I just realized I posted this in the wrong board. Can anyone move it to the find players one please?
G40 update: Testers we need your help!
-
@Young:
My beef is the way players have been left to come up with balance mod, allied bids, and victory objectives…
No offence YG, but isn’t the critiquing, proposing, debating what drives half of the traffic to this site in the first place? Think of all of the innovative changes being made to the game by the user community - from the introduction and subsequent wide adoption of bidding to the intriguing Balanced Mod - not as fixing a broken game, but as seeking perfection. Perhaps the Game Designers are staying out of the way of the users on purpose, to let us turn the game into what we wish it to be, collectively?
Food for thought I think!
-
I should probably also mention that game results are only useful to us if you play strictly with box rules (with the Sierra Leone change, of course) - no house rules, setup modifications, or custom maps. Bids are a more grey area. Obviously, it’s better to not have them, but I can also see where proving that a reduction of bids is occurring can be helpful.
-
Don’t mention the Balance Mod
-
@Young:
This is the first time since the Alpha projects that A&A designers have asked the community for some feedback into the game, and I don’t mean to rain on Black Elk’s parade, but what are we talking about here?. Changing an ill positioned strict neutral into an allied original territory? for what purpose?. I find it curious that a request comes now after so long about something so insignificant, and what if Sierra Leone becomes British? is wizards of the coast gonna publish a whole new Europe board and start shipping it to all those who ask?, or more likely… is the Errata gonna suggest that we place a UK roundel there and make our game boards even more Ghetto?. Here’s the big question, will it help balance the game? that’s what players have been asking the designers to do for years. No, I think maybe the designers made a mistake on the map about the political situation in Sierra Leone, and because it was brought to attention… there was no answer for it. Now they’re waiting for us to prove to them that it’s insignificant so they can say leave it the way it is. Personally, I think it’s insulting to ask us about this now after so long, and about a change that will hardly matter. Here are some more questions, do I love Axis & Allies?.. absolutely, do I have the up most respect for the creator and designers of the game that I love so much?.. 100%, but even Star Wars lovers complain about Jar Jar. My beef is the way players have been left to come up with balance mod, allied bids, and victory objectives… what do I care about Sierra Leone, why not rewrite the national objectives?, the allies need more money, not a remote space in Africa where it might be beneficial to land planes. I spend most of my daily hours thinking about Axis & Allies, and I know Krieghund does too… I mean no disrespect, but of all the things to go to Larry about. My group like many others have been left to their own devices to make changes that will allow their passion for the game to continue, we came up with a house rule called victory objectives because it solves many issues within our games, and the online community from the get go had a bid system that grew and grew until it exposed the balance issue to the point of a complete redesign called balance mod. Here’s my point… if Krieghund says put a UK roundel on Sierra Leone, we’ll do it, if he says put an air base in Gibraltar… we’ll do that too. We don’t mind having a designer with that much power over us… we just wish they would use that power to balance the game, one last question… where’s that Alpha magic?
(This is not a misguided rant meant to hurt people, it’s an honest and passionate plea for change). �
The Alpha project was done in preparation for the 2nd edition. A new edition is really the only justification for the effort involved in a major overhaul of the game. If Wizards ever decides to do a 3rd edition, we’ll most likely do another such project, but probably not before such a time. As far as balance goes, it will never be perfect, and an argument could be made that a bid is actually a good thing, as it allows for variations in setup and playout. At this stage, FAQ entries are reserved mostly for rules issues.
However, in this particular case, a mistake was made in the depiction of the historical realities of the period. Sometimes adjustments are made to things for the sake of game play, but this was not one of them. This sort of mistake bothers Larry very deeply, and he likes to correct them when possible. At the same time, we want to make sure that correcting it won’t have consequences far out of scale with the correction.
