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Tekopo posted:We played our first session of Vassal Unconditional Surrender. So far, Poland got invaded in a turn, then Germany attacked Hungary, got Yugoslavia on its side, while Italy joined the Allies and Turkey the axis (WWI redux, pretty much). Germany has just invaded France (the invasions of Norway/Denmark didn't happen) and fighting is happening in the Alps, within norther France (where the germans are in the gates of Paris) and within Syria as the combined French and UK colonial troops fight the Turks. I was really impressed by how the game actually let me do the sickle cut despite the low hex count in northern France.
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Jul 20, 2014 03:23
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 Progress!
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Jul 26, 2014 16:52
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Oldstench posted:I'd really like to use the COIN system to do a space themed sci-fi game using a theme I've been tinkering with for a couple of years, but I don't know how game system IPs work. Mechanics aren't copyrighted, so go ahead.
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Jul 28, 2014 20:38
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Tekopo posted:The scale works for its intended purpose and the half-sticky EZOCs work well. For me, what work REALLY well and even better than TK is the use of the panzers: you seem to be able to replicate maneuvers much better than the two impulse system of TK. The turns do take long because you have to activate each unit separately rather than the standard move/combat of most other games. I have to say that I somewhat like the economic system/diplomacy of TK better though. Overall I'm really unsure of which one I like more: I feel USE is easier to play and less fiddly but at the same time it doesn't feel as wild and full of possibilities like TK. I'd love to see a mix of TK's card system and USE's basic mechanics. That would be my favorite, really.
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Aug 3, 2014 15:19
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Tekopo posted:Oh hey, Fire in the Lake Vassal. Sign up here. Get me in on a long scenario.
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Aug 8, 2014 01:10
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Tekopo posted:I'm free today for a medium game? Can't do it tonight, unfortunately.
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Aug 8, 2014 21:02
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I have The Barbarossa Campaign, and it's a really impressive attempt at a solo wargame because it feels a lot more freeform than other solo games. Unfortunately, basically there's no way to win the game after the Russians get their steamroller on, you're basically just there for the ride at that point. Basically, while in the early game the Soviets do normal attacks everywhere they can, later on they can literally just grab hexes where they like once the initiative goes their way, and the problem is, VP scoring is based off of the initiative, so there's no way to score VPs when it turns away from you. VPG has some really clever games in there, beyond their fairly derivative States of Siege series. For example, Bulge 20 is a neat little game based on bluffing and secrecy with the idea that instead of hamstringing the Allied units in place, it uses uncertainty to prevent quick reactions to the German attack. The Allies don't have enough troops on the board at the start to stop an all-out race to the Meuse, but the Germans don't necessarily have to be doing the all-out gambit. If the Allied player calls in all his reserves and the Germans choose a limited offensive, the Allies lose a lot of VPs, so as the Germans you can do a lot of bluffing to try to draw Patton away from his operations in the Saar against a spoiling attack on Luxembourg. Panzeh fucked around with this message at 11:26 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 11:18
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Tekopo posted:FARC are a difficult beast because most people play them so passively. To win as the FARC, you need to understand the importance of LoCs. Last game I played with goon Panzeh, he did the LoC bait and switch: send a load of guerrillas to LoC, draw the police/troops out, then swarm cities. Controlling cities is awesome for FARC because it auto-sabotages all the attached LoCs. Most FARC players I see just passively attack provinces, don't push the LoCs enough and attempt to do straight up fights: you aren't a straight up fighter: get in, do some terrorizing. That's your aim. Also people focus way too much on the AUC as FARC. A strong AUC is very beneficial to FARC as it means the government can't go after your bases, and when it comes time for you to win you can always build more bases than AUC can. Now you need to avoid letting AUC guerrillas hang out unrevealed in your territory, but there's absolutely no reason to go on the offensive against them as FARC. Focus on the task at hand. Also Andean Abyss has a nasty thing where the last guy to make a move before the prop phase has a trmendous advantage. Also, in Fire in the Lake, US and RVN are way more cooperative than Government and Coalition(in ADP). Their tactical concerns alone require them to at least make an attempt to work toward the other's goals. For example, the US needs the use of RVN cubes to gain COIN control to let them do their pacification operations. Panzeh fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Aug 27, 2014 |
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Aug 27, 2014 21:25
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KomradeX posted:Well it's not the US wasn't Air Strike happy during the war, he was just being historically accurate. Well, the thing about ARVN is that in my play with them, they kinda want to just use police to be the ones guarding cities, so it's trivial to get a US cube in there to pacify it yourself. I kinda don't like how Air Strikes are that effective in cities, because it's fairly easy to pacify cities since ARVN needs to keep their troops free to work in the countryside(ARVN troops are far more mobile than police).
