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It just feels weird for me that it's the VC giving resources to the NVA and not the other way around, though.
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Sep 18, 2014 14:00
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I think that ultimately, the NVA in FitL isn't really the NVA, but rather a representation of NVA focus on South Vietnam.
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Sep 18, 2014 14:27
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Remember, the VC is local, and has access to local resources. The NVA is operating in enemy territory against a far, far superior force. lovely supply lines are totally on theme.
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Sep 18, 2014 17:12
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Fire in the Lake is now making it's way to my home.
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Sep 19, 2014 12:12
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My copy shall be upon my porch within hours. 
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Sep 19, 2014 15:53
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Argh, the recent flurry of excitement in this thread caused me to look into these COIN things, and now I want them all! And I know if I get them I'll never actually play them! I hate board games.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:17
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Gonna be trying out the extended scenario hopefully this weekend. Will probably assign factions randomly. Anyone have any experience doing the full 6 coups?
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Sep 23, 2014 13:17
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I have also been bitten hard by the COIN bug, managed to snag a copy of ADP and have been playing a solo game for the past week. Past the 3rd propaganda round as the Taliban but now the Coalition and Govt have decided to start pushing my poo poo in, so it might all go downhill soon. Need to get it done before breaking it out with actual people this weekend. Away from the COIN circlejerk, what are the wargames that people most want to play but have never managed to get on the table? I have a pre-ordered copy of Birds of Prey that has been warming my shelves for 6 years. Turns out no-one I know is particularly interested in spending 45 minutes to play 6 seconds of realistic jet dogfighting. Who knew.
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Sep 23, 2014 14:25
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MikeCrotch posted:Away from the COIN circlejerk, what are the wargames that people most want to play but have never managed to get on the table? I have a pre-ordered copy of Birds of Prey that has been warming my shelves for 6 years. Turns out no-one I know is particularly interested in spending 45 minutes to play 6 seconds of realistic jet dogfighting. Who knew. Haha, I have that one too, along with its zero-g cousin Attack Vector: Tactical. Never gonna happen! I also have a feeling I'll never convince anyone to play Star Fleet Battles
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Sep 23, 2014 14:55
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I got None But Heroes, which is a hex'n'counter ACW game about the battle of Antietam. No one really wants to play a monster ACW game with me in the UK 
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Sep 23, 2014 15:03
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I have a shitload of my dad's old Avalon Hill stuff which no one out of my family is interested in Tekopo posted:I got None But Heroes, which is a hex'n'counter ACW game about the battle of Antietam. No one really wants to play a monster ACW game with me in the UK Out of curiosity, are there any English civil war games?
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Sep 23, 2014 15:55
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Unhappy King Charles!?
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Sep 23, 2014 16:17
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Is Axis & Allies 1914 considered a wargame?  I've played it twice in the last few months, wondering what anyone else's experience with it has been. A bunch of my board gaming friends want to get together next weekend and give it another go. The two games in the past felt very, very different from what I'm used to with WWII A&A. There was no clear victor after the first couple rounds, everything seemed to drag on, and both games were never finished and ended in a "We're not sure which side has the upper hand" fashion. I found some alternative rules online for it that I thought I might try out this time, mostly one that gives research and tech bonuses similar to the tech development in some versions of WWII A&A. All my gaming friends are gung ho about rolling a ton of dice this weekend with 1914, meanwhile my unplayed copy of Fire in the Lake sits in the corner and I cry inside. 
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Sep 23, 2014 17:53
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Yep, it's included in the OP as part of the classics! I have tried a couple of the A&A games: the one concerning the whole WWII wasn't really my cup of tea since it seemed that there was only one option for the Axis and it was to smash the soviets and the entire game hinged on good dice rolls on that theater. I did try the D-Day sub-game as well and that was decently fun, dunno where it ended up though since I can't find my copy anymore.
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Sep 23, 2014 17:58
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It's not unplayable, it's very easy to teach people, and it supports a lot of players. I actually like the Battle of the Bulge spin-off, admittedly it succumbs to 'bucket o' dice' syndrome but it's got some neat supply mechanics- supplies are physical units on the map and can be destroyed or captured. On the subject of WWII games, how hard to learn is Unconditional Surrender? I managed to teach a group Cuba Libre verbally, is it more/less complicated than that?
