Classic Axis and Allies Accessory Pack

As Japan try bomber , fighter and 2 infantry against the second chinese area. my pet move

@Bashir:

I understood perfectly what you trying to point out, but the point I was making, why do you want to play with these rules? If your are relying on luck you should stick to Risk imho. Axis and Allies was designed as a tactical game and not yatzee… And top notch players know how to handle those kind of strats, if Germany goes for tech, the US will do some tech roles as well, because in no RR no bid games Germany is under a lot of pressure from Russia alone and if they spend money on tech the US can easily spend IPC’s on tech as well (and more than Germany)

The risky Japan moves are quite useless, because you need your navy to assist your ground push in the west. Ok say you want to move your fleet to the atlantic, and Russia attacks Manchuria on R1 and the UK attacks kwantung on U1, you really need your navy to assist taking it back and establish a front in the west.

Your Japanese tech rolls on J3 will make Germany crumble! They will be under a lot of pressure and you are nowhere near Moscow, so again the Allies can easily counter your tech rolls with theirs…

I think with top notch players your winning% will drop below the 5% winning rate you might archieve with the Axis.

LOL… I still don’t think you understand my concept:

My post is about discussing the optimum axis strategy in no bids, no rr.

I’m not arguing whether Axis & Allies should be played with these rules or not. It is clear that many people prefer playing with bids -  Personally, I think bids is great as it adds a alot of variety and depth to the game

I’m also not arguing whether Axis & Allies should have a strong element of luck or not. I myself play chess at a high level.

I’ll give you another analogy of what I’m proposing - I shall refer a lot to chess as this game doesn’t involve rolls.

Imagine if you had a supercomputer which could somehow calculate the exact probability (at any stage of the game) of whether the Axis or Allies would win. In addition, the supercomputer would suggest moves that maximes the probability of winning.

It is my impression that this supercomputer would play allies almost identical to the standard textbook allies strategy. KGF with US doing shuck shuck. As I mentioned before, there are different tactical points but I believe the overall strategy would be the same.

However, I would think that the supercomputer would play Axis VERY differently to just always following the normal textbook Axis strategy. Let’s look at KwangBang as an example.

Imagine if Japan gets terrible rolls and Russia takes Manchuria and UK takes Kwantung with little or no loss. Also assume USSR has killed the Baltic fleet and strafed Ukraine (with standard results). Also assume Germany destroyed the UK fleet for the loss of 1-2 planes and didn’t do a suicidal attack on Karelia.

What do you think the supercomputer would suggest for the axis? I very much doubt it would follow the textbook Axis strategy. Why? Because even if Axis were to play “properly”, Axis is dead anyway. Set up the board at J1, with Russia already occupying Manchuria and UK already occuping Kwantung (with little loss), plus typical results of other USSR, Germany and UK moves. Try playing Japan using “textbook strategy” against top Allied players (or yourself) and see how many games you win. I would say close to 1%. Ironically, Axis should play even riskier if KwanBang really hurts Japan. My comment about Japan in the Atlantic is if KwangBang fails (or allies chooses not to do KwangBang). If KwangBang succeeds spectacularly, Axis might as well go for tech rolls or hope for a miracle with a G2 attack of Navy (and resign if it fails).

Conversely, if KwangBang/Baltic/Ukraine/Navy goes very badly for the allies, I believe the computer would suggest for Axis to play completely “textbook style” as the optimum play.

In chess, people have managed to program a 6 piece Table base (takes 1.2 terrabytes). This means that a computer implementing a 6 piece Table Base can play such endgames PERFECTLY. For example, if a computer was playing White in a (won) 6 piece endgame like King, Rook and Knight vs King and Two Knights, it may announce eg: White wins in 246 moves. If the opponent plays “PERFECTLY” as well, this number counts down by 1 each turn and the computer wins. If the opponent plays a “poor” move, he/she just loses faster.

What people found was that many Table Base Endgames were completely incomprehensible and broke “strategic” principles of chess (that were developed over hundreds of years). But what was particulary interesting was chess endings that for hundreds of years were considered “dead draws” were actually winnable.

Similarly, I believe if a supercomputer could ever be programmed to play Axis such that it always maximises its probabilitiy of winning (of course not possible), it may play seemingly ridiculously. Buying bombers, tech rolls, suicidal attacks etc. It may even lose games very quickly (and play like a “beginner”). Because the computer wouldn’t care whether it would lose in 5 turn or 20 turns - it would only care about probability.

Of course, I cannot say for certain how the supercomputer would play, but personally, I envisage that the supercomputer would try increase the luck factor if things are going badly, and reduce the luck factor if things are going well. If the supercomputer plays allies, I believe it would try minimise “risky attacks” and simply prolong the game and grind the opponent down. If it is Axis, I believe it would choose different strategies based upon the current situation. If Axis are in a “dead” situation, it would probably go all-out luck, or if going well, it would buy more infantry etc.

In the same way that the Table Base showed how the human chess “textbook” ending strategies were flawed, I believe that the supercomputer would also show that the human axis textbook strategy is flawed. Tim Krabbé wrote about Table bases:

“A grandmaster wouldn’t be better at these endgames than someone who had learned chess yesterday. It’s a sort of chess that has nothing to do with chess, a chess that we could never have imagined without computers. The Stiller moves are awesome, almost scary, because you know they are the truth, God’s Algorithm – it’s like being revealed the Meaning of Life, but you don’t understand one word.”

