Cmdr Jennifer Hijacks “Enhanced” – How do you really feel about it.

[Jennifer]

It’s not BS logic.

Here’s the logic:

1)  Tech is assured
2)  Submarines are really cheap
3)  Cruisers are really expensive
4)  Submarines have sneak attack abilities
5)  Submarines have to be detected before they can be attacked
6)  Super submarines turn submarines into cruisers

Conclusion:  Super Submarines tech is unbalanced with Enhanced rules.

Remedy:  Instead of making Submarines upgradable, make Destroyers upgradable.  Cost difference between Revised and Anniversary for the unit is nil; attack power change is nil; destroyers don’t get sneak attacks; destroyers don’t have to be detected before they can be sunk; destroyers are not immune to air power only attacks.

It’s the perfect solution to a blatant and obvious problem.

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BadSpeller:

Read all the replies I have given.  The answers to your D section of questions are all there.

[Unknown Soldier]

Are you going to concede that your probability calcs were wrong or not?

[Jennifer]

@Unknown:

Are you going to concede that your probability calcs were wrong or not?

Just after you concede your probability calcs are wrong.

You fail to take into account the number of nations AND you fail to take into account the number of rounds.  A success could occur on the wrong nation or in the wrong round both of which negate the “success.”

[Jennifer]

1/36 is valid if you are ONLY considering ONE round for ONE nation.  But you cannot do that.  That’s like saying you have a 50% chance to hit with the fighter in a battle with 80 units.  Yea, so what?  It’s not really relevant if the fighter hits, what you want to know is if you’ll WIN and to do that, you need to figure out what the probability is for all of your units to hit and miss and the most likely outcome.

Just like in a mass battle, you need to know what the odds are for Japan to get Super Submarines on Round 3 if one die is purchased.  It’s NOT a success if Germany gets it or Italy gets it.  It’s  NOT a success if you get it on Round 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, …. inf.  If that happens, it’s a FAILURE.

(Capitalization used for emphasis.)

For someone who claims to get paid in this you sure seem to have a severe lack of understanding.  Either that, or you are REALLY confused as to what is being discussed.  No one is talking about the chance that a player discovers a certain technology at any point in the game.  We are specifically talking about a single instance where a technology is discovered by the right nation at the right time.  That has more parameters than just the odds of getting a 6 on a d6 and then the odds of getting a 1 on a d6.  It has to happen only in those scenarios where you are playing the correct nation (1 in 3) and only on that round you need it (1 in 20-25 for some typical games.)

You cannot claim that you “succeeded” in getting Super Submarines in round 20 when the game has evolved to a situation where you no longer have a navy.  That’s a failure.  You cannot claim that you “succeeded” in getting Super Submarines if you are playing a different nation at the time you make the discovery.

The only time you can claim a success is when you get super submarines with the nation you need it for in the round you need it.  So you absolutely MUST account for the chance you are playing the wrong nation and you must account for the chance that it is not yet, or no longer, the round you need the technology.

[Cmdr_Jennifer]

@Cmdr:

Just like in a mass battle, you need to know what the odds are for Japan to get Super Submarines on Round 3 if one die is purchased.  It’s NOT a success if Germany gets it or Italy gets it.  It’s  NOT a success if you get it on Round 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, …. inf.  If that happens, it’s a FAILURE.

Let me get this right.  You’re saying that if Japan will need Super Subs on Round 3 because of the strategy they are attempting but they get them in rounds 1 or 2 its a failure?
@Cmdr_Jennifer:

Because as I see it there is a disconnect from what is mathematically probable and how the game is played.

So if I have to account for the probability that Germany or Italy will get Super Subs (SS) instead of Japan (according to your calculations), then the probability of Japan getting them on Round 3 would change if both Germany and Italy already have them?  So if by luck/chance/stupidity (whatever you want to call it) Germany gets SS on G1 and Italy gets SS in I1, then the probability that Japan would get SS on J3 is 1/6 * 1/6 * 3/3 = 1/36?  Because I could no longer be playing the wrong nation; both other Axis nations already have SS.

Unfortunately, I don’t get paid for my math skills…or maybe fortunately.

[Unknown Soldier]

OK, I’ll take one last crack at explaining this to you Jen. I know you don’t like me, but please try to actually listen to what I’m saying this time. And hopefully this post doesn’t get deleted. :roll:

Suppose I flip a coin. What are the odds it comes up heads? Well, I hope we can agree that its 1/2.

Now, suppose I flip a coin on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. What are the odds of the coin coming up heads on Friday?

Thus far you have reasoned like this: the odds of the coin coming up heads is 1/2, but we must also take into account what day of the week it is. There is only 1 “correct” day of the week (Friday) in which a coin gets flipped, while there are 2 “incorrect” days (Monday, and Wednesday). So there is only a 1/3 chance of it being Friday when the coin is flipped. Therefore, the odds that the coin comes up heads on Friday is (1/2)*(1/3) = 1/6.

Correct?

No. Here’s why:

What you’re trying to do is find the joint probability of two events using conditional probabilities. The problem is, you have the conditional backwards. See, we’re not deciding whether to flip a coin, and then assigning the result of the flip randomly to a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. So we don’t want to know the probability of it being Friday, given that the coin is flipped. Instead, we’re seeing what day of the week it is, and then determining if the coin gets flipped or not based on whether or not it’s a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. Thus, we want to know the probability of flipping a coin, given that it is Friday.

