Posts made by maverick_76

@Gnarl536 Nevermind! I found it!

@Gnarl536 How do we change to a dark skin mode exactly? I would like it better if the white background was darker, very bright :)

I would love to get more games under my belt to see how much tech can influence the game. Also I’d love to see how viable my “bomb Germany to smithereens” approach is. That is how I won with the Allies the last game I played. Just forced Germany to have to repair factories every turn. And when the UK scored heavy bombers…I didn’t even have to use US bombers anymore.

I agree that this game could have been just luck for me but that definitely stokes my fire to try it again and see if it was just a one hit wonder on my part.

From the little bit that I have played, I recommend bombing runs by the US and UK to force Germany to spend money to repair their factories. I bought 3-4 bombers for both the US and Britain (over a couple of turns) and unleashed hell on the Germans. I made sure to max out their money lost as much as I could, that gives the Russians a fighting chance in terms of economics. If you invest in tech and can get heavy bombers, Germany is done for.

If you can do this, the Russians can actually buy tanks to support their infantry and have an offensive threat. Also you can keep Russia’s 5 IPC bonus alive by avoiding sending units into the motherland.

One thing that I think can level the game is if the allies can invest in tech and hopefully get it early in the game. Heavy bombers especially can devastate the Germans if the UK or USA can get that.

From my one play through, I thought it was quite balanced to be honest. But people that have played the game much more say it slants even more in favor of the Axis because they claim that the axis can meet their objectives quickly and also block allied objectives quickly…making the Axis have parity in terms of income early in the game which makes it almost impossible for the allies to win.

I know this game is supposed to release in six months time, but is there another place where we can get more info on this? I Larry providing commentary the same way that he did with A&A Global?

I so far think that tanks costing 5 IPCs is very solid.

This actually makes the tank a worthwhile investment. For instance:

for 15 IPCs you can buy 5 infantry or 3 tanks. Based on average dice rolls:
5 infantry would hit 0.85 times on offense, 1.65 times on defense
3 tanks would hit 1.5 times on offense, 1.5 times on defense.

The defensive values are similar, meaning that infantry on defense is still a better investment since there are more of them, they can absorb more hits from attacking tanks! Personally all this does is take tanks and makes them a considered buy instead of the ol’ infantry only buy since tanks in older versions of the game were so neutered on defense. They are now equal value to infantry because what you are paying extra for is the increased mobility. Even looking at the numbers for if 5 infantry attack the three tanks, it is very close, with a slight advantage given to the defending tanks.

So we are still seeing that if money invested is equal, defense has an advantage as far as infantry and tanks are concerned.

Also if we increase the money to 35 IPCs and our purchases now include artillery:
5 infantry
5 Artillery (combined offensive of 3.3 hits and 3.3 hits on defense)

7 tanks 3.5 hits on offense, 3.5 on defense

If the tanks attack the infantry and artillery on average the 10 unit stack will win, with 3-4 pieces remaining.

If the infantry and artillery attack, on average they can still win with 3-4 units remaining. So artillery tip the balance of power over to infantry again with their ability to raise the infantry’s attack.

Tanks literally are costing more solely for movement capability, a tank only purchase strategy only works if you have the economy to spend more money than the other guy. If the money spent is equal, tanks still lose.

See that is what I noticed, even though the game was 50/50 when I stopped, I felt that unless I could knock Russia out within the next 2-3 turns that the Allies would have been able to steamroll me with superior income, they were hitting on most of their objectives still so the disparity was 2:1 in income ratio.

Wow, if it was 60/40 or even 70/30 I’d say that isn’t too bad…but 80-95% success for the Axis is crazy.

Well I have definitely not played enough or are skilled enough to be able to see the unbalanced nature yet. Also we played with tech and that actually sucked some money out of both sides trying to get a leg up.

This is interesting. What do you feel the advantage is for the Axis in terms if you play 100 games, how many would the Axis win if both players were equal skill?

I agree that because it was my first game playing it, that my strategy wasn’t strong. I tried to push too hard with Germany and not establish a strong supply line. Tried to achieve all German Objectives with the first strong push I could make.

With Japan I had all of my transports alive still, and I was building ground units. I decided to push by landing units in North Asia and sweep across the continent, picking up income as I went. I also had bad luck with the Philippines, took me two turns to take that, having to waste units that normally would have been in Asia pushing for the Indian factory. Japan though is pretty sparse for ground units to start out, I didn’t feel that they came on strong until at least turn 3 on the ground at least.

You are right that it would be a better strategy to attack South Asia first and ignore China, but they could become pesky still if you let them linger too long.

I see people talking about the Axis being heavily favored in a 41 scenario with national objectives….I played my first game with this and I am having trouble seeing how the Axis can be so favored. The game seems quite balanced so far, I played as the Axis and had my first advance into Russia stopped completely. I actually lost all the Russian territory I gained because I ran out of troops. Russia and the UK took Finland and Norway from me and I had no way of replacing that income easily. The US actually landed on France for a turn because I was trying to push as hard as I could into Russia and understaffed The Western front.

