The Boardgame - is it any good ?

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DBeves -> The Boardgame - is it any good ? (10/25/2013 7:37:39 PM)
So I will likely buy this - but have never played the boardgame. Is it any good ? - I understand most think it is - but what makes it good - what abstractions are there ? How is the strat bombing campaign modelled, how is the war in the atlantic modelled ? Anyone with insights to the game ? Given there is going to be no way to see the manuals or the game before purchase - I am wondering what makes the boardgame so good I would buy this ? I have always wanted a definitive WWII game so will buy just for that if the board game does what people say it does ...

warspite1 -> RE: The Boardgame - is it any good ? (10/25/2013 7:52:01 PM)
See the "Don't buy this game if" thread for a partial answer to that question. You can choose to build the units to undertake a u-boat war or a strategic bombing campaign but just don't expect these to be 100% accurate - in terms of what you can build or what the effects will be.

bo -> RE: The Boardgame - is it any good ? (10/25/2013 7:56:22 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DBeves So I will likely buy this - but have never played the boardgame. Is it any good ? - I understand most think it is - but what makes it good - what abstractions are there ? How is the strat bombing campaign modelled, how is the war in the atlantic modelled ? Anyone with insights to the game ? Given there is going to be no way to see the manuals or the game before purchase - I am wondering what makes the boardgame so good I would buy this ? I have always wanted a definitive WWII game so will buy just for that if the board game does what people say it does ... Hi DBeves I never saw the board game but I am a beta tester for MWIF and the rules are pretty much the same, But this game is the most comprehensive computer war game I have ever seen and I have seen plenty. There is a section about "dont buy this game if", read it. If you want a game where you have to think almost every move out carefully then you will love this game, have you read the AAR's on the game they are pretty thorough and they are right on. Bo

Klydon -> RE: The Boardgame - is it any good ? (10/25/2013 8:29:25 PM)
Without knowing more about the OP as far as their history/experience is with grand strategic scale games for WW2 (or any time period for that matter), but out of all the grand strategic board games I have played for WW2, World in Flames is by far the best. Pick a category and the game does well with it be it from a production standpoint, air, sea or ground combat.

Centuur -> RE: The Boardgame - is it any good ? (10/25/2013 8:33:21 PM)
In most board games, the playing system is you go, I go, turn ends. This means that you know you only get to move your units once during the turn and that's it. WiF however, don't give the players this certainty. You, nor your opponent, knows in advance the number of impulses he gets for moving units during that turn. You don't know if the first turn of war against the USSR as Germany will give you a long turn or a short one. You can statistically guess... Turns end is caused by rolling a D10. The higher the impulse number, the higher the chance is that the turn may end. Also, bad weather means the impulse number progresses faster (from 1 to 4 to 7) as compared to good weather (when it goes 1,2,3,...). The weather itself is also an uncertainty which influences the effectivity of your war machine. If it storms, your planes are grounded and your fleet has it harder to find the enemy. If it rains, ground units move sluggish and supply is a lot harder to get for your units than if the weather is fine. All major things which influences game play, which you can predict a little bit (due to statistic you can put unto the tables), but don't know for sure. Summer turns give you generally better weather than winter ones... Also, every impulse a player has to decide if he wants to take a pass (do nothing and get a modifier to get the turn to end. Pray it does, because when you take it, you are quite desperate if you are on defense...), naval, air, land or combined impulse. This limits the player in what he can do during that impulse. A combined means that a player can only do a limited number of air, land and naval actions (moves, attacks, missions, etc.). If the weather in summer stays fine, this means that Germany can take for example five land impulses in summer and every land impulse move it's units, attack the enemy, etc. etc., unless his units are exhausted (disorganised) due to failed attacks or enemy actions against them. However, if the roll of 1 comes after the third Axis impulse the turn suddenly ends and time is progressing... Apart from this, there is the uncertainty of when the United States enters the war. Actions by the Axis or Alliesmay or may not upset US public opinion driving towards war. Actions take by the US to support the countries on the same side before the war, also might result in reaction to the US moving towards war. Only the US knows the exact possibility on declaring war on either Japan or Germany/Italy. The Axis and also other Allies are unaware of those. The US may or may not disclose this information. They only know that there are a number of chits in there, not the values of these. A devilish US mind can cause the Axis to declare war on the United States far before the US itself is allowed do the opposite, just to make sure they don't suffer the surprise of suddenly being in a war with the US which can than pound on the poor unsuspecting Japanese convoys and fleet out of Manila, sending them to the bottom of the China Sea and strangle the Japanese economically. Now, lets put a nice large fleet in Manila with a lot of subs. Are you going to DoW the United States when you see a whole load of chits sitting around which might mean they are ready for war or is it bluf and are those chits all lousy ones... And there is always the odd change that the US politicians refuse the US to go to war, even if it looks assured (bad die roll...). Better luck next time... Another thing is the production system. In it's simplicity it reveals the mind of a genius. On the map there are resources and there are factories. You have to move a resource by rail and/of overseas to a factory to get a production point which you need to build units. Unfortunately, the CW and Japanese resources are overseas. So they have to make convoy chains consisting of convoy points to get those resources to the factories. There comes the enemy submarines, surface raiders and air. The convoys need to be protected (either by ASW units, which is an optional, or by allocating ships to sea area's as escorts). Will the enemy find my convoy, or will he roll to high. Thank god, no combat... or blast: he's found me. Let's hope I roll low to, as to keep surprise effects as low as possible. Surprise at sea can be quite disastrous for a naval battle. If the enemy finds your fleet or convoy with escorts with their pants down, you suffer huge losses. Otherway around is the same. If your escorts stumble across a submarine who gets surprised, that one is in big trouble. If your convoy pipeline hasn't got the capacity to transport the number of resources you want to go to the UK, than production is hurt. Same with strategic bombing. You can bomb enemy factories and oil resources (normal resources can't be strat bombed) to reduce the enemies production capacity (or even destroy the factories if you get lucky), however, beware of the enemies fighters. They might shoot your precious expensive long range flying fortressess out of the skies... I'll stop now, if you don't mind... There is lots and lots more.

Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: The Boardgame - is it any good ? (10/25/2013 8:43:54 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DBeves So I will likely buy this - but have never played the boardgame. Is it any good ? - I understand most think it is - but what makes it good - what abstractions are there ? How is the strat bombing campaign modelled, how is the war in the atlantic modelled ? Anyone with insights to the game ? Given there is going to be no way to see the manuals or the game before purchase - I am wondering what makes the boardgame so good I would buy this ? I have always wanted a definitive WWII game so will buy just for that if the board game does what people say it does ... The Seven Moments of Wow is my attempt to give an overview of the game. Six of those have been posted to the thread with that name, the seventh comes out next Thursday. Each MOW has a few paragraphs of text with 10 embedded screenshots. As posted, each MOW is a single (very long) post. While of necessity only a small fraction of the game is described, the 7 MOW give an overview of: 1 - Players Manual 2 - Learning Aids 3 - Maps, with various views 4 - Forms, used for making decisions 5 - Units 6 - Strategic Decisions 7 - Playing

DBeves -> RE: The Boardgame - is it any good ? (10/25/2013 9:06:48 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Centuur In most board games, the playing system is you go, I go, turn ends. This means that you know you only get to move your units once during the turn and that's it. WiF however, don't give the players this certainty. You, nor your opponent, knows in advance the number of impulses he gets for moving units during that turn. You don't know if the first turn of war against the USSR as Germany will give you a long turn or a short one. You can statistically guess... Turns end is caused by rolling a D10. The higher the impulse number, the higher the chance is that the turn may end. Also, bad weather means the impulse number progresses faster (from 1 to 4 to 7) as compared to good weather (when it goes 1,2,3,...). The weather itself is also an uncertainty which influences the effectivity of your war machine. If it storms, your planes are grounded and your fleet has it harder to find the enemy. If it rains, ground units move sluggish and supply is a lot harder to get for your units than if the weather is fine. All major things which influences game play, which you can predict a little bit (due to statistic you can put unto the tables), but don't know for sure. Summer turns give you generally better weather than winter ones... Also, every impulse a player has to decide if he wants to take a pass (do nothing and get a modifier to get the turn to end. Pray it does, because when you take it, you are quite desperate if you are on defense...), naval, air, land or combined impulse. This limits the player in what he can do during that impulse. A combined means that a player can only do a limited number of air, land and naval actions (moves, attacks, missions, etc.). If the weather in summer stays fine, this means that Germany can take for example five land impulses in summer and every land impulse move it's units, attack the enemy, etc. etc., unless his units are exhausted (disorganised) due to failed attacks or enemy actions against them. However, if the roll of 1 comes after the third Axis impulse the turn suddenly ends and time is progressing... Apart from this, there is the uncertainty of when the United States enters the war. Actions by the Axis or Alliesmay or may not upset US public opinion driving towards war. Actions take by the US to support the countries on the same side before the war, also might result in reaction to the US moving towards war. Only the US knows the exact possibility on declaring war on either Japan or Germany/Italy. The Axis and also other Allies are unaware of those. The US may or may not disclose this information. They only know that there are a number of chits in there, not the values of these. A devilish US mind can cause the Axis to declare war on the United States far before the US itself is allowed do the opposite, just to make sure they don't suffer the surprise of suddenly being in a war with the US which can than pound on the poor unsuspecting Japanese convoys and fleet out of