Axis and Allies: Strategy Versus Fun and My Wife's Playing Habits.

   So like the last post, last week was a board game week. William had come down to play some game with us while on his Spring Break. But he was not alone. He also has a friend named Joe that was interested in meeting new people who play board games. So both William and Joe showed up to our house for social drinking/game play. Now, we did get to play some WW2 Wings of Glory where I played the both of them playing German while they had the British. I was shot down fairly good. However, the main point of interest involving Joe was his want to play us in Axis and Allies. 

    Now, for everyone that knows me or seen things I have posted game wise, one would think I have played Axis and Allies before. It never happened. To my ignorance, I had pretty much looked at the game being played at Nashcon 2017 and thought it reminded me of the game Risk. That was enough to not go out of my way to play Axis and Allies. To explain this, I am the world's most unluckiest player in the game of Risk. SO BAD, that I have never taken a territory in the game of Risk. That is right! I have lost every rolling battle engagement to such a degree, my friend, B.J. bought me a bottle of Jack Daniels for putting me through that unlucky misery. And with that, I had an open mind, or Jim Beam told me so! 

    To be fair, I was told that there was a good chance that I would point of a slew of history facts that were not being represented in the game we were playing. The Axis and Allies game Joe brought over was a 1984 addition, which may have had some serious updates. The hope that Joe was looking for was a possible partner for trying out the Axis and Allies tournament scene. This was likely not going to happen, because I have way bigger projects, and my nature in gaming is simple "fun" only. Don't get me wrong, I have fun in tournaments I have played in, but I also really have to: A. like the game, and B. like the people who typically play the game. For the first game, both A. and B. were unknown factors. To sum up my first experience, William and I playing as Allies lost. It was not exactly a  super beating, but it was a five hour one. And this will take me to my wife and the second game.

     A simple summary of the love of my life is simply, she is a logically player with gaming mood swings. This is not to say that she is Bi-Polar or anything. This just means that if she is playing, two factors can determine the outcome of the game against her. One is that she is having fun, and logically doing psycho awesome stuff against you with most fantastic rolls. She might even loose, but you will usually play a price for it in dead miniature carnage. Or two, she will not be into the game and roll very poorly just to end the drudgery of playing quicker. Her dice tend to react exactly to emotions, being sick, being tired, or being hungry. So which one of the two options do you think Axis and Allies gave her?

      If you had said option Two, you might want to also play the lottery as well. After the first time playing the Russians against the Germans, she danced all over them killing everything. This was promising for the game until she started saying with no filter for the rest of the game that she was in fact: Bored! The last time this statement was said by her in a game, it was a 17th Century naval game. And it was not Sails of Glory! It came to a head when I rolled really badly playing the Americans and lost all control of every ocean in the game with no ability to get back into action until two more turns, if at all. Two turns and rendered useless in a game! I do not deal very well with crippling losses in such a short span of time, especially when their is nothing else to play or options. So the both of us have decided that we will never play this game on purpose. 

      I know that sounds harsh for a game, but this is where the line is drawn on strategy versus fun. After explaining why I don't like the game, I don't think the other guys originally understood. It was as simple as the explanation that the first move to make as the Americans for their naval forces has to be to move this one direction only to survive in a fighting chance for the rest of the game: that is called a "Bullshit game!" I was told that Axis and Allies was much like chess, but in chess, there is only one mistake that can get you in checkmate in the first two moves. The rest take longer. It would have been different, if I was not playing against someone who has played for years. Strategy has to be that there are just as many options to counter no matter how good the player is on the first few turns at least. Plus, I suspect, it was being played wrong. I just don't have time for games that can easily have power-gaming. 

These were the ships I was going to send troops with, but the Japanese on turn two sailed into the Atlantic and raped them out of existence. One would think the Panamanian people would just close the canal against the Japanese. That fact was where I thought this game was awful.