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Aug 29, 2014 12:05
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World At War: Eisenbach Gap(and the series) are probably some of the more straightforward cold war gone hot games.
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Aug 29, 2014 15:12
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You might try this. http://boardgamegeek.com/image/1132488/corps-command-dawns-early-light Similar to Eisenbach gap but at a higher level so no LOS calculations, I think.
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Aug 29, 2014 19:00
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Tekopo posted:I haven't included my one yet, so I will make mine one that I have played recently: Andean Abyss (still a COIN, so I'm cheating in a way). AA also has the problems of not having strong enough events, aside from some capabilities. While an op+special activity is usually better than an event in all the games, it's a lot worse in AA where many events are just a little aid added or whatever.
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Sep 8, 2014 14:43
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Tekopo posted:We might only have 3 for FitL tomorrow, what do people recommend? One person taking NVA/VC vs ARVN vs US or one person taking US/ARVN vs NVA vs VC? Or maybe just have it NPC? Anyone tried any of these options? I recommend NVA/VC as the one player.
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Sep 15, 2014 14:31
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Tekopo posted:What about having ARVN/US win together (ie team play), with one player taking NVA/VC? Since it's gonna be newbies I don't want to feel like the COIN side is disadvantaged because they aren't working together. The team play victory conditions require both to win(on the COIN side). I think the game will get kinda ridiculous if one winning means they both win because the US can easily cause an ARVN victory if they really want to. The reason I say NVA/VC should be a player is because VC is by far the easiest country to play.
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Sep 16, 2014 14:15
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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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 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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Tekopo and I learned all about a very specific rule that was causing us to believe Empire of the Sun was broken.
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Sep 29, 2014 13:55
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We didn't realize that ALL allied reinforcements were delayed as long as the War in Europe level is at 0 or lower. Thusly, there are no Allied reinforcements on turn 2, preventing me from putting the British Fleet in Singapore.
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Sep 29, 2014 14:57
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 So it's 1943 and now Tek and I are playing a (mostly) legit game. Kido Butai is a bit beat up but still there. There's a huge battlegroup in the south, too, but I think i'm in an excellent position anyway. I do need to deal with the threat of Kido Butai, but I have Progress of the War easily with the Marshalls. I had a terrible turn for air losses, though, and I won't be able to completely replace them, and I have not done enough damage to the pre-war air units to justify it. I had a turn 3 where I had an enormous amount of offensive potential with surprise operations, and Tekopo just happened to have response cards for ALL of them. I had a good surprise attack on Kido Butai with all my american CVs and battleships? Nope. Instead i'm extremely fortunate to walk out with all my ships damaged. I make a nearly unopposed landing in the DEI to stave off a Dutch Surrender? Nope, Tek has a reaction card. I lose the whole British fleet(though i did knock out an IJN pre-war plane with a crit, still not the best trade for them). I think I need to lean more on lower-risk air raids as the Allies, rather than comitting fleets when those response cards are just hanging around.
