Played Our First Game Tonight

Wild Bill, it’s not only the Phillippines you can take on J1, but you can also crush the UK BB+2 transports of the coast of Malaya with ease (3 bombers, 1 ftr will do the trick). Those two attacks alone make it worthwhile giving USA 35 IPC extra (40 IPC minus 5 from the NO).  :wink:

Are you in the US?

Yes, Pennsylvania

$67 = £42

I can’t understand why the cheapest I’ve seen it in the UK is £57 which is $96.

Come to think of it, I don’t think Japan can take Hawaii on J1 with at most a landing force of 3 infantry and 2 artillery.

On J1, Attacking Phillippines and destroying the destroyer, transport, 2 infantry, fighter, bomber and attacking sea zone 37 and destroying the battleship, and 2 transports seems to be the logical choices.

Yup, and you also attack Kwangtung, the Chinese and land your bombers + ftrs on Shan State so you have India locked up unable to buy fleet.  :wink:

@Army:

$67 = £42

I can’t understand why the cheapest I’ve seen it in the UK is £57 which is $96.

Doesnt work like that - overseas pricing is never matched 1 to 1 on a conversion rate basis.

Just try to feel fortunate its not £67, which more often than not is exactly what some retailers would do!

Im assuming your an ex-pat, right?  If so, maybe have someone from home buy it in the US and then ship it to you.

Doesnt work like that - overseas pricing is never matched 1 to 1 on a conversion rate basis.

True, but I was judging the price by the price for Anniversary (and other A&A) games. Anniversary was £50 over here, so I can’t see why it should be any more for Pacific.

Im assuming your an ex-pat, right?  If so, maybe have someone from home buy it in the US and then ship it to you.

No, my avatar (and name) may be deceptive - I’m a Brit.

@Army:

Doesnt work like that - overseas pricing is never matched 1 to 1 on a conversion rate basis.

True, but I was judging the price by the price for Anniversary (and other A&A) games. Anniversary was £50 over here, so I can’t see why it should be any more for Pacific.

Im assuming your an ex-pat, right?  If so, maybe have someone from home buy it in the US and then ship it to you.

No, my avatar (and name) may be deceptive - I’m a Brit.

A Brit who is interested in the American Civil War?

Why not?

I’m a Chinese Canadian interested in Napoleonic war

@Omega:

Why not?

I’m a Chinese Canadian interested in Napoleonic war

Is that opposite of a french Canadian whose interested in the Chinese Civil War. :-D

Well, I am a French Chinese Canadian if you want :D

Its 2:30 and I’m still awake. Must study for my exam

It seems like there’s little reason for japan to wait to attack since the uk and Anzac can start to get ipc’s from the east indies if the Japanese don’t take them on r1. Has anyone found it to be very advantageous to wait to attack as japan? If not then why not have the game start  in 1941

My thoughts exactly.  I feel if you tip toe with Japan you have to make up too much ground with the commonwealth’s transports sacrificing themselves on the Dutch Isles, this will give you problems.  My first few turns with Japan I loaded up on Carriers since a large scale war with the US is inevitable.  You already have the airpower, might as well exploit it all across the Pacific.  Also, since the game came with 8 Jap carriers it seemed the game was designed to lean that way.

I think the reason the game is set at 1940 is to give the players another option in the game. If I’m correct, most of the AA are set at 1941-1942. 1940 will place the players into a new setup.

Now, Japan CAN attack UK/Anzac if she wants. She can also attack USA! Nothing prevents her from doing so, except being at war with everyone!!! For most of us, since we are “dedicated” players, we forget about the fun part of these games. For a normal player, a game like AA50 will be balanced because they will play casually, without the “optimal” strategies.

The decision that Larry offers us with this setup is very very interesting. I hope that there aren’t one better route than another. (So that the game offers even more options) Some of us might already be making calculations on IPC losses to the allies, IPC gained for Japan VS IPC gained from USA. This could be interesting. But until something as “optimal” strategies are discovered, I think it is safe to say that we need to give this game a chance.

Robert

Inevitably, Japan must dedicate a lot of her ressources into fighting or holding USA. Question is : Can she do so early in the game? Or does she needs some extra IPC from a defeated China?

@Army:

@General:

@Lozmoid:

I’m still waiting for a phone call from my local game store! I’m in UK and I believe it has been released today. Absolutely champing at the bit for this title. Will post again as soon as I’ve picked up my copy… :|

where did you get it if you dont mind me asking.  im from UK had to import it.

