How much should be forgiven?

I ask the player, if they want me to help them.
If they say yes, I’ll say: “you better look at the board closer, you may have missed something important.”
If its a convoluted detailed plan that creates opportunities for disaster that was turns in the making, I’ll stop at that. Otherwise, in a friendly game, I’ll say, better look at your German fleet, or some other clue.

If they still can not figure it out, I’ll happily show them on my next combat move.  :evil: :mrgreen:

Yes

I think it also depends how often you get a chance to play.

Living in a small population area (central Maine), I have one friend I play face to face. Just getting a weekend now and then to play takes a good deal of effort - between kids and work it is a challenge to carve out the time. So, when we play, we both hate to have a 13 turn game end on one stupid mistake… it took us two months to get a chance to play in the first place…

Generally, our rule of thumb in any situation is… have dice been rolled yet? Would it have affected anything going on in the current turn? Typically, if it has little effect on the game, it’s a “no problem, just remember me when I need a break” and then take a drink, or two, or three of beer.

But if dice have already been rolled, or it’s right on the front and will strongly affect the current turn (“oh shoot, by the way I forgot to leave that infantry blocker in front of your mech and armor stack…”), forget about it.

Sometimes seeing your opponent’s mistake becomes a great reason to hurry up with your own purchase, and combat movement, and start rolling the dice… by then, it’s too late…

And after all, war is often about taking advantage of mistakes.

@Young:

So from what I gather, there are many factors (number of players, player skill level, tabletop or online, which player is winning or losing, how often you play ect……) that will determine if it’s going to be a gentelman’s game or a scoundrel’s war.

Totally agree to that. Nice Thread!

It all depends for me on the level of players I am playing with.  If they are new, I point out critical errors.  If I am plying against a nemesis player…  he is toast!

With a game like 1940 etc, so much time is invested.  You don’t really want to get a “cheap” win because of a simple error…  especially if there are drinks involved!

@FieldMarshalGames:

especially if there are drinks involved!

E S P E C I A L L Y when drinks are involved :-D

@JimmyHat:

I guess it depends on what your goal is in playing the game.  Is it to win?  Or is it to get better?  I play to improve my game, so I appreciate when my opponent points out my mistakes and I try to do the same.

I really appreciate this sentiment. I also like to think I play just to get better but my competitive side seems to always trump the gentleman in me especially when playing with experienced players… :wink:

@Young:

Thats not to say that we are not respectful gentleman or have a lot of fun playing, because we are and we do.

Never doubted that :)

@Young:

@Andi:

@Young:

Thats not to say that we are not respectful gentleman or have a lot of fun playing, because we are and we do.

Never doubted that :)

I am very interested to see a very heated and competitive game, to see just how bad it gets between players. Last week I raised my voice at my buddy because I got frustrated about the fact that he can’t get the sub rules. Every game he says " I didn’t know subs could do that" no matter how many times I explain it or tell him to read the rules. But that’s about all that happens between us.

Just drop those rules that. For example, when I play with my friends, we don’t use convoies or kamakazies.

My gaming group usually has 6 players – 3 Axis and 3 Allies.  As far as we are concerned, it’s up to each player and their allies to catch any mistakes, small or large.  Now, we often ask each other about rules clarifications and everyone helps out even if it’s to our own detriment.  Also, there are times that even though the next player is starting their turn, the previous player will notice a glaring error and we will let them re-do their NCM.  That’s just friendly gaming.  However, if they don’t notice it, and neither do their allies, then so be it.
By the way, even what looks like a terrible blunder can still work out in your favor.  In one game, Germany (me) was actually preparing for Barbarossa and had decided against Sealion.  The UK player, even after losing all the fleet around Britain, did not properly set up defense for London and was trying to rebuild the fleet and place stuff in South Africa to fight the Italians.  As I was not preparing for Sealion, I only had 3 transports and my battleship, the cruiser had been sunk against the Brit and French cruisers.  I looked at UK and there was only 4 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 fighter, 1 French inf and 1 French fighter with NO ships in SZ 110.  I figured UK was asking for it so I gave it a try.  I hit UK with 3 loaded transports (3 inf, 3 art), 2 fighters, 3 Stukas and 1 bomber.  LONDON WAS MINE!! Right?  WRONG!!  Here’s what happened.  UK didn’t scramble so I had the BB shot, which missed.  Then UK AA Gun opened up and killed 1 fighter, 2 Stukas AND my bomber.  My inf/art rolled and got SQUAT.  UK inf/art rolled and got 4 hits!  My fighter and Stuka got hits but so did both UK and French fighters.  Result:  German land force wiped out and 2/3 Luftwaffe shot down for a loss of 1 Brit inf and 1 French inf.  Remaining fighter and Stuka retreated to Holland.  THEN, remember that UK was trying to rebuild it’s fleet?  Those ships were sitting in SZ 109 and on the UK turn, they came around with the Brit fighter and killed my battleship and transports.
Granted, this may be a “freak” occurance, but I have seen it happen in other situations in other games as well.  A player seems to make a colossal blunder leaving something woefully underprotected then when the enemy tries to take advantage, they get smacked down.
Oh yeah, one other thing.  Sometimes a player will deliberately leave what appears to be a mistake (high IPC territory underdefended, expensive units unprotected, etc.) yet it will be a trap.  The enemy player will swoop in to take that territory or destroy those units and they themselves get pounced on.  Maybe even lose their capital.  So “mistakes” aren’t always what they seem.

