Are Allies doomed from the outset on G40 map?

[SubmersedElk]

First should come a playable game; historical accuracy should take a back seat.

If your first goal is accurate history, then a history book is better than a wargame for that. The ultimate test of success or failure in game design is: is the game an enjoyable experience that is worth spending discretionary time on?

For me, for a wargame, one element that is required to make it enjoyable is challenge. To that end, I pretty much can’t play Axis on this map because it’s not challenging to have straightforward, unimaginative play that could be replaced by a computer program be the best way to win. If I win as Allies, I know I’ve beat the odds and that struggle to do so is enjoyable. Winning as Axis would be meh, that’s what’s supposed to happen.

[regularkid]

Really well put, Marc. I think you described the “competing interests” just about as well as anybody could, and you took a–shall i say–“balanced” approach to the question. (heh!)

But I gotta disagree with you on one point: While an “official” blessing from Larry would certainly help, it is hardly a prerequisite for community-wide acceptance/adoption of a mod. In the realm of online gaming, for example, it is not unusual for user-created mods to gain traction, sometimes eclipsing even the popularity of the OOB version (DarthMod for the Total War series and DOTA for World of Warcraft III come immediately to mind).

I use the term “mod,” not “house rules” advisedly, since I do think it is more likely you will find “first adopters” of experimental rule sets in the online gaming community (online games are much lower investment than FTF; you can get through an ‘experimental’ game much faster). All it takes is for a dedicated fan to put his proposed changes in a neat XML package that can easily be picked up and played by others. Maybe it goes nowhere, or maybe it snowballs into something that is widely enjoyed and recognized by the community as an improvement on the original. Happens with other games all the time. No reason why it can’t happen with ours. And there does seem to be a general consensus that modding of some kind is needed, at this point, to keep the game fresh and address the game’s exposed shortcomings.

[Kreuzfeld]

@SubmersedElk:

First should come a playable game; historical accuracy should take a back seat.

If your first goal is accurate history, then a history book is better than a wargame for that.

These are actually not true. There are some boardgames that are way better at historical accuracy than books. One of those is the Europa serries. There they actually have every division and brigade in WW2 set up correctly, fairly decently rated and it is actually playable (takes months to play the eastern front tho). They where so succsessful in their design and their combatsystem that military intelligence wanted to know if they had stolen military secrets or just done a thourough analysis of WW2. They where the ones that figured out that you need a 3:1 ratio of strength to have a good chance of a successful attack.

Playing these games gives you a much deeper understanding of why the germans lost and how it happend. These types of games is actually what the generals use when constructing the plans that are implemented in war. Japanse used these games before midway, and figured out that they would loose, and by how much. Then some general decided to change the rules of the game so that the japanese would win, then they attacked, and lost.

It is actually not that difficult to make axis and allies playable, but with more realistic production. Example: USA now produce for 120, and ssur produce for 60. Victory condition: If the axis holds at least 2 VC by the end of round 13, they win, otherwise the allies win.

[CWO Marc]

@Kreuzfeld:

Japanse used these games before midway, and figured out that they would loose, and by how much. Then some general decided to change the rules of the game so that the japanese would win, then they attacked, and lost.

The specifics of this incident were that, in a Midway tabletop simulation, a Japanese officer who was playing the American side carried out a B-17 bomber attack against the Japanese carrier force, rolled dice as prescribed, and got a result indicating that (as I recall) two Japanese carriers had been sunk.  The umpire, Rear Admiral Ugaki, overruled the dice roll on the grounds that the results were unrealistic and changed the outcome to (I think) just one damaged carrier.  After the war, surviving officers like Genda criticized Ugaki for his “high-handed conduct” in this wargame.  Technically, though, Ugaki was right, at the Battle of Midway itself proved: the Midway-based B-17s that attacked the Japanese fleet failed to score any (or at least any signfificant) hits.  The real problem with that particular Japanese wargame was that it failed to take into account some much more fundamental flaws of the plan for the entire Midway operation (which are too long to get into here).  The Japanese can also justifiably be criticized for their habit of reintroducing into subsequent wargames major ships that had been declared sunk in previous ones, which in my opinion illustrates the WWII Japanese high command’s tendency to focus on tactics at the expense of giving insufficient attention to larger strategic considerations.

