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FITL also (in my limited experience) has the highest learning curve in how to handle the factions. Cuba Libre is relatively easy- DR and Syndicate just have to learn how to make money and fend off attackers, then M26 has a little more to learn with getting its people around and causing terror, and the government has a high learning curve. FITL has two government factions, with a lot of odd interaction, and one of the insurgent factions has troops which is a little hard to figure out.
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Dec 11, 2014 21:52
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StashAugustine posted:FITL is the most complicated of the COIN games. Do you have other people interested in the game or are you just gonna throw it out and see if someone likes it? I'd definitely recommend playing it solitaire once or twice to get a grasp on it. Fortunately I do. There's Lichtenstein, there's my brother, who's supposed to be bringing that big pretty box from the UK this Saturday afternoon, and we've got enough courageous friends with a propensity for kicking one another when they're down, and a few who can and like to play Twilight Struggle. We're not afraid of complex games, it's just that this one is, well, supposed to be, like, double complex, so I'd like to know what stuff to keep in mind - rules that are frequently forgotten about, strategies for particular sides to use as guidelines for first-time players, the works.
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Dec 11, 2014 21:53
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Tevery Best posted:Fortunately I do. There's Lichtenstein, there's my brother, who's supposed to be bringing that big pretty box from the UK this Saturday afternoon, and we've got enough courageous friends with a propensity for kicking one another when they're down, and a few who can and like to play Twilight Struggle. Just pay super close attention to the wording of the rules. "a" vs "any", pay attention to where you're allowed to do things, pay attention to "ranger/troop/cube/guerilla" etc.
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Dec 11, 2014 21:55
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Speaking of FiTL, what's the reasoning behind Vietcong feeding resources to NVA in this game, not the other way around? All that I know is that this is a thing in this game.
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Dec 11, 2014 22:07
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Well, it depends on the state of the trail. The NVA gets its income by having trail and by having lots of bases in Laos and Cambodia, which can potentially give them a whole lot of resources once they are set up (although they can get knocked down by events/the US doing bombing runs). As such, the NVA if left undisturbed can have more resources that it knows what to do with. The VC, on the other hand, just gets money from the number of bases is has. Usually this isn't much, but it can tax to get more money: it makes it lose opposition (and also has to spend a special action to do so), but it can get a really quick cash injection when it does this. No other faction in the game can really get money quickly in this way apart from events. So if the NVA is setup and doesn't have a good surplus of resources, it will sometimes need the VC to help it fund its war efforts. Now, keep in mind that resources for the NVA represents supplies that they manage to bring down to the South. Hence the VC having a way to get supplies in the south, while the NVA having to rely on the trail in order to keep fighting. Also keep in mind that resources not only represent weapons and arms, but also base supplies such as food. Largely, the NVA 'supplying' the VC is represented by them infiltrating and taking over VC bases.
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Dec 11, 2014 22:17
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I want to play something similar to Totaler Krieg during my breaks at work - something heavy that I can spread out over a long time, but need to find something I can play on VASSAL and has the rules available online. I can't find any rules for TK online, so I'm looking for something else I guess!
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Dec 12, 2014 03:07
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Tevery Best posted:I've read the Cuba Libre LP,
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Dec 12, 2014 03:23
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COOL CORN posted:I want to play something similar to Totaler Krieg during my breaks at work - something heavy that I can spread out over a long time, but need to find something I can play on VASSAL and has the rules available online. http://decisiongames.com/wpsite/e-rules/axis-empires-tkds/ Like this?
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Dec 12, 2014 03:29
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Use these instead, they're more up-to-date: Rules: http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?233@@.ee6d6c9!enclosure=.1dda7d49 Scenarios: http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?233@@.ee6d6c9!enclosure=.1dda7d4a If those links don't work, they're accessible from the top of the Consimworld topic at http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?50@23.Wm1XaglIxNt.179@.ee6d6c9
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Dec 12, 2014 04:57
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TheCosmicMuffet posted:I having trouble finding this. Could you please point me to the post? http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3587872&userid=142813
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Dec 12, 2014 06:44
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StashAugustine posted:http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3587872&userid=142813 Unfortunately, the archives seem to have lost a lot of the later turns, so you can't really see how it ends. Directorio won, if I remember correctly.
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Dec 12, 2014 07:33
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Don't know how I only found out about this yesterday. Great War Commander. I hope it's good.
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Dec 12, 2014 07:54
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Wow, I was really intimidated to get into TK, but the rules are written so well. I have a soft spot in my heart for wargames rules that lay out "okay read this, then this, then here's an intro scenario to get you going" (e.g. most GMT games). In the book it mentions "2 maps" - is the physical Europe map divided into two parts, or is it referring to TK/DS's maps?
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Dec 12, 2014 14:41
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About to do a solo intro run through Labyrinth. I'm prepping to run through it with a friend of mine who've played Twilight Struggle, Combat Commander and a few other wargames together. Any recommendations on things I should be prepared for, as far as tough to learn/remember rules/concepts? Seems like there's a lot going on, especially on the US side.
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Dec 12, 2014 16:06
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I mentioned this in the deals thread, but Fire in the Lake is on sale at CSI now for 48.
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Dec 12, 2014 16:12
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The CL PBP was won by the Syndicate, actually. As for TK, I haven't played the IRL version in a while so I don't know what the 2 maps refers to. I know that USE has two maps and the scenarios are listed as '1 map' or '2 maps' scenarios, so it might be the same thing. As for Labyrinth, my recommendations would be not to play it, but that's neither here nor there. I do have one strategy tip for the islamists, though, always use your Ops to do loads of plots when you can. They are vastly better than any other option available.
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Dec 12, 2014 16:16
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COOL CORN posted:Wow, I was really intimidated to get into TK, but the rules are written so well. I have a soft spot in my heart for wargames rules that lay out "okay read this, then this, then here's an intro scenario to get you going" (e.g. most GMT games). Each of the Europe and Pacific maps is composed of two different sheets, and the hexes are labeled according to which one they're on (so there's a Europe e0001 and w0001 and a Pacific e0001 and w0001). The split between the sheets is around Berlin on the Europe map and I think around Truk on the Pacific map. If you're on VASSAL, the mapsheets are combined already, so you don't need to worry about that - I think the only thing it affects is the "One-map" scenarios (ie. just east front or just west front) and VASSAL is missing the aid card for those anyway.
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Dec 12, 2014 16:36
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blackmongoose posted:Each of the Europe and Pacific maps is composed of two different sheets, and the hexes are labeled according to which one they're on (so there's a Europe e0001 and w0001 and a Pacific e0001 and w0001). The split between the sheets is around Berlin on the Europe map and I think around Truk on the Pacific map. Thanks, that makes sense. Just ran through the Case White intro scenario, and this game is really a blast. It's only one turn, and really only one tiny battle, but with me having been playing ASLSK for the past few weeks, this is a really nice palate cleanser. Case White at the beginning...  ...and at the end.  Posen, Krakow, and Warsaw taken for the glorious Führer. My first play through ended in a failure, because I couldn't figure out what to do with Warsaw, but then re-read the EZOC rules and realized that I could move my one-step unit southwest from Koenigsburg to negate the Polish 0-1-2 EZOC, then move my two-step unit southwest and then southeast. Mission Accomplished. Krakow and Posen were very straightforward and basically just an exercise in carrying out the combat rules. Not sure anybody cares about an AAR for an intro scenario, but something about this game really strikes me  It's really what I've been looking for - the politics, the hugeness, the straightforward combat.Neat. edit-- quick question, during the Reserve Movement phase (5), I can re-move all my units right? Not just ones that didn't participate in combat? I might be mixing up my ASLSK rules in here some
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Dec 12, 2014 17:58
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COOL CORN posted:
Except for those in EZOCs (because units can never enter or leave an EZOC in Reserve Movement no matter what). Troops that participated in combat will usually be in an EZOC, but if you blew a giant hole in the enemy's lines, they'll be able to use it. Also good for moving HQs around after combat.
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Dec 12, 2014 18:32
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I'm glad that you enjoyed TK, it's a great game. Looking at your pictures, it looks like you missed one rule though. Defenders in a city can convert retreats into step losses, unless there's a Blitz marker in the same hex. For example, unless you had a Blitz marker in Warsaw, the defending unit would rather take one step loss and keep the city than retreat out of it.
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Dec 12, 2014 19:24
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Why are wargames so much into naming Poznan "Posen"? Kraków is Krakow, not Krakau, Warszawa is Warsaw, not Warschau. Is that name that much more popular in the English-speaking world?
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Dec 12, 2014 20:41
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Perhaps to make it recognizable as Festung Posen? In this theory, Warsaw doesn't count because the uprising kinda disrupted the Festungness.
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Dec 12, 2014 21:02
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Tevery Best posted:Why are wargames so much into naming Poznan "Posen"? Kraków is Krakow, not Krakau, Warszawa is Warsaw, not Warschau. Is that name that much more popular in the English-speaking world? The city is known as Posen in German. For a game like "Axis Empires", that would make sense I'm not sure if there's an official English translation. edit-- It makes as much sense as Gdańsk being translated as "Danzig"
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Dec 12, 2014 21:19
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COOL CORN posted:The city is known as Posen in German. For a game like "Axis Empires", that would make sense Then why does not the same apply to Warsaw and Krakow? Krakow was the capital of the GG, so why doesn't it get the same treatment? Why is Moscow not Moskau, and Prague not Prag?
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Dec 12, 2014 21:31
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COOL CORN posted:edit-- It makes as much sense as Gdańsk being translated as "Danzig" Danzig doesn't really count as a Polish city, at least not until the end of WWII.
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Dec 12, 2014 21:36
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Not a fully German one either, though.
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Dec 12, 2014 21:39
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Tekopo posted:The CL PBP was won by the Syndicate, actually. The Syndicate was led by me. They couldn't see my ploys through this devious poker face  Cuba Libre is a kickass game though. I can only hope people bite for a face-to-face play of it tomorrow.
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Dec 12, 2014 21:41
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Tevery Best posted:Then why does not the same apply to Warsaw and Krakow? Krakow was the capital of the GG, so why doesn't it get the same treatment? Why is Moscow not Moskau, and Prague not Prag? Presumably because Poznan and Gdansk were part of Germany pre WWI, so the German names might have been more widely used.
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Dec 13, 2014 09:42
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Morholt posted:Presumably because Poznan and Gdansk were part of Germany pre WWI, so the German names might have been more widely used. Krakow and Prague were part of Austria-Hungary, also a mostly German-speaking country as far as official matters were concerned. Like, I get Danzig and Breslau, there's an obvious reason for those. But Poznan is somehow fairly consistently singled out for a German name outside of Germany. And it gives me some bad vibes, since it would appear in-line with German negation of the Treaty of Versailles. Maybe because Greater Poland was directly annexed into the Reich? But in that case I really wouldn't use the German name outside of games which begin post-1939.
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Dec 13, 2014 11:44
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I had a dream last night that I was a NATO symbol, though I don't remember which. I think I was a ski infantry symbol. That's what I get for reading TK/DS rules for 8 hours then coming home and clipping all my A Victory Denied counters.
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Dec 13, 2014 15:49
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Made out like a bandit this year for Secret Santas, picked up 3 wargames. I've only played Warfighter so far. Warfighter Starmada: admiralty edition Conflict of Heroes - Awakening the Bear Pretty excited to play these.
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Dec 13, 2014 18:34
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SquadronROE posted:Made out like a bandit this year for Secret Santas, picked up 3 wargames. I've only played Warfighter so far. Awakening the Bear is really excellent.
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Dec 13, 2014 19:07
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Tevery Best posted:Krakow and Prague were part of Austria-Hungary, also a mostly German-speaking country as far as official matters were concerned. http://imgur.com/xwtZ7X9
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Dec 14, 2014 18:07
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So we got around to playing Fire in the Lake, and it's wonderful, really everything I could ask for. My brother was the US, I was the ARVN, Lichtenstein was NVA and Hipster Rooster was VC. It took us two hours to set up and explain the rules, but never mind that, it was a blast. It got a little weird, because the VC first built a huge stronghold in the jungle and I was a little nervous about Governing for Patronage too much lest I drop support to Neutral and let that thing creep into my cities, so I didn't build up Patronage much and mostly attempted to find a way to kill all those VC in that jungle without dying. I mostly slowly built up my score by expanding COIN control. The NVA hosed off to Cambodia and just built bases, they didn't have any troops until the second coup and were mostly pimping the trail and setting up nice comfy jungle bases. The US had 0 casualties during the first part of the game, and during that coup attempt they sent off everything they could back stateside, leaving them with a tiny skeleton crew manning the war. This gave them a huge lead in VPs, but they couldn't really win because of how hamstrung they were - there was always someone, somewhere looking out to keep them under the threshold when their troops were not around. Eventually, Rooster's huge fort was eliminated when he attacked two US Irregulars that strayed there - the Americans airlifted most of their troops and a whole bunch more of mine and cleansed that sick filth. Alas, I still couldn't do much, as the blues kept attacking my coastal cities with human waves and most of my actions were spent killing all those VC until I couldn't. We run out of time at the third coup, just as I stopped my brother from winning by another last ditch attempt. I was already looking to set up my Patronage shop, NVA was finally moving across the border (although its first attempt at doing so ended up diced by Operation Attenborough), and the VC squatted in a bunch of cities without a clear plan on what they want to do next, they just kept killing my guys. Great game, no doubt. EDIT: but at the end of the game, I was still in Saigon, and not only in Saigon. Tevery Best fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Dec 14, 2014 |
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Dec 14, 2014 23:18
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Keywords with VC is spreading and doing terror. Getting into cities is hard so usually you want to get in just before the coup (and this is one of the reasons why the monsoon rules are what they are). As the VC I usually fight a lot for the Mekong Delta regions because they have a lot of population and it's more difficult for the US/ARVN to get presence there. Ambushing from the LoC is usually what you want to do as well, because it is so powerful. In the last game I had the US had heavy presence and, like you, didn't get any casualties in the first two coups. This all changed when they got Easter-Offensived and they lost a whole lot of troops immediately. You certainly don't want to have US troops facing the NVA but you do want a presence, because if you keep it too low, as your US player found out, it's too easy for everyone on the board to make them lose support: you basically have to hope the ARVN doesn't get too greedy. The NVA is difficult but fun to play, I find, but your early turns will be spent setting up your base of operations in Cambodia/Laos. I think it's pretty important to take away VC bases as well, though, since it helps you get troops in unexpected places.
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Dec 14, 2014 23:37
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AFAIK the rush to the cities was vietcong's plan to draw you guys away from the south so that I may stop loving around and actually go conquer some poo poo. It's not the greatest of plans, admittedly. Myself, I mostly hosed around and achieved nothing, mainly due to severely underestimating the limited ops to full ops ratio and squandering these on stupid poo poo. Probably also overcommited on the Laos/Cambodia build-up, as I guess it's best to have some available bases at hand to be able to steal Vietcong's poo poo. Fun game, though. After thinking on it and reading some detail up afterwards, the only part I'm not really convinced about is the Pivotal Events.
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Dec 15, 2014 10:45
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I think Pivotal events are a great addition, actually. They allow you far more control of the deck than was previously allowed. They are also pretty important for certain factions (especially the NVA) and also allow for the Vietnamization effect without having it come up randomly on the deck (or being tied to a specific coup that has to be seeded in a specific place). Also, the trumping mechanism is well thought out. The more powerful cards (Linebacker II and Easter Offensives) can be trumped by the weaker cards (Vietnamization and Tet Offensive). Tet Offensive especially is ridiculous in how much setting up you have to do in order to stop it from being a 'have all your units be activated for little gain' card, which sort of ties in on the actual effect of the Tet Offensive IRL. I like the mechanism a lot, actually.
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Dec 15, 2014 10:58
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This is admittedly from half a learning game, so it's very much just gut feelings. I guess I stared at Linebacker II too much, and its -15 NVA resources effect in particular. It struck me not as a "nuke the commies, reset the board" type of card, but rather a "hope you had fun, now sit down and wait until the next coup to be able to do anything at all" kind of thing. So I assumed the point is in diligently monitoring the conditions and suppressing the US player so that it's meant to present a constant threat, rather than be actually played and I'm kinda soured on the 'card in being' thing since my temporary burnout from Netrunner. Also, are the trumps all that hot? Since you can't really plan for a monsoon, delaying a killer opponent card one turn is kind of handy, but doesn't seem really worth burning the card unless you have just happened to be nicely set up for your own pivotal the entire time.
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Dec 15, 2014 11:26
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Lichtenstein posted:This is admittedly from half a learning game, so it's very much just gut feelings. I guess I stared at Linebacker II too much, and its -15 NVA resources effect in particular. It struck me not as a "nuke the commies, reset the board" type of card, but rather a "hope you had fun, now sit down and wait until the next coup to be able to do anything at all" kind of thing. So I assumed the point is in diligently monitoring the conditions and suppressing the US player so that it's meant to present a constant threat, rather than be actually played and I'm kinda soured on the 'card in being' thing since my temporary burnout from Netrunner. The thing about a trump is that you generally put the trumped player in a situation where they need to respond to the situation that was just created rather than dropping Linebacker 2, lest they risk allowing the situation to get into a coup round without being able to respond immediately. Also Vietnamization is really important to the RVN's game because getting all the cubes is necessary to maintain control without the US help, and when the US does well they will just put all their cubes in one or two spaces to strategically deny patronage.
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Dec 15, 2014 11:30
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The NVA does need to build up resource reserves I feel: if Linebacker II is available, they need to have enough reserves to make it past. The thing about Linebacker II also is that, as Panzeh mentioned, it is a specifically anti-NVA card when the direct enemy of the US is the VC and it does nothing to stop VC expansion. Also, it really depends on when you play it: if you play it too early, there isn't enough VC/NVA friction to stop the VC just helping the NVA in terms of resources, so the effect that it has is lower. If you leave it too late, the NVA might be swarming the board already.
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Dec 15, 2014 11:46
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