@CWO:

Although I personally dislike the AAZ concept and although I can understand why it might provoke a visceral negative reaction in devoted fans of the game (I had pretty much the same reaction myself when I first heard about the game), I think that its place in the developmental history of A&A shouldn’t be overblown at this stage.  Depending on what happens to A&A over the next decade or so, we’ll eventually be able to look back on AAZ and make an informed assessment of its significance (or lack thereof).  At the moment, there’s no way of telling whether AAZ will ultimately prove to be a misguided one-off statistical blip (which is my hope) or the first manifestation of the decline and fall of the A&A empire (to paraphrase Edward Gibbon).

To me, the main issue is whether the game is balanced. I think a designer actually should be “good” at the game. If you dont play the game at the highest level, how do you know whether the game you designed is properly balanced or not?

Throwing extra rules or zombies or whatever mashup because it “sounds fun” does not make for a good game. Not saying AAZ is or isnt this yet, because its hard to know after playing just a few rounds. Though years ago I did get to play a demo Buldge game with Larry and instantly disliked it, so there is that…

@DouchemanMacgee:

@Charles:

I had a lot of hopes and dreams for the possibility of A&A being continued without its legendary creator, but those were smashed with bloody zombies.  Although I won’t be quitting A&A anytime soon, the lack of fresh appeal in the franchise is slowly taking away my game players.  Alternate setups and house rules help but take too long to perfect to keep the less interested crowd from leaving after they’ve tried every strategy they wanted to.

I don’t get angry often or use such foul language but�

���� you WotC.  ���� you.

To be fair, G40 was Larry’s love letter to the fans and basically the peak of what Axis & Allies can be without becoming overly complicated (GW1936) or a proper War Game. I doubt the franchise is going to go in the “bigger and more in-depth” direction for a while, if ever again.

If bigger and more in-depth if what you want, we have an entire sub-forum for the Global War series, which is an evolution of A&A built to be more complex, with more nation-specific rules/details, special events (Spanish Civil War, US Entry into the war), etc. I’m not shilling or anything (I don’t own any GW products myself), but it might be the thing for you.

Yep. This was Larry’s attempt to make a “convention” play all day for one game.

@DouchemanMacgee:

I’ve never played with NOs in any A&A game, but I never knew they were optional in the rules, thanks. Do they even run tournaments for AA50 with NOs turned off?

Gencon A&A tournaments (Indianapolis 8/1-8/5) do not use NO’s. Neither did Origins (Columbus OH, this past June).

@Charles:

@Narvik:

You purchase units at the end of the Turn ? What is the reason for that ?

Its getting too simple, man

Youre so right, man.

IMHO, the purchase order is an issue. You cannot “change” the phases in this way, and then try to add a 42Z expansion mode to 1942. Changing the phase order directly impacts the way the game plays. If I could change only one thing, this would be it.

@DouchemanMacgee:

@squirecam:

I dont get this sentiment. By FAR the most popular COD modes have always been the nazi zombie modes. This isnt a new thing. Zombies have been added to WW2 since….forever…

I don’t understand the rage either, but if you spend 5 minutes going through this sub-board you’ll see endless waves of posts by thin-skinned folks complaining about the zombies, so I figured I’d throw them a bone.

@squirecam:

Basic 1942 AA50 is balanced. If NO’s are a problem…then its the NO rules that are the issue, not the base AA50 game.

In either revised or AA50 42 (sans NO’s), the bid is still 1 unit, which is pretty damn good.

IIRC NOs are a built in part of AA50, and turning them off is a house-rule. I’ve argued that G40 would be more balanced if NOs were turned off there as well, but the community/metagame/balance mods have developed around NOs for like 6 years now, so there’s no sense trying to change things.

I disagree on you regarding AA50 42 scenario’s balance, but that’s pretty far off topic and we can both agree that AA50 42 is more balanced than the likes of 42SE and G40, so I’m willing to drop the issue.

Look on page 23 of the manual. NO’s are optional. They are NOT part of the basic game balance.

I had this same issue with Greg when we previewed AAZ. He wanted to play with the “special” card text, which adds alot of special happenings. I did not. I wanted to see if the base game was balanced first.

If NO’s are not balanced (I dont play with them honestly), then its that issue that needs fixing, not the base game or changing setup, etc.

@jim010:

OMG …

So I am out of the loop for a few years while life gets busy, come back on here hoping for a new Axis & Allies game, and this is what they come up with?

… omg …

Well, if A&A survived Guadalcanal, it can survive this.

…first Metal Gear Survive and now this …

FWIW, I thought A&A survived Bulge…that game was…not good…

@DouchemanMacgee:

If you have any sway with WOTC, please advise them to not do an overly gimmicky game again for a while. At least not in the next A&A release (assuming we get a next release…). This whole Zombie thing, while I (and most others) personally don’t mind it, has been a huge “base-breaker” in our community, with several members of the forum threatening to boycott the game over it.

Their main gripe can basically summed up as “The game offends me because my relative was in WW2.” I imagine this can be smoothed over a bit by having someone involved with AH or WOTC either:
A: Do an interview with someone and explicitly state that they support veterans, and apologize for any perceived disrespect that may have resulted from the inclusion of Zombies in the game.

B: Have a statement in the instruction manual/box for the game that states something similar. For comparsion’s sake, refer to the passages Larry included in the manuals for just about every game he was involved with.

I dont get this sentiment. By FAR the most popular COD modes have always been the nazi zombie modes. This isnt a new thing. Zombies have been added to WW2 since….forever…

I consider Revised to be more balanced than AA50. AA50 (41 scenario, Axis are too strong in the 42 scenario OOB) only becomes balanced if you turn NOs off, otherwise Axis win easily without a pretty sizeable bid, in both scenarios.

Basic 1942 AA50 is balanced. If NO’s are a problem…then its the NO rules that are the issue, not the base AA50 game. I do agree that revised was well balanced, but not actually due to Larry. His proposed carrier changes back in the day would have unbalanced it. The final LHTR worked though.

In either revised or AA50 42 (sans NO’s), the bid is still 1 unit, which is pretty damn good.

@DouchemanMacgee:

@squirecam:

I’m not sure how balanced the game is. Taking out the zombies might make things worse.

You’d have to try pretty hard to make a game less balanced than 41.
Or 42SE OOB, for that matter.

Even G40 OOB is better than these two, and everyone on this forum should know the nightmare it took to get the game where it is today (which, after all this time, is STILL heavily Axis-favored).

Yeah. Revised and AA50 were pretty balanced. Then it went in the wrong direction, like Classic.

The AAZ setup seems to favor the axis without (and even with) zombies added. So there is going to have to be a large adjustment if they are not used.

@Nowhere:

@smo63:

Ok, not sure if Squire mentioned this but the game comes with a way to add zombies to 1942 2nd Ed. if you like…?  I don’t believe there ever was an intention to confuse the AAZ map with '42…

Well aware there are optional rules introducing zombies into 1942… honestly,  the way the rules are written you could probably introduce zombies into any version of A&A from 1941 to Global and everything inbetween…  the only hiccup I see in adding zombies to any version are the cards saying “place zombies in zone-x”… where zone-x might be labeled differently in a different version but that would be very easy to house-rule fix.

My main point was that there are plenty of people interested in a slightly modified map for 1941 intro player map, and this AAZ map sure looks like a valid candidate to replace 1941’s map for a lot of people.

I’m not sure how balanced the game is. Taking out the zombies might make things worse.

@Imperious:

YOU??? after all these years??

Like a zombie, I have come back to bite you.  :lol: