Speed of Play

[Karl7]

In my experience, the speed of play varies wildly without much continuity.  Experienced players can get bogged down just as newbies trying to calculate the optimal move.

That being said, there is one way I know of to speed play: 1 on 1 games.  I’ve completed (i.e. where on side sees it is hopeless and surrenders) many 1 on 1 games in a solid day.  Even three player games where the 1 player side is the allies can move pretty quick.  Big groups require task masters to keep the action going, which can be hard as the collateral gossip draws people’s attention away.

G40 is probably best played by fewer players, ironically since technically you could have nine players on the board.

[Nippon-koku]

@teslas:

I, too, would not want an app to roll for me. It might make it feel like we may as well just be playing TripleA. I want to play a board game, damn it.

But as far as that goes, having more dice is helpful. Having 5 infantry, 3 artillery, and 2 tanks attacking something, it’s much faster to roll two black dice for the 1’s, six red dice for the 2’s, and two [whatever other color] dice for the 3’s. The more dice the merrier.

If you save yourself 15-45 seconds in every fight by rolling dice all at once, by the end of the day you might have saved yourself more than a half hour.

The biggest issue I have seen is people not doing some things asynchronously as others have said. Have everyone always at the board paying attention. When it’s your turn, you should already know what questions you might want to ask your allies, or already know the general idea of what you want to do. As others have said in this thread, having your buy prepared helps, provided your power isn’t immediately affected by the previous power.

I usually have America/UK/China all take their turns relatively simultaneously, should the situation lend itself to that kind of thing (as it very often does for the first few turns of the game).

Forgot to mention rolling different colored dice.  Great call.  We use this as well and it can definitely speed up the battles.

Having your buys ready helps as well.  Let’s say I’m Japan in a four player game: after the US turn I’m already laying out my Japan buy, as it’s likely that India and Anzac won’t have much of an impact on it.  Moreover, I’ve already got the combat laid out in my head (same rules applying to India and Anzac).  By the time the next round has begun I’m ready to roll battles almost instantly.

[Young Grasshopper]

We split the UK into two separate nations (UK Europe and UK Pacific), this is essential for getting in more game rounds per 10 hour group gathering because the UK 2 economy system brings the game to a stand still when it comes around to them. You can use French blue for the new UK Pacific nation and get new France colours (I suggest A&A 1914 celery green Brits) along with union jack roundels from HBG, or you can use ANZAC gray on the Europe side for France and just move the 2 infantry in Egypt during France turn. We place the new UK Pacific turn sequence between Italy and ANZAC.

Here is the way we conduct a single round during a group game…

1. Russia begins every game round by moving any units they have on the Pacific side of the board.

2. Then Germany and Japan conduct their turn sequences at the same time.

3. Once Germany is finished, Russia will conduct their turn sequence for any units they control on the Europe side of the board.

4. Once both Germany and Japan are finished, the United States can begin their turn sequence. Now we get the US player to determine what purchases are for what side and to move the Atlantic units if Japan is not done, but I don’t suggest doing this until you’ve had experience with this system.

5. If the US is done on the Europe side, UK Europe can begin their turn sequence, and once the US is done on the Pacific side, than China can begin theirs.

6. Once China is done, UK Pacific can begin their turn sequence even if UK Europe is not done theirs (unless there are UK Pacific units on the Europe map in which case they should be moved after Italy’s turn).

7. After UK Europe is finished, than Italy can begin thier turn sequence.

8. Once UK Pacific is done than ANZAC can begin their turn sequence.

9. Once Italy is done, France can begin their turn sequence (this is where it helps if France moves the 2 ANZAC infantry on the Europe map during thier turn.

A new game round may not begin until all nations have had a turn, I know this might sound confusing, but consider this… we ussually always have 2 players going at the same time, and our group is getting so good at this that when Japan finishes their turn, it is a mere minutes before they go again. This is huge considering the number of units Japan has to move and the decisions they have to make during each round… they can be a real time killer. We can sometimes get 10-11 rounds in during a 10 hour game with 6 players.

[teslas]

I’ll just mention one point, though there are comments on several bits of that, Young Grasshopper:

#2: Germany/Japan can help out one another in pretty significant ways at times. The turn order sorta matters when German bombers are sinking american destroyer blocks or Japan is ramming a suicide hit into Russia before a Moscow crash. The fact that these two powers surround Russia’s turn is part of the flexibility. What if there are Japanese people on the Atlantic board?

I can appreciate what you’re trying to do, but there are a lot of subtleties that might be completely lost or created with all of those adjustments. It sounds like you’re going to need to remember a lot of exceptions. Maybe something like that would be most useful for the first 1-3 rounds of the game, when things don’t tend to deviate too awfully much, and then tone it back to the standard order. By turn 7+, too much could have possibly happened.