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Sep 23, 2014 18:04
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Wikipedia Brown posted:Haha, I have that one too, along with its zero-g cousin Attack Vector: Tactical. Never gonna happen! I also have a feeling I'll never convince anyone to play Star Fleet Battles Squadron Strike is a lot more playable than either AV:T or SFB. Movement and combat are both less fiddly than in AV:T, turns should take less than 20 minutes even with lots of shooting. There's also a campaign-oriented ship and weapon design spreadsheet; it's a lot of work but you can recreate just about any ship from any setting. I'm biased, I work for Ad Astra as the lead designer on Squadron Strike: Traveller. There will be a Fleet Book as well as a new boxed set for this. We're starting with the Imperium and the Zhodani, with a few Aslan warships for variety. Plans include two more supplements to round out the fleets of those three powers, plus the Solomani. We'll probably also do a book on RPG-scale ships, the main products include the big ships and we want to be able to let the 5000-ton and under ships shine on their own, not cower away from 200,000 ton dreadnoughts.
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Sep 23, 2014 18:34
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Conquest7706 posted:Is Axis & Allies 1914 considered a wargame? I've played 1914 4-5 times, and I think it's an inversion of the usual A&A routine. Normally, if you aren't suitably aggressive toward your goals (to the point of spending on a fighter, early if it means being able to throw another decent roll into a capture far away from your industrial center, or building a minor IC somewhere lovely just so you can get the ball rolling on faster reinforcements), your side tends to collapse within a couple turns if your opponent gets a sustained advantage in income and losses. It's hard to come back barring idiotic things like 1 infantry beating 10 times its cost in invaders by rolling extremely well. Or shooting down the bomber that was supposed to mop it up. 1914 has the opposite effect. If you're too aggressive and try to get by with expensive units, your opponent will shift to make your battle a quagmire and you'll never 'own' any of the territory you're invading, so they can grind you down with slow maneuvers or gradually shifting to tanks or whatever. There's a lot less guile in unit purchasing. Every side's goal is to build a good balance of infantry and artillery, slowly adding tanks into the mix in areas where you're too weak to take a territory, but still have a numerical advantage. Springing for planes just to cover the place where you want to make your decisive push, or fend off the enemy. The naval game is different too, because there are no carriers and aircraft aren't flying out over the ocean to sink isolated or lonely transports. It rewards considering your odds more carefully. Being the aggressor is powerful--that's why the central powers come out strong. Even if they can't punch through Russia's front for a while, just occupying it takes the benefit away from Russia. It's also much more worth it to conquer independents. Marching from India to Turkey as the British seemed to happen each game for us. Controlling the mediterranean helps push more troops into fronts. It's the only equivalent to 'mechanized' troop movement. This runs counter to the typical A&A routine, where the defender has an economic advantage--in that the units that are great on defense are all cheaper than offensive ones. I really like it. In particular the way that the bucket of dice syndrome actively helps to deal with the annoyance of spikey luck. Watching bullshit happen in A&A is one of my least favorite parts of the game. In 1914, whatever bullshit is going to happen happens faster because you roll in a single batch, and except for naval engagements, only once per attack. The fact that it sometimes seems like a complete stalemate is kind of the point, maybe? If you're looking for a game that's just more fun, then I can understand that, but WW1 isn't a great venue for playing out to a clear winner and loser. The only rule I'd consider is stacking conquest markers on territories, rather than switching them out. And subtracting the stack height from the resource output. So, by the time you go back and forth over a territory a couple times, it's been bombed into worthlessness. Though I'm not sure that wouldn't make the game even more stalematey. Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment  I do like the change in the way the battles work that I've been trying to house-rule them into the WW2 versions, though. I was thinking of cribbing the supply train idea from 1776, and using it as a way to force a player to consider which battles he wanted to go multiple rounds in, rather than always being able to stick around to do crazy poo poo when your luck is good (or sticking around to see awful bullshit when your luck is bad).
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Sep 23, 2014 18:53
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StashAugustine posted:I have a shitload of my dad's old Avalon Hill stuff which no one out of my family is interested in http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3408/accursed-civil-war I really like the M&P series.
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Sep 23, 2014 19:13
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So, I have a choice between Andean Abyss or Fire in the Lake for my first COIN. I've played Cuba Libre and loved it, but that can't be had for love nor money - I can only access these two. I'm assuming FitL is the better choice?
