Many thanks for the replies.
I hate to sound whingey, and I defer totally to player smore experience than myself, but the bidding system sounds like a rather unsatisfactory and unauthentic workaround to compensate for an unbalanced game structure.
Having a few extra IPCs to throw around at the start of the game surely only delays the inevitable by a couple of turns? It addresses the symptoms but not the cause. The whole premise of bidding seems to take some of the spirit and enjoyment out of the game - you should choose who you’d like to play rather than effectively gambling on who most thinks the result is a foregone conclusion before Turn 1.
I think you need to look deeper into the mechanics of the game and come up with some rules to level the playing field which have a basis in reality, not in some detached bidding process. I know that Germany lost the War and that Germany losing in A&A regularly is realistic - but losing so monotonously every time does suggest the odds need to be tipped in her favour at least to give you some incentive to want to come back and play again.
The way to do this is to peg back the Allies in some way - I’m in no way experienced enough to suggest how, but from my limited experience I would say perhaps delay the US’s entrance into the war, reduce the potency and proliferation of transporters and bridging (no loading/unloading in the same round, maybe you could roll for weather/sea effects each round to hamper seaborne/airborne invasions), German U-Boats need to actually pose a menace.
Also, I see a lot of messages about the potency and threat of Russia - again, my experience is limited, but Russia hasn’t really emerged as a problem for me in the same way as the other ‘faults’ mentioned above.
Thanks again for the tips.
Hi again,
Well, if you want to play the side you like, then just enter into a fixed bid agreement…say always 18. And always 5 Inf in Libya, 1 in Kwangtung…or whatever.
The fundamental issue is not the mechanics or rules of the game. Many have experimented that way and yes there are plenty of fun variants, but those types of changes are not required for balance…although they can be great fun.
The issue is really that there is no way for Germany to increase her income sufficiently to withstand an all out Germany first strategy.
It is not just a case of a few IPCs and then same old, same old. For instance, an Africa heavy bid can drastically alter things. Blowing the UK out of Africa early means that an Indian IC defense is pointless. It means that the UK/US will have to divert significant forces to Africa. It means that the UKs income plummets dangerously low. It means that an economic victory becomes a real possibility and threat. It means that it is worth Japans effort to continuously shuttle troops and air to AES to aid the Germans. It is quite possible for Germany to hold East Africa, the AES to SAfrica line, for a very long time. Meanwhile, Japan grows into a monster. Suddenly, the real battle is no longer EE/Karelia…it becomes Novo/Russia. Suddenly, there is a real possibility of sailing the bulk of the Jap fleet through the Suez canal to threaten the Allied fleets. Jap air moves from AES to Germany. Now there is a significant combined Naval/Air threat on Allied shipping.
It is not simply delaying the inevitable a couple of turns. Those turns buy Japan time to become a monster and aid her ally. Once that happens and the full power of the Japanese military is unleashed…well the game can take on much different dimensions. All of this is because of the economics of a heavy Africa bid. If you can hold half of Africa, take out India, Australia, NZ, Madagascar etc early and have time to swing the Jap fleet back into the Africa arena…well the UK is now earning $18. And that is what balances the game…you force the Allies to fight on multiple fronts instead of concentrating all their force on Europe.
SUD
Thanks again, I take your point that a few wisely invested extra IPCs can pay dividends in the longer term and sounds like it produces a much more satisfactory scope for the Germans (which is my only point of refrerence at the moment).
However, where is the historical provenance of having extra materiel/troops in Africa?
I’m not criticising the obvious improvement this can make to gameplay, but it just seems to me a conspicuous contrivance without historical basis, which is a shame. A&A is far from a super-realistic hex war sim (thanks heavens) but it should try and keep as close to historical reality as the game system allows, and this bidding system seems to contradict that, albeit that it can plug a hole effectively in the gameplay.
Cheers
Hehe…the game bears little resemblance to history, other than providing a historical context.
When was the last time you saw a Japanese tropical weather Infantry army march 5,000 miles West into Russia? If Japan’s income level is $25 to start, shouldn’t the US be on the order of $200? Should Japan be even able to build Armour? Where is the British fleet in India/Asia? Why does China get wiped out immediately?
