That’s one of the problems with games is everybody banks there planes. My own game at least has it where u can lose planes in naval and ground when u don’t want to. If there’s a bonus plane kill u have to take one as a casualty
"East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion
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@The-Janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
You’re trying to do the “crying poor” argument as the USSR, and it doesn’t wash because I’ve already laid the numbers out.
I think games played and demonstrated is the acid test for this type of discussion. I don’t typically go down these rabbit holes but I will here because there is something missing that is very clear to me so…
You’re not entirely wrong, you just don’t have all the information or a hugely critical component is left out: the total unit value of each sides armies/airforces on the board. You appear to be assuming they’re equal after the Russian opener. They’re not.
Most TripleA players will know what board TUV is. After a stock opener as the Soviets the TUV is usually 102 IPC in favor of NATO with land/air alone - to say nothing of the navy. This is an imbalance that is not made up for by the 40 or so IPC “transport tax” that NATO ends up paying in the early game.
Worse, while the Russians claw their way up to parity with NATO in the opening turns in a manner similar to what you describe, they’re all the while further suffering a TUV tax for all the neutrals they’re forced to attack further deepening the TUV divide. I don’t see you address this anywhere. Total Unit Value (TUV) is a very common tool used on TripleA to measure overall performance/balance. That’s why I mention it.
If I play seven games as NATO, I might lose one. My mind can be changed if I lost two out of seven games (I think I’ve lost as NATO…once in the last two years having played 7 or 8 games in that time - and that was that crazy game @Ragnell804 and I played).
Further, I’ve never seen a game of E&W stagnate. I think I’ve had one or two go up to turn 7 or 8? I would say one of this game’s strengths is that it doesn’t go on forever like so many other AnA game titles - perhaps I’m misinterpreting your use of the word though.
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@The_Good_Captain said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
I’ve never seen a game of E&W stagnate.
Like I said, there’s generally some nibbling around the edges, but for the majority of the game, the territory that NATO controls is essentially stable by the end of the 1st Soviet turn; the USSR creeps ahead in territory by taking neutrals.
I guess while we’re talking about neutrals, maybe it’s time to question whether paying that tax is worth it, as the USSR. For every infantry that you lose taking Finland (for example) you need to hold the territory for 2 rounds, just to break even. Sure, a 2-IPC territory will pay itself off sooner, but in a game only lasting 8 rounds (and invading neutrals only really starts on the 2nd and 3rd rounds), we might need to rethink whether the juice is worth the squeeze. The other thing is that Scandinavia in particular is so far out of position for offensive units, particularly if the biggest area of concern is holding off Kamchatka.
@The_Good_Captain said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
Most TripleA players will know what board TUV is. After a stock opener as the Soviets the TUV is usually 102 IPC in favor of NATO with land/air alone
You have a point, but you’re also completely discounting the fact that NATO can only really act at 1/3rd efficiency with those units. If we have the “fruity pebbles” situation in France, the USSR typically can’t outmatch NATO’s defense, but likewise even all 3 NATO powers acting in concert can’t evict the Soviets out of West Germany, either.
(In an Axis & Allies game where each side is split between 2-3 factions, this dynamic is more balanced out. Come to think of it, this might be why the Pacific 1940 game is so tilted towards Japan, because their opponents are split into China/UK/ANZAC/US whereas the Japanese are just one unitary behemoth.)I mentioned it earlier in the thread that the total infantry of both sides is relatively even after the Soviet opener, meaning it’s only the rd1 purchases keeping NATO ahead; after that, there’s a big drop-off for WE from their starting income. (In fact, one of the house rules I had proposed back in the day is that their rd1 income should reflect only the territories they start their turn with, but that’s another conversation.)
Off the top of my head, (after S1) typically the US has 5 fighters, UK has 3, and WE has 2 – compared to 7 for the USSR.
For tanks, it’s in the same ballpark; USSR has 12 (+3 heavies) vs. 5 for the US (one that’s stranded on Okinawa, of all places), 4 for the UK (scattered across the globe), and 2 for WE.If there’s one obvious place where NATO is ahead, it’s bombers (5 to 1) but again, outside of naval combat I find myself mainly using them for paratrooper transport; granted, SBR can really sting the Soviets, but a bomber lost to AA basically isn’t getting replaced – so that stings pretty hard, too. I should also add that the US is essentially always at risk of losing one bomber to deliver a nuke, because ballistic missiles have such a limited range – and if you try to fire a nuke from anywhere in Europe (to get closer to the juicier Soviet targets) you’re risking a costly detonation, even if you did ship over an AA gun to do it without risking a bomber.
(Another point worth mentioning is that the ballistic missile tech works like a tonic for the USSR, because all of their coastal ICs/AA guns are basically exactly where you would want to launch a nuke from, if you’re gunning for NATO’s ships – meaning they effectively don’t require bombers for their nukes once they get the tech, unlike the US.)
