Larry Harris Semi-Official Tournament Game Patch

Been a hot minute since I posted here (only just got around to reseting and poking about since the forums migrated.) But I got a request from an old hommie to play 42.3 this afternoon, since he only has time for a short game, so I guess the map is not entirely defunct for me yet. Its still hard for me to imagine getting terribly excited for the tournament patch though, gotta admit. I feel like the purpose of this board now is mainly relegated to introductions. Basically playing Allies with no bid vs an Axis opponent with less experience, hoping for some curve balls to make it interesting purely on account of that unfamiliarity on the one side, but mainly just trying to drum up enthusiasm for future matches on the AA50 or Global board. Its a little unfortunate, since I liked the price point of this board for a starter game. But at the end of the day I think it just goes in the opposite direction of what I’d like to see from a starter board. Namely it front loads everything into the first round combats, such that the game is more or less decided within the first hour. I think the only way to get around that would be to dramatically increase the overall economy, to overcome the TUV swings of the opening combats, and change the basic play pattern such that Russia doesn’t fold to an axis crush immediately. I don’t think you can get there just by tweaking the starting unit set up, it really requires a rules change of some sort, to try and open up the peripheral parts of the map and put more emphasis there instead of all on the center. Or at least allowing more of a build up before the major TUV exchanges. Otherwise the same old playpattern is going to predominate, over the same critical tiles, mainly in the middle of the map. But anyway, sometimes a dead horse can still ride I guess hehe.

Hope you all have been well! I had couple heavy rl things preoccupying me in the past year, but the new year is starting to shape up for the better. So hopefully I get in some more time for the good stuff, like plastic army men and carboard world domination lol. Catch you next round

@taamvan

For tournament play is there a time limit per turn? Seems like with only 4hrs 45 mins to play you only get 3-4 rounds?

@taamvan

In the tournament in the bidding process if one bids less than 3 and is the winner do they just get the extra IPC since nothing can be bought?

Yeah, if the amount is less than 3, usually saved for purchase. Sometimes the Axis bid in revised would be used so that Japan could purchase additional transports or things of that sort. In the earliest versions of bids that I recall rather than pre-placing units you had to purchase them using the normal mechanics in game. So the bids would be larger, but the opening battles preserved according to the box.

I’d guess tournaments are set up to have basically a core afternoon committed. Maybe a follow up day for the final or something like that. Even the most enthusiastic players can’t usually put in like a full work day just on the board. Since a hall isn’t quite as chill as playing a long ass game at home, where you have like couches and snacks and beverages at the ready. Some of the bigger tournaments might run it more like a convention, where its more about the meeting up and talking shop than like going full The Wizard style. Though that would be cool. Like just powergloving it vs Lucas for the chance to compete live on some grand new A&A board reveal hehe. Or like world championship in Vegas with some ridiculous grand prize. A&A Olympics with actual medals hehe. But yeah more like a big empty room with a gang of folding tables and kinda tight on time. But I haven’t been to the big ones in the midwest

@Black_Elk

lol I like reading your stuff :)

Why do you think bids are placed before game start now ? Top players feel the opening is broken ? Is that unique to this map ?

Hey what’s up man! Been a while hehe

Yeah I honestly don’t know the exact history of how it got started or at what tournament. I think the cd games from the late 90s probably standardized it, just because it was a relatively easy edit and more action oriented to have extra pieces banging away from the get go.

For A&Aonline the base game for ranked play is Gencon and its been going with no bid for a couple months now. If I had to put money on it, I’d say Axis retain the edge, but there are a lot of big swings and potential for Allies to come up under Gencon. The playpattern remains pretty similar to OOB overall.

The preplacement bid obviously forces players to think really hard about what is possible in the first turns, and how an extra hitpoint here or there might blow something wide open. So it has that appeal, playing to the fixed nature of A&A, where the start conditions are basically always the same. Totally different from say Risk or games like that, where there is much more variability in the starting conditions. Still just looking at the standard options in the menu for the Iron blitz game there were a lot of other ideas as well, some using tech unlocks “Axis Advantage” had Supersubs and Jets for Axis. Economic Victory. Russian restricted opening. And a couple alternative riffs on the Classic game going from 2nd to 3rd edition. It had marines and a few other things like that, some of which could shift the balance back and forth depending on which option one went with.