Of course, the probability of flipping a coin, given that it is Friday is equal to 1, since it’s stipulated that a coin always gets flipped on a Friday. So, the joint probability of flipping a coin on friday and flipping heads is: (1)*(1/2) = 1/2.

Do you see the difference? And do you see that you’re making the same mistake when calculating the odds of getting super subs?

We don’t want to know the odds of it being the “correct” nation, given that super subs has been discovered, we want to know the odds of super subs being discovered, given that it’s the “correct” nation.

[Jennifer]

Yes, if your strategy is to get the submarines on round 13 and you instead get them on round 11 or 12, this is a failure.

Why?

If you get them too early, you might not be able to trap your opponent.  In other words, he might slip out of the trap before you are ready to spring it.

But that’s easy to fix, just don’t roll on rounds 11 and 12.

The more serious problem is:

If you need it on round 13 and you get it on round 17 after all your submarines are sunk.

That’s why you have to factor in the rounds into your chances.  It’s more than “getting the tech” it’s getting the tech at an opportune time to use it.

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I see what you are saying Unknown.

Does your rational work if you need that coin to come up heads on a specific day in a specific week and a specific month - keeping in mind, that once you get a head you can no longer get a head.  Remember, this is not sampling with replacement, once you get a tech, you cannot get it again.  (not to mention, as I mentioned above, getting it too early or too late can really screw up your entire plan by either not having the units anymore or showing your hand too early.)

All these things come into play.

And:

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That’s exactly the nice thing about Enhanced.  You don’t have any of those worries anymore.  (Which is what made SS too powerful, which, come to think of it, I think OOB should be changed to make SS be SD just to bring the tech back in line.)

[Unknown Soldier]

@Cmdr:

I see what you are saying Unknown.

Thank you! Now we’re getting somewhere. :)

@Cmdr:

Does your rational work if you need that coin to come up heads on a specific day in a specific week and a specific month - keeping in mind, that once you get a head you can no longer get a head.  Remember, this is not sampling with replacement, once you get a tech, you cannot get it again.

Well, admittedly the coin analogy does break down when we start talking about tech rolls over multiple rounds, because, as you say, you can’t roll the same tech twice while you can flip heads on a future Friday even if you did the first time. I just wanted to illustrate the problem (i.e. the backwards conditional) in the simplest way I could think of.

What’s crucial is how the question is framed. Do we want to know, for example:

The chance Japan gets super subs on exactly turn x?
-OR-
The chance Japan gets super subs on or before turn x?

If we’re talking about the first thing, then all we really need to know is how many tech rolls Japan bought that turn, and what techs they already have (if any). Very straight forward to calculate, and the actual turn number is irrelevant. However, if we’re talking about the second thing, the turn number does matter, as does how many tech rolls Japan will purchase on each of the turns leading up to turn x. This question is much harder to answer. We’d end up with a probability distribution for the chance of acquiring super subs over the turns 1 through x, with the probability increasing over time due to more and more tech rolls and the possibility of other techs being acquired as you go. I think perhaps this is what you were getting at.

However, all that said, one thing we can say for sure is that the probability of getting super subs for any nation will never be more than 1/36, since this is the worst case scenario where no techs have been discovered and only one roll is purchased. Thus 1/108 simply has to be wrong.

[Unknown Soldier]

@Cmdr:

That’s exactly the nice thing about Enhanced.  You don’t have any of those worries anymore.  (Which is what made SS too powerful, which, come to think of it, I think OOB should be changed to make SS be SD just to bring the tech back in line.)

Well, I see your point about how these long-shot odds can break the game, and I agree with you. After all, that’s the point I was trying to make in that thread which got derailed and turned into a discussion of OOB tech rules.

Where we disagree is what alternative should be implemented. I feel that delaying tech rolls until the “place units” phase is the best approach, since it very cleanly strips away the “surprise!” element, which is the mechanism that break the game imo. Also, this approach is a relatively minor change to the rules, when compared to entirely new tech systems like the one you are proposing.

I understand that you think directed tech is more strategic, because you should be able to anticipate which techs your opponent will try for on their turn (if you’re paying attention :P). I just think that directed, guaranteed tech is a real can of worms to unleash on a game that, at this point, is very far from being solved. The fact that you felt it necessary to get rid of super subs because of this is huge red flag to me, indicating that there are likely many other avenues to break the game that you haven’t though of yet. That’s why I was on your case about the playtesting, I’m really not trying to be an ass.

[Cmdr_Jennifer]

@Unknown:

That’s why I was on your case about the playtesting…

I completely agree.

@pagan:

http://boards.avalonhill.com/showthread.php?t=15339
Axis & Allies Revised Enhanced

This alternate ruleset is an enhancement of AAR and was developed at the AvalonHill boards. It’s main goal is to optimize the strategic experience of the game utilizing National Advantages, and to reduce repetitive play (same KGF all the time). The game developed itself through more than 3 years of playtesting by the AARe team and finally reached its goals.

Cmdr Jennifer, can you tell us again how long you did testing on your version of the rule-set?

@Cmdr:

Most of the dev team were gamers who live in Northern Illinois.  After the rudiments were put in place, we had a month of online gamers testing it from the four major gaming sites that I know of: DAAK, FOE, AAMC and here.  (Note:  DAAK players invited were from personal invites since I lost my PW to the DAAK site, actually, it’s been so long since I’ve been there, I dont even know if it is still online or not.)

And you can still make this statement?

@Cmdr:

So far we, the game developers who adapted the AARe rules to fit in the AA50 rules and map, feel the current rule set is as strong or stronger than the AARe rules were/are.

Really?