VANN FORMULAS TESTING

@larrymarx:

Most players have an intuitive understanding of this concept, and they don’t need a calculator for it. This is GeneralHandGrenade’s point. He values the power of human analysis over numbers and formulas in this game. He is certainly correct - and I would argue that numbers and formulas are indispensable tools for us to use as part of that analysis. They cannot be the basis of a strategy, but they can enhance and sharpen any strategy.

It’s not that I don’t run the numbers myself, it’s just that I do it in my head and not on a machine. My brain takes everything into account though, just like it would for anyone who is willing to put their calculators away and teach themselves to play the game like a human being. You know, like a board game was meant to be played.

I will never play A&A against a person with a calculator in their hands. If the player doesn’t have the guts to play the game without a crutch, then they should go back to playing Risk or Checkers.

So, are you just crunching attack and defense points or do you have a better way to mentally calculate the impact of hit and fodder in a small stack?

Sometimes, on smaller board you wonder if 1 plane is going to help 1 battle or another, or add this plane on 1 side but move 1 infantry in the other. You don’t want to overkill somewhere and get a pyrrhic victory on the other because 1 fodder was missing.

It is much harder playing daredevil with tactical retreat and counter in Russia than simply retreating and exchanging 1 TT while stacking Moscow.

This thread is still here !!!

@GeneralHandGrenade:

@larrymarx:

I will never play A&A against a person with a calculator in their hands. If the player doesn’t have the guts to play the game without a crutch, then they should go back to playing Risk or Checkers.

That’s a very silly proposition to be honest. You’re willing to add up the numbers in your head but refuse to pull out a calculator for large battles? Why? You have a tool, so use it. It’s like saying I cheated on my differential equations homework because I used a calculator. It’s a tool that helps you but you still need to use your brainpower and judgement/experience to make decisions in the game. The calculator is not a magic wand that will win the game for you.

This isn’t homework. It is a board game where you are competing against other people. There is no formula required. All you need to bring to the table is what you were born with.

We might as well walk away from this ridiculous thread, SS. As long as there are players who feel they need to cheat to be competitive, they will continue to do so. Have fun staring at your calculators while the honest players are playing the best board game in the world.  :roll:

@GeneralHandGrenade:

This isn’t homework. It is a board game where you are competing against other people. There is no formula required. All you need to bring to the table is what you were born with.

We might as well walk away from this ridiculous thread, SS. As long as there are players who feel they need to cheat to be competitive, they will continue to do so. Have fun staring at your calculators while the honest players are playing the best board game in the world.  :roll:

My Last quote in this thread.

I don’t use or allow any gadget calculators in any of my games Period.  :-D

@Genghis:

@GeneralHandGrenade:

@larrymarx:

I will never play A&A against a person with a calculator in their hands. If the player doesn’t have the guts to play the game without a crutch, then they should go back to playing Risk or Checkers.

That’s a very silly proposition to be honest. You’re willing to add up the numbers in your head but refuse to pull out a calculator for large battles? Why? You have a tool, so use it. It’s like saying I cheated on my differential equations homework because I used a calculator. It’s a tool that helps you but you still need to use your brainpower and judgement/experience to make decisions in the game. The calculator is not a magic wand that will win the game for you.

@GeneralHandGrenade:

This isn’t homework. It is a board game where you are competing against other people. There is no formula required. All you need to bring to the table is what you were born with.

We might as well walk away from this ridiculous thread, SS. As long as there are players who feel they need to cheat to be competitive, they will continue to do so. Have fun staring at your calculators while the honest players are playing the best board game in the world.  :roll:

There is always the luck factor, time and boozes too. All this affect the focus you put on a game at a given moment.

You can also apply Jedi mind trick.

So why not use your mental calculator?
It is not cheating.

rename Vann anything to Larrymarx formula. This is perfect. If everyone did this the whole problem would go away. Im starting today forward with this idea.

I don’t understand why using a calculator is considered cheating. If I used an abacus would that be cheating? How about using dice to count up my attacking power? How are you going to justify preventing me from doing that? How about using my fingers to count…where do you draw the line?

@Genghis:

I don’t understand why using a calculator is considered cheating. If I used an abacus would that be cheating? How about using dice to count up my attacking power? How are you going to justify preventing me from doing that? How about using my fingers to count…where do you draw the line?

