• I’m curious if you guys have any issues with turns taking long, mostly in the early game.

    For example we started a game on friday at about 5pm (maybe a little later as we were catching up and eating pizza when we started, I had pre-set the game up the night before so no setup time)   We ended at 4am saturday morning and had only managed to finish 4 turns.   To me that seems pretty slow to only be 4 turns in at the 11 hour mark.  to be fair by the 6th-7th hour mark we’re all pretty drunk but still… seems long :P

    The game is still set-up and we’re returning to it next friday but does that length of time seem normal to you?  We don’t play often plus the allies are basically all being played jointly by 2 players, so they discuss options alot, where the 2 axis players basically do their moves then ask the teammate to double check anything obvious they’re missing before ending combat movement.  Axis turns seem to go alot faster than allied turns for us(exception being the first German turn really)

    We also allow teams to ask for 5 minutes alone with the table if they need, allows us to refill drinks / go outside for a few mins, however every time one team does that the other team gets to do it in return at any later point in the game before they’re allowed to do it again.


  • Our gaming group usually gets two games completed in a 12 hour period of time.  Sometimes the second game is only partially done and people decide to call it a night, but we are MUCH faster than what you are talking about for your group of four.  Most of the players have had 20-100 games played in their lives so we are quite familiar with the board.  Sure we will have newer players that join the group and they might only get one game finished in 12 hours, but the regulars are efficient with their moves.

    The first two rounds of moves are generally fast since people are generally familiar with the moves that they want to make.  Progress slows down in the mid-game and often speeds up later on as each side ends up with just a few concentrated stacks.  It would help if players had a few games done beforehand on TripleA so they aren’t trying to figure out what to do on G1 or J1.  That should go lightning fast.


  • what turn do you guys end the first game at?  2 games in 12 hours seems a bit fast to me.


  • It depends.  Sometimes there is a crux battle at G7 or G8 in Moscow.  If one side clearly wins or loses, we call it a match.  Other times the games drag on to 14 or 15 rounds and we might not have enough time to begin another match.  People are not as careful calculating battle odds in the group so we often have a YOLO moment.


  • Most of my games are played on the forum, but have managed perhaps three face to face. I would say they take about 20 hours to play.

    But that is with two players and one is much slower than the other.


  • yeah i’m not a huge fan of playing tripleA, tried a few times but I find i overlook things that i’d see more obviously on the table.

    20 hours sounds about on par with our group to finish a game, i’d say we’ve played 7 or 8 games of global over the past few years we usually wrap around turn 7 or 8 over the course of 2 days.  But we also talk alot on each turn (strategy & taunting) so that definitely adds to the game time.


  • One thing that really helps is if Russia can do the moves in Siberia while Germany is doing his turn.  That frees up Japan to start moving.  There usually is no significance of other Russian moves on the Japanese plans so things can proceed simultaneously.

    Likewise, ANZAC can be moving everything except the Egyptian force while Italy is doing their turn.  Finally, it is a big help if one player is working on the US moves in the Pacific while the other person on the Allies team is making the moves on the other half of the map.  This slightly modified sequence of moves dramatically speeds up the game.  Only occasionally will the Russian player ask to hold off on the Japanese turn because there could be forces that head east depending on the outcome of the German turn.


  • This is a major issue for me and my gaming group. Four turns is the max in about a 12 hour span which seems ridiculous. If we are 3 it takes even longer. Our 4th player is like a once or twice a year kinda player. On a two or three player game. After Germany goes, Russia moves it’s east forces before it even purchases then Japan does its purchase and combat move phase at the same time Russia completes its turn. It makes a difference a little bit, but we still do 4 rounds in 12 hours.


  • I’ve tried not taking victory so seriously, and it’s helped take the stress off of trying to get everything just right. I spend less time making decisions and just try to learn and have fun. It is all a game and meant to be fun.

  • '19 '17 '16

    Merging combat move and purchase speeds things up a little and makes it less frustrating.

    I guess if you have multiple players and can move concurrently that would speed things up a fair bit.

    I’d be interested if there is some other answer to speeding things up that sees games achievable in 6 hours or so. I don’t see how that is possible without doing something really radical?


  • yeah i think simultaneous turns could help speed up the game, maybe we’ll give that a try for early turns next time.  Especially when the nation taking a turn can’t do combat (IE russia & US the first few turns generally) problem is we’re pretty competitive and don’t like to give the opponent any information they shouldn’t have when they’re making a decision, even a small one… we also like to bluff…

    IE on anzac/french turn on turn 1 our german player would start stacking infantry & tanks outside his box for his “Buy” then when it comes to his turn after anzac/french are done their turns he drops them all back in his box and drops transports instead…  with concurrent turns that kind of bluff becomes harder to pull off.  It’s really not going to affect the anzac or french turns, but it’s also a fun part of the live game ;)

  • '17 '16 Customizer

    It’s been my experience that a game of Global is going to take a minimum of 10-12 hours to play….and that’s just getting to a point where one side concedes. Usually about round 5 or 6. What I’m going to start asking my group is that we try to take no longer than 1 hour for a round of play. Of late it’s been up to 2-1/2 hours for one round. That’s too much. I think the biggest challenge to speedy play is the side conversations and socializing. I think that’s unavoidable so I may have to gently coax folks along. I tend to overthink my moves and during the combat move. I will move and remove units as things look different once I’ve move my units into place for combat. Or I might see an opportunity I didn’t see before moving units. I have to work on that. The most obvious thing is staying focused and on task when it’s your turn. Also might want to overlap turns somewhat. Like start purchasing units while the previous player is placing new units and collecting income.

