2014 League Post Game Results Here

[Gargantua]

@MrRoboto:

Oh my…

You totally smashed me back then :-) And while I truly have improved a lot ever since, chances are you’re still gonna win against me, since I am still not on par with the Tier1’s in this league.

But I’d love to play a rematch. If it’s a league game! Who wants to see Garg in the league??!?!?!

Make a bid!

[Gargantua]

Of interest…

The win constitution of the top 9 players in the league:

30 Allied Wins
72 Axis Wins

The loss constitution of the top 8 players in the league:

14 Allied Losses
20 Axis Losses

The top 9 players in the league have played
92 games as Axis  (Winning 78%)
44 games as Allies (Winning 68%)

CONCLUSION:
At first I wanted to jump to the conclusion that the Axis were simply stronger at setup.
but now I wonder…

Are the Axis better because the top players play them more often?  Or are the top players better because they choose to take the Axis side more often?

Which matters more? The setup or the player?  Maybe League 2015 has a stipulation that you should play some games for each side?  Like if you play a 2nd game against an opponent, that you switch the bid inversely and play?

Just food for thought.

[gamerman01]

I like the analysis, Garg,
I’ve been asking myself the same question for awhile, too.

Looking into the top 9 myself,
Me1945 and Wheatbeer

Me1945 hasn’t lost, and has taken the Axis 10 times but the Allies only 2
Wheatbeer loves the Axis, specializes in them, and plays them much better than the Allies.

Ghostglider and Boldfresh have actually both had more success with the Allies this year

Rasmustb, Hobo, Gamerman01, and Zhukov
Zhukov and myself are not really specialists (we don’t normally prefer one side much more than the other) and have both had more success with the Axis
Rasmustb and Hobo have had more success with the Axis.  (I think this is your typical player’s experience - they win more with the Axis)

My conclusion:
When you look at the individual data, you see mixed results and circumstances.  This is a rather small sample size (about 9 players), but it still seems to appear the Axis are easier to win with.
Only having to win on one board or the other is a big advantage.

[Karl7]

@Gamerman01:

I like the analysis, Garg,
I’ve been asking myself the same question for awhile, too.

Looking into the top 9 myself,
Me1945 and Wheatbeer

Me1945 hasn’t lost, and has taken the Axis 10 times but the Allies only 2
Wheatbeer loves the Axis, specializes in them, and plays them much better than the Allies.

Ghostglider and Boldfresh have actually both had more success with the Allies this year

Rasmustb, Hobo, Gamerman01, and Zhukov
Zhukov and myself are not really specialists (we don’t normally prefer one side much more than the other) and have both had more success with the Axis
Rasmustb and Hobo have had more success with the Axis.  (I think this is your typical player’s experience - they win more with the Axis)

My conclusion:
When you look at the individual data, you see mixed results and circumstances.  This is a rather small sample size (about 9 players), but it still seems to appear the Axis are easier to win with.
Only having to win on one board or the other is a big advantage.

Having played more games than anyone aside from Mr. Roboto this league, I will say the Axis play has really gotten good.  I say this as one who usually (almost exclusively) plays the Allies.

But is this the player or the game?  Hm, I’d say both to the extent that it takes great players to exploit the weaknesses of the game.  Right now the weakness that is being exploited is that Japan is so powerful at the start that the US really has to do a tricky job of countering it while not allowing the Germans/Italians to run wild.  If you get that wrong, then you’re looking at one side or the other falling to the Axis.

If there is a “problem” with the game, I think, and as I have said before many times, it is the real weakness of the UK.  Its NO’s suck.  It’s fleet gets wiped out every time, allowing the Axis to control the Atlantic/Med for a time.  Egypt is seriously hard to defend against a concerted Axis attack.  This is why most or all of any bid goes to them.

Before I jump in the 2015 league, maybe I will spend some time studying this and try to find a solution.  Maybe it really is that the bid needs to be a minimum of 18.  I’ve been doing 12 to 9 and getting killed!

[Gargantua]

I agree that the NO’s are really screwed up. With the axis having so many relatively easy ones to get, and the allies having stupid and unachievable NO’s like the 10 for taking Berlin.

The France capital Conundrum is another big game breaker.

I wonder if the League introduced one simple change like:
*Allies can choose to liberate Paris - or to not Liberate paris upon capture, or can activate on a subsequent turn
*Or UK gets +5 No for no subs in Atlantic.
*Or UK india also gets a bonus for Burma Road open instead of Hong Kong and Malaya
*Or Russia starts with a bomber

Or something like that, how much difference it would make?

I get that we don’t want to detract from the game design, and turn this into some whole other beast.  But one day there is going to be a global 3rd edition, and we want to be the ones who come up with the strategy that evens things out a bit!

