League General Discussion Thread

@AndrewAAGamer said in League General Discussion Thread:

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

Didn’t include this in my first reply and it applies equally to BM and G40 but I do positively hate that Normandy can be left French by the Axis and nothing the allies can do about it. That stops USA from using the factory there no matter what they do. They have to go on to Paris to get French income.

@axis-dominion said in League General Discussion Thread:

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.

Okay, perhaps your definition of “radically changed” and mine are different. However…

Yes the map is the same - that is good.

In addition to the six rule changes above you mentioned, capturing capitols, interception, Vichy, Chinese guerillas, Marine unit and bomber cost there were a total of 28 National Objectives in OOB. BM4 added, removed or changed a Total of 26 National Objectives. That is an almost 100% difference. That is radically different.

The Victory conditions were changed.

A new unit was added that also changed the way battleships and cruisers work.

When there are THAT many changes I think it is safe to say that is a radically different game. This is not 1 or 2 House Rule revisions.

And due to all these changes, as stated by fans of BM4, the game is played vastly differently than OOB. BM4 is a long term strategy game. In OOB there is the race to win for the Axis, that makes the first 7-8 Turns exciting and tense; then and only then if the Axis fails does it turn into a long term game.

It is a completely different game.

yeah i think we def radically disagree on our definition of radically different. so unless there’s a more objective way to measure whether something is radically different, or the degree of radicality, then we could debate it all day and not get anywhere. i’m curious tho, i bet if we were to take the sum of all the rules in the game and calculate the percent of changes that were made off of that total, we’d see it be a small percentage, not enough to declare it radical, at least not objectively. now weigh in the percentage of map changes (0%) and the percentage of unit changes (only marine and bomber, so also very small) and then finally, weigh in the changes in starting unit positions (none except a few marines added), then you could get to a more objective view of just how different the game really is. Plus you can also account for how different the strategies and tactics are as well, which again i don’t see that they are (as i recall, between top players OOB became a longer economic song and dance as well).

put another way, the axis&allies rule book is fairly long and detailed, and i think if you were to add the bm changes it would amount to what? one or two pages added at the end of it, an appendix for optional rules/gameplay variant?

I think what’s needed most to breathe fresh new life into global (all variants) is that ever illusive overhaul of the tech development. It’s a whole dimension of the game that’s gone MIA for too long.

Looks like OOB might be played differently now than 10 years ago.

In any case, just play the game you think is the best.

@Adam514 said in League General Discussion Thread:

Looks like OOB might be played differently now than 10 years ago.

In any case, just play the game you think is the best.

well, i would imagine that’d be the case with doubling of the bids

one might even say that has radically changed the game

i kid i kid :)

@axis-dominion said in League General Discussion Thread:

@Adam514 said in League General Discussion Thread:

Looks like OOB might be played differently now than 10 years ago.

In any case, just play the game you think is the best.

well, i would imagine that’d be the case with doubling of the bids

one might even say that has radically changed the game

i kid i kid :)

Was referring to how Andrew said Axis were on a timer. That was not my experience and I never lost an OOB Axis game.

@gamerman01 the era of 20ish bids was a bit crazy. The axis had an obvious advantage at that point. I didn’t even bother going after Moscow as I knew I could bulldozer my way into the Middle East, and have a sufficient German Air Force to prevent Allied invasion in Normandy.

Even the ~50 bid is sufficient for Germany to slowly overwhelm Moscow around turn 15 as long as Japan remains a threat that the United States must divert resources to contain.

We have reached near the theoretical maximum as there are so many nasty things that can be done with a 60+ bid. Andrew won’t give me that much money ever again.

@Arthur-Bomber-Harris said in League General Discussion Thread:

We have reached near the theoretical maximum as there are so many nasty things that can be done with a 60+ bid. Andrew won’t give me that much money ever again.

Got that right. :)

@axis-dominion there are no marines in the starting setup for bm. Did i misunderstand what you are saying?

@simon33 said in League General Discussion Thread:

@axis-dominion there are no marines in the starting setup for bm. Did i misunderstand what you are saying?

yeah you’re right, i think i confused that with ptv lol sorry, so yeah one less change

@AndrewAAGamer said in League General Discussion Thread:

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???

Exactly the kind of comment I was hoping for from a top tier player! Great solution. Great temporary experimental adjustment to the bid system! Doesn’t affect turn 1 at all. Thank you Andrew.

@gamerman01 said in League General Discussion Thread:

My point in showing the statistics since the beginning of G40 is to show

1. Dwindling marginal returns no matter what game it is
2. BM breathing a lot of new life into G40 as a whole
3. PTV doing similar after BM had been out awhile.

My view is this is what happens when the world does not receive a new global Axis and Allies game in 13 years ( a child’s entire lifetime LOL). After a few years, the masses crave a new and improved, and a few years after that, the throngs cry out for a different way of taking over the world.

There are things about World War 2 that will continually draw young people in. And the views on certain YouTube channels are very encouraging. My hope is to have a channel that is a bridge between the steam 42 and reprint board game communities. And obviously somehow luring them into global oob here.

@Arthur-Bomber-Harris said in League General Discussion Thread:

@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.

I wouldn’t think yours is an unusual problem for championship winning players. Tennis for instance. The real competition is amongst the few, surrounded by the ambitious. I’d love if there was a mathematical formula for greater-lesser bid/greater-lesser difference in tier=greater lesser points.

@AndrewAAGamer since you don’t like balance mod so much i would like to point out that you can turn off nearly all the changes in the options and for the others you can use edit mode. About the only change you can’t do this for is The sbr changes. Edit mode is required for reverting the Chinese objective and for 12ipc bombers in bm4.

So mix and match to your heart’s content, although calling a game balance mod for league purposes then becomes a bit dubious.

@crockett36 there certainly are a fair number of people who have higher ELO scores than me. I have no problem finding opponents, if I wanted to be more active during the regular season.

I would estimate about 30 extra bid for every 400 Elo point difference for the top players, and 100 extra bid for bottom-tier noobs who don’t know how to use the advantage. Personally, I would rather not be gifted an advantage and instead rely on the luck of the dice.