So even if NATO is ahead by 102 on TUV, if 60 of that is just bombers, and another 34 of that are WE’s tanks+fighters…? I’m not sure there’s as wide a gulf as the numbers would seem to demonstrate. We’re both on record as saying that total infantry / infantry production is something we pay close attention to in E&W – I think that metric might be more telling than TUV in this game. Case in point, the USSR can be behind by ~100 in TUV and probably still be competitive, but if they’re below NATO in infantry production, their goose is cooked.
As our current game hopefully illustrates, I think there’s a case to be made that NATO needs to focus on building their logistics up in order to get all that TUV to where it actually needs to be; if this means building transports ahead of spies, that also opens a window for the USSR. Generally I think the randomness of tech and spying make for a bad balancing mechanic, but it’s not nothing at least.
I think it’s safe to say that both sides are on timers of their own. The USSR needs to come up with ways to disrupt the naval situation ASAP (as well as throughout the game) while patching up their defense enough to at least counterattack (if not repel) any/all likely invasions.
NATO on the other hand needs to make landfall before the USSR can spin up their nuke production. If the NATO fleet is bombed, the remaining transports are sitting ducks; if there isn’t another nuke in the pipeline, then sure, they can just keep on keeping on for a while – but my sense is it’s better to preserve those units by redirecting them out of range, rather than just feed them into the wood-chipper and replace them afterwards.
This is why I point to a Philippines IC as a way to keep some flow of US units into Asia if/when nukes make the Kamchatka route unsustainable. But this sort of begs the question of “if NATO loses the naval game, do they just lose? or is their 2nd-best strategy still a viable option?” Having tried non-Kamchatka strategies as the US, I’m inclined to think that the shortest/fastest supply chains for NATO are the only ones that work – so if the USSR develops a hard counter to that, then NATO just can’t win. The followup question then becomes, is 6-8 rounds enough time for the USSR to leverage nukes and defeat the navy? I think shy of them shooting way under on their opener, it should be doable.
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This’ll be my last post on this topic out of time constraints. I love the back and forth, but I don’t see anything here that is new or otherwise convinces me that the game is balanced or that it favors the USSR.
At this point, I don’t see there being any daylight made between us on game theory (which is fine with me). This is the main reason I don’t really like to write essays. I just don’t have the time, and minds generally don’t get changed via this method in my experience.
You have a point, but you’re also completely discounting the fact that NATO can only really act at 1/3rd efficiency with those units.
I did not discount this, but I didn’t share every detail of the valuation so it’s totally forgivable. My valuation does not include infantry from either side because there’s almost EXACTLY the same amount for each side at the end of R1. NATO has more stuff in every category at the end of the Soviet opener except tanks - it has way more stuff in every category at the end of the actual round once everyone has had a turn. Further, to be fair with regards to TUV, we’d have to count NATOs first round of purchases in the valuation. This essentially nearly doubles the TUV gulf. I didn’t mention this in the initial post.
Fruity pebbles is a phenomenon that exists to some extent in every version of axis and allies. This is extremely challenging for AnA players to handle on a good day. The response is to understand you only need to be winning in one area of the map and holding everywhere else to win the game. There are finer details, but this is the general concept. In E&W, its hold in India, hold in Europe and kick in the back door as the USA in Kamchatka. After the first two to three turns, the economy is balanced as you point out, but NATO has 200 TUV over the Russians (not including the Navy) and the Russians should be contained with their demise coming on their east front via USA. This is the best way to “see” the imbalance. There is a loss of kinetic energy as the Russians as the economy balances and then the USA is piercing through.
I could (and might) run the same valuation for Anniversary and Classic to have something to compare it to so this is better understood but I don’t know. Takes time to lay out and I’d rather be playing. I’m unchanged. NATO should win 6/7 games at least. If that’s not happening, there was some extreme dice event or NATO was mishandled. But I leave my mind open to being changed over the board. If something can be demonstrated repeatedly, I absolutely will abandon this position after investigating why/what was so misleading - but experience tells me that is unlikely.
If the game ends up being balanced or less in favor of NATO, I believe it will come from increasing the risk profile of the soviet opener to an… unreliable but at least threatening chance of success as @Ragnell804 did. But you’ll still need very good dice.
OR
…get to the Fusion bomb asap. This is the “heavy bombers” of East and West. Maybe through some combination of spies and tech, the soviets can make up the massive TUV advantage by blowing away pieces in a truly economical way.
As a side note: the NATO “at start” nuke is very impactful in the ways that are considered secondary. Removing 5 Russian infantry might be a letdown, but when you do this to the SFE industrial complex on the turn you land in Kamchatka, you ensure the Russian counterattack is less likely to succeed because they’re down five infantry and can’t move their fighters due to EMP. Finally, on the Russian turn, because the IPC value has been reduced, the Russians can only add two Russian infantries instead of four.
This typically forces the Russian player into a horrific choice. Abandon the territory leaving the fighters to be destroyed because they couldn’t move. Or fight a losing battle in SFE and die with the fighters albeit at higher NATO cost. If NATO is using the nuke in some other way, imo - it’s being used inefficiently. Full stop. The NATO nuke is for the critical territory of SFE timed when landing in Kamchatka.
