League General Discussion Thread

Only 2 points down on overall standings for @Pejon_88 because so many games since then, but I bet he remembers that one.

One of those 2 unrecorded results, he walloped the great trulpen and I glimpsed that @JDOW practically gave up after a miserable G1, then wrestled a victory, over about 18 rounds, right out of the crocodile’s jaws…

He may not be playing right now, but most of us know he can’t stay away from A&A

Need to highlight a rule, because TripleA doesn’t follow it and it makes a difference.

I’ve been playing new to me players lately, and more than one veteran of the league exclaimed that he’s never been aware of this rule, so I need to announce it.

This is noted in the TripleA game notes, under “general rules for all A&A games that the engine does not do, but you must follow”:

• (NA) Each phase of combat should have all units in that phase fire before any casualty selection occurs, whereas right now in TripleA if air and subs are involved then units might be broken up into smaller groups and casualty selection done for each group.

NA means there is No Available fix for this yet
To do it right you have to roll on forum, or sometimes it’s possible to avoid this by giving your opponent the opportunity to go back and change a choice he didn’t have to choose. If it’s one or two hits and casualties are being demanded out of turn, and it’s obvious what they’ll take, like a hit to the battleship, you can sometimes avoid going to roll by forum. Details on how to roll on forum are below.

Put another way, Triple A is sure to do surprise strikes correctly and to keep subs from hitting planes, and planes without destroyers from hitting subs. That is great, but 2 errors remain:

1. The engine requires a casualty choice from sub hits when there is a (enemy) destroyer present. Step 2 of the rulebook for surprise strikes does not apply when a (enemy) destroyer is present because surprise strike capabilities are stuffed by a destroyer. You may have SIGNIFICANTLY different battle results if you think a player has to choose sub casualties and lock those in before seeing all the rest of the attack dice.
   (Of course this is the case with surprise strikes, but when the other side (could be attacker or defender) has a destroyer, there is no surprise strike, there is no separate casualty choice)

2. The engine requires a casualty choice after rolling for planes only, when those planes do not have an accompanying destroyer. While it is necessary to roll planes separately to distinguish eligible casualty choices (can’t be subs), the opponent does not choose any casualty choices until ALL the dice are rolled.

It is unfortunate that a side-effect of rolling by forum is the detailed dice and casualty history is not in Triple A (but if you want round by round casualties to be in the history, you could always use game notes), but it will be saved on the forum.
The upside is, you can roll the dice old-school, like all 1’s, then all 2’s, seeing the results come in pieces at a time instead of the overwhelming screen of black and red dice all at once 😏

Here is the syntax for rolling dice on the forum in a way that automatically counts your hits.

[dice Xd6<=4|
Where both sides are brackets. I ended with a “pipe” symbol so that the forum won’t think I’m trying to actually roll dice.

Where the “X” is the number of dice to roll, d6 means six-sided die, and <=4 will count all dice rolled that were a 4 or less.

You will enjoy another benefit. Triple A is having you wait for casualty choices from your opponent potentially 2 times per round when you would really only have to wait for 1.

Example:
If I am terrorizing your fleet with 10 subs and 10 bombers, and you have 5 subs, 5 destroyers, and 3 scrambled fighters,
The Triple A engine will correctly roll the 5 defending subs first and the attacker has to choose the surprise strike casualties.
Then the engine will roll the surviving attack subs (10 minus those sunk) but not the bombers and this part is incorrect. TripleA will stop and require casualty choices for the sub hits, so the defender would choose a combination of subs and destroyers. Then TripleA will roll 10 bombers and ask for casualty choice again. The attacking subs and bombers should all be rolled before the defender chooses ANY casualties.
If you circumvent TripleAs error and roll by forum, you could roll all 20 attacking units (less subs lost to defenders’ surprise strikes) and ask for a choice a single time.

The other TripleA error is with defending planes that don’t have a destroyer on their side.
Great example - raid on Zone97 on UK1.
UK attacks with fleet and air, Italy defends with 2 cruisers, battleship, and perhaps 3 scrambled fighters.
After the UK dice, TripleA will roll 3 dice for fighters, and if there is a hit, stop and require a casualty choice from the Allied player. This is absolutely incorrect, the Allied player doesn’t have to choose anything until he sees the rolls from the 3 ships also, then assigns hits accordingly. He can’t choose a (bid) sub to scrambled fighter hits.

Clear as mud? Follow up questions!

@oysteilo said in League General Discussion Thread:

The first example is interessting. lets say all defending subs are missing, after all THEY get a first shot

For this example, I did fail to remember the defending subs would fire first. I edited my post to make it correct and much less confusing, thanks to you!

Then the attacking subs fire and get 5 hits. Are you saying i can not assign those 5 hits to the destroyers? I have to fire the 10 bombers first and bomber hits must be assigned to defending destroyers?

No, I’m saying those 5 sub hits would be assigned to subs and/or destroyers by the defender, but that the defender SHOULD NOT BE asked yet. Defender should get to see bomber rolls too before choosing any losses. Defender had destroyer so attacking subs do not have surprise strike. Only when there is surprise strike should action be stopped and casualties chosen.

I’ll just explain 97 again and hopefully it makes better sense when I use different words.

We first have to assume the UK has a bid sub. The sub is necessary to illustrate.

If UK attacks Z97 with everything (including a sub from 98), the engine will roll the UK sub first (I think it does this regardless of whether there is a defending destroyer)
In this case, with no defending destroyer that is correct. If the sub hits, the defender must choose a casualty immediately because of surprise strike.

Then assuming an Axis scramble to 97, the engine will roll the defending planes alone, and prompt for a casualty choice before continuing.
This is incorrect.
Following the engine, the UK player has to choose a non-sub casualty not knowing if the 2 cruisers and battleship will score a hit that could be taken by the attacking sub.
Following the official rules, the 2 cruisers, battleship, and scrambled fighters would all be rolled, with the fighter rolls being specially noted because the sub can’t be taken as a casualty to those fighter hits.

In Triple A, the player taking hits is sometimes required to choose casualties before he should.
As noted (even years ago) in the TripleA notes, this error has been acknowledged and identified and labeled NA for “no available fix yet”

Since I keep running into experienced league players who are unaware, I wanted to get this out there again and try to help everyone know how to play correctly

Thanks for your feedback Oysteilo!!!

Yeah, I tried… I tend to use more words than necessary.

You could just play me and I’ll teach you when these battles come up!