Why I Don't Play Ranked, And Sample Game With Commentary

Short version - not worth the time.

Medium version - No communications, awful meta.

Long Version -

I did a lengthy writeup some years ago about differences between 1942 Online and the board game; in one section I mentioned the difference in social experience. Imagine being hunched over a computer screen for 8-12 hours, versus chatting with buddies while someone’s preparing food and a movie or a game is on TV.

But one of the things that really strikes me is, part of that live board game social experience is learning, in passing, strategic and tactical tips from others. This is where a lot of players that play real live games have an adjustment when it comes to TripleA (I wrote TripleA, not 1942 Online), because often winning strategies in smaller social circles wouldn’t stand up to counter and alternate strategies from a larger field of play.

From personal experience, I’ll say TripleA’s Global community, years ago, taught me why USSR cannot afford air in Global; I was taken through the mathematics, the alternative reasoning, the pros, the cons, and by the end I was convinced - not that USSR should never buy air, but that there were considerations that I needed to think of to be a decent player. It bears mentioning TripleA has a chat function.

Contrast to 1942 Online with no chat function that purportedly boasts “best in the world play”, with no chat function. One might think a couple years on, even without comms, that players would catch on to how to play, but actually no. For the most part, I’ve found ranked a desperate bore, never mind all the lines of play that die to “defensive profile” implementation and inability to use allied carriers and transport, never mind deliberate exploitation of bugs, and a lot of other comments I won’t get into, just a lot of play where players ought to know better, they really should.

And lack of communication is a big part of that.

Here I present part of a ranked game and some of my thoughts on it. You can see the current position in this screenshot:

Me Axis, opponent Allies.

R1: 1 inf 1 art tnk 1 fig, 13 W Rus, 8 Ukr open.

The LHTR setup made things a lot better for the Allies, but to the point that someone’s buying R1 fighter, that’s an awful big gamble. And 13/8 is risky. Yes, one can get away with 13/8 especially if opponent didn’t set defensive profile properly (another exploit of 1942 Online play), but it’s not really favored.

So I think, my opponent’s greedy and a bit risk-averse to risking major stacks (or at least, fast collapse of Allied-control West Russia).

Opponent lost 1 inf at W Rus. Destroyed everything but German fighter on Ukraine and retreated to Caucasus with 1 tank 2 fighter. Landed fighters on Caucasus, left 5 infantry on Yakut. Split AA between Moscow and Caucasus.

5 infantry on Yakut is sad and boring. Without even any fighters on Archangel, USSR is going to “challenge” Japan? Well, I imagine that’s what the thinking is, but ackktuallly no. USSR trading with Japan just means USSR is even less able to challenge Germany in Europe, so Germany can make stacks that USSR can’t challenge, Germany secures more income, USSR less, and Axis are favored. Even with USSR Archangel fighters I wouldn’t want to challenge Japan, it goes against the whole stack building/bleeding when looking at the numbers but that’s another conversation.

I get why land 2 fighters on Caucasus, losing Caucasus can be awkward. But taking all things together, I’d say this is not good play. If opponent didn’t want to challenge Ukraine in the first place, then they should have done 12/9 instead of 13/8. As to building a fighter, fighters are good for trading without committing, but the problem is fighters are not great on cost efficiency when it comes to brute power.

So it really looks to me like a bunch of small USSR tactics that have some grounding in theory but that aren’t being well implemented in combination.

G1: 11 inf 2 art.

W Rus had gone well for Allies, so a tank dash wasn’t indicated (including attacking W Rus with intent to retreat) So, no tanks.

Marched into undefended Karelia with 1 inf, hit Trans-Jordan with inf/art, sz10 with lone sub (won, no losses), 5 units to sz7 (no losses). Ended with 3 inf 6 fighters on Finland.

A lot of luck for the Axis; taking out sz10 meant no need to defend France so could move everything east, plus great success at sz7 meant any UK1 fleet build threatened by 2 sub 6 fighter (ew).

Would be a lot better to show a .tsvg from TripleA, as 1942 Online’s War Diary is clunky, but then remember 1942 Online’s War Diary used to be even more limited than it is now. I forget if it happened as early as G1, but I think I remember I did a lot of “Hey look at this, I’m going to leave two 2 IPC territories open, you can blitz a tank right through, then my advancing German infantry will blow up your 6 IPC tank in exchange for maybe 50% on destroying a 3 IPC infantry for net loss and you probably won’t replace that tank either!” and the Allied player refused to play that game. Well, good on them.

UK1: 3 inf (mobilized to India), hit East Indies fleet, New Guinea with 2 inf, Borneo with 2 inf.

Extremely greedy (which is not necessarily a bad thing.) Sometimes you want to take a chance for whatever reason. But combined with USSR1 play, I’d lean more towards “unsound play”.

I forget if it’s Amund or Atskeu or both on 1942 Online’s Discord that favors UK1 inf at India / London fighter buy along with NOT hitting the German battleship that dropped to Trans-Jordan; then there’s this whole territory denial timing thing in Africa and fighter switching between W Rus and India, very elegant.

For myself, I wrote years earlier that if UK fleet is denied in Atlantic, UK can opt to just save money for a fleet drop; there’s nothing Axis can really do against UK3 fleet drop followed by US3 reinforcement.

But the problem with simply saving is, UK early signals its commitment to go ground, UK won’t have built fighters that can be at India/W Russia at key timings, and UK3 fleet drop probably means UK4/US4 invasion of Europe at the earliest, which is rather late. Now, if Germany does something like drop 5 subs on G1(!) , then maybe you’re going to shrug and say Germany’s going to be weak on its G3/G4 positioning in Europe, so there’s compensations for late UK/US to Europe. But if Germany didn’t do some sort of G1 naval commit, then late Allied drops, could be a messy situation for Allies.

And I’ve also written a lot of times, sometimes you do just drop a losing early UK fleet in the Atlantic. Like, go ahead Germany, there’s only one transport there, and you lose 3/4 of your air to hit that, then US comes along; Axis have less air to challenge Europe, Axis have less air to challenge followup fleet, so go ahead, take that “winning” battle.

On this board, well, all right 2 subs 6 fighters is kinda nuts. But without a G1 naval commit, and a strong USSR West Russia, UK 1 London fighters I’d say would be the favored play.

New Guinea was a mutual wipe; UK lost 2 inf and Japan lost 1. UK captured Borneo, losing 1 infantry and destroying 1 infantry in the process. East Indies was also a mutual wipe; UK blew everything up and lost everything too.

All in all, fairly rotten luck for the Allies; without a bid (another thing 1942 Online doesn’t have that TripleA does), UK1 vs East Indies fleet is only slightly favored (and no good contingencies in case of failure), though Borneo was successful (another marginal battle) it wasn’t amazing, and New Guinea isn’t central and doesn’t have much income but losing 2 for 1 there wasn’t great either.

(continued)

UK1 ended with the London air force doing nothing(!), just sitting on London.

