League General Discussion Thread

[gamerman01]

Oh, right, it went through October. I got it

[crockett36]

ABH mentioned the winner’s curse in his interview. I was wondering if that discussion has been had here. As I’ve mentioned before, everyone here who is worried about his elo is going to want the axis. The system and the setup incentivize creative axis play. Historically speaking, it rewards new ways to do evil.

I was wondering if we might start a companion system that rewards creative Allied play. For instance, we might go with a set up that has been adjusted by the agreement of previous champions with a 60 bid. This is considered too high by ABH, but the bid might then go to the Axis player. An alternative would be to give the Russians 10 infantry in their capital and the US a fighter and a battleship in and off its capital. Another possibility is to adjust down the political rules by 1. Lastly, we might just spike the US map income by 25?!

I might also suggest scraping the bid system as is. It changes the narrative of turn 1 which I think is supposed to play out. The better way to go with the feng shui of the design is to give the powers that are currently neutral more units so that the ricochet might be a bit more powerful. Placing adjustments en masse in capitals makes a lot of sense.

I suggest this for the good of the community and to better align ourselves with history and virtue.

[crockett36]

I might also encourage the league to add a version past oob, ptv, bm. I would suggest 1940, 42 version. If you think about it, it is the 1940 version 3rd edition.

[crockett36]

One last and very simple idea is to acknowledge the player who’s gotten the furthest in the playoffs, playing the allies as the allied champion or Allied player of the year.

[Stucifer]

@crockett36 Come to PtV, where Axis get the bid and lose half the games! The water’s great 😉🇺🇸🇬🇧

[gamerman01]

I resisted the urge to answer when I saw it 5 hours ago so that others could react, but only Stucifer who said give it up, just switch to PTV!!

I’ll just respond to one of the several points so I don’t dominate discussion.

The idea of top players agreeing on a standard setup for a 60 bid is brilliant. Like you said, of course you could bid from there.

Actually @Arthur-Bomber-Harris may change his answer about 60, because
The bid set by the panel of top players wouldn’t necessarily be the most power packed effective one, but one that’s a bit more historical or whatever other factors, like not messing with the opening moves much.

@axis-dominion Like the UK bid placements on the Europe board could be less, making G1 less of an adventure

My immediate thought, if others in the league actually like the idea of standardizing a bid, especially for OOB,
is you won’t have a couple bid fighters to Russia. Of course there are other ways to prevent this cheesy and horribly ahistorical start, like was done by the BM, but changing the opening setup by pretty much adding units that are very popular for bids, should keep the bid low (bid from the new starting point) where the Allied player wouldn’t/couldn’t add 2 fighters to Russia.
.
The idea of automatically increasing income of the USA (and, I strongly believe, Russia) would be more historical and bring back traditional A&A play (the Axis had better get it done fast or they’re gonna die). I do understand the goal would be the Axis would still have a 50/50 chance of winning, but it would dramatically change the game to be like the earlier versions of A&A.

The big challenge with trying to implement the “later rounds increasing income” idea, is, hard to gauge if it “unbalances” the game.

---

I tried not to say too much, but hopefully this will advance the discussion beyond just the playa who dropped the concept in the room

Go!

[Stucifer]

One of my favorite things about PtV (and there are many) is how strong Mother Russia is. The revised NOs she gets and all the extra room on the board west of Moscow/Stalingrad really make it a slog as Germany to push for a quick victory. Her 46 base IPC income is game-changing. The factory destruction rule is also a big help here. I can’t remember if that’s in BM or not.

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

If players want to try out a fixed bid set, easy for one player to propose the additional troops and/or income for the Allies, and the other player decide which side he wants to take. Nothing preventing such an arrangement for rebalancing the game.

This could go a long ways towards keeping historical accuracy as many of the common bids lead to unrealistic situations such as total domination of the Atlantic in the early game or a massive Chinese army that overwhelms Japan. Perhaps 100 bids for Allies accompanied with reasonable selections would be about balanced assuming a fair bit of extra units goes to the United States.

[crockett36]

@Arthur-Bomber-Harris
Did I get the winner’s curse idea right?

I appreciate the input from this year’s champion. Other Champions and runners up?

[crockett36]

@Arthur-Bomber-Harris Very good comment. I agree with everything you said. Love a large US bid because the Axis can do so much while the US is neutral. And the race–the historical race to get so much done before getting the US into the war–is on.

[AndrewAAGamer]

While, I agree that the game is trending to non-historical bids the whole game is non-historical.

