Those are some good ideas. I think to make this game balanced, I do need to make some adjustments. Just giving Italy the Axis NOs and ANZAC the Allied NOs doesn’t quite work. It seemed to be working for a while, but once ANZAC got the upper hand, it just gradually got worse and worse for Italy. I know that happens even in some games of regular A&A, but I don’t think there was any hope of Italy turning things around once ANZAC started getting ahead.
We just finished this game tonight. It took 15 rounds before Italy surrendered. For the first three rounds, Italy really grew and just about closed the gap between them. Rounds 4-8 were somewhat even between the two. If Italy did well on one front, ANZAC was doing well on another front. From Round 9 on, Italy was more and more defensive. ANZAC managed to take Japan and pretty much ruled all the Pacific and Asia within the next 2 rounds. Once all other Italian presence was eliminated, all ANZAC had to do is keep pounding on Europe until something gave way. Between amphibious landings every turn in Western Europe and a flood of tanks, mechs and planes rolling in from Russia, Italy was finding it harder and harder to maintain any kind of border.
For a while, whenever ANZAC would land somewhere in W Europe, Italy had enough to take it back. There were a few sparks of good for Italy, like when they sacrificed most of their European air force to kill the ANZAC fleet outside of England, including a stack of transports. That delayed ANZAC for a couple of rounds, but soon they were making landings again and Italy couldn’t afford a whole new air force to risk against the navy.
While playing the game this way makes each round go somewhat faster, it is pretty hard keeping track of all the different fronts. You literally have attacks going on in every point of the map on some turns. It’s a little easier when Germany is dealing with England and Russia, Italy is dealing with the Med and Japan is dealing with China and the Pacific. Still, it is kind of cool to be able to carry out ALL your ideas in the same turn.
Alpha 3.9 Favors Axis
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pulling africa naval to the pacific is a quick way to make italy a real country.
no real way of saving india short of ruskies coming in.
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What difference is two destroyers going to make? Uk use navy to kill of Italy units round 1. Italy wont make a single NO round one. Round 2 it be 7-10 UK planes in med and mabye 2 Italy ships. Round 3 US will be at Gibraltar and UK fighters will be on US carriers.
UK fighters on US carriers have 7movement so Italy be dead round 4, end of story.
India will be saved by Anzac sending 3fgt and possible 1inf 1AA gun :wink:
If Japan go all out on India and get over 80% odds on it, cosidder moving to west India for a turn and come back. Give them the 5-6 ipc.
If your going to send africa ships to med you might just try and send them all, pacific ships as well.
But Italy is going to close suez by sacrificing a tranny and you’ll be stuck in no mans land. -
I use the french DD to block if japan does round 3 DOW.
1 dd blocks for round 1.
India dies round 3-5 depending on japan and dice.
when you use the africa naval and pull it to the pacific, it is a bit tricky to merge it with the rest of the allied pacific fleet.
depends on japan. I play for objectives and vcs, so sending extra naval my way just tilts my battleship and does not block non combat movements. I dow Japan 2 so there is no blocking me from islands, no sniping my transports because I have enough naval to defend 2-4 spots against usa/anzac from queenslands.
It is what it is.
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You wont have the defence for 5 Islands period, you will need to sacrifice something. Attrition…
Japan cant realy afford loosing a single tranny.US only needs to spend 60IPC in atlantic, all the rest goes for Japan to the end of the game.
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oh you are a pacific pacific pacific chanting player.
Yeah I am that way too sometimes, that style is a race to shutdown japan in time to fly the fighters into russia. Whenever I am Japan people like to do this, because they know I will win in the pacific if they do not…what instead happens is I play tight with japan and maintain Japan’s fame as long as possible.
The british naval tend to be scattered for a reason. Also Italy should try to rebuild their naval and try to go for egypt / middle east… Games can be won or lost for the allies in africa/middle east. If russia can’t get that cash flow, that is it, Europe is easy mode for axis, 12 usa fighters flying in one time is not the same as russia making 30+ all game.
