For fuck's sake, Paths of Glory has some of the most strict supply rules in existence. If your forces get cut off, they can't attack, can't move, and automatically DIE at turn's end. If they're army-sized units, they die FOREVER. Losing even one or two armies in this way is sufficient to lose the game, quite often.

The thing is, though, it's really easy to get your supply cut off; movement is Igo-Ugo and corps can move PRETTY FAR. So bitch, you'd better be PAYING ATTENTION and making sure those German corps aren't about to cut off the ENTIRE French army just because you forgot to garrison Sedan.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35495864)

Okay, okay, you're some PROLE who likes to FOLLOW HISTORY in his games. Fuck that. Sharks play to win. And you're not going to win by sticking both James Longstreet AND Stonewall Jackson under Lee in Virginia. They're two of the best Confederate generals in the game, and they'll be FAR better off commanding independent armies of their own. Plus, For the People's severe general casualty rules mean that if you have them all stacked together in Virginia, they'll end up getting killed really fast. Fuck that. Jackson is getting his own SECOND army in Virginia and Longstreet should be off fighting in Missouri or something.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35495881)

Hey, idiot, have you ever even played this game before? De-Stalinization is the best Soviet event in the game. Playing it for ops as the US is fucking INSANE because it will let the Soviets trigger the event.

I know what you're thinking: "How is it the best Soviet event? It doesn't even give them new influence; it just lets them move existing influence elsewhere." IDIOT. The entire strategic situation of Twilight Struggle is that the Soviets start centered around the USSR and struggle to export influence to far-flung regions like Africa and South America. De-Stalinization eliminates that difficulty and lets them easily seed influence in places like Chile, Mexico, or South Africa. And you're just gonna give that to the Soviets as a freebie? Absurd. That shit is going to the SPACE RACE track, bub.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35495913)

Yeah, yeah, it SEEMS more strategic because you choose your own set-up instead of being constrained by history. But that's actually flame because the game is horribly unbalanced in France's favor if they're allowed to pick their own set-up, since they can position themselves to utterly overwhelm and annihilate the British and then easily turn and smash the Prussians. That'd be lame! Nope, to make this game balanced you really need to use the historical set-up. Otherwise, you're a prole.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35495958)

was bumping the concept and did not expect an actual rating

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35495981)

C'mon, you prole shithead. A Victory Lost only has like 8 pages of rules. That's not many! Surely you noticed how abusable the railway rules are for the Soviets. When they get reinforcements, they can simply send them forward along the rail lines until they'd be blocked by an Axic Zone of Control. Any non-prole would realize the implications of this: As the Axis forces get utterly chewed up by Operation Saturn, they're gonna have GAPING holes in their lines, and the Soviets can conceivably rail their formations DEEP behind enemy lines. Of course, the game elegantly anticipates this; if the Soviets rail behind enemy lines, those units will be well out of HQ activation range and won't be able to move, retreat, or do anything else except die. So the Soviets won't do this...UNLESS you're a fucking PROLE who left the Victory Point cities ungarrisoned. If you did, the Soviets can just teleport men into them and win an autovictory! IDIOT.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35495983)

These games are fucking stacking monstrosities where individual units often have like 4-5 status markers piled on top of them in some horrifying abortion of strategic depth. With all those counters on the board, you're gonna need to maximize the ease with which you can pick up and fiddle around with the counters. And that means clipping the corners of the counters before you play. Here's an explainer:

https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/37769/how-clip-your-counters

BTW most games in the GCACW series have, like, 700 counters. Get clipping.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35496018)

Jesus Christ, are you trying to throw the game? Printing Pres is BY FAR the most powerful card in the game for the Protestant. If you play that, he'll use his home card to retrieve it from the discard pile and dominate the game next turn. It's only worth doing in return for serious concessions, like two card draws from the Protestant or something similarly dramatic. To just play that, in return for nothing...for crying out loud, do you appreciate ANY of this game's strategic depth?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35496054)

Look, I get it. Pakistan has a nuclear arsenal. Create an Islamist government there, and you can slip those nukes into the U.S. and get an autowin. Also, they're literally right next door to your restless jihadis in Afghanistan. It's really tempting. But let's be real: It's REALLY fucking hard to topple Pakistan if you're solely focused on it, and the game will just be a boring back-and-forth of War of Ideas rolls. Lame! You're a kudzu weed; you should be flooding the map with jihadis from Mindanao to Marrakesh. Your advantage comes from being all over the place and having the U.S. get out of position. Dream BIG, comrade, and you shall win. Inshallah.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35496104)

