Strategic planner vs. nutbar game updates

@all-encompassing-goose said in Ways to make the game better?:

@cernel I do have a bad track record for accidentally making posts in the wrong topic but I got Spring 1942 from Ebay. Unless the seller makes a mistake and gives me the 2nd edition, I know I’m receiving Spring 1942. Also, you cannot get 2nd edition anywhere in new condition for less than $60 which I state in the post I ordered SE for $30 (with all the shipping added)

Definitely worth the money (assuming it’s like new), but your decision to pick the 1st edition does not make a whole lot of sense to me. If you wanted a game that could take less than the 1940 games and still have the Axis&Allies experience, I would think the 2nd edition of 1942 is the most obvious choice (unless you are still playing the first edition of the 1940 games).

This said, one thing that Spring 1942 has going for itself is balance: the game is fairly balanced (being only very slightly unbalanced in favour of the Axis) and can be reasonably played with no bid (and no optional rules picking) at any skill levels, which is rare or even unique for any Axis&Allies world games.

My suggestion, however, is to alter the starting set-up by relocating the American destroyer into the sea zone next to the Eastern United States territory: it near-to-perfectly balances the game (by giving a very small advantage to the Allies) and avoid the very dicey attack by the German sub in than zone on round 1 (being either a +26 or a -6 swing value for the Axis).

@Bunnies:

J1

J1 strategy:  14 IPC of transports moves up to 4 units from islands to Asia (as opposed to a 15 IPC industrial complex that can only produce 3 units). 
Transports let Japan hit any number of targets on the Asian, and later African coast, making it very hard to defend against Japan’s attacks.  As a final dealbreaker, Japan’s infantry on its islands are pretty useless, and it has 10 of them - that’s 30 IPC worth of unused material, that Japanese transports can bring into the game.  For all these reasons, transports are Japan’s answer to pretty much anything and everything.

There’s a little more to that math. 2 transports are more cost effective than 1 IC for Japan, if they are used to offload units to Buryatia/SFE/Kwantung/Manchuria (transports move nothing or 1 SZ to pick up units and land them). In the case of FIC you really need to have 4 transports to be able to land 4 units on FIC each turn (using a shuck shuck with 2 transports each on FIC’s SZ and SZ60).

And 4 transports is the bare minimum if you are planning on delaying an IC purchase until you really need it (i.e. Japan’s production is above 40 and you want to spend all money on land units). If you want to hit other targets (Australia, Africa) then you’ll need even more transports if you want to keep those 8 units flowing into Asia.

Howdy.  And BTW Advosan, what’s your siggy say?  I musta gone dyslexic.  :wink:

@McLovin1985:

@skinny1:

@McLovin1985:

@calvinhobbesliker:

I remember playing this, but the map is very small: it’s about the same size as one of the panels of Global 40

Tell me about it…. I’ll never understand why they put the IPC counter ON the board… Should’ve been seperate like the oringinal, made more room to make the countries a little bit bigger.

Thats why I’ve recently bought AAP40, next week AAE40! Then you’ve got to worry about the board being too massive and not how small it is haha.

I think the reason they put the ipc tracker on the board is to have less things in the box to intimidate a new player which is what the game is geared towards. See this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXeGoWcfxbk&feature=related  After watching this I understand why AA42 does not have as much in the box as Revised did. Overall it is still a great game and my favorite WWII themed game.

Hahahaha, from that point of view yes I understand. I think the only way to truely understand the game fully is to learn from someone first hand in person.

That is how I learned. My uncle and brother used to play the 2nd edition in the 80s but I was too young and it didn’t appeal to me. A few years ago I wanted to try the game so I bought a used copy from ebay and had my uncle come over. I have been hooked ever since.

ha ha thanks guys i forgot it mentioned that in the rules (the whole it takes a way a unit being placed in that space thing)

But I’m glad I read all of them because I’ve been trying out different strategies and one of them was to go and strategic bomb my friend just to kill fighters. Thanks for advising against it. :)

Very helpful I will definitely ask more questions to you guys if I need them.

@wmman09:

I believe the perfect game is one where everyone has a good time!  What fun is it to work out the perfect formula that works 100 percent of the time.  Or what fun is a perfectly balanced game where if everyone does everything 100 percent correct it always ends in a draw.   If that is what we wanted, we would all spend 10 hours playing tic tac toe instead of AA. LOL.  I am not that good, but getting better all the time and I ALWAYS enjoy playing and trying new things.  Sometimes I have to be happy with my own personal victory instead of destroying my opponent.  I can be very happy delaying the win of a superior opponent instead of falling to him in round 4-5.  :)  As long as there are dice rolls and human opponents we always have a chance to win and can ALWAYS choose to have a great time.

I second this notion.  We added tech to the game as well for more variance.  The fact that it can throw everything out of balance and new strategies have to be formed around the technology you have.  We are using AA50 Tech trees.  Can anyone say heavy bombers and paratroopers.  Pretty sick.

Uhm, one thing i liked that we do as a standard was that bombers could be used as a transport.  Only 1 friendly infantry and it can be dropped off into friendly spaces.

@Jive:

Just played my first game of AA last night, and are slowly getting the hang of things. Couple questions though.

In strategic bombing, if the AA guns miss, and the bomber rolls to see how much damage is done to the factory, does he get to keep doing this?  Or does he get to keep rolling until he does max damage?

You roll 1 die for each bomber that survived the AA Gun once

Also, if a group of planes is doing a land attack on say, tanks in a territory with AA guns, do we roll for the AA guns before every attack?

Thanks!

Jive

You also just roll once before any attacks are made. If you have both fighters and bombers on the group of planes then roll separately for each.

No problem :)

i wonder how many magic markers it took to make that map, :)