End of Round Victory

[Jennifer]

This is a pet pieve of mine.  In classic the Axis won if at the end of any given round they had 84 IPC worth of land.  To me that sounded like stealing a victory.  Why?  All you had to do was blitz the hell out of Africa and Asia and you have 84 IPC.  You might only have 100 IPC in army spread out across the board, but if America couldn’t spontaneously get 1 of those IPC away due to positioning, the game was over.  It doesn’t matter if you had 400 IPC in infantry and armor ready to take Berlin.

What’s worse is the end of round requirement for Victory Cities in Revised.  If America can take that 9th VC with 1 Infantry, even though they don’t have a prayer of holding it even after Russia goes, the Allies win.  Why?  How stupid a rule can that possibly be?  You can steal a victory after being thoroughly trounced by your opponent because your opponent does not need all positions to be tactically superior?

We have a term for this in Chess, it’s called Robbery Chess.  You steal all the pieces you can because you cannot defeat your opponent through skill.

So what I’m suggesting is an intra-organization change to the rules.  The allies must hold 9 Victory Cities for one full round.  That means that at the end of each allies turn the allies own 9 VCs. (Russia takes Karelia, Germany takes Karelia, England liberates Karelia would count as holding 9 VCs.)  Ditto for the Axis, though, to be honest, if the Axis have 9 VCs it’s probably because the game is over anyway.  It’s usually a situation of the Axis owning India, Karelia and Moscow, in other words, an entire Allied nation is out of the game.

All I’m saying is that the axis need at least one turn to liberate a VC after America takes the 9th.  I think that’s fair because the game should not be won by a solitary infantryman.

[axis_roll]

@Cmdr:

The allies must hold 9 Victory Cities for one full round.  That means that at the end of each allies turn the allies own 9 VCs. (Russia takes Karelia, Germany takes Karelia, England liberates Karelia would count as holding 9 VCs.)

In your example, the allies would have to still hold karelia thru the end of Germanys next turn, right?

[axis_roll]

@Cmdr:

So what I’m suggesting is an intra-organization change to the rules.

Are LHTR the official rules set of the game played here?  Is there such a thing as an official rules set here?

[Jennifer]

LHTR seems to be the standard here.

And no.  Germany never gets a turn to peel that 9th VC away from the allies.  If America ends their turn with the allies holding 9 VC, even if all 9 of those VC are under immediate threat of being lost with Germany’s next turn, the allies win.  That’s my problem with it!

If America has W. Europe with 1 Infantry, S. Europe with 1 Infantry and Kwangtung with 1 Infantry and Germany has 30 Armor in Berlin and Japan has 5000 Armor in Manchuria but no Allied VC have been captured, the Allies win.

However, if they had to hold those 9 VCs until Germany moved, do you think the Allies would win the game?

[axis_roll]

@Cmdr:

LHTR seems to be the standard here.

And no.  Germany never gets a turn to peel that 9th VC away from the allies.  If America ends their turn with the allies holding 9 VC, even if all 9 of those VC are under immediate threat of being lost with Germany’s next turn, the allies win.  That’s my problem with it!

If America has W. Europe with 1 Infantry, S. Europe with 1 Infantry and Kwangtung with 1 Infantry and Germany has 30 Armor in Berlin and Japan has 5000 Armor in Manchuria but no Allied VC have been captured, the Allies win.

However, if they had to hold those 9 VCs until Germany moved, do you think the Allies would win the game?

Sorry, my question was unclear.  I meant to say under your proposal, Germany would have a chance to grab karelia and escape from the 9 VC losing condition.

Which side do you think this helps more?

Using very simple logic of 3 against 2, I would think it helps the allies as they have more chances to wrest a VC from the axis grips.  In this sense, I am against ANYTHING that helps the allies win even more.

[cyan]

@Cmdr:

We have a term for this in Chess, it’s called Robbery Chess.  You steal all the pieces you can because you cannot defeat your opponent through skill.

It takes skill to be able to take all your opponents pieces away.  if you were so skill less then you would not be able to do that to others.

