AAAZone

Even though there is a TON of other material available to help people with TripleA, I still see people asking the same old questions over and over again in the Chat Room. So, here are my answers to a lot of those same questions.

If you can think of something I didn't put here, Contact Me and I'll put it online. This way, if you're ever hanging out in the chat room and someone asks you one of these questions, just point them here.

What's my IP Address?
What is Low Luck Dice?
What's the Benefit of Low Luck Dice?
What's No Tech?
What's PoS (Pact of Steel)?
How do I get into the TripleA Chat Room?
What are Territory Turn Limits?
What is a Bid?
What are the differences between Classic A&A and 4th Edition?
Why can't I host a TripleA game (be a server)?

What's my IP Address?

In order to host a game of TripleA, you need to know what your IP address is.

Your IP Address is: 38.103.63.60

In case you don't know what an IP address is, IP stands for Internet Protocol. Every machine on the Internet has one. It's like your mailing address (only more accurate). In order to other peoples' computers (the 'clients') to find your machine (the 'server') you have to tell them your IP address. You can find this address using the IPCONFIG command at the command prompt (if you're using Windows). It will be in the form XX.XX.XX.XX, like 24.52.45.5 or something like that.

Now, depending on your internet setup, you might actually have more than one IP address. What you need is the IP address that the world sees you at, which is called your EXTERNAL IP address. You might have an INTERNAL IP address if you have local network (in your home or office, say). In that case, you need your external IP address to host on. If you have a router, you might need to set up port forwarding (which is a whole different question).

What is Low Luck Dice?

Many of the "better" (or at least they think they're better) TripleA players prefer using Low Luck dice (LL) instead of Full Dice because LL removes a lot of the luck from the dice rolls. Essentially you add up all of the "points" from the units you're attacking or defending with, divide that number by six, and that's how many guaranteed hits you get. Then, whatever's left over, you roll for. It's easier to demonstrate this by example...

Let's say you're attacking with five (5) tanks, eight (8) infantry, and two (2) bombers against two (2) tanks and six (6) infantry.

5 8 2 VS. 2 6

You start by adding together all of the "points" your units get for attacking. Tanks attack at 3. Infantry attack at 1. Bombers attack at 4. So the attacker has:

(5x3) + (8x1) + (2x4) = 31 points

If you divide 31 by 6, you get 5, with a remainder of 1. So the attacker gets five (5) automatic hits, and rolls to try to get a sixth hit. Since the remainder was 1, he needs to roll a 1 to score that extra hit. So the attacker has 5 guaranteed hits, and can possibly get six.

Let's say he doesn't get that roll (he rolls a 3). So the attacker comes away with 5 hits. The defender chooses 5 of his infantry as casualties.

Now the defender rolls. Tanks defend at 3. Infantry defend at 2. The defender gets:

(2x3) + (6x2) = 18 points

Divide 18 by 6 and you get exactly 3. This means the defender gets exactly 3 hits. There's no need to roll.

Now both sides remove casualties, and we're ready for round two. Here's what we have left:

5 5 2 VS. 2 1

The attacker now has:

(5x3) + (5x1) + (2x4) = 28 points

That means he gets four (4) guaranteed hits, plus has a chance to get one more hit by rolling a 4 or less (the remainder of 28 / 6 is 4). Let's say he makes that roll. So he gets 5 hits this round. The defender is annihilated, but gets his casualty fire.

The defender has:

(2x3) + (1x2) = 8 points

He gets one guaranteed hit, plus a chance for another hit if he rolls a 2 or less. He makes his roll (with a 1, let's say), so he gets two total hits.

The attacker wins the battle with:

5 3 2

What's the Benefit of Low Luck Dice?

LL dice essentially remove most of the luck from large battles, and they allow you to calculate exactly what you need to bring into combat to win.

There's nothing worse than spending five or six rounds building up for a huge assault, and then losing to crappy dice. You've got 30 German tanks, 10 fighters, 4 bombers, and 20 infantry, and you're attacking a Russian capitol that only has 12 infantry and a fighter sitting on it. You lose the battle because the Russians roll a ton of 1s, and you're getting 5s and 6s.

That's not a problem with LL dice. Therefore, it tends to turn TripleA into more of a strategy game than a who-gets-better-dice-rolls game. I will say, however, that personally I like playing LL dice, but Full Dice games are nice every now and then - just because they make the game more interesting. With LL dice, it's impossible to defend a territory with 1 infantry against 2 incoming fighters and a pair of tanks... in full dice, you've at least got a shot.

However...

For the tactically minded, LL dice gives you that certainty. If the Allies have taken Western Europe with one infantry, and you know you need to take it back, you can bring in exactly 2 fighters and 2 infantry to take it back and be 100% positive you'll get it. Your fighters (two 3's) get the automatic kill, and even if the defender hits you, you lose 1 infantry and still take the territory.

