

Hmmmm…maybe you’re onto something… :wink: …

Oh well I’m not doing this a 3rd time till I’m good n’ ready…

Ozone27

[Xi]

SHHHHHHH!

[Ozone27]

OK.

“Liberation” occurs when you (or another ally) conquer a territory that the enemy has previously siezed from a different ally of yours (that is, not YOU). In this case, the ally of yours that originally owned the territory regains the income & any ICs on the territory. Any AA gun still on the territory is captured by YOU–even if your ally originally owned it!

The exception is if the ally of yours that originally owned the territory has since lost his/her capital & been eliminated from play. In this case, you may collect income from & use any ICs on the recaptured territory UNTIL your ally’s capital is liberated. At that point all remaining liberated or unconquered territories originally owned by this ally revert back to his/her control. This does NOT mean if an ally of yours is eliminated you can just start conquering his territories willy-nilly–they must already have been siezed by the enemy for you to get the income…

There’s a possibility I’m wrong about the income thing, though I don’t think so. I know the IC thing is true, tho…

In the above by “ally” I mean any nation allied to you. By “Ally” I usually am referring to the game Allies–that is, USSR, UK USA…

Ozone27

[Ozone27]

OK that worked out alright, now part 2… :wink:

I strongly recommend that if you are a total nOObie (as you put it) playing with your friends (also fellow nOObies I presume) on the actual boardgame, try playing at least a few games with the normal rules without any special rules. At this level of play, the game is pretty well-balanced & you should find the Axis win pretty close to 50% of the time. make sure to switch players often so everyone gets to learn all of the powers–they are ALL different…

Eventually you will find that there are certain moves the Allies can do early on (especially USSR T1) that make it next to impossible for the Axis to win without extraordinary good luck. If you find the Axis are always losing (especially if they’re losing BADLY no matter who is playing them) it may be time to implement 1 or 2 “special rules”. I’ll give a brief description of some of them later…

Submerging Submarines & No Naval Occuptaion are not really special rules, but more-or-less canon rules introduced w/ the 3rd-Edition. I personally detest the No Naval Occupation, but its fairly typical :P . In Submerging Subs, SUBs may “withdraw” as described in the rules, or they may “submerge”–a type of “withdrawal-in-place”. By submerging a SUB is removed from the battle board but is not replaced on the game map until after the Combat Phase of the current player’s turn. After the battle, the SUB reappears. If there are any enemy units still in the same SZ, they will do battle with the SUB on the following Combat Phase, unless they or the subject SUB(s) move out previously.

In the 2nd Edition rules, enemy naval units in a SZ prevented the launching of new naval units in said SZ until the enemy units could be cleared. In No Naval Occupation, you may launch newly-built ships into an enemy occupied SZ, to do battle on the enemy’s next “Combat Phase” unless they move out.

Either of these are in my opinion, OK for nOObies to use…

Ozone27

[Guest]

Thanks for your answer Ozone27.
Although we are nOObs at A&A we are in no way nOObs at playing advanced strategy games so I think we can handle one extra rule or two. ;)

However I still don’t get when a country is liberated. I’ll give some examples and you can tell me if it’s liberated or not, OK?

1. UK owns a terr from start, Ger takes it then US takes it – Liberated!
2. UK takes a neutral terr, Ger takes it then US takes it – Liberated?
3. UK takes a Ger terr, Ger takes it then US takes it – Not liberated?

Another thing, what is the easiest way of keeping track of who initially owned the terr so you know who it should return to and how do you mark ownership of an AA-gun?

Finally, where can I get hold of 3rd edition of the rules?

[Ozone27]

A territory is “liberated” when it is retaken from an occupying enemy by an ally of the country it initially belonged to. In this case, the territory reverts to the control of the country that originally owned it at the start of the game, NOT the country that actually took back the territory. As an example, Germany takes the UK-owned territory of French West Africa w/ 1 INF. USA destroys this force on their turn & retakes the territory w/ 1 INF. Now UK–NOT USA–gets the income from this territory, because UK originally owned it. If USA had taken Algeria from Germany instead w/ 1 INF, USA could put his/her marker on it & start collecting income from it–that is NOT “liberation” but straight conquest.

Now if Germany were then to retake Algeria, then UK attacked in turn & took it back from the Gerrys, UK would put its marker on Algeria & claim income from it. That too is straight conquest.

Its easy to know who originally owned each territory because each territory is color-coded on the board to each country. Thus German territory is grey, USSR dark brown etc…

That said, neutral territories can NEVER be liberated. First of all, no one owns them at the start of the game. Second, they NEVER generate income, so IPC income is never an issue. The only time this might come into play is in the unlikely event that say, UK put an IC on Spain, Germany took it, then USA took it back from Germany. In this case, I would assume the IC reverts back to UK control, since they built it originally. But you could also argue that since the territory is now US-owned (for what its worth) that USA gets the IC. Or perhaps that UK still owns the IC but cannot use it since USA now owns the territory!Fortunately, no one ever puts an IC on a captured neutral :wink: !

Ozone27

Actually on 2nd thought, I’d say USA’d get the IC in the above example. Reason I think this is that siezing a neutral is a hostile act, similar to attacking an enemy-controlled territory. Thus if UK hit Eastern Europe (for example) & put an IC there, then Germany retook it, then USA took it back, that IC would be a US-owned IC most definitely. So that’s probably the same w/ neutrals–NO neutral liberation. They don’t want to be in the war anyway! Shame on you :wink: !

[Ozone27]

The 3rd-edition rules are not that different from 2nd. In addition to the rules I mentioned above there are a couple of other tweaks, mainly on territory adjacency rules…

If you & your buddies insist on using special rules in your early games, then here are a couple of the most common ones. Keep in mind that these tend to benefit the Axis, so you may find them rolling over USSR pretty easily–I strongly suggest you play with the normal rules first!!!

1.) Russia Restricted. USSR may not attack on its 1st turn & goes directly to NonCombat Move from Purchase Units. Thereafter, game proceeds as normal. (Incidentally, contrary to popular belief, this is NOT actually more historically accurate than the normal rules. USSR’s spring offensive in 1942 came right at the start of the early thaw that year–postponing the German spring offensive by several weeks. But no problem–history sticklers can just assume the game begins in April 1942 and the USSR’s offensive has already bogged down :) !)

2.) Axis Advantage. Germany begins the game with the Jet Power technology. Japan begins w/ Super Submarines.

3.) No New Industrial Complexes. No new ICs may be built by any power during the game.

4.) Bid. This one is impossible to implement w/ nOObies, because the players have to have some idea of how much they think the game is slanted against the Axis. Bidding starts at, say 24 IPCs. Team one bids down to 18. Team 2 bids 11. Team 1 bids 9. Team 2 bids 6, and team 1 passes. Team 2 will play the Axis, but before the game begins they get 6 IPCs with which to purchase additional units. These new units may be placed on any territory the Axis control at the start of the game (check the color-coding :wink: ). German units cannot be placed on Japanese terrotories & vice verse. In the case of a high bid, no new ICs may be built w/ the additional funds. When the Axis are finished placing their additional units, any excess bid-IPCs are lost & the game begins with USSR’s 1st move.

Ozone27

[Ozone27]

As far as the AA-gun question, its never come up w/ us–we just go by memory (AA guns are not usually captured then recaptured then captured again). If you need help, I suppose you could place a territory marker under the AA gun to show ownership. You’d have to be careful though not to confuse it w/ the marker of who owned the territory! Disputes between allies are very bad in A & A :wink: !

Ozone27