Bro, bro, c'mon. Did you even bother to read the special abilities each general has? Mago gives you a -1 on all naval rolls. That's an INCREDIBLY useful power! Carthage fucking sucks on the water and by default 2/3 of their naval expedition get sunk by the Romans. Mago should have his ass left behind in Iberia to assemble reinforcements and wait for a chance to sail to Sicily, Sardinia, or Italy itself. Yeah, this game is called Hannibal, but it's how you use the OTHER Carthaginian commanders that wins you the game.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35496153)

Jfc Im prole

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35496203)

Yeah, yeah, you want to reenact history. Okay, well, you want to win, too, right? And you know the Armada FAILED in real life, right? You know that England has fucking RACE-BUILT Galleons and they will utterly fuck up your Armada without breaking a sweat? And even if you do land in England, wtf are you gonna do? Capturing keys is a huge pain, and any half-decent English player knows he needs to have Walsingham as his home card to guard against a Catholic rebellion.

Nope, nope, nope. HUGE prole tell. Instead, have your armada go and FUCK UP the Ottomans, and then gobble up North Africa plus Malta (which you naturally lost on like turn 2, JFC). That will actually win you a game sometime in the next decade.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35496186)

https://boardgamegeek.com/image/2497742/triumph-tragedy

Okay, let's break this down.

1. Of all the counter symbols they could have shown, why a carrier? Carrier warfare did happen in Europe, but is overwhelmingly associated with the Pacific War.

2. Why the pocketwatch? Is it going for a "countdown" motif? Shouldn't it at least be closer to midnight then?

3. What's with the random clip-art style scattering of the stars, the atomic symbol, the marching soldier, etc? It's lazy as hell.

4. Most importantly, why does this WW2 game have a map that features Europe's PRESENT-DAY borders? GMT is a major wargame company and nobody fucking noticed that? What in the fuck?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35496301)

Sword of Rome fucking sucks with 5 players. Everybody knows that. The Carthaginians were just a non-player power in the first game and the whole system falls apart if they're suddenly a full competitor. Silly. Play with 4 or get a different game if you need 5. The Napoleonic Wars 2nd Edition is naturally 5 players. Play that.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35496331)

Come on, that's absurd. Sure, ASL has several hundred pages of rules if you have all the modules, but it's really not that bad. Most of those rules are just specialty stuff used in only a few scenarios. You can easily pick up the game gradually. First, just get ASL Starter Kit #1, which contains all the basic infantry stuff and a rulebook of just 12 pages. Then you can upgrade to Starter Kit #2, which has artillery rules and 20 pages of rules, and after that you can go Starter Kit #3 which has tanks and vehicles and 24 pages of rules. Master all of those and you'll be well on your way to playing the actual Advanced Squad Leader. Simple!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35496405)

No, it is fucking NOT. Risk is an AMERITRASH game, in the same genre as Fortress America, Conquest of the Empire, War of the Ring, etc. It's not even the same genre of game. C'mon, man.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35496449)

Okay, great. You're a chirr arpha Roman generar with a big army and a ton of red cards. You can deploy big armies and move them wherever you want. But you've totally neglected to get yellow and blue cards built up, so what do you think is gonna happen? That's right, more politically astute players are just gonna flood your provinces with mobs and have the senate replace your governors. You'll win plenty of battles but your VP total is gonna be tiny, pink, and pathetic.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35496559)

Listen, the rules are perfectly clear here: You roll for attrition any time you move into or through an enemy stronghold, any time your move through harsh terrain, and any time you move while shadowed by an enemy army. EVERY TIME. No, the rules don't exempt post-battle retreats or moves to avoid battle. This isn't some RTS video game where you can march from Acre to Ascalon with everything intact and your soldiers are robots who don't need food. Nope. Moving in this game is gonna cause attrition. MAKE YOUR ATTRITION ROLLS, PROLE. Even a single missed role out of 20+ can wildly change the game's outcome!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35496578)

Look man this is simple strategy here. The Germans can choose where they absorb their losses, and without exception it's ALWAYS better to take hits on your infantry rather than your tanks, because tanks are stronger and more expensive to fix. Blow out your panzers in unsupported attacks and there's no way you're going to take Moscow, or even Kharkov. Learn the combat results table by heart, get factor counting, and get to work using those Wehrmacht infantry the way they're meant to be used: as HUMAN SHIELDS for the panzers. Who cares if this isn't even close to how actual WW2 combat worked? You're engaging in creepy Nazi cosplay, not writing a dissertation.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35496594)

Look, optimism was understandable when Kickstarter was new, and it's obvious why crowdfunding is particularly useful in wargames, a niche hobby where games have print runs of just a few thousand. But seriously, what wargame has ever had its first release be as awesome as it initially looked? Lincoln's War was busted out of the box and clearly inferior to both For the People and The U.S. Civil War. Victory in Europe was extremely late and still needed a big rules overhaul. Up Front wasn't even released; the money simply disappeared and the whole thing collapsed into a snarl of litigation and a 15,000-post BoardGameGeek thread (not flame: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/956591/yes-what-does-mean-front)

