Playing Solo

I’ve done it a few times (I thought I was the only one who’s that pathetic, it’s nice to see I’m not alone  :-)).

I honestly don’t think I gained anything from doing it. No matter how hard you to try to distance yourself from yourself you always know what you’re planning.  Only a flesh-and-blood opponent can truly test your strategies.

Bite the bullet, get on Triple A, and play online. That’s my advice.

@StuckTojo:

I’ve done it a few times (I thought I was the only one who’s that pathetic, it’s nice to see I’m not alone  :-)).

I honestly don’t think I gained anything from doing it. No matter how hard you to try to distance yourself from yourself you always know what you’re planning.  Only a flesh-and-blood opponent can truly test your strategies.

Bite the bullet, get on Triple A, and play online. That’s my advice.

Agree here. Never the same against opponents. But worth it doing a couple of turns to see how certain buys and moves will work for start of game. Also helpful if game is new to you and you need to get to know set up, countries. and rules.

The AI is so bad on TripleA that it is only usable for first time players who are learning about the game.  I would love if the new AI methodologies for AlphaGo was applied to master Axis and Allies.  I wonder how much time it would take to become great at this game.  That would be a good use of Google’s coding time.

A bit off topic, but is there a way to make the simultaneous army movement of Diplomacy feasible and balanced for Axis & Allies?  I liked the system of blindly planning where your armies and fleets would head.

@Arthur:

The AI is so bad on TripleA that it is only usable for first time players who are learning about the game.

I think the AI is mediocre for 1942 but it is awful for the political aspects in G40.

Let me start by stating that I have the utmost respect for the programmer who created the AI. Doing something like that in a game like A&A looks like  a pioneering effort to me.

Having said that, it can’t be denied that the AI has serious flaws in its game. It does a somewhat decent job on land, but it’s no good at all at sea. In an utterly silly effort, I once played the Allies against it in G40, giving it a bid of 3,000 (and buying some useful stuff for it too, because it’s no good at spending a bid itself). It took forever and was basically a big waste of time, but I won that game.

I second that. Programming an AI, especially for sea, is far more challenging than for land. There are far more dynamics to consider, and the mobility and number of combinations of units would be considerably higher.

Marsh

I’ve played Italy and let the AI take over all other nations. The Axis won despite Japan getting crushed.  :-D.

@Herr:

Let me start by stating that I have the utmost respect for the programmer who created the AI. Doing something like that in a game like A&A looks like  a pioneering effort to me.

Having said that, it can’t be denied that the AI has serious flaws in its game. It does a somewhat decent job on land, but it’s no good at all at sea. In an utterly silly effort, I once played the Allies against it in G40, giving it a bid of 3,000 (and buying some useful stuff for it too, because it’s no good at spending a bid itself). It took forever and was basically a big waste of time, but I won that game.

Sounds reasonable. 1942 doesn’t have the same sea emphasis as G40, at least when I’m playing.

I have played Axis & Allies Global 1940 and other deviations of the G40 setup several times.  I find playing solo quite fun!  The first couple times I played solo I found myself allowing one side to defeat the other.  What I do now is play the side of my preference just a little bit better than the other and I have found that it works quite well.

I did this, do this, and will always do it occasionally.    Now seriously I am really well-known for this.  As a five-year -old it was said that I spent 2 hours playing checkers solo…several days in a row: in my early years this was almost an obsession.  I hatted playing with others because they didn’t play what I wanted.  So I literally played almost every game possible I wanted to solo.  The craziest thing I ever did was a litteral 4 player reversi (yes I made a reversi game for four players) tournament.  I was a little nuts back then, but it gave me a gift of being extremely unbiased.  Anyway when I first got 1941 back in 2012, I played solo for about a year (with occasional games with others).  It really helped me get a hang of the rules and form strategies.  So how do I do things like gin rummy for four players by myself being unbiased?  Very simple:
Look at the game and say to yourself, “what are ky options and ky opponents options?”  Even if I know that I am hitting Spain next round, with Germany I think, “Would my opponents optimal and most likely move depending upon the situation of the board be Spain? If so I need to counter it.”  Yeah so kinda weird but great fun.  I do this whenever I have no one else, want to try soemthing out, and sometimes just for a playtest.

Are you truly unbiased?  If not forget it.  I know it is very difficult for people to think this way but it is actually a simple process: analyze the situation and decide what is most likely.

