• Moderator

    Here are some stats for the League from this year.  From 12/9 to 8/25.  (give or take a game or two)

    Axis wins:  47
    Allied wins: 31

    Axis are winning at about 60%.

    It should be noted as I was doing my tally, it was pretty even up to about a few months ago.  It seemed like the last 10-15 games where heavily for the Axis (80% range).

    This is also a mix of 41 and 42 results.

  • Moderator

    More numbers:

    Avg bid:  7.5  (570/76)

    76 games.  I must have missed two games in my bid count.  One was the Func-Gamer final for 42 for “last year”.  But I’m not sure where the other game was.

    Bids in order from older games to most recent (12/9 to 8/25)

    0 8 9 9 6 5 9 5 6 9 9 7 6 10 9 6 3 9 7 8
    9 6 0 9 6 4 8 3 9 3 9 11 9 3 9 10 8 8 11
    8 9 4 10 6 6 10 9 6 7 7 10 8 6 9 7 4 9 6
    7 7 9 10 8 7 7 8 11 12 9 9 10 7 6 9 9 9


  • You missed a game between gamerman and luckylindy where the bid was 19

  • Moderator

    @Ol’:

    You missed a game between gamerman and luckylindy where the bid was 19

    I only included completed games (posted in results thread).  So any games that are still active aren’t in the count.

    I’d expect a lot more higher bid games to come in at the end of the years results.  Might push the big avg up to 8 or 9.  Which still might be low given the level of some of the Axis play out there.


  • Nice stats, interesting to consider, thx DM :)

    @DarthMaximus:

    given the level of some of the Axis play out there.

    I think that’s an important point here : I think that people play better the axis than the allies, and I believe that axis is easier to apprehend (which does not mean easy) : axis has the first moves, allies need to react. Therefore, just the first round is really different according to the side you play, and it is imho definitely easier to “optimize” the first round for the axis, which may have a huge impact on the next rounds in a close game (players around the same level for example).

    For instance, I have one file for my G1 and two for my J1 (according to R1) for a classic game (does not mean I always use them ; I need to make minor modifications for the bid for instance, or I may change a few things according to my mood or really weird dices). I have none for  the allies.

    So yes, my bid to play the allies is for the moment higher than at the beggining I came around here, but I believe that the allies game can be improved a lot (but that’s pure intuition, so maybe totally wrong :) )

    Yoshi, just some thoughts

  • Moderator

    Good points Yoshi.

    It’s very hard to come up with a list of typical Allied moves.  There are just too many viartions of results for G1 and J1.  Germany kind of always does the same attacks (bst, epl, ukr, sz 2, sz 12, sz 6) maybe they throw in an occasional sz 9 or Egy (no bid placement there), but that is basically it.  However, what they bring to each battle (particularly the land battles) can really vary a lot.  So its hard to come with with one particular set of moves for Russia.  And that is where the coordinated Allied strat has to start.  You’d need one for it Germany takse BST heavy, or Ukr Heavy, bought ships for Sz 5, etc.  If you don’t know how you are playing Russia, you can’t plan for UK and US.  You need to see the results of G1, etc.  Its just not quite as cookie cutter (for the Allies) as maybe Revised was where you can say, I’ll buy an AC for UK and land US ftrs there.  You might need those ftrs in the Pac depending on Japan’s moves.

    I also agree that Allied play can improve a lot.  And I think its just a matter of games where the allied player starts to recognize whats best (after G1) for that particular game whether its a KGF, KJF, Balanced approach etc.  It some spots the Allies might be able to start to gear Germany into more predictible openings given bid placements.  For Example, the Egy bid can take that option out of the equation and perhaps strong bids to Russia and you can start to prepare for easier counters of BST (or Ukr) on R1.  Lots of stuff that needs to be worked out for the Allies, which will just take playing more games.  :-D

  • '10

    @DarthMaximus:

    Axis are winning at about 60%.

    It should be noted as I was doing my tally, it was pretty even up to about a few months ago.  It seemed like the last 10-15 games where heavily for the Axis (80% range).

    This is also a mix of 41 and 42 results.

    You can thank me for this.  I’m either 1-4 or 1-5 this year as the allies in '41 ( 1-6 counting the tourney ) with bids in the 6-10 range all against relatively strong opponents.

    I either need to up my bid tolerance or find some patsies  :evil:


  • Enjoy the discussion of Yoshi and DM
    I also have skewed the results, since I took the Axis in all 11 results and won them all.  Probably not evenly matched in several of the games, either.  If we had to play half as Allies and half as Axis it wouldn’t be as skewed.  If I didn’t play in the league at all this year, your results would be Axis 36, Allies 31.

    DM, do you have time to separate the bids and Axis/Allies results between '41 and '42?  I guess probably the vast majority are '41 anyway, though, aren’t they.

  • Moderator

    Yeah, I didn’t realize they were mixed results until after I started, but yeah, most are 41.  There are some tech games too.  I think its safe to assume the bid level would be about the same if it was just '41.

    The last line of bids are pretty much all '41 if I recall and gives you a good indication where we are going:

    7 7 9 10 8 7 7 8 11 12 9 9 10 7 6 9 9 9

    Certainly 9, 10, 11+ range.


  • Realized after posting, actually one of my results was '42 and I was the Allies and it had tech….

    But I think it’s safe to conclude that with an average bid of around 9, the Allies still lose a bit more than 50% of the time in '41.

  • '16 '15 '10

    Good discussion.

    I’ve always demanded a high bid (at least 8) to be Allies…in that sense I benefited somewhat from TripleA experience…by the time I started playing 41 more experienced players had already established that a bid of at least 6 was necessary.  Nowadays the standard bid for low luck no tech games is 13.  Since then Allies’ strats have improved so even though Axis still wins the majority of games, Allies are not doing so bad in the ladder games at that bid.

    Given the potential for first round dices to swing the advantage to Allies in dice games, the bid for dice should be lower than 13.  But it’s hard to guess the right number–obviously it’s somewhere between 6-12.  Right now, this league is the best data-set available for dice 41.

    Anyway, as someone who enjoys playing Allies and would like to play them more, it’s nice to see that the bids are getting more reasonable around here.

  • '16 '15 '10

    I guess the point is that first round dice are so much more significant than bids that it could take some time before there is any agreement about what a fair bid would be.

    I mean, even if Allies get a 12 bid, if everything on G1 and J1 goes smoothly then Allies are potentially in trouble.  However, even if Allies get only 6, if Axis runs into bad dice at SZ12 or SZ2 or SZ53 then the ipc swing involved is likely 20-30 or more, and the result dwarfs the bid.  In cases like these a few ipcs hardly make a difference.  One game tells us next to nothing, but a hundred games would tell us alot.


  • @Zhukov44:

    I guess the point is that first round dice are so much more significant than bids that it could take some time before there is any agreement about what a fair bid would be.

    I mean, even if Allies get a 12 bid, if everything on G1 and J1 goes smoothly then Allies are potentially in trouble.  However, even if Allies get only 6, if Axis runs into bad dice at SZ12 or SZ2 or SZ53 then the ipc swing involved is likely 20-30 or more, and the result dwarfs the bid.  In cases like these a few ipcs hardly make a difference.  One game tells us next to nothing, but a hundred games would tell us alot.

    AMEN to that.  Until now I felt like I was the only person preaching this sermon.


  • I agree with Gamerman and Zhukov. Bad first round dice can be more devastating to the axis than certain bids.

  • Moderator

    I agree about the first rd battles.  It is one of the reason that I thought the Allies might have the adv when the game first came out.  Was wrong there because it turns out even with the 15-20 attacks on G-J1 the Axis still come out “good enough” more times than not.

    A couple things bids can do though, are eliminate options the Allies have to worry about and so they can at least start to plan for some things long term and they can also give the Axis something to think about, so maybe they can’t do their cookie cutter opening.


  • Bids are great, especially because they help determine sides without dispute, but people often make too big of a deal out of differences of 1 or 2 IPC’s in bids.  Getting an 8 bid instead of a 6 bid will almost never win or lose the game for you.  Each side starts with somewhere around 1,000 of IPC value on the board, plus a couple hundred in cash on hand, so an IPC or 2 is barely a ripple in the pond.


  • I agree Gamerman. Bids are great mostly because the different placement options. Makes the games much more interesting. It would almost be dull to start a game with a standard setup.

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