8 bid, RR, Axis victory

I think it is unfortunate switch that you are hellbent on relying on a strategy that gives you a 50% chance. I personally feel that the game should start out with a roughly 50% chance of each side winning. The goal that I place upon myself is increasing my odds to something much higher than that throughout the game and then taking that chance.

I feel that by attacking karelia you are taking the chance that if you win, and win very strongly, it will probably give you the game. 50% of the time you won’t win the karelia battle, however, and you just won’t be able to recover. Yes you can hole up in germany and create a strong fortress europe, but with all of your armor and most of your inf spent, you won’t ever really be a threat. Okay, if you get heavy bombers you might be, but I find tech pretty cheesy in this case, and most others. Instead of using tech to make the game even, I would prefer to add units to give me that 50%, and then through good play raise my percentage. I define good play as a series of moves and attacks that give me favorable position and unit exchange. I guess I just don’t like the fact that the absolute worst player in existence could still win simply by rolling heavy bombers, whereas if they did not tech they probably never would. It does not even the ground between the axis and allies, it evens the ground between good and bad players. That is just my opinion though, and I wouldn’t even consider myself a good player, I just try to be.

In terms of karelia, if you take it and I have no transports as the UK I will hit it with naked air and clean up whatever is left. I’ll probably lose a plan or two in the process, but that’s the breaks. If you land your fighters from japan there, I will attack it with 2 1’s and 2 3’s (you forgot the fighter in the UK?) giving me a 80% chance of taking. We then trade for another round. Yes it is a pain if germany takes it, but that 50% chance is what irks me. If you were able to win assuredly after the 50% chance, okay maybe. As it is though, you could definitely still lose. If it pans out it makes the game pretty even, but if it doesn’t it makes it pretty uneven.

I’m going off of memory here, but with the odds I ran for karelia and the assumption that you were planning on hitting the canada tranny with a sub?, that leaves you attacking UK seas with 3 fighters, 1 sub vs. 1 battleship, 1 sub, 2 transports. That gives you only 70% chance of winning (combined with your other 50%), and when you win you will most likely lose at least one fighter, maybe two. If you attack with two subs and your three fighters, you have a 90% chance of winning, much better. It is still quite probably that you lose a fighter, though less so. Now there is a pesky transport that can go to karelia though, allowing the UK to take it back if you managed to take it in the first place. You could try and leave a sub to block that, but then you decrease your chances of taking and substantially increase fighter loss. Indeed, if you tried to leave a sub you would probably be down to 1 fighter, 2 fighters at most really. If you were only left with one fighter, I wouldn’t bother building a carrier and I’d just go heavy on the transports. If you took with two fighters, I’ll probably still have to build an AC, but at that point you would have a damn weak assault against the navy and in UK 2 troops begin landing.

Switch,

I agree with the others here that this isn’t really a great chance of winning.  With Russia moving first, the landing of a couple of Russian infantry, or a fighter or two in the UK on noncombat will adequately protect the UK.Â

AAfiendish pointed out that if Karelia does fall, the UK (and US with the bomber, and USSR with their fighters from the UK as well) could strafe Karelia removing any German and Japanese forces.  Considering the most likely outcomes in an axis victory would be 1, or 2 tanks, this would let Germany keep Karelia but not have any forces there after the strafe =  no attack on the next turn.  You will have a couple of tanks from W. Europe that can be moved to E. Europe, but that won’t be enough to take Moscow (8 inf + 1 surviving fighters vs. 2 tanks + 5 fighters, the odds favor the Allies 57% to 43%)  Then Russia will get the time to build “fortress Moscow”, the UK and US will soon be attacking Germany from the west.

OR the Allies could take the 8 or so infantry Russia (along with reinforcements from the east) will build on R2 and add the UK fighters for defense for a stand in Moscow.  Assuming the most likely favorable outcome for the Axis, 8 inf + 3 fighters defending against 3 tanks + 5 fighters.  Again the odds favor the Allies ( I again get 57% to 43% when I run the numbers, my odds calculator is home so I am doing this manually, am I correct AAfiendish??).Â

Now, to be fair I think this is an innovative plan as I have said before:

@221B:

To put it into perspective, most people consider a 12 bid is necessary for the Axis to have a real chance of winning…so it might be the best possible way to win with an 8 bid.Â

But the following:

@ncscswitch:

I am serious, this is a gambit I would play every day as Germany with a small bid, until someone figured out that even 8 IPC’s may be too much to maintain game balance (I AM a purist afterall).Â

Is not correct, 8 ipcs are not enough for a fair game, let alone too much for game balance.  Here you have a 50/50 chance at the UK, unless countered by Russia on R1.  If Russia does counter, you have a 50/50 chance at Karelia, followed by chances at Moscow where the Allies are favored to win.  However far Germany gets, failing to take either London or Moscow essentially leaves Germany toothless and the game for the Axis will be over shortly.  This is not a balanced game, the Allies are still favored and this plan relys on luck to win.