I still think starting income adjustment is the easiest. There’s always an amount in cash that can fix any perceived balance issue and its rather less distorting to the opener. But I’d guess the preplacement bid is used in tournaments mainly because its faster, and tournaments always have that element of time to consider. A larger cash bid that introduces units via the normal purchasing system would take longer to materialize and its impact would be more amorphous than say another sub or tank somewhere right out the gate. So prob that’s the reason it became so popular.

haha yeah that sounds pretty intense. I can definitely see why they’d go preplacement when you’re rocking 9-5 until eliminated. Esp with teams. My memories of save for purchase bids are all coming from tripleA warclub stuff not the sit down and gun with the gang official type situation. I always imagined that things in the actual hall would be pretty next level. Definitely sounds like that’s the case

I’ve now played the LHTR a couple of times and my conclusion is the Axis still are the favorites. Using the time constraints all the Axis have to do is take Karelia (Leningrad) and defend all their victory cities to win 7-6. It is pretty tough for Russia to stop Germany from taking Leningrad. USA does not have enough time to put their mark in the game. UK can now conceivable hold India but unfortunately they are not able to really help Russia much saving Leningrad. These games have been with zero bid so maybe the next step is to play with a bid. I am intrigued with the idea of playing USA turn 0 where USA starts game (instead of Russia) and can do everything but attack on that turn. It would make them more relevant in the game. Any thoughts out there?

@taamvan have any tournaments played US0?

Do most people still give Allies 6 bid even after this patch?

After playing online at the plat level for a couple months now, I can’t imagine having to decide a winner by round 7 or so. To me, the game would seem so shallow by comparison. Like it’s more about positioning for VC scrambles as the timer is running out to eek out one more than your opponent, than actually trying to hit 9/10 VCs. Like ending a chess game after 25 moves based on who has more material. Even though you can often tell if it’s gonna be a win loss or draw by that point, that evaluation is based on the fact that the end game is there to play out. But if a chess game was actually capped at 25 moves, people would play much differently. Likewise with this game. Of course, games can’t be allowed to go on for too long in an in-person tournament. Perhaps if both sides had like a 2 hour clock running down whenever it’s their turn (except in conduct combat phase?). Has this been suggested before?

@Kakarrot1138 said in Larry Harris Semi-Official Tournament Game Patch:

After playing online at the plat level for a couple months now, I can’t imagine having to decide a winner by round 7 or so. To me, the game would seem so shallow by comparison. Like it’s more about positioning for VC scrambles as the timer is running out to eek out one more than your opponent, than actually trying to hit 9/10 VCs. Like ending a chess game after 25 moves based on who has more material. Even though you can often tell if it’s gonna be a win loss or draw by that point, that evaluation is based on the fact that the end game is there to play out. But if a chess game was actually capped at 25 moves, people would play much differently. Likewise with this game. Of course, games can’t be allowed to go on for too long in an in-person tournament. Perhaps if both sides had like a 2 hour clock running down whenever it’s their turn (except in conduct combat phase?). Has this been suggested before?

“Plat level” likely means you’re playing 1942 Online, not 1942 Second Edition. 1942 Second Edition is very different, and GenCon is different on top of that. Pretty much all the points you bring up need to consider that context.

For example, clocks seem like a great idea - but we’re not talking about chess players that are used to clocks that go around carrying clocks. A lot of players won’t understand how to use a chess clock and will need to be taught. Even then, many will make mistakes that will require adjudication, or just won’t use the clocks. Then too there’s a question of who pays for the clocks? Players won’t necessarily have their own. And since the clocks aren’t personal property of the players in question, they’ll leave them on tables, unsupervised, and a certain number of these $25 USD clocks can be expected to “disappear” - not necessarily through any malicious intent. So you end up wanting maybe $500 worth of chess clocks, which isn’t necessarily an issue (maybe you could find a cooperative chess league that has a lot of clocks) - but in the end, someone has to be responsible for all of that, and has to pay for any losses.

Besides that is the question of how players take to the clocks. What if they just don’t like them? Suppose someone asks that the clock be stopped so they can use the bathroom. That could be an issue. If the clock is stopped, what about players that take a picture of the board before they go? What about players with disabilities? And you might feel that you have an answer to all these questions, but if you’re not personally administering each and every such question for the entire duration of the event, that means others are going to be involved in decisions. And nothing gets people angry so fast as uneven judge adjudication. Rule one way in one situation, another in another situation, accusations of favoritism start being thrown around. So you need to have detailed instructions available ahead of time, which half the judges won’t read - and there you go.

It’s not the clocks that are the issue so much as getting the whole system to work. I don’t think I’d say it’s a huge issue. But you can see where chess clocks wouldn’t be a thing that would necessarily just happen.

AFAIK at GenCon if you feel an opponent is delaying game, you can call over a judge. If you keep calling over a judge and the judge feels your repeat calls are warranted, they may do something. So there’s that. Not as good as clocks, perhaps, but perhaps enough?

As to being shallow - Axis and Allies is generally shallow. There’s no hidden information. No diplomacy. No exchanging one resource type for another. You don’t have mechanics as in chess like pinning, checking, castling, or promotion. Probability distributions seem complex but aren’t that difficult to understand.

That might seem like a lot to swallow, but you take a fighter out of a defense and say the win odds drop by 17%. Compare to chess, you have a pawn in the right position and you can checkmate. The possibilities in Axis and Allies collapse upon the control and location of industrial complexes. You don’t have “key squares” in chess like that, the center is important but it’s not the same.

All that’s done at GenCon is a few things are tweaked. Maybe they seem like big tweaks, and in some ways they are, but it’s really just another set of conditions. If you feel that improvements can be made - sure. But then, what would you specifically recommend - and not just what, but who and why?

I’m not saying why needs to be strictly defined, but I am saying it’s important to remember for context. If thinking about “why” all the time, the context becomes less “chess clocks should be a thing, get chess clocks”, and more “IF someone else thinks chess clocks are a good idea and is willing to do the administration and cost things, THEN perhaps chess clocks can happen”.

I mean I literally started the post with “after playing online”, so not sure why you’re like “you said plat, that means online”. Obviously ranked online uses gencon rules, and I don’t think it’s that dissimilar, particularly in the context of the issue of time controls. Yes you can’t land on friendly carriers and you have defensive profiles and such, but I’ve played oob too and it’s close enough.

I agree that trying to introduce chess clocks probably wouldn’t work. That’s just the only thing I could think of as an idea to address my disillusionment with how stunted the game seems when it’s practically capped at such a low number of rounds. I think it’s fair to say that it significantly changes the game for the worse. Oh well.

@Kakarrot1138 said in Larry Harris Semi-Official Tournament Game Patch:

I mean I literally started the post with “after playing online”, so not sure why you’re like “you said plat, that means online”.

Actually

@aardvarkpepper said in Larry Harris Semi-Official Tournament Game Patch:

“Plat level” likely means you’re playing 1942 Online, not 1942 Second Edition.

This is the 1942 Second Edition forum board. 1942 Online has its own forum board.

“Online” does not equate to “1942 Online”.

TripleA games are also online. TripleA also has/had its own ladder. TripleA allows preplaced bids and many other things that 1942 Online does not. That is why it is important the distinction be made.

@Kakarrot1138 said in Larry Harris Semi-Official Tournament Game Patch:

you can’t land on friendly carriers and you have defensive profiles and such, but I’ve played oob too and it’s close enough

It’s not.

I know, you’re coming from a perspective in which 1942 Online is fine, differences are trivial, you look at the GenCon system and you’re like “what?” Everything you’re saying seems reasonable to you, and I understand you’re saying things that make sense to you.

But I want you to consider. These forums are twenty years old. A lot of players here have histories with Axis and Allies that go back farther than that, myself included. 1942 Second Edition is eight years old. 1942 Online is only a year and a half out.

That doesn’t mean you have nothing to contribute. It does mean perspectives are different.

