Alpha 3.9 Favors Axis

@Cow:

round 8-10 depends how rushed axis are and if waiting increases odds or not.

Thanks. The reason I asked is that you mentioned the possibility of sending US bombers to Russia through North Africa. Bombers can arrive in two turns, but they are poor defenders.
So I figured that US fighters could make it to Russia in three turns (taking the Pacific route), if only they arrive in time. And I’d say that should be possible by round 8.

UK generally sends ftrs to Russia at some point in our games when there is an all out assault on the Soviets. The RAF can send ftrs from Scotland to Russian soil (territories that boarder sz 127), then to Moscow if done before Germany takes all the northern “Red” territories. UK can also funnel up fast moving ground units and air through the Mid East from India/Egypt. This may only halt them for a turn or two, but that may be all you need to pressure Germany from other fronts, its all about delay. If you can stall the march to Moscow, the US can generally get into position to do its part. The allies have to see this coming, and plan for it.

True, but the US can more easily afford the purchase of such fighters, and they could reach Russia in time unless Japan previously captures the USSR’s eastern territories where the fighters would need to land in between. The idea would be, to place some 10-12 fighters on Midway and the Aleutians (10-12 as a total, not 10-12 at either location) while the US is at peace, then fly into Soviet territory as soon as the war breaks out, and continue on towards Moscow. I’d say it would be very difficult for Germany to crack a big Soviet infantry stack backed up by a grand total of some 15 fighters.

So my next question would be: does the “USSR crush” typically also involve an all-out Japanese thrust into Amur and further, while simultaneously avoiding an early US entry into the war, and can Japan afford to do that and also maintain a good position in China?

idk the whole KJF thing does not work if japan gets india and holds out as long as possible. if the fighters leave to go to russia to defend that, you can then blow up again in the pacific.

also usa in russia does not stop germany from taking egypt and without a fleet in the atlantic… germany still makes enough to sea lion UK.

If Germany builds 10 infantry on turn 1 and follows that up with tanks
Turn 2 infantry stacks move to Poland and Rumania, turn 3 East poland turn 4 Belarus Turn 5 Smolensk Turn 6 Moscow falls.
That means the 6 infantry from Buryatia will be 1 turn short of Moscow and the other 12 will be 1 turn behind that, meanwhile Japan eats up as much Russian income as possible which will cost Russia 6 to 9 infantry for the defense of moscow.

Way too early IMHO to claim who has advantage in this game.  I need to challenge (through more gameplay) some of you on some of these claimed unstoppable Axis strategies/assumptions.  I’m gonna try some TripleA soon.

Eh, I dunno.
It wasn’t a whole lot more time than this that many of us were convinced how “unbalanced” A2 was towards the Allies.
Just saying.

Karl7, just play with a 9 bid.

If I were to suggest LH make some changes, it would be to add a russian bomber on russia.

I believe you. :D

Improve your allied play, and PLAY MORE GAMES, before you jump to this kind of conclusion.

I can garuntee neither of you has played more than 25 games as the allies.  Yet you are pontificating that it is imbalanced.

With so many options, and so many IPC’s already available, the allies can do alot of different things in response to the Axis.  You just need to figure out what works best for you.

And you can start by asking, HOW do the axis win MOST of the time? and Where?

Gargantua, I think it is as balanced as AA50 and Revised. 9 bid is fine.

Revised, the minimum bid I would take for germany was an infantry in ukraine, though I preferred minimum artillery for libya.

AA50, I guess it’d be an infantry in egypt… lowest I recall, but I really did not feel like playing axis that day.

I played V4 a few times without bid… prefer revised rules.

Classic I prefer original classic rules, but I do attack karelia round 1 (guys stranded in norway so may as well take a stab at karelia)… I think 10 was the lowest I went. Man been awhile since I played classic.
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I have taken allies at 0 against newer opponents and won. Same for AA50 when it first came out. Revised rules same thing when it first came out.

The bid system takes time to flesh out. I believe in 1 unit per territory, also 1-9 is relatively small enough that you could play with or without it.

For all A&A games I prefer to play with a bid or against an opponent who takes a bid. It changes the game up.

Gargantua

Thing is, for global, if there were ever to be a tournament for it, the first round would have to be played in low luck (germany loses to france 1 in every 100 games).

Also this is not the product of my gameplay or Karl7’s or anyone’s for that matter. It is the result of the sample data from all finished games on the forum. It makes sense to gives allies a bid when axis win 57% of the time.

small bid would only drop axis win ratio to 52%, which is a bit better, at least that is what bids traditionally have done.

