One Player; New Player Questions

Hi Little Dove

Welcome to this A&A forum, which is full of lovers of the game. I started with 1941 myself a year ago and was immediately hooked.

Your questions:

@Little:

Is it possible to play 1941 with only myself?  Or online with someone? Or with the computer as the opposing player?  It is very difficult for me to find any other player.  It becomes schizo to try to play both sides.Â

Of course you can play the game on your own, if only to learn the its mechanics. That is how I started. But after a game or two you will want the challenge of a more experienced opponent.

The next step - I would suggest - is to download the triple A s/w available by following the appropriate thread on this forum - I will post a link after this paragraph. Then play a few games against the computer at an increasing level of difficulty.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=27127.0

Very quickly you will discover that you have outgrown the computer and want to play against a real person. This forum is used by fellow members to play against each other both remotely and face to face. Playing remotely tends to be by using the “by forum” option described in the instructions above, with each player taking his turn and posting it for the next player to download.

There are specific boards on this forum for finding players to play remotely and for posting turns by forum. Take a look at these:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?board=52.0
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?board=40.0

Another board is used for finding people to play face to face. It includes a master find players list and you may find people in your area.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?board=34.0

I have also taught many family and friends to play. I love the game so much that it is sometimes surprising to learn that not every one else does. Using the above boards to find opponents will guarantee an opponent who is keen. But if you persevere you may also be able to build a group of players who meet up regularly to play - as I have managed to do.

@Little:

And a second question:  What sides are considered about equal?  In other words, if playing two players, who should take what sides, of the 5 potential countries at war?  Should one side be UK, USA, and USSR, and the other player be Deutschland and Japan?  Or is it better with other player configurations, such as one player being Deutschland and USSR, and the other USA and UK, or what?  Or maybe one player Russia and the other Japan?  And when not all sides are playing, what aboiut the others?  If anyone has suggestions, my thanks to you.Â

If two players, one takes the axis and the other the allies. All powers always play and are split between however many players there are. If either the axis or the allies is constituted of more than one player then they work in concert to overcome the other side.

@Little:

O yes, a third question:  Is it possible to buy the ability of a territory so that its income (IPC) value changes, and also is it possible to buy/build an additional industrial complex?  That would greatly help USA and USSR, and Japan.

Re “buying” a territory, the out of the box (OOB) game does not allow ipc values to be changed. More experienced players, who usually play more complex versions of the game, do vary the OOB set up in many different ways, usually with a mind to making the two sides more evenly matched. In 1941, for example, the axis have a better chance of winning.

In 1941 an industrial complex cannot be purchased. In other, more complex, versions it can. Some players may decide to vary the rules to allow such a purchase in 1941.

All such set up and rule variations have filled dozens (hundreds?) of pages of debate on this forum. In fact there is a whole board for house rules.

I do hope that you have a great time playing 1941.

Very nice, PP.

Greetings! Welcome to the wonderful world of Axis and Allies! 1941–the simplest version–is the same one I started on a couple years ago. A great quick game. I hope you got a newer version–some changes were made from the old including correction of US starting income on the tracker at the top of board(should be 17 for US) and somechanges in setup to help Allies. US gets destroyer on East coast if the United States as well as an infantry in Northwestern China. Russia gets 6 (not 3) infantry in Russia. These changes were made to fix some things and help the Allies. If you have all this on your game, ignore all that I just said.

One thing Iwant to make clear: this game is always Axis vs Allies so you CANNOT split up the 5 powers having the same player control Russia and Japan–that is like having the same player use two different color pieces in chess. So if you are playing 1 vs 1 one player is Allies and the other Axis.

Read the rule book thoroughly and keep it handy during play; your first couple of games you will be doing many tungsten wrong so you")'ll need to get familiar with the rules over many games. Playing against yourself is great (I still do it just to test things). Just get familiar with the game and try to find some people to play withe online and in a “real” game.

As for the pieces: this game’s number if pieces is terrible. They didn’t give enough of a lot of things while they give too many other things(you"ll later find that Russian rarely buys sea units). The best I could suggest is one of these: just try your best using the chips or buy some more pieces or use pieces from other games.

