When my band used to share an apartment there was always a bunch of people hanging around. A friend’s brother had a beat up old A&A game hanging around with no instructions. We were bored so tried playing it, making up rules. Moving tanks & troops across sea zones with no transports, whatever. Total mess.
When he finally found the manual it was like, oh, duh.
We all got hooked on the game then and played most every day for months. I’ve been playing ever since.
Definitely dropping the extra transport is usually helpful. If air attacks go well on T1, I’ll sometimes send a fighter to africa to help block and attack. It’s a gamble though, assuming the fighter can be replaced in europe before you get overwhelmed by transports.
Is their anything you can do to make the game harder therefore more fun. Whipping up on the computer is not much fun. By the way I am guest. The orginal poster. Thanks
Yeah. Go into the options menu, choose “edit units” and up the defense number on the opposing country’s infantry and tanks by one. Changes the dynamic enough to make it more challenging.
If that doesn’t fit your style, you can play around and tweak the opposing country’s units 'til it’s challenging enough. You can also save the “edit units” setup to recall for future games.
but if japan captures it, they’re pumping out 3 tanks per turn to wreak havoc in russia/middle east/asia/africa
Doesn’t bother me. If the UK dropped an IC on south africa as I mentioned above, they’re already countering with two tanks per turn. If I have my way, the US has already taken the few IPC loss of taking venezuala, is parking transports off Brazil and running tanks from the western US down to Brazil and across to Africa by the time Japan takes India. Japan is going to save dropping the extra transports, but chances are they’re coming anyway. They’ll need a lot more than three tanks to stop me so those tanks will be busy unless Germany manages to get in my way, which takes pressure off the other end of Russia and taking pressure off Russia is all that matters.
If the IC in India baits Japan away from Russia, that’s good. They can fight whatever Britain drops and if they capture it before the forces link up from Africa, it just means I get to bomb Japan with SBRs for rental.
@cystic:
yeah, but big deal. . .
all this does is delay the American landing in Germany long enough for Japan to soak Russia for an economic victory.
True, but not neccissarily always. If the dice go badly for Germany at the outset, the UK can ship in troops to help Russia and that’s where this happens.
All the sea zones on my board are numbered because we used to play hidden subs. The player had to write down the zone number where the subs submerged. Anyone could check it when they did just to keep it fair. After that, the player would put their subs in the logo near the bottom of the board and write town where the subs moved every turn so it was verifiable by other players.
It does require some honesty, but it really keeps you on your toes not knowing where your opponent’s subs may be at any time in the game. Always a little surprise when a pack of submarines surface and attack you unexpectedly.
Anyone else do something similar?
Just out of curiosity, has anyone discussed allowing fighters to defend against SBRs? It would make more sense to me as realistically, bombers had to contend with fighters. You’d have to develop long range technology for allied fighters to accompany bombers to germany as it really happened.
I’ve thought of it because I’ve played against people who’s european strategy consists mainly of building up bombers in the UK until germany loses all it’s IPCs every turn from SBRs. There’s not much germany can do with one little AA gun, so I don’t think that strategy is fair or realistic. If germany had fighters to defend, it might be different.
If Japan doesn’t capture the IC in India, you’ve got an advantage. If they do, the Allies really ought to have a firm grip on Africa by T3 anyway so it’s a lot easier to run SBRs against Japan between africa and India than to bomb Japan proper. Either way I see it as an advantage.
The original A&A for PC was so buggy and easy to beat I havn’t bothered with Iron blitz. I started playing SSI’s Panzer commander and Steel panthers instead but I pretty much mastered them so I’m back to A&A for awhile.
When I play the A&A PC version, I usually just let the other side have their way for a few turns until I’m in a fix and it looks one sided. That makes it more interesting.
I dunno if I’m a top player. I’ve been playing for about ten years. I used to work for Hasbro and knew the guy that invented the game, but I’ve learned more from playing than from him.
I still lose sometimes.
Tips?
A good player really caught me off guard by having the U.K. drop an aircraft carrier on their first turn, then having the U.S. fly it’s lone fighter onto the U.K. carrier on it’s first turn. Along with what was left of the Allied navy after Germany’s aircraft blitz, it turned the tables and the allies were able to help Russia defend Karelia, boxing me in.
Obviously, the U.K. needs to drop an IC in south Africa ASAP. A couple of tanks coming up from there every turn secures africa most every time once Germany’s transport is gone. Eventually those tanks start flowing into asia and…
I never attack the U.S. fleet with Japan unless the axis has the game sewed up. If they try island hopping I hit them with aircraft and maybe subs. Best for Japan to bring the navy home from the start and drop transports. That way, you’ve got units moving into asia and if needed, you can suddenly attack Alaska to divert U.S. attention from whatever if they’re causing problems anywhere.
I also like to have the U.S. concentrate on buying bombers and rolling for heavy bomber technology. If you get that, you can fly strategic bombing out of the U.K. and wipe out all of Germany’s IPCs eventually. I learned that the hard way from a good opponant too.