2015 League General Discussion Thread

Well thanks for helping to calm axis-dominion down, bmnielsen

“Hmm 91.1% Axis win ratio in tier E…”

Axis win in tier E vs. tier E games is 75% (6 out of 8 so not that many games available for statistics) - Maybe bids needs to go even higher…

I agree.  Bidding’s not enough.  Somehow it always gets brought down to the 20-30 range we’ve all sort of settled on.

The Allies need some sort of “burned in” advantage on top of the bid.

I am starting to wonder if it’s because most players want to “win” the bid by having the last bid.  What would happen if we bid to take the Axis - probably the handicap to the Allies would get bigger?

Remember, you guys can bid however you want - no one says you have to bid for the Allies, start high and go down.

I know some players are vehemently opposed to this for some reason, but another way is to take stuff away from the Axis.  Might make for more interesting starts - the Allied bids are getting to be so standard now some of you are probably bored with them.

Try taking the complex off Ukraine.  Or, since Larry used to have a minor in Berlin for some unknown reason, try keeping the major in Berlin but go with a minor in West Germany?!!

Anyway, I invite you to get more creative - if you and your opponent can agree……

I guess I’m saying several things, but one is -

Bidding a lot of extra units to the Allies is only one of many ways to make both players happy with the starting setup.

And yes, pretty much everyone is settling for not quite enough boost to take the Allies and the results show it, just about any way you look at them.

I’m truly not sure a bid ever balances this game out.  Almost all of the other Axis and Allies games can be balanced out, but this one just doesn’t look like it can be – is that what we are seeing?  I mean, there comes a point where a bid just simply overpowers an area of the board, and I think why the bids are in the 20-30 range is because any more than that and one of the game theaters becomes almost completely broken.

Just to throw out an example, in 3rd edition (CD play), 21 was probably the most even bid.  However, because someone could plant 7 units in Ukraine (“Power Europe”), it imbalanced the game to such an extent that two things happened.  One, bids over 18 were rarely given (sometimes 20, which was still just 6 land units) – therefore at the top level the Allies always had a slight superiority that could not be completely balanced out (but unlike with Global, that was like a 52/48 advantage, so very slight iirc).  But this type of bidding also allowed things like Power Africa or Power Asia – in essence, an entire game theater had to be changed to balance out the game.

Now, here is the difference with our league.  Because the Axis only have to win on one board, I’m not sure the bid can balance everything out – Axis can just go “where they ain’t” so to speak.  I don’t remember this problem with AA50 because the winning conditions were for the entire board.  And this is true of all of the other Axis and Allies games that I can think of.  So, instead of being able to get it close (such as a 52/48 spread), we will never be able to get it that close without having bidding parameters on both boards or other things that will just make the entire bidding process cumbersome.

Too bad we can play good ol’ AA50 in league anymore lol.

On another (and probably better) note, there is really an easy way of balancing out who bids last, and so forth.  You do it blind.  Did anyone here ever play 2nd edition PBEM at AAMC?  You would submit your bid to the bunker without knowing your opponent’s bid, and the low bid “wins” Allies (back then the bid was for Axis).  In the case of a tie, a virtual coin would be flipped for who gets what side.  Would it be that hard for someone to program this process?  I doubt it.  But this would only be if everyone is on board.  The true purpose is that you only get to bid once (so make it good!) per game, so no bidding down your opponent back and forth (which I find kind of annoying anyway).

To summarize, blind bidding via a “bunker” and having better bidding parameters are my suggestions for improvement.  Changing the entire layout of the board and other rules just seems to be too much for a “league”, since again the purpose of league is to play a standardized game (imho, which is not shared by all).

Fabulous, thank you so much

You are aware many players play with a limit of 1 unit per territory for the bid?  That helps a lot.  I think we can go toward 30 without wrecking the game, when this limitation is in effect.

To a certain extent, I believe we have exasperated the balance problem with our rules, which perhaps were simply adopted from previous years? IMO, all the rules under section 4B need to be eliminated. This will allow for diversity to the bid and perhaps help the extreme unbalanced nature which currently exists.