When you use a Electronic device or  beads slides.

Hip oh ray now I got to use my brain and fingers !!! Bingo there you go,  :-D

aaahhh back to the red wagon days and riding big wheels and playing army guys outside
and doing battles with out a  ???

@SS:

@GeneralHandGrenade:

This isn’t homework. It is a board game where you are competing against other people. There is no formula required. All you need to bring to the table is what you were born with.

We might as well walk away from this ridiculous thread, SS. As long as there are players who feel they need to cheat to be competitive, they will continue to do so. Have fun staring at your calculators while the honest players are playing the best board game in the world.  :roll:

My Last quote in this thread.

I don’t use or allow any gadget calculators in any of my games Period.  :-D

I tried. I failed.  :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

Kreuzfeld formula

is the new advanced calculating technique. vann whatever is the new dodo bird

I don’t really understand why there is so much noise about the Vann formula!
I hate to play against people using battle calculators, because it takes fun out of the game and slows it down too! But If I would play against somebody using the Vann formula I will seriously have fun! By every turn going by, I would see the expression of unbelief growing on their faces while they are loosing while sticking correctly to their formula!

The thing with this formula is that it works perfect in a 2 dimensional world. And that is where it has its origins: A&A classic! It had so less territories that things like positioning were no issue. You stack a territory next to the enemy. If you are faster, then the enemy you win the game. Then all what matters is the cost/attack ratio! Buy as cost efficient as possible and you win. Mister Vann has missed the last 30 years of discussion about this topic. But is generally called the infantry push mechanism.

However the world has changed! And so did the A&A boards and rules. Mister Vann even admits that he doesn’t know the rules of the 1940 games, but his formula applies anyway! It says something about this person I guess!

So, what is wrong with the formula? It is missing essential input. Input that is not possible to put into a static number. And one of them is speed and distance! Welcome in the new world with more dimensions mister Vann! This is like the French sitting in their Marginot line laughing at the Germans because their tanks are obsolete! They are prepared for a 2 dimensional war, but had missed the developments of the last 2 decades! Of course you don’t use tanks for a dumb push against a fortified position! You go around it! That is possible in A&A 1940! since the board is so much bigger you need mobility and speed. If you have both, you have an advantage over a nation that is buying inf and need more time to bring them into the action! Plus A&A is an economic game. If you conquer territories faster than your opponent, your economy is growing, while that of your opponent is shrinking! That means he’ll buy less inf next time, while you buy more mechanized units! All this is not taken into consideration in the static 2 dimensional formula! If you could, what I doubt, then you really had gold, but now mister Vann is nothing more then a fraud. Claiming to be something he is not!

Therefor I would love to play against anybody using his formula! That would be one of the masters he is revering to. Because there is only one possible outcome! They loose every game against anybody knowing the game a little bit!

You misunderstand what the formula is used for. It’s not for comparing two units that have different movement values. You have to compare the ones that have the same role in the game. For example you can choose to use a destroyer or cruiser to defend your fleet. I we want to determine what the ACTUAL cost of a cruiser should be if we want it to be as effective as a destroyer, then we can use the Baron-larymarx formula to determine this. It’s actually 9.78 so a cruiser should really cost 10 IPCs.

Mostly it’s to determine the cost efficiency of units with similar roles. So comparing an infantry with a tank does not work. However you could compare the battleship with destroyer or cruiser with destroyer for example. In order to determine if you will win a stack battle, better to use AAcalc or punch formula, Vann or baron-larymarx will not help with this.

You’re dismissing the formulas without having read any of the logic behind the derivation of the formulas. If you even bothered to read the thread you would see that they make sense for their intended purpose.

Hi TripleA XRay,
all that you said is true about the game and how Vann formula does not work in modern Second Edition compared to Classis Edition, when he first developed it and use it.
The pretenses of Vann about his formula and what can be done with it, are two different things.
I was mostly aware of all you said about G40 big map, even if I mainly played on 1942.2 or AA50.

However, I stick into this Vann table he provided because I wanted to know if the formula was something real or just pure crap day-dreaming.
I was waiting to someone cracking the code: Larrymarx get it right.
Then, I crunched numbers and AACalc to see if it was working. And it did.
During the meantime, Vann showed up again and revealed two formulas.