Ugaki’s dice adjustment, by the way, illustrates nicely a fundamental difference between professional and recreational wargaming.  Professional wargames are used either to test plans and concepts, or as training and educational exercises.  As a result, the game director often has the authority to modify or control game events.  Balance and fairness aren’t the primary consideration in such games; the focus is on learning useful things.  The game director, for example, might confront one of the players with an extreme situation which might be unrealistic, but whose purpose is to put the player – say, a junior officer – in a position where he has to handle a major battlefield crisis, to see how deals with the situation.

[SubmersedElk]

Following up on this one… after getting pasted by several very skilled Axis players, I’ve been giving larger and larger bids to opponents and playing Axis more to get a feel of what’s going on on the other side. I’m now up to giving 15 bids, and still not having much difficulty at all winning with the Axis side.

What’s crazy is that I’m not following any of the optimal openers at all (although I’ve been gleaning a lot of tidbits of wisdom from this site for sure). I have a really old-school approach where my primary attack plan is to squeeze Russia from both sides, just like in Classic.

I’m guessing that some more experienced Allies players could mop the floor with me still, but this is what I’m doing:

G1 I’m now buying a carrier only, saving the rest. This essentially forces UK to build against Sealion their first turn, so they don’t get the jump on me by building a factory in Egypt. Other than that I’m super conservative with Germany, doing the 110/111 attacks, using the spare sub to make the coin flip attack on the DD/trans off the Canadian coast, taking France and Yugoslavia, absorbing Finland and Bulgarian axis-neutrals. Sending one plane to Tobruk and a tac to Rome is working out well so far so that’s also become part of the standard plan.

With Japan, the first turn is always is basically dedicated to preparing to stack Yunnan and staging for an assault on Malaya/Phillipines with as many transports as I can get in range. J2 seems like the best time to declare war, it’s the earliest I can have all my ships in good position to follow through to DEI effectively, and it seems to put Allies players off balance when they don’t see the J1 and I get lots of free transport and destroyer kills in the bargain. Having 4 loadable transports on the Phillipines and a couple more off FIC at the start of J3 provides a huge range of options. Enough of my fleet goes to Phillipines in J2 to make sure US can’t do anything in SZ6, and I usually build a carrier that round as well if US has built Pac, leaving me with two fleets: a defensive fleet in Phi with 3 carriers, and an expeditionary fleet off Malaya with 2 carriers and whatever bombarding capital ships I can spare. Sets me up perfectly to sweep the DEI in J3 while providing a threat against Burma to keep UK Pac land forces at home. If Russia goes full retreat I consider attacking them early and letting them have their Mongolian allies (which aren’t of much help to Russia without the 18 inf to provide some punch/resistance).

China is always target #1 on land, that “build anywhere” ability is a super power and the only thing other than a SZ6 attack that I really fear playing Japan. I feel that if I take them out early I have enough land units without needing to reinforce, but if I wait then it becomes a production grind and that’s not good for Japan because their land production even with IC builds is meh at best. If I do that then I can focus J3+ builds against whatever buildup the US puts in play, or if they don’t then more loaded transports get produced.

With Italy I declare on USSR in I2 and use them to lead the way so the German stack can have air cover if needed. The one time someone actually didn’t do Taranto on me I found the BB wasn’t as effective as reputed, I might consider not doing that attack anymore as UK. Germany follows with its own wardec on G3, with G2 and G3 having been land builds, and so the march begins.

I end up just wearing down Russia back to its capital where at negligible production it’s no threat at all, same for UK Pac. The actual killing blow is no rush, seems that I can do that anytime in both cases - so what I end up doing is building to exploit whatever weaknesses the Allied strategy offers. By the time the Allies have an Atlantic counter ready I’m already spamming western Europe with cheap inf and an occasional artillery unit.

I’m sure that more experienced Allies players can crush this kind of ad-hoc adjustable strategy but it’s working so far and it’s not all that terribly difficult to play - much much easier than the finely-tuned calculations needed on the Allied side. I’ll probably try giving bids of 20 or even more and seeing if this remains the case.

The game has a totally different character depending on which side I’m playing. Axis I can be freewheeling, and adjust on the fly, never needing to plan more than a turn in advance. When playing Allies I feel like I need to know what the board is going to look like in 3 more rounds while I’m deciding builds.

Sorry about the stream-of-consciousness post here, just thought I’d get some of these things out there to see what more experienced players have to say, how they would attack this as Allies, and if there are any glaring errors that need to be fixed to improve my play.

