Posts made by Kakarrot1138

Ok so after testing some more with both sites, toolkit for some reason can’t handle it when you set everything to be taken last, even though it should be irrelevant. It was giving almost 100% odds to 1 sub 1 CA 2 FTR vs 1 dBB and 2 FTR. I can’t find a way to rectify the disrepancy between it and aacalc when it comes to this sz 37 battle.

Also, thanks for pointing out that Japan is actually better off taking off fighters before AC in that battle. I’m assuming it’s because if the AC survives the 1st round, a 2nd round sub hit can be assigned to it instead of the battleship, preventing it from dying before it can fire in the 2nd round.

I have no idea what you could’ve done to make aatoolkit show 2 inf v 1 inf as over 90% odds. It shows around 68% for me every time

Your UK1 east indies navy battle math is wrong. That site’s calc is assuming the casualty order for UK is sub, ftr, cruiser, ac, in order of ascending ipc cost. You need to use https://www.aatoolkit.com/conflict and toggle sub, cruiser, and ftr to be taken last, so that the AC gets taken first. % goes from a coin flip to over 90%.

@taamvan

Like what move, exactly?

@taamvan said in Larry Harris Semi-Official Tournament Game Patch:

Air is really good for Russia in each version because they have so many must-win battles (where a failure to block that territory can leave your capital/stack open to attack). If you’re reduced to just infantry and arty, you have to send overmany to ensure a take and this depletes you even more rapidly.

I agree that the 2 fighters you start with are indispensable. Are you advocating buying more of them as russia?

@taamvan

Also, the distribution is 3/1/3/2 for ukraine, 9/2/1 for west.

Now I was formerly also of the mindset that retreating from the R1 ukraine battle is good if he gives up his bomber as a casualty, but I’ve found that G stacking everything (including all fighters not sent to the G1 SZ7 battle) in ukraine is a pretty devastating response that forces your stack off West and into cauc. So now I feel like I have to take the terrority R1 no matter what and just accept the loss of those 3 tanks on G2.

@taamvan

That’s fair, though my main point was that it seems at least theoretically possible that KGF/KJF could be at least well balanced enough vs each other that enough round 1 axis greed makes the generally inferior macro strat viable or even superior. If it’s not currently the case that this is so (with whatever version), then it seems like it could at least be made so by giving axis more power to reasonably be greedy enough to provoke a macro strat switch, along with general compensation gives to allies to balance axis’s greater decision-making freedom.

As for your second paragraph, I’m not sure what to say except that this has not been my experience at all. Almost everyone that I’ve played (both oob and online, but at this point I’ve played significantly more games online just by the very nature of asynchronous play) has played to win, and if they think they can’t win, they resign. I have not found hitting the 9/10 VC goal to be particularly difficult or grueling once I’m clearly winning, with rare exceptions (and even then, it was still fun rather than tedious). Around 90% of my games have been decided by concession as well, but that concession has been predicated on the hopelessness of reaching the 9/10 VC target. If that target changes, everything changes.

I’m sure he meant if G stacks Ukraine, not just trades it. And I agree with his assessment that axis will probably win if they are allowed to do this in the first few turns

I do accept the inevitability that at the highest levels of play, the elite players will probably always determine that either KGF or KJF is better overall, and end up usually or always using that macro strat. That being said, the decision of which one to go for obviously doesn’t have to happen on R1. If it’s the case (and I think it very well may be, at least in no time limit games in my experience) that round 1 axis decisions can determine which allies macro strat fits better, then an equilibrium can be reached in which one of the strats is usually better, but sometimes the other one becomes better if the axis player takes it too much for granted that the allies will use the “better” strat, and plays too greedily to that effect. If this is the case, axis players will always be towing the line, trying to hit the sweet spot of just enough greed that the two macro strats are at as close to equal effectiveness as possible. Different players even at the elite level will arrive at different sweet spots, depending on how comfortable they feel playing vs KGF/KJF. Personally, I can think of several times when I switched to KJF on UK1 or US1 as a result of a greedy axis decision(s).

Also, even if this is not the case, it does not sit well with me that a macro strat that is perfectly viable in no time limit games (which I’m guessing is how the game was originally meant to be played) is rendered completely bunk in tournament games by virtue of the win condition being changed. But hey, that’s just my opinion.

Thanks for post. I respect that you enjoy the comparatively short tournament games over no time-cap games, and don’t think I could successfully argue that my preferred win condition is superior- at least, not without more experience . I’m assuming you also have lots of games played oob but with no time-cap? Because for me, the fact that it’s live and oob as opposed to on a computer could possibly outweigh my grievance about short games when it comes to a fun comparison, since I only recently started playing online and still significantly prefer and have a fondness for oob. Maybe I’ll do a tournament style game next time I play oob to see what it’s like. The majority of the time there’s a resignation before it approaches 10 rounds in my oob games anyway, but obviously it’s not about how long the games last, but the threat of how long they can last and the different win-condition of simply more than your opponent instead of the 9/10 target.

