@regularkid Also no big deal but should be +10 in the thread title
Out of the Box 2nd Edition League Discussion
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I definitely would have sent the battleship to 110 to soak up plane hits instead of the subs. I disagree though that it was a bad choice to do the SZ110 + SZ111 attack: Booper had about a 7% chance of winning this match based on ELO differences so an audacious/game-changing turn 1 is often necessary to change the odds to something better than 7%.
Here is the odds for the net planes lost (10 German vs 5 Allied scramblers)
45% disasterous (-1 relative planes lost)
20% not good (0 to +1 plane outcome)
25% good (+2 to +3 plane outcome)
10% amazing (+4 to +5 plane outcome)Sadly for Booper, he got -3 plane outcome which made this game a Loss on G1, but I think he would have had a reasonable chance of winning in the 35% of outcomes where he gains 2 or more planes in the exchange, and would have a net increase of his expected win rate on average.
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@Booper I would master the Cow opener, with more fidelity to his plane. You got almost everything correct on J1, and I agree with you attacking Yunan and SZ62. However, you did not take Borneo which meant your fleet was out of position for a critical extra turn allowing the Allied fleet to give you a bunch of headaches.
There was a risk that UK India could counterattack, but you should have welcomed the chance for him to get diced.
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@Arthur-Bomber-Harris said in Out of the Box 2nd Edition League Discussion:
I definitely would have sent the battleship to 110 to soak up plane hits instead of the subs. I disagree though that it was a bad choice to do the SZ110 + SZ111 attack: Booper had about a 7% chance of winning this match based on ELO differences so an audacious/game-changing turn 1 is often necessary to change the odds to something better than 7%.
Nope! He had a really bad G1 and went 17 rounds and could have hung on longer than that.
If you can suffer a G1 like that, I mean, it was really bad, and go 17 rounds with farmboy you definitely had a lot >7% chance
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@Arthur-Bomber-Harris said in Out of the Box 2nd Edition League Discussion:
Sadly for Booper, he got -3 plane outcome which made this game a Loss on G1, but I think he would have had a reasonable chance of winning in the 35% of outcomes where he gains 2 or more planes in the exchange, and would have a net increase of his expected win rate on average.
You left something out. I know it’s blasphemy, but you ignored France. He had to route tanks north and south on G2 - terrible! Aircraft over France instead of 110.
I look forward to playing you!
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@gamerman01 I looked at the map after turn 5 and it was a very high probability of loss, needing a huge blunder by Farmboy to even have a chance of victory by that point. The victory would have been virtually guaranteed by the end of turn 1 if the Yunnan attack also resulted in disaster.
There is a reason why Farmboy has the ELO ranking he has earned. His mistakes are infrequent and minor, and to capitalize on the errors requires the game to still be close.
There are not too many game-changing battles where luck plays a major portion of the outcome after the first turn. I make the opening as dicey as possible when playing against better opponents like Farmboy or Andrew.
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Thoroughly enjoyed everything you said, and I hope others chime in, especially booper!
I have an ELO too!
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Thanks guys for taking a look!
After the disastrous G1, against someone of Farmboy’s caliber, my thinking was this game was effectively over. I think overall France was at +7 hits after turn 2, which was ridiculous.
I went full “risk on” for J1, as I had nothing to lose at that point. Got lucky on several key coin flips (mainly attacking the Anzac DD and Transport), so the game continued on!
German was severely hampered though, having lost all art and mechs in France. I think the “avg” outcome is to lose 7 infantry with an all ground attack.
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Thx for your comments on J1, will take a closer look tonight when I can.
I’ll also point out a few key battles/moves that stuck out to me, that you may not notice unless you go through the history either a fine tooth comb.
This game lasted over 6 months. It was so tough playing against Farmboy, at times I felt I was working on a problem set in grad school! Normally I play fairly quick and casually, but I tried very hard to cover all my bases as best I could.
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You will have a worse result than average almost 50% of the time!
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Ha ha, very true.
Btw, I posted this in the game thread, but worth repeating here. After round 2, here are the French dice rolls.
French Combat
1 was rolled 10 times
2 was rolled 9 times
3 was rolled 4 times
5 was rolled 3 times
6 was rolled 1 times
Average roll : 2.259
Median : 2.000
Variance : 3.288
Standard Deviation : 1.813
Total rolls : 27That’s at least 19 of 27 hits, some of those 3s may have also been armor/fighter hits.
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Hi Booper: Here was my gameplan against Farmboy last year. He did not have the Scottish fighter which made it safer to do SZ110 and SZ111 but the dice were not very kind in the second battle. He had a very strong defense of Moscow so I bypassed it down to the oil fields of the Middle East. India fell on J6 which was the crucial battle for the Axis. Perhaps you could have had a much stronger focus on capturing India in the mid-game, even allowing China to get out of control strong if that accelerated the destruction of UK Pacific.
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A great example - I should have done my homework and looked at your game in more detail. :)
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Going to attempt a synopsis from my perspective (Axis). Farmboy, feel free to chime in as you see fit.
G1: - attack both 110 and 111. 111 goes well, but 110 losses 3 German planes without killing any Allied fighters.
- France attack of all possibly ground forces goes poorly, losing all infantry, all artillery, and all but 1 mech.
J1: - Russian bid is 1 fighter, not 2, but still does the Yunnan stack with 5 inf. After the poor G1, I figure this game is lost, so go all-out risk on, and attack all allies with marginal/even odds at Yunnan and SZ6. Overall goes very well Japan, well enough that I felt it offset some of G1, so we continue!
G2: Due to lack of resources, decide not to take Normandy, ends up being helpful as Allies land there, but cannot use the minor complex. Allies do not make significant headway, as German has much better reinforcement pipeline.
G6: 6 inf + 3 art lose to 1 AA, 4 inf, 1 fighter at Rostov. This was 88% odds to win. This happens a couple more times in future rounds.
R6: 1 armor, 2 mech, lose to 1 art in Ethiopia. This denies Russia the +3 bonus, and keeps Axis in the game.
US7/UK7: ***Allies sacrifice 6 transports to land in Norway
- German response is to build transports to land troops in Finland, which stalls future push into Russia for many rounds.
US10: German AA rolls 1,1 on 2 US bombers, providing a bit of relief from the Allied bombing campaign. If not for this, game likely would have ended much sooner.
US11: US Pac fleet able to land ground units in India, making it a lot tougher for Japan to take.
J12: ***Axis makes a mistake, forgetting that there is a Harbor in India, building 6 subs, thinking the US fleet that landed in India can only move as far as the Java SZ. The harbor allows the fleet to unite in SZ55 with reinforcements, and block the subs with 2 DDs. May have been a critical error here, as this build could have been 6 tanks to take down India.
J13: Japan attempts to help Germany with some fast movers, as Germans having trouble against Russian land units with most resources devoted to taking back Norway.
US13: Allies land in Greece/Med
G16: Germans take back Norway
G17: Germany sends all air that can reach to SZ97, in a 50/50 battle to sink a 2 CV fleet, with 5 transports. Allies defend successfully.
J17: Japan eliminates China
G18: Germany again tries to sink Allied fleet with 2 transports, this time with ~60% odds to win, but again lose, resulting in end of game.
The UK air force is enormous, and Axis cannot stop the taking of Rome with the addition of those 2 transports. Japan probably has the land forces to take India, but it will take at least 5 turns to march back down to attack India. Germany will have trouble holding out that long.
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