Amazing!
The UnBaltic - CSub paper #18
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Hey ImpLdr.
Yup, I came back a while ago and I explained the name change then (for other folks, I used to be CrazyStraw, but I bought into the Ender-mania upon my return).
Things are much calmer now than back in the day :-D
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Interesting - I just tried something similar in a game with peruri only to see almost the exact same thing posted on CS for all the world to see. Never tried it before but as the paper said, I liked the fact that it at least seems to put a lot of early pressure on the british fleet and airforce and has the potential to put a fair number of their units at risk. Not sure how it will turn out but it seemed worth a shot. Unfortunately I didn’t buy the (apparently) all-important 2nd bomber. :(
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I dunno how important the second bomber is to make it work. I guess it could be nice, but I have never, personally, won a game with Germany when I had two bombers for Germany. I have lost a game with two bombers for germany however!
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I like the paper, and I will probably give it a shot next time I’m Germany, but there are two points that make me wary.
1. You’d BETTER win in Egypt. This strategy leaves no margin for faliure. The last thing you want is for the UK Indian fleet to join up with the DD in SZ 15.
2. I still don’t like the UK Bom/DD versus Ger BB/Tran in SZ 13. If UK gets lucky, then you’re down a transport (or possibly both transports if he hit SZ 7 with the rest)…it’s not like UK needs a DD that’s hardly ever alive, so it’s more a question of whether or not the UK player is willing to potentially sacrifice a bomber to force a German Rd 2 transport purchase.
Maybe build a sub in SZ 14 to block the DD and buy a few less Inf??
…still, quite interesting.
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If they attack your bb/tran with dest/bom, that means the bom isn’t available to attach the fleet in SZ7. That’s a huge detriment, means it will slip away and the Germans get their transport back. Even if you don’t like leaving the tran/bb undefended, realize the UK bomber like the paper says has other things to do like attacking the SZ7 first of all and second clearing Egypt more efficiently.
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Csub papers.
They’re like when you look this homeless guy in the eye, and he tells you very convincingly how (fill in blank). You listen, and it sounds right, and you keep listening. Suddenly he whips off his hobo suit, and it’s Tom Cruise, and you’re a Scientologist.
Moral of the story: When reading CSub papers, be wary of conversion to Scientology. :wink:
(note) - CSub papers often offer a good deal that is of value. But don’t swallow their stuff whole. Read and think carefully.
Or else . . . hoboes!!!
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Moral of the story: When reading CSub papers, be wary of conversion to Scientology.
You’d be surprised how often we hear this about our group.
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Everything has its merit. Nothing is the ‘perfect’ strategy…only a version of it.
The best strategy is to remain flexible at all times, because all the games are different. If you employ the same ideas too often they will be imitated and overcome or refuted which is probably a good thing for the game anyway.
Too much home preparation is ruining the game to some extent, because the social aspect of games is to allow some degree of diplomacy with teammates and thats lost if your following some script somebody wrote.
Another reason why I only play it with 4 players minimum. Thats the way it was designed to be played IMO.
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You listen, and it sounds right, and you keep listening. Suddenly he whips off his hobo suit, and it’s Tom Cruise, and you’re a Scientologist.
lawlz
Something close to the UnBaltic has been used on me twice, actually in my past two games I think, and I’ve been itching to try it out. I really like the addition of the bmb. It’s like a ftr purchase in that you threaten UK/US with it while using it on land–but it’s a bomber! That range of 6 means it can probably be used in any attack you want, turn after turn after turn.
So I’m just waiting for the TripleA server to stop acting up so I can play Axis and try this out. Two thumbs up, CSub.
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I like the paper.
The weird thing is for the first time ever Csub has released something that wasn’t completely news to me! Either I’m getting better, or Csub is getting….BETTERER.
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Everything else then an atttack from UK on SZ5 if germany doesn´t sink in more ships is a failure, if sz 14 isn´t up for grabs of course (that means it consists of 1 bb, 1 trn).
Then my new idea is to allways attack it with 1 bmb, 1 fig and that makes it dumb to hit sz5 the same turn.
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Bean,
It’s correct that the bomber won’t be available for BOTH battles (SZ 7 and SZ 13.) But it does not NEED to be available for both.