If I only had an 8 bid and still had to play Axis, I might try this, but I’d rather feint the operation sealion and play traditionally with a noncombat move of both the Norway tank and two infantry to Africa with this bid .  Or I might try rolling for tech.  Or I might play it straight with fortress Europe and a PA bid of infantry and a tank.  Or I might take a second transport in the med.  None of these would really matter, the Axis does not have enough for a “fair” game and I will need either luck or poor play on the part of the Allies to win.

@221B:

OR the Allies could take the 8 or so infantry Russia (along with reinforcements from the east) will build on R2 and add the UK fighters for defense for a stand in Moscow.  Assuming the most likely favorable outcome for the Axis, 8 inf + 3 fighters defending against 3 tanks + 5 fighters.  Again the odds favor the Allies ( I again get 57% to 43% when I run the numbers, my odds calculator is home so I am doing this manually, am I correct AAfiendish??).

Do you mean 3 tanks + 5 fighters vs. 8 inf + 3 fighters? That is heavily in favor of the defender, like 97% or so. I don’t think germany would even have that though, as they would use fighters on karelia and lose probably at least one in UK seas. At most I think they’d have 3 fighters. They certainly wouldn’t be able to take moscow immediately, and probably wouldn’t try. I don’t think that conceding karelia is a good idea though. Letting germany build in karelia is not something I’d be willing to let happen, especially when they will solidly own it and ukraine, and if they feel like it trading caucus. This puts russia pretty far in the hole. I think that if germany takes karelia you have to take it back. Later in the game you can potentially cede it if it helps the allies, but giving it solidly to germany early in the game would be tough.

AA,

Thanks for the odds calculations on my scenario.  Its much more in favor of the Allies than I thought it was.

I also agree that its generally not a good idea to let Germany into Karelia.  However, in this case I was thinking that Russia only needs to withstand the initial assualt because after that, Germany will be too weak to pose a real threat.  Therefore, I was trying to determine the most favorable defense for Russia (to strafe Karelia and lose fighters or simply land them in Moscow?).

Hey switch,

Have you played any of the people who have been disagreeing with these strategies? I’ve seen you posting that you usually use the Hasbro version against yourself or against the AI, but you have to recognize that this is no substitute for playing against a human. I would be greatly interested in seeing a record of a play by email/forum (on the Games forum) attempt against some of the regulars of this forum to defend either this strategy or the no-bid strategy you propose (the one for which I recorded the no-luck game against myself). It’s all good to continue to argue statistics back and forth, but it’s much more useful to actually see it carried out in game. And to counter the suggestion that you get “bad dice” the first time around, go ahead and play more than once - I’m convinced that unless you get very “good dice”, these two strategies are going to be rather inadequate.

Sure, I’m interested, but if we’re playing, I suggest you get more acquainted with the standard ways of play-by-email using a map (such as GhoulLord’s, which seems to be the norm) and dice server first. See the links on the sticky thread on the Games forum for more details, or look at some of the other games posted there for samples. I just got through a game of teaching my opponent how to do that, and what with him not being a native English speaker, I was having a rather difficult time. I looked at your game with trihero, and there’s no way I’m going to be doing that; I haven’t played on an actual board in over a year, it takes far too long, and allows much more leeway for mistakes. Plus my cat would knock over pieces of a game I set up but left overnight!

I also only play LowLuck games myself, (hence my simulations in the other thread were using low luck results). So we should therefore probably contest your other strategy (the one on the no-bid thread, although if you like you could still use a moderate bid), since it doesn’t involve weapons development. I hardly ever play RR, but as I mentioned in the other thread, I would consider a bid of around 12 IPCs probably a minimum bid, so if you’re interested in still using a bid of 8 with RR to prove your point, that sounds fine to me.

I also only play LowLuck games myself

Since the purpose of this game would be to determine if an 8 ipc bid in the form of a baltic transport would be sufficient to give the Axis a victory, I think LowLuck would be more appropriate than purely random dice.  Here the answer is dependant more on strategy than on dice.  Unless of course you both want to play 10+ games to even out any statistical anomalties  :wink:

I do however like what Napoleon said, “it is better to be lucky than good” and do not play LL myself.

I see your game with Trihero is over; are you interested in starting a game soon? I play LowLuck so that no one can blame the loss on bad dice, and I walk away from each game I play satisfied that regardless of whether I won or loss, it wasn’t because of luck. If you’re trying to evaluate a strategy then that adds further reason to use LowLuck, because it’s possible to have a superior strategy and lose because of dice and vice versa. With LowLuck the same is still possible, but much less likely of course. Anyway, for the purposes of this discussion, if we’re not doing LowLuck, as 221B said, we would need to play several games to even out the statistical anomalies. I don’t know if I can commit to that, but if you are adamantly opposed to trying lowluck, I could give it a whirl.