You can also pretty much calculate the odds of a large battle so you know what to bring in to win. For example, let's say the defender has...

2 3 2

...sitting in Southern Europe. You need to get at least 7 hits to clear them out of there. So you need to bring in enough firepower to score 7 hits in your first round of combat, if you can. Plus if you want to take the territory back, you need to figure that they're going to get at least 3 hits (possibly four) in their counter fire. So you could bring in:

14 4

The tanks would give you your 7 guaranteed hits, and your infantry will take the casualties.

Of course, you could bring in any different combination of units (fighters, bombers, etc.). You also don't need to take them out in one round of combat... you could figure a two round battle and only bring in...

6 6

The first round of combat you'll score four hits. They'll score (let's say) 4. Then we're down to:

6 2 VS. 1 2

Now, you get three hits (plus a chance to get one more hit with a 2, but you don't need it). So they're gone. They get 1 more hit (plus a chance for one more at 3, which they make)... so you lose two units. You win the battle with six tanks left.

So what's better? That all depends on what you like playing... do you want a game of SKILL more like chess, where you can win based on your brilliant battle strategy and not be frustrated next time your two battleships lose to a transport? Or, do you want a game of LUCK where your four Russian infantry can hold off against a barrage of incoming tanks and bombers?

The choice is yours... but at least now you know HOW to play LL dice!

While you're learning, we have a Low Luck Dice Battle Simulator online here that you can use to guess-timate the outcomes of your battles. It's not perfect (and it doesn't take things like 2-hit battleships into account) but it's good enough for figuring the odds of most battles.

What's No Tech?

Most players who want to play Low Luck Dice also want to play "No Tech." That just simply means that you agree not to spend any money on Industrial Technology rolls. Again, it's just a matter of trying to make TripleA a game of skill and not luck. It's a pain to spend three hours playing a good game, and then one side gets Heavy Bombers which totally skews the game.

What's PoS (Pact of Steel)?

PoS (Pact of Steel) is a custom map variation for TripleA. It adds a sixth country (Italy as part of the Axis) and has a much different placement of units throughout the board. It's highly enjoyable, and I recommend it as something different to play when you get sick of the normal board. It's especially good if you have an even number of players, or you have six people - that way everyone gets something to do. There are also other custom board variations out there, like the BigWorld maps - they're HUGE boards that take lots longer to play than the standard board, but again, good fun if you have a day or two to play!

How Do I Get Into the TripleA Chat Room?

You can access the Chat Room for TripleA on the Freenode servers at #TripleA.

I recommend downloading an IRC client (program) such as Trillian or mIRC. These are standalone programs that you can leave running and leave yourself logged in to the chat room while you're online. I personally prefer Trillian because it also includes support for the AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger protocols (it's an all-in-one program). But I do use both (mIRC has better advanced features).

Once you get the program downloaded and installed set your server up as irc.freenode.net port 6667. Join the #TripleA chat room, and you'll log right in. Everyone's welcome, and it's a great group of people to talk about the game with, discuss strategy, ask questions, or even just chat. Be warned, however, that the language isn't always 100% clean (especially and Bayder, Djengis and I get together).

If you don't feel like downloading a special program to access the IRC chat room, the TripleA War Club page has a Java chat page that will run right in your browser. Just go to their site and click on the CHAT link, or click on the link here: Java Chat.

What are Territory Turn Limits?

Territory turn limits basically means that a particular factory cannot be strategically bombed for more money than that territory is worth.

Caucus is worth 4 IPCs, for example, so even if you brought in ten bombers, you could still only do 4 IPCs damage to that factory in one turn.

The purpose for Turn Limits is to prevent one side from making the game all about bombers. UK and US could, for example, just keep flying bombers into Germany, effectively crippling them economically. Add to that the capability to build heavy bombers, and the game's over (which is why a lot of veteran players also want to play with "No Tech" meaning no technology rolls).

This way, you can only bomb Germany for 10 IPCs per turn - which is still pretty harsh. Add bombing runs on Caucus, and you can do 14 IPCs damage total per turn.... and if all three allies are doing it, you can still put Germany in the hurt-locker quick.

What is a Bid?

The Axis & Allies "experts" claim that it's harder to win if you're playing Axis if you have two evenly matched opponents. Therefore, in an effort to level the playing field, the Axis powers are given extra money (IPCs) to start the game with in the form of a bid.

Here's how it works... one player starts the bidding with the number of extra dollars he will accept to play the Axis. Then if the next player thinks he can do better with less, he'll bid one dollar lower. The two continue alternating bids until someone says, "fine... you can have Axis."

Let's say that Joe and Bill are playing. Joe starts off the bidding and says, "I'll play Axis +9." That means he's willing to take the Axis countries with 9 extra IPCs to start the game with.

Bill then says, "I'll play Axis +8."