[Young Grasshopper]

…all good points, not saying it doesn’t take practice and awarness that’s for sure.

[The Hessian]

Hey guys,

the problem with the 10+ hour game exist also in our group. One thing we use to avoid this and bring our games to a decision is by using Young Grasshoppers victory conditions. Thanks YG! (Can’t find the link right now… :|)

An other option to speed things up by changing the turn order and moving several nations parallel will be tested in our next game (I know this definitely belongs to the “house rule” section. Sorry!):

• We plan to combine a) the German & Italian turns and b) the US & ANZAC turns. This will be done according to the OOB UK-Eur & UK-Pac turn; both nations have their separated economies but may move and attack together. (In case of control of new captured territories, the nation with the most ground forces after the battle will gain control of it.)
  In the 1st game turn Italy may not buy units, move, attack or collect income at all. This is necessary because UK must get the chance for a raid against the Italian Battleship. You can justify this with the late Italian declaration of war (after the big show in France was nearly over) and her poorly handled first offensives against Egypt and Greece in Sep. & Oct. 1940.

• The new turn order will be:

1. Germany & Italy
2. Japan
3. Russia
4. China
5. UK (Eur & Pac)
6. France (In most cases France will not get any turn at all since we use some HR simulating the fall of France after the capture of Paris & Normandy.)
7. USA & ANZAC

While on the one hand I definitely will miss the alternating change of turns between axis and allied powers, with this turn order we hope to gain valuable time since the allies can think about their strategy in the upcoming turn, purchase new units, etc. immediately after the axis powers made their turns and visa versa.

Greetings,
Lars

[Der Kuenstler]

The best solution is to have a dedicated game area where there is no pressure to finish the game in one sitting. My guys show up and know that we will play 3 rounds and quit, and it will take about 4 1/2 hours. Having a “get this done today” mentality really changes the whole dynamic of how the game goes, and  fatigue starts to play a part in the outcome after a few rounds. Not everyone has a room for that solution, I know. I went many years without the space.

[The Hessian]

But even if there is the room dedicated to the game, many guys in our group have only time to play once per month. No real solution (for us)…

[Nippon-koku]

@The:

Hey guys,

the problem with the 10+ hour game exist also in our group. One thing we use to avoid this and bring our games to a decision is by using Young Grasshoppers victory conditions. Thanks YG! (Can’t find the link right now… :|)

An other option to speed things up by changing the turn order and moving several nations parallel will be tested in our next game (I know this definitely belongs to the “house rule” section. Sorry!):

• We plan to combine a) the German & Italian turns and b) the US & ANZAC turns. This will be done according to the OOB UK-Eur & UK-Pac turn; both nations have their separated economies but may move and attack together. (In case of control of new captured territories, the nation with the most ground forces after the battle will gain control of it.)
  In the 1st game turn Italy may not buy units, move, attack or collect income at all. This is necessary because UK must get the chance for a raid against the Italian Battleship. You can justify this with the late Italian declaration of war (after the big show in France was nearly over) and her poorly handled first offensives against Egypt and Greece in Sep. & Oct. 1940.

• The new turn order will be:

1. Germany & Italy
2. Japan
3. Russia
4. China
5. UK (Eur & Pac)
6. France (In most cases France will not get any turn at all since we use some HR simulating the fall of France after the capture of Paris & Normandy.)
7. USA & ANZAC

While on the one hand I definitely will miss the alternating change of turns between axis and allied powers, with this turn order we hope to gain valuable time since the allies can think about their strategy in the upcoming turn, purchase new units, etc. immediately after the axis powers made their turns and visa versa.

Greetings,
Lars

Hey Lars

That seems like quite a few changes to make just to account for speed of the game. If you have at least 4 players in your group I strongly recommend condensing the round into essentially a few moves (as mentioned, Germany and Japan go at the same time, etc.) and see how the games progress from there.  In most games the first few rounds should go pretty quickly.  If Germany and Japan have an idea of what they want to do (G2 and J3 just for arguments sake) then they are going with pretty basic moves and buys for the first couple of rounds.  Add to that that America and Russia really can’t do much until then (in the given scenario I could have America’s first two turns done in a combined 3 minutes) and you should be able to get through the first two rounds in as little as an hour, hour-ten.

One thing that can help is coming prepared.  For example, I’m playing with a group this Saturday and there will be four of us.  Before I get there I’ll already have an idea of what I want to do depending on which country I am.  That way I can walk in, have my buy ready to go and get started.

[The Hessian]

Thanks for the advice Nippon-koku San!  :-)

But we have already tried this. In most of our games we have 4-5 players; at least 3 of them are experienced players. (No.1 - Germany & Italy, No.2 - Japan, No.3 - Russia & China, No.4 UK, No.5 USA; Since we play with a Vichy-HR France is out of the game after round 1 and ANZAC is played by either UK or USA)
In all of our games the first turn will consume definitely the most time since we divide the nations immediately before the game by lot and some players need some time to get back into the game. Speaking for myself, since I host a game every 2-3 weeks, I’ve played every nation several times and have a pretty good idea what I want to do, but no play survives enemy contact. So during and after every enemy turn I have to adopt my strategy to the newest developments on the board.
This does not mean that I’m going to change my whole strategy every turn, but it will need some time to analyze the current situation.
So I think if one complete alliance plays after the other we will save valuable time. Our next game in mid-November will proof if this will work or not.

Greetings,
Lars

[Nippon-koku]

Let me know how it goes.  I’m genuinely curious!

Trying my first game of 1941 this weekend, so we’ll see if I can move as quickly as normal

[The Hessian]

I definitely will!

By “1941” do you mean A&A 1941 or an alternative 1941 set-up for Global 1940?

Good luck in any case!

[Nippon-koku]

Alternate setup.  I don’t know anything about it.

[The Hessian]

If it is an other Version than Oztea’s exellent 1941 set-up (http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=30919.0), it would be nice if you could share it with us.

[MarshmallowofWar]

Fixed time limits per power, with IPC penalties per minute for going over the limits. The only thing that doesn’t count against your time limit is time spent rolling combat. Folks speed up a lot when suddenly they have little money to spend because they spent too much time dithering on the previous turn. Allow a couple of “time outs” if you like, but this really keeps the game moving.

Marsh

[Nippon-koku]

@The:

If it is an other Version than Oztea’s exellent 1941 set-up (http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=30919.0), it would be nice if you could share it with us.

It was Oztea’s setup and it was excellent.  It’s a completely different game and I enjoyed it very much.  We had five people, I played as US and Anzac and was able to shut Japan down.  They didn’t take India until turn 8 and after taking it had no shot to get Hawaii or Sydney; they were out out of capital ships, China was doing very well after being aided by Russia, US had firm control of the DEI and Japan didn’t have the income to get that 6th VC.

We ended up calling the game after Germany won big in a battle that should’ve been a mutual annihilation.  As usual, it just came down to the rolling in one big battle  :-D

Great version and I look forward to playing it again

[Bravehart]

@Der:

The best solution is to have a dedicated game area where there is no pressure to finish the game in one sitting. My guys show up and know that we will play 3 rounds and quit, and it will take about 4 1/2 hours. Having a “get this done today” mentality really changes the whole dynamic of how the game goes, and  fatigue starts to play a part in the outcome after a few rounds. Not everyone has a room for that solution, I know. I went many years without the space.  Â

Yes it is nice to have a dedicated table for your group to finish the game right to the end. I fortunately have that opportunity too.
We are four players, and at times 5 which helps the speed.
Unfortunately, in a good way, and frustration for sure, this game really makes you think too deeply about your move because it is very critical ( as we know ), which makes it fun too, but stretches the time frame per round longer than usual.
Players who are not involved much in the game later on much due to they have nothing to do but just defend ( i.e. build on London, Build up Rome ) may get frustrated because the opponents turn taking way too long, needs the board for strategy planning at such a tense critical move taking for ever.
That 6 hour game night turns into 9 hours and just a few rounds achieved.

We have always played the OOB 1st edition order, and will play the YGH 2nd edition overlap order of play, so with 4 players this may be tricky, but will work on it. If anyone has any suggestions that’ll be great too!

The game I suppose is set up to be frustrating, and challenging at the same time especially knowing the rules inside out… which also slows down that round if no one knows the exact correct rule the player is suggesting, or has made and questioned…( can you move there or not… ).

Axix & Allies…what a game~!~

BH

[SubmersedElk]

Online I’m finding about 3 hours for 8 rounds is about the pace things go - they tend to pick up speed after round 4 or 5 or so when all the major strategic decisions are already made. US and UK first two rounds tend to be particularly slow because the allies need to craft a robust response to whatever opener the Axis are playing.

[Young Grasshopper]

@SubmersedElk:

Online I’m finding about 3 hours for 8 rounds is about the pace things go - they tend to pick up speed after round 4 or 5 or so when all the major strategic decisions are already made. US and UK first two rounds tend to be particularly slow because the allies need to craft a robust response to whatever opener the Axis are playing.

3 hours during table top games will get you 3 game rounds if you’re lucky, 4 at the very most.

[SubmersedElk]

adjudicating dice at the press of a spacebar is one hell of a convenience