I just recently received this game and am playing my first attempt solo. After I watch your next video, I'll be starting your video series all over again. This game is a lot of fun. I see why it's been so hard to acquire over the years.

Finally someone is doing theese types of videos

Another good video!

Imagine if what an uproar it would cause if America's generals said their boys were meat shields for the French and Italians. Sometimes, a game being unrealistic can be fun like that. Great video as always. By the way how did you get those IPC "tokens"? Do you actually use IPC "tokens" or cash when playing physically?

@thegoodcaptain1217

Жыл бұрын

This is not well known (and I cannot understand why) but our French and British allies wanted US troops to be used in exactly this fashion - to fill out losses in their own units. This is not an exaggeration. The argument was for which side they should fill in for, the French or the British. The logic was that these countries had fought the war for years and would be able to help the American soldiers adjust to combat conditions. It was only General Pershing's even headedness and political acumen that kept Americans in American units. Arguably, American inexperience and boldness helped break the stalemate (e.g. The Lost Battalion, the Marines being labeled "Devil Dogs" by the Germans, etc.) and end the war (as well as numbers of course).

@AChannelThatDoesNothing

Жыл бұрын

@@thegoodcaptain1217 I'm not surprised by what the Brits and French wanted. The difference here, of course, is that as the American general you're actively endorsing using them as meat shields. I agree with you that the Americans were crucial to ending the war, or at least, ending it much sooner.

@dauntless0711

6 ай бұрын

9:30 Spain- “Oh no, not again!”

@AChannelThatDoesNothing

6 ай бұрын

@@dauntless0711 I'm afraid so. First Phillipines, now war comes to Madrid.

Hey I know this comment is late but, I was under the impression that once you moved ships into a sea zone containing enemy surface warships you had to stop and fight? Is this not true in 1914? You can just stop in the Seazone and sit there?

@thegoodcaptain1217

Күн бұрын

Page 20, first sentence: "When you have warships (not transports) in a sea zone containing enemy ships, you can elect to attack them or not attack them." So yes, you can just stop in the sea zone and sit there. It's not your fault this rule was not extrapolated by example. There are many players who do not / did not know this was possible. This rule has very critical implications on the game when players know it exists and know how to use it. And don't worry about any comment being "late" - I'm always here, I'm always playing. Ask away...

Do ships have to roll for mine hits even when moving through friendly mined zones?

@thegoodcaptain1217

Жыл бұрын

No

Not convinced that this is the optimal play for the US but it's true I don't have as many games under my belt vs humans as TGC. Let's say you get the worst-case scenario under this plan and it's 2 turns to kill Spain. So now turn 5 Spain dies, turn 6 move to Marseille, turn 7 move to Burgundy or Piedmont (unless things are totally in the toilet for the Entente at this point, these lands are still friendly), and now turn 8 you finally have odds to be in someplace useful. Compare this with leaving Spain alone and dropping 6 units off anyplace in Italy bar Venice, Albania (or Greece if blocked), or Egypt on turn 5. Any of these places are more likely to cause an immediate threat to the CPs than the slow walk from Iberia. If you want to have the Spanish adventure you still can, giving you a turn 6 drop instead of turn 5, leaving you still 2 turns ahead of the walk. The big question mark will be the possible SZ 17 build-up by the CPs that the Entente will have had 4 or 5 turns to deal with by this point. Given the planning for only shipping 6 units a turn at the start the US only needs to buy 4 land units on US4 leaving an easy opening to buy a Cruiser or even Battleship without disrupting the flow which presumably should be enough to finish off the SZ17 fleet unless the Entente has been getting terrible dice at sea the entire game. Of course, if things really are that bad, the walk is still an option!

