Beating J1

@andrewaagamer said in Beating J1:

@mikawagunichi said in Beating J1:

@andrewaagamer

I’m not. If the UK wants to sacrifice their only transport to take back FIC for one round instead of a higher value use in ME/Africa/DEI that’s fine with me.

Not sure what you mean by higher value.

1. Taking Persia gives UK Europe $2 and sets up a take of Iraq on UK2 instead of UK3 so it is basically a $4 play. The transport survives.

2. Assisting an attack on Ethiopia takes a high chance battle to virtually a guaranteed battle saving probably on average an infantry or $3. The transport survives.

3. Taking Sumatra gives UK Pacific $4. The transport dies.

4. Hitting FIC results in a standard 83% take or 98% if a fighter is lost if necessary. The transport is lost. Japan has no ground units to retake Yunnan so China is helped and without control of FIC Japan does not get a mIC in the south for one entire Turn. UK Pacific gains $2.

Of those four choices number 4 seems to be the highest value.

1. Also allows the Persian factory to built on UK2. Getting as money UK $ spent in the ME is critical in any non-sea lion game.

2. You’ll want to have at least 2 land units survive the battle so that you can take back Kenya from Italy on UK2. If you don’t, you’ll lose the original territories NO plus 1 for Kenya. So there’s 6 IPC.

3. Also gives the chance of killing precious Jap land units when they take it, instead of allowing them to walk in to all DEI on J2. May even prevent them from taking it on J2 if you get lucky.

4. Depends on how much you value getting a factory in FIC right away. Could just put one on Kwangtung.

Also for 1-2 we should be adding in another 7 for the TT itself.

@marshmallow-of-war said in Beating J1:

@arthur-bomber-harris I dunno, I’m in Andrew’s camp on this one. When you win by gambling big, you have to take a lot of big gambles and eventually one will not work out.

Marsh

The Axis start with an advantage of approximately 40 PUs that would be necessary to balance the game. That bid leads to a benefit of about 30 additional PUs as the Scottish fighter can protect SZ111 and help counteract, African units can crush Italy, and other such leverage that you get from smartly placed pre-game units. By the end of the second round, a 40 PU initial bid should be well over 85 PU swing compared to a no-bid match. That type of two round swing is required just to balance the game to 50/50 odds.

How are you going to achieve that type of swing in a no-bid game? Obviously low skill by the opponent is one common way to do it as minor strategic mistakes can cause long-term damage. We saw that in the J1 match earlier where Japan didn’t attack Yunnan, failed to bring all of his units further south, and he failed to execute on a J3 or J4 India crush. Those mistakes were devastating.

For better players, the first two rounds are mostly scripted for the Axis. I can look up the standard play book for Japan and Germany and perhaps make a minor adjustment for bad dice luck for second round plans. Strategically there is little for the Allies to do in the first couple of rounds that would get the game back in balance. The next couple of rounds are even more scripted as Germany drives into Russia on G3-4 with no significant opposition, China gets inevitably crushed, and India turtles down in the capitol. A lucky minor battle can be a 10 point swing, but it is hard to get eight of those all in the Allies favor. Hence, the Axis probably has over 100+ PU advantage in a typical game by G5. People wont make egregious mistakes if using a battle calculator on turns 6-8. Good luck overcoming that Allies disadvantage with dice rolls! I will gladly demonstrate how easy it is to win for the Axis in a no-bid Forum match and I certainly am not a top-end player.

Hence, we get to the logical conclusion that the Allies must start taking high risks, and best to start doing it earlier in the game than later as PU advantages builds on itself. Take those 30% battles and see if the dice are in your favor. Strafe off those FIC troops with Indian fighters. Leave a stack in risk for the Axis to defeat it 70% of the time and dare them to attack. If your risky attacks fail, make even riskier attacks as your level of desperation is even higher. The goal is to win the game as Allies, not to force the match into additional turns by turtling down and avoiding risk.