Secondly, it is my impression that the computer would announce at the start of a no bid, no rr game that the probability of Axis winning would be closer to 10-15%. If a top-notch human player would play against it, perhaps the supercomputer might win up to 20% of its games (as the human won’t be able to determine exactly what maximises probability).

The whole point of my post is that I believe textbook axis strategy maximises the length of the game, and not necessarily the probability of winning. The problem is that people would rather lose in a “hard-fought” but close game than being crushed in a few turns. If you don’t care how you win or lose, then I believe there are more optimum ways to play Axis.

I believe the optimum Axis strategy isn’t just a single strategy, but multiple different strategies. At one end is the textbook Axis strategy, at the other end is buying multiple tech rolls. In between are a mixture of strategies like infantry/tech roll, infantry/bombers, G2 attack on Navy etc. Axis chooses which way to go depending on the current situation. Clearly, if the game is already lost, why bother buying infantry just to hold out another 5 turns? Alternatively, if something miraculous happens like Russia getting crushed in Ukraine, Baltic and Manchuria - Axis should probably play “textbook”.

I wrote this post to see what plausible strategies there are for Axis. Obviously, something like G1 1 battleship + 1 Armor / J1 battleship is rubbish, but G1 5 Infantry + bomber or 7 Infantry + tech /  J1 3 inf + 2 trans seems plausible to me.

I continue to play classic as it is used in a summer historical gaming program that I teach in.  The 6th through 10th graders pick up the rules pretty quickly, and generally we can play enough in the time alloted to determine a probable winner.  We have just purchased the 2004 edition, and after my initial review of the game, we might work some aspects, mainly the destroyer into the Classic game rules.

I am not a fan of the new board, as it looks depressing, and the though of staring at it for several hours over a 5 day period is even more depressing.  The use of victory cities makes the game much more complicated for a beginning gamer, while the classic game of focusing on the capital simplifies the game greatly and clarifies what each players objectives are.  I am not a fan of the National Advantages either, especially as some of them are incorrect historically, and it one case, totally wrong.

All of the weapons development focuses on increasing attack capabilities, nothing increases the defense capabilitiesl.  By the end of the war, with the development of the Hedgehog and Squid antisubmarine projectiles, and use of larger depth charge patterns, the Allies were killing over half of the subs attacked, and aircraft were using sonobuoys, homing torpedoes, and Magnetic Anamoly Detection gear to locate and attack submerged subs.

There is no consideration of the proximity fuze used by the US and UK from 1943 on, which drastically increased the effectiveness of anti-aircraft fire, to the degree that between intercepting fighters and anti-aircraft fire, the Japanese were taking losses of 90% of their aircraft in conventional attacks.  Also, the British and the US shared all information relating to radar with each other during the war, so if the British get to use radar for their antiaircraft, so should the US.  Also, radar allowed for far better positioning of intercepting fighters, so in theory, your fighters should be able to defend at 5 with radar, rather than 4.

Japanese tanks were not exactly potent, to say the least, yet Japanese tanks have the same attack as the Sherman, T34, or Panther.  The Allies loved to see a Banzai charge, as the normal casualty exchange ratio started at 10 to 1 and at times hit 700 to 0 (Merrill’s Marauders in Burma).

The Germans did attempt to use the Stuka in the Battle of Britain as a strategic bomber.  After one week, it was withdrawn because of heavy losses.  When they tried again with fighters later, the British had a field day shooting them down, and German fighters never had the range to really attack anything significant in Britain.

Overall, I do not regard the Revised Edition of the game as an improvement over the Classic edition.  We will likely incorporate the destroyer into the classic rules, most likely using the destroyer rules from Axis and Allies Pacific.  The units will also prove useful in expanding the Axis and Allies Europe game to five players, and for my expansion of the Pacific game, as we will now be able to distinguish between Indian and Australian units, or use the odd color of the UK units for the Dutch.

or u can play on Gamespy i believe. 8)

“I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a
front line of defense against the anti-Christ of Communism.”

Religion, the opium of the masses.

Interesting idea with the Pacific theatre. That’s probably the easiest way to lure the U.S. into a delay tactic. Probably still requires taking out Pearl Harbor first.

And, yeah, I know, I’m a pretty strict player. I play ONLY the odds on rolls (something my opponent hasn’t quite got the patience for yet; I’ve broken his thrusts at Eastern Europe and Germany countless times this way) and all. I just think there must be a way to position units so that the true intentions are hidden from the Allies, and he must respond. In general, I think this is the key for the Axis… having units (armor!) in position to shift anywhere across Asia, threatening everything at once… but wondering if there were other places that anyone could think of.

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My advice, fight the Eastern Front to contain the Russians outside of Eastern Europe, forcing them to choose between defending between Karelia or Ukraine if you need those 3 extra IPCs to end the game. Use the rest of those forces to protect WE and Africa. Remember a D-Day can ruin the Axis attempts at an EV. I’m interested in hearing your calculations on how to do it.