[Jennifer]

Cyan: It takes suicide to take all your opponent’s pieces away.  It takes skill to check mate with pieces on the board.

Axis: I think it helps the axis more.  Now they have a chance to get a VC and stave off defeat because of a last ditch attack by America to win against the odds and come up with that 9th VC.  Now they won’t be going for that last ditch attack because Germany would have a turn to reclaim the territory and stop the win.

As it stands now, if Russia’s about to fall but the allies have 8 VC (All their originals + Kwangtung and W. Europe for instance.) And America has a chance to attack 2 infatnry in S. Europe with 1 infantry, 1 armor, even though Berlin has 40 infantry, 10 armor, 4 fighters on it (say to prevent Berlin from falling) America should attack S. Europe.  If they lose, then the game is probably lost anyway, with Russia down, it’s only a matter of time before the Japanese can relieve Germany.  However, if they win, they just ended the game prematurely for an allied victory, a victory they would never have had, but in essence were allowed to steal!

At least in M84, the Americans had a last chance to get the Axis down to 83 and save the game.  But in the American wins the game situation from above, the axis never have a chance to save the game by reclaiming the lost city.

[axis_roll]

You might be onto something.

I’ll have to think about it more before I say yea or nay

[newpaintbrush]

@Cmdr:

This is a pet pieve of mine.  In classic the Axis won if at the end of any given round they had 84 IPC worth of land.  To me that sounded like stealing a victory.  Why?  All you had to do was blitz the hell out of Africa and Asia and you have 84 IPC.  You might only have 100 IPC in army spread out across the board, but if America couldn’t spontaneously get 1 of those IPC away due to positioning, the game was over.  It doesn’t matter if you had 400 IPC in infantry and armor ready to take Berlin.

Then post this in the Classic board!  Anyways, if the Axis hit 84 IPC at the end of a round, the Axis were going to win anyways.  Seriously, that’s the way the Classic game plays out.  It’d be REAL difficult to have “400 IPC in infantry and armor ready to take Berlin” and ALSO have the Axis at 84 IPC.

What’s worse is the end of round requirement for Victory Cities in Revised.  If America can take that 9th VC with 1 Infantry, even though they don’t have a prayer of holding it even after Russia goes, the Allies win.  Why?  How stupid a rule can that possibly be?  You can steal a victory after being thoroughly trounced by your opponent because your opponent does not need all positions to be tactically superior?

Frankly, if the Axis can’t maintain 9 VCs, they’re going to lose anyways.  Again, look at the board.  It’s really very difficult to be “robbed” of victory.  More like, the Axis were already losing.

We have a term for this in Chess, it’s called Robbery Chess.  You steal all the pieces you can because you cannot defeat your opponent through skill.

I’ve played chess for a long time, and I’ve never heard of this “robbery chess”.  We have a term for this coining of gratuitous terms in Texas.  It’s called “a horse of a different crack pipe size”.  Yeah, I’m not from Texas, or even Oklahoma.  Disturbing, isn’t it?

So what I’m suggesting is an intra-organization change to the rules.  The allies must hold 9 Victory Cities for one full round.  That means that at the end of each allies turn the allies own 9 VCs. (Russia takes Karelia, Germany takes Karelia, England liberates Karelia would count as holding 9 VCs.)  Ditto for the Axis, though, to be honest, if the Axis have 9 VCs it’s probably because the game is over anyway.  It’s usually a situation of the Axis owning India, Karelia and Moscow, in other words, an entire Allied nation is out of the game.

Naw, just leave it at 9 VCs.  This change is not needed!  Describe a situation in which it IS needed, and I’ll eat my crack pipe.

All I’m saying is that the axis need at least one turn to liberate a VC after America takes the 9th.  I think that’s fair because the game should not be won by a solitary infantryman.

Yeah, you should need at LEAST 400 battleships to win!  Also, hamster dive bombers armed with laser cannons.  You know, I never feel that I’ve REALLY won a game until I pull out a few hamster dive bombers armed with laser cannon . . .

[Jennifer]

Way to ignore the very real scenario I painted.