@Arthur-Bomber-Harris And that’s the reason I wouldn’t play OOB without a significant Allied bid…even if I was the Axis. I want a game, not a slaughter. :)

@arthur-bomber-harris
Just for my own culture; when you’re talking about thé scripted axis play for Germany, then you’re talking about the big march into Russia? (when UK prevents a sea lion offcourse).

@arthur-bomber-harris I’ll agree that it’s hard for the Allies in an OOB game to get an advantage without taking some calculated risks! That being said, there’s calculated risk and then there’s reckless – the latter is to be avoided.

Even OOB, the Allies do have some fairly stock responses they can use that are adjustable to situations and every Allied player should learn these and practice on how to adjust them.

When we’re now talking a bid game, that’s the point where I would discourage taking large risks at all. If you’ve already equalized the game with the bid, why risk it?

I will say that the Scotland fighter is almost becoming a standard bid element. Not everyone uses it, but more and more I see folks using it as part of their bid and usually it comes first when the subject of the bid comes up. I would expect to see that as an addition in version 3 (assuming Wizards is working on one).

Marsh

@mikawagunichi said in Beating J1:

Also for 1-2 we should be adding in another 7 for the TT itself.

I’m not quite sure about that, but the transport does allow the UK more flexibility if it survives. That transport moved to the east coast of Africa can shuttle reinforcements to the Middle East from the South Africa IC even after India falls, and can also head into the Mediterranean to reclaim Malta or Cyprus and help the UK regain its NO from the capture of one of those islands. The flexibility of having the transport around in what is a relatively safe environment where it has little to no defense requirements has a value all of its own.

Marsh

@cornwallis I have some relatively standard game plans for the first few turns as Germany assuming nothing goes horribly wrong on G1. On the G2 the airforce can clean up any weak units in the Med, move into the westernmost territories of Russia, and build Mechs/tanks to catch up with the main force. On G3 there usually is little to do except move one more space into Russia. I like the northern route if you want to setup a G6 Moscow attack, or the southern route if the game plan is to push into the Middle East before either going to Egypt or Moscow.

There is no way for the Russians to stand toe-to-toe with German forces until G5, and there is no major option for an amphibious landing in W Europe by the Allies for the first few turns. I do Dark Skies with a large number of bombers built starting in G3 so that further delays potential Allied landings as they have to defend both their landing force and their Navy.

Usually Italy loses their foothold in Africa quite quickly and just needs to focus on having a few fast movers getting into Russia, and then defending W Europe and the Med for as long as possible.

@arthur-bomber-harris When buying the bombers for Dark Sky, do you have enough money left to buy enough (offensive) units for the Eastern front? A turtling Russia can easily gather 50+ infantry.

@cornwallis Dark Skies have so many options because the bombers project power in so many directions: Moscow, Middle East, Egypt, Med, “France”, Scandinavia, and the Atlantic. It gives you both offensive and counter-attack capabilities, giving you flexibility to respond to the Allied strategy.

If the UK helps stack Moscow to make for an expensive G6 attack, I swing down towards the Middle East with the fast movers. Italy opens the way with the small group of tanks/mechs. The attack often gets bogged down near Iraq/Persia, but time is now not so critical for the Axis. The powerful bomber force combined with some ground units and perhaps a few subs can force it to be expensive for the Allies to protect their units in all of the threatened regions. Eventually there will be an imbalance when Germany gets up to Round 11-ish. Once one of the dams holding back your forces is broken, it is impossible to contain the German ground units with the powerful backing of the bombers.

Look for an economic victory towards Round 15 when the Allies realize that they are falling further and further behind with no way to catch up in total unit value and hence give up without a final major battle.

@mikawagunichi said in Beating J1:

@andrewaagamer said in Beating J1:

@mikawagunichi said in Beating J1:

@andrewaagamer

I’m not. If the UK wants to sacrifice their only transport to take back FIC for one round instead of a higher value use in ME/Africa/DEI that’s fine with me.

