League General Discussion Thread

[simon33]

@AndrewAAGamer since you don’t like balance mod so much i would like to point out that you can turn off nearly all the changes in the options and for the others you can use edit mode. About the only change you can’t do this for is The sbr changes. Edit mode is required for reverting the Chinese objective and for 12ipc bombers in bm4.

So mix and match to your heart’s content, although calling a game balance mod for league purposes then becomes a bit dubious.

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

@crockett36 there certainly are a fair number of people who have higher ELO scores than me. I have no problem finding opponents, if I wanted to be more active during the regular season.

I would estimate about 30 extra bid for every 400 Elo point difference for the top players, and 100 extra bid for bottom-tier noobs who don’t know how to use the advantage. Personally, I would rather not be gifted an advantage and instead rely on the luck of the dice.

[AndrewAAGamer]

@simon33 said in League General Discussion Thread:

@AndrewAAGamer since you don’t like balance mod so much i would like to point out that you can turn off nearly all the changes in the options and for the others you can use edit mode. About the only change you can’t do this for is The sbr changes. Edit mode is required for reverting the Chinese objective and for 12ipc bombers in bm4.

So mix and match to your heart’s content, although calling a game balance mod for league purposes then becomes a bit dubious.

I have nothing against BM4, or PTV or World at War or other games for all that. I happen to love OOB. I think it has just the right balance of simplicity, variation and nuance to be a great game. For me, I love the Bid. It makes it a different game every time. Some people go heavy China, some go heavy Russia, or heavy UK or a smattering all over the place. The point being the Axis player has to adjust their strategy based on how the Bid was used and that makes every game unique.

If I was the Ruler of the Universe and could wave a magic wand the only thing I would change is Russia getting their NO in the Middle East and Africa; otherwise it is perfect.

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

@AndrewAAGamer I agree with the house rule to eliminate the ME and Africa bonus for Russia. How much would that change the bid for the Allies? Another five PUs?

[crockett36]

simple edits to out of box:

1. You may never load transports in a hostile sea zone.
2. Foreign units in Russia do not disrupt lend lease (since foreign units were gifted to Russia). Why have the rule if Russia never receives it?
3. If Germany or Italy enter any territory that was originally Russia, it is a dow. You may not receive a bonus for not being at war while standing in a conquered territory.
4. You may not convoy Russia unless at war with Russia.
   These are what I consider to be silly rules.

Easy ways to boost allied income:

1. all French territories are like allied friendly neutrals that can be taken over by allies. The troops stay French; the territories become allied owned.
2. lend lease goes all three ways: pacific, atlantic, indian. 3 or 5?

Easy ways to depress Axis income:

1. Capitals do not automatically forfeit their entire gdp. They must be surrounded in order to grab every penny. Otherwise, you only gain the ipc value of the capital.

[gamerman01]

@Arthur-Bomber-Harris said in League General Discussion Thread:

@AndrewAAGamer I agree with the house rule to eliminate the ME and Africa bonus for Russia. How much would that change the bid for the Allies? Another five PUs?

I think more, and probably this house rule should just be offset by another house rule

[barnee]

@simon33 said in League General Discussion Thread:

@AndrewAAGamer since you don’t like balance mod so much i would like to point out that you can turn off nearly all the changes in the options and for the others you can use edit mode. About the only change you can’t do this for is The sbr changes. Edit mode is required for reverting the Chinese objective and for 12ipc bombers in bm4.

So mix and match to your heart’s content, although calling a game balance mod for league purposes then becomes a bit dubious.

Hi simon

In case you are unaware, UHD has additional Map options that can be turned on or off

bungs, which is still way cool

and UHD which has BM as an option as well

PTV has it’s own map, so, plenty of fun there too :)

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

@gamerman01 no Russia bonus in ME or Africa probably could be offset by capitols can be plundered only once per game, allowing the Allies to recapture India or Paris without fear such actions would have negative ramifications. I like how that is implemented in BM.

It feels stupid and unrealistic that the Axis can leave Paris unguarded, daring the Allies to liberate it.

[gamerman01]

@crockett36 Those are some really cool ideas,

As to the Allies in Russia NO, I love this one.
#1 the NO is realistic because Russian morale is much higher when they know they’re on their own, it is the Great Patriotic War. The rulebook says “national prestige.”
Gameplay, it’s awesome because you have to balance whether you want the 5 or you want allied help.

[GovZ]

Since this seems to be the place to toss out ideas to balance the game, I’ll add mine - Allied Advantage (based on an optional rule from the original game): Russia starts with Industrial Tech, UK starts with Radar, & US starts with War Bonds.

[simon33]

@barnee said in League General Discussion Thread:

In case you are unaware, UHD has additional Map options that can be turned on or off

I put half of those in to BM!!!

What is different in UHD? Just a better presented map, in someone’s opinion?

[barnee]

@simon33

heh heh yea you did some of them :) I did some as well. Still want to add Canada :)

Same territories OOB G40, just a different look that @Black_Elk made.