J1: 2 transports 1 carrier

I really do not like buying a J1 carrier. Why?

Roughly speaking, against KGF, I want to push Germany’s stacks to deny USSR income and reinforce with Japanese fighters; Japanese air in Europe “locks” the Allied fleet and restricts its options. If Allies are trying to use transports in Med, they have to defend that fleet, if Allies are hitting France, they have to defend that fleet, if the Allies are hitting Finland/Norway, they have to defend that fleet. And with certain Japanese moves against Alaska, the Allies also have to defend the East Canada sea zones (where otherwise the Allies can put undefended transports there). Having two Axis air forces in Europe also presents Allies with a turn order problem; if UK moves, Japan can hit before US reinforces, if US moves then Germany can hit before UK reinforces, and typical early drop zones for UK are not adjacent to sea zones adjacent to London, so UK reinforcement is a fifth fleet split. Eventually I’ll try to engineer a situation where whatever Axis power I want to capture Moscow controls Caucasus; this helps Axis timing issues a lot. If Germany’s strong then I’ll probably go more Japanese air depending on Allied play; if Germany’s fading then I’ll try to switch to making Japan the major Axis stack controller in Europe/Asia, which means industrial complexes.

But Japanese carriers aren’t fighters to help with the first part of the game play, and they’re not even industrial complexes to help with Japan’s production not being up to Japan’s income.

Against KJF, I want to counter with cheap subs, Japanese air, and the bulk of Japan’s navy. Carriers are just expensive.

And here, with UK leaving its air force at London, I was thinking “Should I be greedy and not buy a carrier? It’s really a big suck on resources to spend a carrier. I don’t want to build a J1 carrier. Boo hoo.”

But there are a lot of lines of Allied play where air pressure gets put on Japan, then Japan wants to have two carriers. And part of the problem there is similar to what I mentioned with UK trying to reinforce its Atlantic fleet. If Japan wants to build surface naval units like a carrier, often US may threaten the sea zones around Japan. So Japan unites its main fleet at one of Tokyo’s sea zones? Sure, but then that restricts Japan’s entire naval move for that turn, which often means Japan can’t use transports to drop to Yunnan (say UK has India bombers, or any number of Allied fighter moves).

That in turn means Japan can’t keep up pressure on India; less pressure on India frees India units to move towards Moscow for relief, and generally Japan’s position collapses unfavorably.

The solution? To get a J1 carrier, then on later turns Japan’s navy can cruise around “sure hit me, I’ve got 1 battleship 2 destroyers 2 carriers 4 fighters, I can even split my fleet to some degree and still be pretty safe.”

So, J1 carrier. Ugh.

Szechwan didn’t have Allied reinforcements, so the question was, Szechwan or Hawaiian Islands fleet? Hitting Hawaiian Islands loses another fighter for Japan and risks another fighter and bomber, maybe not GREAT risk on that last but at least some, and there’s always the chance that Allies get no hits then Japan loses its second carrier. On the other hand Szechwan, well, there was certainly risk, but destroying 2 US inf 1 fighter before they could join up with a stack, could be very useful.

Walked into undefended Buryatia and Burma, picked off undefended UK transports, took Yunnan with no losses (destroyed 2 infantry), recaptured Borneo with no losses, lost 1 infantry at Szechwan (destroyed 2 inf 1 fighter), lost 2 infantry at Anhwei (destroyed 2 infantry)

This is one of those situations where, combined with G1, Axis make a lot of reasonable attacks, yet Axis seem to get fairly good results across the board, which isn’t normal. It’s to be expected something important should go wrong, and in some ways it did (Ukraine could have gone better for Germany, East Indies could have gone better for Japan, Japan could have gotten better luck on Borneo defense, etc.) But by and large, I’d say on balance dice Axis favored,

US1: 2 destroyers 1 AC, 1 transport, 1 artillery, 1 fighter to W Aus, Hawaiian fleet to south of Mexico, mobilized fleet East US. Apparently I sent the German transport to Iceland, probably thinking if UK sent a fighter after it, that fighter couldn’t make it to W Russia. But of course US can pick that G transport off, so I wasn’t thinking clearly. Oh well whatever.

R2: 9 infantry

6 infantry hit Buryatia (I erred earlier thinking only 5 inf on Buryatia) losing 1 inf and destroying 1 inf, 1 inf 3 fighters vs 1 inf at Karelia (capture no loss), 2 tanks blitz Belorussia and Ukraine respectively and return to W Rus.

This is where I’m just shaking my head. Okay, as a general rule of thumb USSR wants unit count, sure. But USSR sent 6 infantry off to fight Japan so it’s going to not have that many in the west. And a good part of what USSR may want to do in Europe is soften up Germany’s major stack.

Let’s say Germany stacks Karelia on G2, which can be helped if Japan puts a carrier and 2 fighters south of Persia at end of J1 so fighters can land on Karelia on J2. The problem for Japan then is, those fighters can help with Europe duties, but do not have range to India or most of southeast Asia or the Pacific, where they may be wanted to pressure or trade territories.

If Germany stacks Karelia with fighters then those fighters aren’t in range to threaten the sea zone northwest of London, so UK can buy fleet.

The point I’m making with the above observations is, it’s not easy for Axis to stack Karelia early. If Axis do, then Axis must give up elsewhere, and sometimes the Axis player should accept those tradeoffs. But if USSR is to challenge Germany’s Europe stack, then it should make sense that USSR must do early, before Axis can consolidate their position. And for USSR to do so early, then USSR must have the units.

What happens when USSR buys all infantry? No artillery. So USSR can’t mobilize artillery to Caucasus to threaten Ukraine, and USSR won’t be able to move artillery from Moscow to West Russia next turn to pressure Karelia, Belorussia, and Ukraine.

And what happens when USSR can’t challenge? Germany walks right up and sits on USSR’s doorstep. USSR isn’t going to do anything about it (no counter), so deny USSR income, then there’s more territories Germany can threaten next turn too.

Remember, R1 already bought a fighter, then R2 committed 6 infantry to the east, and R2 purchase all infantry? Means R4 threats will be weak. Yes, R3 tanks could make up a lot of the difference, but you can see where R2 artillery with R3 tanks is much nastier than R2 infantry-only and R3 tanks.

Regardless, USSR was not looking good to my eye.

Some players may argue that USSR committing 4-6 infantry to Buryatia is “worth it”, because solving Japan’s logistics problems for it, or using 12-18 IPC to fight over a 1 IPC territory that’s inevitably lost is worth it. Well not really, right. But then, there needs to be some sort of followup to that where UK/USSR are pressuring through China, or UK’s making some serious moves at India.

But remember how UK1 didn’t move its starting London air force to West Russia (or points east, like UK bomber to Kazakh?)