Agree - we will be re-examining everything in light of what we’ve learned in 2015

Alright, I just thought of something I need to make clear.

A lot of you guys, including and especially Axis-dominion, have demonstrated a misunderstanding of the purpose of the tiers.

They are not status symbols.

They are a tool I use to rank players considering the strength or weakness of your opposition.  It was never meant to be an exact science.  The tier system was developed to be superior to straight win-loss records.  Win-loss records alone strongly encourage everyone to play weaker players, but obviously everyone can’t play weaker players.

Naturally, over time that is forgotten and lost, and players will naturally start gauging their progress and perhaps set personal goals based on PPG and tiers, but that was never the purpose or intent for them.  The purpose of the tiers and the points is so that you don’t get the same credit for beating the best player in the league as you get for beating a newbie.

Bmnielsen is right, it’s about the ranking #, not the PPG or tier.  The PPG and tier are means to an end.  So all this hoopla about losing tier E status…… well, think about it in light of what I just said, please.  :-)  :-)

The fact that the tier labels do make it more fun for most of us, and the fact that it really facilitates the matchup process (I’m looking to play a tier 1, for example), is gravy, but the whole purpose of points and tiers is to give some reflection of strength of schedule and avoid rewarding players inordinately for preying on weak and inexperienced competition.  Period.

Now a byproduct also of the system, is we’ve found that it is actually helping to produce very accurate rankings.  That is, you could practically bet money on games using these rankings and almost always win, betting against someone who has no access to these rankings.  Upsets are relatively uncommon.

So I would say that these rankings have actually turned out to be far more reliable than what you see in sports many times.  For example, the USA college football rankings  :-) where everybody doesn’t play everybody, much like our league.

Results from forfeitures are a relatively minor issue in the grand scheme of things, but I’m all for continuous improvement, so again, the issue of forfeited games and points derived from them will be addressed.

Well, as soon as you started calling the higher tiers “elite” and “master” you brought this prestige awareness upon us…you lured our ego into a trap. When they were just numbers we were all so innocent and mathematical about them.  :lol: :lol:

@Gamerman01:

Alright, I just thought of something I need to make clear.

A lot of you guys, including and especially Axis-dominion, have demonstrated a misunderstanding of the purpose of the tiers.

They are not status symbols.

They are a tool I use to rank players considering the strength or weakness of your opposition.� It was never meant to be an exact science.� The tier system was developed to be superior to straight win-loss records.� Win-loss records alone strongly encourage everyone to play weaker players, but obviously everyone can’t play weaker players.

Naturally, over time that is forgotten and lost, and players will naturally start gauging their progress and perhaps set personal goals based on PPG and tiers, but that was never the purpose or intent for them.� The purpose of the tiers and the points is so that you don’t get the same credit for beating the best player in the league as you get for beating a newbie.

Bmnielsen is right, it’s about the ranking #, not the PPG or tier.� The PPG and tier are means to an end.� So all this hoopla about losing tier E status…… well, think about it in light of what I just said, please.� :-)� :-)

That’s right, it’s all my fault

bruce, if i recall correctly, the league rules state that for every 10 games played as axis, you are required to play one as allies. i mean, EVEN Juan has a game in as the allies lol

i’m feeling the need to stir the pot some more. sorry, i am bored as all my opponents are so slow at this time…and i need to give poor gamer a break.

soo, if mass german bombers is considered a dark skies strategy, would that make a mass japanese bombers strategy a bright skies one?

i can’t wait to see the meltdown when all-axis elites start facing each other in the playoffs…i imagine the allied bids will sky rocket to 40+  :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

if it comes down to this:

bmnielsen (axis) vs JuanSpain (allies +49)

interesting statistic:

Juan is the only undefeated ranked player in the league. he also happens to be the most checked out player, with the last posted turn being on the 29th of July…. :lol:

I am humbled by the players of this league. So many lessons to be learned.
I think in the future I’ll play one game at a time, maybe two at the most.

Watching is free!