    All that said, this is a common question/concern for all new players to Global.

  • '18 '17 '16

    I think that the trick is to plan for a 2 day game to begin with. If you can’t get your players to commit to both days in the planning stage then try for different dates and find something that works for everyone. I’m certainly a big fan of players being ready to take their turns when it’s their time by knowing what they are purchasing and a general sense of what they are going to do.

    As far as discussing strategy goes, one thing you can do is have times during the game where one side has to leave the room for a specified length of time. When their time is up it’s time to come back to the table and play the game even if they aren’t finished arguing over what they should do next. These are like time-outs and you would maybe get one per round or a certain number per game. The thinking behind this is that they can speak freely and come to some consensus as to what they are going to do in a round so they don’t have to debate it for the entire round instead. Just make sure that everyone knows that they are on the clock when there is a time out. It also gets everyone a break away from the table to stretch their legs and eat/grab a drink/take a piss/pray for better rolls/check their messages without completely halting the game.

  • '21 '20 '18 '17

    I’ve played 100 live games of G40, G42, and G41.  I don’t play AAA.  I do have some observations, and some advice.

    First, its just a really long game.  G40 is especially long, because the first 4 turns not everyone is in the war, and actual fighting tends to kill some of the raw bulk of the units/combats to processed, but in any event, those first 4 turns are kind of a preliminary to get to the “good stuff” (eg post turn 4).

    When we played (Classic) in college, we were always starting late (12p), cajoling new players, ignoring other guests who weren’t into wargames, drinking avidly, arguing about rules.  In those 4-5 years, we barely could get to the real grit of the game and finishing wasn’t likely by 5am.  Maybe we played 4-5 times.

    This is really funny when you compare the rules complexity and game size of G40.  Classic is a pretty small map with a pretty basic setup, yet we couldn’t really figure out how to make it a routine.

    Now, we play as part of several clubs, and at Gencon.  There are not many new players, and definitely no “maybe ill play” people.  Both are huge time sucks, and also don’t really exhibit competitive play so there is no way to draw lessons from what goes down.  Only experienced people come to the table, and they tend to know how to approach the game, so its mostly business–-our socializing is playing the game.    With other games or game groups, this may not be even desireable (to limit socializing), but in AxA, the “crowd” probably doesn’t represent a super social subset anyways.

    Back to the game,

    1. many people suggest combining or truncating parts of the turn.  This is not what I would recommend.  There are many variations of this, but all of them tend to blur the conduct of the game and/or obscure weak play by permitting the players to do anything they want in any order (such as revising your buy after you see the combat outcomes).
    2. Playing with the paper money is a waste of time (about 30m)
    3. People need to focus on setup not wander in whenever
    4. eat before you play stopping to eat is a huge waste of time and right after you finish, someone else is hungry
    5. quit smoking.  Going outside to smoke makes role playing games and wargames impossible because no-one is at the table.
      6)  when it isn’t your turn, think about what you’re going to do.  You can chat or mingle or whatever but you should never say "Oh, its my turn, damn, lets start processing now (after a 45 minute wait on the rest of the players).
    6. help.  Without trying to mess up your pieces or make decisiosn for you, when its not my turn, im moving chips, removing casualties, gathering the other players die, laying out control markers, cleaning up army men.  I’m acting like a banker when its not my turn, managing the board while the other players announce casualties.
    7. narrate the game.  if you say out loud whats happening, and gently remind people when it is their turn, everyone can hear the conduct whether they are watching it or not.
    8. pre-organize the pieces.    someone suggested egg boxes, dividing the stuff makes setup/cleanup even easier, this wastes a lot of time (when all the pieces are just lumped in the box, 30+ min extra)
    9. commit to play, show up on time.  If there are people who are reluctant to play, immature, etc, they are not helpful to your game, they are an impediment.  Adding semi-dedicated players is a waste of time.  Selling the game to new players is pretty fruitless considering the learning curve.
    10. shut up.  I cant count as well when you are talking.  I cant focus.  Same goes for me on your turn.  Chat, but do as an aside and keep the game as a priority.
      12)  Watch each other, count and recount.  We all count buys.  We all count incomes.  We all announce hits and count total hits.  This prevents both cheating, mistakes, and omissions.
      13)  use minidice to represent air moves.  We use the “moves remaining system” (rather than “moves used”).  so each plane or set of planes has its own range dice.  This is a HUGE help.  If you don’t use minidice to show how much EACH AND EVERY plane has moved, there is a much higher chance of slop.  This is especially true when you reshuffle your plane allocations, ill tell you right now that it is pretty much slop city if you re-allocate planes when 10-15 of them are available to support your battles.