It’s not right to attribute weak play to an opponent based on just a few indicators. Maybe they meant to move air to West Russia but 1942 Online’s hard-to-read UI messed things up (for example, say they did a lot of moves, undid some, then redid some, then forgot to re-move air units; it happens. TripleA’s a lot better on UI for avoiding stuff like that.) Or maybe they were taking a risk, bluffing as it were, maybe I wouldn’t find the right counter. Who knows? Maybe I’m completely wrong about every point I’m making in this thread and there was some major reason they did what they did. But since I don’t know of any such thing, I shall continue to write in ignorance, as the case may be, or maybe not ignorance, readers can make up their own mind on that.

But the way I saw it, USSR looking pretty soft.

G2: 13 infantry

Well, we saw the US1 Atlantic fleet drop. But why 13 infantry after 11 infantry 2 artillery? Sigh.

Okay, so this is another thing where I wrote out a bunch of posts and articles saying “yeah you kinda don’t want loads of German artillery at the start, instead use late German tanks to catch up against the KGF, and here’s how you make the most of tanks on Baltic States and shifting infantry blocks around etc.” And for a time, players listened and went 11 inf 2 art. But now there’s this big “resurgence” of players that like to buy like 7 artillery or whatever on G1.

There’s very distinctive uses of USSR artillery and tanks, very distinctive uses of German artillery and tanks.

Generally speaking, when would you want artillery? When you want more hitting power? No, that’s what air is for. But what if you don’t have air? Or more specifically, what if you expect all your air will have to hit another target? That’s when you use artillery.

But that’s just dumb? Well, yes. Because obviously artillery is going to be handy in major stack battles.

But remember I wrote earlier that USSR wants to challenge Germany’s stacks? And this is a point I make over and over again; Japanese subs are useful not because they’re good on “attack”, but because they’re good on attack and US must come to Japan.

So again, imagine that you have a load of infantry marching to the front. Almost by definition that’s the best defensive force you can get on the job, because infantry are the cheapest defense. You put in a load of artillery, your defense isn’t any stronger, but each artillery cost 33.3% more than an infantry.

You go to the supermarket, and you see two loaves of bread, identical in every respect, except one is 33.3% more expensive.

But if you want to get artillery to the front?

Let’s say Germany is the major stack controller in Europe and plans to capture Moscow. Then Germany captures Caucasus and builds artillery there.

And you captured and held Caucasus because you had the infantry. And the rest of your position didn’t collapse because you had the infantry.

And if Germany’s not the major stack controller and doesn’t plan to capture Moscow, then good thing Germany had the infantry anyways.

But Germany can’t force its way in? That whole thing I wrote up years ago, Germany pushes to Ukraine, Japanese fighters reinforce, USSR has to choose between defending W Rus and Cauc, USSR retreats to Cauc, Germany captures W Rus, USSR chooses between Cauc and Moscow, Germany captures Cauc.

That is, Germany is not making a raw power attack on an Allied stack. Germany pushes forward through positional pressure. Sure, Germany can’t smash the combined Allied stack but Germany doesn’t have to smash it. Germany need only defend what it’s captured.

So, again, some players say Japanese subs are stupid because Japan needs to defend, and subs are lousy defenders. Thankfully I helped cure the meta of some of that thinking, by personally pasting people over and over with Japanese subs and explaining the plays until finally almost everyone realized hey, Japanese subs attack but are good on defense, whaaaat? (And now we see J1 sub buys, it’s very sad. Going too far.)

And maybe players will realize German infantry are similarly not great on offense for cost, but Germany’s trying to mount a mobile defense. I mean honestly, Germany typically has 8-9 tanks, 5-6 fighters, 2-6 artillery at the front, it already has offense.

Moved into undefended Belorussia with 1 infantry, tank from Algeria to Egypt, 2 infantry from S Europe to Egypt, 2 inf vs 1 inf at Ukraine (retreated after losing 1 inf), moved load of infantry and tanks into Karelia, 2 submarines northwest of France. 2 AA on Bulgaria-Romania, 1 AA on Baltic States. 2 infantry to Baltic States, 6 to Poland.

Part of the benefit of Axis stack on Karelia is, local production (can help pressure if Germany’s pushing early in Europe), and blocks off Allied UK/US ground from streaming through Finland/Norway into Karelia towards Moscow. There’s just a big chunk of Axis units that says “no”. Allies can get around it with drops to Archangel, but that’s more a tactical trick for limited application than something Allies want to do repeatedly.

I mentioned earlier, Axis try to force the issue at Ukraine. There’s a stack of German tanks on Karelia now, but the chunk of Axis infantry headed towards Poland, then to Ukraine, well, that’s how it’s shaping up.

German subs trying to escape into Mediterranean. As it turns out, my opponent correctly blocked the German subs off. The Axis still benefited by UK not feeling safe to drop a UK Atlantic fleet on UK1, but if the Allies didn’t block those German subs off, then Germany’s counter game in the Mediterranean can be ridiculously strong. So, good on my opponent there, though the counterplay was to come in the future.

(continued)

UK2: 1 tank, 3 fighters, 1 artillery

1 inf 1 art 1 tank vs 2 inf 1 tank at Egypt, lost 1 inf 1 art, captured territory.

Fairly gutsy and lucky play by UK (and I do like gutsy play), but would lose UK tank to German counter; Allies didn’t even try to take out Germany’s Med fleet in future turns.

1 inf 1 tank 1 fighter India, 2 fighters London.

Again, UK didn’t want to build Atlantic fleet because of Germany, and a good part of that came about from G1 luck. But UK will never recover the timing loss from not having built UK1 fighters and not having moved London’s airforce into Europe on UK1.

Some players argue “oh, but it’s all the same in the end.” Well, no.

Imagine Germany gets early income in Africa. That’s less income for UK. Once Germany has loads of territory in the area, the Allies don’t have any eligible landing zones, so the Allies are less able to attack Germany’s Med navy, and have fewer good options to counter Germany’s ground in Africa too. Dumping a load of Allied power into Africa late takes a lot more resources than what a few well-placed Allied units could accomplish early.

But of course, if Allies did use those “few well placed units” those units would not be available elsewhere. Regardless, making good use of resources at the correct time is useful.

Moved 2 fighters from London to W Russia. bomber to Caucasus.

Mobilized 1 inf 1 art 1 fig to India, 2 fig at London.

Really? Fighters at India?

Let’s recap a bit. UK tried UK1 vs East Indies fleet with mutual wipe results (somewhat unlucky). US1 dropped Atlantic fleet. It’s true that Japan doesn’t have that battleship, carrier, and 2 fighters. But we know J1 purchased a carrier and lost no air, and R1 West Russia is as reasonably strong as might be expected.

By the way, I was astonished to learn UK fighters to US carriers isn’t a KJF “thing” at GenCon. Of course, 1942 Online doesn’t even allow allied carrier or transport use, which really cripples a load of KJF options. So, UK fighter at India, really?

I mentioned USSR2 all-infantry buy leaves USSR4 soft against Germany in Europe. But the expectation is R1 ends with 4 infantry at Yakut, R2 those move to Evenki, R3 possibly to Archangel to threaten on R4, though a strong Germany at Karelia may mean USSR has to do a more passive R4 to Vologda instead of Archangel (or whatever).