The historical unrealities are far too many to mention. There is virtually nothing realistic/historical about the game at all, other than a rough attempt at aligning initial geographical control and some semblance of troop deployments. But, this game is not anywhere near accurate. If you want something similar but more complex and more reflective of special units, historical actions etc… try the Xeno games add-on The World at War 1939-1945. It is based upon the A&A gaming system but adds a ton in special rules, abilities, historical limitations (eg. lend lease, no US entry until turn 6 or attacked by Japan, etc etc).
Be aware though: it takes forever to play a game. It can take 4 hours before the US even gets to do any combat :smile:
SUD
Also, bidding variate the games. When you get to the point where you have played hundreds of games, eventually it gets old. But, with a bid, every game is different, or at least has the opportunity to be different.
Kinda like the 12$ in AAE helps.
Basically the issue is the Axis need to strike fast to win. The bid enhances this chance to win. If the Allies can hold out and build up forces, the Axis will probably lose against experienced Allied players. The Axis need to stay sharp to exploit any weakness or indecision the Allies will show once the game progresses past turn 10, with no clear winner. Allied players can get impatient with waiting for build-ups and take actions costly to the overall goal. This is actually the 2nd way the Axis can win - by taking advantage of a fragmenting alliance…
The game is suppose to be imbalance.
Try AAE or AAP or ,like SUD suggested, Xeno World at War.
No game is perfect
Basically, as KING TIGER puts it, the Axis are a knockout fighter, and the Allies have an advantage in a long, drawn-out game. The skill comes in reversing the situation and learing to play the Axis in a long game–husbanding your resources–and the Allies in a short game, crushing the Axis in a few rounds. Once your crew get to be virtuosos in these styles, your games will become even more interesting. Till then, have fun with wierd strategies and try to anticipate your enemies’ moves. Try playing as the Allies and learn their weaknesses–this will really help.
If the “random” element (i.e. dice rolls) proves to be not to your liking, try playing Diplomacy. This venerable game involves NO chance and simply depends on your personal diplomacy skills to gain mastery of Europe. My buddies and I enjoy it as an alternative to A & A or when we have too many people to play traditional A & A…and you can’t blame “the rules” as an excuse if you lose…
Just some ideas…
Ozone27
I agree with ozone. Play as the allies to discover how they think and how to defend against it. I’ve played a&a about a million times and at first i thought the allies would always win, then always the axis. The conclusion I’ve come to is that the game is as fair as it could possibly be. Either side has the same chance of winning, just in different ways. You need to learn your own strategies for winning in that specific way.
Thanks again for the replies - a goodly collection of responses to chew over.
Even with my cursory knowledge of history, I realize that A&A interprets and represents history ‘loosely’. And don’t get me wrong, I think that’s a strength of the game - it’s supposed to be a playable and, rightly, historical accuracy and attention to detail have come second to speed and enjoyment.
I’ve played hex games (as well as Diplomacy) and I found them more like a dry logistical exercise than having fun playing with soldiers and tanks within a structured framework and victory conditions. They were work, A&A is play. That’s what turned me onto A&A in the first place (and why I won’t be playing World at War in the near future).
I feel that A&A should be the ideal game for me - the historical context is good, the difficulty level is sociable and, of course, the board and pieces are excellent for a 30 year old big kid like me. Only, there’s just something not quite right about the game which prevents me from loving it and wanting to play it more often than I do.
No games are perfect, but A&A could be a good deal more perfect than most, if only for a few tweaks. Having said that, again I can only speak from my experience of playing a handful of games of A&A and A&A:E, btownthug16 has played more than me and he thinks the game is balanced.
I need to play more and I’m prepared to be proved wrong.
Cheers
Biding is a great way to balance and alter the game, but I agree, it’s not really historical. However, I’ve come up with good alternatives that are historical correct.
Well here are 8 historically accurate ways of improving A&A for the Axis. You could use as many as you like or even all of them.
Never before have we had so little time in which to do so much
[ This Message was edited by: TG Moses VI on 2002-03-07 21:25 ]
Thanks, TGMoses: those are some GREAT ideas!
P.S. I hafta nitpick w/ the original poster’s analysis of Diplomacy–the game is hardly a “dry logistical excercise”: in fact, emotions generally run pretty high in our games. Maybe its just us, I dunno…
Ozone27
Thanks. Usually to make 50/50 games for Axis and Allies I usually use my following house rules. Russia Restricted, America gets half IPC, Two hit battleships, AAE style strat. bombing, Spain Axis, docked Subs., and Rockets and Jet Ftrs. Some of the rules are great since they can be used as a double edged sword against the Axis like Spain before France, two-hit bb, and docked subs.