@thegoodcaptain1217

5 ай бұрын

I can see you put a lot of thought into this comment. I will add two considerations. 1) If the CP navy is alive and occupying any crucial SZ in force after turn three (especially SZ 17), I submit the Entente player has misplayed his naval assets and is likely inexperienced. It is incredibly difficult to lose control of the waterways in this game as the Entente even without building a single additional warship. I feel very strongly the USA especially should never have to build warships. 2) At the tail end of this series, I advocate for making unaligned neutrals uninvadable and out of play (with the exception of Persia). So I have quite a bit of experience in moving troops without taking Spain - in this case, it doesn't sound too far off from what you describe. Otherwise, the reason to take Spain is because the game is so imbalanced out of box that the USA is frankly unnecessary until turns 7 or 8 anyway. Taking Spain adds 4 IPC and makes a clean, even shuck with the now 24 IPC they will have and contributes to burying the CP economically. But again, an Entente player could play in all kinds of inefficient ways and still crush the CP.

@christophertheriault3308

5 ай бұрын

@@thegoodcaptain1217 Something else to add is that by turn 8 the CPs are hopefully done with Russia and moving the majority of their troops to the Western Front. So if USA Infantry is also just piling up on the Western Front, this doesn't really disrupt the CPs from doing something they wanted to do anyway. In general when choosing between two strategies it's better to pick the one that will take the initiative away from your opponent and force them to react to your moves, but that doesn't mean the unchosen path also wouldn't have worked. If France is on the ropes you could of course even save 3x Transports by walking up to Canada and then doing a 2-part shuck going Canada-Ireland-Picardy/Belgium that kicks in 1 turn later on turn 6. I'm curious if you've found it necessary in any of your games to have the USA player help out that far north. Come to think of it I suspect the USA player is the only reason that Larry Harris made Fighters loadable by Transports in this game as otherwise their Fighters would not be able to exit North America.

@thegoodcaptain1217

5 ай бұрын

@@christophertheriault3308 The USA troops on the Western Front stop the CP from expanding in that direction and keep the larger French/Italian armies healthy by absorbing hits. Full stop. The Entente don't need to win over there, they just need to hold. Multinational forces are good at defense and not good at offense since they must attack piecemeal. I feel like you're flirting with the idea that the USA should be attacking and I strongly advise against this given the sizes of the armies in the mid/late game in this area of the board. Hold in the west and push in from the east with the British until the imbalanced economy slides all the way in favor of the Entente. Anything else is giving the CP a chance to win and just not necessary in my experience. Though I certainly have found reason to send USA troops up from Spain and into France, I've never felt any sense of urgency or desperation playing as the Entente with the out-of-box setup in general. The USA strategy is centered on maximizing IPC and brute efficiency. Timely-ness or offensive-mindedness is handing a chance (albeit a small one) to the CP.

@christophertheriault3308

5 ай бұрын

@@thegoodcaptain1217 "Full stop"? Sounds like Don Rae talking... (j/k please take that lightheartedly) No arguments here that "slow and steady" doesn't win the race but you would be correct in claiming it doesn't always fit my particular playstyle. I tend to prefer strategies that don't allow my opponent to just quietly build up their stacks as this makes the end game boring for me and opens up way more variations in the dice outcomes when you finally fight. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that once in a while moving too fast can backfire though... I'm not in the Platinum tier of players for the Steam version of A & A Online. Let's say on turn 5 the Entente are 15 IPC ahead in territory value. This means if I make a move that gives me a net loss in value compared to the CPs of 15 IPC (so, I lose 8 Infantry in a battle and the CPs lose 3) then overall I've still broke even and anything less than that my position has still improved even if the move that round was a tactical disaster. Similar calculations get done in the WWII games when deciding to do strategic bombing. Imagine also that somebody is following the advice from your AH video and has a stack in Trieste facing off against an Italian stack in Venice. If an American force appears in Albania, you could move the stack in from Trieste to crush it in one round knowing that it will still be dead-zoned with your stack plus the new buy in Vienna. However, Tyrolia would probably then have no coverage if the German stack is in Ruhr (and keep in mind I'm likely talking turn 5 here) so the Italians would probably advance there for a turn. To block this move you would then have to split the stack in Trieste and now you have to make choices as to how much you want to risk leaving the area contested, and the more risk you take on the lower the net loss for me in IPC value is likely to be. Either way my goal will have been met, there will be fewer units sitting across from the Italians in Trieste and the Italians didn't need to do anything. Putting out fires in this game is a lot harder than the WWII versions since your Fighters can't strike out and go back to what they were doing in the same turn (and their weak direct attack is no help either). The USA player is probably the only one in this game with the ability to start these fires since the other players will be far too committed to holding or pushing their own fronts. I appreciate your willingness to engage on these topics, I think the WWI game is getting far too little love from the community.