I have never completed a solo game but i do set it up now and then to test out opening moves outside the “normal” ones for a couple turns, trying to react to the oddball moves as effectively as possible to see how they play out over a few rounds

When I do this (generally to game test balance) I really don’t have a long range plan, as the other nations would immediately know it and spoil it. I just go from nation to nation and say “What can I do with this nation right now in this situation?” “What is the opposition giving me that I can exploit?” and do that.

@guymyer

I see this is an older topic, but I found it interesting and timely (see Covid-19). Yes, I often play solo. Quick background, I have been playing A&A for over 30 years, so I am very experienced. As you get older it is often more difficult to get the band together for a game - and I am too old to get into online gaming.

After tiring of trying to get games together I started playing solo out of desparation I suppose. With that said, I quite enjoy it now - after getting over the initial weird feeling of playing an interactive board game by yourself. But as others have noted, from an analytical perspective it is not actually that difficult. Is it perfect no, but neither are your friends who come over and drink your beer, complain about bad rolls, and blame historical inacuracies for their loses…but I digress.

One must simply act in the best interest of the nation they are playing. For example, let’s say the Allies could threaten Germany’s capitol this turn, but you plan to attack on the next turn, Germany must protect the capitol as necessary to negate the threat - stay honest. I personally find the rolls, or more to the point the bizzare rolls, are the key to fun solo games. There always seems to be a handful of Yatzee rolls of ones that throw a huge monkey wrench into the best laid plans - just like real life.

It would be cool to have a specifically designed solo A&A game, but again as others have noted, building in the AI to handle all the variables associated with these games is extrememly difficult.

Anyway, hopefully there will be new games/puzzles to solve in the future: 1914 second edition, North Africa, Kursk…

@san-diego-gamer yea more fun against people but I been playing solo so long,it seems normal to me lol

I always brought my own beer :)

Did this in the past occasionally but since Covid hit us and we moved to a bigger flat I played Solo games almost every week if nobody is available on TripleA. Benefit for me is to setup the game G40 quite often (a bit of a guilty pleassure to me) and explore new possibillities by adapting starting moves from TripeA games.
At the moment I play only 3G40 (YoungGrasshoppers Tournament Edition) because of the new order of turns and the strategy change that comes with the rule chnages.
To keep the “opponent” behaviour unpredictable I tend to use a dice to determine scramble decision (a 1 will cause scrambling actions for the defender). Saw this online in a YG video and I thought it´s worth to use that.
Still looking forward to meet friends for the post-Covid Face-toface games.

@san-diego-gamer said in Playing Solo:

but neither are your friends who come over and drink your beer, complain about bad rolls, and blame historical inacuracies for their loses…

LOL

I used to play solo when others didn’t have time for a game. I actually really enjoyed it and found it useful.

For me, one of the keys is to find something about each Power’s unique military situation, history, goals, geography, possible scenarios, etc., to make every “switch to the other side” highly interesting… so that by the time I’m running an opposing strategy I become even more enamored with it, or with testing the weaker spots in what I had previously thought was a strong plan.

It’s also a great time to experiment with house rules.

Yes, and there are methods to make solo gaming more enjoyable. Check the classic book “The Solo Wargaming Guide”.

Basically, you list key strategic paths for the opposing side, and before their round you roll the dice which will dictate the strategic path you must follow for that nation. This method prevents you from foreseeing how the enemy will operate.

In sum, the enemy’s strategy is determined by luck before their round, but at a tactical level (battles), you need to make best decisions for all involved nations.

Actually, this is an old rule for solo wargaming. You develop scripts for each enemy and roll the dice.

@phd_angel said in Playing Solo:

Yes, and there are methods to make solo gaming more enjoyable. Check the classic book “The Solo Wargaming Guide”.

Basically, you list key strategic paths for the opposing side, and before their round you roll the dice which will dictate the strategic path you must follow for that nation. This method prevents you from foreseeing how the enemy will operate.

In sum, the enemy’s strategy is determined by luck before their round, but at a tactical level (battles), you need to make best decisions for all involved nations.

Actually, this is an old rule for solo wargaming. You develop scripts for each enemy and roll the dice.

Is the author of this book William Silvester ?

Thanks

This would be a great time to list each countries objectives and figure out how many for each and roll up to a certain amount of dice matching the lists.
May have to go with maybe have allies roll less based on what axis does so allies can respond