AAR and AA50, 'A speedy game' Any tips..?

In twenty years of gaming, there is one rule that speeds games;

We play 4 players face to face.
We set 4.5 hour game limit. 
We use all Axis go, then all Allies go.
this adds a cool element to the game, everyone moving at once.
before each turn there is a conference between Allies or Axis to consider the upcoming moves. 
Its speeds things up considerably for face to face games.  Who wants to wait 45 minutes in between turns.
We got this rule from AAHE the historic game, works great, thanks to IL and others great rule to add in face to face games.

We play 4 players face to face.
We set 4.5 hour game limit.
We use all Axis go, then all Allies go.
this adds a cool element to the game, everyone moving at once.
before each turn there is a conference between Allies or Axis to consider the upcoming moves.

Could you please explain this in more detail? 
Doesn’t the team going first always have the advantage?  How do you balance this out?

@TG:

We play 4 players face to face.
We set 4.5 hour game limit.
We use all Axis go, then all Allies go.
this adds a cool element to the game, everyone moving at once.
before each turn there is a conference between Allies or Axis to consider the upcoming moves.

Could you please explain this in more detail? 
Doesn’t the team going first always have the advantage?  How do you balance this out?

Yes, in the same respect as a normal move, tempo is dictated by the Axis on the move going first.  You lose individual turn position advantage,  to gain the time advantage element. 
item) In the all Axis go, then all Allies go,
if two players attack the same territory, the turn priority takes precedence. 
The original order of play is the turn priority. 
Ex: if, Germany and Italy arrive at the same Russian territory, Germany would determine its combat first.  The Italian player would resolve his other combats and comeback to this territory afterward.
The Italian player resolves his combat on the Russian territory, following the German attack. 
If there is no resulting combat, left for the Italian player then, he moves his units into the Russian territory, now coexisting in the territory with the German player. 
item) This is why you provide a 5- min conference, prior to your turn move, to discuss attack vectors, who’s hitting what territory, and do you need two players to hit the same territory.  This play emphasis the Alliance aspect of the game.

I am not sure I understood your question and provided enough detail.
This idea was not our idea, we lifted it from AAHRE rules, to speed up our game.
This play works for our group and has become our standard of play for each game session.  It save a lot of time, each player is busy attacking or defending constantly, with no wait times.  Prior to this, we would wait 45 min or more for each turn, in 4 player face to face games that we play.

I am not sure I understood your question and provided enough detail.

Based on 1941, Germany and Japan go before the nations that are most apt to respond to them – Russia and USA.  So play balance is maintained.

But what about Italy going before UK?  Doesn’t this give the Axis an unfair advantage by allowing Italy to sink UK’s navy and land in Egypt without fear of retaliation?

I tried this last weekend with AA50.  I was gaming with my teen son (who couldn’t stand A&A before AA50 mainly due to the time issue…and secondly because he didn’t “know what to do”  :cry: ) and his teen cousin and myself and another 40+ year old dude and it worked great.

My kid has begun to slowly like A&A since the release of AA50 (thanks to the National Objectives…says they help him "know what to do now”  :roll:  as if he’s some kind of idiot…anyway…back on subject) and with the all Axis than all Allies turn sequence from AAHRE it kept them both interested; they said “they felt like it was always their turn”  8-); and it really speeds up the game without jacking too much with the overall mechanics of the game.

Granted I’ve only tried this turn sequence once so far, but so far I’m very pleased with the minor change.   :-D  (BTW…we only used the turn sequence from AAHRE…and kept everything else per the new AA0 rules).   :roll:

But what about Italy going before UK?  Doesn’t this give the Axis an unfair advantage by allowing Italy to sink UK’s navy and land in Egypt without fear of retaliation?

This turned out to be a minor problem; pretty easy to recover from it.  Than again, maybe against more skilled players, this could jack with things, but so far…no big deal.  And its really no different than what happens to the UK fleet in AAR; Germany usually wipes out the med fleet first chance they get anyway.