But right now, on UK2, UK is building fighter at India, why? Can’t use US carrier, and US carrier isn’t even moving in on Pacific; it’s heading to Atlantic. Is UK realistically going to challenge Japan’s fleet with a fighter? No! UK fighter can’t hit Japan’s transports at Yunnan, and Japan has an awful lot of fleet.

It’s almost like UK wants to keep some of its options open to do some sort of UK India fleet, but if it wanted to do that, then moving UK1 air to Europe would have been the way to go. I could say maybe UK was trying some sort of bluff, give me false reads, or something else clever, or maybe UK1 just missed a move, but on balance, what I think is happening is, UK just doesn’t have a cohesive plan.

Preferred, I would normally say, would be 3 inf/art to India, and even save leftover UK IPCs. We know UK saved most of its IPCs on UK1 (unless that was a slip-up), so UK shouldn’t be averse to saving.

But there’s some sort of critical move on UK3 that requires a fighter on India? Considering Japan has 2 destroyers 2 carriers 4 fighters 1 battleship, and no US pressure, I can’t imagine what.

What it seems like to me is, UK wanted some ground at India, but with some “leftover IPCs” they wanted a fighter because fighters can quickly reinforce W Russia / Moscow. But that doesn’t make sense to me either. Maybe the UK player thinks the India situation will be critical, but if that were the case then why not move UK1 air to Europe?

So what it REALLY looks to me like is, probably there was some sort of messup with 1942 Online’s UI. My opponent isn’t falling for “free tank blitz!” and even probably losing a load of USSR units at Buryatia one might claim pulls Japan away from India.

But on the whole, I feel like it’s a combination of opponent perhaps lacking a cohesive strategic plan, and UI messups. Might be reading too far into it though, heh. UK2 fighter at India after losing 2 fighters in UK1 attack on East Indies and no US fleet in Pacific, maybe US wants to double back . . . but Allies never recover their timings so . . . ?

J2: 2 trn 4 inf 1 art 1 tank

Usually with Japan I advocate getting buying so Japan has a total of 4-5 transports, 2 tanks, and the rest mostly infantry with a few artillery sprinkled in, and the rest fighters and/or bombers. “Extra” transports are used to take infantry off isolated islands and to attack targets like Australia, Alaska, and Africa. There’s a load of contingencies I won’t get into, like in KGF Japan conditionally invading Alaska and landing bombers on to threaten East Canada sea zones.

So it looks very weird that after UK1 vs East Indies (mutual wipe) I did J1 carrier 2 trn, following up with J2 2 trn. But then, R2 ended with 5 infantry on Buryatia.

My thinking on USSR’s move was, it’s not so much that I have to defend Manchuria’s 3 IPC. I don’t really care about that. The key for me was, 15 IPC of USSR infantry were vulnerable to Japanese attack.

If I didn’t hit immediately, maybe they would run back to Yakut and safety. The USSR infantry would still be late to catch up in Europe, but eventually they would be an issue, and considering other things (R1 buying a fighter, UK1 not moving air into Europe), I figured best hit with Japan now before USSR could retreat that 15 IPC worth of units to safety. Of course, if Japan dumps a load on Buryatia, that’s not dumping to Yunnan. So Japan really loses its timing against India.

What would I say USSR should do? Just run away from Asia. Fighting in Asia is for territories that are worth less, UK and US are less able to reinforce, Japan has logistics issues that USSR solves for it if USSR tries to attack Japan.

But here, the thinking is, I’m going to hit Buryatia. My timing on India will not recover (it’s impossible). Regardless, I thought Japan should build more transports than it had production capacity for early, on this board; I could use excess transport capacity to hit other targets and redirect towards India later.

And again unusually, UK hadn’t put air units into Europe, and hadn’t built any Atlantic fleet. So I knew even if UK tried to do some sort of Indian Ocean naval shift, even if US pulled its Atlantic build towards Pacific, the Allies would lose time that couldn’t be made up.

So, 6 transports 2 carriers 4 fighters by end of J2. Unusual, yes. But I thought it would work.

Hit W Australia with various units, wiped 1 US fighter 1 infantry, lost 1 infantry. (Australia was underdefended compared to what could have been). Kazakh and Sinkiang undefended. Captured Buryatia destroying 5 infantry losing 1 infantry.

Here again is why I don’t play ranked. All right, so 1942 Online doesn’t have chat, the meta is weak, the UI is awkward so players may miss moves. But putting 5-6 infantry on Buryatia was always going to eat a massive Japanese strike at probable low cost to Japan. Putting 1 inf 1 fighter on W Aus was a gamble considering there were loads of Japanese units in range. I could make excuses for an opponent, and I do, just naturally. But at some point, one really has to say, well, they just aren’t playing a good game. Maybe a player gambles some units to see your reactions, but the unneeded losses in this game were getting a bit excessive.

US2: 2 trn 2 inf 1 art 1 tnk 1 fighter

I like a strong Allied air force, but when it comes at the expense of transport timings, not so much. And remember, US1 was 2 destroyers 1 AC, 1 transport, 1 artillery. Even though Germany hadn’t even attempted to hit the W US destroyer/2 transport fleet, US was really going light on transports.

In perspective, again, Germany had submarines and loads of fighters in north Atlantic. So Allies being a bit hesitant and cautious, well, I could put it down to risk preferences or such. But US2 fighter/tank on top of the US1 2 destr buy, Allies were laying it on a little thick.

What would I say Allies should do instead? I would say yes, Allies do need destroyers in North Atlantic to threaten off any new German submarines placed in Baltic. But apart from minimal destroyers (1 US and 1 UK preferably), skimp on the tanks and fighters, get transports early, produce air later if at all to catch up with earlier builds. If Germany does a responsive sub and/or air buy, that threatens the Allied fleet from closing range, but there are Axis timing issues that make Axis fighter use awkward and more German navy/air means less ground so less ability to hold ground. (It’s true if UK/US don’t dare to come near Europe, that Germany doesn’t need to hold ground so much, but there’s a limit to how long Germany can fight USSR’s 20 IPCs on ground, US’s 40 IPC on navy, and UK’s 15-28, even after Japan starts building power pulling USSR away from its European front.

US tried to industrial bomb Berlin, got shot down. Once again, we could say with truth, Allies got “unlucky”. But though I’d say Axis had some bad luck in the game too, I would say Axis played the odds and the board properly, where Allies tried bluffs and lucksack attacks to try to get a reversal.

Battleship, destroyer, transport moved to sz 12 (threatening France, NW Europe, Algeria, Morocco, French West Africa, French Equatorial Africa, Belgian Congo), rest to East Canada sz 10 (threatening Finland, Norway, France, NW Europe, French West Africa).

Mobilized to East US.

