Gal Civ AP Anyone?

[Brackard]

Now that AP is getting close, is anybody getting AP (besides me)?

I think I already know the answer, but thought I'd ask anyway. I guess I'll be playing AP in between my MOO tournaments.

[Sirian]

I'll in for AP. I don't know how much value I'll get out of it, but GalCiv succeeded on many fronts and gave me my money's worth in fun hours and games. The company is worth supporting. Whether others should buy AP or not I won't say. The single-threat AI is a continuing problem, but only for those who have outgrown it.

So, as for who's getting AP, I'm in. As for who's playing it... I hope I'm in for some of that, too, but we'll see.


- Sirian

[Bam-Bam]

Already have it through Drengin.net.

I have not played any of the campaigns. The overall game has not significantly changed. More candy. Some minor tweaks to make starbases cost more. The AI has not improved, as far as I can tell.

Been waiting for the buginess on the campaigns to improve before I delve into them, plus some other game has been taking up most of my time...

[Isit]

I preordered a copy and didnt bother to cancel. Guess that means I will have to play it a bit.

[Zed-F]

Probably not, here.

[LKendter]

I am also a Already have it through Drengin.net..


Right now my only computer gaming has been my C3C SG. The rest of the free time has been playing humans Axis and Allies type games.

At some point I do plan to play it, but I have so many other personal projects that this is on the back burner.

[Charis]

The rest of the free time has been playing humans Axis and Allies type games.

Wow, a major 'return to outstanding classics of old' both on the computer front and
offline. I've been starting to play board games once a week with a set of friends in town,
like Puerto Rico, Oasis, and Lord of the Rings. Coming next is Settlers of Catan, and I know he's
an Axis and Allies fan. Though I know very little about it, something tells me I would like A&A. (In my
grad student days I was an Advanced Squad Leader fan)

Charis

[LKendter]

Originally posted by Charis@Apr 20 2004, 09:31 AM

[b] The rest of the free time has been playing humans Axis and Allies type games.

Wow, a major 'return to outstanding classics of old' both on the computer front and
offline. I've been starting to play board games once a week with a set of friends in town,
like Puerto Rico, Oasis, and Lord of the Rings. Coming next is Settlers of Catan, and I know he's
an Axis and Allies fan. Though I know very little about it, something tells me I would like A&A. (In my
grad student days I was an Advanced Squad Leader fan)

Charis [/b]

Well my time is for PBEM. I have a club for A&A. I have a club for A&AP. The next A&AR (2004 version of A&A - commonly called A&ARevised) has a pickup, and the clubs planning for game play. I am "down" to 7 games at the moment.

If you like beer & pretzels wargaming, then you will like A&A.

I have played some Puerto Rico, love Settlers of Catan, the Mayfair crayon rails, and a lot of other titles. However, I never found an way to play them via e-mail.

As for Advanced Squad Leader - I never got into that level of tactical.

Lee

[Sirian]

Originally posted by Charis@Apr 20 2004, 02:31 PM
Though I know very little about it, something tells me I would like A&A.

You might, for a while. I always remember A&A with great fondness, as the gaming vehicle that rescued me from the dreadful Risk, which my friends and I played ad nauseum in late elementary school for lack of something better to be playing.

Risk: Roll dice, "Take two off," roll dice, "One each," roll dice, "Take two off," roll dice, "Take two off," roll dice, "One each." One side gets down to the last unit, roll one die, "Take it off."

Risk in a nutshell. Hours and hours and hours upon end. I think the phrase, "One each," is burned into my cranium.

We stretched Risk out to incredible lengths. First game I ever played where I created variants to extend its legs. The one we got the most out of was caps on per-territory unit count. That mostly just made games last longer, though. Didn't really affect outcomes very much.

A&A has variance to the units. It has a civ-like (or civ has an AA-like) split of land, sea, air, bombardment. The infantry is the best defensive value. Playing Russia usually amounts to buying as much infantry as you can to stave off collapse as long as possible. British and America sending air to support Russia is the uber strat. The Germans stay bottled up that way, unable to outgrow the Russian force as they otherwise will.

My best friend and I once played a three-day-long marathon A&A game with virtually no sleep. Our SoDs had clashed with indecisive outcomes. Defenders held on, barely, or attackers won, barely, in some crazy combinations. We ended up with Axis in control of Allied homelands and vice versa. (Don't ask! We were constantly applying new forces to combat as soon as new production was put on the board and could be maneuvered into place. One plan was thwarted by the movement of two enemy units across the Caspian sea via a landlocked transport built inside there. (Don't ask! We eventually wore down and agreed to call the outcome a draw. That was about the apex of my A&A experience. Outgrew the game very shortly after that.

A&A advice: must use the "Russia does not attack on first turn" option, or the game goes totally out of balance. Allies already have the commanding advantage to begin with (see above, uber air strat). Also make sure to adhere to "no American factories in China" rule and other similar items, because anything that tips the balance more toward the Allies spoils the game. Variants, if any, should lean toward propping up the Axis or curbing the uber strat.

A&A's a great game, but its chief drawback is the game board. Same situation time after time. Imagine playing Civ on the same map all the time. A bunch of us RB players have moved away from GalCiv because of strategic predestiny, but that game's got nothing on A&A predestiny. Remember Barron's plea about not "solving" MOO too soon? A&A is a solvable game.

If you want a better game, look for Fortress America. Could be very hard to find. One company (IIRC, Milton Bradley) published A&A and three other games of similar scope and style in a short period of time in the 80's. The Roman Empire game (forget the name) was the one with the least depth, highest luck factors, and worst game balance. A&A was the most popular, but not the best. Fortress America, 4 players (3v1) was definitely the best of that batch. The fourth game was a pirate game, kind of cute, high on luck factors, and the one I played the least because it was 1v1. Fortress America enjoyed the randomizing element of American reinforcements being decided by draws from a card deck. In most games, the whole deck would be used by the end, so there was balance in terms of the big picture, but different items would come online in different combinations and time frames, keeping the game fresh and interesting, circumventing formulaic play to some extent. I wish I had a copy of this game, but I do not.


- Sirian


EDIT: "Oh One More Thing™"

Out of all the times I played Fortress America, regardless of which side I played, I never lost. As a board game, that game remains at the top of my "most well balanced games of all time" list. Tactics and strategy both required. And incredibly, my friends never got sick of the game, either. There was a certain "I'm gonna be the first to beat you" element that sometimes led them to ask for more when I wanted to be playing something else instead.

That's a long long way from "One each."

[barron of ideas]

There are new versions of A&A from "Avalon Hill" Hasbro. There is an Avalon Hill website that has a message board that discusses them, and they are said to be different and improved and have European and Pacific versions that can be played separately or together.

try http://boards.avalonhill.com

Purusing the site, above, I think the Milton Bradley pirates game was Broadsides and Boarding Parties. I'll keep looking for the name of the Roman Empire game, I think I have a copy in my basement, I know I have Fortress America.

Did you ever play Railroad games? Either Rail Barron, which is available as a computer game now, or any of the 1829/1830 Francis Tresham/ Alan R. Moon and many others who did varients. I think every year from about 1820 on has a game named for it. Including 2036.