Axis are about to take Moscow and kill off the majority of the Allied armies and air force.  USA pulls a hail mary and manages to grab S. Europe getting up to 9 VC but only takes it with 1 unit, a unit Germany will easily crush.  But Germany never gets that chance because it’s end of game at 9 VC for the Allies at the end of America’s turn.

Why would you be afraid of letting the axis have one more turn to see if you hold that 9th VC?  Are you so weak of a player you need the Hail Mary option to be open for the Allies?  Don’t the Axis have enough bad odds stacked against them that you need the allies to have another benefit?

[Lucifer]

For me there is only one way to decide who wins or lose in AAR, and that’s domination.
I don’t understand why anyone would want to play it differently.
In reality, players concede before they lost all capitals, or all units.
That’s the way WW2 was decided, by unconditional surrender.
A&A is partly depicting the historical events, and so there’s no such thing as a “minor victory” IMO.

In tournaments there should be some kind of chess clock, i.e. 4 mins. combat move, and 4 mins, noncombat moves.
10 mins total for all actions including buying and placing new units.

[axis_roll]

@Lucifer:

For me there is only one way to decide who wins or lose in AAR, and that’s domination.
I don’t understand why anyone would want to play it differently.
In reality, players concede before they lost all capitals, or all units.
That’s the way WW2 was decided, by unconditional surrender.
A&A is partly depicting the historical events, and so there’s no such thing as a “minor victory” IMO.

In tournaments there should be some kind of chess clock, i.e. 4 mins. combat move, and 4 mins, noncombat moves.
10 mins total for all actions including buying and placing new units.

2 things….
total domination games take forever

10 minntes for a whole turn?  I’m assuming you are not including rolling the dice.

[Jennifer]

Axis,

He’s including capitulation as a method of winning outside of total domination. (basically flipping your king down and surrendering.)

So it wouldn’t take that long.  But 9 VC is insane unless you give the axis a turn to get one liberated.  If you cannot hold 9 VC for an entire turn, you don’t deserve to win. :P  To spin the argument made previously about the axis not being able to hold 9 VC and thus not deserving to win.

The game should not be trumped by a hail mary.  If you hail mary and your opponent surrenders, that’s a different thing all together. (That would happen on a Hail Mary of London or Berlin or Japan.  but not on a hail mary where you have 1 lonely infantry man on S. Europe to win the game.)

[newpaintbrush]

@Cmdr:

Way to ignore the very real scenario I painted.

Hamsters in dive bombers armed with laser cannons are unrealistic?  obviously u r not current on recent military technology trends . . . although i hear they want to use mice instead of hamsters, something about the Red Chinese arming with elephant-manned antiaircraft batteries . . .

Axis are about to take Moscow and kill off the majority of the Allied armies and air force.  USA pulls a hail mary and manages to grab S. Europe getting up to 9 VC but only takes it with 1 unit, a unit Germany will easily crush.  But Germany never gets that chance because it’s end of game at 9 VC for the Allies at the end of America’s turn.

So the Axis are about to take Moscow are they?  So just what victory cities do they have?  Let’s say they have Berlin, Paris, Karelia, and Tokyo because US pulled off a monster KJF and somehow snatched Manchuria.  Oh wait, no . . . but then the Allies would still only have 8 VC!  So let’s say that the Axis only have Berlin, Paris, and Tokyo - possibly the least significant of those VCs. (edit) - that is, the most important remaining VCs meaning that the Allies have made the least significant progress - (/edit)  So the Axis are “about to take Moscow”, but Japan’s already lost most of its islands and been kicked out of Asia, and Germany lost Southern Europe to a US invasion that could have been seen coming twenty miles away.  Also, Karelia is lost, so either the Allies have contained Germany, or the UK and/or US have a north Atlantic fleet!  That game isn’t close at all, the Axis are getting their asses handed to them.

Why would you be afraid of letting the axis have one more turn to see if you hold that 9th VC?  Are you so weak of a player you need the Hail Mary option to be open for the Allies?  Don’t the Axis have enough bad odds stacked against them that you need the allies to have another benefit?

No need for a rule that will put off the inevitable defeat.  The Axis are already dead at that point, so let them lie peacefully in their graves.