    Many of these things will not really reduce the total time of play to some reasonable limit, unf.  They can shink it to 45 m setup 2 hours first turn 1-1.5 per turn after that.  There are other setup versions (G42) that are a bit more expedited, but its simply a very, very long game.  We usually begin at 10am and end around 5-6, T6-8.  Same at tourneys, with an earlier start.

    Have fun my friends.

  • '19 '17 '16

    1. pre-organize the pieces.    someone suggested egg boxes, dividing the stuff makes setup/cleanup even easier, this wastes a lot of time (when all the pieces are just lumped in the box, 30+ min extra)

    This one’s a good point. I’ve used cereal box cardboard with sticky tape to divide the piece boxes into air/land/sea for all powers except France and China. Germany/Japan/USA also have artillery sections although this seems less useful because players aren’t always as disciplined in putting the artillery back in the artillery space. Perhaps for USA because there are so many piece one box with two sections for air/sea and one full box for land would be best but that is not what I have.

    One other point is having a large number of dice in each of four colours so you can roll all at once and having an agreed value of each colour. We only have 3 colours which isn’t quite right.


  • The mini dice idea for tracking plane movement is a good idea and one that my gaming group uses. Even on turns such as G1 and J1 where we know everything can land in Western Germany/Kwangsi. This might take up and extra couple minutes per turn but saves a good 5-10 minutes at non-combat to try and figure out what has what for moves left and also the inevitable argument that will occur when your opponent says “that can’t land there”!

    I’m looking to invest in my own trays for components to seperate everything. Once I do that I will combine my global and 1942.2 games, piece wise, into one. I currently do not have a game room so storage is what is slowing me down in doing this. It’s easier for me ATM to place everything back into the Europe and pacific boxes.


  • I see some of the things we do to speed things up already suggested.

    Another idea that I have not seen would be to allow all players access to a battle calculator. A lot of time can be spent manually counting units and adding up power. Especially when both sides do it every turn - for example to usual G/R stack stand-off, which can last for quite a number of turns.

    Some players prefer that everyone rely on their own brains of course.

  • '21 '20 '18 '17

    “allow all players access to a battle calculator.”

    If I were playing chess, I wouldn’t allow my opponent access to chess strategy guides, a chess computer’s advice, or a grandmaster standing behind them.  It is a simple calculator, but besides belaboring the decisionmaking process it feels like its better kept out of live play imo.  No doubt people in AAA use them but they also use low luck, that’s the playstyle of an no time limits PBEM game and its more like PBEM chess (where you could openly or secretly consult those things or the forums) than a live chess game.

    That said, I’m always counting these in my head, like blackjack card counting, years of warhammer 40k d6 rolling and odds running.  Not using a calc seems like it encourages better play.


  • I am not a fan of battle calculators in live play.  It takes away so much of the drama when you look at the results and decide that you have a 93% chance of winning with 12 units left over on average.  It also dramatically slows down gameplay, especially when employed on anything besides the final siege on Moscow.  The 20 minute gaps as people make a series of calculations for the next few rounds in various battles and purchase options takes away so much from the event.  It definitely does not reduce the game length from my experience.


  • @taamvan:

    “allow all players access to a battle calculator.”

    If I were playing chess, I wouldn’t allow my opponent access to chess strategy guides, a chess computer’s advice, or a grandmaster standing behind them.   It is a simple calculator, but besides belaboring the decisionmaking process it feels like its better kept out of live play imo.   No doubt people in AAA use them but they also use low luck, that’s the playstyle of an no time limits PBEM game and its more like PBEM chess (where you could openly or secretly consult those things or the forums) than a live chess game.

    That said, I’m always counting these in my head, like blackjack card counting, years of warhammer 40k d6 rolling and odds running.   Not using a calc seems like it encourages better play.

    @Arthur:

    I am not a fan of battle calculators in live play.  It takes away so much of the drama when you look at the results and decide that you have a 93% chance of winning with 12 units left over on average.  It also dramatically slows down gameplay, especially when employed on anything besides the final siege on Moscow.  The 20 minute gaps as people make a series of calculations for the next few rounds in various battles and purchase options takes away so much from the event.  It definitely does not reduce the game length from my experience.

    Agree.

    For Us we have a 5 min meeting if requested at end of turn or before a turn.
    Best to have the UK split sides so You always have 2 guys rolling dies on each end of the battle boards. FEC Anzac - Japan  UK- Germany  Russia China - Japan. UK players split US and if agree, roll on each end for battles with Japan. Japan just has to wait if Russia’s dicing with Germany.

    We play 10 hours ave and get in 6 to 10 turns. We pretty know which sides gonna win. If we play longer game sits until next date. Last game just went 6 hours. YA !!! we finally beat the best German player we have. Depends on how many show up for game. 6 players the best. In our group we have everybody pretty much has learnrd how to play all countries. That helps if you are short players and don’t have to wait for the new guy, but if that happens that is also good because now you have another player in your group.  More the better. One thing that slows us down is if Germany has to play Italy. We try to have the German buys done so he can jump to Italy’s buy. But lately are teams have been taking longer times on meetings because the games are getting pretty good.

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