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Sep 23, 2014 20:17
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Depends. Andean Abyss, while unpolished, is better for an early outing with the COIN system. Like Cuba Libre, the COIN and insurgent factions are clearly defined, and the interaction is easier to track. If you're teaching a new group, for example, Andean Abyss is easier to learn to swim in. By comparison, Fire in the Lake is the deeper...well, lake, but it plunges you in headfirst and mostly just advises you not to breathe in through your nose.
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Sep 23, 2014 20:37
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mllaneza posted:I'm biased, I work for Ad Astra as the lead designer on Squadron Strike: Traveller. Neat. I haven't got into Squadron Strike yet but I've been playing Sits for a long time. How would you compare the two? Any further development done on the core mechanics from Sits 2nd edition or is Squadron Strike more of a Sits without the honorverse license type of thing?
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Sep 23, 2014 21:12
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StashAugustine posted:I have a shitload of my dad's old Avalon Hill stuff which no one out of my family is interested in http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/70519/cruel-necessity is a solitaire game I've had recommended to me, but I haven't found a copy in Canada (or with shipping to Canada) that I can justify yet.
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Sep 23, 2014 21:22
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orphean posted:Neat. I haven't got into Squadron Strike yet but I've been playing Sits for a long time. How would you compare the two? Any further development done on the core mechanics from Sits 2nd edition or is Squadron Strike more of a Sits without the honorverse license type of thing? Squadron Strike is not SITS at all, there's a whole new game system there. SS movement is very, very similar to SITS 2e of course, but combat is very different. I'd say SS is Ken Burnside's love letter to SFB fans, it's a playable way to blow up spaceships. And you get to design your own universe if you want to.
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Sep 23, 2014 21:37
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TheCosmicMuffet posted:The fact that it sometimes seems like a complete stalemate is kind of the point, maybe? If you're looking for a game that's just more fun, then I can understand that, but WW1 isn't a great venue for playing out to a clear winner and loser. I did enjoy it a lot more than WWII A&A the two times we've played it. We got about 7-8 rounds in both times and there was no clear winner or loser anywhere, except for Brits hitting the Ottomans pretty hard (and in turn leaving France without much ground support). I get the feeling the games may have gone to the Allies if more rounds of American reinforcement continued. Definitely like the single roll battles and the contested territories more than the roll until victory of other A&A games. I actually really like your idea of territories grinding down to a worthless no man's land, may have to put that in on the weekend.
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Sep 23, 2014 21:41
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Gutter Owl posted:Depends. See, this is what I'm wondering - I want to introduce my friends to the COIN series, and my choices seem to be between unpolished and incredibly, perhaps too deep/complex. How unpolished is Andean Abyss?
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Sep 23, 2014 22:42
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Oldstench posted:I really like the M&P series. I bought Nothing Gained But Glory a while ago from a GMT sale and I like the system, but it gets bit annoying to play when all your units have 4 different status counters on them.
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Sep 23, 2014 23:05
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Stumiester posted:See, this is what I'm wondering - I want to introduce my friends to the COIN series, and my choices seem to be between unpolished and incredibly, perhaps too deep/complex. How unpolished is Andean Abyss?
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Sep 23, 2014 23:29
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mllaneza posted:Squadron Strike is not SITS at all, there's a whole new game system there. SS movement is very, very similar to SITS 2e of course, but combat is very different. I'd say SS is Ken Burnside's love letter to SFB fans, it's a playable way to blow up spaceships. And you get to design your own universe if you want to. Interesting, I'll have to pick up a copy and check it out. Ad Astra is describing it like this: Ad Astra posted:Squadron Strike builds on the Origins Award-nominated mechanics of Saganami Island Tactical Simulator's 2nd edition to let you design and fly spaceships from any universe in full 3-D glory. That's why I thought it was based off of 2nd edition Sits. Weird they are implying that if its a completely different thing mechanically. Maybe just trying to position it as a natural next game for the Sits fanbase
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Sep 24, 2014 04:18
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orphean posted:Interesting, I'll have to pick up a copy and check it out. Ad Astra is describing it like this: "Builds on" is the movement, which is basically 2e SITS. At least for Mode 2 vector movement. Mode 1 is more like Star Trek or Full Thrust's Cinematic movement. Mode 0 is more flying saucer-y. Combat changed from SITS mainly to let you roll handfuls of dice for resolution rather than the fiddly procedures in SITS.