Ultimately, it would be great if this improved game balance, but we’ll settle for not making it worse. If it proves to have no impact at all, then those who want more historical accuracy can place a control marker on Sierra Leone and others can just ignore it. If it proves to affect game balance positively, then the whole community can benefit from the change. Either way, a small FAQ entry can make the game a little more historically accurate and honor the contributions of Sierra Leone to the war effort, which is something that Larry is very passionate about.
@Young:
My beef is the way players have been left to come up with balance mod, allied bids, and victory objectives…
No offence YG, but isn’t the critiquing, proposing, debating what drives half of the traffic to this site in the first place? Think of all of the innovative changes being made to the game by the user community - from the introduction and subsequent wide adoption of bidding to the intriguing Balanced Mod - not as fixing a broken game, but as seeking perfection. Perhaps the Game Designers are staying out of the way of the users on purpose, to let us turn the game into what we wish it to be, collectively?
Food for thought I think!
This is a very good point. Many of the innovations that fans have come up with over the decades have made it into the latest generation of A&A games.
Also, it’s very difficult (if not impossible) to balance games of this scope and complexity in the limited amount of time that we have to playtest them. Our efforts are generally heroic, but we are human after all. The community, over thousands of games played and strategies shared, will naturally find strategies, strengths, and weaknesses that we did not. With your collective help and input, the game evolves.
-
The effect of the Sierra Leone change on balance will likely lie somewhere between “no effect” and “reduces Allies’ disadvantage slightly”. Can’t see any harm in it.
-
If it becomes British it will have no effect at all on the game other than historical accuracy.
If it becomes pro-allies neutral, it could be a good spot for a US naval base post sealion. -
Please accept my apology Krieghund, I meant no disrespect and given your cool and professional response… I assume no offence was taken. If anything, we have a great conversation about changing the game even if it’s just historical inaccuracies that may upset Larry. I understand that there will always be house rules for a game of this magnitude even if near perfection were to be achieved, and that this community of hard core A&A gamers will always be a part of it’s evolution.
-
@Young:
Please accept my apology Krieghund, I meant no disrespect and given your cool and professional response… I assume no offence was taken.
None at all. :-)
-
However, in this particular case, a mistake was made in the depiction of the historical realities of the period. Sometimes adjustments are made to things for the sake of game play, but this was not one of them. This sort of mistake bothers Larry very deeply, and he likes to correct them when possible. At the same time, we want to make sure that correcting it won’t have consequences far out of scale with the correction.
Krieghund,
Scapa Flow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapa_Flow#Base_for_the_British_Grand_Fleet) was established as the primary UK naval base in the early 20th century, yet it is not represented on the Global 1940 map either (i.e., there is no naval base in Scotland). If you are now in the business of correcting historical inaccuracies, you should add this one to the list.
Marsh
-
The effect of the Sierra Leone change on balance will likely lie somewhere between “no effect” and “reduces Allies’ disadvantage slightly”. Can’t see any harm in it.
I agree, I see no harm in adding a little (and I mean little) wrinkle to the game, plus it provides some historical accuracy.
-
It might be more useful as a pro allied neutral, any historical beef with that?
-
Forget Sierra Leone, swap the airbase for the naval base in Iceland. NOW we’d be talking about something.
Sadly, I’d buy a third edition even though I own too many G40 games. IF AH does a 3rd, please just put it in one box, please.
Thanks
-
@Young:
It might be more useful as a pro allied neutral, any historical beef with that?
As a Brit who actually lived in Sierra Leone for a couple of years I can state unequivocally that it was not pro allied neutral YG. It was part of the British Empire.
But I am not exorcised by historical accuracy and doubt this change will make much difference to the game. As you say in an earlier posting, this change is pretty insignificant in terms of the dynamics of the game.
When we (mis-)ruled a quarter of the globe we could afford to mislay a colony or two! :-D
-
Not terribly useful but Liberia should be a pro-Allies (specifically US) Neutral.
-
@Young:
It might be more useful as a pro allied neutral, any historical beef with that?
Sierra Leone was a British possession at the time. There was nothing neutral about it as far as I know.
