Thanks so much for including me among the invitations, fellas! I’ll have to decline this time. I love classic and will get back to it sometime in the future, but having grade school kids puts me on the sidelines now. I plan to follow the posts to see how the tournament shakes out. Best of luck to all!
E
Best posts made by ericwool
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RE: Invitational Classic 2nd editionposted in Tournaments
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RE: Classic PBEM/PBFposted in Find Online Players
The other place that is still active is gamesbyemail.com. It’s called W.W.II on there. The platform isn’t as thorough as Triple A, but it’s a bit more user friendly and there are almost always opponents available. It’s not your place if you want to sit down and play a game straight through, however. Most players complete 1 or 2 rounds per day.
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RE: The Good Captain vs. Mr. Woolposted in Play Boardgames
@AcesWild5049
I’m completely on your page for tech rolls. They’re too luck-dependent to use in the early rounds, but they’re a great option for salvaging a losing effort. They make for some out of the box turns, too.
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Japanese Attack on Atlantic Fleetposted in Axis & Allies Classic
Do you ever plan, from the outset, to send a combination of planes and ships to attack the American/British Navy in the Atlantic? I’ve found this to be the most effective way to get Japan directly involved in the game rather than just nibbling at the edges. The plan requires a skilled defensive strategy with Germany, likely with 100% infantry purchases. It has worked well in my recent games, however.
Japan must accept that it will not significantly pressure Moscow, but it can still easily build enough infantry to take and hold SFE, Yakut, China, Sinkiang, India, and Persia by turn 6, while building 4 new fighters in the process. On turn 7 the Japanese air force flies from Persia to Europe, and the ships have just arrived at Brazil from the Cape of Africa. On turn 8, the successful destruction of the entire Atlantic fleet should be likely.
It doesn’t tilt the game in favor of the Axis, but it does increase their odds substantially in my opinion. Is there a fatal flaw to this plan that I’m missing?
Sorry if this is covered in an old thread. I’m coming back to the game after about 15 years!
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RE: The Good Captain (Allies) vs. Mr. Wool (Axis) Game 4posted in Play Boardgames
@AcesWild5049 No, I’m hoping to get more use out of them in the long game than I would have in that battle. If I don’t catch some dice with Japan’s turn, however, there won’t be a long game :)
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RE: Any Classic Players Left Out There?posted in Axis & Allies Classic
Before I had kids, I had friends available for face to face games, which was amazing. Now that I’m coming back to the game after a few years, I really didn’t know where all these online options were. So thank you for linking those stickies. It’s REALLY nice not to need to sift through a dozen pages of old forum posts to find this :-) I’ll probably try both the email and tripleA options.
I still don’t want to give up on finding the occasional face to face opponent, however. I’ll bite the bullet and learn some new versions eventually, which will allow me to participate in my local meetup. Nothing will kill my nostalgia for classic, though! If anyone in the Seattle area come across this and wants to meet for a classic game, drop me a line: ericwool@gmail.com
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RE: The Good Captain (Allies) vs. Mr. Wool (Axis) Game 4posted in Play Boardgames
I also think 4 games is a good stopping point. I learned a ton from our games, and I’m eager to spend some time studying the board and playing a variety of opponents. A big thank you for taking the time!
Regarding the proper balance, I believe the game is 10 IPCs in the Allies’ favor. That’s based on giving the Axis extra IPCs to start the game. I’ve never played with adding units to the board. I would have said 12-14 before our games, but I like some the subtle wrinkles you showed in the Axis mid-game.
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RE: Eric Wool (Axis) vs TGC (Allies) no bidposted in Play Boardgames
@the_good_captain I know, that super subs technology is a complete game changer ;)
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RE: Eric Wool (Axis) vs TGC (Allies) no bidposted in Play Boardgames
What a fantastic game. I have about 5,000 thoughts that I’ll try to condense into a readable post in our chat this evening.
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RE: Eric Wool (Axis) vs TGC (Allies) no bidposted in Play Boardgames
This game was remarkably low-stress through the first 8 rounds for me. While the J1 dice were frustrating, they set up a game in which I had nothing to lose and could feel free to take major risks. I didn’t see any traditional path to victory after round 1, and so I was thinking about weapons development from then on. I figured that if I timed it right, I could turn the tide with either Industrial Technology or Heavy Bombers. I also hoped that a situation might arise where Long Range Aircraft could create a mismatched battle. I’m not sure if you were consciously avoiding that type of situation, but it didn’t materialize. In retrospect I don’t think the Industrial Tech development would have been sufficient. It was heavies or bust.
One big lesson for me from the early mid rounds was your use of AA guns to prevent Japan from dominating the Middle East. I haven’t actually seen that before, and it seems to be the perfect use for some otherwise unusable assets for the allies.