This turned out to be a minor problem; pretty easy to recover from it.  Than again, maybe against more skilled players, this could jack with things, but so far…no big deal.  And its really no different than what happens to the UK fleet in AAR; Germany usually wipes out the med fleet first chance they get anyway.

Let’s what effect Italy has going before UK.

-  Since UK no longer threatens Italy’s Navy in Sz 14 T1, Germany has no incentive to sink the UK Cruiser + Destroyer in Sz 12.  This allows Germany the opportunity to sink UK’s navy in Sz 9, 6, and 2.

-  Because Italy goes before UK they can sink UK’s navy in Sz 14 with Battleship, Cruiser, and fighter (optional).

-  Since UK cannot reinforce Egypt, the Italians can easily take Egypt with a lone transport after the initial German attack.  If Germany brings sufficient forces to take Egypt, the Italians can take Trans Jordan instead (denying a landing strip for the British Bomber).

-  The Pacific is unaffected by virtue of Japan going before UK in normal play

Basically, UK begins the game without a Navy or Egypt.  Is this fair?

Perhaps, to balance this out, you could allow combined assaults.  ie, a joint invasion like D-Day.  However, is this too powerful an effect for the Allies?

Well I can see the Japanese playing their turn during the German turn as long as they are not attacking the Soviets

Then the Soviets and UK play

and then the Italian and USA play

so its: axis, allies, then mixed teams

and done with hourglass that is layed on its side during combat rolls

i suggest this

1941:
Germany/Italy
Soviet Union
Japan
United Kingdom/United States

1942:
Japan
Soviet Union
Germany/Italy
United Kingdom/United States

That’s something else I forgot.  Japan can crush Russia’s stack in SSR and the Far East before the Russians can concentrate.  Japan must not be allow to attack Russia T1.

With only one game played like this so far, I don’t have an answer/idea about some of these “what if questions” concerning balance.  And maybe if the players I tried this with so far had been more skilled player’s things would have been MUCH different, but we just used the same turn order that is outlined in this set of rules and it didn’t really affect the overall balance of the game.

Round 1 only;
Russia
Axis
Allies
Round 2 and beyond;
Axis
Allies

The rules are not real clear; but we allowed all units in a single territory/sea zone to attack at the same time.

Example; if the Germans had 3 infantry and 1 tank and 1 fighter and the Italians had 1 infantry and 1 tank all attacking the Russians in a single territory we rolled all the attacking units (4inf, 2 tanks and 1 fig) as one force against what ever units the Russians had.

Early in the game this felt really strong; the Allies kept getting trounced in every battle.  But once the Allies consolidated their own forces a few turns later so that they could attack in the same “joint offensive” fashion, the Axis started getting trounced by over whelming odds too.

No battle in this one game was SO powerful that it changed the overall flow/feel of the game.

But, the rules are not written real clear as how to conduct combats. And I have been doing some reading on the forums for house rules since than and it looks like the idea is to have the individual powers attack separately (even if they are in the same territory) instead of “jointly” as we did.

One thing is for certain about using this all Axis all Allies turn sequence is that it speeds up the game by at least 30% to 40%.  Our turns for six players per the official rules take an average of 1 hour (+20 minutes…1hr to 1hr 20mins).  With this turn order the average time was about 40 minutes (+/- 10 minutes…30mins to 50mins).  And the 20 or so minutes that you are “waiting for your turn” goes real fast.  You don’t have enough time to “get bored” because your never really “waiting for your turn” because you have to keep looking at the board to figure out your purchases/strategy/moves while rolling your defensive dice too.

All of the other details about balance; I don’t know what to think about that…YET.  But one thing is for certain, I’m going to play AA50 with this turn sequence several more times before I even consider a bid to correct any imbalance.

But, so far (IMO) the increased speed of the game alone is worth the chance of unbalancing the game.