• Historically, Japan never took all of China; the loss of China occurs regularly in Global 1940.
• Historically, Japan got their butt kicked in Russia in 1939 and never invaded Russia again, even allowing a major number of Siberian troops to head west to fight the Germans; while in Global 1940 it is common to see the Japanese roll up the Russian eastern flank.
• Historically, Germany failed to take Moscow and even if they had the Russians would have fought on. In Global 1940 once Moscow falls, which occurs regularly, there are no further reinforcements which makes a huge difference in the game vs real life.
• Historically, the British never lost their Home fleet and always had supremacy on the water in capital ships. In Global 1940, with no Bid, it is common to see virtually the entire British Home fleet sunk on G1.
• Historically, the U-boat threat was a major factor in the war; Global 1940 does not reflect that aspect of the war well at all.
• And, as we all know, the IPCs should dramatically increase for the US if the game was to try and reflect the real war.

So, for me I don’t really care if the game is historical or not. The game is a WW2 themed game; it is not a historical recreation.

Now, if the goal is to create a more historical game, I think that was the goal of BM4. But, if you want to try the same thing with a Bid for OOB then a few things have to happen.

• 1. Russia would not be allowed to move into China to support Yunnan. Having Russian forces in China is completely ahistorical.
• 2. Additional defensive troops would have to be added to slow the progress of the Axis forces but not enough to be able to advance against the Axis. These troops would be infantry and placed further out to not affect the initial Axis attacks.
     a. 3 infantries in London
     b. 3 infantries in Tsinghai
     c. 3 infantries in West India
     d. 6 infantries in Evenkiyskiy
     e. $75 in IPCs to the US not to be spent until the US is at war
     f. Total adjusted Bid = $120

Having not tested this I would think it would need adjustment but the goal would be to make it harder for the Axis to take India, knock out China completely, take Moscow and provide a larger threat of the US coming into the war thus most likely removing a J1 from the game.

[crockett36]

[crockett36]

@crockett36 besides the small error about Soviet support for China, I completely agree with you the nature of the game. A great adjustment to the setup. Really concrete stuff.

[Stucifer]

My limited understanding was that it was a lot like the Spanish Civil War where there were some attachés/advisors sent and a lot of equipment but not actual regiments.

I read a bit and discovered there was a significant Soviet Volunteer force, similar to the Flying Tigers but far greater in number. The Kuomintang had been whittled down to 100 outdated airplanes by the time they arrived and the Soviets made a big impact on morale and developed combat tactics that would be taught by Gen. Chennault of the Flying Tiger volunteers. The unit was withdrawn sometime after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed in 1939, but the USSR continued to supply the Chinese with aircraft until the German invasion in 1941.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Volunteer_Group

[mikawagunichi]

I also think for the purpose of the game, historical units need to meet certain qualitative and quantitative thresholds to be part of the game’s unit set. Single units are meant to represent entire divisions, squadrons etc. And since units have the same characteristics for every country, quality is represented via quantity. Therefore, small and/or obsolete things that may have existed historically do not meet the threshold to exist in the game.

[gamerman01]

@Stucifer said in League General Discussion Thread:

I read a bit and discovered there was a significant Soviet Volunteer force, similar to the Flying Tigers but far greater in number. The Kuomintang had been whittled down to 100 outdated airplanes by the time they arrived and the Soviets made a big impact on morale and developed combat tactics that would be taught by Gen. Chennault of the Flying Tiger volunteers.

I wonder what differences there would be on the map if a Russian and his worldview would set up the map.

[gamerman01]

GovZ has been hard at work again double checking ELO entries.

Along with a few errors caught, he found that September 2020 was not entered by our volunteers.

I entered September, and I think the most notable change is
2 wins of @JDOW over the great Trulpen.
JDOW rose 18 points in the overall standings, so
he is still in 3rd place all time, but now
only 2 points behind #2 and
18 points out of #1

That puts him a lot closer in Axis Dominion and Adam’s rear-view mirrors and harder to catch for all the rest of us

All other disturbances in the force are much smaller I think. You can put your name in the “results” tab and look at September 2020 to see if you had a win or loss during that time

[gamerman01]

@gamerman01 said in League General Discussion Thread:

All other disturbances in the force are much smaller I think. You can put your name in the “results” tab and look at September 2020 to see if you had a win or loss during that time

One other notable result involving active players, I think, is a Simon33 upset of @Pejon_88 after Mr. Johnson suffered a beating when he attacked Moscow G6 with 88% odds.

[gamerman01]

Only 2 points down on overall standings for @Pejon_88 because so many games since then, but I bet he remembers that one.

[axis-dominion]

@gamerman01 said in League General Discussion Thread:

GovZ has been hard at work again double checking ELO entries.

Along with a few errors caught, he found that September 2020 was not entered by our volunteers.

I entered September, and I think the most notable change is
2 wins of @JDOW over the great Trulpen.
JDOW rose 18 points in the overall standings, so
he is still in 3rd place all time, but now
only 2 points behind #2 and
18 points out of #1

That puts him a lot closer in Axis Dominion and Adam’s rear-view mirrors and harder to catch for all the rest of us

All other disturbances in the force are much smaller I think. You can put your name in the “results” tab and look at September 2020 to see if you had a win or loss during that time

so somehow JDOW is still climbing up despite being retired, now that’s impressive lol