2017 Find League Opponents Thread

@ussgordoncaptain:

I guess it’s my turn to jump into the shark tank. During the next few months I have quite a bit of free time (being a tutor has its benefits). and read the post on how to setup play by forum games by  whackamatt

I would prefer to play Global 1940  with a bid than balanced mod for reasons of practicality if possible.

Welcome.

What are the ‘‘reasons of practicality’’?

@Adam514:

@ussgordoncaptain:

I guess it’s my turn to jump into the shark tank. During the next few months I have quite a bit of free time (being a tutor has its benefits). and read the post on how to setup play by forum games by  whackamatt

I would prefer to play Global 1940  with a bid than balanced mod for reasons of practicality if possible.

Welcome.

What are the ‘‘reasons of practicality’’?

Learning an entire new ruleset would compound the number of errors I make, I’d rather play with a bid than try to remember rules like the chinese rules and all the rules related to the new National objectives such as the japanese lend lease rules (does a japanese sub in sea  zone 80 stop russian lead lease if japan is not in war with russia? and how much lend lease does it prevent?) Marines and their complications with kamikaze tokens and how they complicate Seaborne invasions. The Changes to existing national objectives make certain common tactics that are ingrained in me like rushing Iraq with the soviet union no longer good.

Plus bidding is a cool mechanic that shows interesting strategy and gameplay. You can do quite a bit with a bid,

It’s not an entirely new ruleset, over 90% is exactly the same.

A Japanese sub would not prevent the Lend-Lease Russian NO f not at war with Russia aince Japan is neutral to Russia.

Indeed bidding is an interesting mechanic, but between experienced players the bid needs to be huge and entire areas like the Mediterranean become uninteresting. And some people feel like BM requires a bid too.

Given you are a new player, you can enjoy 2nd edition/vanilla for a long time until you realize it is easy to win with Axis and very hard with Allies, so a huge bid is required.

An A&A balanced game makes more sense, it is just that global is so complex that needed a lot of testing to find out how unbalanced it was (what for me is a desing mistake).

On BM you can enjoy playing both sides as you learn, and you will be learning the version of the game that is capturing more attention as most players play a lot in Vanilla and reach the same conclusion.

A&A is fun anyway and you will find players for both, up to you, just wanted to share an opinion.

The compromise we’ve agreed on its to play with the BM sbr rules. That will change things significantly towards BM anyway.

@JuanSpain:

Given you are a new player, you can enjoy 2nd edition/vanilla for a long time until you realize it is easy to win with Axis and very hard with Allies, so a huge bid is required.

An A&A balanced game makes more sense, it is just that global is so complex that needed a lot of testing to find out how unbalanced it was (what for me is a desing mistake).

On BM you can enjoy playing both sides as you learn, and you will be learning the version of the game that is capturing more attention as most players play a lot in Vanilla and reach the same conclusion.

A&A is fun anyway and you will find players for both, up to you, just wanted to share an opinion.

Mathematically the optimal bid will put the game at the perfectly close margin between perfect balence. That is you should bid at the point where them bidding 1 lower will result in the axis having above 50% to win and your bid gives the allies above 50% to win. As long as there are no large jumps in power level between discrete values of bid Bidding is mathematically certain to provide a fair game.

I know that high bids are needed but at least you can balance the game with a blunt instrument of pure balance. I started my bid at Allies+37 with the plan of letting simon take allies with any bid below 32 (there’s a specific opening I wanted to do with each bid point I wanted to choose) .

Basically the A&A community invented this really awesome tool with great mathematical properties which encourage exploration. How many different bids have taken place in 2017 league alone, and how many different placements of the same bid size have you seen? With that much variety, and the awesome math of perfect balance that comes with it, I’m honestly surprised the A&A community felt the need to make a mod that changes quite a few rules in non-trival ways. I"m learning the BM rules slowly, and trying to play through a complete game without making a single error, I’m getting closer and will probably play my next set of PBF games at either BM3 or G40

It is the Axis bombing Moscow and Calcutta with no escorts in spite of 6 interceptors which is the most unfun aspect of oob. BM improves here and in the med but goes backwards in China.

@ussgordoncaptain:

@JuanSpain:

Given you are a new player, you can enjoy 2nd edition/vanilla for a long time until you realize it is easy to win with Axis and very hard with Allies, so a huge bid is required.

An A&A balanced game makes more sense, it is just that global is so complex that needed a lot of testing to find out how unbalanced it was (what for me is a desing mistake).

On BM you can enjoy playing both sides as you learn, and you will be learning the version of the game that is capturing more attention as most players play a lot in Vanilla and reach the same conclusion.

A&A is fun anyway and you will find players for both, up to you, just wanted to share an opinion.

Mathematically the optimal bid will put the game at the perfectly close margin between perfect balence. That is you should bid at the point where them bidding 1 lower will result in the axis having above 50% to win and your bid gives the allies above 50% to win. As long as there are no large jumps in power level between discrete values of bid Bidding is mathematically certain to provide a fair game.