USSR3: 4 infantry 1 fighter 2 artillery

This is where I almost quit the game. With some dice, maybe Allies could still make a decent play for the game, but buying a fighter? After losing 6 infantry to Japan? After a R1 fighter buy? R had some good luck in Europe so far, but not THAT good that it should be thinking about even more fighters so being even softer on ground. Why even play it out?

1 inf 1 fighter vs 1 infantry at Belorussia (destroyed 1 inf lost 1 inf), 2 fighters 1 infantry vs 1 artillery at Kazakh (destroyed 1 artillery lost 1 infantry)

I don’t think Kazakh was under serious threat at that time. Can’t view the board and don’t care to reconstruct it, but I see J3/G4 didn’t counter at Kazakh, so probably? At any rate, I would have sent 2 inf to Kazakh. From later moves, I suppose USSR was very nervous about a USSR4 hold of West Russia so may have been sweating every unit.

Well, good! Every IPC spent or gained needs consideration. But that just puts losing 18 IPC worth of units to Japan in perspective.

Mobilized 2 inf 2 art Cauc, 2 inf 1 fighter Moscow.

G3: 12 infantry 2 artillery

Gerrmany wanted to slip two submarines into Med, but US threatened with battleship/destroyer. Good for Allies. I was strongly tempted to do a “dummy check” but decided not to.

A “dummy check” is a play that would never be attempted against a competent player. If your opponent goes for it, then they’re a dummy, and you probably win. If your opponent doesn’t go for it, then you were the dummy for trying a dummy check, ya dummy.

Here if I buy Med subs that’s a dummy check. I’d say Germany has a winning ground game, not decisive, but advantaged, and investing in Med subs would mean lacking G followthrough. Yes, Germany can do fun stuff with subs, but no amount of clever shifting by Germany can get around the fact that subs do not fight on land; a competent Allied player will figure a way around it one way or another.

So if US ignores Med subs and pushes Finland/Norway and/or France/NW Europe, then Germany’s the dummy; German subs are pretty well trapped in Med and though there’s some clever usages, Germany is still soft on ground and that can’t be made up.

If US runs into Med to try to chase Germany’s subs that are trying to escape north Atlantic, then Germany counters, blows up maybe btl/destroyer/transport, sets up counterthreats against Allied landings at French West Africa, and is generally a bother for Allies to deal with.

But Allies have to bite. And will they bite?

I figured I don’t care, I’ll just do inf/art.

I mentioned earlier, Germany does inf with a few art, then tanks to catch up. So why is it that I’m not following what I say is “standard”? Partly because G1 got lucky, partly because UK1/UK2 were very passive, partly because USSR1 threw units away, making the balance of power in Europe Extremely Weird.

Sort of the standard situation, I’d say, is Allies start to pile into Finland/Norway, and US sets up so its Finland/Norwray transports from last turn and East Canada transports from this turn can both drop to France. Either US does that double drop, or US just keeps shuffling units into Finland, then Allies try to build up pressure, break Karelia, then start shutting UK/US ground into Moscow, and that’s just not great for Axis, trying to fght some wildly huge combined ground stack.

Germany can usually hold Karelia or France for a while, but not both, especially if USSR challenged Germany’s stack early. Yes, Axis can be clever and move Japanese fighters in, but there’s a limit, Germany only really has so much stuff to go around.

But in this game, the Allies were so fantastically behind in Europe and Germany had Africa income, I figured I’d try The Dream Scenario, where Axis hold France AND Karelia AND deny Allied Mediterranean drops AND set up to pressure Ukraine (into West Russia/Caucasus pressure, then capture West Russia for Caucasus/Moscow pressure, then Germany actually tries to crush a combined Allied stack against a KGF. That should just sound wrong on so many levels, but hey. The heart wants what it wants or something.

3 inf 1 art vs 1 tank at Egypt (destroyed 1 tank no losses), 1 infantry vs empty Ukraine, 1 infantry 6 fighters vs 1 infantry at Archangel (destroyed 1 infantry no loss), 2 infantry to empty Trans-Jordan

Submarines moved to sz 6, north of NW Europe, eventually to move to sz 4 north of Archangel. Eh. Not great.

6 fighters land on Karelia. Mobilized 2 artillery Karelia, 10 inf Berlin, 2 inf Italy. (Secure the industrial complex then produce artillery, eh?)

UK3: 3 fighters 1 tank 1 infantry.

Bombed Karelia IC. Bomber destroyed.

2 fighters to Iceland, 2 fighters on W Russia moved to Russia. I forget but I think India had a fighter that just sat there.

I don’t think Moscow was seriously under threat, or India either, and at India UK fighters could at least threaten some Japanese routes? So why UK fighters on Moscow?

1 inf 1 tank 1 fighter India, 2 fig London.

Apparently they really don’t like the odds against West Russia so they’re bailing. Well, once Allies lose West Russia, they probably don’t get it back because it keeps getting traded so UK/US fighters have a tough time landing. Sometimes UK can recapture but here no India units are getting fed into Europe through Persia, so UK’s bag of tricks is extremely limited. Sadly.

J3: 6 infantry 1 artillery 1 fighter

Sticking with the strategy mentioned in J2; since USSR left a load of USSR infantry vulnerable, smash that, therefore J loses timing against India, therefore J plans not to pressure India early, which is usually a horrible mistake because Japan has nasty logistics issues which India helps with a lot, and India not pressuring India frees UK to send towards Persia/Europe. But India ground is pretty well sitting where it is, UK isn’t pressuring towards India, UK is really sort of not doing what I’d say it should be doing, or I’d say even much of anything. Which I mention, not just to bemoan the state of 1942 Online meta, but also to make the point a lot of what I’m writing about, I’d say only works because the Allied player is playing into it.

But the key is, would Japan be able to pressure India early while still J2 mass dropping to Buryatia? The answer is no. So overbuild on transports, take other territories, then redirect towards India, is roughly the plan.

So why a fighter instead of transports? Sort of, the more you have, the more you get, very Biblical. Germany’s doing well in Europe; some early J air will help secure territory and threaten shipping, and it’s not like J was going to use that air to threaten India any time soon anyways. Also, with loads of UK air around, in time UK could threaten Japan’s shipping. Not really well, but similarly to what I mentioned earlier about the “timing” problem with J1 carrier buy.

That is, if J1 doesn’t buy carrier, then when J does buy carrier, probably J wants to keep main fleet at home, restricting J’s transport drops that turn, which completely wrecks pressure.

Similarly, suppose UK hit Japan shipping and did a followup build. What then? Japan can’t mobilize fighters onto carriers unless at a Tokyo sea zone, far from the action. And if Japan doesn’t mobilize fighters onto carriers, Japan needs already-extant fighters to fly to carriers to replace losses. Something like that. Well, that’s the reasoning, who’s to say if it was right or not.

US3 3 inf 1 art 2 tanks 1 bomber.

(Darth Vader voice) I find your lack of transports disturbing.

Bit too depressing to continue on. At any rate, by G6 you can see the state of the board. US transport continuity very bad and nothing to show for it.

