N00b school: Pearl Heavy v. Pearl Light

@ponef In regards to what? This thread kind of wound up diverting itself in like 3 different directions:

Whether UK should retake Egypt B1 Vs. send the FTR from the India Carrier over to the US Pearl Harbor Fleet. Whether Japan should attack the Pearl Harbor Fleet, the UK India Fleet, or both on J1. Whether UK should attack Borneo B1 or not.

The answer to basically all of these boiled down to some combination of “it depends on how the dice went G1” and “are you playing under WBC Rules or not”. Seeing as WBC no longer runs tournaments for Revised (or any A&A, for that matter), we’re left to assume all games being played will be OOB rules (or at least LHTR), in which case Egypt suddenly becomes much less of a priority in the grand scheme of things.

Personally, I got to try the strategy out at the 2018 WBC in one of my games. It worked well for me, as Japan was routinely baited into attacking the USN, losing the TT and the DD in the process. This allowed me to wipe out the remaining IJN Fleet A1 (Bomber from East USA + FTR from West USA + Navy from US West Coast + FTR from Hawaii). This crippled the IJN and let me rapidly come to dominate the Pacific.

In my group we generally skip the tech development. To my opinion too it is unbalancing the game for one player. It feels more like a fair fight to play without the tech development.

If you like playing with NAs and picking them to suit your strategy, give Axis and Allies Revised Enhanced (commonly abbreviated as AARe) a try. It uses National Advantages as an important part of core play, not just an optional rule. They’re considered well-balanced after several years of development and play-testing.

It appears I can’t post links, but you’ll find the sticky in the House Rules section on this forum.

Have fun.

it is well known that the expected value for damage on an SBR is 3.5 IPCs (given the bomber survives AA fire and given the territory is 6 IPCs or more).  there are a few posts taking a stab at the distribution for heavy bombers in LHTR, but no one has formulated it correctly.  the work below shows the average SBR damage is 5.472 IPCs per heavy bomber.

in LHTR, heavy bombers roll 2 dice, take the max, add one, limit to the territory value, and that’s the IPC damage inflicted.

let A and B be independent random variables corresponding to the two dice rolled.  they are distributed as:
P(A=a) ={ 1/6  a=1,2,3,4,5,6
        { 0    otherwise

P(B=b) ={ 1/6  b=1,2,3,4,5,6
        { 0    otherwise

let C be the derived random variable defined as:
C = max(A,B) + 1

Theorem: C is distributed as:
P(C=c) ={  1/36    c=2
        {  3/36    c=3
        {  5/36    c=4
        {  7/36    c=5
        {  9/36    c=6
        { 11/36    c=7
        { 0        otherwise

Proof:
note: <= is the less-than-or-equal-to operator
note: E is the summation operator
P( C<=c ) = P( max(A,B)+1 <= c )

6
      = E  P( max(A,b)+1 <= c | B=b ) P(B=b)
          b=1

6
      = E  P( max(A,b) <= c-1 ) P(B=b)
          b=1

c-1
      = 1/6 * E  P( A <= c-1 )      c<=7
                b=1

c-1 c-1
      = 1/6 * E  E  P(A=a)          c<=7
                b=1 a=1

c-1 c-1
      = 1/36 * E  E  1              c<=7
                  b=1 a=1

= 1/36 * (c-1)^2              c<=7

and
P(C=c) = P(C<=c) - P(C<=c-1)
      ={  1/36    c=2
        {  3/36    c=3
        {  5/36    c=4
        {  7/36    c=5
        {  9/36    c=6
        { 11/36    c=7
        { 0        otherwise

Analysis:
note: E is the expectation operator
so, if one were heavy SBR’ing a 7 (or more) territory, the expected damage is:
E© = 21/36 + 33/36 + 45/36 + 57/36 + 69/36 + 711/36 = 197/36 = 5.472 IPC

so is the extra ~2 IPC per bomber worth the investment?  i’d like to know what other analysts think now that i’ve quantified the difference.

If the attacker retreats and there is no more CV for the planes involved in the defense, all defending figs get one movement point to escape to friendly territory or SZ (if there is a carrier with capacity handy). Since Hawaii is US/Allied control, both the US fig and the Brit fig can land there.

The same would apply in any other cases - say germans attack allied fleet in north sea protected by US planes. If CV is sunk then germans retreat, US planes could escape to UK (or any other adjacent allied territory) on germany’s turn.

I think we could probably devote a whole board to the sub rules. I think in Classic (bot many games of Classic under the belt went to that backwards via Europe) subs could come into a zone, shoot, and leave without being shot at. Not sure on that though.

Our problem was we were not conducting opening fire every round that subs were still on the battle board. We would have opening shots then treat them just like any other naval units.

The sub rules are different in all four versions of the game with subs that much I’m very clear on. The sub rules for Revised I’m very clear on because I think they are the cleanest.

So, like I mentioned before:

most people make up their USA strategy after J has made his first move:

@Axel:

A) if you do a Pearl attack: Most of the USA players would leave the Pacific and do a KGF…
B) if you don’t do a Pearl attack: Most of the USA players stay in the Pacific…

So, if you are J: make your discission: do you want to let USA stay in the Pacific? or do you want to let the USA mess with G?

and almost every post I read regarding this subject so far has made the USA strategy depending on J1!
So Japan has to make up his mind and in that way determines USA strategy most of the times…

I think this poll has made his point :-)

If the UK fig is flown in for defense, then Bury is skipped.

Thanks, Tri- this is the crux of what I was trying to say. I even put it in bold in my last post to make it clear :-D

But I’ll do it again because it’s fun.

Russian and British choices dictate whether Japan can even think about Buryatia or not.

Buryatia is only possible if the right conditions exist. An extra British fighter in China means the right conditions do not exist. And if you do choose to do it, you build accordingly (3 transports), which deals with the U.S. threat.

To every question of “well what if _______ and what if________”,  I answer- don’t attack Buryatia.