@thegoodcaptain1217

5 ай бұрын

@@christophertheriault3308 “full stop” was to reinforce the clarity on the strategy I’m advocating, not to insist that its the be all-end all best only strategy. And no offense taken (and also sorry it came off that way). Text is a difficult form of communication at this level of detail. As for the rest of what you say, I think you could do all of that and win just fine given how imbalanced the game is. If you want to use a “brick” to kill the CP, who am I to argue that you should use a “baseball bat” instead? The end result will be the same. Btw, if you ever want to fire up a friendly game, just let me know.

Are you gonna talk about the "Italy Balance" rule in next vid?

@thegoodcaptain1217

Жыл бұрын

Which one specifically?

@kasperk.651

Жыл бұрын

Not sure, I saw you're playing a game with Ragnell that mentions "Italy Balance" in the title.

@thegoodcaptain1217

Жыл бұрын

@@kasperk.651 oh ya, I’ll be sure to mention that configuration.

@TheGlobalWarVeteran

Жыл бұрын

I’ve played this game many times and never played with the “Italy balance”

@thegoodcaptain1217

Жыл бұрын

@@TheGlobalWarVeteran just something Theo and I came up with. Taking six infantries off the Italians pre-game to try to even things up.

Wheres the best place to find and play with others?

@thegoodcaptain1217

11 ай бұрын

www.axisandallies.org/forums/category/27/find-online-players

@thegoodcaptain1217

11 ай бұрын

the link I posted to axis and allies.org is a good place to start to locate online players using the free to play TripleA game platform. You can login to the lobby of TripleA itself and ask to play a game. Finally, the Axis and Allies facebook page almost always nets an opponent. Let me know if you have any trouble - I'll play you if you can't find anyone.

@anakinskywalker5658

11 ай бұрын

@@thegoodcaptain1217 thank you so much. I've played a couple games solo, and played one a night or two ago, using the strategies you've discussed on this series. The Triple Alliance is definitely at a disadvantage. I think I will try your Italy balance rule, and see if that helps.

@thegoodcaptain1217

11 ай бұрын

@@anakinskywalker5658 a video will drop in one or two days detailing a few other ‘not too invasive’ adjustments that I recommend to help with balance while still preserving the original flavor of the game.

@anakinskywalker5658

11 ай бұрын

@@thegoodcaptain1217 I greatly look forward to seeing your thoughts and ideas. What a wonderful game these axis and allies games are, but yet so little content on them. Let alone content with the effort you put into your presentations.

Why don't you unload the Italian infantry from the French transport immediately like with the units that loaded onto the Italian transport?

@thegoodcaptain1217

Жыл бұрын

Use of an allied transport in the way you describe is not possible in any version of axis and Allies that I know of.

@Sooper-Pumpkin

Жыл бұрын

@@thegoodcaptain1217 I just assumed that since you could load onto an allied transport that you could immediately offload just like your own transports

@thegoodcaptain1217

Жыл бұрын

@@Sooper-Pumpkin I wanted to make triple sure and so here is the rule citation specifically for 1914 from the very top of page 17 in the original rulebook, "Units belonging to friendly powers must load on their owner’s turn, be carried on your turn, and offload on a later turn of their owner. This is true even if the transport remains in the same sea zone."