What's the consensus on a standard bid?

@Lucifer:

I’ve seen a few games with R1 –> Wru, Ukr, Belo. G took Moscow rnd 4-5 in the two games i watched.
G didn’t even bother with AE or the UK BB in med.
Seemed like G changed from a wolfpack to a swift and efficiently big feline, going straight for the neck,
instead of tearing the animal down (the Russian bear).  :evil:

It’s a bit counterintuitive, but the best German response to a very agressive Russia opening is to reply in kind… go for the throat.

@axis_roll:

@Lucifer:

I’ve seen a few games with R1 –> Wru, Ukr, Belo. G took Moscow rnd 4-5 in the two games i watched.
G didn’t even bother with AE or the UK BB in med.
Seemed like G changed from a wolfpack to a swift and efficiently big feline, going straight for the neck,
instead of tearing the animal down (the Russian bear).  :evil:

It’s a bit counterintuitive, but the best German response to a very agressive Russia opening is to reply in kind… go for the throat.

And your recommendation for a Balls to the Wall response would be?

A 5 inf/5 arm buy might work well in this case.

You still take Egy (with bid unit help), but you can take Kar/Belo and Ukr (with SE forces if nec).

Allies still need a token force in Egy since you can still counter on G2 if they take out your two armor left over.

If you’re trading German for Russian in rds 1-3 you can really hamstring Russia’s offensive capability then Japan’s job is extremely easy.

I can see the potential for an early lurch here as well.
Trading German units for Russian while offering WE as bait to keep the allies seperated.  Germany may have to eventually turtle themselves but if they inflict enough damage on Russia early on, Japan may be able to finish off a very weak Moscow.

That was my thought also Darth.

Also, with Russia expending itself so hard early, and with the near 50% chance of at least one of the battles going south for Moscow…  Germany should be able to capitalize and make some massive gains, forcing Russia into Turtle Mode starting on R2.

I’d be much more worried about the Triple in LL, where you can pretty much guarantee favorable results. 
In ADS, I don’t know why any Allied player would go with a 52% play to start the game.  Even with a bid (whatever amount and bid style), there is still a bit of an advantage to the Allies b/c the Axis still have to do something to level the playing field which either means superior economy for several turns (and total unit value) or superior position.  Both take time, at least a couple of rds.

Why give the Axis the 48% chance to get some good dice in rd 1?

I can see the usefullness of an extra inf to Belo (if you got a 9+ bid) regardless of the R1 Triple threat which could make it a moot point anyway, since it is always nice to have some extra G troops in Europe to start.

Yoper: Yeah, the first time you face a successful Triple you feel like you got hit by a truck.  It’s much worse than it looks because when you start to figure out your counterattacks you realize how thin the Germans have become.

Darth: The 48% is a bit misleading.  The majority of that 48% bad luck is just BEL, which can happen in any essentially any opening.

But you raise an interesting question: Why give the Axis a chance to get lucky?

That’s the core of the debate I have with MightyAirforce.  I tend to be conservative, he is more aggressive, and he came up with the Triple.  When I asked him your question about why go for a 52% attack when you have only a 2% margin of a fully successful outcome, his reply was this: Against a good player, how many favorable battles can you afford not to fight?  Against a good player, if you have a 50.1% edge, you take those odds.

Now of course that is GREATLY simplified.  Is the battle really only 52% successful?  Will the attack open up cascade failure?  Can Germany capitalize on exposed positions?  What is the overall likelihood of winning the game with a Double vs a Triple?  It’s a tough question with many factors.

But MightyAirforce raises a very good question: How many favorable battles can you afford not to fight?

I answer that question by putting a bid unit in BEL  :-D

Peace

I’ve seen the triple attack 2 times, in both games Moscow fell rnd 5 latest, to Germany, and it’s not often that I see Russia captured by Germany. In the first one Russia had great luck, but it didn’t help. This was ADS.
Germany did the lightning blitz both times, and also placed all bids in Europe…
The German player is a decent one imo. He also tried the German blitz attack against me, Wru G1 ++ etc. but it failed
miserably even if G didn’t loose more ftrs than with average dice. I did not do the triple attack though :)
The German blitz only works if Russia throws away all units to the much stronger Germany early in the game.
This discussion reminds me of some remarks i got from a couple of f2f players who claimed axis was stronger in revised.
They also claimed “Vegas odds” is the best A&A strat that is known to man  :roll:
Vegas odds means the Lady Luck is with you all the way  :mrgreen:

The triples i normally see are E. Europe, W. Russia and Ukraine, not Belorussia.  No idea how that effects the resulting percentages, but I do have a thought:

Take the riskiest battle, run it first.  If you win, then the other two are less risky, even if they don’t go textbook.  Then take the second riskiest and run it.  In this way, you are only committed to one round of battles in the other engagements if the first goes poorly.

Seems like a good question, but my counter would be what is the Alternative (your opponents counter).

For example, if I have 51% battle to attack, what is the counter if I just stand pat and stack?  If I can stand pat and the counter is only a 30% success rate for my opponent, why would you risk 51% when you can have 70% on Def?

This happens b/c it is cheaper and easier to defend.  Your 1’s (inf), now become 2’s, your 3’s (ftrs) become 4’s, and any multinational forces get to defend as well.

If I’m the Allies, I’ll sit all day on the 50% battles and just wait out my opponent, until I have better odds or my opponent gets impatient.  Unless you are seriously down in economics or TUV the Allies can wait all day long.  Even an overall 1-2 IPC deficit per turn doesn’t hurt the Allies (not recommended  :-)   ), it is only when the Axis really approach 90 for a few turns do you have to be worried.

As the Axis, I’ll try to pick my spots better, and would only take a 50% (or less) if it was a desperate Capital shot or something.
I shoot for early position, the economics will come after that if I do my job right in rds 1-4.

By continually taking 51-52% battles over the long run you’re probably going to end up with maybe a 52% win %.  I try to limit dice and their effects, it is not necessarily conservative play, but it isn’t “I’ve got 55% to take, lets go!”

You also have to consider the counter attack even if successful.  A thin Germany means a thin Russia, this is very good for Japan.  German units for Russian units is good (for the Axis), regardless of who does the attacking.  Again if you take 51% and do win but all you killed were a bunch of Inf yet you lost 4 arm and left 3 more arm as sitting ducks on a counter attack to ftrs and inf I don’t know why you’d take that attack.

Maybe that is a bit simplistic as well, but all in all I’d only consider an attack with 50% odds if the alternative counter if I stacked was much worse.

Cmdr J: Quite correct.  You do WRU, then UKR, then BEL.  If WRU is a full-on-disaster you need to be able to fall back and protect yourself.  BTW - A Triple with EEU is below 50% for favorable outcomes.  I don’t see how it can be made profitable, but maybe you have a sequence/distribution where you think the risk is mitigated?

L: I appreciate your weighing in, but we’re not going to get too far if your argument is always going to be, “this one time, at band camp…”  Write analyses (which I know you can do), not anecdotes.

(-1 Karma, come my way!  WOOOOOHOOOOOOO!)

Peace

@DarthMaximus:

Maybe that is a bit simplistic as well, but all in all I’d only consider an attack with 50% odds if the alternative counter if I stacked was much worse.

Oh, I think we’re largely in agreement.  It is just really hard to tell which factors will be most important in the end, so it comes down to whether or not you think your long-term odds are better with a 52% opening.

If a failed Triple is bad but manageable, and a successful Triple is sweet like money, then that 52% edge looks pretty good against a good player.  Against a weaker player I wouldn’t open myself up to the dice.

Peace

Honestly, I never do the triple attack with Russia.  But I have had E. Europe, W. Russia and Ukraine fall to my opponent before, and that REALLY blows chunks since now Germany starts -2 Fighters, down 3 territories and basically castrated before Germany 1.  (My opponent also took FIC with England in Round 1, reducing Japan by a fighter as well.  All in all, it was the absolute WORST round 1 in my entire life!)

Here’s the analysis, I watched many games, maybe hundreds, I cannot recall that I have seen the triple attack more than a few times.
Why?
Don’t blame it on the LL, it’s only bigger variation.
If some of you claim that the triple attack in ADS is teh victory formula, then it surely cannot fail in LL  :roll:

So I fall back to the Vegas odds. Go ahead, do the triple attack on me.
May Lady Luck hold your hand while you roll the dice.

Can someone explain the statistical difference between LL and ADS?  What makes LL different from ADS?  How would these vary from regular dice over time?

