Comments on: Strategy Vectors – Spreading the Disease!

By: Smite

Smite — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 13:11:45 +0000

Ah yes, Axis and Allies, a real gateway drug for gaming. My friend Dave and I played it to death for several years, from late high school to early university. We thought we knew that game inside and out. One year we entered a tournament at a local con (SimCon or Rudicon… Rochester) – and we promtply got wiped out by a couple of 13-year-olds. Shows what we knew! We still actually believed that the Axis could occasionally win a straight up fight, without bids or handicaps. Whereas everyone else gauged an Axis “success” in terms of how long Germany could hold out before falling. Those were, um, the days…

The following year we slaughtered pretty much anyone who dared to enter our D&D tournament at UBCon, just to make a point. Yes. A point. We were especially hard on any 13-year-olds who crossed our paths. We’re bitter old men now.

By: Simon J

Simon J — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 11:55:23 +0000

Regarding Alhambra, it is true that you shouldn’t need to use the reserve board very often, but it is sometimes a useful manouver, rather than an act of desparation. It’s not unusual for several games to pass without anybody using the reserve board, so if you wanted to teach the game to newbies it’s not unreasonable to skip it.

Buying tiles for exact money is important, but so is not wasting resources purchasing tiles that don’t provide a good return in VP. Also, sometimes not paying exact doesn’t matter as much becuase the available money cards are poor (like say 3/3/3/3), so you aren’t losing as much.

By: Hunter Rose

Hunter Rose — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 19:12:23 +0000

Sometimes game groups are *very* insular.

I remember, back in high school, a friend of mine picked up Axis and Allies. It was frighteningly complex (at the time, LOL) and took some time for one of us gain the experience to crunch the numbers and realise that, yes, Germany has a reasonable chance of knocking Britian out of the game on the first turn if you throw everything at them. Can you imagine how that effected gameplay fr teh next few weeks? ;)

I think for people who game and use the internet to keep up on their hoppies are more likely to introduce these new vectors than visitors or new recruits. No matter your game, there’s usually someon, somewhere online, ready to talk about it.