At the very least, if we drew back or at least reviewed one/some of the allied NO’s from the global Alpha editions we might get things closer to that balanced factor we like.

Perhaps we include/allow bids for extra NO’s as opposed to just units?

[Gargantua]

I’m willing to buck up and pay Veqryn some cash to implement some game setup options that would allow you to selectively turn on/off one or two etra/alpha allied NO’s.  That would simplify the process from a playing perspective?

Food for thought of course.  Bids in the 20 range kind of sucks…

[Gargantua]

Out of curiosity, in the entire history of the league has anyone EVER got the Russian +10 NO!?

[Karl7]

Axis Dominion (Axis) over Karl7

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=34536.135

Another good example of why 9 bid is too low against good Axis players.

[variance]

@Gargantua:

Out of curiosity, in the entire history of the league has anyone EVER got the Russian +10 NO!?

I think Karl got it on me once.  I knew I was losing so I thought it was funny to just retreat ALL my units back to Berlin for the final APOCALYPSE.  It was kind of awesome and he got his 10 bucks  :-)

[Vold]

@Gamerman01:

I like the analysis, Garg,
I’ve been asking myself the same question for awhile, too.

Looking into the top 9 myself,
Me1945 and Wheatbeer

Me1945 hasn’t lost, and has taken the Axis 10 times but the Allies only 2
Wheatbeer loves the Axis, specializes in them, and plays them much better than the Allies.

Ghostglider and Boldfresh have actually both had more success with the Allies this year

Rasmustb, Hobo, Gamerman01, and Zhukov
Zhukov and myself are not really specialists (we don’t normally prefer one side much more than the other) and have both had more success with the Axis
Rasmustb and Hobo have had more success with the Axis.  (I think this is your typical player’s experience - they win more with the Axis)

My conclusion:
When you look at the individual data, you see mixed results and circumstances.  This is a rather small sample size (about 9 players), but it still seems to appear the Axis are easier to win with.
Only having to win on one board or the other is a big advantage.

I’m glad this was brought up.  I’ve been tracking this for a while, not from a win/loss perspective but a ‘% of Games Played as Axis’ one.

It can be debated if it is that the Axis are easier to play or that the better players prefer Axis resulting in higher Axis stats.  Either way, it’s clear the Axis are preferred by the Tier 1 players.

% of Games Played As Axis
Player Tier 5/23/2014 7/20/2014    9/10/2014
Tier 1          68%           69%            67%
Tier 2          37%           34%            37%
Tier 3          52%           51%            49%
Tier 4          53%           53%            52%

Interesting to note the split between Tier 1 and Tier 2 on Axis play - my estimation is there are a lot of Tier 1 Axis - Tier 2 Allied games.

V

[Vold]

wow - that was ugly.  But if you line up the dates to the columns you get the idea.
V

[Karl7]

RPG4 Allies over Karl7

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=34507.105

Game came down to a 50/50 for India and Japan was routed hard.

[rgp44]

that’s rgp44 actually

[Karl7]

Oh Man!  Sorry RGP44!

He’s a good player!  :lol:

[gamerman01]

@Gargantua:

Out of curiosity, in the entire history of the league has anyone EVER got the Russian +10 NO!?

I got it very recently, as a matter of fact.
Berlin taken on UK5, then again on R6, game over.  Just 2 weeks ago.

[gamerman01]

@Karl7:

Oh Man!  Sorry RGP44!

He’s a good player!  :lol:

Yes, the league knows him, though this is his first game result in 2014….
You get credit for losing to a tier 1, Karl.  He was 9-1 last year at 4.30 PPG.

[rgp44]

close game, Karl could have easily won.  I’m still kind of at a loss how to save Russia.

[Shin-Ji]

SouL (Allies +15) trounces Shin Ji (Axis)

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=34411.new#new

Went for a sealion, got it, and then had nowhere to go.  Man.  Sealioning seems like more and more of a trap option.

[souL]

@balance: It’s clearly an NO thing, for the most part. However, it would seem that it could be more about the Allies denying NOs. Would a bid dedicated solely to the Russians be most advantageous? In at least 1 game Me1945 played the Allies he did it. They have a lot of resources and NOs to protect from the Germans. They don’t get involved right away, BUT I would bet there is a correlation between Russian survival and Axis victory.

Things like inf Guiana and inf New Guinea are nice for picking up IPCs at low opportunity cost. In the ANZAC case, it’s nice because it leaves an easy 24 IPC to be collected with a unprovoked DoW on Japan ANZ1. We know sub 98 and ftr scotland certainly help mitigate loss and raise cost effectiveness. 22 seems like a good number, but I have somehow managed to completely botch G40 since I’ve started it.

[souL]

Whackamatt (Allies +11) over vs. souL (Axis)

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=33955.0

Another long one, 22 rounds in and it was even for most of it.