~Anyway there are two pacific strategies 1) convoy japan up top first 2) dutch islands. It is situational really. Anyway if you go south, Japan can offload men off of japan. If you go north japan can do a gambit for anzac sometimes (I lost one game I pushed for anzac and the other I won, both games japan itself got attacked, but yeah taking anzac over is fun). When they go south it is a bit easier for me as japan, because I can get inf to the battlefield and build naval off japan. Takes a bit before allies can begin to trade naval and it takes allies a bit longer to do KJF this way, where as going north is fast and easy because you can buy all carriers one round and all fighters the next and then blam you are convoying japan
Typically I see allies doing “blam I convoy japan” with strait carrier buy followed with air to fill it buy and then a shove. Yes, it is cheesy. Yes I do start out down by queensland early on, because I can take advantage of japan miss plays or possibly trade naval. Once I do full carrier buy and place the round after I congregate to hawaii and buy all fighters… then “blam I convoy japan” instant results… some people say it is super lame and they want to strangulate me with dice when I do this… when I am japan I feel the same way… but japan can always say "f it and go balls deep for anzac you take farthest west australia with 2 guys, then fly all your air there then wam bam thank you ma’am give me australia… three round process typically.
Or you can bring japan to africa, this is fun to do too. you basically give up making income with japan so italy can bank (you end up getting some africa money which is cool and when usa flies into russia to save it… you can “empire strikes back” in pacific… yes I have had some intense games, mostly when I do round 1 Japan declaration of war.
Yes I have experienced the full KJF might of allies and Japan is strong.
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I’ve made my points, there are alot of different situations, its realy tricky to describe them all.
If you feel like im wrong meet me on the battlefield and prove that your right and I wont stand a chance.
We can post result and how the game went.
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oh wow you posted when I went back to edit and describe things.
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Going north was my strategy for very long, but there is a serius downside.
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Japan will always have all money islands and Philipines. Thats +22 income to Japan and -15 income to allies.
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Anzac cant do anything alone, other than stack inf and pray.
If US moves into japan zone they need a serius big fleet as they will be hit by 20 planes from kwangsi airbase.
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Yeah well it is more of a mid game strat. Early on you can’t hold that so you may as well do queensland play.
USA 3 or 4 you should have full income so blam all carrier buy (you got all your dd and sub needs out of the way by now)… usa 4 or 5 all fighter.
Then you blam instant convoy / take korea with usa (unless you gave it to russia).
You can still move up with usa. as long as anzac is buying fighters and inf it should be fine and it can always go to USA carriers (come back instantly if it has to by being carried with usa).
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Anyway global can turn into a nash theory game. Like what I am doing to questioneer, right off the bat I picked business plan A. He is going to pick A B C or D.A: send all of london to hit 97 with overkill and land in malta, buy bombers with usa to defend london.
B: do the usual maybe 63%-85% attack 97 (I scramble depending on uk buy / what the odds look like)
C: pure KJF oriented strategy (uk needs to hold his own against a G3 sea lion if it happens in this event)
D: mix of the above followed with atlantic strategy, split buy, little atlantic then kjf or something random.
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My turn comes. I got pretty much have 2 options barb or sea lion with germany. If I do barb I have to assist italy with my air in the mean time. Japan is japan A) rush india sooner B) dutch islands then india C) dutch islands and everyday I am shuffling (drop men off japan, back track a bit to hold, basically get men into asia major to deal with ruskies should they come) D) Crazy ANZAC play.So the options the axis pick determines the options the allies pick which determine what the axis strategy is.
There is not an outcome where the allies have a winning edge. I am sorry it just does not exist, unless I choose the wrong option from the table.
This is a Nash game on the macro scale. AA50 and Revised are different games, there is less Nash.
The dice early on makes certain options more or less attractive depending on how they swing. If the allies get an edge it is usually because of this.
Explaining why the axis are dominate is not simple, because the axis does not sit down know what he is going to right off the bat unlike all previous editions… you can force something like G4 taking london is pretty much a done deal. DOW g1 against soviets is fun. etc etc. People who do that are doing it for fun and not purely for the sake of winning or being competitive. These strategies still have a good shot at ultimately winning the game by good I mean 30-40% of the time depending on dice or if the allies make mistakes better odds to win than them.
As a whole, allies are harder to play. However Japan is the country lots of players struggle with. Most of the games I spectated in which allies win is because of Japan being too indecisive, japan mistakes, or japan getting sunk.
In the more experienced player games, axis tend to win. Low Luck games especially.