Now, he still want to be an active member on the forum, I cannot deny the basic accuracy of the formula.
I just adapted it to the second edition roster and included another part to take account of 2 hits units such BB and G40 Carriers. I cannot deny that he found really something back then in the '80.
So, out of respect for him (he discovered the core of it) and also for Larrymarx (he retro-engineered the formula based on Vann table), I would like to name this formula in a more general way.

What do you think people about the Enigma Formula of Axis and Allies?

Now, it has been revised we can talk about what this formula can do or not.

The second formula was first introduced in the thread quoted below. It was Kreuzfeld which bring it to my attention.

This one is much better to compare stack and their relative strength. For now, I named it Stack formula (until someone suggest something better) compared to the Punch Formula.

@Baron:

@Ozymandiac:

@Kreuzfeld:

Ususally, subs is the most costeffective unit to buy for defence.

I’m not following this. Suppose I have 48 IPCs and want to buy a defensive fleet.
-I buy 8 subs, receive metapower=881=64.
-I buy 6 destroyers, receive metapower=662=72.

Aren’t destroyers the units with a higher metapower and as such better as defensive units?

I see they also use this Metapower formula to get an optimized purchase.
And it is confirmed by AACalc.
If there is 24 IPCs to spend on Inf, Art, MI and Tank, it will be easier to decide since in case of combined arms, you can add it too.

8 Infs             A8 D16    8 hits     8^21= 64  /   8^22= 128   tot.: 192
6 Artillery       A12 D12   6 hits     6^22= 72  /   6^22= 72    tot.: 144
4 Tanks          A12 D12   4 hits     4^23= 48  /   4^23= 48     tot.: 96

1 Tk & 6 Infs   A9 D15    7 hits    7^21.29= 63.2 / 7^22.14= 104.9  tot.: 168.1
2 Tk & 4 Infs   A10 D14  6 hits    6^21.67= 60.1 / 6^22.33= 83.9    tot.: 144
3 Tk & 2 Infs   A11 D13  5 hits    5^22.2= 55 / 5^22.6= 65             tot.: 120
3 Art & 4 Infs   A14 D14  7 hits    7^22= 98 / 7^22= 98                 total: 196

1 Tk, 3 Art, 2 Infs            A13 D13 6 hits  6^22.17= 78.1 / 6^22.17= 78.1  tot.: 156.2
1 Tk, 2 Art, 1 MIs, 2 Infs  A12 D13 6 hits  6^22 = 72        / 6^22.17= 78.1  tot.: 150.1
1 Tk, 1 Art, 2 MIs, 2 Infs  A10 D13 6 hits  6^21.67= 60.1 / 6^22.17= 78.1  tot.: 138.2
1 Tk, 3 MIs, 2 Infs            A8 D13 6 hits  6^21.33 = 47.9 / 6^22.17= 78.1  tot.: 126

Even with such low 24 IPCs, it seems rather complex to sort out these numbers.
Unless having a few tables with various combinations, it only points out that it is cumbersome and also, Artillery with combined arms clearly gives better offensive.

It might help choose but the Punch formulas might be enough in this case.

Probably the things were different in Classic time with Tank A3 D2 C5.

So, this formula seems more useful when calculating odds between two stacks.

it’s normal that Infantry + Artillery seems optimal in the stack formula. it’s because the movement value isn’t taken into account. And tanks pay a premium for that extra point of movement and ability to blitz. Perhaps mech infantry and tanks is better if you want to put pressure on the enemy faster.

For comparing two stacks I will stick to the punch formula to determine number of hits and leftover units after the battle.

How do you do it?

Do you simply add up nb+hits?

Or do you play each round until one side can not have enough hits?

I just add up punch on both sides and divide by 6, round and then remove that many casualties. Then keep going for the next round and the next round etc. until one is left with no units.

@Genghis:

I just add up punch on both sides and divide by 6, round and then remove that many casualties. Then keep going for the next round and the next round etc. until one is left with no units.

It seems faster to make calculations based on Stack formula, if there are many units.
Of course, using a calculator might be tantalizing…