@Playing-Kid Wow! That sounds awesome!, I’ll definitely look into that!
Don Rae's Essays: edited for readability
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The following link contains an edited and much easier to read version of all the Don Rae Essays.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/s1fbbddjic865af/Don_Rae_Hindsight_2020.docx/file
It’s been roughly twenty years since the release of the “Don Rae Essays”. These documents, still freely available for download on the web, are best known for presenting and/or confirming the argument that Milton Bradley’s version of Axis and Allies is imbalanced in favor of the Allies. They have since become a part of Axis and Allies lore and are the origin of game terminology such as “shucking”, the “strafe attack”, and the “dead zone” among others. Given the legacy of these documents, I felt it interesting, if not prudent, to revisit this work and see if it could use an update for the year 2020.
What follows is a compilation of all the essays for which I have acted as editor. The original was (still is) filled with grammatical and punctuation errors, wordy and imprecise sentences, and braggadocios smugness that detracts from the overall messaging. Some of the examples and recommendations clearly lacked the use of proper battle calculation (use of a battle calculator). The game economy is largely ignored and referred to only in the abstract. The use and implementation of optional rules outside of the Restricted Attack (“Russia Restricted”) are not mentioned at all. The same is true for Technology rolls. Finally, in my opinion, the most fatal flaw was that the essays left no room for growth. In other words, these essays are presented as containing ALL the answers to your Axis and Allies questions.
Despite this, and though I cannot endorse these essays, they do contain concepts that are invaluable to understanding Axis and Allies game mechanics, especially for newer players. In this regard, I recommend essay #4 and #5. The strafe attack and more importantly, the dead zone have been thoroughly and well explained here. Additionally, though not the only (or in my opinion, ideal) first-turn strategies on offer, these essays contain a starting game plan for each individual power. For these reasons and their legacy, I have worked diligently to make the “Don Rae Essays” more presentable and easier to read.
Who am I, you might ask, to be worthy of such a task? To begin with, I am a huge fan of the Milton Bradley version of Axis and Allies. I am so much a fan that I began a YouTube channel that tries carefully to presents tactics, strategies, and game concepts learned over the course of many games with many different opponents. Many of these games are a matter of public record and are visible on the axisandallies.org forums. Finally, I am a published author and have applied all my experience regarding professional editing that I can offer to this essay.
As a disclaimer, I have corrected all misspellings and punctuation errors. Overly wordy sentences were trimmed down for ease of reading. All pompous and egotist comments have been removed. All font sizes have been standardized. Finally, all editorial commentary is clearly discernible in blue italics. My interventions in this way were done sparingly and only when the matter being discussed was erroneous or misleading. What’s left should be a MUCH smoother read of the concepts and strategies of the “Don Rae Essays”.
-The Good Captain
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Don had to put up with a lot of BS. Still does, apparently.
http://donsessays.freeservers.com/essay1.htm
"BUT FIRST…HERE ARE SOME CONCEPTS TO CHALLENGE YOURSELF WITH:
I will first ask you to not to negatively challenge the statements mentioned forthcoming, which I naturally accept as verbatim for all of my upcoming described strategical play. I’m also going to be asking you to suspend any skepticism or any immediate disbelief for now, for the purposes of this essay and all subsequent essays, so that you, the reader, may learn a little more of the depth involved in planning tactical strategy in Axis and Allies."
That doesn’t come off as “braggadocios smugness” to me. It’s simple fact that most communities aren’t welcoming of new ideas. Whether it’s the Copernican system, Newtonian physics, or whatever new system, new ideas are always attacked and ridiculed. Obviously Don had already had his share of detractors if he thought it necessary to preface his essays addressing such.
There’s a reason that Don’s essays are still making the rounds decades on; if nothing else, Don put out the first series treating Axis and Allies as a discipline.
Meanwhile, what of detractors? Where are they? What have they done? You see a few nasty comments here and there, but rather than attacking Don’s methodology, detractors attacked his “attitude”!
(edit - I’m more talking about detractors over the years.)
Frankly I don’t think you have a right to judge Don. And if you want to make a point of being a professional writer, you need to do a LOT more editing, for goodness sake. “wordy and imprecise” indeed.
@The_Good_Captain said in Don Rae's Essays: edited for readability:
Finally, in my opinion, the most fatal flaw was that the essays left no room for growth. In other words, these essays are presented as containing ALL the answers to your Axis and Allies questions.
