thank you, he is close to capturing a capital and trying to capture a second one.
WW2 Aircraft Production vs Starting IPC Allotment
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I am terminating any and all posting regarding production and game balance. It appears to be a total lost cause, and I do not have the time nor energy to further pursue the matter. Have fun glorying in Axis wins, and remember to also enjoy roasting Jews, using China as a biological testing lab, having shot down aviators for lunch, and those non-existent Korean comfort girls. Oh yes, I forgot testing your samurai swords on prisoners necks, and having live targets for target practice.
??? Did you just flame everyone on this website? :? And if you have THAT big a problem with games that re-enact WWII, then WHY ARE YOU HERE?
Timerover51 posted the same crap over at Avalon Hill when people started to question his postings.
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But why posting if wanting not contraddiction?
I only wanted to have a discussion with him, also I am interested in history.Joking time….
Cyan, I am remebering one phrase of Winston Churchill about Italians:
“Italians lose war as if they were football matches and they lose football matches as they was war!”
Latin is an intriguing language, I have only few remembrances and it is very difficult.
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Hey Timerover51:
Don’t take what they say with any credibility. Keep plugging away with what you fell is best for the game and don’t lose sight of that.
AARHE has nearly 3,000 downloads (at least) and i know scores of people feel the same way as we both do. Both myself and Tekkyy answer many emails from different people who enjoy our variant as the best around. Because it offers both realism and balance and cuts the playing down and all the unrealistic ideas that were brushed under the carpet to avoid a few more pages of rules. But we succeed because the new system offers a more intuitive approach to how the game is played.
Balance for balance sake is a folly where you keep changing one thing and compensate by then changing the other thing… which results in adding to both sides where it would have been better to strip it down first and figure out why it was imbalanced in the first place and only correct/repair those things.
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Imperious leader,
Also I have downloaded the AARHE, and I found them really interesting.
In this thread there are two problems in discussion.
More realism is the first point. I have nothing again realism. I have also tried to discuss about this. But AARHE is more realistic of AAR because there is a well thought rule set that change and improve a lot of rule.
On the other hands you cannot change only production levels in AAR, increasing Allied production, without imbalancing the game. It is just trying to do what you have AARHE avoided to do.Second point. Forums are made for discussion and ideas confrontation. I have only tried to say my idea about the argument and… it seems that… you may read by yourself.
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I am using the game to teach history, and as I have indicated before, I could not care less about game balance, or appeasing the gods of game balance. You want game balance, go play chess or checkers. Second, I suspect most of this discussion of game balance is based on two player games online between expert players, where even a small advantage can be decisive. I am running 5 player team games around an actual board, with kids who are not expert gamers, and for some, this is the first board wargame that they have ever played. Under this situation, any kind of a good Axis player is probably going to defeat the Allies in very short order. We have been using 2nd Edition, and I will likely be using 2nd Edition when I work with my son’s high school class. Either that or a combined Europe-Pacific game, if I can figure out how to merge the IPC values of the two games. I have been tweaking the rules now over a 4 year period, to insure that the Allies can stay in the game under the circumstances under which we play. National Louis University, where the classes operate from, is in the middle of a heavily Jewish area. Any game which gives the Germans a very high chance of winning is not going to fly.
Have the kids enjoyed the games? Yes, enormously, as the class has grown from 15 to 46 in four years, and we still had a waiting list. Another telling point is the number of games sold on the open house night at the end of the class session, when we have been selling 4 to 6 copies of the game for the past two years. We have also been selling the kids on Mayfair’s railroad games, and the various Eagle games still available. They have also been learning an enormous amount of history in the process of playing the games.
US production superiority was a FACT in World War 2. Lend-Lease was a FACT in World War 2. The kids see very quickly that if the US had not gotten into the war, that the world would now be a very different place. Without Lend-Lease, US production ability would have taken longer to have an effect, with the Germans being far harder to defeat. Some of the posts have mentioned IPC values for the US assuming the US full production was in the game. Calculating what the full US production value would be is actually quite simple. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Pacific Division, calculated that at its peak, Japanese production was one-tenth of the United States production. Take your value for Japanese production and multiply by 10. You then have the US production. Germany and the UK/Commonwealth were about equal, Russia a little behind Germany.