If England’s making a stretch and does both battles, they can win them both. Dunno if they can survive it financially, but they can. 2 Transports, Battleship, 2 Fighters to SZ 7, Bomber Destroyer to SZ 13.
Dunno, I don’t think I’d do it. Guess it would depend on Russia. If Russia hit Ukraine almost unscathed and Egypt destroyed the Africa Corps, I’d be much more inclined to punch Germany right in the nose with the British RAF and Navy. (After all, America is coming and you know Germany’s going to be crying for Japan if you get lucky OR unlucky then.)
If Russia got hurt and/or Egypt fell without resistance, I might think better of it.
Anyway, I find that with most CSub Papers, they have some good ideas, but they’re usually ones I already had, but they have a lot of bad assumptions as well. The worst assumption is that their papers work outside of their groups and that’s bad because no one else uses their rule set; just about everyone else is using LHTR and if not LHTR then it’s the rules from the box. Only their group uses their rule set, really.
Further complicating the matter is that this, specific, paper is asking you to count on Cascade Dice Failure. I don’t think you can ever count on that. I think you have to plan for Cascade Dice Failure to ONLY work against you, never for you. This is why 100% of my Bombers on SBR runs get shot down on their first run, but 0% of my enemy bombers on SBR runs ever get shot down (and always do 4 or more IPC damage per bomber too, mind you.) CDF would tell you that SBR is a bad move because you are risking 15 IPC for 4 IPC on the roll of 1 die that has a 17% chance of hitting you. Real life tells you that SBR is a bad move for YOU because you have a 97% chance to get shot down and a 3% chance to take 1 IPC while your enemy has a 97% chance to survive and do 5 or 6 IPC damage to you.
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If England’s making a stretch and does both battles, they can win them both. Dunno if they can survive it financially, but they can. 2 Transports, Battleship, 2 Fighters to SZ 7, Bomber Destroyer to SZ 13.
Yes, but that’s what the paper wants England to do - to stretch itself thin and give itself the possibility of bad dice happening to them.
1 bom 1 dest vs 1 btl 1 tp
According to frood, attacker survives 23% of the time. Hmm….defender survives with 1 unit or more 59% of the time. Is that a great battle?
2 fig 2 tp 1 btl vs 3 sub 1 tp 1 dest
Attacker survives 75% of the time, with the most common result being both tps and 1 fig lost.
So the average dice shows that the UK isn’t going to do well. Usually what will happen is the med tp is killed, but the bb survives and both dest/bom are dead. And what usually happens in SZ7 is both tps and 1 fig are killed.
IMO, that is amazing for zero naval IPCs spent. You cashed in 2 tps 1 fig 1 bom of useful equipment (well and 1 dest, but I don’t count that since it’s not something UK really misses) for a navy you didn’t even care about or spend a dime into. You didn’t even use or risk a fig. UK has to rebuild its entire transport chain and has a measly fig for an airforce. Is that a recommended battle? You say Uk can win, which is true, but that’s pretty much a useless statement. It would be like saying well, I could send 4 inf 1 arm on R1 to W. Russia, and it could win.
Not to mention, UK is absolutely forced to buy a carrier on UK1 and probably…another fig to replace the one it expects to lose! We’re not talking about insignificant changes to the UK plan.
Better to prove that it is a recommended route to go.
For someone who would prefer to avoid attacking the Baltic fleet, you seem strangely anxious to take 2 battles which have lower odds and wind up with you losing more.
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I understand, Bean. That’s why I said if, and that’s a BIG IF, I did it, that would have to be contingent on a stellar performance by Russia and a sub-optimum performance by Germany.
Honestly, in that situation, if I did anything, it would be RAF only. Ignore the submarines.
Better would be to ignore the whole fleet, get a carrier and a submarine and bring American reinforcements to stop op Sea Lion. Block the invasion of Brazil with the Russian submarine.
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I wanted to follow-up to this paper based on what I learned trying to use something similar (before I even saw the paper), as I mentioned above.
There is one problem with part of the discussion of what the UK can do in response. The paper states:
@Crazy:So ignoring the fleet is bad, how about attacking the boats with everything? The UK could send 2tra 1btl 2ftr 1bmr against 1tra 3sub 1des. Clearly that is a good fight for the UK, but it has some interesting risks. First off, if the UK gets two hits on the first round, the Germans will lose the transport and the destroyer and submerge the subs. Because you can’t retreat from submerged subs, the UK fleet will be pulled out of range of the American reinforcements.