I knew you were gonna take offense to that “who cares” characterization lol. Yes I was being hyperbolic, but I honestly don’t know why you would bother to talk about the extent to which A&A in general is shallow, when I’m saying “by comparison” [to the same game without time/round constraints]. It did seem to reek of “well bud this isn’t chess, and if depth is what you’re looking for then keep looking”. But enough about that.

I found your essay about the depth of KGF vs KJF interesting. But the thing is, I’m not here to advocate for rules that lead people into KGF instead of KJF. I want both to be an option. And from the looks of it, one of those options might be off the table when it comes to tournament play due to time constraints and the nature by which a winner is declared. That is: the W going to the player with the most VCs now, in what I think is probably best characterized as only the first half of the mid game if both players are quite good, rather than the player who seems more likely to end a future round with 9/10 VCs. But yeah I think KJF is cool as well so you don’t need to sell me on that. The point is that I want both on the table.

Also I do agree that the G bomber in ukraine is a bit lame, and dislike the volatility of the ukraine attack that seems like the best opener for R. Allies would need compensation if it moved back to Germany or somewhere else though.

@aardvarkpepper When I said 1942 online ranked uses gencon, I was referring to the setup, like german bomber in ukraine and such. We all know about the tweaks that 1942 online put in for the sake of convenience. Since they recently made the change that you can set different defensive profiles for the different powers of your side, I’m hoping they also add landing on friendly carriers, as well as prioritizing one power’s units in casualty selection over the others’ in jointly defended zones, so as to make it as close to the original game (but with gencon setup) as possible while still facilitating asynchronous play. But I digress.

Anyway, the only point I really cared to make was that I think the depth and fun factor of the game is significantly worse when time concerns cap the number of rounds at such a low number, and I’m definitely sticking to that opinion. Of course, fun is subjective, but depth level is pretty objective. Saying that the game is already shallow so who cares is kinda weird btw. But yeah, the fact that allies are pigeonholed into KJF in tournaments in order to not lose on VCs helps to prove my point. I didn’t even need to bring up my 1942 online ranked experiences to make this argument, as I had been playing the oob game since long before that, but obviously 1942 online has allowed me to play against a much wider array of opponents, and has solidified this opinion that I had even before purchasing the online version.

As a side note, I’ve had tripleA since before 1942 online, but didn’t think the scene was still active. Is there actually an active scene there that plays with the gencon setup?

I mean I literally started the post with “after playing online”, so not sure why you’re like “you said plat, that means online”. Obviously ranked online uses gencon rules, and I don’t think it’s that dissimilar, particularly in the context of the issue of time controls. Yes you can’t land on friendly carriers and you have defensive profiles and such, but I’ve played oob too and it’s close enough.

I agree that trying to introduce chess clocks probably wouldn’t work. That’s just the only thing I could think of as an idea to address my disillusionment with how stunted the game seems when it’s practically capped at such a low number of rounds. I think it’s fair to say that it significantly changes the game for the worse. Oh well.

After playing online at the plat level for a couple months now, I can’t imagine having to decide a winner by round 7 or so. To me, the game would seem so shallow by comparison. Like it’s more about positioning for VC scrambles as the timer is running out to eek out one more than your opponent, than actually trying to hit 9/10 VCs. Like ending a chess game after 25 moves based on who has more material. Even though you can often tell if it’s gonna be a win loss or draw by that point, that evaluation is based on the fact that the end game is there to play out. But if a chess game was actually capped at 25 moves, people would play much differently. Likewise with this game. Of course, games can’t be allowed to go on for too long in an in-person tournament. Perhaps if both sides had like a 2 hour clock running down whenever it’s their turn (except in conduct combat phase?). Has this been suggested before?

Since I always kill the bomber unless I get bad rng, I don’t have to worry about G1 Egypt attacks often. But if I’m in that situation, I’m never gonna go for that BB UK1. Those planes you can send to kill it are always going to be genuinely useful, whereas the BB’s only function is to allow G to shift units from europe to africa. Preventing 1 round of this shift is just not worth it.

If the Egypt fighter is killed G1 (and G isn’t unlucky enough to not actually take Egypt), then I really don’t think trying to kill the BB UK1 is sound. Losing that battle is just catastrophic, and if you win, there’s a decent chance that you’ll still lose both planes, in which case I’m happy if I’m axis. Since you’re assuming that the allies player is strong, it’s unlikely they’ll go for it. Strong players tend not to make desperate moves like that and instead patiently rely on their skill to carry them through rough opening rounds.

As far as no UK1 fleet buy, I think it should be self-explanatory. G has an extra fighter and bomber to target sz7 that it normally wouldn’t.

I think you pretty much have to hit Ukraine at the higher skill levels. If that bomber survives it’s bad news. You just have to accept that a fraction of the time, you’re gonna get screwed by rng. I usually only buy 1 tank and 6 inf but 2 tanks is probably safer in case you lose a lot in West and then don’t quite have enough to dead zone karelia.

Not long ago, the first round of my 5 inf 1 art 4 ftr attack on 7 inf, I got 1 hit and he got 5. I bet that’s under .5% odds lol

Is there a way to set it so that if I have both UK and US infantry defending a country, that UK inf are taken off as casualties first? It seems like the default is that US casualties are always taken before UK units of the same type.