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I think for beginners axis tends to win because they can just move stuff up while the other guy fumbles around. For the mid tier allies tend to win because axis are not min/maxing and allies have cushion with their income to make mistakes. For competitive A&Aers axis has the slight edge.
Axis tend to win off positioning alone, which is what people are finding. Has nothing to do with anyone being a worse or better player. If axis are winning games in the mid tier, it is because they are copying strategies (axis go first so it is easier to mimic what people do).
Japan needs to pick something from the Nash table and most players do without realizing it or thinking of it in that manner.
I am glad not every game involves sea lion and calcutta G3 and J3 like before. I like the game as it is, people bidding down determines who plays allies, if you like allies and are confident you can take it at 0-2. But bids starting at 6 and working down is balanced and it is fun. people can do various things with it add different spice to each game. Even 2 ipc can turn a mech into a tank for the ruskies, slight spice.
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a full example of a Nash strategy started with Soulfein. He buys 2tran and carrier g1. round 2 he holds baltic states (unless uk1 buys minor ic for egypt then yeah sure he’ll take london).
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Since Cow likes going public, thought I’d pipe in and quote my response to the conversation from our game thread:
"Competitively or friendly game??? Both. Can’t you do both??? :? Please, don’t spare me your best. If you are not going to give me your best then don’t bother playing. That’s boring.
Also, you humor me in the fact that you mention our game on other threads completely off topic. Very smug. I like it.
It flatters me that I must validate you as an AAplayer, giving our game attention where it doesn’t belong. I like your approach to losing- excuses. :cry: That’s great material when I beat you here or the tournament.Also, love your flowchart A-D crap, like you actually know something more than anyone here. Must have taken you awhile to make that. BTW, starting you out with the Tobruk attack instead of Taranto is like giving a baby milk. Gotta see if you can handle that first. I personally prefer Taranto, always have. Didn’t get that from you, who thinks that all AA knowledge orginates from yourself.
So please, step off your toilet and save us the jargon and your continuely revising articles. If your gonna talk, play games here, back up your words with some play. Nobody gives a crap what you do 8 hours on a computer a day playing “live” games in your mom’s basement or making AA flowcharts. :lol:
Honestly, with 8 other games going, your just another lab rat in testing. Maybe you’ll pass MY test and graduate to “option C” in my flowchart. :roll: :lol: “D” being the lowest for babies like yourself. Had to clarify that since you’re below me. :wink:
Do something for me kid, try playing some other good players. Learn something. Talk less, play more on the forums here. If you really didn’t care about about forum games, you would be posting every other time to validate yourself would you???
I’ll post ANZAC/France soon, gotta check my flowchart. LOL Cow you’re a trip, your almost as fun as Imp Leader or mantlefan back in the day.
I’ll be expecting another entertaining post from you soon. I know you won’t disappoint."
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I do really think game s still too young to talk about with a certainty, but I believe game favors slightly axis, solely because it s harder to play allies.
axis have really flexible moves, but allies have rather solid moves, which must be done against certain axis moves. so whole game strategy is determined by axis, and allies have to come up with a near-perfect answer each time. even a rather slight mistake can be fatal n cause axis to win the game on the long run.
not sure how this advantage can be countered by a bid, but I tend to go for a sudan inf, to ease ethiopia attack or support egy.
off the topic: are there any mods here who check n delete off the topic/nonsense/spam posts?
(yep new to this forum) -
Yes sorry, it is off topic, but tell that to Cow.
Yes, it is way to early to be saying one side favors the other. Alpha Final has only been out 3 months. Gotta give it a year of play at least, then you start to see substantial trends.
I definitely think Allies are harder to play, but I don’t think the game is Axis favored either- too early to say for sure. Strategies and counters have been developing weekly, almost daily here. Gotta wait til things level out a bit before making assumptions that’s all.
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Imperious Leader wrote a good guide to classic. I don’t see why anyone would ever criticize him, he explained it well. He also explained cannon fodder factor among other issues at the time.
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@Cow:
boasting is awesome
that’s what I’m sayin :-D pure awesome sauce!!! :mrgreen:
Would be interested in seeing how your game goes. Keep me posted. Oh and by the way I am an expert bro.
:lol:
re: soulfein - There are moderators, and they are active.
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