I remember another “trap” situation our US player played on Japan.  It was late in the game and the Japanese navy was down to 1 carrier, 1 battleship, 2 cruisers and 3 destroyers.  The US had been trying to get at them but couldn’t seem to get enough ships together in one place to really hit them.  Every time they got close to the Jap fleet, it was either with a small force that got wiped out or the Jap fleet would sort of disperse and the US couldn’t get to all the ships.
Well, the US deliberately left a stack of 5-6 loaded transports up in the middle of the North Pacific guarded by 2 cruisers and 2 destroyers.  The transports had mostly infantry with I think a couple of tanks.  Japan couldn’t resist and brought their entire fleet after this force with the exception of 1 cruiser that couldn’t reach.  Even the carrier had to come to provide a landing spot for it’s planes.  They sank them all with a loss of 1 destroyer and a hit to the battleship.
Now the good part.  The US had 3 subs up by Alaska, some warships off the West Coast, some more warships around Hawaii and about 5 fighters and 2 Tacs on Hawaii that could fly out to the Jap fleet then land back on Midway.  That’s just what they did.  All this US hardware converged on the Jap fleet and smashed it to pieces.  The funny part was the force on those transports wasn’t really enough to take the Japan homeland so there was no real threat to Japan.  Also, US had already started building more transports with men and equipment for a REAL invasion of Japan, which took place a couple of rounds later.

I agree to be gentleman like with turn sequence order and convoy zones but a strategic mistake is a mistake they got to live with. Without them the world wouldn’t be the same place i.e. Hannibal crossing the Alps, Napoleon into Russia, Germany into USSR etc.

When one player has a win streak going it seems that less and less minor errors are mentioned and your teammate will try to get everybody to go after ya
  Experienced players…… make em pay the price
  If you forget to move the the piece on the far side of the board during noncoms then give it to them or if you see a territ. that they forgot to add in to their income  then it depends on their skill level and how you feel
  What do they do to you when you have a forget Does everybody get one forget

Neat thread  :-)
Since there was only 1 other player that was on the same level as me(I miss my games with him  :cry: ), I usually spend most of my games either explaining rules, or discussing the players moves with them, firend or foe. By discussing I mean saying things like “you can move this, this and this to x territory, and you can do this, but you need to be able to land” because not everyone has a firm graspe on the rules and what not.

I believe letting them do things out of sequences if the forget, like R&D or buying units, is ok, even perferable, as we all forget sometimes and it makes things more friendly and less competitive. Im not a hyper-aggressive person in general and my playstyle reflects this. I enjoy winning, who dosnt, but winning for the sake of winning is unattractive to me. I perfer to play to the game, enjoying the flavor of the rules and the history over just winning. We never really need to point out mistakes as we spend so much time discussing a players move before they make them that there isnt much left to discuss, outside of the odd “oh you/I forgot to move this or that” non-combat move. Napoleon once said “Never interupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”, so I hesitate to really warn people, and if its not a NCM, I really feel no need to to let them do over. Maybe my gaming group is just different, but no EVER leaves their capital or critical area undefended, so mistakes that do get made arent “game winning”