Back from the holidays. Just in time. Please add me to the OOB tournament.

Rest in peace Trulpen! It is always a joy to have players who will compete with anyone at any time. His love of the game is unmatched.

I had an unusual game where the Axis captured Egypt early. The Americans focused heavily on the European operations and the Allies were steadily making progress on that side of the map. I built up the Japanese air force and sent it on a suicide attack into Moscow around turn 8. Stripping off 15 infantry Allied units in Moscow can change a battle from a 95% chance of losing into a 95% chance of winning when the Germans get their turn. It also means that Germany will keep their air force intact, allowing them to reclaim any European victory cities if necessary.

The best part of this strategy is that the extra Japanese planes can hold the Allies at bay for several turns, forcing India to cower and Anzac + USA to be more conservative with their fleets. All of the planes can raid Moscow from a base in Sichuan, meaning that only one turn is required to setup the pivot from Pacific to Europe.

Of course the Russian AA’s shot down half of my Japanese raiders and the German tanks had their turrets pointed backwards, leading to an abrupt and unhappy end to a genius strategy.

@trulpen yeah, BM is much tougher for the Japanese in China. I waste way too many men trying to suppress the rebellions. I hate it when an American bomber knocks off the lone defender and a Chinese soldier pops up in Tibet.

looks like it is my turn to lose to Andrew.

@crockett36 Normandy should be left completely unoccupied by the time the Allies have a sizable landing force. As you mentioned, there can be considerable devastation to any Axis force situated in that territory and it cannot be reasonably defended without diverting from the main goal of crushing Moscow or heading into the Middle East/Egypt. Normandy or Norway will fall, it just is a matter of on which round and whether the Axis will be able to retake it with a counterattack of ground units supported by planes. France is the best place to have the Axis counterstrike infantry/artillery. Mechanized units can help counterstrike from W Germany. Usually, though, a wave of UK fighters add enough defensive might to Normandy or Norway to ensure that the Axis are unable to strike back.

Aircraft carriers and subs are the best investment for the US as they have dual purposes of defending the fleet and attacking/convoy raiding. Build enough destroyers to prevent German wolfpacks from roaming the Atlantic

With the release of Elo rankings, I could identify BM4 League games between two high-level players of similar talent (no more than 100 elo point gap in skill level and greater than 1700 average Elo). I eliminated a few games which had a player surrender due to personal reasons, and analyzed 17 games from the last three years.

The following graph shows the magic cutoff point of a 20 point Allied advantage after turn 10 which guarantees victory or defeat. This is a useful threshold to calculate which territories you want to hold in order to ensure victory.

Interestingly, Moscow and India hold for a much longer time than in the “old” days. This isn’t surprising as the balance mod gives more income to Russia and handicaps Japan. The improvements of Axis gameplay has allowed them to eventually overcome Allied defenses despite territory advantages that previously would have marked doom.

@Myygames redo the whole Japan turn then including builds and combat. I don’t think it is appropriate to win because of a rule misunderstanding.

Normally I get victory via superior luck.

There is a sub-forum for house rules. You are free to change the game however you like when playing with your friends. I personally enjoy naval and air bases. They enhance the strategic options.

Incredible match. I thought Oysteilo had the W after the mid-game when Moscow was so strong and the Allies had a foothold in Greece. Such masterful comeback, Andrew. I haven’t seen such high-level play from two players in a long time.

@AndrewAAGamer another major adjustment would be restricting the number of non-Russian allied units in Russia. It does not seem reasonable that the US or UK could support a massive number of planes or armies with supply lines that far, and Stalin would not have approved.

While I am on the dream list, I would like a type of Russian and Chinese partisan unit with an attack of 0 and defense of 1 that costs 1 and a half PUs. That would give a wall of defensive troops that could protect the homeland but cannot easily counter attack.

Then our mods go on and on until we have a 500 page rulebook, a hex-based map that takes an entire basement, and a monstrosity that takes a couple years to complete.

If players want to try out a fixed bid set, easy for one player to propose the additional troops and/or income for the Allies, and the other player decide which side he wants to take. Nothing preventing such an arrangement for rebalancing the game.

This could go a long ways towards keeping historical accuracy as many of the common bids lead to unrealistic situations such as total domination of the Atlantic in the early game or a massive Chinese army that overwhelms Japan. Perhaps 100 bids for Allies accompanied with reasonable selections would be about balanced assuming a fair bit of extra units goes to the United States.

I definitely made some huge mistakes but you flawlessly capitalized on them. It is always an honor to play someone at your talent level; you have greatly improved my skill level over the years. Maybe I will be more careful in the 2025 playoffs… until then best of luck.

AndrewGamer (X) defeats Arthur Bomber Harris (Allies +59) OOB

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/40619/l24-oob-andrewaagamer-x-vs-arthurbomberharris-l-59/114

Tried my luck in France. If I had succeeded, I would have attacked W Germany on UK turn and made a fun situation in europe.

My gamble didn’t work out. I will post. Very well played.
triplea_40619_12US end.tsvg

Congratulations Farmboy! You are truly incredible to beat such fierce competition like Adam. Next level talent.

triplea_40619_12Russia.tsvg

Game History

Round: 12

    Combat Move - Russians
        1 infantry moved from Buryatia to Yakut S.S.R.
        1 armour and 1 mech_infantry moved from Caucasus to Northwest Persia

    Non Combat Move - Russians

    Turn Complete - Russians

Combat Hit Differential Summary :

enjoy! Gygax was such a genius. I stopped by his home in Lake Geneva. So many fond memories of the game from decades ago.

@AndrewAAGamer no problem if you want to make those NCM edits. I don’t think any of them affected the Anzac or France moves.

Looks like you opened the wrong file.

triplea_40619_11fr (1).tsvg