Give the Japanese 25, the US then gets 250 by the end of the game, the Germans get 80, the Commonwealth gets 80, and the Russians get 65. Part of the Commonwealth production was in Canada, so that is not immediately in the game. Same for Australian production. Give the Germans 80 to start with, give the Japanese 25, add the captured territories as they occur, start the UK at 60 and the Russians at 45. To get the additional production, the UK needs a industrial center in Canada, and one in either India or Australian, or both. The Russians need to build IC in order to get their increase in production. The US simply goes up 10 IPC per turn until 250 is reached. The Axis player either wins early, or get crushed. Game balanced.
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It seems to me that timerover’s question is NOT how to make A&AR more realistic. Let’s face it, A&AR is so UNREALISTIC, it’s hard to know where to begin. Conquering territory boosts industrial production? Since when? Apart from cannibalizing factory parts and confiscating equipment, and perhaps “oil” territories, taking territory has NOTHING to do with industrial output. I sincerely doubt that America’s loss of the Phillipines on the one hand, or it’s conquering of Okinawa on the other, had any measurable impact on how many tanks or planes Detroit cranked out during the war. It’s also absurd from a realism standpoint that a bomber based in the Eastern United States can bomb transports in the Japan sea zone (sz60) if Buryatia is in Allied hands. And it’s absurd that Japan can invade Western Canada from the Alaska sea zone. The list goes on and on. So realism was never really what A&A was about – it was more about re-creating the “flavor” of the war in a way that would be accessible to the casual gamer. Those who want “realism” have had Third Reich to play for quite some time. The rest of us who have lives prefer A&AR.
If you want a game that re-creates lend lease and stays more true to history, then A&A Europe is closer to what you are looking for. It has lend lease and America’s economy is far larger relatively speaking than it is in Revised. It also has convoy zones to allow the Germans to re-create the sinking of Allied shipping. It’s a more challenging game tactically than Revised, but it is closer (but not quite equal) to history.
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timerover51, the first motivation that induced me to answer to your post is that I am an appassionate history reader. It is not my profession, but I usually read history books, and a lot of them.
Second motivation was that I always plays A&A on actual board, with 3 or 4 players. sometime we have also played in 5 players. So I would tell my opinion, having experienced that.
My opinion, I repeat, is that in A&A Revised, as in 2nd edition, the game is slightly favouring the Allies, even with more than 2 players.
I understand that IPC allotment are not realistic. But they work quite good.
In our actual games, initially the Axis have had the advantage, but playing more games, and mastering well the technic and logistic of the game now Allies are winning more games than Axis. They have to collaborate. This is the point.
Axis collaboration is “opportunistic”, really they act no as Alllies do, but, as in the WWII, they act with opportunism. Allies must have one to support each other and they need to plan moves ahead and sharing their opinions.
However Allied have strategic and geographic predominance, and every medium skilled A&A player is able to take advantage of that.
I repeat that: USA has 42 IPC but has not needs of buying defensive units, all the units buyed may be used offensively; Germany has 40 IPC but needs to employ great part of them to defend from potential invasions, so immobilize IPCs (in WE for example) that are no useful for the offensive. If your students, when playing Allies, do not press Germany and use ineffective moves it is not a game balancing problem. It means that they do not know how to effectively use allied supremacy, point. Without knowledge of the game techniques Axis are favoured. If you want to have an A&A game realistic and about historic facts then you have to consider that one thing is having the weapons and another thing is know how to effectively use them.
So it is not a balancing issue, but game techniques and allied collaboration are the key.I suppose that it is not a good idea to say to the srudents: you lose but it is not your fault is a problem of the game. In chess if you leave your Queen in a exposed position on the board and your opponent capture it, you may be sure that it is an error not a game imbalance.
In the human life first thing to learn is the responsibility of our own action.
In my Country we say: Learn from your errors.Moreover, as I said, quality of industrial production should be considered. Having diofferent unit costs for example, and so on.
Otherwise, you may use AAR Enhanced rules or AAR Historical Edition rules for having a greater realism.Finally, I did not like all the thing you said about “criminals Axis players” etc.
I think that morale, history and good education may be taught even without playing A&A. In Italy we do not play A&A at school, but we have a solid tradition of democracy and freedom, also thanks to the USA and the Allied, as I said.
I know a lot of people that are polite and good persons and have never played A&A.
I know also polite and goog persons that play A&A (my playing group, for example), even the Axis side, and they do nothing of the bad thing you said, and they do not hail to Axis powers. But I do not want to have a political discussion here.Last, if you are not interested to my opinions, you are free to ignore them or to disagree.
