League General Discussion Thread

@axis-dominion said in League General Discussion Thread:

where is the league standings topic, can’t find it anymore

New standings are the ELO ones: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/40302/the-new-elo-based-ranking-system/223

I think the old standings has been unstickied. I had bookmarked it here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pYDcR_d27qG312v_rq2q35wYEEfO6mjrX-Co1nvKrlI/edit#gid=818885946

Maybe we should keep it stickied but just change the title.

yes plz keep it stickied

ok, i have officially seen it all…

That happened to me TODAY in a face to face game of D-Day. My opponent went 5 for 5 with 1’s (infantry) attacking 4 tanks and I went 1 for 4 at 3. Sheesh…

Still won…

@gamerman01 said in League General Discussion Thread:

“No” to standard bids set.
Individual player game by game bids are preferred because of individual and unique player strategies, it changes up the game, sometimes a LOT (you mentioned stale). It would actually be more stale if the starting set up was largely dictated to everyone for a year. Guard rail not needed, inexperienced player can just look at what the successful players bid

My purpose is to help out of box be the version people want to play. I get the impression it is the least played version on a site called Axis & Allies.org. I consider BM and PTV to be too different from the original.

Ten or twenty years ago, people were talking about the death of board games. Apparently not! Instead, we have an extraordinary breadth of options in the World War 2 category. I want to eliminate as many obstacles as possible for Axis & Allies global 1940 to be the game they settle on as their hobby.

So, when they buy the reprint and make it through the rule book and play a game or two on board or migrate to this new platform for lack of local competition, I’d like there to be

1. optional simple, elegant intuitive fixes to the glaring problems with the game.
2. an optional bid number and an optional bid placement for those who don’t have the time to study games.

I was literally that guy in 2009. I came here to have a little fun between having a heavy work schedule at UPS, seven kids and a wife and outside responsibilities and was told by someone “you gotta want it.” 6 years later I came back in preparation for grasshopper’s tournament.

Maybe when or if out of box dwindles down to a handful of league players, people will see the need to eliminate the small nagging skintags that push people to the hybrids.

This, I think, is a great discussion so I would like to throw in my two cents.

I think two very important points have been made… 1) People get tired of the same game over time. 2) There are some things people don’t like about OOB so they play other games.

Now, for me, the main reason I like OOB is because a) it is the official game, b) there are so many various strategies that can be used to win and 3) it is a different game every time after about Round 4; especially due to the Bid.

I guess the first question is what is it that people do not like about the current state of OOB? One thing that I have heard is the large Bid. To digress, the first time I ever played OOB we played with no Bid in our face-to-face group. Pretty soon it was a $6 Bid to take the Allies that grew over time to $12, $18, mid-twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and finally after about 5 years all the way up to $60! We had people who could not believe the Axis could win at $60, yet it did win more than it lost. Now here online there have been some very unique Bid placements that I think is going to drive that $60 down to about $50-$52. The reason I point that out is currently BM seems to be about $20-$22 so even after all the changes BM4 made OOB is only about $30 more to the Bid.

Now, again, for me I like the Bid because how the Allies choose to place their Bid makes it a different game every time. But, assuming most people do not like the large Bid, how do we decrease it without radically changing the game like BM did?

See, for me, I don’t play BM4 because it is really a different game due to all the changes. Same goes for PTV. While both may be fun and fine games there are lots of games that match that criteria on TripleA and we don’t play those.

So, back to how to clean up OOB to make it more acceptable for everyone to play without radically changing it? What is it that, besides the large Bid, people don’t like?

I think one thing is the Russia gets money from the Middle East and Africa and that seems kind of cheesy. Okay, we remove that. But that is one way Russia gets extra money so we have to make up for that or the Bid would grow even more.

The fact Germany can steamroll Russia if Russia does not get assistance from UK? Okay, so again, we need more for Russia. So, what I would suggest is something that does not radically change the game but cleans up those two points if the general feeling is Russia is too weak.

So how much does Russia need? Well, about $50 or so to match the Bid plus another $10-$15 for the loss of the Middle East and Africa. Okay — so we add 10 infantries to Russia ($30) to start the game and then give them a National Objective that as long as they hold it gives them $5 more a Turn; such as “Must hold Caucasus and Volgograd”. This would make it more worthwhile for Russia to fight for the south and even if they fail should get them at least 6-7 turns of collection for $30-$35 — Bingo plus $60-$65!

I am not saying this would eliminate any Bid, but I bet it would drive it significantly under the current BM4 Bid. For those people who are just tired of the old game I am not sure this would bring them back however, it may bring in more Players who don’t like these three issues (Large Bid, cheesy Russia NO in Africa and weak Russia.)

What are other things people don’t like about OOB???

@AndrewAAGamer my problem with Axis and Allies League matches is either 1) I am playing against inferior opponents and I know by turn 4 that it will be an easy win for me but I have to wait ten turns for them to inevitably concede, or 2) I am playing against superior opponents like you and I have to play through the next full turn every round to make sure I am not making a dumb mistake and also have to take a 40/60 odds battle to have a chance of winning since you will inevitably grind me into the dirt if I don’t take any risks. I spend a month to get to that huge attack on Moscow or massive battle in the Pacific, get either good or bad dice, and then either win or lose based on the outcome.

I could play low-luck matches, but then I am guaranteed to win against inferior opponents and lose against people who have better gameplay so the outcome is essentially determined from the start of the game. There probably is no solution to this general situation in 2-player matches.