Hamster dive bombers with laser cannons FTW!

[Jennifer]

But they are not already dead.  They had a bad roll resulting in a Hail Mary success.  However, they could have a pair of 500 IPC armies (Germany has 500, Japan has 500) and the allies all put together may only have 400 IPC army.

You think if Russia is falling on Germany’s next turn and Karelia is being taken and W. Europe is going to be liberated a lucky roll in S. Europe should give the Allies the win?

[newpaintbrush]

Just tell me how the Axis have 3 VC at the end of the US turn, but the Axis are still winning.

[Jennifer]

I just did.

Let me re-iterate with more detail:

It’s Germany’s turn, Germany decides to “lurch” leaving S. Europe with a 70% chance of survival against all invaders (say only America for argument’s sake.)  Karelia is left undefended to stack W. Russia.  W. Europe is left undefended to stack Germany and bring S. Europe up to protect it against an American strike (so America only has a 6% chance to survive an invasion attempt there.)

Japan’s been kicked off the mainland with a significant portion of the Allied armies tied up kicking them off the mainland.  For instance, they were just destroyed but now a majority of the Russian, American and British armies are there, the rest are protecting Moscow.

Germany has a 100% chance of victory in Moscow and enough forces in Berlin to retake W. Europe if the Allies invade there.  Karelia is ignored because Germany wants to crush Moscow so they have enough forces left to pose a significant threat to England after Russia falls.

England invades Karelia and W. Europe, placing 1 infantry in each.

America pulls off the Hail Mary winning in S. Europe but only having 1 infantry and some fighters left to take it. (Thus only 1 infantry is remaining.)

Here is a map to illustrate my point.

Obviously the Allies in this situation are going to get their butts handed to them because when Russia falls, England will lose Africa and eventually london long before the allies can stop the Germans and the Japanese.

On Germany’s next turn they can no only reclaim Karelia, W. Europe and S. Europe but conquer Russia and, possibly, England.

But America did a Hail Mary and won in S. Europe, against the odds (against HUGE odds) and the Allies have 9 VC at the end of USA’s turn.

Why should the allies win in this case?  Why shouldn’t the axis powers have at least one turn to stop the win?  After all, the point of a 9 VC game is to keep players from being mule headed when it’s clear they’ve lost, it’s just going to take 5 hours of game play to make it happen.  But in cases like this, it’s not clear the Axis have lost.  It’s actually pretty clear the Axis are going to win.

However, let’s say the allies were really winning a game, then the Axis would be unable to liberate a VC after one additional round, right?  So what’s the harm in giving them the opportunity to stop a TKO?

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[Jennifer]

To clarify, Germany has the following Chances of liberation:

London: 3 Infantry, 3 Armor, 4 Fighters, Bomber vs 5 Infantry, 3 Armor, AA Gun
Attacker: 90.5% of having 1 Armor remaining at the end of the battle
Defender: 8.5% of having 1 Armor remaining at the end of the battle

Moscow: 40 infantry, 7 Artillery, 26 Armor vs 15 Infantry, 5 Armor, 5 Fighters, Bomber
Attacker: 100% chance of having at least one armor left at the end of battle
Defender: 0% chance of having anything left after the battle.

Karelia: 4 Infantry, Fighter vs Infantry
Attacker: 100% chance of having at least one infantry left at the end of battle
Defender: 0% chance of having anything left after the battle.

S. Europe: 10 Infantry, 5 Armor vs Infantry
Attacker: 100% Chance of having at least one armor left at the end of battle
Defender: 0% chance of having anything left after the battle

W. Europe: 15 Infantry, 2 Armor, 3 Fighters vs INfantry
Attacker: 100% chance of having at least one armor left at the end of battle
Defender: 0% chance of having anything left after the battle

That goes from 9 VC for the allies to 4 VC for the allies just by allowing Germany to have one turn.

[cyan]

I thought you had to hold 9 VC till the next turn. so if Germany took the last VC then the next german turn they would win.

[Jennifer]

No, the rules stipulate that you only have to have 9 VC at the end of any given round.  When America collects income, that’s the end of the round.