But, please, do not deal with me as I was a criminal. Thank you for your attention. -
I am using the game to teach history, and as I have indicated before, I could not care less about game balance, or appeasing the gods of game balance. You want game balance, go play chess or checkers. Second, I suspect most of this discussion of game balance is based on two player games online between expert players, where even a small advantage can be decisive. I am running 5 player team games around an actual board, with kids who are not expert gamers, and for some, this is the first board wargame that they have ever played. Under this situation, any kind of a good Axis player is probably going to defeat the Allies in very short order. We have been using 2nd Edition, and I will likely be using 2nd Edition when I work with my son’s high school class. Either that or a combined Europe-Pacific game, if I can figure out how to merge the IPC values of the two games. I have been tweaking the rules now over a 4 year period, to insure that the Allies can stay in the game under the circumstances under which we play. National Louis University, where the classes operate from, is in the middle of a heavily Jewish area. Any game which gives the Germans a very high chance of winning is not going to fly.
Have the kids enjoyed the games? Yes, enormously, as the class has grown from 15 to 46 in four years, and we still had a waiting list. Another telling point is the number of games sold on the open house night at the end of the class session, when we have been selling 4 to 6 copies of the game for the past two years. We have also been selling the kids on Mayfair’s railroad games, and the various Eagle games still available. They have also been learning an enormous amount of history in the process of playing the games.
US production superiority was a FACT in World War 2. Lend-Lease was a FACT in World War 2. The kids see very quickly that if the US had not gotten into the war, that the world would now be a very different place. Without Lend-Lease, US production ability would have taken longer to have an effect, with the Germans being far harder to defeat. Some of the posts have mentioned IPC values for the US assuming the US full production was in the game. Calculating what the full US production value would be is actually quite simple. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Pacific Division, calculated that at its peak, Japanese production was one-tenth of the United States production. Take your value for Japanese production and multiply by 10. You then have the US production. Germany and the UK/Commonwealth were about equal, Russia a little behind Germany.
Give the Japanese 25, the US then gets 250 by the end of the game, the Germans get 80, the Commonwealth gets 80, and the Russians get 65. Part of the Commonwealth production was in Canada, so that is not immediately in the game. Same for Australian production. Give the Germans 80 to start with, give the Japanese 25, add the captured territories as they occur, start the UK at 60 and the Russians at 45. To get the additional production, the UK needs a industrial center in Canada, and one in either India or Australian, or both. The Russians need to build IC in order to get their increase in production. The US simply goes up 10 IPC per turn until 250 is reached. The Axis player either wins early, or get crushed. Game balanced.
I have a bit of a problem with the bolded/italicized statement. You say the area you live wouldn’t like it if the Germans - in the game - had a decent shot at winning. In AAR, the Germans (Axis) need a bid just to stay competitive sometimes. If playing against a skilled Allies player, the Germans (and Axis in general) can be easily crushed and defeated in a few rounds. Sometimes the Axis needs all the help they can get. I frankly don’t believe this game gives the Germans “a very high chance of winning.” I believe this game allows the Germans to stay in the game by gaining more IPCs to build more material.
Now, granted, this thread is about balance and making it more real, but if the people in your area have trouble with a game, they don’t have to play it. It’s not as if they are forced to play, right?
You might want to be careful when you say the “Germans” all the time. What you’re really probably meaning to say are the Nazis. Not every single German was guilty of everything done in WWII.
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You might want to be careful when you say the “Germans” all the time. What you’re really probably meaning to say are the Nazis. Not every single German was guilty of everything done in WWII.
i would gladly quote and discuss about topic you started here
Germans are today indeed hostages of WWII , hostages of selfputed condemnation
but it would be a political discussion so
trust me there were, are and will be far more bigger murderers than some Nazis/Germans were
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Amon, is your last post something “you” are saying? Or are you quoting someone else?
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National Louis University, where the classes operate from, is in the middle of a heavily Jewish area. Any game which gives the Germans a very high chance of winning is not going to fly.
I have overlooked this part of the message of timerover51, caught in the game related discussion.
Timerover51 you cannot say such things. They are really intolerant affirmation: you cannot consider Germans and Nazis the same thing.
If people in National Louis University area are intolerant you should not adapt to them.
And you cannot allot the IPC in the game to support this approach. -
Amon, is your last post something “you” are saying? Or are you quoting someone else?
i was saying but somehow put myself in the net, there my post stuck as quotated
you ll notice the text which is mean that should be a reply to your post
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You might want to be careful when you say the “Germans” all the time. What you’re really probably meaning to say are the Nazis. Not every single German was guilty of everything done in WWII.
i would gladly quote and discuss about topic you started here
Germans are today indeed hostages of WWII , hostages of selfputed condemnation
but it would be a political discussion so
trust me there were, are and will be far more bigger murderers than some Nazis/Germans were
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National Louis University, where the classes operate from, is in the middle of a heavily Jewish area. Any game which gives the Germans a very high chance of winning is not going to fly.
