G40 Tourney Discussion/question(s)

[loki17]

what does “YOU MUST WAIT FOR FRANCE TO MOVE BEFORE MOVING ON TO GERMANY!  The only exception to this rule is if France has no units on the board, regardless of proximity to any theater of operations.”  mean?

thanks

[Jennifer]

It means that after Italy’s turn you have to wait for France to move, instead of having a gentleman’s agreement to move the units out of sequence as is commonly found in informal game play.  The rule is designed to negate issues such as (for example):

Italy moves a destroyer to SZ 92 and a Battleship + 3 Transports to SZ 94.  France has a destroyer in SZ 91.  But since France has been going after Australia’s turn each round, Italy assumes that the French cannot attack the destroyer inbetween Italy and Germany and open the Battleship to attack by British Naval Forces in SZ 91.

If each of the players moves in the correct turn order - as annoying as it can be to wait for France to do a NCM here or there that has no effect on Germany’s game play - this situation would never occur.

[TheDefinitiveS]

Is there a time limit for game play and a time limit between Nations turns? Also Victory conditions. Theres the Alpha 2 conditions but what about people quitting or a massive stalemate with time restrictions pending? Could you go over the possiblities just to clear up ambiguities. Im sure there are other default ways to call it without completing the Alpha 2 requirements.

[Jennifer]

The alpha 2 conditions for victory will reign supreme, however, if a game does not end before the next round a decision will have to be made.  It will be based on position on the board, not just victory cities.

Things we will look at:

• Control of Africa south of the Sahara
• Control of the Mediterranian Sea
• Control of the North and Central Atlatic
• Control of the South-East and North Pacific
• Control of the Indian Ocean
• Control of Asia

Essentially, it will come down to who has physical control and who can take control in our minds.

---

As for nation turn play, due to work and life and kids and being a kid and school and anything else that can effect your posting schedule, I really hate to lock down turns.  However, I would say that if your opponent can document you played more than one game on a day and none of them were the tournament game you should be given a delay warning.  Three warnings would be a forfeit.

As for just quitting for a week or two before the end of the tournament round to hold their position, DM and I have seen that before and I know how previous tournament moderators have ruled in that regard: no post for an extended time means your opponent wins the round, even if all they have is 1 infantry in each of their capitols.

As for tournament rounds of play, this is a significantly longer game in many respects than Classic, Revised, Revised-Enhanced, and in my opinion, Anniversary, so the typical 4 week limit may not work.  I would say that each tournament round will run until about 80% of the games are complete, a time limit warning will be issued and after another week of play the round will end, results will be shown and new matchups drawn.  I expect tournament rounds to take between three and six weeks with the shortest week being the first round.

Keep in mind, the more time that is alloted the more assured victory is and if victory cannot be attainted due to turtling, luck or whatever, it should (in theory) give DM and I the most information possible in determining who should move on and who should move into the Teir-2 bracket.

[BigBadBruce]

Please could you tell me what “German Interdiction - Yes” implies.

[Jennifer]

Submarines do 2 IPC Damage when raiding convoys.  There is an optional rule that states that German submarines do 3 IPC Damage, this rule is effective for the tournament. (It is effective in hopes of reducing bid amounts as much as possible.)

[BigBadBruce]

@Cmdr:

Submarines do 2 IPC Damage when raiding convoys.  There is an optional rule that states that German submarines do 3 IPC Damage, this rule is effective for the tournament. (It is effective in hopes of reducing bid amounts as much as possible.)

So those 2 rules are the same?
I very like the idea, but since there was 2 statements, I figured they meant 2 things.

German Interdiction - Yes
German U-Boats do 3 Convoy Raid Damage instead of 2 CRD.

[Jennifer]

Yes, all submarines do convoy raid damage, but for the tournament, the German ones do three damage instead of two damage. (Convoy ONLY, they still attack at two or less in combat!)

[DarthMaximus]

I just wanted to chime in about the length of the tourney and the games.

They typically take a while.  For example we started the AA50 tourney in Feb (32 players) and we are just ending rd 2 and starting rd 3 now.

You are probably looking at 2 months per rd.  My understanding is G40 can take a while to play.
As mods we like to give every oppurtunity for players to finish their games.  We do usually have a couple of no-shows in rd 1 or somthing, but we give fair warning before we advance the remaining player.

Pace of games tend to fall in line with standard PBEM or PBF games.  A turn every 72 hrs.  As Jen said, Tournament games take a priority over other league games or pick up games as a result we tend to see tournament pace equal a turn a day (or a turn every other day).