(IMO) AA50 is just too long of a game to play; I don’t think we’ve had a game yet finish in less than 5 hours.  In AAR our LONGEST games would last 5 hours but most of them ran closer to 4 hours (or less).  So far all of our AA50 games have been lasting 6+ hours (and usually much longer).  I’m sure we could play for less victory cities, but I just never really got into playing for nothing but a total victory for some reason.  I’ve always favored the “till someone cries” (surrenders) type of games.  The strategies are really different when you play till “the bitter end” instead of to a set (low) number of victory cities.

your supposed to attack individually even if you play the turns together.

Also,remember your using the Revised turn sequence and not AA50.

try this:

Germany–Japan

Soviet Union–UK

Italy then USA/China

This could minimize the impact on the game, except in the 1941 scenario this allows the japanese to attack Russia first
and in 1942 this allows the Germans to fight first ( this however is more realistic)

All of the other details about balance; I don’t know what to think about that…YET.  But one thing is for certain, I’m going to play AA50 with this turn sequence several more times before I even consider a bid to correct any imbalance.

Thank you I appreciate that.  So you’re saying even with combined turns, the game still takes about 5 hours?  That’s sort of refreshing.

Imperious Leader,

I like your joint turn session.  It seems like a good compromise the to without including a bid or something extra.  It would be cool if each side could go at once, but obviously I think this requires some reworking of the game board.

I don’t know if this is really the topic to be discussing this under or not, and I don’t normally use variant house rules…in fact the only house rule I’ve used to date is the Bid and TTL (just with AAR, I have only tried this turn sequence with AA50) .  And I haven’t had the time to look over ALL of the rules/topics/threads about this set of rules YET…

But…

IL
your supposed to attack individually even if you play the turns together.

What do you mean by attack individually?

I figure there’s two different ways to do this; see Example A and Example B below.

Example A:
Germany and Italy are attacking Russia.
First…
Germany attacks (in turn order per the original rules)
Russia assigns their casualties on the battle board
Russia defends (and can only hit attacking German units)
Germany and Russia removes all their casualties from the battle board

THAN…IF Russia still has defending units…
Italy attacks
Russia assigns their casualties on the battle board
Russia defends (and can only hit attacking Italian units)
Italy and Russia remove all their casualties from the battle board

THAN…IF Russia still has defending units and IF Germany still has attacking units…
Germany attacks
Russia assigns their casualties on the battle board
Russia defends
Germany and Russia remove all casualties from the battle board

BUT…IF Russia still has defending units but Germany doesn’t have attacking units…

THAN…Italy attacks IF they still have attacking units…
Italy attacks
Russia assigns their casualties on the battle board
Russia defends
Italy and Russia remove all casualties from the battle board

BUT…IF Russia still has defending units but Germany & Italy don’t have attacking units…

THAN…Russia wins the battle and retains control of the territory/sea zone.

IF/WHEN Russia has no defending units but Germany and/or Italy still have attacking units…

THAN…the Axis wins the battle and gains control of the territory/sea zone.

The power that eliminates the last defending unit in a round of battle is the power that captures and gains control of the territory.

OR;
Example B: Germany and Italy are attacking Russia.
First…
Germany attacks (in turn order per the original rules)
Russia assigns their casualties on the battle board
Russia defends (and can only hit attacking German units)
Germany and Russia remove all casualties from the battle board AND they start another round of combat between just the two of them.

THAN…IF/WHEN Russia has no more defending units but Germany still has attacking units than Germany wins the battle and gains control of the territory/sea zone and than the Italian units that moved into that territory/sea zone during the combat move just stay in the territory that Germany just captured.

BUT…IF/WHEN Russia still has defending units but Germany doesn’t have attacking units left
than….
Italy attacks
Russia assigns their casualties on the battle board
Russia defends (and can only hit attacking Italian units)
Italy and Russia remove all casualties from the battle board AND they start another round of combat between just the two of them.

THAN…IF/WHEN Russia has no more defending units but Italy still has attacking units than Italy wins the battle and gains control of the territory/sea zone.

BUT…IF/WHEN Russia still has defending units but (Germany &) Italy don’t have attacking units left…

THAN…Russia wins the battle and retains control of the territory/sea zone.

