Anybody here like playing Axis and Allies Anniversary Edition?

[Dowly]

$300-400 for a tabletop game? Are you nuts?!

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by Dowly

$300-400 for a tabletop game? Are you nuts?!

Well, it is the most ridiculously large and expensive version of the game that I know of...

I've never played Axis & Allies, so I don't know how much it's worth, but I suppose for that price (Even the lower one) you can get a whole bunch of other very good games.

BTW, what does age have to do with enjoying a game like that?

[Castout]

Originally Posted by Dowly

$300-400 for a tabletop game? Are you nuts?!

yeah but I can get it for a little less than 140 bucks pretty much the price when it first came out.

And that's not the most expensive tabletop game.

There are other more expensive tabletop games.

The most recent is this


I have the non collector edition and it's a GREAT game! It really is. Gameplay is top notch it really is LotR on the table...by the soul I mean.

Older rarer tabletop games may even sell for more!

Originally Posted by Raptor1

BTW, what does age have to do with enjoying a game like that?

Umm for one I no longer cheer at playing monopoly or snakes & ladders
Never played risk but I assume likewise too.
read a comment that it's a kids collection game umm but so far I've seen more older people playing it than teenagers or younger.

Even at the standard price I could get two very good board games with the money . . . so thus my doubt and cautious approach to buying it.
Tempted to buy it and try to sell it on ebay to make bucks but I've seen people selling it for 300 bucks or less and no one's bidding. I must assume at the current crazy prices that Avalon Hill is going to have another reprint. It's just too tempting not to and there's the expensive shipping from here to Europe or US or even just Australia as most who would want the game at that kind of price must not be local.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Dowly

$300-400 for a tabletop game? Are you nuts?!

Jeez. Too much for my tastes.

[Dowly]

You could always try what Raptor1 is writing AAR from, Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge. Think it's 70€ or so, but if it's anything like Highway to the Reich I tried some years back it's pretty cool.

Tho, it's not a tabletop game.

[Raptor1]

If you're looking for a more complicated strategic level board wargame, you could try GMT Games' A World at War, if it's still in print. We ran a game of it a while ago on these very boards and it was quite awesome (It should still be around somewhere too).

[the_tyrant]

Just play the computer game already

[SteamWake]

Holy cow I think I paid like 20 bucks for a copy of A&A many years ago and thought that was alot.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Holy cow I think I paid like 20 bucks for a copy of A&A many years ago and thought that was alot.

I remember when it was released, and played it once with a friend. I wouldn't pay $20 for it. Kid's game. About the same time the same friend bought World In Flames. Now that was a strategic board game! On the other hand it needs lots of friends and lots of patience.

[Castout]

Originally Posted by the_tyrant

Just play the computer game already

The following I learned just by playing ONE boardgame called Shogun, a German game with Japanese theme
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/20551/shogun

That one game has taught me ALL the following:

