@aequitas-et-veritas said in Warfare Principles of Axis & Allies (By AndrewAAGamer):
A.) It will be a 50/50 chance each time, b/c either you won or you lost.
B) even if you play as much as possible without taking risks, if your opponent makes a risky move, doesn’t this call off your whole riskfree playstyle and awareness??
Good questions… Thank you for contributing.
A) It is only a 50-50 chance if the Players are of equal caliber. The stronger Player is always going to win more than 50% of the games. Thus the stronger Player does not need to take as many risks and the weaker Player does have to take risks to win.
B) That depends. If you are the stronger Player than you may still be able to play conservatively even if the other Player is succeeding in risky attacks. Case in point. I had a face to face AA50 game where our Opponents had a dramatically aggressive G1. They attacked Egypt and every Allied fleet they could get their hands on. None of the battles were greater than 65% and one of them was under 50% yet they won them all. Our Allied position was frankly terrible. Germany was going to swoop through Africa and there was no Allied fleet to do anything about it for multiple Turns. Our team huddled and since it was the very beginning of the game, and night, my partners wanted to concede and start over so we could play at least one game where we might win. I disagreed. My point was the reason they had such an aggressive opening was because they knew we were the better team. Thus they will either a) make a mistake down the road that we can take advantage of or b) they will continue to make very risky attacks and eventually the dice will turn against them. So we continued and I was correct. They made a strategic error the very next Turn and the following Turn had two risky battles go against them so by the beginning of Turn 4 we were right back in the game and eventually won. So we did not have to play risky because we were better than them.
On the other hand I have been in games where the caliber of the Players was about the same and my Opponent started making risky attacks and was successful and you are correct. I had to change from my conservative strategy and start making risky attacks to try and stay in the game. For example while personally I would never like to attack Moscow with anything less than an 80% chance of victory against a really good Player I would go all the way down to 60% because after all, against a really good Player winning 60% of the time is a good thing. In fact if you are playing the best of the best winning 51% of the time is all it takes to be happy.
The point I am trying to make in my article is if you do not have to make a risky attack to win; why make it? I never said risky attacks were bad; many times they are necessary. I said do not make them if you do not have to.
@AndrewAAGamer above you listed several allied bid placements that were essential. Can you put them in order and by distinction : Essential non-essential
My question would be, why not codify this? Why leave it up in the air? And come up with a minimum for o o b player VS equal player? This would give us an even starting point even a handicapping mechanic that could slide, adjusting from noob to last year’s champion. Did I mention the need for an Ana players governing body?
@AndrewAAGamer that is a great clarification!
@AndrewAAGamer Lady luck is a capricious harlot.
@crockett36 You can start ranking bids based on how much extra value they will bring on turn 1, either on extra offense or defense or battles-prevented or income gained. A UK sub in the med is way up there to allow for reliable destruction of the Italian fleet. Same with a few extra UK land units in Africa. A Scottish fighter is also massively useful as it generally ensures 1 fewer German naval battles. I also love a Yunnan infantry, making the Japanese battle on turn 1 far more dicey and difficult for a J1 DOW. Nothing beats the return on investment of an ANZAC infantry in New Guinea if you can sneak that on.
In terms of a fair bid, the number keeps drifting up with about 40 being typical. I would suggest another 20-ish points per tier difference between players. as poor gameplay in the early turns can quickly make a big impact. A weak player can still struggle despite being handed a 100 PU bid. Here are the tier boundaries according to League rules. They really should create a category for 8+
Tier boundaries: PPG
Tier M (Master) 5.50+
Tier E (Elite) 4.50-5.49
Tier 1 3.50-4.49
Tier 2 2.50-3.49
Tier 3 0.00-2.49
I don’t understand the numbers? 5.50? Ipcs?
@crockett36 points per game for the League matches:
[https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/24393/league-standings](link url)
@crockett36 said in Warfare Principles of Axis & Allies (By AndrewAAGamer):
Lady luck is a capricious harlot.
LOL - Too true!
According to these principles, it is much easier for the axis to achieve victory in a plain Jane game. No bid I mean. Therefore in order to win they must choose lower percentage battles it also means that if you can see yourself falling considerably behind you also must choose to be adventurous!
And that a good amount of time you will fall short!
@crockett36 I’ve thought about this thread a lot in the last two months. I had never really conceived of the notion of the difference between 99.99 and 99.999. Still blows my mind. Life doesn’t seem to present many circumstances that are that sure. And of course most action underdog movies are about how that goes badly.
@AndrewAAGamer I see from one of your early articles that you say to never buy a cruiser and rarely buy a battleship. However, for the same price as the battleship you can have a cruiser and a destroyer, which gives a 16% of getting two hits instead of one from the battleship in the first round of combat (assuming the battleship would hit) and a 67% chance of getting at least one hit in that same round (which is marginally better than the chance of getting a hit with just a battleship).