Low Luck hits are guaranteed, so in LL, 3 inf, 1 ftr you have 100% chance of 1 hit, but 0% for zero hits or more than 1 hit.
In ADS (using Frood - attacking 6 inf for 1 round) for 3 inf, 1 ftr
I got:
0 hits - 28%
1 hit - 45%
2 hits - 22%
3 hits - 4%
4 hits - under 1%

Because of the guarantee hits, you can bring in the bare minimum for attacks and know the results before hand, so this allows you to conserve units, or do multiple attacks safely.  However, in ADS you always have to be aware of excess hits so players tend to use a bit of over kill.  Another example:

In LL you can attack 3 inf with 1 inf, 4 ftrs, 1 bom and be guarenteed to not lose a plane.  You trade 1 inf for 3, but in ADS not many players will do this attack for fear of a second hit and you’ll see an attacking force of probably 3 inf + planes.

Strafing is also extremely effective in LL, which means you shouldn’t move large stacks into potentially dangerous areas b/c you will get chopped down.  In ADS you can still strafe but there is the worry of what if the first rd goes bad OR what if you accidently take it leaving 5 armor left over to be killed on the counter.  In LL you can pin point it down to within 1-2 units.

Over time, the side that has the IPC and Unit lead should have the advantage b/c you can safely trade unit for unit and since you have the lead you can put more on the board than your opponent so it is a benefit to prolong the game until that changes.  There is no equalizing force (dice) like there is in ADS.  Once you are losing a LL it is extremely hard for you to come back.  You would need an error by your opponent.  But in ADS you have 2 outs to try and come back, the dice or an error by your opponent.

I totally agree with DM.

LL is a poor way to compare strategies when talking about an ADS game.  In LL there is almost no flexibility in the outcome (hence why it is LOW luck) but in real games a major attack can go bad from round 1 or you can get a miracle hail mary to save the day.

It does not even take a major shift in a large battle.

For example, 2 extra units surviving in a naval engagement of over $500 IPC’s of units has completely changed my pending moves in one of the games I am playing now.  2 units over 4 rounds of combat with 50 units total engaged is a very trivial, minor, difference in combat result.  But those 2 extra units completely change the dynamic for the counter I had planned, making it almost impossible (odds shifted from 70% success to 1% success).

Those types of minor shifts basically do not happen in large LL battles, but are EXPECTED in ADS.

In ADS round 1 basically determines the battle.

In LL you can have a minor fluctuation, but we’re talking a battle of over 60 dice on both sides combined fluctuating by a matter of 3 or 4 units.  Not like in ADS when a battle of 60 dice (both sides) can fluctuate up to 30 units over the life of the battle - if fought to the bitter end.

What we discussed was the Russian triple attack. My triple attack would be Nor+Ukr+Wru.
Other players have the opinion that the Russian triple is Belo+Ukr+Wru.
For me it’s about a 50% to take out 2 G ftrs R1.
I have bad experiences with the triple attack.
This specifically tactic, 3 attacks with Russia rnd 1, has nothing to do with LL or ADS. Except you can lose more in ADS.
If you claim that the triple attack is killer R1 start, then this will be exactly the same with LL, with AVERAGE DICE.
There are big differences in playing style and other issues regarding LL or ADS, but a specific move, or a specific attack
have nothing to do with differences in LL or ADS.

Now, if someone claim that they will not do an attack, say, Ukr R1, because it can possibly fail totally, Russia lose 2 ftrs, in
ADS, but this will not happen in LL, thats correct. When you claim that an attack or strat works in ADS it must also work in LL
given average dice rolls. It’s a completely different issue if you claim that an attack (or triple attack) is bad strat, or too risky
in ADS but not so in LL. The only way an attack may be victorious without luck, is with average dice. This should be quite
easy to understand.
Conclusion: If you claim that an attack is a bad strat because of the risk involved, that is the true difference between LL and ADS.
But if you claim that an attack or a strat is a good one, then this will also be a smart move and a good strat in LL.

@Lucifer:

My triple attack would be Nor+Ukr+Wru.
Other players have the opinion that the Russian triple is Belo+Ukr+Wru.

Yeah, that would be because there is no other Russian Triple that is feasible.  Heck, off the top of my head, I doubt there is a Triple combination other than UKR/WRU/BEL that has a greater than 50% chance to take the land.  Among NOR/EEU/BEL/WRU/UKR I don’t think you can pick any other three and have reasonable odds.

What’s your piece distribution for the NOR/UKR/WRU attack?

But if you claim that an attack or a strat is a good one, then this will also be a smart move and a good strat in LL.

No.  It may be, but you can’t exploit attacker advantage to test the dice for a round in Low Luck.  The results are too predetermined.  You can’t set up signficant cascade dice failure risk (sweet, sweet CDFR!).

Axis is a game of risk management.  Low Luck is a significantly different game with an identical board.

Peace