Greetings Fellow Geeks!

I have noticed alot of great ideas and efforts on the geek and in the eaglegames.net forums about what Attack! could have been. I too have played this game with friends, and tweeked it here and there. We have added house rules, tried threaded turns, ect. and I am curious to see what everyone else likes.

Just for the record, I am working on the revision with Mike Selinker (yes, the guy who did the Axis and Allies revision, and brought a whole new life to the series IMHO) and we have made alot of changes already.

I have talked to alot of people at conventions over the years, and am pretty confident we have some great changes in the works. I truly want to take all comments into consideration during the final stages, and welcome anyone who wants to playtest the game before it is released.

Please post ideas, or varriants that you or your groups LOVE. Understand we can not change everything, but if there is something you guys ALL love that we missed, I want to at least consider it!

Ok...Now for the good stuff...

Here is what Mike and I have cooking so far:

1: Threaded turns - For those that do not know, this means everyone takes 1 action at a time, then 2, then 3 (if you have played railroad tycoon, you have used a threaded turn) This increases interaction, and eliminates downtime. It also speeds up the game too!!

2: Naval Dice!! - These are WAY too cool! One of the greatest things about Attack (for me) was the combat system. I always felt that the naval system was not quite right. Naval Dice solve this problem. No longer is it high roller wins (plus modifiers) but instead, roll a symbol, match it up, score a hit (just like a land battle) The prototypes look great. They are blue, with little white subs/destroyers/carriers/battleships on them. Ok...enough spoilers...

3: Simplified, less random economic system - Instead of a random card draw, a specific economic value for every space.

4: Better Tech - Tech will be built in levels, that affect your building, moving, costs and attacks!

5: Refined Political action deck - we are working on lots of ideas, but the general concept is a draw a turn per player with a hand limit. stay tuned...

6: Both maps in 1 box, with all the plastics, bags/trays, new naval dice, new cards, and new rules!!

Anyone still with me? good!!

We need playtesters!! email me if you want to be involved. As I stated above, I would love to hear some of the "house rules" you guys have, but mostly we need playtesters. I will do my best to consider ideas posted here, but we have a nice vision and direction going right now. The truth is, great ideas and visions could always use input, so I issue a call to arms for any and all Attack! fans!!!

FYI - Any posts dated by FEB. 29th or sooner will be heavily considered during the final stage of rules designs. I hope to kick off playtesting in March, and if things go well, submit a finished product in April.

Thanks to any, and all who took the time out of their day to read this, and to those of you who have given your input already. Thanks for helping Mike and I make this the best we can!

Sean

I probably won't be able to participate in any testing due to my own schedule, but I do like the ideas of #3-#6.

One of the big problems we didn't really care for actually was the combat dice. It was great in idea, in that it created the need for combined arms, but sort of just killed something for the uniqueness of units in the actual combat for us.

Perhaps it was all the building, and then in one battle a huge force would get decimated, making it so that we would have to crawl across the board spending tons of resources before we even really were prepared to take each other on.

Don't know how to fix that though. I think perhaps if there was something maybe to give units some sort of defense mechanism?

It just seemed missing something, even with the added abilities of the expansion.

Probably because even with that, you'd have a great army of a ton of units, meet up with a neutral and be...neutered with that great army. To wage war we literally had to have more units in an area than could fit in the area in order to attack and then defend the area we were taking.

You said bags and trays? Trays? What sort of trays will be included?

Will there be a "pimp my older edition" available, with the naval dice and stuff? Would be nice…

I am a rather proud owner of Attack! but I have to admit it's only hit the table once. We don't play wargames much, but I'm still very fond of it, as I know it's precisely what I want from a wargame. I'd very much like the opportunity to get this new version without having to buy the whole set again.

To shorten playing time I would suggest implementing secret missions (or goals) instead of victory points. I have been thinking in the line of a unique set of goals for each of the ideologies. For instance one of the missions for the facist could be to wipe out the commies (both neutral and player) from europe, or having 5 oil cards on your hand. For longer games one could draw a set of two goals to accomplish or even three for extended games.

I second Zimeon's request. I own both Attack! and Attack! Expansion, and I'm not going to fork out for a new version of the game, but I would welcome the efforts to make the existing game playable. Would it be possible to buy the extra stuff for those of us who already have the old version of the game?

No sprues!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#3 sounds great as well as the naval dice!

I just wanted to comment that I quite liked naval combat. I'll try to explain why:

First, you had to be aware of fleet composition, building the most ships that counter the ships for your oponent. Secondly, I don't think they were as random, you had to outguess your opponent positioning your ships, it was important were to put your battleship to minimize loses, but putting it on the first position would be easily countered with subs, where the carrier is best suited, etc. We played a lot of attack and we played naval battles as given and we really enjoyed.