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…and for anyone that reads down this far. I have nothing but respect for @The-Janus because he is an actual player of AnA. He’s the only reason I even knew about or play this wonderful version of the game.
And as you pointed out offline, I agree with you 100% - the meta for this game is not written in stone yet. What I am saying is from the dozen or so games I’ve played against two different opponents. My standard is to try to log at least 30 complete games against at least five or six different opponents to have that completely fleshed out.
I speak only from what I feel are ‘early strong indications’. But my experience with AnA: Europe has shown me that you can have someone come along who thinks differently and rock the boat (if not tip it over) with regards to strategy. In that version, it wasn’t until about 20 or so games in when it became apparent that threatening Sealion in basically every game appears to be more competitive than not doing it.
This was not at all apparent or intuitive until someone put their money where there mouth was and demonstrated it. That is an example of the ‘early meta’ being altered in a significant if not critical way.
I love the game but have an unequaled respect for the players. Everything here is said with kindness and an embracing of the adage “i could be wrong”. If I could put “imo” at the beginning and end of every sentence, I would. Text is a difficult format to express thoughts of this gravity imo. There is no mic drop. I’ll converse - just not so much the large essays bc it takes away from game time for me.
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@The_Good_Captain said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
As a side note: the NATO “at start” nuke is very impactful in the ways that are considered secondary. Removing 5 Russian infantry might be a letdown, but when you do this to the SFE industrial complex on the turn you land in Kamchatka, you ensure the Russian counterattack is less likely to succeed because they’re down five infantry and can’t move their fighters due to EMP. Finally, on the Russian turn, because the IPC value has been reduced, the Russians can only add two Russian infantries instead of four.
This typically forces the Russian player into a horrific choice. Abandon the territory leaving the fighters to be destroyed because they couldn’t move. Or fight a losing battle in SFE and die with the fighters albeit at higher NATO cost. If NATO is using the nuke in some other way, imo - it’s being used inefficiently. Full stop. The NATO nuke is for the critical territory of SFE timed when landing in Kamchatka.
As a matter of tactics, I wonder if there’s a scenario in which the Soviets can afford to abandon Eastern Siberia, and rely on counter-attacking? I know in my early days of playing, China seemed extremely fickle, and always seemed to turn away from the USSR, leaving North Korea exposed and with the Soviets unable to hide in their territory.
Really I think in order to hold off the Americans, they actually need to have a big enough force in both Eastern Siberia and Kamchatka, and to at least control South Korea (even if they can’t hold off the US from landing there) while having the Chinese in, defending the North. Most US players are hesitant to attack North Korea militarily, because if the Soviets can retake it, the Chinese just move right back in at the end of their turn. That means still needing to have a strong counter-attacking force either in Eastern Siberia or Manchuria… but maybe that makes it slightly more workable?
That all being said, I don’t know where these hypothetical Soviet reinforcements would be coming from, in time for rd3. As tempting as it is to not place a ton in the east for the first round or so (while the US navy is all tangled up) I’m getting the sense that the Soviets kind of have to.
I do enjoy discussing strategy and tactics, but I’ll try to keep my posts shorter going forward. I don’t write huge walls of text to drown anyone else out, I just actually enjoy writing :)
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@The-Janus write away! I still enjoy the read but might have shorter or more infrequent responses.
Yeah, dead zoning as you mention is / would /should be interesting for the soviets in that section of the battlefield.
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@The_Good_Captain I have been following this discussion with interest as I work on my East & West mod for TripleA. It is basically working, but I am using the Big World map rather than the East & West map. I have started the process of creating a new map.
I also noticed that the best of use of Nukes is to hit the counterattack force, when I playing against the AI.
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@RogerCooper said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
@The_Good_Captain I have been following this discussion with interest as I work on my East & West mod for TripleA. It is basically working, but I am using the Big World map rather than the East & West map. I have started the process of creating a new map.
I also noticed that the best of use of Nukes is to hit the counterattack force, when I playing against the AI.
Which side is nuking who and where? Be advised, you cannot attack a territory on the same turn that territory was nuked.
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@The_Good_Captain said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
@RogerCooper said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
@The_Good_Captain I have been following this discussion with interest as I work on my East & West mod for TripleA. It is basically working, but I am using the Big World map rather than the East & West map. I have started the process of creating a new map.
I also noticed that the best of use of Nukes is to hit the counterattack force, when I playing against the AI.
Which side is nuking who and where? Be advised, you cannot attack a territory on the same turn that territory was nuked.
I have no way of enforcing in TripleA that you can’t nuke and conventionally attack. The best I can achieve is that conventional forces can’t fire in the first round.
As a player, on any side, I find nuking counterattack forces is best. This is true for other mods with similar rules like The Grand War.
The AI in TripleA does not generally buy nukes. When it has them, it generally tries to inflict the maximum PU loss, rather than integrating the attack with other tactics.
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@RogerCooper said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
I find nuking counterattack forces is best
General observation, but it seems like hitting the backline with nukes while hitting the frontline with conventional forces is the way to gradually wear the enemy down.
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