I know that high bids are needed but at least you can balance the game with a blunt instrument of pure balance. I started my bid at Allies+37 with the plan of letting simon take allies with any bid below 32 (there’s a specific opening I wanted to do with each bid point I wanted to choose) .

Basically the A&A community invented this really awesome tool with great mathematical properties which encourage exploration. How many different bids have taken place in 2017 league alone, and how many different placements of the same bid size have you seen? With that much variety, and the awesome math of perfect balance that comes with it, I’m honestly surprised the A&A community felt the need to make a mod that changes quite a few rules in non-trival ways. I"m learning the BM rules slowly, and trying to play through a complete game without making a single error, I’m getting closer and will probably play my next set of PBF games at either BM3 or G40

Vanilla gave me huge fun, but after +200 games it is finished for me, BM is just great compared to it, and at the moment I prefer learing it allthough it is much easier to loose for me than in Vanilla, but it is real fun! KILL KILL KILL emotions again for me!

I would not play chess if having to give whites an uncertain number of pieces to make it balanced.

Just sharing an opinion from experience, but G40 can provide you a lot of fun until you play an enourmus amount of games. So enjoy it and have fun! that is the point on A&A.

One issue with BM is that no the rules are not accepted outside of this community. I think a bid does the job just fine.

@ussgordoncaptain: I agree with your logic that a bid is a perfect balancing system. At a certain point you will be at 50/50. The only “mistake” this community made over the past 3-4 years was to fail the appropriate bid to create the equality. All the community learned from season to season was that the bids used during last season weren’t high enough.

This was biased by the fact that in the lower tiers Allies had a higher winrate. However, clashes between top rated players, Axis almost always won because there weren’t enough games to find the equilibrium.

The reason of the high winrate was based on a misconception in my opinion: In the old days it was “common knowledge” that “time plays for the Allies, the clock is ticking for them, the longer the game gets, the better the Allied chances are”

This was proven to be wrong because experienced Axis players managed to establish a strategy that created an almost unbearable pressure towards an economic lead. Axis could at least equalize the income and due to the inefficacy of the Allied spread IPCs across many nations combined with long transport rules resulted in easy Axis bin by economic dominance.

And here comes the point what makes the difference between Vanilla 40+ bids and BM.

The 40+ bid is kind of a hammer. You skew the first round into your favor and try to avoid that the axis will be ever able to blow up the balloon to the size they need to win.
In a nutshell you more or less force the Axis to either break this initial bid with power or lose slowly.

The potential outcome at the equilibrium could possibly be: Allies stack Yunnan J1, Japan still needs to attack, dicey battle, whoever gets lucky has the advantage for the rest of the game.

In BM you do not try to balance the early Axis over-power by breaking it with more Allied units but by making this plain and simple “eco-dominance” plan way harder for the Axis.

I simply believe that this is a more elegant way to balance the game and gives new strategies and skill more room to breathe, because I am afraid that in Vanilla the optimal strategy would be to take dicey battles in the first 2 rounds and hope for a good outcome.

I give you an extreme example: Assume you would allow multiple units per territory: In this case Allies could put enough units to France to make the G1 a dicey game decider. And I think this would lower the fun.
Still, there is nothing “wrong” about playing Vanilla, but I think BM is a bit more sophisticated in a way to keep the game interesting.

Indeed

Truth!  That is why JDOW is a master!  A bid can never make up for skill, I know people I could give a 100 bid to and still whip their butt!

Well said JDOW.

Looking for another game. BM 3

@JuanSpain:

Game vs Lou finished before it was expected.

I am able to start vs the next opponent. Tier M or E. BM3. No bid, Axis or switch sides please.

Post me if interested.

No opponent yet.

BTW, Today was D-Day. Last year I was in the water at Omaha beach looking at the hill, and hair stand on end.

@JuanSpain:

@JuanSpain:

Game vs Lou finished before it was expected.

I am able to start vs the next opponent. Tier M or E. BM3. No bid, Axis or switch sides please.

Post me if interested.

No opponent yet.

BTW, Today was D-Day. Last year I was in the water at Omaha beach looking at the hill, and hair stand on end.

Incredible.  I need to visit there someday.  My Father landed on Omaha beach on D-Day and fought all the way up to The Battle of the Bulge with Patton.  My father told me he had the privilege of saluting Patton face to face as well :)

That must have been an indescribable extreme situation, many thanks for sharing Lou, you must be very proud of it, a lot of people in the world, and I of course include myself in that list, are in debt with men like your father.

You definatelly have to go there sometime + France is a beautiful country and there are other amazing locations to visit near to the landing coasts (like Mont Saint Michel for example). When you visit the coast, you ask yourself why the Saint Michel area was not selected for the landing, with a very flat and huge sand area, and no hills at the end of the beach as opposed to Omaha for example.

If you come, let me know and I will help you organize the route, and of course you are invited to a stop in Madrid, I would be very interested in learning a lot more about your father.

In terms of the opponent for BM, still waiting + Adam will soon smash me as expected, so I may have even room for 2 opponents, jeje

Will do Juan. I will keep you informed :)

Can all players starting new BM3 games make sure they are using 3.3? The latest version check is broken in the current stable release. Hopefully, the stable release can be updated soon.