Haven’t decided whether to resign out of boredom or play it out, but at any rate, this gives some idea of what I think about ranked 1942 Online play.

Eh, playing it out a little. Couple things I thought I should put in the writeup in case players are interested.

First, probable end of game:

Currently end of J6.

Projected G8 vs Moscow: 98.6% capture. (Probably USSR gets a few more infantry than I put below, but whatever, it’s still some high percentage of success)

https://axis-and-allies-calculator.com/?rules=1942&battleType=land&roundCount=all&defInfantry=27&defArtillery=8&defTank=4&defAAGun=2&defFighter=12&defBomber=1&attInfantry=41&attArtillery=17&attTank=9&attFighter=6

Japan has a 5 inf 3 art 1 tank 7 fighter 1 bomber followup.

I did a writeup some time ago (not this thread, but an article with numbers and probability distributions and other such things) about Germany pushing Ukraine, West Russia, then Caucasus in that order, where (among other things) I wrote UK attempting to hold India too long is a mistake. This picture is a pretty graphical illustration why, plus various other points I mentioned earlier in this thread are pretty starkly illustrated too.

First, again, this is an atypical game; Axis didn’t get much in the way of crucial battle bad luck which had an aggregate effect over turns of making Axis stronger than expected, Allies tried a lot of greedy plays and got bad dice, which also had an aggregate effect, and I also think Allies simply tried a lot of stuff that didn’t have good mathematical percentages. Not that I’m saying Allies were strictly “wrong” to do so; sometimes players should test opponents, and maybe the Allied player had different risk preferences and strategic outlook, but nevertheless when looking at the hard numbers I think there’s something to be said about Allied misplays. (Probably Axis misplays too come to think on it, but being the Axis player I don’t know what my mistakes were offhand. A lot of games I don’t pay attention, and even this game I was pretty rusty, but at least I think I avoided any too-obvious blunders?)

Anyways -

Germany will almost certainly capture Moscow, and if anything the Axis could just keep drawing out the game because the Allies are well and truly cut off from Moscow; the percentages will keep getting worse for Moscow and better for Axis.

Something I’ve written a lot about is “stack building and bleeding”; I had a whole article series planned but that’s another story. Anyways, with the calculated projection above you can see the expected IPC swing is around 120 in favor of Axis.

Suppose I cut 10 infantry off that projection, which could easily have been the case if Allies made better decisions (and perhaps had a lot better luck but I digress.) The IPC swing changes to 50, and the win percentage drops to 67.7%.

When I say stacks are important, this is why. When I write about timings, this is why. If the Allies attempt to defend Moscow and things go as fairly expected, the Allies in one shot lose the equivalent of around two turns of income - counting USSR, UK, and US. Not even accounting for ongoing stack issues, local production, strategy, or tactics, that’s a big big loss.

So if Allies are going to almost certainly lose, then what should Allies do instead? Obviously, not fight.

But look at the board. What do the Allies do? If the Allied Moscow stack moves towards India via Kazakh, Germany crushes the Allied major stack anyways from Caucasus.

So the Allies should hit northeast Asia. A major Allied stack will roll over Japan’s thinly spread forces and won’t face serious resistance until hitting the coast.

But this means Germany rolls over India, then with Moscow, Caucasus, and India in Axis hands, the Axis eventually clean up Asia. Almost certainly Axis win on victory cities, but even if no victory cities would win in the end anyways.

But not if the Allies can somehow stop cleanup of Asia; typically this means a pretty developed KJF. On this board, though, the Allies tried KGF, and really don’t have position to do much.

But imagine if UK abandoned India early. The Allied Moscow stack would last longer, giving the Allies more time to develop counterpressure against Germany. Losing India is bad, but given other considerations, the Allies shouldn’t fight a losing major-stack engagement, but that’s inevitable one way or another if India is held. So, abandon India.

But if UK moves India stack to Persia, Germany crushes it from Caucasus? And the Allies really don’t even want to lose a mid-stack battle?

Of course. Which is why India must be abandoned before the German stack hits Caucasus. Not even just before, but a turn before that; the India stack must be on Persia, then Germany moves into West Russia, then India stack to Kazakh, Germany into Cacuasus, India stack moves safely to Moscow.

Few other wee points I’ll bring up - but before that, and this bears repeating, I’m saying most games shouldn’t play out like this. A unit or two more or less in a position changes probable outcomes, and often things are wildly different just off one or two units more or less. So where I point out tactical and strategic choices, it’s not that I’m saying Axis should always do such and such, but there’s a lot of different wee tricks in the Axis arsenal, and these are just a few.

So far some of the major lines of play I mentioned for Japan are major stack shifting (where Japan tries early to increase its unit count in Asia to the point where it becomes the major Axis stack controller), positional play (where Japan uses air against KGF to threaten Allied choices so they’re pressured into more restricted lines of play than they would otherwise have freedom to make.) But in this game, you can also see the positional ground play, which I haven’t brought up much in articles.

Some years ago, Black Elk wrote the best logistic line Japan takes towards Moscow is, via transport, Tokyo-Yunnan-Szechwan-Kazakh, and perhaps there was some discussion over Kazakh being similar for Japan as West Russia is to Germany. And apparently now there’s this whole meta thing where Allies stack Kazakh; it’s inconvenient for Allies to have multiple stacks, but if Kazakh breaks then Allies have to split defense and it just gets unpleasant.

But I prefer the Buryatia-Yakut-Evenki line. The reason is practical logistics.

For Japan I find “single optimal line through Yunnan” very restrictive. Deviate one territory, and Japan adds another whole turn to its route. The Allies know exactly what’s coming, and it’s only coming down one path.

Contrast with Evenki. If USSR pushes to hold Evenki, that’s further from Moscow and closer to Tokyo than Kazakh. By fighting there, Allies stretch Allied logistics lines while shortening Japan’s.

But if USSR does not push to Evenki, then Japan can hit Archangel, Vologda, and Novosibirsk; Sinkiang too at need. I’m not saying Japan should not drop to Yunnan; that line still pressures Kazakh. But I’m saying instead of just pressing Kazakh, I think Japan should consider dropping to the north as well, especially either after India is captured, or if Axis won’t be in a position to capture India soon.

From Archangel too, Japan can trickle infantry into Karelia, which can help an Axis hold. But the interesting thing is a few Japanese infantry accompanied by massed Japanese tanks. The Allies can threaten any mass infantry push with attacks-with-intent-to-retreat (though even that comes at some cost). But the Allies find it very hard to stop tanks blitzing from Evenki to Karelia, which can be a big boost to holding that position - and Japanese tanks are far cheaper than fighters.

Of course, personally I like fighters as I use them in various ways, but in certain circumstances tanks are a consideration.

Speaking of fighters, I’ve written elsewhere about Japanese fighters on Karelia, but it’s important to realize Axis typically should not leave anything in one spot for long. I moved German tanks to Karelia to help hold it, then I moved German tanks to Ukraine to help hold it, in typical KGF games I’d expect to move German tanks to Baltic States later too.