[simon33]

@crockett36 said in League General Discussion Thread:

You may never load transports in a hostile sea zone.

I say no problem with this rule. It’s correct the way it is. Except for the ridiculous Anzac DOW putting UK at war with Japan.

@crockett36 said in League General Discussion Thread:

Foreign units in Russia do not disrupt lend lease (since foreign units were gifted to Russia). Why have the rule if Russia never receives it?
@crockett36 said in League General Discussion Thread:
If Germany or Italy enter any territory that was originally Russia, it is a dow. You may not receive a bonus for not being at war while standing in a conquered territory.

These rules are in Balanced Mod!

@crockett36 said in League General Discussion Thread:

You may not convoy Russia unless at war with Russia.

Confused how you think this is a problem.

@crockett36 said in League General Discussion Thread:

all French territories are like allied friendly neutrals that can be taken over by allies. The troops stay French; the territories become allied owned.

I agree with this suggestion.

@crockett36 said in League General Discussion Thread:

lend lease goes all three ways: pacific, atlantic, indian. 3 or 5?

Isn’t this also in Balanced Mod!

@crockett36 said in League General Discussion Thread:

Capitals do not automatically forfeit their entire gdp. They must be surrounded in order to grab every penny. Otherwise, you only gain the ipc value of the capital.

What are you suggesting that isn’t in Balanced Mod?

[gamerman01]

The UHD map is so gorgeous. It is a little bit of a work in progress, and my maiden voyage started over a year ago because @oysteilo is very tough. It took us quite a few rounds to get used to the differences, and Oysteilo found 2 boundary errors and I found 1, so it keeps getting better. @Black_Elk and @barnee have continued to improve it as well.

I got drawn in by the beautiful colors, topography, and the flesh on the infantry. Check out the rivers. Those aren’t just designs, they’re the actual rivers and lakes.

If you try it out, I promise a pretty tough learning curve. I tried it out to be adventurous and to report back to you all. Well… I just did G17, turned out the fog of war in the first several rounds really set us up for an epic game (not to mention a bid of 40 which I believe is double 20) and the battle still rages.

[Booper]

@gamerman01

Since we’re discussing rule changes, one issue that often occurs especially on turn 1 is a player getting “diced” in a critical attack. In some cases, the dicing is so extreme, that player can never recover, and the result is essentially determined at that point.

Wonder if there is an appetite for each player to have the ability to re-roll 1 battle per game. It could also help compensate the tiering differential, that the lower rated player could get an additional re-roll per tier difference.

Could have some additional parameters around it as well, like the odds must have been greater than x% for a re-roll to be permitted, and/or only the attacking player has the option to exercise the re-roll, etc.

[gamerman01]

Players like @Karl7 were particularly fond of the re-roll years ago, like 1 per player.
League rules are not changed for things like this, including some tweaks to the OOB game that crockett36 was bringing up, which led to this whole discussion.

Preferences like the re-roll, even if popular among a number of players, will not make its way into the league rules or defaults because they are departures from A&A.

So you will probably not have a hard time finding a player who likes your idea and agrees to do it, but there is no way I’m changing the league rules for house rules because everyone has the right to play pure A&A.

League rules address issues like declaring fighters on carriers because Triple A doesn’t do it, or time limits for making a move.

I appreciate everyone’s participation and ideas, but I want to make it clear that the vast majority of these discussions will not change league rules because #1 is not pushing or requiring players to play a house rule. The BM and PTV mods are fully supported by the league because they are separate from the OOB. In the case of BM, it is a collection of many “house rules” but no one is pressured to play it, is the point. The OOB version is the default that will not be changed.
The BM version, also, has a default that is what the designers made it, so again, even with BM no house rules are incorporated in league rules for the same reason.

[gamerman01]

League rules CAN be changed by league player suggestion, but they are not house rules or changes to the game.

The main change SO FAR (window is still open for good ideas) is the idea to give the last year’s champ and runner up the automatic #1 and #2 seeds in the playoff. You can see how this rule change is entirely different than changing league rules to accommodate some house rules, no matter how popular.

But again, you will have little trouble finding players who will enjoy agreeing to whatever house rules, so you are not really constrained much by league rules.

[gamerman01]

About the dicings early in the game -

In the likely event that your opponent agrees the dicing was very regrettable and spoiled your game, you could scrap the game and replay, it doesn’t have to be reported IF BOTH players agree.

Similarly, the re-roll could be granted by the opponent without reciprocating, and without agreeing to it at the beginning of the game.
If your opponent agrees, the agreement is pretty much always honored by the league. I will never step in and say you can’t do re-rolls UNLESS one player does NOT agree

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

@Booper I won’t agree to reroll when facing a superior opponent since I need dice luck on my side, and it isn’t that equitable for me to ask for rerolls against inferior foes.

Hence, I haven’t had that many such matches in recent times.

[crockett36]

@simon33 the idea is to change as little as possible. Try it out and see where the bid resettles.