Now, I love the combat system of attack, and I love that you can just loose all your infantry before loosing any tank and so, but combat dice for the naval units removes the cool aspect of ships that counter other ships, and makes the naval combat identical to land combat, which for me is not a better solution.

About tech, it sounds cool to go by levels, but it would be great to have multiple branches, it would be great to have a faction with really strong infantry, and one specializing on air power and so. Maybe it's not worth it, but I also toyed with the idea of researching elite units, and make those units more expensive, so maybe you infantry rolls two dice, but costs 7pp or something like that... and it wouls be great to be able to build both, but I guess that requires an unacceptable production cost and extra fiddly boards. Though I never tried it, my plan was using the bigger units for this effect.

If you guys are introducing threaded turns, then maybe it would be fair to use the oil for something other than paying for actions. I do think that paying oil for moving armies or navies.

Also, having some level of infrastructure would be great, like using your railroad cards to be able to make strategic movement around your territory, population cards should give you some bonus: discounted infantry, free infantry unit or some other production bonus. Maybe the new economic system is completely different, but the need to trade to improve your production should be kept, but Ia lways felt that you should be able to tweak a bit more your economy, like the use of cards for different effects, as used done with oil.

And trading, it was cool that you needed to be connected to your trading artner, but it was too instantaneous, it would be great to have tades that work only as long as you have a trading route. For example, I one suggested (but got refused) to instead of trading cards, just mark the card with the color of the recieving player (with an infantry unit) and as soon as the trade rout was cut, the card returns to the original controlling player. This variant had problems, but something simple could be doable.

Make strategic bombing/warfare more usable? Please! Such a cool option just to never be used?

Well, this is long enough already, I really love Attack! I would love a deluxe edition, even if I already own the orginal plus expansion.

And as for playtesting? I would love to participate!

WOW!

Thanks for all the interest and support.

1st off, let me say that I am not sure if the components will be sold seperatly, but the rules should be available on the Eagle site. (sorry, but its sprues again!) I will try my best to push for extra components to be sold on the website. no promises. not my call.

We are moving away from the governments, and will introduce a new technology/upgrading system to the fold.

With threaded turns, actions will be limited to 3 per turn (effectivly eliminating oil reserves) alternating between players. This should speed things up a bit.

12 turns will be the maximum, or long game. Event cards will be used to mix things up.

I love the idea of "secret missions!"

We are considering doing expansion decks of cards in the future. perhaps secret missions could be the first.

The main goal of the deluxe set is to clean up the rules, introduce some new elements, streamline the game a bit, and get a system in place that works well for everyone.

The people I have met over the years loved this game, but we all had 1 thing in common: we all had to tweek the rules a bit. Along the way, we all had great ideas to make it better, but I never felt like anyone ever "fixed" the basics. I hope Mike and I have done so, and can continue to do so.

March 3rd is the date we are shooting for to kick off playtesting.
Thanks for the emails to everyone who has responded. I will be putting together an email list and sending the rules out then.

Sean

Sean:

Wow! That's an ambitious redesign, and it sounds very exciting.

At first glance, I'd say the revised economic system (especially assigned economic values for each space) and the naval rules will be major improvements. And having the entire game in a single package is a wise decision. The only thing I'm leery of is removing/diluting the government mechanic, as that was always one of my favorite parts in terms of flavor (but I can understand your decision in light of balance issues).

I would definitely be interested in playtesting. Thanks for reaching out to the player community!

Chris

I second that. In fact, I came up with the same house rule (you're right, it was a little too fiddly). Were we separated at birth?

Sean and all concerned:

I have a ten person game group that meets every 4-6 weeks. We have played Attack! The Expansion 10 times now. All games, except 1, have been 4-6 players. Every time where we debate switching to a new game, we change our minds and play Attack! again, because it is an awesome game.

This is one of the most under-recognized, under-appreciated games I know of. We think it is terrific. If anyone has the time, please read my "World Conquest" & "Attack Rules Variations" posts. Please comment if you have the time (and please be sure your time in editorial interferes with work and other drone-like responsibilities, lol). My group has declined all of my alternate rules, and always returns to the game the way it is, with very, very minor tweeks.

Contrary to what seems like the popular consensus, the Democracy CAN win, and has won twice in our group. I personally won as the Democracy in a five-player full-on game in Jan'08. The more I have suggested tweeks and changes, then the more we play, the fewer house rules we have ever actually made or used!!