Similarly, Japanese fighters don’t just stay on Karelia; they shift around to Ukraine, West Russia, Caucasus, France, to help Germany hold position and to threaten Allied shipping, and this happens constantly.

“If air is so great then I’ll just build German air” - not really. A German bomber can help in Africa and has range to hit Allies in north Atlantic and Mediterranean, true. But the point I made earlier about Germany losing 10 infantry, well, a bomber costs 4 infantry. A lot of small decisions where Germany is looking at the shiny “bling” means Germany is not working to Germany’s strengths, which are largest starting Axis stack, high income, and high production. Instead of trying to fight the Allies on their own ground (UK/US have a load of income combined), instead Germany builds on its own strengths for as long as it can, then transitions if necessary.

Really that’s just how the numbers work and how the game often plays out. If a Germany player builds 2 tanks on G1, then they’ll have 4 infantry less on the final push. That’s just how it is. On the other hand, if a Germany player builds 2 tanks on Berlin on G3, then those tanks can hit Moscow on G5, where German infantry on Berlin wouldn’t reach. That’s also just how it is. Early infantry, late tanks. And the more Germany bleeds out to get all these cool flash in the pan things that are admittedly useful, the less fundamental boots on the ground Germany has for the crucial major stack battles.

I am not saying G1 11 infantry 2 artillery is the ultimate build. Different situations should use different builds. But I am saying instead of players just boringly saying “this is the meta I must build this and nothing else I don’t need to think I don’t need to look at the board I don’t need to do anything but build what the meta says and do what the meta says I should do” - that’s how players lose!

Germany never built a single air unit for the entire game. That’s part of the reason Germany’s stacks are huge.

But here, Japan built a load of air. Lost 2 fighters on UK1, will end J6 with 9 fighters 2 bombers 9 transports. And unlike some players that just buy things and don’t use them, in this game Japan controls almost all of Asia, hit Alaska, and so forth. The raw ground count of Japan is not high, but Japan’s strength is in flexibility; precise application of power using transports and air where needed for maximum effect.

The sea zone south of Persia is often neglected as a carrier/fighter spot for Japan, but this spot does many good things. Fighters in that sea zone can reach Karelia to reinforce, hit India, hit Moscow, hit the sea zone south of France, and various points in between; navy in the sea zone can reach the Southern Europe sea zone if both sides of the canal are controlled, the sea zone is adjacent to both sides of the canal so the Axis can land units to try to control the canal in the first place, etc.

Karelia, and really everywhere, is a trap for Japan considering turn order. Germany moves, then UK, then Japan. So if Germany abandons a position, then UK can strike before Germany can move to safety. Imagine if Japan landed 4 fighters on Karelia; if Germany wanted to move its Karelia stack away to threaten Moscow, then UK could land units and crush Japanese fighters at little cost.

Yet, the fact that Japan lands fighters can make a position tenable - in fact, this is how the Axis really secure territory in Europe early on; the numbers just don’t support Germany making an unsupported push in most games.

So Axis must plan carefully to move Axis air around safely. It can get very weird.

On this board, for example, Germany had 6 fighters on Karelia, using 3 fighters from Ukraine (where they threatened West Russia and were part of a threat that pressured Allies to retreat from West Russia) in Africa, and 3 fighters from Karelia (ditto) to trade NW Europe. In their new positions, those German fighters couldn’t threaten Moscow, but with West Russia abandoned Germany didn’t care; Germany wanted to wait for a 10-stack of German infantry to join Germany’s main stack at Caucasus next turn before seriously attacking Moscow. So German fighters moving off station this turn is no real problem.

Japan has a bomber that it uses to threaten Western Canada, and two fighters in Western Europe now. Having those Axis units in place reduces the burden on Germany to have ground units in place to defend France, which leaves more for Berlin. If the Allies are really passive, Germany may even purchase Berlin bombers to support the attack on Moscow.

But Japan needs those fighters to pressure India, which still isn’t captured? Eventually, sure. But Japan doesn’t really have the infantry support needed to support an attack as it is, and any premature commitment by Japan could see all of Moscow’s fighters flying to India while the Moscow stack runs away, especially as the Allies can’t really defend Moscow well anyways. Then Japan can do nothing but waste time.

In closing, Japan has an IC on East Indies, which normally I don’t like as it requires tying up Japanese transports. But in this game, a Manchuria IC would be 3 spaces from Evenki or Kazakh, and wouldn’t manage to put sustained pressure on India, and Japan had a lot of transports, a lot of income, and not a lot of ways to spend income to begin with.

I really don’t like purchasing Japanese ICs, but looking at the board it can be seen how thinly spread Japanese ground forces are. If I just bought more and more air, at some point Japan would be trading air for ground, and that’s just no good. So, an IC, and given the particular circumstances of this game, East Indies. Though again, rather the exception than the rule.

Oh, and to add my usual disclaimer, this isn’t meant to be some comprehensive address, it’s just a few random not terribly well organized thoughts. There’s much much more to everything, numbers, strategies, tactics, timings, opportunity costs, and so on.

Just picking one - the strategic use of small UK and US forces in Europe

Let’s say Axis want to cut UK/US reinforcements off at Karelia. This is pretty essential if the Allies are not to send cheap UK/US ground reinforcement to Moscow. There’s some timing issues where Axis are trying to shift off Karelia but I won’t get into how Axis handle that and Allied counters here.

The rules for land retreat are, all units retreat to a ground territory that at least one unit came from. This can be used to set up “teleports” where, say, Allies use UK ground units on Finland and West Russia to attack German-controlled Karelia, and all UK units “retreat” to West Russia. The same is true for US.

But thinking on it, UK and US won’t typically have units just sitting around in West Russia. (A related issue, one of the problems with 1942 Online is inability of defender to select the controlling power of a unit taken as a casualty, which definitely is problematic for this sort of tactic). Typically UK units have to deliberately be sent in from India in advance, and US ground unit(s) from China must be preserved.

But having a small number of ground forces has loads more applications.

For example, I mentioned above using German infantry to keep Japanese fighters safe. If UK only has air units in range, UK would end up trading expensive air units for cheap German ground - though that bleeds the German stack, it’s really often not worth the trade (as UK fighters can be used in a combined Allied stack defense as well).

But if UK ground units are in range, suddenly Germany has to use a lot more units to defend, which bleeds its major stack, or Japan’s air becomes unsafe, or any number of unpleasant scenarios.

Or, I mentioned if USSR attempts to move its Moscow stack into Kazakh, that Germany can smash it. If US has ground forces to recapture Kazakh from Axis, though, USSR fighters can land on Kazakh, which can make a difference, especially if a good portion of Germany’s attack units are at West Russia and/or Archangel instead of just a simple stack on Caucasus, which is what’s going to happen in the game described above.

When players attempt to “optimize”, often they may ignore these small but important things, instead doing things like “I must defend India with everything possible, because defending India is important”. True. But other things are also important. Depending on dice outcomes and player decisions, both the player’s own decisions and the opponent’s decisions, games change a lot.