Did you catch all that? Mind numbing I know… but that s what happens to me when I start discussing A&A and  “Only slightly well less known is never match wits with a Sicilian when death is on the line…Ahh HA…HAHAHA HAHA”…(quote from the princes bride…in case you were wondering what that was all about.)

In a nut shell; in Example A the Germans and Italians attack independently in a cyclic order/way and in example B they attack independently in turn order.

And also, regardless of which Example we should be playing by (according to the “official rules”); if the attackers ever decided to retreat, neither Germany nor Italy could do so until they had each done at least one round of combat.  But they would retreat separately and they both wouldn’t need to retreat simply because one of them decided to retreat. Correct?

I personally like Example A Best.  It sounds like it might play out a little more “realistic”.  In “joint operations” over large areas (like the territories/sea zones in the game appear to be) powers would be attacking at the same time.  It doesn’t make sense to me to have Germany fight to the last unit or till they retreat before the Italians would even get a unit shot at.  I just don’t see powers in joint operations “waiting” to attack until their ally was finished attacking.  They would/ should most likely be attacking at the “same time”.  Having powers attack cyclically mimics that idea pretty well (IMO).

Plus, if you are playing with the rule you’ve come up with that defenders can retreat after a round of combat it would make sense also that they would not be able to retreat until both Germany and Italy had a chance to fire at them.  In example B if Russia couldn’t retreat until Italy had a chance to attack, they would have to wait till Germany was out of attacking units and until after Italy had a chance to make at least one attack; Russia could be long dead by than making the need to retreat pointless…since they would already be dead.

I don’t know what the “official” rules are concerning the combat turn for this variant set of rules (since the copy I have is not very clear about it); but after more thought I am probably going to stick with using Example A for the combat from now on.  It just makes more sense to me to have the attacking powers attack independently compared to the “joint attacks” that I did over the weekend, but example B just feels/sounds like it would make the powers “independent attacks” TOO independent; totally eliminating any FEELING of  “joint offensives” (something about this set of rules that really intrigued me.)

I just played a 6 player 1942 game with combined turns and option B that Builder Chris refers to worked pretty well, especially since it is simpler than option A.

Also, we bid 20 IPCs to the allied team to offset the advantage gained by Italy and Germany in going before Russia and England.  The allies were happy with this bid.  However, England did lose its navy and Russia lost their archangel factory fairly quickly.  I wasn’t paying much attention because I was playing Japan and my front was not affected by the new turn order.

what was the turn order again?

We had all three axis countries go at once followed by the allied countries, which went fairly fast (~15 minutes a turn) since each country had a player.  I believe the 1942 setup initially goes Japan, Russia, Germany, UK, Italy, and finally US.

ok yes thats the AARHE turn sequence. good to know

I think I figured it out.

Keep everything as is it is with each side taking it’s turn together, but start the game off with UK receiving a free IC in India.  This makes up for the deficiency of losing it’s Navy (replacing the extra lost BB+TRN) and Egypt (with is really an inf or two).  This should balance the game, as well as making the Pacific more interesting.

Anyway,
we have been using this for the last year and its been great fun to see everyone in action at once.  And on the team play, each attacking the same territory gives you the feel of an alliance, even though you attacked seperately like chris Ex B.
  I had friends who did not really want to play, cause it took too long in between turns and now those same guys are big proponents of getting together for games.
  I mentioned this over at Larry Harris site.  Larry seemed curious, but thought it would favor the Allies.  I like, Moses idea of an Indian factory, interesting, may propose it for the next game.  The time savings has been so great and the win lose record so even, we thought whatever balance issues happened would be minor.  Moses argument and Imperious have me thinking, thanks.

I would just like to suggest giving this program a try, it has helped me and my friends play games much quicker ( 15 -20 minutes a turn).  It makes the game go much more efficiently.  Its available for download at : http://sites.google.com/site/dkat106inc/axis-and-allies-banker

Try it out I promise it will make game play more fun and efficient!