1. It has taught me to always be under the blanket in life pursuit and not to attract unwanted attention or threaten the enemy confidence that all of them would make some sort of unspoken deal to deal with you first and foremost PERSONALLY denying you victory no matter what. Do not make the enemy fear you or present an image of supremacy early in game! Stay low.
2. It has taught me that it is paramount to understand the enemy and try to guess his mind and plan and act accordingly to outmaneuver and thus surprise and outwit and defeat him by using his own plan to help you.
3. It's wise to appear weak and uninteresting with regard to possessions to the enemy so to distract him to other more worthy pursuit and other players. Give no reason why downing you is rewarding to him or present an impression that it is uninteresting and hardly rewarding to fight you. Make your possessions unregarded. Nobody would want anything that is not interesting and unrewarding
4. Draw your enemy when you need to. Set up trap. Present bait for him to take if he's static.
5. Make contingency always make contingency. No plan that's going to work 100% 100% times.
6. Expect the unexpected
7. Think outside the box, be creative in your approach to a solution or plan. Don't let your intention and plan be guessed.
8. Make a diversion when necessary. Fool the enemy to think that he knows your plan and intention to stop him from thinking your real motive.
9. Sometimes losing is advantageous. Sacrifices must be made to reach bigger goals.
10. Plan ahead. See what's coming in the short and long term and plan accordingly. Also make your plan according to your strategic insight and motive but be flexible to change them accordingly.
11. Take calculated risk. Life rewards those who dare.
12. If you can't win try to minimize your losses. It's not about winning or losing but how well you play the game.
13. If you fight the enemy long enough he will understand your stratagem and learn from them or even copy them. Don't use the same method. In life don't fight for too long so as not to allow him to learn. Finish the enemy as quickly as you can.
14. DO NOT engage in personal rivalry or vendetta. It will destroy both parties and give huge advantage to other enemies even if one won the rivalry. Rivalry is bad it is stagnation. Avoid it at all cost!
15. Do not try to defend the unwinnable unless without choice.
16. Do not attack the hardly winnable or leave the result mostly to chance/luck. It's important to put the focus and strength to plan and effort that would bear fruit otherwise it's stagnation. A pyrrhic victory is no more than a delayed defeat or another enemy's soon victory.
17. Those who stay out of most fight will emerge the strongest because its forces never get reduced and it could continue to build upon them so beware of enemy who stay out of fight mostly while you and others engage in conflict. Most likely he's trying to gain by letting everyone to destroy everyone else before he moves in after everyone's weakened.
18. Having only too little money left means not planning ahead. Having too much money means not doing enough!

*Note
No I don't copy this from Sun Tzu's Art of War. I hardly ever read Sun Tzu but the first few pages and I learned the above merely by playing Shogun. It has become my most favorite board game because it can teach you so much!

And now I know what strategy is.

You see computer games are merely and almost exclusively about entertainment while board games have a social, educative and psychological aspect to it. It can be a brain churner. It's just much much more fun.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I remember when it was released, and played it once with a friend. I wouldn't pay $20 for it. Kid's game. About the same time the same friend bought World In Flames. Now that was a strategic board game! On the other hand it needs lots of friends and lots of patience.

Ah thank you Steve your words in that post is gold you just confirmed my fear that it is a kid's game even though it seems many older people are playing it

Originally Posted by Raptor1

If you're looking for a more complicated strategic level board wargame, you could try GMT Games' A World at War, if it's still in print. We ran a game of it a while ago on these very boards and it was quite awesome (It should still be around somewhere too).

The only thing I'm trying not to buy paper map board game they are expensive for the mere paper map one's getting. I bought one paper map board game for 80 bucks and felt kind of cheated. I ended making a mounted map for it.

[MH]

Originally Posted by the_tyrant

Just play the computer game already

True.
Try civilization 3 or 4 exellent turn based games for PC.
You can also play them on line or via email or even hot seat with friends.

[UnderseaLcpl]

I enjoy playing Axis and Allies as a casual game, but as a strategy game it has about as much depth as Risk, a game whose depth of strategy is aptly described by its name. A&A suffers from the lack of a fog of war and the resultant strategic possibilities and pitfalls, as well as an oversimplified probability mechanic. The pre-arranged and unchangable alliances don't help matters any. And then there's setting up all those damn pieces...

A simple game I would recommend is "Diplomacy", which is set in pre-WW1 Europe. Nothing is left to chance in this game, but rather to your ability to think creatively and read other players. All moves are planned secretly on paper (which you may or may not choose to reveal to others) and made simultaneously. The actual game mechanics are a bit like GO, which is to say that they are focused upon guile and maneuver, but the real game takes place between the players, not on the board. No single power can stand alone at the outset, so the emphasis is placed upon, unsurprisingly, diplomacy.

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

I enjoy playing Axis and Allies as a casual game, but as a strategy game it has about as much depth as Risk, a game whose depth of strategy is aptly described by its name. A&A suffers from the lack of a fog of war and the resultant strategic possibilities and pitfalls, as well as an oversimplified probability mechanic. The pre-arranged and unchangable alliances don't help matters any. And then there's setting up all those damn pieces...

A simple game I would recommend is "Diplomacy", which is set in pre-WW1 Europe. Nothing is left to chance in this game, but rather to your ability to think creatively and read other players. All moves are planned secretly on paper (which you may or may not choose to reveal to others) and made simultaneously. The actual game mechanics are a bit like GO, which is to say that they are focused upon guile and maneuver, but the real game takes place between the players, not on the board. No single power can stand alone at the outset, so the emphasis is placed upon, unsurprisingly, diplomacy.

Never played A&A for that reason. I loved Diplomacy and played it at school quite a bit. The fun part is off the board where you need to use your guile and diplomacy skills to set up alliances, knife opponents in the back whilst hugging them and smiling to their faces. Great game if you can get a good group together who are into it.

[Skybird]

Never mind, I searched again, found this:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm...fonts&#2546152

and the ini posted there did a very good job.

[Castout]

Originally Posted by Skybird

What do you complain about? It'S at the very basis of any cosim, and has been seen as a valuable tool for military training as well. Compared to it, a cosim's sequence of play and strategic "depth" - I would not call it that - is shallow, and just a sequence of repetitive automatically carried out actions (for that reason real-time strategy games, at least all I have ever tried over the past 15 years or so, hardly are strategy games at all, they do not pose a challenge to your strategic imagination - you just find the one winning playing mechanism that is successful and then repeat that one in every match with your mouseklicks as fast as you can, mostly it is about in what seqeunce to produce units, and producing them fast). The basis of any strategic thinking is the balacning of the three factors space, time and matter (fields, moves, pieces) in various, ever-changing constellation, and how the one can be traded for the other. When you think of it, any military problem comes down to a constellation of these three factors, from logistics over Blitzkrieg to gaining important grounds.

Chess is not about a given strategy in a specific constext or environment, like in a cosim where you have these and no other rules and this and no other map, and such counters and no others. It is about strategy itself, and the need to constantly change and adapt it. A Cosim does not give you that challenge raised by ever-changing challenge, it'S always the same limited set of types of challenges. A cosim teaches you strategic thinking at best in the context of the game system, but not beyond. You cannot carry it over to for example economic problems or behavior at the stock market in reality, because your way of handling space, matter and time within the cosim'S context cannot that easily, if at all, taken over to the way you want to set up the policy and competitive behavior of your business company. Chess trains your strategic thinking at a much more profound, basic, general level less depending on the context of the rules of that game, and that game alone. And that's why you can benefit from that in real life as well - not from the rules of chess, but your habit of being used to handle and balance these three factors on the chessboard, and in a cosim and in real life as well: space, time and material. It'S a bit like being a "culture-free" (="game-rules-free") training of strategic thinking.

Not related to real life...?! I must say that chess has had a certain, maybe not spectacular but still undeniable influence on my way of thinking and analysis. It'S hard to tell whether I liked chess because it met my analytical mindset, or my analytical attitude emerged due to having learned chess (in my early childhood). Probably a mixture of both.

However. The other things chess can teach you wonderfully, are: patience, and discipline. Not before and not after the right time has come, you carry out the most appropriate action. And that also is an art you can use very well in life. The right move at the wrong time, the wrong figure for the right task, a misled situational understanding while having advantage in time and material - and you nevertheless spoil it. Only when all three come together, you secure the win: time, space and material.

-----------------

BTW, there are quite some competently done PC cosims. It helps you to save table-space, and money.

A classic is The Operational Art Of War III, which is a reference title. I do not like the font and am not happy with the itnerface, but I must admit with that complaint I seem to be alone - I never heared anyone else complaining about it (except the fonts).

I currently digged myself into the matter of Modern Campaigns: Danube 85, doing the full campaign with the front from Denmark down to Austria. Again, I initially cmplained about the interface giving me some visual problems due to the smallnesss of some things, but I have adressed that by using a map mod, and having edited the design of unit counters myself, so now it is a bit more friendly to the eyes, or so it seems to me. A title I also would recommend.

And available for free, there is Steel Panthers: Main Battle Tank (or World War II, if you prefer that era). Still an outstanding title, despite the looks showing it's age.

First I wasn't complaining about anything just gave my opinion about chess. I don't mean it was a bad game I just think it's a too abstract game for me. Too abstract to relate to real life situation at least that's how I perceive it but you seemed to argue that it trains your mind to adapt to different changing challenges even though chess is a pure abstract game. Well I may be able to see that point but other games teach you that too . . .

As for RTS yea I do completely agree that there's no strategy at all in RTS games or hardly any strategy in it. In fact I even found little strategy in games such as Hearts of Iron 2(never tried the third) due to AI being not a very capable opponent( and the lack of human psychology in AI).

As for cosim,
But I think I just wrote what I've learned from one specific German board game which I listed about 18 points of them. That too give the players training to adapt to different ever changing challenges like chess does. It really does and does it much better at least to me with multiple enemies and much more chaos and uncertainty! So it wouldn't be valid to state that only chess can teach one the ability to adapt to ever changing situation. Shogun for one teaches you just that without being too abstract. That game teaches the art of war to put it bluntly maybe not as comprehensive as Sun Tzu's Art of War but it does teaches one the strategic aspect of art of war! No kidding!
I don't have anything against chess . I really don't. Just that because of its abstraction I found it hard to play and master well but I have to admit I never give it a serious attempt. I don't find this difficulty with the board game Shogun for example.

I played Steel Panthers but somehow electronic adapted board game never attracted me much largely because I feel I couldn't outguess the enemy because it has got no psychology and even I never seemed to attempt to play a serious strategic game with AI or rather compelled to give a serious thinking and felt no reward for having defeated it. For example while playing board game such as Shogun people who are not used to thinking hard for extended period of time like 3 hours or more(5 hours on first game) will find it difficult to keep up in the last hour or minutes. I have had friends becoming agitated because they were too much damn tired for having to think hard for extended period of time. One even needed to lay down for a while to rest before the game ended because he was really mentally drained up and to think that they are almost ten years younger than me! As for me being a nerd who spent extended period of hours studying until 2-3AM really paid off by granting me extended mental stamina and allows me to be still able to think well.
In the end somehow I find witchcraft appeal to a box of components and placing those on the table and playing them with other people.

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

I enjoy playing Axis and Allies as a casual game, but as a strategy game it has about as much depth as Risk, a game whose depth of strategy is aptly described by its name. A&A suffers from the lack of a fog of war and the resultant strategic possibilities and pitfalls, as well as an oversimplified probability mechanic. The pre-arranged and unchangable alliances don't help matters any. And then there's setting up all those damn pieces...

A simple game I would recommend is "Diplomacy", which is set in pre-WW1 Europe. Nothing is left to chance in this game, but rather to your ability to think creatively and read other players. All moves are planned secretly on paper (which you may or may not choose to reveal to others) and made simultaneously. The actual game mechanics are a bit like GO, which is to say that they are focused upon guile and maneuver, but the real game takes place between the players, not on the board. No single power can stand alone at the outset, so the emphasis is placed upon, unsurprisingly, diplomacy.

Yeah I'm aware that it's not a very detailed strategy game but it does still allow one to analyze to try to defeat multiple human enemies. It's basically a game of placement a little like chess only much less abstract(no pun to Skybird or chess just me who's too stupid to play chess )

As for diplomacy I too once got interested in it until I played it on the web.
The game will definitely ruin friendships(and to think I already haven't had great friends to board game with) Frankly i hate the game which forces the players to lie and I'm not a very wicked person and I don't believe in being one either nor I am very good in lying made worse with easily trusting other people.