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Oct 5, 2014 01:37
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Tekopo posted:I'm really liking this game: I don't think I am playing optimally (although, to be fair, we did a mistake in Burma that pretty much shut out the CBI theater for me), but I think I'm doing alright. I actually was annoyed last turn because I didn't get some 1 OP cards that would have allowed me to destroy some enemy air units singularly without drawing a reaction from the US carrier fleet: it isn't often that I'm wishing for a 1 OPs card in a CDG, but this game makes use of them in a really smart way. One of the things I really like is that how despite the fact that my fleet is completely inferior to the IJN, i can still slowly push them off of bases with easy landings and planes(He can't allow me to sac disposable land-based air against his irreplacable aircraft carriers and battleships). This game is all about getting your planes in the right place. Planes are the things that truly control territory, not troops. Until I get the large number of carriers as reinforcements(and he's dug me into a WiE hole that's going to give significant delays), I will have to try to work around the Kido Butai. Japan does not have enough units to cover literally every airfield in which I could stick planes on and cut off neighboring islands, but the presence of their air zone of influence on an empty island allows them to respond to movements there. When Kwajalein loses its air force, it becomes insanely vulnerable because the US can land troops on a neighboring island, station an aircraft there and cut it off from supply, causing step losses on all air and land units there. The threat of response is really important to defense in this game. A lone land unit is extremely vulnerable, particularly in a position where it can be cut off from supply. The CBI theater is going to be quiet. I don't think Tek is going to win, but seeing how the Pacific plays out is going to be a lot of fun. Panzeh fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Oct 5, 2014 |
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Oct 5, 2014 02:19
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I got massively frustrated in a game of Empire of the Sun because I had a carrier battle in 1943 where I lost 5 US carriers. Then I ended up landing troops in Tokyo in early 1944. The US is a beast. I really need to not get mad at die rolls in that game. One thing I need to get a handle on is just how many Japanese reaction cards are in their deck and also to understand a way to try to goad the Japanese into using their offensive to hit my carriers instead of always coming in after them and getting everything else piled in there with reactions. Panzeh fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Oct 6, 2014 |
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Oct 6, 2014 21:05
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Tekopo posted:I think there's a point in the game where neither sides can really afford to commit to a serious battle and then in 1944 the US gets a huge number of carriers and just stop caring about losses. I made some huge mistakes (and we got some rules wrong), but I really enjoyed the game and really want to give it another go. Yeah, the 1944 change is pretty abrupt, and I think as the Japanese you really need to make some kind of move before then. Even with an intact KB, it can only be one place at a time while the US can easily run two fleets so there's always progress to be made. While you could put the KB in Davao to cover everything, you just give up the whole central pacific and leave Japan open that way. I think the KB is actually safest in Japan, hidden under elite planes. As the US, I think it's generally better to attack something else and make the KB be the ones to react than attack the KB directly and let all of it attack along with some add-on planes/ships. One of the interesting things about Empire of the Sun is that in the late game, you don't see the big mega carrier blob that you see in other pacific games or War in the Pacific because your activations are limited anyway. This encourages you to use multiple carrier fleets.
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Oct 6, 2014 21:24
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Tekopo posted:Spread out, cause terror, jump to LoCs to ambush, tax LoCs if you can. Also, being in an area where you don't have active opposition (neutral or passive opposition is good) means that the US will likely not airstrike you, and you can make him lose turns if he attempts to sweep. Also the American deploying all of his troops to Vietnam is basically tanking himself to make RVN win, because those cubes still contribute to COIN control.
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Oct 7, 2014 21:54
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Morholt posted:We talked a bit about it earlier in the thread. The one main problem with Barbarossa campaign is the fact that the momentum track is what causes VPs to increase, so if you haven't won by the time the tide turns, you'll never win.
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Oct 15, 2014 15:30
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Spoonsy posted:Not sure this is the right thread, but figure it can't hurt to post here anyway: It's not particularly difficult to make a vassal module where you're just dragging things around on a map. You just need to have the images ready and you can make all the pieces and a map. The more you want Vassal to take care of(snapping to points on a map, card deck management, automation), the tougher it is.
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Oct 21, 2014 15:31
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Spoonsy posted:It'd definitely be more of the deck management stuff that I'm afraid of. Some of the YouTube tutorials I've seen deal with the images, but I'm looking more towards building out something where there are prereqs upon prereqs for certain things, which are themselves time dependent. I have no idea if Vassal can even do that to be honest, but I figured I'd start here given my traditional A&A familiarity. That sounds like a bit too much automation for Vassal, unfortunately. Decks aren't too bad, neither is shuffling, it's when you get complicated deck setups like the COIN games where it gets to be a problem. If you want something to handle prerequisites for things, though, VASSAL really isn't going to be of much help.