Our actual "House Rules" are tiny:
1. Tech Development, if successful, player draws two cards, chooses 1, discards the other.
2. The "Fatal Four" Political Action cards may only be used once per game: Revolt, Embargo, Tech Stealing (which we altered to "Copy" - not steal, so that BOTH players now have that tech advantage), and Assassination (I think, I'm not at home right now, so this is from memory)
3. For every player above 4, the Eagle Card total to end the game goes up by one; 5 players = 14, 6 players = 15, etc.
4. Trade: either broker, or direct trade, or both, meaning that the player who commits to the "Trade" action, and pays the oil, may trade directly, and may also "broker" trade between any other two, or three, etc players, and has the discretionary power to allow, or deny such trade(s).
5. Turn time limit: we have a golden (painted) 2 1/2 inch block of wood that says "first player in round," with a silver (painted) bishop-looking (chess) piece that says "My Turn" on it. When you get the "My Turn" piece passed to you, you have 20 minutes to start your last action.

Comments and Suggestions:
A. Marking game board territories with an economic value is excellent, as long as you don't lose the "alternate universe / alternate history" flavor to the game, which we think is terrific!! Try producing cardboard squares with text corresponding to the economic value and type on the Economic cards, so that they can be mixed up and placed randomly around the game map board every game, making every game unique. Don't turn this into A&A please with the same static start every time!
B. Don't take out Oil, it's one of the most attractive and brilliantly innovative aspects of the game, and don't force everyone to just three actions per turn. Threaded turns is an OK concept, we aren't that excited about it, we have no problem with downtime at all...there's too much negotiating and discussion going on, and when it's your turn you have to have your crap together and be ready to roll! How about threaded turns, where if players have the oil, and wish to commit, they keep performing actions until they can't, or don't want to? Players could have "Action Cards" where they commit to their first three secretly, then all players turn each over one at a time, per threaded action? But let players go beyond 3 actions if they have the "Will and the Oil."
C. Our group uses EVERY element of the game, ALL of the time; trade routes, trading, commerce raiding, strategic bombing, all of it. The only problem with Strategic Bombing is the cost of the air units, and it is generally ineffective, does very little. Commerce Raiding is risky for the cost, better to concentrate ones' fleet, and spend oil and cash on politics, trade, bulding up your military, and other actions. But both are interesting aspects of the game!
D. Time: count on 1 hour per player, 5 player game takes 5 hours, etc. This is NOT a problem for us.

Thanks for contacting me.

Honestly, I LOVE Attack!, but it's only really interesting when I can get 4-5 people interested. I am starting up a game club in my new town, so I plan to pull this out and convert some people.

I still DO like Axis & Allies, but it's nice to play Attack! when you want to write the history as well.

House Rules"
- Threaded turns rock!

Really enjoy Twilight Imp. 3rd Ed. because of it. The players feel like they are interacting all the time. Go for it!

- Actually I took my cards for Naval Battles and we still use them to declare battles. (Not with the actual bits on the board.)

However, I would have a SERIOUS problem resisting specialty dice... As long as the rules work and mimic reality well enough.


Comments and Suggestions:

- Minimum Economy
Actually, I DO like using oil to represent initiative and to pay for actions. It makes it a VERY important resource, just as it it in the time period of the game. However, each player should have a minimum oil production. They get it somehow.

Perhaps even a minimum, emergency measures, economic strenght. Just so they are not totally hosed with a string of bad luck.

- Government Alignments (Fascist, Communist, Democratic, Monarchist.)
I was dissapointed to see that you were headed away from alignments.

If I want a pure combat game, I'd play A&A. Honestly.

What's the point of Attack! without a political step? And I do like Role-Playing a Government type.

However, I DO like the idea of secret agendas. (Again, like T.I. 3rd.)
So...

How about secret agendas for each player, that mimic certain government types? I mean, if a player got the agenda. "take and hold 10 territories by force" wouldn't it mimic being Fascist anyway? (Usually, in T.I. 3rd, you can more or less tell what a person's secret agenda is...)

"Strength of Arms"? "Isolationist"?, "Meddler"?


- Territory Markers for Resources
To be honest, I would be happy with a token that just said "Oil" or "Rail". When taken by another player, you get to steal a resource of that type, not that exact card, from his/her hand.

I know, some of you are saying that's not "logical", but I like the slight uncertainty of it. Yes, you should guard your oilfields, but...

Lots of other factors come in during war. Russia moved it's important factories back and burned what it could not drag, the German economy was shattered bricks when the Allies rolled in, Iraq set the oil fields on fire, etc.

And no, I don't want "scorched Earth rules" at least in my games.
K.I.S.S..

Just my two cents. PM me the hate, later.