You ask questions about GenCon, and why not? Nothing wrong with a fresh perspective. But the subtext is that there’s something wrong with GenCon. That 1942 Online is the same as 1942 Second Edition. And none of that is necessarily the case.

You say that 1942 Online is the same as GenCon. But it’s not. It’s not just my saying so. 1942 Online doesn’t have preplaced bids. Nor does it allow use of allied carriers. These are massive, massive gameplay changes, the mathematics and mechanics change. If you have inquiries, I’d be happy to share my perspective if you post on the 1942 Online board. But not here, as I would consider that derailing the thread.

Yes, the game is changed at GenCon. My understanding is the preplaced bid is something around 11? And that KJF is necessary as that’s the only way to contest the victory city condition that is used for adjudication when the game is called, which it probably will be.

You said the game is crippled in GenCon, I said the game is tweaked, then you doubled down and said you think it significantly changes the game for the worse. Fair enough, you won’t take my word at face value, and why should you? You had your reasons for your opinion in the first place, what real reason have I given you to change your mind?

I haven’t done the GenCon thing myself. But I did start reading up on it about a year ago when Black Elk put up some posts. I asked him some questions, because some stuff he said sounded weird to me. He replied, I got perspective, and then things made sense.

If I recall, it was something like . . . Black Elk was talking about KJF, in 1942 Online. That just didn’t make sense to me. I’d run some numbers on builds and timings, and I thought KJF was garbage. But then he said at GenCon everyone was doing KJF. So I asked really? And he said yes. Then he started saying how the games were called early and talked about a preplaced bid, and I read up on how adjudication is by victory city. So I looked at it, and here’s what I think.

I think that in GenCon, you don’t go KGF because Germany captures Karelia, Japan captures India. It’s not a certain thing that the Allies can reclaim Karelia or break France, and this is added to by the fact that in an adjudicated game Germany doesn’t have to worry about choking off USSR income at Ukraine. Germany need only reposition its forces, allow USSR to grab income that would in a normal game not be allowed, and have a safe margin for victory. (I assume Germany/Berlin and Italy are safe, as both should be deathtraps). As to Japan, they grab India and possibly Hawaiian Islands so Allies have absolutely no recourse there. KGF = loss. Simple.

If the Allies had a massive bid then they could change the outcomes. But the Allies don’t necessarily need a massive bid to contest VCs by GenCon adjudication rules.

The Allies use 6 bid to place a submarine with UK’s India fleet. This changes the percentages on the UK1 attack against Japan’s sz37 East Indies fleet, probably resulting in total destruction of Japan’s fleet at minimal losses to UK with a decent safety margin. (Contrast to OOB setup which is NOT safe). An additional 6 IPCs of bid allows placement of two USSR infantry at Karelia and Caucasus respectively, which stabilizes the R1 defense of West Russia against G1. Last I heard, the bid was 12-14; if it was higher then you could switch out USSR infantry for USSR artillery and get additional safety margins.

Consider the consequences. Europe is more stable, and a key early naval battle goes from moderate risk to tolerable risk. The Allies player could optionally switch out its Europe infantry for an additional UK submarine at Australia, which would change the sz37 battle to - I don’t know offhand, but I imagine “fairly safe”.

So you have these things happening, then UK builds fighters at India. US builds carriers, pushes carriers after Japan’s turn, UK flies fighters onto US carriers. But it’s not simply a matter of bulked defense. Taking advantage of turn order means UK can now mount a tolerable air threat against solitary Japanese fleet, which restricts Japan’s freedom to act. Further, US can move its carriers after Japan’s turn, giving UK’s fighters extra range to hit targets before Japan can act. This, along with allowing UK to effectively apply its income to accelerating the KJF timeline, which is already accelerated because Japan’s East Indies fleet is destroyed.

Since you don’t have defensive profiles and you can use allied transports, you can fine-tune UK and US actions for stack bleeding/building. I won’t get into it more here, but believe that it’s important.

So with KJF, Germany still captures Karelia, but you have an accelerated KJF that builds up fast and early enough that India won’t necessarily fall at all. Then US can get an edge on Philippines and Kwangtung for a possible victory.