Joe then counters with, "OK, +7."

Bill says, "fine... you play Axis."

So now Joe gets to start with 7 extra IPCs. He can build, for example, an extra tank to place in Africa, and then have 2 extra IPCs to spend in his first round purchase.

The bid purchase (the tank, for example) goes on BEFORE play begins. So if he were to place that tank in, say, West Russia, that would help him defend it against Russia's initial attack. The extra two dollars go into your bank and can be used for your first round purchase.

You do not have to place your bid units in a territory with a factory. They can go in any territory you own at the start of the game. Most players agree that you can only place ONE BID UNIT per territory. So if you use your bid dollars to buy two infantry, for example, you cannot place them both in the same territory. This is an understood rule - the TripleA software will not enforce this.

You can also split the money between Germany and Japan. If you take a bid of 6, for example, you could buy an extra infantry for both Japan and Germany.

Most tournaments and ladders give the Axis an automatic starting bid of +9 IPCs. Personally, I feel this is a little high, but according to the TripleA War Club's ladder, games are split about 50/50 with that bid - so it appears to even things out good for them.

What are the differences between Classic A&A and 4th Edition?

The rulebook that comes with the boxed set of Axis & Allies has a nice list of all of the rules changes between Classic (old school) Axis & Allies and the new 4th Edition. Here's a link to their downloads page, and a direct link to their PDF file for the new rules:

Why can't I host a TripleA game (be a server)?

If you have a router or a firewall between you and your Internet connection, you may not be able to host a TripleA game. Your firewall may be blocking the traffic, and/or your router might not know how to handle the incoming information.

For those of you who don't know what a router does, it essentially shares an Internet connection amongst multiple computers.

Even if you only have one computer attached to your router, it's still acting in this capacity. Every computer on the Internet has an "IP ADDRESS" which essentially is like your mailing address on the Internet.

Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) assigns you ONE IP address, which goes to your router. (If you only had one computer directly connected to the Internet, that computer would get the IP address... but the router lets you share connections between computers, and has a firewall for security and a bunch of other technical blabber that we don't have to get into here).

In order for your other computers to work on the Internet, however, they also need to have their own IP addresses... but you only have one REAL IP address. So your router assigns "FAKE" IP addresses to all of your in-house computers.

Now, when your computer (let's say you are 90.0.0.1) tries to connect to a web site, your PC sends a request to the ROUTER which then goes out to the Internet, gets the information, and then hands it back to your computer. The router was EXPECTING to get some traffic back from the Internet that would be going to you. That's why you can surf the web or play most online games (including TripleA) where you're the CLIENT - because you are INITIATING the conversation with the Internet.

If you try to HOST a TripleA game, however, you have to give your REAL IP address to your friends to connect to you. So they INITIATE a connection to your IP address. The router receives the data and isn't expecting it, so it doesn't know how to deal with it... basically it just discards it. That's why none of your friends can connect to you.

Now, in addition to IP addresses, the Internet also has to deal with numbered PORTS. Ports are basically like little doorways (or shipping ports) in your computer. There are some standard ports that are reserved for different activities... like the Web uses port 80 for it's traffic. Email uses port 25, and so on. TripleA uses port 3300. Why? Because it's not a very popular port, and that's just the one that the designers of TripleA just decided to use.

Now, in order to get your router to work with TripleA, you have to set up PORT FORWARDING in your router. You're going to tell your router, "hey... if any unexpected traffic comes in on port 3300, I want you to forward it to my computer, which is 90.0.0.1."

And that is the story of HOW this whole thing works. You are basically telling your router to send any traffic on the "TripleA" port (3300) to go directly to your computer and don't discard it. When you're running TripleA, the game will pick it up and work.

If you don't have port forwarding on, you won't get any traffic unless you disconnect your router and put your computer directly on the Internet - which I don't recommend (security risk). If you have the port forwarding enabled, you should still be safe because nothing really works on port 3300 (so it's not a big security threat).

Now, here's the big question: HOW DO I SET UP PORT FORWARDING FOR MY ROUTER? That, unfortunately, is not something I can answer here. There are hundreds of different types of routers made by dozens of different manufacturers. I could list instructions for some of the more popular routers here, but there is already a great web site at www.portforward.com that lists them.

The site will have you pick your router model from a list shown (pick the one closest to yours if it doesn't show up - usually the instructions are the same). Then pick the program you're using. TripleA doesn't show up on the lists yet (someone should contact them to add it). But you can pick a standard application like TELNET. Instead of forwarding port 23 (for telnet) you want to forward port 3300.

And that's it.

Now, if you have any questions, please DON'T email me. I don't have enough time in the day to answer everyone's email on port fowarding. However, if you contact your router manufacturer, I'm sure their tech support people are more than happy to help you. If not, dump your router and get a new one from a company that offer tech support. :)