Manila, sending them to the bottom of the China Sea and strangle the Japanese economically. Now, lets put a nice large fleet in Manila with a lot of subs. Are you going to DoW the United States when you see a whole load of chits sitting around which might mean they are ready for war or is it bluf and are those chits all lousy ones... And there is always the odd change that the US politicians refuse the US to go to war, even if it looks assured (bad die roll...). Better luck next time... Another thing is the production system. In it's simplicity it reveals the mind of a genius. On the map there are resources and there are factories. You have to move a resource by rail and/of overseas to a factory to get a production point which you need to build units. Unfortunately, the CW and Japanese resources are overseas. So they have to make convoy chains consisting of convoy points to get those resources to the factories. There comes the enemy submarines, surface raiders and air. The convoys need to be protected (either by ASW units, which is an optional, or by allocating ships to sea area's as escorts). Will the enemy find my convoy, or will he roll to high. Thank god, no combat... or blast: he's found me. Let's hope I roll low to, as to keep surprise effects as low as possible. Surprise at sea can be quite disastrous for a naval battle. If the enemy finds your fleet or convoy with escorts with their pants down, you suffer huge losses. Otherway around is the same. If your escorts stumble across a submarine who gets surprised, that one is in big trouble. If your convoy pipeline hasn't got the capacity to transport the number of resources you want to go to the UK, than production is hurt. Same with strategic bombing. You can bomb enemy factories and oil resources (normal resources can't be strat bombed) to reduce the enemies production capacity (or even destroy the factories if you get lucky), however, beware of the enemies fighters. They might shoot your precious expensive long range flying fortressess out of the skies... I'll stop now, if you don't mind... There is lots and lots more. Mmmmm ... well this alone pretty much convinced me - but I will follow up on the advice. thanks for the replies.

Eradanfaroth -> RE: The Boardgame - is it any good ? (10/25/2013 10:03:26 PM)
To play, you must have some feelings : fun, pleasure etc This feelings can be activated by a stimuli based on proper situation. The games in general have some parts of them wich activate the situation wich trigger the stimuli and then feeling and so on. Main components are : Vertigo, based on random results wich can occurr during the game (casino games are based mainly on that). Intellectual challenge, you need to solve a problem (puzzle and riddle games). Dream, you can be confronted to a situation you would never encounter in the real life. (role playing fantasy games for example). Probably there is some other components that i forgot, and there is the social urge too. In a game, you confront other players, can befriend them and share good moments, in a peaceful way (hmmm, most of the time indeed...). But if you can merge this three components in a game, it would be successful in his primary goal : to advertise you. Wif has the three elements in it. Since from his first publication, it has then encountered a good success, in the somewhat restrained world of wargamers (if you compare to the world of soccer fans and/or players for example) and this is not the result of pure luck. Ps : i hope my point is clear pps : Neilster (or any other one), if you quote me, please be so kind to correct my mispellings or grammars deviations). Thks

petracelli -> RE: The Boardgame - is it any good ? (10/25/2013 10:09:23 PM)
Yes it is brilliant.

Radagy -> RE: The Boardgame - is it any good ? (10/25/2013 11:05:06 PM)
A played it when was first published, long ago. Along with Third Reich and Advanced Squad Leader and Empire in Arms, one of the best wargames ever published. A true masterpiece. A played it about twenty yers ago, but I still remember how tense and involving were those matches. The only true problem with it was that a full game lasted too long and I could rarely leave it in place for the weeks needed to complete. I hope this PC version will be as fun as the paper one.

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