Make sense?

Now, I hope you understand what I meant when I said GenCon is a “tweak”. You still have the core mechanics, if you’re pushing Japan instead of Germany and remembering VC adjudication, sure it’s different, but you can adjust. But 1942 Online is completely different. None of what I wrote above is remotely possible. That’s part of the reason why questions about 1942 Online are best put on the 1942 Online board.

Be interesting to hear from any GenCon vets out there.

@aardvarkpepper When I said 1942 online ranked uses gencon, I was referring to the setup, like german bomber in ukraine and such. We all know about the tweaks that 1942 online put in for the sake of convenience. Since they recently made the change that you can set different defensive profiles for the different powers of your side, I’m hoping they also add landing on friendly carriers, as well as prioritizing one power’s units in casualty selection over the others’ in jointly defended zones, so as to make it as close to the original game (but with gencon setup) as possible while still facilitating asynchronous play. But I digress.

Anyway, the only point I really cared to make was that I think the depth and fun factor of the game is significantly worse when time concerns cap the number of rounds at such a low number, and I’m definitely sticking to that opinion. Of course, fun is subjective, but depth level is pretty objective. Saying that the game is already shallow so who cares is kinda weird btw. But yeah, the fact that allies are pigeonholed into KJF in tournaments in order to not lose on VCs helps to prove my point. I didn’t even need to bring up my 1942 online ranked experiences to make this argument, as I had been playing the oob game since long before that, but obviously 1942 online has allowed me to play against a much wider array of opponents, and has solidified this opinion that I had even before purchasing the online version.

As a side note, I’ve had tripleA since before 1942 online, but didn’t think the scene was still active. Is there actually an active scene there that plays with the gencon setup?

@Kakarrot1138 said in Larry Harris Semi-Official Tournament Game Patch:

Saying that the game is already shallow so who cares is kinda weird btw.

When I read that response, I thought “I wouldn’t say something dismissive like that.” I went back and read what I wrote.

@aardvarkpepper said in Larry Harris Semi-Official Tournament Game Patch:

Axis and Allies is generally shallow. There’s no hidden information. No diplomacy. No exchanging one resource type for another. You don’t have mechanics as in chess like pinning, checking, castling, or promotion. Probability distributions seem complex but aren’t that difficult to understand.

I was replying to your earlier post

@Kakarrot1138 said in Larry Harris Semi-Official Tournament Game Patch:

I can’t imagine having to decide a winner by round 7 or so. To me, the game would seem so shallow by comparison.

I had responded as if “shallow” were a purely descriptive term, but I see perhaps you meant it to have pejorative overtones. So when I responded with the same phrase, despite the explanation I’d attached, apparently you took it as pejorative. But “Who cares” is not what I wrote. When I disagree with others, it is usually a matter of points of fact, rather than contemptuous denial of validity of others’ opinion due to undocumented alleged consensus by third parties.

@Kakarrot1138 said in Larry Harris Semi-Official Tournament Game Patch:

I think the depth and fun factor of the game is significantly worse when time concerns cap the number of rounds at such a low number, and I’m definitely sticking to that opinion. Of course, fun is subjective, but depth level is pretty objective.

If you want an objective discussion, you have to address the points others bring up, even if only to explain their invalidity. I wrote Axis and Allies has key areas that limit divergence, that probability distributions do not necessarily complicate decision making in the same way that different gameplay mechanics do. I’d agree the details are beyond the scope of this thread but you can create a new thread - or if you can’t for some reason, you could just ask and I could make one.

As to “fun factor”, you’d agree that’s subjective? As to depth to that in a moment. But first -

@Kakarrot1138 said in Larry Harris Semi-Official Tournament Game Patch:

the fact that allies are pigeonholed into KJF in tournaments in order to not lose on VCs helps to prove my point.

Actually, I wrote I hadn’t been to GenCon, and if KJF was the GenCon standard as I thought might be the case from secondhand reports and my projections, why I thought KJF might be the standard. But it could be that I’m wrong, that KGF is actually viable at GenCon.