Not sure what you mean by higher value.

1. Taking Persia gives UK Europe $2 and sets up a take of Iraq on UK2 instead of UK3 so it is basically a $4 play. The transport survives.

2. Assisting an attack on Ethiopia takes a high chance battle to virtually a guaranteed battle saving probably on average an infantry or $3. The transport survives.

3. Taking Sumatra gives UK Pacific $4. The transport dies.

4. Hitting FIC results in a standard 83% take or 98% if a fighter is lost if necessary. The transport is lost. Japan has no ground units to retake Yunnan so China is helped and without control of FIC Japan does not get a mIC in the south for one entire Turn. UK Pacific gains $2.

Of those four choices number 4 seems to be the highest value.

1. Also allows the Persian factory to built on UK2. Getting as money UK $ spent in the ME is critical in any non-sea lion game.

2. You’ll want to have at least 2 land units survive the battle so that you can take back Kenya from Italy on UK2. If you don’t, you’ll lose the original territories NO plus 1 for Kenya. So there’s 6 IPC.

3. Also gives the chance of killing precious Jap land units when they take it, instead of allowing them to walk in to all DEI on J2. May even prevent them from taking it on J2 if you get lucky.

4. Depends on how much you value getting a factory in FIC right away. Could just put one on Kwangtung.

Also for 1-2 we should be adding in another 7 for the TT itself.

1. Agree with that. I feel #1 is the next best alternative to #4.
2. I am assuming the Europe Bid included an artillery for Sudan and a Mech for Egypt. That means there is a 99% chance the UK will have at least two ground units left so another transport is not necessary.
3. Since you have a carrier and 2 planes off Borneo any attack on Sumatra is going to have a high success rate; about 99%. There is about an 18% chance the Japanese would have to lose a fighter to take the island.
4. A mIC in Kwantung is significantly less effective than one in FIC. Troops take two turns instead of 1 to get to Yunnan. Since FIC is THE best spot for the IJN any units built off FIC threaten India where in Kwantung they do not. Also a mIC in Kwantung is susceptible to being captured by China or the US since, again, the IJN is probably off FIC.

While #3 and #4 cost you a transport I would not say it is worth $7. The Middle East transport is limited in what it can do. Certainly it has some value; maybe 3-4.

The issue is do you want to set the Japs back or not? If FIC is taken not only do the Japanese not build a mIC on J2 but they are now susceptible to trading it again on UK2. It takes a sizable force to hold it against the 2 infantry, 2 fighters and tactical attack.

#1 and #4 are probably 6 of one half a dozen of another; more personal preference. Do you want to be stronger in Europe or the Pacific?

@ShadowHAwk This is a conditional probability question that you have to look at each route and odds. Let us assume we are going against an awful Axis player who is much worse than you and has had an awful G1/J1/I1 start to the match, just to highlight why it might not be insane in some cases:

Base case of doing nothing: 3% chance of winning as Axis
Attack fleet and fail: 1% chance of winning
Attack fleet and win: 30% chance of winning
Conditional probability: 1%*0.87 + 30%*0.13 = 5%

In such a hypothetical, but not unrealistic case, the Axis has an improved chance of winning the game by doing the high-risk G3 raid on the Allied Atlantic fleet. As you mentioned, the outcomes so much depends on the first round of dice. If the Allies miss with all of their dice, the Axis could be left with a surprising number of planes. Those scenarios are very polarized.

@arthur-bomber-harris Yes i agree 100%.
I just wanted to verify that when you commit to Dark Sky, a capture of Moscow on G6 -G7 against a good Russian player is near impossible. Dark Skies favor a long game or even an aggressive Japan while Germany blocks of the Allies in every direction.

@cornwallis I agree with this. And I think your Russian infantry count is low. However, if I saw Germany doing Dark Skies, I might start building AA guns and pushing them forward too.

Marsh

@marshmallowofwar Yes it is low, but that was a bare minimum.

@cornwallis No worries.