It’s interesting to read in your write-up that you question your immediate response to my tech roll. I’m questioning my own read of the board at that point, as I was convinced I needed to put offensive pressure on Karelia with Germany to keep allied units away from Japan’s IPC base. When you shifted west to march on Berlin, I ran some numbers and immediately wondered what in the world I was thinking buying anything besides infantry with Germany. It wasn’t until I saw just how unlikely a march on Moscow was that I took a serious look at crossing the Pacific with Japan’s full fleet.
The dice were utterly remarkable in this game. It was like they were programmed to keep things competitive at all times. My tech roll is the obvious case. Your attacks on Eastern Europe were also remarkable for just how closely they matched the median outcomes of those battles. I would guess that at least 50% of the time those EE battles would skew far enough in one direction or the other to effectively end the game. And then the AA guns…from your very first British bomber getting shot down to all of my raids with heavies, it was like they assessed the board and only shot down planes of the player in the lead.
Gosh, it’s late. I’ve plenty more, but I’ll leave it there.Thanks for the very thorough write up on your end.
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RE: Eric Wool (Axis) vs TGC (Allies) no bidposted in Play Boardgames
Some further thoughts:
I believe you made the correct decision in not rolling for tech immediately on USA 8. Japan really needed Germany as a landing pad for its bombing. Otherwise it was out of range of UK/USA and was in danger of needing to fly over 2 AA guns to bomb Russia. If you hadn’t added more USA ground units for your invasion of Germany, it could have easily failed. In my opinion you had grabbed about an 80/20 advantage in the game by the time you sacked Berlin. One extra AA gun hit in those rounds would have done me in.
I think your only error was in responding 1 round too late to the invasion of North America. I was beginning to wonder if you ever make mistakes, so it was relieving to finally see one! I say all this with the caveat that I really don’t know how many rounds of failed attempts at Heavy Bombers would have doomed the allies. My sense is that you would have been in the driver’s seat if you rolled for heavies in the first three rounds after I got them and that you would have been in trouble if it took 4 or more rounds. I could be WAY off on that, though.
An area of surprise for me was the substantial effect of our optional rules in the late parts of the game. The hard neutrals rule was a small hindrance to my Japan strategy, as Mongolia was a logical spot to consolidate all my forces. The big influence, however, was your lack of ability to build a factory in Asia. It must have been maddening to have no UK or USSR naval option in the Pacific besides sailing boats all the way around the world.
Very well played, as always. I’m definitely looking forward to flipping sides and starting our next game here in a couple of weeks!
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RE: TGC (Axis) vs Eric Wool (Allies) - Classic, no bidposted in Play Boardgames
Well, I’ve tried all the simple fixes I can think of, including re-installing Triple A. It’s still giving me error messages. I’ll copy and paste my turn here. Sorry for all the edits that puts on you, but hopefully we’re back on track with your next post.
Round: 6
Purchase Units - British British buy 2 armour and 6 infantry; Remaining resources: 0 PUs; Combat Move - British 1 infantry moved from Karelia S.S.R. to Ukraine S.S.R. 1 fighter moved from Karelia S.S.R. to Ukraine S.S.R. 1 fighter moved from Anglo Sudan Egypt to Ukraine S.S.R. 1 bomber moved from Anglo Sudan Egypt to South Africa 1 armour moved from Kenya-Rhodesia to South Africa 1 infantry moved from Kenya-Rhodesia to South Africa Combat - British Battle in South Africa British attack with 1 armour, 1 bomber and 1 infantry Germans defend with 1 armour and 1 infantry British win, taking South Africa from Germans with 1 armour and 1 bomber remaining. Battle score for attacker is 5 Casualties for British: 1 infantry Casualties for Germans: 1 armour and 1 infantry Battle in Ukraine S.S.R. British attack with 2 fighters and 1 infantry Germans defend with 1 infantry 2 fighters owned by the British retreated Germans win with 1 infantry remaining. Battle score for attacker is -3 Casualties for British: 1 infantry Non Combat Move - British 2 fighters moved from Ukraine S.S.R. to Karelia S.S.R. 1 infantry moved from Syria Jordan to Anglo Sudan Egypt 1 bomber moved from South Africa to French Equatorial Africa 2 infantry moved from Kenya-Rhodesia to Congo 1 armour moved from Kenya-Rhodesia to French Equatorial Africa 2 infantry moved from Russia to Kazakh S.S.R. 3 armour and 4 infantry moved from United Kingdom to North Sea Zone 1 battleship moved from North Sea Zone to West Spain Sea Zone 3 armour, 4 infantry and 5 transports moved from North Sea Zone to West Spain Sea Zone 3 armour and 4 infantry moved from West Spain Sea Zone to Algeria 10 infantry moved from Finland Norway to Karelia S.S.R. 2 infantry moved from Karelia S.S.R. to Russia Place Units - British 2 armour and 6 infantry placed in United Kingdom Turn Complete - British British collect 27 PUs; end with 27 PUs
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