Japan was able build, but not quickly. I ran out of men to use to take over Indonesian territories and since the UK built an Indian factory turn 1 they were churning out three units a turn which again I ran into the problem of not having enough troops fast enough to push the UK out of Asia. China fell but that took a while.

I wasn’t able to finish the game…but my GF and I were about 4-6 turns in and it felt like a 50/50 match at that point. to sum up where we finished at:

Germany: having to rebuild from the first Russian offensive falling apart. Still in a strong position but definitely up in the air.
Russia: weakened by Japanese incursions in the far east but holding strong in the west after regaining all original territory from Germany
Japan: getting quite strong, eliminated the Chinese, pushed into East Russia, having to deal with a UK factory in India still
UK: Being a pain in Japan and Germany’s neck, building ships in the Atlantic and churning out units in India.
Italy: weak still, pushed out of Africa by the UK and a US incursion into Africa, but gaining steam because US was pushed out and UK troops from middle East and Egypt almost exhausted.
US: had a large fleet in Pacific, about to have a showdown with Japan. Bulding bombers to run bombing raids on Germany and Italy.

Also the Axis were not even close yet in money to the Allies, still basically only making half what the Allies were making total.

I felt our dice rolls were pretty even, no one had bad luck really. I am finding it hard to see where the Axis are supposed to just jump ahead and have an advantage really.

I got the game last month and am playing my first game slowly with my GF. We are really enjoying the battle between Germany and Russia. I landed jet power on my first turn with Germany and so I have abandoned building any navy and have focused on using fighters to stop and naval presence in the Atlantic. Forcing the US or UK to have carriers or lots of warships to escort transports across. Also I have found the game to be quite balanced….our match is really up in the air right now. I had my first Barbarossa push and Russia was able to hold me off because I tried to push too far too fast, and they now pushed me out and I’m having to rebuild my eastern European front to push again. Japan is having a field day but my GF built an Indian factory and is churning out three UK tanks/infantry every turn which is slowing me down.

I really feel that the game is 50/50 at this point, because Japan is almost able to start pushing into Russia from the East, Germany is now having to deal with UK/US incursions from the West and Italy is still trying to push the UK out of Africa and take that money from them.

Really exciting for us both right now!

But to answer your questions, the dynamics do feel slanted to a KGF, it only takes a turn to transport units from US to Africa, while it is at least two turns to get troops into the fight from the US on the pacific coast. Plus Germany is a total of 13 spaces from all three allies capitals while Japan is wayyyy farther. It is just less time consuming to take Germany first…which allows less time for buildup for defense by the Germans.

@Gen.Nehring:

A must for the allies to stand a chance of winning. The Turkish strait has got to be closed! The Italians can do a commando landing in the Caucasus and kill off a few Soviet pieces then the Germans go and finish off the Caucasus before the Soviets go again. Totally a necessary rule! The scramble and escort rule works too as the U.S. and Brits can bomb Germany time after time with just the antiaircraft “1” rolls to fear!

I wonder if that actually balances the game though…If the Allies can bomb Germany out, wouldn’t that make it easier for Russia to defend their advances? I personally just bought the game and am playing my first game with strictly rules that are in the rulebook, so i guess I’ll see for myself. But just curious if anyone else feels that straights being open really does break the game?

The only edition of the board games that I don’t have are A&A revised and Guadalcanal….now that I have anniversary I don’t feel the need to ever own revised and to be honest, I don’t ever play the small theater games like battle of the bulge and D-Day…

I think the simpler the better for A&A. Gotta keep the spirit of simpler mechanics in order to not turn off non hardcore players. I liked the ipc counter idea. Maybe take that and divide by 3 or something like that to see how many can be bought that round. Either that or make a cap of total units that can be in a given territory, like twice the ipc value or something like that. Also that could simulate difficulty transporting units over non industrialized areas of land, like the Russian countryside for instance. It would force you to string out troop movements and make blitzes even more crucial. Damn this really is sounding good to me, anyone got a counter argument to this?

Any word yet on updated 2nd ed. setup charts?

Just finished reading this thread, interesting……

Any update on more testing to see how this is going? Are we already on the verge of having another rule change?

I can’t remember how many VC’s you need to capture in the global game but like others have said on this thread, the game is not over when Moscow falls, especially if Britain is spending money controlling Africa and keeping the Atlantic and Med. clear of Axis ships. That allows the US to just buy gobs of troops and tanks and bombers that will be able to get intro France around the time that Russia is about to fall.

Now I mentioned before that historically one of the big reasons Moscow wasn’t taken is that Hitler made blunders. So since hindsight is 20/20, obviously an experienced player is going to charge at Moscow full bore. One thing that I wish the game would do is instead of handing over your IPC’s when your capital falls is instead giving the power life as long as one VC is standing. That would give the German player a little more trouble in knocking out Russia so fast, maybe an extra turn or two. Now once all VC’s and capitals have fallen, then the power has to forfeit money and must wait until an ally emancipates them.

This of course is only a thought and not a play tested theory. Since I have not played a full global match yet I don’t even know if the game is out of balance in the first place,  maybe Russia has to fall in order for the game to become a fair fight.
I do like the idea since I feel a nation will fight until its major cities are all under enemy control, feels a little more realistic to me.