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Sep 24, 2014 04:25
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StashAugustine posted:On the subject of WWII games, how hard to learn is Unconditional Surrender? I managed to teach a group Cuba Libre verbally, is it more/less complicated than that? Once you've got the hang of it, it's really easy to teach. Teach the activation system, two different types of combat, and then start your turn. Teach the CRT and the supply system as it comes up. Total rules explanation: 5 minutes.
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Sep 24, 2014 05:45
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Unconditional surrender is surprisingly easy to teach, but does get a bit more difficult depending on what scenario you are playing. The beauty of it is that you don't really need to remember much stuff to play it, it's all there within the cheat sheets and everything is fairly intuitive. Probably my favourite grand strategy game (apart from the diplomacy).
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Sep 24, 2014 08:01
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I was talking to Tekopo about how I dislike Strategic level games on the train home yesterday, but when I got home, I found out that there was a pending Empire of the Sun reprint. Anyone have any thughts? It looks really good, and I'd like to give it a go some time!
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Sep 24, 2014 12:14
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Playing solo Fire in the Lake as US, went from 3 spaces away from victory at the first Coup card, to about even with the laggard NVA because I got ~12 units caught in Laos during a coup and VC started terrorizing all over the place.
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Sep 24, 2014 12:20
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Hey Tekopo, You've bitched about bucket of dice combat resolution quite a few times (as well as expressing a general fondness for lower-luck games) - while it's a generally rather sound sentiment, where would you put a line for acceptable randomness for conflicts where combat was historically noted to be swingy as gently caress? Assume there is a proper strategic context for the hypothetical game in question, like it really being about just maneuvering around and projecting force.
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Sep 24, 2014 13:06
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I have sort of tried Empire of the Sun and it is really, really weird. It's a strange hex'n'counter/CDG hybrid and I don't really know if I really like it or not.Lichtenstein posted:Hey Tekopo,
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Sep 24, 2014 15:36
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Bad randomness is like Monopoly: you do only one thing, and you can hardly alter the results, and in the end it's the dice who decide the winner. Good randomness is like Blood Bowl: you have dozens of options, you can mitigate the losses of a bad result or tweak the probabilities, and in the end a bad roll on either side ends in a disaster you can laugh at.
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Sep 24, 2014 15:44
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Tevery Best posted:Bad randomness is like Monopoly: you do only one thing, and you can hardly alter the results, and in the end it's the dice who decide the winner. Good randomness is like Blood Bowl: you have dozens of options, you can mitigate the losses of a bad result or tweak the probabilities, and in the end a bad roll on either side ends in a disaster you can laugh at. The other thing that I find important about variance is the amount of effort dependent on each random pull. Meaning basically if it takes 3 hours of game time to set up your key roll and that roll has a really bad outcome, that's a lot more frustrating than if you spent 15 minutes to get there. PoG is my cannonical example here; as the CP your dieroll with the Kemal combat card can negate several hours worth of good play and decisions.
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Sep 24, 2014 15:49
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tomdidiot posted:I was talking to Tekopo about how I dislike Strategic level games on the train home yesterday, but when I got home, I found out that there was a pending Empire of the Sun reprint. Anyone have any thughts? It looks really good, and I'd like to give it a go some time! The thing about Empire of the Sun is that there's a huge amount to each operation you do. Some of your turns will go fast when you're just pushing a few things around or ending an ISR or something, but many of your turns will be full blown operations and those take a lot of thought to do, because there's so much to it. Empire of the Sun is probably the most dense CDG i've ever played, and I don't mean that in a bad way. It's one of the few games I would consider PBEMing. In a normal CDG, a move would be attacking a city or moving a stack into battle with another stack. The Japanese opening card play in EotS is basically a massive, multi-pronged attack to take out all the Dutch units and posessions at once and while the card to do it is quite powerful, similar operations can be carried out on any big op card.
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Sep 24, 2014 19:55
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Anyone interested in playing EotS tomorrow?
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Sep 25, 2014 21:30
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 This is a fine example of why you don't leave ABDA alive going into turn 3. With ABDA alive, American and Commonwealth reinforcements can flow right into the DEI, taking away a lot of the Japanese resource hexes and providing an easy springboard to take stuff back.
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Sep 26, 2014 18:16
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