If this were a private discussion, I would say to myself “If my points are re-interpreted strongly, that’s not a matter of concern.” But in a public discussion, saying “the fact that Allies are pigeonholed into KJF” can easily lead to misunderstandings.

But back to depth.

If GenCon KJF plays out the way I think it does, competent players have to calculate a load of probability distributions, project their best window, and take their best chance. I described the general plan (as I thought it might work) simply, but actually there’s quite a number of branches, which I think with the time constraints make the game just as sharp as any other game - different, certainly, but still sharp.

To use an analogy, imagine blitz chess versus “normal” time controls. In blitz, you are going to do a lot better if you’ve made extensive formal study of openings, that’s going to slash your opening time requirements and give you an advantage. But that doesn’t mean blitz chess isn’t chess.

To extend the analogy, finding mate for a position in 4 can be more difficult and interesting to find than mate in 7 on the same crowded board.

So is GenCon KJF (if it plays out the way I think it does) really shallow? I think not, compared to any other game.

Suppose you’re pushing KGF. It’s quite predictable; you send US to Finland/Norway, build UK/US and pressure Karelia, if Allies break Karelia then UK/US bleed out Germany’s stacks from the northeast while USSR pushes from Ukraine. Japan presses, and USSR and US defend Russia as necessary. There’s little variation, perhaps UK reclaims India, perhaps UK/US/USSR do a triple attack on Berlin, maybe Allies push navy into the Mediterranean (I’d say probably not, but whatever).

Compare to the KJF line I projected. If the Allies are pushing Philippines and Kwangtung, is Axis defending that region really so different to defending Karelia in the KGF?

But KGF allows a longer game considering Africa? So both factions need to consider the game in Europe but also Africa?

Sure. But in KJF, the Allies have to consider the German timing push against Russia.

But it’s not the same because in KGF the Allies have to consider Japan’s push against Russia, so accounting in KJF for Germany’s push is analogous?

But it isn’t analogous. Germany’s initial stack sizes, production, and logistics are all far superior to Japan’s. If I’m correct about GenCon actually using KJF, and if I’m also correct about how it plays out (and I could be wrong) - the Allies have to worry about defending India, attacking Philippines, and attacking Kwangtung, while also trying to prevent Russia from falling, it’s a two-front war. In the KGF, though, the Allies only have to balance Europe and Africa (for the later developing game). Japan threatening Russia isn’t something that needs to be dealt with until well after the Allies’ KGF plans develop.

So how, objectively, is depth level of GenCon KJF (if they DO really use KJF at GenCon, and who knows if it actually plays out the way I think it does) - how is that less than the depth level of KGF? I’d agree it’s different. If someone said it was less fun for them, I’d have no objection to a subjective difference of opinion, and if someone said the game is less pure in terms of execution compared to the way the game was designed, I’d agree. But to say objectively that it’s less fun or even less complex is I think a step too far.

To return to the OP (the original original post, starter of this thread) and initial responses -

It’s been, what, eight years since 1942 Second Edition came out? A number of years since the LHTR setup was released. I take it that Larry Harris did read responses on his forums, but I don’t recall anything there recent on 1942 Second Edition and LHTR/balance, apart from Black Elk’s necro, but I’d say the changes are pretty well set by now and aren’t going to change.

I don’t like the German bomber in Ukraine. It’s an “un-fun” change for me. It’s like how a grumpy grandpa has fun yelling at kids to get off his lawn. Then after years of good wholesome fun, one day someone says he can’t say that any more. Then grandpa is sad. He might shake his fist at the kids, but it’s just not the same. Now USSR can blow up that German bomber that says “hey kids stay off my lawn”. Less fun at Africa, less fun at Atlantic, less threat range to Europe, not available to fly to Asia in the anti-KJF to pick off destroyer blockers. Why make grandpa sad? Make grandpa great again!

Maybe grandpa was having a little TOO much fun in 1942 Second Edition with Axis winning, sure. But leaving the German bomber in the path of USSR tanks is still sad.

poor aardvark, no bomber to play with, durn kids, I remember back in the day Germany had a bomber and we liked it.