TripleA

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on March 21, 2011

Strategic board games let players test their generalship in wars of conquest. TripleA is a free, open-source, Java-based pack containing several strategy games with single-player, multiplayer, and online modes, with more available online. Players manage vast armies of men and weapons, including ships, planes, tanks, and transports, supplies, and other resources. Rolling virtual dice simulates the random element in battle, but different values for various elements mean that strategy trumps chance, at least for skillful generals.

TripleA downloads and installs normally but requires the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) to open, but that's free, too, and easy to install. TripleA's plain start-up screen let us start a new game, but we could also choose another game, load a saved game, start local and online game sessions, download games and maps, and configure game options from this same central point. Clicking Choose a Game let us choose from Big World: 1942, the default game; the classic Capture the Flag; Great War, a WWI game; and Minimap, a quick two-player game. We opted to refight World War II and clicked Play and then Start Local Game. The setup let us choose which armies to play by selecting Human from a list that also offered two AI opponents, E.Z. Fodder and Moore N. Able, to manage the other allied and enemy armies. Selecting Human for all armies lets you play against yourself, while selecting an AI opponent lets the game initiate attacks. Big World: 1942 opened with an interactive global map board with tabs for History, Stats, and Territory. If you've played Risk, you know the basic premise of TripleA's games, which involve moving armies, engaging in battle (rolling the dice), and amassing more pieces to conquer more territory. Instead of dice and a cup, TripleA's pop-up dice-rolling screen contains information about your move, resources, and status. We could even calculate the odds of a battle succeeding, based on the amassed forces.

Why fight your own battles when you can fight someone else's, like, say, Napoleon's? Strategic board games like TripleA offer a level of complexity and detail that is reminiscent of the real thing, but they can also be as simple as a duel. TripleA is an excellent portal to a world of historical and fantasy scenarios ranging from the Roman Empire to WWII to zombie hordes and J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth.

Publisher's Description

From TripleA:

TripleA is a turn based strategy game and board game. Supports single player vs AI, hot-seat, Play by Email, and a hosted online lobby. TripleA comes with multiple games and over 100 games can be downloaded from the user community. TripleA comes with, by default, just 4 maps: Big World, Great War, Capture the Flag, and Minimap. TripleA games involve various scenarios between world powers depicted on maps of varying size and complexity. Many maps for individual games are historical, being primarily based on relative strength and position of world powers leading up to the Second World War. A minority of games are more fantasy oriented or based on non historical scenarios.

Recreate World War 2 with the Axis pushing through to Moscow and Japan devouring the Pacific, or recreate Napoleon's march across Europe, or Rome defeating the Carthaginian Empire, or even Sauron conquering Middle Earth, or Zombies taking over America! If you have ever played a game where you push little plastic or virtual pieces around, roll dice, conquer the lands of your enemy, and produce new pieces to conquer with, Then you will be able to jump right into TripleA

Features include game modes team play, free for all, 1v1, single player vs. AI, and hot-seat mode, multiplayer using Play By Email (pbem), multiplayer via direct connect and LAN, and multiplayer using a free online lobby. Game can save at any moment, player disconnect generate a save game, view game history at any moment, edit mode to add and delete units, change money, change territory ownership, and even move pieces around, different skins for the user interface, zoom out on maps and can change the size of the units, and in-game chat.

What's new in this version:

TripleA is now backwards compatible with older savegames, and new releases will no longer break savegame compatibility.
Can now use a proxy to connect to the internet for Play-By-Forum games and the Dice Server.
Online games network connections now more stable.
Image quality when zooming greatly improved.
New options in Edit Mode to damage/repair units and add/remove technology.
Map downloader now shows out of date maps in bol... See all new features