We do realize people have lives, so if you are going to be gone on a vacation or unable to post (busy at work, etc.), just post a message in your game thread at the start.  “Gonna be gone on vacation from X to Y.  Will post when I get back”.
Something simple just so we know it isn’t a no show.

Also no name calling or anything within the game thread.  If you have any issues with a player you can PM Me or Jen.

Game talk is fine ( “good move there…”  “Oh, tough dice…”) but obviously no talking about strategy particularly if you are following the other tournament games and post in another game thread.  Again small things like “tough break with your G1…” are okay but don’t post things like, you really should attack here next rd b/c…

Most important, tourneys are supposed to be fun, but they tend to be a bit more competitve so any issues with OOL or times where you need info from your opponent please ask and wait.

Edit:

Editted thread title to cover all tourney discussion and questions.

[TheDefinitiveS]

Here are some more questions that may have been covered elsewhere but I will bring them up in this tournament thread. What is to stop someone having multiple accounts from one or more computers and entering the comp. Are IP addys logged etc. Im not saying that this type of past time attracts that type of person, Im only curious as to what you can do about this. Also with the bidding system we have to PM the moderators with our bids, since Cmdr Jen is in the tournament will we PM Darth Maximus or another Mod with our bids.
Also I cant seem to get Battlemap to do the -3 convoy raid to automatically show on the infoview screen. I put a German counter on the wolfpack space but it still only takes off 2 IPCs. What am I doing wrong. If there is an issue is it possible for it to be addressed before the tournament.
Some of these questions may have obvious answers, but ill ask them so we have official answers for everyone one who wants to join the tourney.

That is all.

[Jennifer]

@TheDefinitiveS:

Here are some more questions that may have been covered elsewhere but I will bring them up in this tournament thread. What is to stop someone having multiple accounts from one or more computers and entering the comp. Are IP addys logged etc. Im not saying that this type of past time attracts that type of person, Im only curious as to what you can do about this.
~I do not believe this has been a problem in the past, but we are able to check IPs and if it is brought to our attention, the person in question will be disqualified.

Also with the bidding system we have to PM the moderators with our bids, since Cmdr Jen is in the tournament will we PM Darth Maximus or another Mod with our bids.
~My opponent and I will bid Darth Maximus with our bids, correct.

Also I cant seem to get Battlemap to do the -3 convoy raid to automatically show on the infoview screen. I put a German counter on the wolfpack space but it still only takes off 2 IPCs. What am I doing wrong. If there is an issue is it possible for it to be addressed before the tournament.
~ Make sure you have an Indian control marker in the “Auto-Convoy” box and make sure you have an Indian control marker in the correct boxes in the “Diplomacy Chart” and it should update your convoy raid damage accordingly.  The “auto convoy” starts flagged (at least on my machine) but the “diplomacy chart” is one that rarely is updated with many of my opponents.  That is probably what is happening on your machine.
Some of these questions may have obvious answers, but ill ask them so we have official answers for everyone one who wants to join the tourney.

That is all.

Also, I want to make sure everyone is updating the charts on their battlemap files.  Some of us (myself included at times) get a little sloppy in that regard.  If you fail to update your income and your opponent moves, then the income you have on the next posted map is the income you have for the next round.  It sucks for you if you make the mistake, but your opponent should not have to track what money you have and s/he needs to be able to plan out for what you could possibly purchase on your next round.  Especially now with airbases and naval bases.

[ViribusUnitis]

Whats Battlemap?

[Jennifer]

The best way to learn game play is to find a game thread in the “Play Games” forum and read it.  The command line for throwing dice is:

;aaa 2@1 4@2 3@3 1@4;

where the ; is replaced with :
where the number before the @ is how many dice you want to throw
where the number after the @ is the target number (four or less for instance)

The system will then bold your hits and count the number for you (as you can see in the game threads.)

Here is a link to a game I am playing with Mollari: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=23867.345;topicseen so you can get a gist of what some of us expect to see.

A note:  EM devised a system of naming the game files so that they show up in a folder in order:
01Agermany
01Brussia
01Cjapan
01Dallies
01Eitaly
01Zfrance (z predessor was actually my idea, ffrance looked too funny to me so I got silly and used a z once, and it stuck)
02Agermany
…

denotes round

A-Z denotes country order
country name is self explanatory

[Jennifer]

@ViribusUnitis:

Whats Battlemap?

