Purchase units before Combat Movement?

  • '19 '17 '16

    This is a rule that I hate and when I play the board game version I house rule it out - but you can’t do that in Triple-A. Before you know what you want to buy you need to know what attacks you’re going to make in a lot of cases. I don’t think it ever works the other way around. I just find this rule makes the game less fun to play, because you have to plan in your mind what attacks you are going to make and then work out what buys you want. Annoying!

    I’ve mentioned it before but it didn’t get any real support. Is the consensus out there that people actually like the way the phase order is constructed?


  • The rule makes sense to me. Say you decide to make a cake. You go out and buy the ingredients for it first. Then you make it. I don’t see how it could make any sense the other way around.

  • '19 '17 '16

    You can look at it like that. I’m looking at it from the point of view of what makes the game more fun. If I take your baking a cake analogy, do you read the recipe before shopping for ingredients? The current turn order is basically, buy some ingredients, read the recipe (combat movement), bake cake (conduct combat). You have to prognosticate what will be in the recipe to know what you need to buy.

  • '17 '16

    Some people suggested to make combat move before purchase to get a faster turn.
    You need to remember to buy units however.

    I played with this little change against a newbie and a few times the turn ended and we both realized that it was forgotten.

    The battle outcomes were known then, so it wasn’t fair. It didn’t bother me in that learning context. In other situation, I would have managed this matter like a one time mistake, any other will be a no purchase for this turn.

    It helps from a learning POV, since it is easier to see what supply is needed when you understand what kind of casualty are expected.

    @simon33:

    **We have one move we reckon speeds things up a fair bit (and makes it more enjoyable): Purchase & repair units doesn’t need to be finalised until the end of Combat Movement.

    Often, you need to put the combat movement on the board to visualise it. This makes less and less difference the more I play but I would call it invaluable in my early days of A&A. Certainly less radical than some of the other suggestions here.**

    We only have 3 colours of dice and red is always the highest number. Although I can certainly see the merit in 4 colours with 15+ of each - and never deviating the number a given colour is rolling is also a plus. Two trays to allow offensive and defensive rolling simultaneously is pretty good too.

    Another point is that combat movement which doesn’t involve rolling dice is generally allowed to be retrospective if forgotten (not if affected by something which has happened though). NCM can be allowed too if not affected by a declared combat move. This is open to interpretation. When I’ve played Triple-A, not being able to go back (without invoking edit mode) was a different experience.

    Here is one reason you don’t need to change the phase sequence in a multi-players game:
    @cminke:

    can any one come up w/ a list that can change a 12 day game into maybe a 2 day game?

    here what i got so far:

    1. have purchase ready to go
      2)know how  each piece moves
      3)have one person track ipc chart
      4)have battles right on map(instead of moving them on to battle board)

  • @simon33:

    You can look at it like that. I’m looking at it from the point of view of what makes the game more fun. If I take your baking a cake analogy, do you read the recipe before shopping for ingredients? The current turn order is basically, buy some ingredients, read the recipe (combat movement), bake cake (conduct combat). You have to prognosticate what will be in the recipe to know what you need to buy.

    No combat movement would be moving all of your ingredients to stove. ;)

  • 2024 '22 '21 '19 '15 '14

    This can be achieved in triplea, but you have to edit the xml or find one where the phases have been reordered. I agree with others that it accelerates the game pace and reduces the downtime. I actually think this phase structure works better in triplea than it does face to face, because the machine will automatically prompt you to purchase, thereby eliminating the possibility that players forget to buy, and start rolling combats prematurely. As long as there is a strict enforcement of phases separating the combat move, from combat proper, sticking the purchase phase between them has no negative effects on the gameplay that I can find.

    I think it is advantageous for pacing because it requires players to make all their moves before combat begins, so you don’t have the issue of “oh I forgot to make a move, is it OK if make another attack?” OR “oh I forgot to purchase something, can I change my buy?” after combats have already been rolled. It provides for a more natural flow as well, where players start moving immediately once their turn begins, instead of puzzling through their buy trying to imagine all the contingencies or predict the results of combat moves they haven’t even made yet. This can be helpful in multi player games, which are notorious for lagging at purchase.

  • '19 '17 '16

    Well said.

    I wonder if people who advocate for the status quo have ever tried it or even noticed that you have to mentally plan out your attacks to know what you want to buy in many cases.

  • '19 '17 '16

    @Der:

    @simon33:

    You can look at it like that. I’m looking at it from the point of view of what makes the game more fun. If I take your baking a cake analogy, do you read the recipe before shopping for ingredients? The current turn order is basically, buy some ingredients, read the recipe (combat movement), bake cake (conduct combat). You have to prognosticate what will be in the recipe to know what you need to buy.

    No combat movement would be moving all of your ingredients to stove. ;)

    I think my analogy is every bit as valid as yours.

    The point is that the need to prognosticate the likely outcome of the board at the end of your combats is unnecessary, time consuming and reduces the fun. Whether the current rule makes sense or not isn’t really relevant.

    The point about forgetting to purchase isn’t really valid with a Triple-A game because it prompts you. You can say that a forgotten purchase is a zero purchase if you apply the rule strictly. In general I would expect so if a retrospective purchase gives an unfair advantage.

    Face to face, I use a merged purchase+combat movement phase. Probably why we can play a game in a day.

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