Warfare Principles of Axis & Allies (By AndrewAAGamer)

@J-o-C said in Warfare Principles of Axis & Allies (By AndrewAAGamer):

Would you ever consider using an infantry to block a potential blitz? That would mean Germany would not be using artillery or regular infantry for the attack, which may not be a good idea on their part. I guess it would depend on the situation.

Good question and yes it depends. As I said in my article…

@AndrewAAGamer said in Warfare Principles of Axis & Allies (By AndrewAAGamer):

to lose a unit for any purpose outside of that big battle is a waste of the unit unless it takes more units with it than it loses, or has extraordinary ramifications, such as protecting a vital monetary area, or slowing down the route of march.

So not to be wishy washy but it depends. What does the blitz of the armor gain versus the loss of the armor on the counter attack? What is the loss of the infantry versus the gain of stopping the blitz? It is situational so without an example I cannot answer the question except to say sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it does not.

@Saber25 said in Warfare Principles of Axis & Allies (By AndrewAAGamer):

What makes Bryansk a better hold point?

Bryansk is the point where the original German advance forces and fast moving reinforcements are at their limits to get to Moscow in comparison to the Russians who have been building infantry waiting for them to arrive. It takes some Allied fighters to tilt the battle to the Allies favor to hold for a little bit. Even one Turn is helpful though.

@WindowWasher said in Warfare Principles of Axis & Allies (By AndrewAAGamer):

@AndrewAAGamer could cruisers be worth a little more than 11, maybe 11.5 due to their ability to move marines in BM 3?

My article ONLY applies to OOB. It does not include BM3 and is probably not relevant in many aspects except the general warfare principles which are true for any game.

@akreider2 said in Warfare Principles of Axis & Allies (By AndrewAAGamer):

Axis and Allies is like two player Risk, and it has nothing to do with multi-player risk where you want to avoid fighting as much as possible.

I agree. Which why I said “If you have ever played Risk the board game 1v1”

@akreider2 said in Warfare Principles of Axis & Allies (By AndrewAAGamer):

For new players, I’d say the dice simulators are your friends and would totally disagree with this:
“SIDEBAR: Battle Dice are not your friend!”
It’s only as a more advanced player that you need to worry about this.

I am not sure what you are referring to? When I say Battle Dice it has nothing to do with a simulator and everything with actual rolling of dice. Dice are not your friend. You should not trust them and always assume they will stab you in the back. That is why you always want overwhelming odds.

@akreider2 said in Warfare Principles of Axis & Allies (By AndrewAAGamer):

Otherwise if you maximize your TUV everywhere, you ought to do well.

Interesting concept. While not playing that way I would probably agree in general that playing that way would result in more wins than losses. Though there would certainly be battles while the TUV may be in your favor you still would not want to do for overall strategic purposes.

@akreider2 said in Warfare Principles of Axis & Allies (By AndrewAAGamer):

Under strafing, a similar move is to attack at 50/50 odds when you have a good place to retreat in the hope that the first round will go in your favor allowing you to press the advantage. Especially useful for battles with a small number of valuable naval units (assuming you can retreat to a safe spot). Though not a beginner move. So long as your one round strafe simulation looks ok, the attacker often has an advantage when attacking at 50/50. This is less true in land battles that are 50/50 where the attacker is typically losing more units on the first round that the defender is (infantry that attack at 1 and defend at 2).

Another interesting concept. The attacker does have the advantage of rolling the dice and if things go wrong then retreating where the defender does not have that capability. To be successful that does assume that the dice will go your way; thus that tactic is playing the odds. The entire point of my article was to remove odds from the game as much as possible and base it on fundamental principles that will help any player win more than they lose.

Hi @crockett36. Thank you for the comment. I assume you are referring to this section of my article.

Risky Attacks: I see plenty of people do risky attacks to gain an advantage. One example is the J1 attack on the ANZAC SZ62 fleet. The goal is to kill the ANZAC destroyer and transport and thus remove the capability of ANZAC to take Dutch New Guinea on A1. Let’s look at that battle:
• 40% of the time the Japanese destroyer dies. (-8)
• 40% of the time the ANZAC destroyer and transport dies (+15)
• 20% of the time both the ANZAC Destroyer and Japanese destroyer die (0)
• 13% of the time the Japanese destroyer kills the cruiser on the counter attack (+12)
• Total Average TUV = $4.3

So that looks like a pretty good battle. On average for an $8 investment I can get a $4.3 return. Dang good! So, the battle makes sense to conduct. Right? Maybe; it depends. The real question is do you need to win that battle to win the game? Are you the weaker Player, the stronger Player or are you both the same caliber of Player? If you are the weaker Player you may need to take more risks than your opponent. But if you are not then why make the attack? Let’s look at the battle from a different perspective. If you need to kill the transport to win the game than you have already lost the game 60% of the time. And if you can win without killing the transport why risk your overall game 40% of the time when you get nothing out of the attack? What we want to achieve is consistent winning. Not winning only when we get lucky dice; but due to our good play.

As I mentioned many people will do a Risky Attack to gain an advantage. One normally wants to gain an advantage so they can win. :)

If you perform a risky attack to gain an advantage are you not trying to improve your chances of winning? If the risk fails than have you not reduced your chances of victory because not only did you not gain an advantage you created a disadvantage for yourself?

The whole overall theme of my article was to try and teach a Player to be better so they do not have to rely on the dice. In fact, alleviate the dice as much as possible because dice are random. While trying to gain an advantage by making what is a reasonable risky attack on AVERAGE you will increase your odds of winning. However you will also harm your chances of winning when the dice are not average. If your style of play requires making good risky attacks than you are limiting your total possible winning percentage.

Let’s look at this another way. Let’s say we use a strategy that requires average dice to win. That means I will win my games 66.6% of the time. Good dice of 33.3% plus Average dice of 33.3% = 66.6%. I am only losing when I get Bad dice of 33.3% of the time. Now a Player may be happy to win 66.6% of the time but what I want to do is to win 75% or more of my games againsts good players. And to do that you need to remove dice from the game as much as possible.

So if you need to make reasonable risky attacks to win then do so. I am not saying they are bad I am saying only make them if you need them to win. If you do not need them to win then don’t do them and risk losing. Why take risks you do not need to?

I remember one face to face game where I was Germany and I had a 98% chance of taking Moscow, to essentially win the game. My partner asked me if I was going to make the attack and I said “No. Why should I? Next Turn I will have a 99% chance and there is nothing that will change on the board forcing me to make the attack now.” I did not need to take that 2% risk so why do it? In another face to face game I only had a 48% chance to take Moscow and end the game. I was not planning on taking it. However, my Partner suffered an excruciating loss of the IJN on his Turn and suddenly we had no choice. It was either attack now at 48% or next Turn it would only be worse odds and things would go downhill for us all over the board. So I made the attack at 48% because I had to; it was a reasonable risk. BTW I won. :) Geez that pissed off our opponents.