Now you might add that the battleship can be repaired, to which I would counter that two unit build can be split if necessary to provide blockers or handle two needed tasks and therefore I think the benefit of that defensive hit is a wash.
Thoughts?
Marsh
The choice usually is between a battleship or two destroyers or three subs. The BB can be repaired, while the latter options have numerous advantages.
In large fleet battles, battleships are slightly more advantageous as they don’t have their attack ability decreased after taking a single hit. The benefit is so minimal that I have never personally purchased one in a game.
@arthur-bomber-harris I’m not sure I agree that battleships are slightly more advantageous, but skipping that. Part of Andrew’s position is that it’s better to get your hits in early rather than wait til later. If that’s true on offense, it should also be true on defence.
Marsh
The issue here is you are trying to match the $20 for one battleship which gives us odd comparisons. For a real comparison look at multiples of each where the dollars match.
a) (5) Destroyer (5 HP, 10 OFP, 10 DFP) vs (2) Battleship (4 HP, 8 OFP, 8 DFP)
Destroyer versus Battleship = 59.7% DD win, 35.2% BB win, 5.1% both die.
b) (3) Destroyer (3 HP, 6 OFP, 6 DFP) vs 2 Cruiser (2 HP, 6 OFP, 6 DFP)
Destroyer versus Cruiser = 66% DD win, 27.3% CA win, 6.7% both die.
So, in a straight up battle the destroyers win hands down. If you need defense the destroyers are great. If your fleet is already bigger than subs are even better on offense than above. Subs and destroyers are better than cruisers and battleships.
I have bought battleships when I only have limited space in the factory slot(s) and needed the biggest defense available due to an enemy fleet threatening me. Such as Japan off FIC or the US off Korea. I may have bought a cruiser once in my lifetime in the same scenario when I only had enough space and money for the cruiser and could not get the battleship or multiple destroyers or a carrier and two fighters.
@marshmallowofwar if you get into a battle with a high probability of success, the battleships will give you a higher expected TUV swing. Check it out in a typical scenario. It isn’t a huge benefit, ~5 TUV per battleship, and comes with numerous disadvantages
I really do like having 20 subs compared to 15 destroyers or 6 battleships as they are all roughly comparable on defense but the subs are vastly superior on offense.
@andrewaagamer That’s awesome, but it’s not really an answer to the question.
5 battleships (100 IPCs) attacking 5 destroyers and 5 cruisers (100 IPCs) wins about 46% of the time according to the Triple A calculation (over 10000 iterations). The defender wins 50% of the time and the other 4% is a draw.
5 destroyers and 5 cruisers attacking 5 battleships wins 50% of the time. The battleships win 46% of the time, and the other 4% is a draw.
If I increase those numbers to 15 stacks, the win ratio for the mixed units goes up to 52%.
To me, those numbers back up my position that it’s better to have two units than one – the two unit combo has a slight edge. Is my math off somewhere?
Marsh
Well sure a combo of cruisers and destroyers is better than only battleships by a tiny margin; because of the destroyers involved. That does not change the fact that destroyers by themselves are better than cruisers and battleships.
Not sure what your question is?
@andrewaagamer My question was why build a battleship (one unit) when for the same price you can have two units that might get two hits in defense (or offense for that matter) and gives the same number of defensive hits?
It’s true that the battleship shoots better on the second round of combat, but getting that extra hit potentially on the first round of combat weakens the attacker opponent’s second round of combat.
It seems to me that any time you would build a battleship you’re better off building a destroyer and a cruiser instead unless you are limited to building only a single unit…
So I am saying not to build battleships but in extreme circumstances and cruisers in even more extreme circumstances. Build carriers, planes, destroyers and subs instead.
But if your question is if I have only two choices a) a battleship or b) a destroyer and a cruiser than of those two choices, yes the destroyer and cruiser is a better build assuming you have the space to build two units instead of one.
@andrewaagamer said in Warfare Principles of Axis & Allies (By AndrewAAGamer):
But if your question is if I have only two choices a) a battleship or b) a destroyer and a cruiser than of those two choices, yes the destroyer and cruiser is a better build assuming you have the space to build two units instead of one.
So going back to your original question is ONE battleship better than ONE cruiser plus ONE destroyer. I am thinking IF the battleship might survive it is the better unit to buy. Here are the results of the battle:
CA and DD win = 11% = $20 x 11% = $2.2
CA wins = 31% = $12 x 31 = $3.7
BB wins = 39% = $20 x 39% = $7.8
All die = 19% = $0
CA+DD = $5.9
BB = $7.8
So if there is a chance after the battle is over that the battleship can escape and heal itself buying the battleship is the better economic buy assuming the slightly less chance of winning overall, 42% vs 39%, does not affect the outcome of a larger fleet battle or defending the sea zone.