By this point, only proles are getting burned by this sort of thing. If you want a kickstarter game, wait for it to come out and snap up a copy when early backers inevitably sell off an unpunched copy in a collection purge. Maybe you'll pay a bit extra for it, but that's more than made up for by not backing games that turn out utterly broken.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35499219)

Far from being a weakness, America's non-Washington generals are their greatest asset in the game. Sure, they're terrible in combat, but that's not the point. They have a ton of them, they can never permanently die, and they're easily moved with 1 and 2-point ops cards. Meanwhile the British are stuck trying to stamp out the Americans with ponderous 3-ops generals. The Brits only have two generals with even decent mobility, and one of them is Burgoyne who fucking sucks. If you're trying to win the war as the Americans using just Washington and Rochambeau, you'll lose, because they lose head-to-head against Howe and Cornwallis. But if you have Lee, Gates, and Lafayette prancing around, cutting off supply lines, retreating before battle, and generally causing a ton of chaos, the British will have a really hard time winning the game.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35499359)

Getting the actual knockout win as Japan is absurdly tough in EotS, especially with the 2nd edition rules. At a minimum you're probably gonna have to defeat 2/3 of India, China, and Australia, and even taking out one is hard and requires some luck. If you fail, tons of Japanese are gonna die. Not only that, but attacking more actually makes the game far easier for the Allies. They take a strategic will penalty if they don't make adequate war progress, a figure that is calculated simply based on how much land they can capture each turn. If there is less Japanese land to attack, this requirement is harder to achieve, and you're more likely to win a late-game strategic will victory.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35500030)

I rate you as playing A Few Acres of Snow at all. Sure, it's innovative, but the developer of the game has already confirmed the game is BUSTED. The British have an absolutely dominant strategy, the Halifax Hammer, and if executed right it's almost impossible for the French to win.

Even then, the game might be worth it if you tried to pretend the strategy didn't exist, but there's no need to bother, for two reasons. First, if you want a game on the French and Indian War, a better one already exists: GMT's Wilderness War. Second, if you want a game using AFAOS's mechanics, you can get the excellent and balanced Hands in the Sea, the most notable game on the First Punic War.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35501982)

Officially, it's a "wargame," but that doesn't mean you always win by fighting. Sparta gets the initiative in land battles, and it's a lot easier to fight land battles than sea ones in Polis. Instead of fighting, focus on the game's REAL key, food. Just trade for food, avoid battles, and use your fleet, or you'll just get raped into the ground by a good player.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35502122)

Stratego is an ABSTRACT game, and the fact you can change the theme to virtually any setting (Napoleon, Star Wars, a street riot) proves it.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35502460)

I rate you as playing the Waterloo scenario in Commands and Colors Napoleonics. Yeah, it's the most "famous" battle, and that's why it's a prole tell. The battle itself is really unbalanced in favor of the French, so it makes far more sense to play the more finely-tuned but less famous scenarios. Alternately, get the Russia expansion and play its many 180 battles like Friedland and Eylau.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35499880)

If you're ever up for playing something via Wargameroom (it uses Java programs that automatically execute the rules so you can play really fast) just summon me.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35527566)

the only games I've managed to enjoy much online are card games, RIP old in-browser version of 1v1 Race for the Galaxy

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35527593)

I'm going to a casual board game thing as we speak; gonna see if I can rope somebody into trying Columbia Games' Julius Caesar.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35527981)

I rate you as complaining that artillery radios break too often in Combat Commander: Europe.

Don't you get it, man? The radio isn't LITERALLY breaking. It's just the label used for every possible reason you might not have access to artillery barrages. Maybe the radio really did break. Maybe artillery is being used elsewhere on the wider off-map battlefield. Maybe the guns are temporary out of ammunition and more supplies are being brought forward. Maybe an enemy strafing run forced the artillery crew to scatter. There are COUNTLESS possible explanations, bro. USE YOUR IMAGINATION.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35511222)

Congrats! You just handed all the initiative to Pompey, who already starts the game with a huge lead! Now you're fucked!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35531134)

That said, several other entries from the Great Battles of History series remain highly recommended, in particular The Great Battles of Alexander, SPQR, Cataphract, and Hoplite.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35531150)

I rate you as using Restricted Submarine Warfare in The Lamps Are Going Out. Fuck that, the penalties aren't nearly severe enough to justify getting fewer sub hits on the British. Your main way to win as the Central Powers is by winning fast and you won't do that by playing soft.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35502582)

Also, a lot of wargaming is done online these days. Every popular title has a VASSAL module, and a few really popular ones have a program on Wargameroom.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3905098&forum_id=2#35503044)