Abattlemap.exe

It is a very basic program that will display the game board and has “tiles” that represent the pieces.  The graphics have gotten slightly better over the years, but the program is very basic still.  There are links in the “software” section of this site and some troubleshooting steps in the same area, should you need them. (Usually do on MACs as far as I know, but that was a while ago, the MACs might have imporved since.)

The program is free to the public, as are the mapping utilities for each of the games.  The program supports more than just Axis and Allies, also Fortress America, World at War, Chess, Chinese Checkers, Risk, etc, etc, etc.  I would HIGHLY recommend that you purchase a copy of the game before using the Abattlemap utility.  For one, the the utility is a utility and the rules are the rules.  For another, it is often easier to track an entire board on a table than scrolling around the mapping utility to get a picture of what is happening.  (This is the main reason I quit using MapView back in the days, despite the graphics being a lot prettier, you could only see 20% of the board at a time, Abattlemap lets you see about 85% at a time, the game board itself lets you see 100% at a time.)

TMTN (or TMTM?) is probably the guy you want to PM with questions about his latest map files for the program, as he designed the module.

[BigBadBruce]

@Cmdr:

The program supports more than just Axis and Allies, also Fortress America, World at War, Chess, Chinese Checkers, Risk, etc, etc, etc.

Nice! I didn’t know about Fortress America, I love this game. Do you know if (and where) they play it by forum?

[Jennifer]

@BigBadBruce:

@Cmdr:

The program supports more than just Axis and Allies, also Fortress America, World at War, Chess, Chinese Checkers, Risk, etc, etc, etc.

Nice! I didn’t know about Fortress America, I love this game. Do you know if (and where) they play it by forum?

To be honest, I have the boardgame and the module, but I never play either anymore.  (I did marry the pieces into the classic version of Axis and Allies and invented Helicopter, Jets, Hover Tanks and Mechanized Infantry technologies into it though.)

[TheDefinitiveS]

So this bid for G40 A+2  when we PM you is that the only chance for a bid or is it similar to other bids where we keep trying to get the  lower bid until someone stops. So pretty much PMing you back and forward for a lower bid?

[Jennifer]

There will only be one bid, the lower one will win so bid carefully!

[JamesAleman]

Thank you for hosting this tournament.

As we have never played each other, please do not take this question the wrong way.

I was curious if previous bids will be posted by player after the round completes, prior to the next round. Since a moderator is participating in the Tournament, access to such information could provide a competitive advantage when bidding(especially after a couple of rounds to see if a pattern exists).

I am in no way accusing or stating that this is likely. In fact,I suspect it would be unlikely that you would review previous bids before bidding. This situation does exist however and I was wondering if there is a remedy. The bid also includes location and type of units expected, which may also tip the hat as to what part of the board players will likely focus or which strategy will likely be exercised.

Obviously, it won’t matter if the Moderator does not advance beyond round 1.

A couple of remedies off the top of my head if you would like suggestions.

1. A third party receives all bids.
2. All bids along with their bidder are posted for public view after the round begins- (could be posted first in each game thread)
   note:      To avoid telegraphing intention, public and privately posted bids could be just an IPC amount.
3. The moderator’s bid is randomly selected from a list of all previous bids after round 1 using a post with the random die result the third party moderator would then determine sides based on the list they received prior to rolling.
   note:      This is a big disadvantage and could weaken play if style does not match bid.
4. The moderator could let round 2 or later opponents select a side.
   note:      This is also a big disadvantage if the game is waited to one side.
5. Moderator games have side randomly selected using a forum 2 sided-die post, with 1 being the allies, and 2 being the axis.
6. No remedy, hosting the tournament is like a casino-odds favor the house (host) :)
   7) The Moderator could send all of his/her previous bids to his/her current opponent prior to the opponent sending his/her bid to the third party moderator. This addresses the competitive advantage as each player is aware of the others prior bids and a third party is still involved with awarding sides. This also does not tip the hands of other competitors during the tournament. Nor does it put an undo workload on a third party.

Number 7 seems a good compromise, that would not affect other players or the tournaments current structure.

Again, I mean no disrespect. This is just an issue I perceived that could affect outcome slightly. This may have already been addressed in other tournaments, as I am new to forum play and tournaments, please forgive any oversights.

[Jennifer]

As stated, DM is handling any bids for games I may be participating in.  As for everyone else’s bids, it would be public knowledge based on the opening posts in each game.