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Oct 21, 2014 18:52
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Yas posted:Speaking of this... Empire of the Sun looks incredible but my only experience with wargames is Fading Glory and Twilight Struggle. I've looked over the rule book and it seems manageable, so my question I guess is it worth taking the time to learn? My opponent would have the same level of experience as me. The tricky thing is learning everything about the operations. If you got in touch with Tekopo or myself we could teach you the game. It has a lot of moving parts, a lot of things to understand, but it's learn-able.
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Oct 31, 2014 03:16
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Tekopo posted:I don't really have any other recommendations to be honest, but of the stuff I tried Dai Senso is not so good (it doesn't work from the support perspective) and World in Flames is just awful. I would like to try Supreme Commander though. Yeah, actually knowing Empire of the Sun makes me not really want to play Dai Senso because it's nowhere near as good but it's also not much shorter. The ability to play TK and Dai Senso together is tempting, but the two boards don't interact much(so as not to disrupt the game balance). Also the complexity in OCS is that supply is literally a unit on the map that has movement rules that aren't exactly like other units. It's why OCS doesn't have so many play aids and charts, but believe me, it still has them. Panzeh fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Nov 7, 2014 |
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Nov 7, 2014 14:05
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COOL CORN posted:Here's a question for you guys. I've been looking at a ton of different games and testing on VASSAL, reading rules, etc. But, I know myself, and I know that I would buy up a whole bunch and play a little bit of each one instead of just really getting into and learning one. Empire of the Sun is not a bad choice, though it's a lot easier to learn with someone teaching you.
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Nov 13, 2014 02:16
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COOL CORN posted:Just played a couple turns of A Victory Denied since I had a few hours to myself, and was really pleased with how elegant the command system is. Chain-activating units via the chit-pulling mechanic really works well and adds an element of chaos to the game that makes it feel more... war-like? I guess? I'd love to give it a go sometime. Tekopo posted:You mean the GO-system of having breathing holes or otherwise you lose influence? I can't really think of it from a historical standpoint on why it would be the case, to be honest. I think the point of that mechanic is to give the American armies something to do other than avoid battle.
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Dec 2, 2014 12:52
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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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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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I could be tempted by TK, though I prefer live I might be able to swing PBEM.
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Dec 18, 2014 19:41
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Tekopo posted:I don't mind, but currently I am more well-versed in USE and would need to re-read the TK rules. I think I'd rather play TK for the crazy and USE because I know the system better. Would you like to journey through the tables? The solution is obviously to play Empires in Arms.
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Dec 18, 2014 21:25
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I've gotten a bit of a Napoleonic kick and i'm thinking about trying to learn The Napoleonic Wars.
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Dec 23, 2014 00:22
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COOL CORN posted:Is there a big difference between Totaler Krieg (1999) and Axis Empires: Totaler Krieg (2011)? I can't tell if they are totally different games or not. Axis Empires is something of a sequel and is somewhat different in a lot of ways. It's a significant revision.
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Dec 23, 2014 04:52
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Tekopo posted:One of them isn't published by GMT and also has a lot more counters. Also three card decks.
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Dec 23, 2014 11:27
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Tevery Best posted:Have you tried Fire in the Sky!? I've seen it, but it's a lot goofier in how the mechanisms work than EotS. The War in the Pacific is just really really hard to make a good game of, and the CDG aspect is part of what makes EotS managable.
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Dec 29, 2014 23:41
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WiF is a bloated mess with a zillion expansions. Its main claim to fame is being better than A3R(it's A World at War now). Modern offerings provide better gameplay.
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Jan 2, 2015 16:09
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Lord Frisk posted:I'm with you. I've half checked out of future COIN games until they do Ireland. The next few are just not for me I guess. If I want an American Rev game or a Gallic war game, I won't have a lack of options. I don't see the appeal of Ireland.
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Jan 11, 2015 21:04
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