Now consider a more unclear situation, where Russia has 100units in Moscow and Germany has 95units to attack with. This can be a huge victory for Germany (winning with ~25 units) but only if it has enough combat factors. And… what is enough ;-). I have yet to meet the person who can tell me that, so untill then I’keep using a BC for those situations.
I agree this situation can look unclear first time, but after a few games you must have noticed that this situation do happen in every game from turn 6 and onwards. So you only need a BC the first 10 times, after that you can tell by experience.
Hey man, I can agree with that!
On the other hand, the game is dynamic. Each game is often different from the previous ones. Also, different people have different playstyles. As Russia for example, if my defenses are adequate against a very ARM-heavy german production, are they also adequate versus a German MECH-heavy build with the occasional STR? As Russia, I never check the BC anymore for my defense because indeed, I know they are adequate. If the UK (preferably RAF) helps me out. If they leave me alone with my problems, this is a different story. I DO still use a BC to check when my Red Army is ready for a counter-offensive because this is a rather vague balance I can’t wrap my logic around. I have a memory-aid to Judge if this is possible (which I also use if I play Germany ;-)) but there are so many exceptions to the rule that I still check the BC for confirmation of my surmise.
(…) Real life commanders do have a lot of time pressure, and if they wait too long, the window of opportunity will pass. Why should a wannabe A&A general Rommel have the luxury of spending the time it takes to sit back in his armchair and let the BC do the math ? The real Rommel slept in a tent, got bit by mosquitos and starved like his men, and he had to attack in a hurry before the Brits attacked him.
You are right ofc about lower level commanders (division/brigade and lower?). Rommel, as an example of a corps commander, did a lot of fighting and was under a lot of time pressure. At the same time he had his moments in between and he most certainly did use ‘his version of’ a BC. His version meaning drawing out a battleplan, making calculations of firepower, number and type of troops, you name it. For as far and as good as he could with the available information from recon. Surely he could not pop out a BC but he did pop out his mathematical equipment (drawing compass, ruler, etc.).
But most importantly, the analogy breaks at Rommel because we A&A players, IF the comparison with a RL commander has to be made, come closer to Eisenhower who was definately doing the fighting from his office. And even that comparison is not correct because we command all allied troops and Eisenhower did only the Western European theatre.
I’d rather compare playing A&A with a war room/command center, from where all military actions of each nation are directed. And even then, this has to be the combined war room of all Major Powers on your side. So merge the Russian, American and British war rooms together and you get an A&A game on the allied side.
You never quit, now do you ?
Well, to be honest, I feel obliged to react on the lack of nuances in some of your reasonings so I point them out. If you don’t want a reaction to your opinion, then don’t give one. I am always open to hear a different opinion and if people with strong opposite opinions cannot agree, they shouldn’t resort to this kind of personal labeling. Just agree to disagree, shall we?
You never quit, now do you ?
But I see your point, Ge add 5 more Mechs for a possible one more hit, and UK fly in 5 more Fighters for a possible 4 more hits, and this will unbalance the 200 + units battle so much we will have to run the numbers again, from scratch. Got that.
Actually, yes, I have seen that many units make a big difference in the battle calculation for a large battle.
Using a battle calc is not cheating, and it’s ridiculous to say that it is. ‘Accidentally’ producing 11 units from a major factory or moving a plane an extra space or things like that are cheating. Calculating your odds of winning is just smart.
I like how it is used in our group. It improves the quality of play because it helps people make less bad moves. And it helps bridge some of the gap between experienced players and newer players.
If you want to forbid its use in your face to face games, that’s fine, but in our group I would only get upset if someone was using it for every single fight and was taking forever.
Using a battle calc is not cheating, and it’s ridiculous to say that it is. ‘Accidentally’ producing 11 units from a major factory or moving a plane an extra space or things like that are cheating. Calculating your odds of winning is just smart.
How about this: You have a mechanized infantry with 10 chips under it and a tank with 10 chips under it. You move in for the attack and transfer the units over to the battle board. Then on the battle board, the mech now has 1 chip under it and the tank now has 19 chips under it. WOW! Magic!
Or, you launch into a big fleet battle and when your fleet is moved over to the battle board, suddenly there is a red chip under your battleship. Now you have 6 battleships. Where did they come from?
These weird things happen to me “all the time”. Do you think this is “cheating”?
Well, yes, obviously those things are cheating. No quotation marks needed.