PS:
Also I’ve included some additional rules for strat bombing and docked subs.
Bombings: Strat bombing can only deal damage at an equal or lesser value to the IPC value of the territory. In case of a higher greater, treat that bombing run as the highest value of the terriotry.
Subs: Subs can only be docked in territories with a IC. Opposing Powers may enter into the sea zone where the subs are docked but there is no combat unless the sub’s Power wishes not to remained docked.
Wow - thanks again for all the great responses.
I have now played the (computer) A&A game another half dozen times yesterday, starting off with Restricted Russia and other extra rules to help the Axis. And I finally won. So I played a couple more times and, I won again. So I turned off the extra rules in my favour and…now I can’t LOSE as Germany!
My initial mistake was trying to take on the Allied transporter armadas - these are better left alone since they are ineffective in the time it takes the Axis powers to win the game. An all out offensive in Africa, supported by para drops and the single transporter in the Med wins lots of IPCs, sufficient to support an overwhelming offensive against Russia the following turn, pouring in men, tanks and AAA (I’ve found AAA superb value for money). Once you have half a dozen men and a tank or two in Africa (don’t bother building an IC here) it’s yours for keeps. A modest force in WEurope and Norway will hold off for the duration and so you can just keep flooding Karelia with troops and armour, keeping the Fighters just back from the front line after their sorties and also keeping a reserve of tanks to deploy wherever Russia counter attack. Within a handful of turns Germany has done enough to utterly blunt the Allied campaign in the European Theatre and Japan will have taken all of Asia and be encroaching into SAmerica and mainland USA.
Excellent rules TG Moses - I’ll be trying out some of those for sure. I like the sub pens idea, and the automatic awarding of weapons development. I think this is a way forward - weapons development shouldn’t be something that you optionally roll for - because just about everybody ignores it and buys men and tanks instead, so it gets ignored. There should be a scheduled weapons development programme, perhaps still rolled for after certain pre-determined turns, but not costing any IPCs.
I’m not so sure about Spain’s involvement but, for realism, how about restricting Japan from entering Soviet land zones? A little draconian but…
AAA - this is great, I try and put at least one into most zones. It would be nice to have a coastal defence version of AAA which had a first strike attack against shipping.
Strategic bombing - pointless, the worst damage you can do is minimal, especially against a country with 40 IPCs to spend and you run the risk of heavy losses against AAA. I never do any, and all the Allied Strat bombing against me ends in disaster for them.
Subs - definitely need to be submergable before aircraft have a free stab at them - otherwise they’re pretty much cannon fodder.
Ozone27 - I wasn’t referring so much to Diplomacy as a dry logistical exercise, so much as hex games. Diplomacy is far from a logistical exercise, you’re absolutely right, it’s pure…well…diplomacy. A unique game, though last time I played I seem to remember it took us 8 hours of exhausting negotiation to reach a draw.
Talking of Diplomacy - how about some extra phases in each game turn, like:
Thanks again all
Have you seen the rules for World at War? Most of the suggested rule changes here are covered in it. We added a couple rules from AAE and AAP and it’s prefect for us.
Maybe this was already mentioned but I find
the actual board to be completely different
than the CD version. THis could also change
your perspective on the game being equal/fair. What does everyone else think about that.
No, I haven’t seen the rules for World at War, I looked a a WAW website and saw that it effectively took up an entire room in your house for months at a time and it kind of put me off. A&A is just about right. I’ve played A&A:E purely as a boardgame, and A&A on CD only so I can’t compare the two directly. There appears to be little difference really, except I think with the PC game you tend to be blinkered and focused just on your ‘bit’ - you tend not to take any notice of what’s going on elsewhere.
Cheers
**Update - my mistake, I was thinking of World in Flames, not World at War
[ This Message was edited by: F.Spencer Chapman on 2002-03-15 07:09 ]
The main difference that I noticed was in the infantry’s ability to attack. It seems as though the infantry on the cd version hit a lot more than on the board version when attacking. Does anyone else see this?
I think that the W@W games don’t last that much longer than the original. I’ve had Original games last for 25+ hours and world at War games finnish in 6 or 7. It is defineatly an all day game though.
The difference between the cd game and the board game is that if you are playing against the computer it only has a strat for the first two or three turns. After that it could be beat by a chimp. I played for over ten years on the board before I bought the CD. I found that it was fun to goof around with but unless you play against real players online it is no challenge.