I have overlooked this part of the message of timerover51, caught in the game related discussion.
Timerover51 you cannot say such things. They are really intolerant affirmation: you cannot consider Germans and Nazis the same thing.
If people in National Louis University area are intolerant you should not adapt to them.
And you cannot allot the IPC in the game to support this approach.First, who says that I have to be tolerant? Second, I will qualify the statement to Nazi Germany. However, it was not the only the Nazi who smashed Jewish windows, or wrecked Jewish businesses, or profited from the Jews being sent to the death camps.
As for Japan, as soon as we had the Japanese military disarmed, and the country occupied, we should have shot every male member of the Imperial Family, from Hirohito on down, along with every officer in the Japanese military, and all senior noncoms. Given the behavior of the Japanese military in occupied countries, that would have been reasonable.
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First, who says that I have to be tolerant? Second, I will qualify the statement to Nazi Germany. However, it was not the only the Nazi who smashed Jewish windows, or wrecked Jewish businesses, or profited from the Jews being sent to the death camps.
As for Japan, as soon as we had the Japanese military disarmed, and the country occupied, we should have shot every male member of the Imperial Family, from Hirohito on down, along with every officer in the Japanese military, and all senior noncoms. Given the behavior of the Japanese military in occupied countries, that would have been reasonable.
and you call yourself fighter for Jews, and justice fighter
well you are either blinded by hatred towards others
or you think that life of one Hebrew worths more than of somebody from another nationin both cases i would stand and think about what i am doing, what i am writing here if i would been in your shoes
just to remind you
you are the one who started this in first place :x :cry: :?
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National Louis University, where the classes operate from, is in the middle of a heavily Jewish area. Any game which gives the Germans a very high chance of winning is not going to fly.
I have overlooked this part of the message of timerover51, caught in the game related discussion.
Timerover51 you cannot say such things. They are really intolerant affirmation: you cannot consider Germans and Nazis the same thing.
If people in National Louis University area are intolerant you should not adapt to them.
And you cannot allot the IPC in the game to support this approach.First, who says that I have to be tolerant? Second, I will qualify the statement to Nazi Germany. However, it was not the only the Nazi who smashed Jewish windows, or wrecked Jewish businesses, or profited from the Jews being sent to the death camps.
As for Japan, as soon as we had the Japanese military disarmed, and the country occupied, we should have shot every male member of the Imperial Family, from Hirohito on down, along with every officer in the Japanese military, and all senior noncoms. Given the behavior of the Japanese military in occupied countries, that would have been reasonable.
NO it would of been barbarious. we would be no better than them if we did it. and not every was horrible in the Gernman and Japanese militaries.
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There were a lot of German and Japanese that has not been criminals, also in the armed force. History may not been simplified as you pretend to do.
You should be tolerant because tolerance is a value, that may help in having a better world.
And also a better A&A forum! -
Yea… let the
wookeeGerman win. Otherwise playing the game will become too Politically correct.Like what will you do if the Axis players roll well? They win and your instruction now demonstrates that the war was not a forgone conclusion and it could have easily become an Axis victory. An Axis victory will lead to more discussion anyway because students will learn that freedom needs to be fought for occasionally and the consequences of not confronting evil lead to great complications.
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@Imperious:
Like what will you do if the Axis players roll well? They win and your instruction now demonstrates that the war was not a forgone conclusion and it could have easily become an Axis victory. An Axis victory will lead to more discussion anyway because students will learn that freedom needs to be fought for occasionally and the consequences of not confronting evil lead to great complications.
I would have to say that is one of your best posts ever Imperious Leader.
Early in the war, allied victory was very much in doubt.
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I agree Imperious Leader,
Allied has won the war also because they do not discouraged and did not give up.
It is simple for us, that know the outcome, to say that Allied had to win the war for sure.
When you are inside an event that is still in progress you may not know the outcome.Another important thing is that people working for the “good” should not allows to the evil things to spread, they should stay always on guard!
I agree also on the fact that A&A do not needs to be politically correct.
Allies already have all that they need to win!
However if one is not able to use his advantages to win than… he deserves to lose and it is futile to give him 250 IPC… he could lose again!
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