-
IF AH does a 3rd, please just put it in one box, please.
Absolutely 100%… and give the Europe and Pacific theater game rules just a few pages in 1 universal rule book for Global.
-
@CWO:
@Young:
It might be more useful as a pro allied neutral, any historical beef with that?
Sierra Leone was a British possession at the time. There was nothing neutral about it as far as I know.
No problem, would have been more effective to the allies that way… can’t see a reason for all the fuss, aren’t there numerous map errors just like this one?
-
I agree there are lot of fun things that could be done with the addition of bases or swapping out existing bases for bases of another type.
There is a really strong argument behind Scapa Flow for example, mentioned elsewhere, since it was the main naval base for the Royal Navy during this period. There are others I can think of, that’d probably be great for the gameplay.
I’ve tempered my expectations quite a bit lately, since experience has taught me it’s pretty hard to get any change adopted as official these days. I’ll admit to being rather strategic in picking my battle here with Sierra Leone, trying to make the case as unassailable as possible. Even though I agree with pretty much everyone here, as far as corrections go it leaves quite a bit to be desired. There are of course many other alterations I can think of off the cuff, that would suit the balance needs of the game better than Sierra Leone ever could. But it just so happens that this territory was a very clear cut map error, and thus harder to ignore.
I’d say that while I agree with YG that it’d be more useful for the gameplay as a pro-allied neutral (since America has more ready cash to spend on bases than UK does) a pro-side neutral status doesn’t really fit the historical argument, since it wasn’t neutral at all, but a British colony.
As noted above, neighboring Liberia actually would make complete sense as a pro-Allied neutral rather than a true neutral, though that space is much less valuable strategically, such that I can’t really envision any situation (even a rare one like I tried to envision with Sierra Leone) where Liberia actually comes into play.
Another difficulty with changing any space from True Neutral to Pro-Side Neutral, is that the boxed materials don’t include a ready way to easy identify that graphically on the map/board. A starting control marker for UK is easy enough, but there are no Pro-Side neutral control markers available, so you’d have to ask players to use other custom materials which is a little problematic from an ease of use standpoint.
I did sort of hope that Sierra Leone might serve as a kind of genie out the bottle, that could potentially lead to other discussions of tweaks to the OOB game, but I’d anticipate reluctance on the part of the designers to open the floodgates.
I will say this much. I don’t think you actually need Wizards of the Coast to cook up a 3rd Edition reissue of the game map, to actually get a 3rd Edition ruleset/manual up and running. I think a lot of players would be more than happy to use the existing map/boxed materials to play an updated version of the ruleset or explore an updated scenario…
All that is really required for a 3rd Edition, or whatever you’d like to call it (an LHTR redux maybe) is an addendum to the manual (simple text, or in the form of a downloadable PDF) that Larry and Krieghund can get behind. That’d probably be more than enough to garner the necessary enthusiasm for an alpha like process to be jumpstarted and essentially run by the player community, with some arbitration and periodic guidence from the designers. Clearly a new board would be awesome, but if that’s too much of a pipe dream, I’d still have fun working with what we’ve already got.
Also still really intrigued by the War Room idea that was mentioned a little while back.
-
@Young:
No problem, would have been more effective to the allies that way… can’t see a reason for all the fuss, aren’t there numerous map errors just like this one?
It would be even more effective if the US could spend its money to build bases on Allied territory, regardless of whether or not the US owned the territory.
Marsh
-
All that is really required for a 3rd Edition, or whatever you’d like to call it (an LHTR redux maybe) is an addendum to the manual (simple text, or in the form of a download able PDF) that Larry and Krieghund cam get behind.
There might be a conflict of interest there depending on the distribution rights and license contract for the brand. Let’s say Larry and Kevin start designing a 3rd edition via online through an “Alpha 4” project, all of a sudden sales for 2nd Edition crash, wizards are angry… you get the picture.
Suggested Topics