[SubmersedElk]

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve developed an Axis strategy I’m calling “J2I2”. It’s probably not original but it works for me and I’ve not seen anyone play it quite this way. My last two games I played against very strong players, one on the standard G40 map and once with the “Vichy France Balance mod”.

It’s a super conservative strategy with very little risk on the Axis side and it’s apparently impossible to stop on the standard map even with a healthy bid, and it even works with the balance mod. Very tolerant of mistakes on the Axis side, and Allies only need to miscalculate once and it’s game over.

As per the name, the Pac war starts on J2 and the European war starts on I2. Germany gets in the game on G3. I’ll write up a separate post about it but these experiences plus my experience as Allies with low luck settings convince me that the standard setup doesn’t let the Allies win against even a moderately skilled Axis player who follows the strategy.

Now that I have enough experience to judge, I’m afraid I have to agree, the standard G40 game is broken.

[regularkid]

Elk, it was a fluke I tells yuh! I demand a rematch.

[SubmersedElk]

I’m happy to give you a rematch. Keep in mind that I actually read the rest of the game notes today and figured out why the US was making 120 income a turn, and am not going to permit that for a second go-around!

[regularkid]

haha. i was wondering about that.

look forward to it!

[variance]

The game is backward.  The axis do not need to win a race against time like in the real war.  Instead time is on the axis side. The flaw at the heart of it is that Germany can lay a terrible siege on Russia and collect big fat oil money at the same time.  Meanwhile Japan keeps USA from doing anything about it.  I’ve seen it over and over again and its just no fun. A $20 bid is a good start but it doesn’t get to the heart of the problem; just a bandaid.  Here is what I suggest as a REAL fix for this game.

**RED ARMY IS THE STRONGEST **At the end of Russia’s turn they roll 1 dice for every 10 Russian units in Moscow (count any and all units of the Soviet Red Army).  Collect the total as an NO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsGQzNSwOhk****

[KimRYoung]

Grasshopper, I’m afraid Larry’s interest in doing anything further with this game has passed and that any play balance will have to come from the community.

That said, the bid is long accepted as the most agreed upon means, however to put some new life into that system for more strategic variability, how about inverse bidding? The bid is instead of ADDING units equal to the bid for the Allies, but is instead for that amount in units belonging to the Axis that will be REMOVED from the set up!

How much are you willing to give up as the Axis knowing that your opponent will be REMOVING that amount of units of yours of Their Choice?

A 20 point bid is now possibly 2 less Axis fighters, or a capital ship, or a couple tanks and a transport, the options are endless. The Axis may have to totally alter the Standard Opening’s and rethink their first turn attacks.

If the Axis advantage is material, then TAKING AWAY some of that advantage just might be much more effective than Allied bid additions, as well as taking away some of that early initiative with well calculated attacks.

What does Japan do with 4 less Infantry and 2 less Artillery do in China? How effective is Germany with 2 less Fighters to take on the UK navy? Italy could suffer a major disaster in Africa!

Think of the possibilities and then rethink what the bid might be. The options could really dictate some major strategic thought on both sides.

Kim

[Flying Tiger]

I am a bit confused. Germany and Italy seem to be crushing Russia from what I can gather from this thread. The axis players are bypassing Africa and leaving the $ to uk Europe. What is the UKeurope doing this whole time? Are they not landing troops in Normandy? Are they just shuffling fighter planes to Moscow? A western front relieves more pressure off of Russia than fighters in Moscow. If the German Air Force is bogging down the uk navy doesn’t that mean less $ being spent towards the eastern front? So what IS UKeurope doing?

[Flying Tiger]

What about the NOs? I am only playing with +30 to USA when at war. It plays well.
Are the Axis powers grabbing so many NOs early that it shifts the balance too quickly? I don’t hate the NOs in the game but I have always felt they should not have such a large part In the game.

[calvinhobbesliker]

@Flying:

What about the NOs? I am only playing with +30 to USA when at war. It plays well.
Are the Axis powers grabbing so many NOs early that it shifts the balance too quickly? I don’t hate the NOs in the game but I have always felt they should not have such a large part In the game.

The US only gets +20 from NO’s at war, if they’ve lost the Philippines.

[SubmersedElk]

@KimRYoung:

Grasshopper, I’m afraid Larry’s interest in doing anything further with this game has passed and that any play balance will have to come from the community.