[[i]emphasis added]
The problem is, this isn’t quite how it works in reality. While it’s true the attacker can’t retreat from submerged subs, they can retreat before the subs submerge. Most of the time, for expediency, we just declare our OOLs and submerges at the same time, but that’s not how the rules work. The defender has to declare their OOL first in conduct combat, then in press attack or retreat, the attacker has the option to retreat. So when you choose to sink the DD and TRN, the UK just retreats before you can dive*. It seems the best scenario is to strafe with the British fleet (which, by the way, can only score 4 hits so it can’t possibly get trapped by sinking the entire german flotilla), then retreat to sz8 for US reinforcements and perhaps a CV build that was probably going to happen soon anyway. That’s what was done to me. Then those subs get hammered by the USAF - especially if they leave an open spot on the brit cv for the EUS fighter. Then you’ll likely get your entire navy smoked if you try to link any remaining subs with the med BB (again, speaking from experience).
So running the fleet limits what the UK can do offensively for a turn, but it lets them bring an extra 4 dots from the BB, and gives them the BB damage and plenty of fodder instead of risking the RAF completely which seems to counter the addition of the subs to the battle.
*LHTR is crystal clear that the attacker has the option to retreat before the defender can dive the subs. Actually the OOB rules are a little vague (surprise!) on who can declare retreat first - the attacker or the defending subs. But even if you’re playing OOB, the best case scenario is you get in a big argument about who can retreat or submerge first which will inevitably end with the board getting flipped up in the air with pieces flying all over the room.
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TripleA is just as crystal clear the option to submerge subs is BEFORE attacker’s retreat. Programmers consulted with a rules guru…
And many games are going around with TripleA, almost a de-facto standard. Or not ?? -
B/c TripleA will allow/not allow certain moves it doesn’t mean they are legal or Illegal. TripleA is not necessarily a rule set, it is only a platform to play the game. Now if TripleA Club/Ladder members all except certain quirks that is fine, but as Tim points out you may find someone call you on it if you are using TripleA and playing with LHTR, in which case the retreat would come before the submerge.
I’m not fully up to speed on all the corrections and additionals made to TripleA but it is possible they haven’t updated it or editted it for LHTR 2.0.
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The TripleA dev community is working hard on LHTR compliance.
However, due to shotrage of programmers (and IMO an aging code structure) various issues are on low priority.I find the TripleA community (those who visits the TripleA forum) is informed of the situation and wouldn’t consider the missing rules of TripleA a de-facto standard. Players would do the right thing even when the program does not force them.
(Though sometimes its not good enough. Hence TripleA now has a edit mode.)
Now, I do see your worry and wonder whether CSub papers are built from TripleA playtesting data.
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TripleA allows and does not allow things all the time. For instance, it will not allow you to move your fighters into combat without moving the carriers appropriately first. However, it’s perfectly legal to move the fighters and only declare you are moving the carriers IF the fighters survive.
I suspect it’s the same here.
Anyway, you COULD strafe and kill the Transport, Destroyer. But what if the Germans decide to kill a transport/submarine instead of the transport Destroyer leaving a submarine/destroyer? Are you prepared to leave the Germans with a free destroyer? What if they decide to sink two submarines leaving a transport, Destroyer? How many of us are prepared to allow the Germans to slip a destroyer and a transport into the Med with their Battleship, Transport?
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The problem is, this isn’t quite how it works in reality. While it’s true the attacker can’t retreat from submerged subs, they can retreat before the subs submerge.
Now, I do see your worry and wonder whether CSub papers are built from TripleA playtesting data.
Guys, this is just silly.
Don’t you think that a CSub paper would be written under CSub rules?
We don’t write for LHTR, or TripleA, or DAAK, etc. We write for our own system because it is the simplest and most coherent.
CSub rules are only one page long, and half of that is explaining the bid. It is completely logical that we would use our own system, not someone else’s.
If you haven’t taken the time to understand the shortest rules around, then don’t be so quick to criticize.
Rules (last link):
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Caspian_Sub/files/Peace
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