Happy gaming! I’ll be happy to explain any rules.

@Little:

I have been trying to figure out how to get Triple A to work, and have not succeeded yet.�  It will come, but maybe slowly.

If you are having a problem with Triple A then feel free to post it on the s/w board and ask for help. I did not have any problems at all, so there is no reason why you should, Little Dove.

@Little:

I saw a difficult problem that seems to make the game almost unplayable:�  the game starts with only 8 soldiers, and 5 tanks, 2 battleships, 2 bombers and 4 fighters, and a bit more.�  Russia starts with 18 infantry needed, on 5 places.�  But they have only 8 infantry to�  place.�  Even using the little place markers, it is assumed by the designer that any one player only has infantry on 8 places total, at any time during the game.�  And no one can ever have more than 2 battleships,�  2 destroyers, etc.�  in my opinion, the game needs to be packaged with double at least of everything that they have.�  Especially for Russia, who cannot use sea squares because of not having a factory on a usable sea square.�  So to make it short, the game as it is packaged seems to be practically unplayable.�  Do they market more playing pieces separately?�  Just for history, was the maximum used by any of the WWII powers, 2 battleships, 2 destroyers, 2 bombers, and 4 fighters?�  Any�  suggestions?

It’s a problem we all have with 1941. This is what happened for me:

• First I decided to buy more pieces. Forum colleagues pointed me at Historical Board Gaming, who should have a link down the right hand side of your screen.
• Some colleagues pointed out that it is probably cheaper, though, to buy a second game. Having looked at HBG and worked it out for myself, that is what I decided to do.
• However, in the meantime I had got sufficiently into A&A that I actually decided to buy the next game up, so to speak - 1942 (second edition). Game me extra pieces but also the next game.
• Being anally retentive I then got cold feet about mixing all my pieces up and learned that you can manage 1941 with the pieces and markers available, with a little effort. For example, some powers have enough pieces not to need markers (e.g. Japanese infantry I think) leaving those markers for Germany, which needs plenty.
• I then went up to the next level again - 1940. So I now have three sets of pieces. Still struggling with whether to mix or keep separate! Sad I know!

@Charles:

I hope you got a newer version–some changes were made from the old including correction of US starting income on the tracker at the top of board(should be 17 for US) and somechanges in setup to help Allies. US gets destroyer on East coast if the United States as well as an infantry in Northwestern China. Russia gets 6 (not 3) infantry in Russia. These changes were made to fix some things and help the Allies. If you have all this on your game, ignore all that I just said.

Monsieur Le President is correct. Take a look at the 1941 FAQ thread new the top of this board for all the set up corrections and rule clarifications.

Welcome to A&A.org.  I just bought A&A 41 and have enjoyed it’s simplified board for teething my sons on the game.

Look forward to your participation in this site.

41 actually has just barely enough pieces to play but I recently overcame my anal tendency with the pieces and mixed my 41, 42.1, 42.2 and 40.1 games together. Now I have plenty for all the games.  I would expand my editions before resorting to individual pieces.  Eventually you will find yourself with far more than you can fit on a board.  I like the HBG minis in order to have specific units and as a hobby aside from just playing the games.

Exactly. When only had 1941 I had eight German infantry. When I got Europe 1940 I had 48 in total! 6x difference.

@Private:

I then got cold feet about mixing all my pieces up and learned that you can manage 1941 with the pieces and markers available, with a little effort. […] Still struggling with whether to mix or keep separate! Sad I know!

One solution would be mark your sculpts in a way that would allow you to separate them back into their original groups if you ever change your mind about mixing them up.  Look at your games, decide which one has the most pieces (it’s probably Europe 1940 2nd edition) and leave those sculpts unmodified.  For the other games, get a variety of coloured markers and assign one colour to each game.  For each particular game, use its marker to put a small coloured dot underneath each sculpt where it can’t be seen when the pieces are in play.  That way, you can tell which sculpts came from which game.  And you could even ultimately get rid of the dots themselves if you re-separate your sculpts, using either water or rubbing alcohol depending on whether the ink in the markers was water-soluble or not.

Thinking of the sculpted, why do most of them (Italy is exclude) have a number from 1 to 20 for the infantry?