That said, the bid is long accepted as the most agreed upon means, however to put some new life into that system for more strategic variability, how about inverse bidding? The bid is instead of ADDING units equal to the bid for the Allies, but is instead for that amount in units belonging to the Axis that will be REMOVED from the set up!

How much are you willing to give up as the Axis knowing that your opponent will be REMOVING that amount of units of yours of Their Choice?

A 20 point bid is now possibly 2 less Axis fighters, or a capital ship, or a couple tanks and a transport, the options are endless. The Axis may have to totally alter the Standard Opening’s and rethink their first turn attacks.

If the Axis advantage is material, then TAKING AWAY some of that advantage just might be much more effective than Allied bid additions, as well as taking away some of that early initiative with well calculated attacks.

What does Japan do with 4 less Infantry and 2 less Artillery do in China? How effective is Germany with 2 less Fighters to take on the UK navy? Italy could suffer a major disaster in Africa!

Think of the possibilities and then rethink what the bid might be. The options could really dictate some major strategic thought on both sides.

Kim

you could screw over Japan pretty hard if you removed their starting transports

[MarshmallowofWar]

@SubmersedElk:

you could screw over Japan pretty hard if you removed their starting transports

You could also wreck the Med game by removing the Italian battleship (or hey, the cruiser and transport that normally survive past UK1 instead). You could wreck Germany by removing 3 or 4 tanks from Europe, making sure that Paris is an utter bloodbath for Germany AND insuring that at least one UK fleet survived because Germany would be forced to commit aircraft to the Paris battle.

I think this last one is my favorite under that bidding system. The UK has the core of a fleet surviving and France costs Germany so much that Russia gains a whole turn of life while Germany rebuilds.

IMO, this is a bad way to do bids.

However, I also think that giving bids by putting actual units on the board is a bad idea. I think that all bids should be IPCs in hand (to be divided among the side getting the bid as the players choose) simply because it can lead to more variety of play, and frankly variety of play is much desired in a highly-scripted game.

Marsh

[variance]

@Flying:

I am a bit confused. Germany and Italy seem to be crushing Russia from what I can gather from this thread. The axis players are bypassing Africa and leaving the $ to uk Europe. What is the UKeurope doing this whole time? Are they not landing troops in Normandy? Are they just shuffling fighter planes to Moscow? A western front relieves more pressure off of Russia than fighters in Moscow. If the German Air Force is bogging down the uk navy doesn’t that mean less $ being spent towards the eastern front? So what IS UKeurope doing?

Usually trying very hard to hold on to Egypt.

[RiceAndChine]

you could screw over Japan pretty hard if you removed their starting transports

possibly the best counter-argument against taking off the units, but still its a nice Idea

[Karl7]

I don’t know if someone has already said it, but according to the 2015 league results, of 461 games played, axis prevailed 251 to 210 for a 54% win margin over the allies 46%.

8% swing in favor of the Axis isn’t huge, but it is definitely indicating there is some advantage there.  This is also in the face that 20ish bid had become standard in the 2015 league.

It’s hard to ferret out if that win margin stands among players of equal skill or is the result of good players beating up on weak ones. I don’t think so since Gammerman has a weighed point system to entice better players to play against players of equal skill.  Maybe he could do a data analysis on that.

Regardless, it looks like 30ish bids are the way forward IMO.

[DesertFox_96]

What I have found is that Yes the Axis powers start off with a huge advantage over the Allies on all fronts and it is very difficult for the Allies to match the Axis powers let alone surpass them in materials and income (US exception because they are the most powerful nation in the games soon as they enter the war) the best way to play the Allies I find is a mix of spoiling attacks wherever possible (attacks where you either knock the Axis player down to 1 unit in the territory then retreat while your force still holds a strong presence or take a territory like Norway in a raid which requires the axis player to react a d counter attack taking units away from their main effort) and providing reinforcements to Russia and in the pacific, to the island of the East indies (the gold mine as I call it for Japan). It is costly and takes a few turns to really show its teeth but eventually you will find the Axis lacking in Infantry on all fronts, mean while powers like US and Russia can build up massive counter attack forces and when they go on the offensive effectively mark the end of Axis superiority and put the initiative in Allied hands, but as many of you have pointed out its a long road for the Allies and a costly one at that.