That’s just the point I was trying to make. Those sorts of things are obviously cheating, but using a battle calculator is not.
I think the word “cheating” is used for too much different situations, particularly by non-english speaking people…
You tell a dutch guy (like me) that he is cheating, chances are that he will get angry and you 'll need to explain to him you meant no offense and that cheating is something different from committing foul play…
… Am I right?
The way I understand it, cheating, as opposed to foul play, can also be something beyond a person’s control.
And as far as a BC in A&A goes, I get that cheating means: “It is legal, but an unfair advantage for the user”. With which of course, I do not agree ;-).
Yeah, I think we both are saying the same thing :)
ItIsILeClerc,
“Cheating” and “Foul Play” are basically the same thing. It is quite basically doing something in a game that will change the odds to your favor and is against the stated rules.
Now, it’s true some people may not fully understand the rules of this game and may do something against the rules by mistake. A couple of examples would be:
Moving a plane from an island and forgetting to count the sea zone that the island is in.
Moving a plane it’s full movement to an attack (without allowing movement spaces to land in a friendly territory).
Those could be done by simple mistake and it doesn’t mean that person is deliberately cheating. It just means a misunderstanding of the rules or perhaps just a slip of the mind. The thing is, if you see someone do something simple like this, you simply tell them they can’t do that and refer them to the rules. You DON’T accuse them of cheating. That is rude and the person being accused has every right to be offended. It doesn’t matter whether the person speaks English as a first or second language. It’s a courtesy and that applies to everyone.
That being said, if some person keeps making the same kind of “mistakes” over and over again, then they are either really absent minded or maybe they are trying to see what they could get away with. In that case, I would probably either finish that game and not invite that person over again or maybe even quit the game immediately. Depends on how much it aggravated me.
"How many rounds to finish a game ? "
Including the new topic of cheating ?
I figure you must add half an hour for every time someone cheat.
Thanks for clearing it up, knp and Pancake.
Although I am none the wiser because you said different things ;-). Nvm though, it is not really important.
On topic again, I can only somewhat repeat myself with a little correction: 12-20 turns in [?variable amount] hours, if the allies managed to stay alive and to keep the game undecided up to turn 7.
Against equal level opponents…
Average of 12 rounds…with some going as low as 10 and as high as 14. If a player loses by rounds 7-9 then they are playing a stronger player and are outmatched- In that case…up the bid for the weaker player next time.
I use David Skelly’s app calculator every single game. Love to know my percentage chance of success and the number of units surviving. We also go a step further in our games. We have a laptop that we edit moves in TripleA each turn to keep a history of the progress. This way if there is a chip count discrepancy it can be clarified by the computer. Everyone in our group is either a programmer or an engineer of some sort so all of us use battle calculators as well as log/edit info in the game. Also a nice thing about that is when we stop the game to replay later its already saved. No more taking pictures and counting chips with pixels, lol.
yeah skelly’s app is the best. :-D
Thanks for clearing it up, knp and Pancake.
Although I am none the wiser because you said different things ;-). Nvm though, it is not really important.On topic again, I can only somewhat repeat myself with a little correction: 12-20 turns in [?variable amount] hours, if the allies managed to stay alive and to keep the game undecided up to turn 7.
Sorry, I wasn’t communicating what I meant very well. knp has it right.
I use Skelly’s app too. It’s fantastic.
I totally agree. Use a timer like in chess. Real life commanders do have a lot of time pressure, and if they wait too long, the window of opportunity will pass. Why should a wannabe A&A general Rommel have the luxury of spending the time it takes to sit back in his armchair and let the BC do the math ? The real Rommel slept in a tent, got bit by mosquitos and starved like his men, and he had to attack in a hurry before the Brits attacked him.
I agree with the above. When my group plays, we use a houserule that every nation has 20 minutes from phase 1 to combat rolling. Going over costs 1 IPC per minute. It ensures the game moves smoothly and that people don’t just sit there “thinking” all day… We just want to play a game not lose a year of our lives haha. Also, if the next nation can start making it’s moves without interfering with the current player’s turns (and players agree to do this) we just start them going at the same time (Best example is Italy Anzac).
Also as a side note. Sitting there using a calculator defeats the purpose of playing a game. It’s a matter of your skill and ability to size up a battle. Not using a computer to play in place of yourself. I won’t stop someone from using a calculator…but they have 20 minutes. Use it wisely. :P
You can also speed the game up drastically by starting everyone at war including the USA. Yes everyone at war.
