League General Discussion Thread

[oysteilo]

Is it just me, or are games lasting forever these days?

[Karl7]

@oysteilo

Oh yeah, if it’s competitive then it’s running past R10 for sure…

[AldoRaine]

I want to point out that I believe there is an error in TripleA global map. I noticed it is not possible to land units from sz126 into Finland. I believe this is a mistake because although it is small on my board there is clearly a sliver of Finland that falls into that sea zone. I have no idea who to bring this too but I noticed this while playing a couple of league games and I am afraid this will cost me. I realize I might be wrong but if that is the case I have played out of the box rules wrong for quite a while.

Anyway thanks for reading my rant. Let me know who I need petition.😉

[simon33]

Pretty sure that’s correct. I think Kreighund has actually ruled on it.

[AldoRaine]

@simon33 that is interesting that it was brought up before. I posted a topic in the global forum as well and then someone posted a picture. The pic is grainy but I still think it shows Finland in the sea zone. Oh well. Now I know at least.

[simon33]

One more comment on combat move first.

I’ve noticed a couple of players objecting to the inability to post from the post panel after US/China/ANZAC turns. There’s no real reason to do this. If you want to rewind, you can just load autosave. Go to the autoSave subdirectory in your default save folder, and you’ll find a bunch of save files from the end of every move phase for every nation, and one at the end of the most recent turn.

[dawgoneit]

@simon33 can the U.S. land planes in siberia if russia is not at war with japan but is at war with germany?

[Adam514]

No, Russia needs to be at war with Japan for Allied units to go through Russian Pacific territories.

[dawgoneit]

@Adam514 thank you

[FMErwinRommel]

Need moderator opinion for BM3 league play question. Russia DOW Japan on turn 5, Japan had not DOW on Russia. Triplea gave Russia 4 points for N.O. #4 for convoy routes, even though Japan didn’t DOW, as stated as a requirement in the N.O. On Japan turn 5, only political action available is to DOW neutrals. Thus Triplea automatically put Japan at war with Russia. My opponent says I have to reverse the 4 P.U.s for the N.O.s for turn 5 (which I can see why), but also going forward (which I would disagree with). This situation must have come up with other players before now. What has been the consensus or ruling in the past?

[FMErwinRommel]

@FMErwinRommel Okay, simon33 said I needed to edit the political to “unprovoked”. When I did, it took away the N.O. for Russia. But now it seems that Russia will never get the N.O. for Persia convoy from Japan. That would be a costly mistake.

[farmboy]

Just found a very minor bug (I think?). In my game here https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/32406/farmboy-axis-2-vs-oysteilo-allies-bm/319

it seemed that in my last turn I could land inf on midway (attacking it) without any naval or air support despite the presence of an enemy destroyer (and this is turn 20 so everyone has been at war with everyone for a while). Obviously I was going to take out the destroyer too, so this wasn’t an issue but I recall that one normally has to move other units into the sz before unloading or its blocked. I think? Or did i just imagine that.

[simon33]

@farmboy said in League General Discussion Thread:

Just found a very minor bug (I think?). In my game here https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/32406/farmboy-axis-2-vs-oysteilo-allies-bm/319

it seemed that in my last turn I could land inf on midway (attacking it) without any naval or air support despite the presence of an enemy destroyer (and this is turn 20 so everyone has been at war with everyone for a while). Obviously I was going to take out the destroyer too, so this wasn’t an issue but I recall that one normally has to move other units into the sz before unloading or its blocked. I think? Or did i just imagine that.

I’m pretty sure you get a warning about a suicidal move. I don’t think it’s a problem. You only get stopped if you attempt to land from a transport with a defending sub and you don’t have a warship.

[farmboy]

@simon33 thanks for clarifying that.

[Tizkit]

I understand the league has been around for a while, but has there ever been any discussion about making the league ranking system non-detrimental for playing someone more than 2 tiers out of yours?

I’m talking about how a tier M or E player (or someone who would like to be) is guaranteed to drop in ranking for playing a tier 2 or 3 player. This seems to show up when players are looking for a match and request the opponent be tier 1 or higher.

I’m sure part of the reason for the request is that players want an opponent who can keep up with them in skill level in addition to the ranking problem. However, my concern is that A&A is already a very niche game and this system further fragments the pool of players.

Assuming I’ve calculated this right, here is the required win rate for each tier combination to maintain their current tier:

[Toucan-son-of-sam]

@Tizkit I don’t disagree there’s a problem here.

But after much thought… what are the solutions? It’s not such a simple thing to rate players against no specific standard, within a limited pool of data.

About the only alternative is to have a full ladder system, but that could also cripple players who play less games, and seeing as there is no match control, the ladder would quickly be out of control…

suggestions welcome!

[AldoRaine]

@Toucan-son-of-sam what about some sort of point system that wouldn’t punish someone for a loss? You earn points for wins weighted against how many points the other player has. This would reward people from playing and not picking their opponents.

No system is perfect and each will have its pros and cons.

[OwenToo]

I like the system the way it is. I really don’t want to play anyone that is not competitive with me, and neither would I enjoy playing someone who is going to smash me. The system now allows you to find an opponent who you can pretty well tell how competitive the game will be.

I think having the minimum for playoff seeding is 8 games is just about right. I didn’t make the regular playoffs this year, but I was seeded in the “second playoff” and in the “second playoff”, any player can enter even if they had not played 8 games. So everyone gets accommodated.

[Tizkit]

@Toucan-son-of-sam
@AldoRaine

I think the two main priorities if an adjustment were made are that it needs to be simple and non-disruptive. I expect there’s not a lot of appetite for a sweeping overhaul or adding complexity. Ideally it would be a non-event to players who don’t want any change.

So far, the best proposal I can come up with would be an optional add-on to the current system allowing both players to score as a tier 1 player if the game is played with a standardized handicap. Below is a draft.

Framework:

• The tier 2/3 player would receive a standardized IPC handicap at the beginning of the game to be added as a modifier to the usual bid the players choose
• The win/loss points awarded to both players would be for a tier 1 vs tier 1 match
• The tier 1-M player receives the opportunity to maintain their rank with a sufficiently high win rate
• The handicap amount could be different for each match-up (6 combinations in total)

Benefits:

• Can be ignored if players choose to stick with the existing system
• Pretty simple to understand and hopefully wouldn’t change the existing scoring spreadsheet significantly
• Creates an option if higher tier players want to play lower tier players without guaranteed loss of rank
• IPC handicap could help bridge some of the skill gap and hopefully make games between different tiers more compelling

Drawbacks:

• Deciding the standardized handicaps could be controversial. Perhaps this could be done through a vote?
• Might create some complexity for @gamerman01 (I believe he does all the scoring) considering that points awarded change retroactively when a person changes tiers.

Here’s an example Handicap Chart using a hypothetical 5 IPCs for each level of tier difference. Whether that would be enough to make the game closer to competitive is debatable.

Example IPC Handicap Chart

For example, if a tier E and tier 2 player set up a match, the decided bid would be modified by +10 in favor of the tier 2 player as a handicap. However, both players would score for a tier 1 vs tier 1 match because the handicap puts the lower tier player on closer footing.

[SixUnder]

![alt text]http://tinypic.com/m/kcfiht/2(image url)

first i ever seen that :alien: