2013 - AAG 40 League

While I would welcome a limit, personally I am fine with waiting until next season. I can always negotiate such a limit independently with my potential opponents.

I’m not sure how often the Yunnan stack (+ R1 air relief) is being used. I have had it done to me once by Boldfresh, and I’m in the middle of a game where I did it to snake11eyes. In both cases, it let the Allies cripple Japan prematurely.

Anyone else have any experience with this?

@Cmdr:

Isn’t the solution to that making sure your opponent doesn’t get a 9-12 IPC bid?

YES
That is my position as well.  You don’t want to see 3 or 4 infantry placed in Yunnan?  You can guarantee that they aren’t.  Bid him down to 8.

The rules are the same for both players.  If he gives you a 9 or 12 bid, then go right ahead and put your 3-4 infantry on Yunnan, fly your Russian planes away where they can’t get all the way back for 2 turns, and cripple Japan - more power to you.

Nobody can force you to allow a 9 or 12 bid, period.

This reminds me of the dreaded bomber bid of AA50.

Oh heaven forbid that you would allow a bid of 12, because the other player would pounce on the opportunity to put a Russian bomber in Far east that had a 57% chance of sinking a Japanese destroyer and 2 transports!

Same thing - if Russia and the Allies want to spend their entire bid that way and go for a dicey round 1 move, go right ahead.  It doesn’t scare me.  If it does, I just bid you low enough that you can’t do it.

If a bid’s pegged to a single potential cheese placement, then bids might no longer serve their purpose, to balance the game.

I believe the Allies need more than 8, though I grant plenty of other player likely disagree with me  :|

I think the primary and most important purpose of bids is to help decide who takes who and both players should always be happy with the side they’re playing

Also, as you said, if a bid is pegged to a single Chinese placement, then there is some number that you would agree also balances the game.

You’re saying the allies need help and that too many infantry to Yunnan help too much.

No problem - determine what that number is and then you know what to bid.

With stacking in China allowed (and an opponent of equal strength) 9 is too high to give, and 8 is too low to take. Does that make sense?

My solution will just be to negotiate extra bidding terms before play, which is what I have been doing most of the time anyways  :-D

Ah, brilliant - that should make everybody happy.

If you can get your opponent to agree before bidding that it will be max 1 unit per TT, then go right ahead.  Everybody’s happy.  For an hour, at least.

As I have been following these conversations a few thoughts have come to me. Jenn, Gman, the community, you can do whatever you want with these thoughts of mine.

1. I am not sure how far back this goes and I don’t think it was ever written in our league rules but at some point we/I/DM thought if a game didn’t reach T2 then it shouldn’t be counted in the standings. Perhaps it was a “gentlemanly” thing to do, but most full time players don’t abandon games prematurely and if a newbie doesn’t continue a game into T2 it wasn’t acknowledged as a “W”.

2. W/respect to the bidding, it has always been an open, no restrictions on stacking, placement. If a 12 IPC stack really altered the game and then became the norm, players seemed to adjust, either the bid, the game-play etc…There never seemed to be a need for a rule to govern this. That is not to say there isn’t a need now but as someone stated earlier, players seem to be able to work these things out themselves.

3. As Jenn writes above, getting diced to the extreme, as what she described happening to jsp can discourage play and discourage some of “our love” for the game. Wheatbeer, to his credit saw the consternation this caused me in one game and he offered, quite graciously I might add, a redo, a dice re-roll, using LL rules. Since then, we have occasionally offered each other this option, as a one for one agreement when a player chooses. I think this might be a helpful way to incorporate a rule that could take some of the dicing out of the game? Perhaps, each player gets one LL re-roll. If used your opponent gets to use one as well. The same player once using one LL re-roll can’t utilize another until his/her opponent uses theirs? Just a thought. As stated, Wheatbeer is seemingly offering this to his opponents, or at least to me. And it is a nice card to be able to play when 80% of your air is knocked out by a freak AA dicing…

Just some of my thoughts…GL everyone.

Thanks for the input, JWW, especially since you backed me up on a point or two  :-D
@Cmdr:

Hmm, but what if Germany gets hit really hard in round 1?  The British navy and Parisian defenders do really well against them and they quit playing right after the combat phase of the game?

There were two games (could have been more - I don’t look at every one either) that didn’t get past G1 or Russia1, so I didn’t count them in my spreadsheet (but I did note them at the bottom).  This was my personal preference, and I explained that my decision had no bearing on official league rankings.
I looked at both games and noted that there was no extraordinary dicing.  One player who left the game was Tyzoq, and he was simply taking a break from A&A.  He never even moved Russia - all he did was give a scramble decision for UK.  IIRC there were no really unusual dice.
The other was against a noob who had 0 game results previously and hasn’t been seen since.  Obviously he was just trying out the league and A&A.org and decided it wasn’t for him.  Again, he never even made a single attack in the game and G1 dice were nothing extraordinary.
Now I will say that in my humble opinion neither of these should be counted officially either, but since there were no rules about claiming wins of barely started games, perhaps you can’t really do that.
Something to consider for next year.
There are very few wins claimed that come before G2, so there is little time required for investigating the circumstances and making an official ruling on whether it will count.

I think the extreme bad dice re-roll could be made a rule. I mean sometimes you lose a battle so badly that it basically means that you lose the game as in before it was winnable. I’m talking about mathematical improbabilities, like happened to me in the Pacific as US attacking with 20 boats/planes and hitting 3/20. it was a 50-50 battle, and Japan ended up losing 2 of their boats. Easy win in the Pacific for Japan after that.

Anywho, all the players I have played have been gentlemen and I’m sure that allowing one battle to be re-rolled in circumstances where it is commonly acknowledged that there was outrageously bad dice, where the results of the battle single-handedly alters the predicted results of the game significantly.

Ruling Request:

Mr.Yogen and I have come to an impasse.

I, the Japanese, attacked the Allied fleet off the Carolines and won in 3 rounds – a major victory.  I asked for OOL R1 of the battle, and at the end of R1 we both had lost all our submarines.  I attacked two more rounds and killed the Allied fleet.  I did not ask for OOLs R2 and R3 because I was going for broke and thus kept the strongest Allied units defending.

Mr.Yogen is requesting as a matter of absolute right an entre reroll of the battle for my failure to ask for OOLs R2 and R3.  I respond that OOLs were after R1 irrelevant, unless Mr.Yogen wanted to keep weaker defending units over stronger units, which would have only encouraged me to continue to the fight and would have resulted in fewer defending hits anyway.  As I say, OOLs would have made no difference after R1 but to increase my margine of victory.

So can MrYogen get a reroll for the entire battle for my failure to ask for OOL R2 and R3?

Anyhow – here is the battle as I pulled it off from the TrippleA history:

Combat
            Battle in 33 Sea Zone
                Japanese attack with 2 battleships, 2 bombers, 2 carriers, 1 cruiser, 5 destroyers, 4 fighters, 2 submarines and 4 tactical_bombers
                Americans defend with 2 battleships, 3 carriers, 3 cruisers, 3 destroyers, 5 fighters, 2 submarines, 1 tactical_bomber and 2 transports
                    Japanese roll dice for 2 submarines in 33 Sea Zone, round 1 :  1/2 hits
                Units damaged: 1 battleship owned by the Americans
                    Americans roll dice for 2 submarines in 33 Sea Zone, round 1 :  0/2 hits
                    Japanese roll dice for 2 battleships, 2 bombers, 2 carriers, 1 cruiser, 5 destroyers, 4 fighters and 4 tactical_bombers in 33 Sea Zone, round 1 :  11/18 hits
                Units damaged: 1 battleship owned by the Americans
                    Americans roll dice for 2 battleships, 3 carriers, 3 cruisers, 3 destroyers, 5 fighters, 1 tactical_bomber and 2 transports in 33 Sea Zone, round 1 :  7/17 hits
                Units damaged: 2 battleships owned by the Japanese
                    2 submarines owned by the Americans , 2 destroyers owned by the Americans , 3 carriers owned by the Americans , 3 destroyers owned by the Japanese and 2 submarines owned by the Japanese lost in 33 Sea Zone
                    Japanese roll dice for 2 battleships, 2 bombers, 2 carriers, 1 cruiser, 2 destroyers, 4 fighters and 4 tactical_bombers in 33 Sea Zone, round 2 :  9/15 hits
                    Americans roll dice for 2 battleships, 3 cruisers, 1 destroyer, 5 fighters, 1 tactical_bomber and 2 transports in 33 Sea Zone, round 2 :  7/12 hits
                    4 fighters owned by the Americans , 1 destroyer owned by the Americans , 2 tactical_bombers owned by the Japanese , 3 cruisers owned by the Americans , 1 carrier owned by the Japanese , 1 destroyer owned by the Japanese , 1 tactical_bomber owned by the Americans and 2 fighters owned by the Japanese lost in 33 Sea Zone
                    Japanese roll dice for 2 battleships, 2 bombers, 1 carrier, 1 cruiser, 1 destroyer, 2 fighters and 2 tactical_bombers in 33 Sea Zone, round 3 :  4/10 hits
                    Americans roll dice for 2 battleships, 1 fighter and 2 transports in 33 Sea Zone, round 3 :  1/3 hits
                    1 fighter owned by the Americans , 2 battleships owned by the Americans , 1 transport owned by the Americans and 1 destroyer owned by the Japanese lost in 33 Sea Zone
                    1 transport owned by the Americans lost in 33 Sea Zone
                Japanese win with 2 battleships, 2 bombers, 1 carrier, 1 cruiser, 2 fighters and 2 tactical_bombers remaining. Battle score for attacker is 125
                Casualties for Japanese: 1 carrier, 5 destroyers, 2 fighters, 2 submarines and 2 tactical_bombers
                Casualties for Americans: 2 battleships, 3 carriers, 3 cruisers, 3 destroyers, 5 fighters, 2 submarines, 1 tactical_bomber and 2 transports

Correction:

Mr.Yogen is only requesting rerolls for R2 and R3.

If Mr. Yogen is entitled to any rerolls, I assume it would be his defensive roll on R2 and then all of R3 if, IF, he gets more hits than he did R2.  If he gets less or the same R2, my roll R3 should stand.

Correct?

I withdraw my claim.  The victory will be just that much sweeter despite not picking my OOL and the luck factor…

If someone kills my carriers off and keeps my cruisers without asking and continues the battle to the end and the end result is me losing anyway… I am OK with that.