I too am curious about that. Also, what price are people paying? It seems to be pricier than Anniversary, even though it should be the same.

Lozmoid can you answer this question please :)

A Brit who is interested in the American Civil War?

Yes indeed. Interested in lots of wars. I tend to be more interested in the ‘losing’ side, though. I don’t know why. I’m also interested in wars in which the smaller side wins the most (Frederick the Great).

Lozmoid can you answer this question please :)

Loz said that his local game store are charging £75. How much are you paying from the States GC, and how much is shipping?

Do we know whether the merged game will have the possibility of different starting dates like anniversary?

So I couldn’t find anybody to play with after I bought the game yesterday so I was a HUGE nerd and played the game by myself.

From my playthrough Japan owned absolutely everything.  As Japan I focused alot of forces on China early and had taken over the country without any real resistance by turn 4.  I also sent a decent sized Navy down south and sunk the British fleet.  While I captured all of the East Indies I lost all of my transports to US bombers but it was easily worth it since the Allies wouldn’t be taking them back for several turns.  By turn 4 I had Britain holed up in India with lots of troops massed on each side of the border and it was inevitable I would capture it in a few turns.  The US made the Pearl Harbor mistake by sending it’s whole fleet there to protect Hawaii.  I figured if I didn’t then Japan would get another victory city and 5 bonus income so I made the sacrifice.  By the time I stopped playing (I didn’t finish) Japan had taken over all of Asia except for India, had a massive fleet off the coast of Australia, and the US and ANZAC were just about to start kicking Japan out of the South Pacific.

While I’ve only played the game once I’ve noticed several flaws:

• Why doesn’t the US declare war it’s first turn to get it’s massive bonus income?  This seems to be the most logical thing for them since Japan will probably initiate its attack on it’s second turn anyway.  Might as well allow America to get another extra 40 IPCs.

• What the hell is with the income chart?!?! It’s maximum value is 48 IPCs, yet America exceeds this as soon as it goes into war production.  It would made sense if the chart went up to a max of 50 IPCs so you could just reset the token to 1 on the chart to indicate that you are at 51 IPCs.  But no, it’s 48 for absolutely no freaking reason!

• With the units it starts out with Japan will destroy China so long as it puts in MINIMAL effort to do so.

• While the board is magnificent, nothing else about this game justifies me paying $80 for it.

• The container boxes are sweet, but there’s no separate box to hold all of the chips, dice, facilities, etc.  And why are there no dividers like in the Anniversary boxes?

• Why on Earth is there no paper money?!  You know why I like paper money?  Because it’s far easier and more convenient than writing numbers down and scratching them out over and over again!

• Why does ANZAC only get its one NO once?  If they can hold a Japanese island for more than one turn I say more power to them and let them keep the extra income.

• There are not enough plastic peaces in the box.  Japan gets the exact amount of tactical bombers it needs to start the game with if you use the chips to identify more than one unit.  This means that if you ever by a single new tactical bomber or wish to split up a current force of tactical bombers you’re out of luck.  I was running out of American pieces too.

• This is an admittedly petty and minuscule complaint but the Japanese tactical bombers are incredibly difficult to set on the aircraft carriers correctly because of their little landing gear on the bottom of the piece.  Maybe I have OCD but I have to have the planes sitting on the carriers correctly before I can do anything else.  I spent a lot of time doing this.

While I’ll give the actual gameplay more of a chance because it might still be really good, these other problems are ridiculous.  While they are mostly small issues, all of them together start to really annoy the hell out of me.  And what’s even more upsetting is they are all EASY to fix if there were any time put into it.  If it’s a matter of cost I’d be willing to pay an extra $5 for a sufficient amount of plastic peaces, paper money, an extra box, dividers in the boxes, and an income chart that isn’t mindbogglingly stupid.

While they are mostly small issues, all of them together start to really annoy the hell out of me.  And what’s even more upsetting is they are all EASY to fix if there were any time put into it.  If it’s a matter of cost I’d be willing to pay an extra $5 for a sufficient amount of plastic peaces, paper money, an extra box, dividers in the boxes, and an income chart that isn’t mindbogglingly stupid.

That’s what I’m talking about! An extra $5 would rectify everything being complained about. You could even throw in some taskgroup markers.