-The Good Captain
http://donsessays.freeservers.com/essay1.htm
"BUY TANKS ONLY AFTER YOU HAVE ESTABLISHED SOLID INFANTRY BORDERS ON YOUR LAND-BASED FRONTS, no matter WHICH player you are, Axis or Allies.
There is only one exception (that I know of) to this rule…The British player who has a factory in India"
Clearly Don KNOWS that he isn’t the be all and end all, that’s why he writes “that I know of”. And really, any writing should be read with the understanding that the writing is limited by the writer’s understanding. If one must assume, does it make sense to assume a writer is omniscient, or NOT omniscient? Must writers also constantly say the sky is blue and grass is green, that sort of thing?
And really, what IS Don to do? You criticize Don for going on at length when you go on at length. Okay. You criticize Don for dealing with haters when you are a hater. Debatable but let’s go with that. But here you’re making a flat assertion that’s countered with a quote from Don’s very first essay in the series. So - what? Should Don have prefaced everything with a disclaimer, making his writing even more wordy? (But you’re saying wordy is bad). Or should Don NOT have prefaced everything, then he’s arrogant or something for not putting on the disclaimer?
If I were reading a really tightly written response, then I could say . . . well okay, maybe this The_Good_Captain fella actually does have a handle on a superior writing style, so let’s just go with that. But that’s not what I get. There’s so much text about how Don was bad this and Don was bad that and how Don needed to be edited . . .
@The_Good_Captain said in Don Rae's Essays: edited for readability:
What follows is a compilation of all the essays for which I have acted as editor. The original was (still is) filled with grammatical and punctuation errors
. . .
As a disclaimer, I have corrected all misspellings and punctuation errorsTsk!
@The_Good_Captain said in Don Rae's Essays: edited for readability:
In other words, these essays are presented as containing ALL the answers to your Axis and Allies questions.
Because they were written to be simple. Because they were written for Classic.
To use an analogy if you have a 2018 Toyota Camry and you go to a mechanic and they start telling you about how to shoe a horse, and they insist on going on about it, then you do understand that’s not good practice right? Or even if the mechanic IS talking about your SPECIFIC issue, if they’re going on and on and on about metals and corrosion and salt and driving hours and storage - you don’t WANT the technical details, again, you do understand that’s not good practice right?
So with Don, if he’s not getting into the mathematics, what of it? Don’s essays were pretty much the founding documents for Axis and Allies as a discipline; even THESE days what Don said about players being skeptical and building strategies around false assumptions STILL applies, I don’t know that you can even imagine how things were before. If Don just gave simple practical tips and didn’t get into the mathematics, can you blame him? I certainly don’t.
And if Don didn’t get into contingencies that would have applied to different versions, again, what of it? Don’s essays were for Classic or whatever, a lot of the applications in, say, Global or 1942 Second Edition simply didn’t apply because the mobilization rules were different - as were the UNITS and COSTS and FUNDAMENTAL RULES. It’s not right to criticize Don’s essays for not covering situations from Global or 1942 Second Edition because his writings weren’t meant to address those in the first place.
And incidentally there is an upper limit to Axis and Allies skill. Below is an excerpt from my third “basics” series guide for 1942 Second Edition / 1942 Online (writing still in progress). Note I earlier defined “board state” as a conceptually different board position.
[h1]Analyzing the “Infinite”[/h1]
In practice, Axis and Allies does not have infinite possible board states. Only a few lines of play are likely to achieve a good result from the starting position, the possible outcomes of each of those lines of play have a limited range of good responses, and so on. The range of possibilities is further constrained by 1) a static map (e.g. optimal logistics route for cheap US land units to reach Europe is always East Canada to Finland/Norway) and 2) a ruleset that lends itself with the map to players needing to invest sunk costs in planned lines of play that cannot be re-invested easily into other lines of play. Lines of play merge back together, converging and diverging roughly coinciding with control / loss of control of theaters. -
@aardvarkpepper good luck with your series guide for 1942.
Otherwise, this is an incredibly imprecise criticism. There are parts that seem self-contradicting, at least one area that is misleading and at least one area where you argue against a claim I did not make. It sounds like you haven’t read Don’s Essays in the original or in its entirety. Also, I can’t tell if you’re criticizing my editing of the original essays or my editorial note.
Your very last paragraph is excellent though.
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