@crockett36 I am missing something in your suggestions. For players who don’t have time to dive in deep to the game and understand the current metas, the OOB version is sufficiently balanced enough to play without any modification at all. The German player will inevitably build too much fleet in the Atlantic or forget that Berlin is the capitol, not Frankfurt. The Russian player will spend their income on tanks, while the American player decides to take the long-march through N Africa instead of launching a successful Normandy invasion.

For more experience players, we need a modification to make the game balanced. Either we can do that with fixed additional units/income, an adjustable bid, or a full-on balanced mod. We have empirical data that a majority prefer the balanced-mods, while a sizeable fraction enjoy OOB plus a bid, and virtually nobody can agree on intermediary house-rules. Out of the 221 matches last year, how many players could find agreeable custom-rules / modified bids? It has been a long time since I have even been offered anything different. A few players prefer low-luck, but I will only accept that against an inferior foe as I need dice to have a chance to beat players like Farmboy or Gamerman.

I am very happy if a subset of players champion a set of house-rules and demonstrate that they are both balanced and enjoyable. If you see something catching on and think a majority would support general adoption as default, let us know. I would suggest that we could have a League-wide vote on adoption of changes if it has been successfully demonstrated by a sizable percentage of League games. I don’t see anything that even raises to a couple percent adoption right now, but don’t let that stop you from advocating for variations in the matches that you play against opponents as you are free to negotiate any rules you want.

@AndrewAAGamer said in League General Discussion Thread:

What are other things people don’t like about OOB???

The air raid rules. Too often these result in no hits but rolling a lot of dice at 1s means a lot of swinginess. BM, where ftrs roll at 2 attacking and defending but bombers and tacs roll at 1 is much better IMO.

Also the cheesy attack on SZ62 J1. I think the setup should be changed to include a sub there. While the attack is still possible, probably not advised.

Also, for your comments on USSR, I think the changes to their NOs in BM are great*, . Why reinvent the wheel?

• • except for the bonus for Japan doing a DOW on USSR. I play A&A because I want to kill. I can accept delay for preparation but I don’t like a game long disincentive to actually play the game which is what this is.

There are other reasons to love G40 over BM. It is normally a faster game, although when BM first came out the opposite was true. It should be obvious that more income with the same starting setup should slow getting a result. Also, I find BM much more scripted in its outcomes whereas G40 is more flexible. I wonder if the objectives in BM should have been negative objectives for the opposite side, at least some of them.

@gamerman01 Some truth to that but I still do a lot of SBR on Moscow. And in a game I am playing now, 8 escorts and 3 bombers just attacked to be intercepted by 11 interceptors.

I got talked out of bombing India but I am starting to wonder if there are scenarios where it is useful for India. Mostly if it is stripped of ftrs I suppose.

interesting discussions. would love to hear more about why andrew and maybe others think bm “radically changed” the game. for me at least, i feel the team behind it did an amazing job of enhancing it in very thoughtful ways that achieved certain goals beyond just trying to balance it, eg, nudging it a bit more toward looking like the history. and when i play bm i very much feel like i’m playing global but with great enhancements that give the allies a real chance without just throwing ever more loads of money at the problem. by the way, i agree very much the bid is not only great for variability/replayability but also an exciting aspect of the game. so i’m glad bm still requires a somewhat substantial bid, but just not too ridiculous imo like 50+ would be.

anyway, for me, besides more balance and a more reasonable bid, i like bm because

1. i never liked the re-looting rules in the original where if you regain your capital and then lose it again, the money again goes to the captor
2. the intercepting rules that simon pointed out, how dumb is it that a bomber and a fighter both fight at a 1?
3. vichy adds some historic realism to the game very nicely, while also adding more opening strategies and variability… it’s just a very fun aspect of the game imo
4. same for the chinese guerillas, gives china a standing chance will also opening up another potential strategy for the allies (via american airstrikes… love this option)
5. LOVE the new marine unit, gives back some much needed love to those capital ships and who doesn’t like cool new units? when has anyone ever complained about having artillery when they came out, or any of the other numerous new units that rolled out over time with new editions?
6. bomber cost at 14, altho i resisted it at first, did away with that stupid utterly ridiculous dark skies that some ppl exploited in the past… so i welcome it, but cost of units is easily negotiable between players and i’ve been experimenting with costs of cruisers and battleships being cheaper, making them great again

anyway i can go on, but all of these additions/enhancements don’t at all make the game feel “radically” different… eg you still have all the basics… G going for Russia or occasionally a SL if brits are careless… Japan going for india and china first, then turning on anz/hawaii… allies building up in 110 or first clearing out the med. all the basic fun strats are there and then some.

also the map is the same, as well as the starting units/positioning (except for a few marines added).

PTV, on the other hand, is definitely a different game, and great to have that as yet another axis&allies variant.

@gamerman01 said in League General Discussion Thread:

I think the rule was largely a reaction to Axis bombing of Moscow.

Further to my reply on this one, I would actually say that I do more bombing of Moscow in BM than in G40. In G40, the first round you can reasonably bomb Moscow is round 4 (round 3 in a G1), and a couple of fighters bought put this back to round 5. And round 6 you might be taking Moscow; obviously not if playing a top opponent but if you are, then you get good damage on Moscow round 5 (maybe), no repairs probably then you can bomb again in round 7.