But I don’t understand? India is important? Look at the screenshots. UK is holding India, but I don’t think any player would seriously claim Allies are in a winning position.

Or I don’t understand? Japan needs to be the major Axis stack controller against KGF? Look at the screenshots. It’s a KGF. Japan is far from the major Axis stack controller. Again, seems it’s working out for Axis.

And for those that say “well it’s not that simple, there’s other factors” - exactly. Which is why I detail and open for discussion what I think those factors are, and how different factors need to be weighed in the balance.

1942 Online’s lack of communications is on some level understandable. There are costs to implementing features. Simply removing communications options reduces options for toxicity. Sure.

But after a couple years of play, the 1942 Online meta is pretty awful by and large.

Maybe the thought was, players are going to be so casual, they won’t actually want to develop or learn. Communication? Who needs all that? Make 'em jump through hoops!

But for the same reason, I don’t find 1942 Online particularly compelling, particularly ranked with stale meta and compulsory 24 hour checkins.

What was the desired experience, really? What is 1942 Online’s “ideal player”?

On the one hand, a casual player that isn’t going to care if they can’t see unit movements and deal with an obfuscating UI, because “it’s just a game.” No need to chat, “it’s just a game.” But on the other hand, 24 hour checkins are pretty demanding, and where with other “free to play” games missing a day usually means losing some virtual currency or negligible opportunity cost, here a single missed checkin means losing potentially hours of investment made in multiple ranked games.

On the other hand, noncasual players that don’t need chat because they’re already synched outside the game. But then, all the limiting rules changes, lack of bid, and obfuscating AI make the program a bother to use. (Just use TripleA!)

So if the product fundamentally does not appeal to casuals or to noncasuals, the playerbase ends up being only players with very particular preferences, or one might say tolerances. Is that “just my opinion” or isn’t that just how things are?

Sometimes people protest that complaints don’t understand the realities of the situation (yet typically such arguments never provide such “realities” or leave anything open to discussion). For my part, I think the programming team was given limited time and limited budget to accomplish certain tasks that were designated by the design team; I think the design team was probably constrained by orders from up the chain which in turn were likely influenced by licensing and investor considerations. So where I would say the design was not good enough, or there are demonstrably bugs, well, I think that’s understandable, to some point.

But at some point someone needed to step in and take responsibility. Someone had to be in charge. It’s two years on, and I’m playing ranked games in a weak meta, with the altered rules, the no-bid, no balance, 24 hour checkin, and no-comms.

Look, I’ll tell you how I know it’s a weak meta.

Some might argue “not everyone wants to have a discussion, aardvark!” So true. But you don’t need a discussion if you understand fundamentals. If you understand the fundamentals, it takes ten seconds to respond in an intelligent way to basic questions.

. . . like?

Let’s take the basic topic of Axis vs Allies balance. The so-called conversation around that was, Axis win 55%, Allies win 45% at one point. And the narrative was, that’s balanced. That’s defined as balanced, you understand, that was the nature of the so-called “conversation”.

But the problem is, over large sample sets, 55% versus 45% indicates imbalance. And further, as I pointed out at the time, the data collection itself was suspect, because if weak players tend to play Axis, then reports would naturally skew against the “true balance” of the game when played by skilled players. (Similar things happen with fighting games and Starcraft, but I digress.)

The developers put in separate ratings for Axis and for Allies, which I disagree with, but all right, at least that addresses some concerns over imbalance. But the discussion I mentioned above was not about ratings validity, but game balance in general; Axis versus Allies. And again, the argument was made using facts that was presented as having one meaning when the actual meaning was literally the opposite.

Well, mistakes can be made. But back to player skill in the meta.

When you have players of a certain ability, they’re going to naturally draw up probability distributions, as was done in some articles for 1942 Revised edition. Seems most of what I remember has been lost to time, but I remember reading and writing such articles, so I know very well it happened.

And what is the nature of these probability distribution writeups? Well, what happens is one takes different proposed moves, writes up the probability distributions and sequential decisions based on information available, and creates probable outcomes. Over multiple turns, different opponent and player responses are each explored, each action having its own probability distribution. By understanding the probability distributions and their consequences, “balance” is proved or disproved for a skilled player set.

And that’s really all there is to it. If that sounds stupidly complicated, literally that was what I did this entire thread (without so much numbers) but one can very much see the numbers and the thinking behind everything if one looks. Would help if had TripleA’s .tsvg system but eh.

So how do you know when it’s a weak meta? When players keep asking about balance regularly, and they keep getting the same stock answers using statistics with no context with suspect data. Okay it’s pretty funny for some people, but come on. At some point you’ve just got to be like really now.

But nobody wants to do some sort of complicated writeup or analysis just to answer a question that doesn’t even apply?

Well, no. When a decent player creates strategies, they must understand their tactical tools, they must understand how to evaluate board state, how to optimally distribute forces and plan purchases not just for the current turn but subsequent turn. I hope that just makes sense. So naturally if they’re thinking through such things and trying to identify key timings, then they are going to do a certain amount of necessary work.

Which is why it was simple for me to understand quite early how Japan could use submarines to counter the KJF, and why and how Japan should pressure India, the timing of the German advance to cut off units at India, and various contingencies. Sure, a lot of the lessons in how to evaluate numbers and distributions came from reading up on Revised. But Revised allowed transports to be used as cannon fodder, had different setup at India and East Canada; anti-KJF in 1942 Online is a different animal.

And as a side note it’s nuts for me when I read players write about “shucking” East Canada like it’s Revised. In Revised, you needed one transport per transport drop from East Canada to northeastern Africa, there were fewer territories in Revised making it faster to march through, transports acted as ablative armor protecting Allied fleet cores. In 1942 Second Edition, you need two transports per transport drop, Japan capture of Alaska threatens the Eastern Canada sea zones, etc. etc.

The real key identifier for lack of thought in a meta is a lack of discussion about pros and cons and real consequences.

Oh, G1 can build Berlin tanks to help secure Karelia on G2? Well I suppose that might not have been incredibly obvious to some players so was worth mentioning. But what about the loss of infantry on the G4 push towards Ukraine? What, nothing? Somehow Germany magically makes up the difference? But look at the numbers on the income, these different branches - no? Just take your word for it because you’re “top platinum”? What about where you say this and this happens, but it doesn’t happen if an opponent reasonably does this and this? Doesn’t the whole supposition just break apart?

Players don’t want to have involved discussions? Sure. But when there’s authoritarian commands like “build 2 tanks on round 1”, well, there’s an old joke I think about George Washington and the Continental Congress, something like that. Someone proposed that the army be limited to whatever number of soldiers, and Washington said “Let’s also pass a motion that we’ll never be invaded by armies above a certain size too” or some such thing. Ha ha. No, it’s really funny, you know?

But when such hilarity is said in all solemnity and expected to be taken seriously, well, you know.