TripleA ladder for aa50 changed dramatically when AA50 was released to the +13 for Low Luck games… that happened because the axis win loss ratio was about 60% for dice games and 70% for low luck. Then the 9 bid took hold for a year, the axis win ratio was 55%, so it went to 13 for allies and the axis win ratio was 51%… (they play 1 unit per territory).

For dice games bids always varied but there was an upward trend for dice game bids over the years, couple years ago if you started the bid at 13 people would call you crazy and bid lower at 7… now a days they would go 12 and you go 11 and maybe you give it to them at 10. Game is even at 8-11 IMO.

HOWEVER that is using 1 unit per territory rules. 2 artillery in eastern ukraine, results in roughly the same attack power as having a tank somewhere and an artillery in eastern ukraine (as far as hitting ukraine and east poland was concerned)… also dropping 3 inf in egypt is kind of lame, because then germany cannot gamble for egypt… 1 unit per territory gives germany 50/50 on egypt, which is fair for those players who feel like taking a risk. also encourages armor buys over artillery as far as russia is concerned. So that explains the higher bid on triple A, has nothing to do with inferior allies play, just different bid rules.
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For global, I would prefer 1 unit per territory bids, because 2 units in amur is cheap sauce for slamming korea. or stacking 2 inf on france hoping for some dice… that might be cheap sauce or result in a wasted bid.
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I remember suggesting 11 bids for AA50 low luck games when it first came out, no one insulted me, they just gave it try and played as the allies with it.

Like if someone joins my game and starts checking the allies boxes and wants to just play… I just give them a 9 bid spread out to the countries they want it for and I take axis.

I actually test these bids out.

I started seeing what 6 would do, I am at 9… not sure how I like the 3 added inf in africa… it is a bit cheesy… but I have not played enough people who did that.

9 seems fine so far, but I only played 3 people who got a 9 bid. I lost twice out of three games to it… but I made a big mistake with japan in both of those games… yeah I slammed into the USA fleet at 70% odds to win and I got crushed. I missed with all my tacticals and bombers… hell yeah that was glorious… and I misbought for one of them (should have bought 10 inf for japan to defend it, but I didn’t notice midway 6 fighters and a bomber… so yeah I lost, but I got to get some sleep at least.

I don’t have enough sample data to suggest a 9 bid at this moment.

I might suggest 6 for your games and seeing how the allies fare with a little extra firepower. It is enough to make a difference.

I understand why people use bids,

but if a game is unbalanced, then I prefer the game to be fixed

here is why:

Bids always end up being turned into a land unit which gets placed in some critical position on the board, throwing off the originally intended balance and strategies.
Then, the game starts turning into something that is basically mechanical: each sides has their “best” strategy to win.

A much better way, is for the original maker (larry) to come back in 3 months and say, “hey look, the best way for the axis to win is for all axis nations to go 100% against russia and ignore all other possible strategies.  So, I’m going to make that strategy less powerful, and make other alternative strategies for the axis more attractive.”

If we end up, in 3 or 6 months of continuous playing, to find that the best strategy for allies is KJF or KGF, then we should figure out ways to make both strategies equally attractive.

The changes required to do this are small incremental changes, like shifting 1 infantry back a territory, or moving the placement of a single boat, or changing the starting PUs up or down by 1-4.

Bids won’t do that, because bids always end up being a couple land units in a very critical spot, which only reinforces the previously found “best and only” strategy for that side.

I’m not going to weigh in on which side Global favors, because I haven’t played enough.  I only wish to say that I hope Larry comes back and revisits Global in 3 months, and makes some very very small changes.  I do not want to see any more big changes, because big changes cause everyone to have to start all over again with the whole giant project of balancing.

It took NWO (New World Order) 3 years of playing to get to a fully balanced state, and even now there are occasionally bids of 1-3 for one side or the other.  But the main feature of those 3 years of balancing was all the fine tuning to make sure that each nation and each side of the conflict had different strategies they could pursue, and that there were many different hot-spots on the map, each with a finely tuned balance.  That is what makes New World Order the most popular game on TripleA.  And I hope that global can reach that level of balance and variety.

This discussion so cracks me up!

After all this time and waste of time and ideas and waste of ideas,

the game is still imbalanced!!!

We still play OOB rules with a few tweeks on one page

that indeed balance the game.

WHAT A WASTE OF INK AND TIME

Don’t get me wrong, the imbalance is part of the game in the 1st place.

The OOB rules are not broken, perhaps a few adjustments,

but not the wholescale panic that I saw here to revise the rules to ensure “balance!”

Or in the parlance of the public schools today “fairness.”

I enjoyed playing the Axis as basically OOB.

That reflects WW II, more so than all the panic sticken iterations of Alphas.

It is too bad that Larry Harris bought in to all this nonsense!