New Player Question
Played a game yesterday afternoon (all of us Noobies), and had this question surface in my mind because of the propensity of one of our number to weakly cheat. What is the purpose of hiding your damage cards? We played 2 games, revealing our damage the whole time.
The reason you hide your damage cards is so that no one knows how close you are to being shot down. If you are close and everyone knows it, they will all come after you!
How was your guy cheating? Not saying he was shot down once he reached max damage??
I heard a "Oh, wait a minute. I'm shot down." He said this after I said I needed to check and make sure that players hadn't been put out (we let some little guys play, like 7 & 8 yr. olds with help from adults). I suppose he thought that I meant him too, and confessed before I had an opportunity to look through anybody's cards. He said this during a turn in which his plane hadn't taken any damage; as a matter of fact, his plane hadn't taken any damage for at least two turns.
I hate to point out cheaters (adult) in front of players who are young. I thought open damage would be an answer for that.
I think just a friendly reminder very few turns to check your damage should work. If he turns out to be a real cheater, just don't play with him
We always use open damage. It takes away the opportunity to cheat and eliminates the "oh wait im dead... oops" situation. its also better for young/beginner players who can legitimately forget to check it or cant count to 16 (some adults have this problem too). We do find this can cause more competition between players for kills as we all go for the wounded planes first unless our mission is to knock out a 2-seater plane. But this is the same for both sides so it works out usually by each team negotiating a bit before selecting targets for firing.Originally Posted by Davot
I heard a "Oh, wait a minute. I'm shot down." He said this after I said I needed to check and make sure that players hadn't been put out (we let some little guys play, like 7 & 8 yr. olds with help from adults). I suppose he thought that I meant him too, and confessed before I had an opportunity to look through anybody's cards. He said this during a turn in which his plane hadn't taken any damage; as a matter of fact, his plane hadn't taken any damage for at least two turns.
I hate to point out cheaters (adult) in front of players who are young. I thought open damage would be an answer for that.
We always hide the damage, and it's just the odd time that someone misses their count. Most players will be poking the person with lots of cards every turn now, and it's funny when they are drawing "0" or "1" instead of the "Death Card".
Yeah, I think hidden damage makes the game a lot more fun. Any cheaters that are found or just taken out back and shot!
For those of you play with open damage, how do you handle rudder jams and engine damage?
The league that I play in has 23 people in it and we have not had any real cheating going on but we have had a few Ooopses. I can't imagine playing with visable damage since guessing is half the fun!
I have played two games now were the first damage card I drew was the engine damage. You know the one where you have to play a stall 1 card out of 3 every game turn! Because of everything that was going on no one noticed and both times I survived the game!! You can't get away with that if you reveal your damages.
We do make sure our younger players get help from other players on their side and we keep a copy of the Special Damage list handy for questions.
People that cheat tend to work themselves out of the group because they can't really win without being found out and they tend to get ribbed about it endlessly. Our group tends to like to show everybody how close to crashing they were at the end of a game anyway just to brag or prove how lucky they really were, so everyone finds out what your totals were in the end.
Sounds like our groups are very similar Charlie. You should tell us more about your group and introduce your self over in the Report for Duty section.
we've even had one guy in our group "shuffle" his cards in the game when he thought no one was watching.....his best trick was to "bump" or move his plane a little to get in range or to turn it slightly to improve his position in the next turn..what was great about that was one of the kids in the group said to him" hey mister you put your plane in the wrong place..." and proceeded to show him where it should be...the cheater turned a few shades of red after that... we also play with open damage especially when we have young people playing .
Never had problems with cheating in our group. We play with hidden cards. I think it gives the game more fun, as even your wingmen don't know how damaged you are (we don't sho cards tho them).
We don't show any cards until the plane is shot down, then we have fun talking about how much or little damage it had be for going down.
No showing of card here either.
I only keep engine, rudder and pilot damage secret, an astute pilot will eventually pick up on these. I no longer keep observer wounded/killed secret as I would expect that the guy slumped in the back not returning fire is fairly easily seen.
In the heat of a large game when you control 3 to 4 aircraft it is fairly easy for anyone to miss a count or do a turn or forget a stall now and again, I take the view that this is not cheating and it will even itself out eventually.
People who cannot seem to put both black crosses together and end up in a more advantagous position as a result, that would be cheating or as said above, flying for several turns and not counting up damage and declaring it.
Yeah, we're the same. Except its me showing how much damage I took and my mate showing me how many "zeros" can be contained in the damage decks!!!!
I think it all depends on your group. If you know who you are playing with there should be no problems. If you get into a game with people you don't know then you might want to be a bit more careful. We have a small group only three of us playing so no problems here.
i could be wrong on this, but during WWI, wasn't there supposed to be a certain code of honor pilots uphold or adhere to? and even if this is just a myth, aren't we suppose to set the good example and behaviour to the children? i find it disturbing that a "grown" up would go that far to cheat just to win.and we wonder why the world is such a mess...
it may just be a game, a trivial to most observers, but it's a way for character building... be able to accept the outcomes and that you can't simply win them all.
If people are found to miss a count. Well next game the get to fly the naughty plane. make them pilot a Harry Tate (RE8 a plane that is underplayed compared to history in games when people choose) or an early plane in a late game!
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