DarthMaximus’s post on the top of the games forum should have the necessary links. On the AAMC downloads page, GhoulLord’s map is the third from the top. You can also take a look at the recent game between DarthMaximus and madscientist for a sample of how these games are done. DAAK also has a Play by Mail guide and a LowLuck guide. I see you started another game with TriHero; let me know when you’re ready to start.

I see your game with Trihero is over; are you interested in starting a game soon? I play LowLuck so that no one can blame the loss on bad dice, and I walk away from each game I play satisfied that regardless of whether I won or loss, it wasn’t because of luck. If you’re trying to evaluate a strategy then that adds further reason to use LowLuck, because it’s possible to have a superior strategy and lose because of dice and vice versa. With LowLuck the same is still possible, but much less likely of course. Anyway, for the purposes of this discussion, if we’re not doing LowLuck, as 221B said, we would need to play several games to even out the statistical anomalies. I don’t know if I can commit to that, but if you are adamantly opposed to trying lowluck, I could give it a whirl.

While I think there is indeed a reason to go LowLuck, there is also a very good reason to not do it. LowLuck rounds the game out to be more chess-style where you can nearly fully predict each battle’s outcome once started. While nice because it disallows the extremes, it takes out the element of risk-taking that you will sometimes see in a full luck game, and it also doesn’t make for a realistic game because invariably in a real game there will be some good rolls/bad rolls that influence the strategy; it is just as unlikely that every single battle will go according to average statistics as it is unlikely that every battle will go badly or well. On average over many games of course the dice should even themselves out, but LowLuck  doesn’t take into consideration the nuances of what happens in a real game.

@ncscswitch:

Why not just have Fiendish or one of the other simulation/probablity wiz’s run the numbers then, if you just want the flat statistical analysis?

I’m not a odds wiz by any means, I just believe in following them strongly. I also know about a useful program: http://www.jason.bilbrey.com/aasim/

I don’t understand why you guys say that the Axis has no chance and that Russia can cream Germany.  You guys do play with th economic victory right?  If Russia attacks Germany, a skilled Germany player will whip them by trading his infantry for Russian armour.  Russia cannot afford a large fighter corp and must constantly lose armour by moving them to the fornt lines to be taken by fighters.  I really don’t see how you guys think that Russia creams Germany.  They lose armour while Germany loses infantry when them attack Germany.  Russia cannot afford to replace those losses.  Germany can.  Bad Germany players throw their armour into the front to get killed by Russian armour, hence and even trade.  Skilled German players use their fighter corp to take out Russian armour and keep their armour safe.

@limitedwhole:

I don’t understand why you guys say that the Axis has no chance and that Russia can cream Germany.  You guys do play with th economic victory right?  If Russia attacks Germany, a skilled Germany player will whip them by trading his infantry for Russian armour.  Russia cannot afford a large fighter corp and must constantly lose armour by moving them to the fornt lines to be taken by fighters.  I really don’t see how you guys think that Russia creams Germany.  They lose armour while Germany loses infantry when them attack Germany.  Russia cannot afford to replace those losses.  Germany can.  Bad Germany players throw their armour into the front to get killed by Russian armour, hence and even trade.  Skilled German players use their fighter corp to take out Russian armour and keep their armour safe.

It almost always works the other way with Germany trading tanks for Russian infantry, particularly on R1 (which is why the Russia Restricted first turn rule was invented).Â

You are correct that Russia cannot beat Germany.  However the USA, UK, and USSR will beat Germany and Japan 90+% of the time in a normal game with good players on both sides…think about it, three against two really isn’t fair is it?

As pointed out above, it is the 3-1 that kills Germany, not Russia alone.

Russia is only on her own for the first 3 rds.

By rd 4 both UK and US are reinforcing Kar.

Allies to Afr on rd 2, reinforce fin rd 3, kar rd 4.

Also, Russia doesn’t need to trade arm for inf.  Strafing is a VERY poweful tool that many people over look.

As Russia, I don’t need to take Ukr or EE, if I know I can attack and in the process kill more German inf then I’ll lose.  Then you can safely retreat to Kar, place your reinforcements and repeat on the next turn.

Yo, hah, hah, hah.  I figured out why I think you guys are crazy and you guys think I am crazy.  We have played with a house rule for so long I thought it was a standard rule.  We play were all production centers are limited to the I.P. value of the territory hence Russia cannot plop down massive stacks at KArelia.  They have to march the the bulk of the ground troops up.  Good rule.  Makes the Russian/German war more messy and doesn’t leave GErmany with -5auto.  Hence they can afford to contend for Russia and Africa.  Also you will have some stalemate turns which leaves more room for tech development to break open the war.  My bad.  Seriously, We’ve played that way so long I thought it was a classic rule.