Simulator / Calculator

In the games a played it seemed that Japan could help the European Axis more by getting in positon to have enough victory cities on their side of the map than really pushing towards Russia.  If Japan pushes to Russia then USA is free to keep spending in Europe.  Maybe I will give this a try though with the newer edition of rules.

@Make_It_Round:

I think it is possible, however tedious, to count the number of meaningful choices that players have in any given game, and to guess at one’s enjoyment threshold in terms of these.

It is utterly impossible to count the number of meaningful choices that players have in any given game because each “meaningful choice” is a product of the other “meaningful choices” that were made previously. Furthermore, each “meaningful choice” is then subject to all of the possible dice outcomes, and thus multiplied by all of those possibilities and then multiplied by all of the “meaningful choices” offered by the various non-combat possibilities as they are determined by the dice outcomes. As you can see we get into these massive factorial situations where we are multiplying massive exponentials by even more massive exponentials until what is essentially infinity.

To make a comparison: In chess there are only 20 possible moves to make on the first turn. (16 pawn moves and 4 knight moves) The opponent is faced with the same. So the possible combinations for the opening 2 moves (1 each) in chess is 400. None of which are absolutely stupid. there are 8,902 possible moves by 2 each and by move 7 there are almost eleven MILLION possible positions. That’s without dice, with only 2 players, with a much much much more limited scope for unit movement, no scope for adding units and far far fewer spaces.

Now you asked about the “meaningful choices”. Some work has been done in this regard in chess and it seems that in the average game of about 30 moves (moving a single piece at at time. There are over 4.5 MILLION games outcomes in smart competitive situations. Now, multiply that by the factor of dice, multiple movement of units, game spaces, purchases and the fact that most AA games will see over 100 times that 60 units move factor and you have an utterly infinite combination of outcomes.

Which is part of the reason it is so much more entertaining than chess.

…or maybe just because we get to play with little tanks and planes.

another example of this in action is attacking an enemy sub.  He might (and probably will) submerge, but its up to the defender so the attacker needs to send enough hardware to the sz to win if the enemy defends.

Thank you for the answers. I just needed to be sure

@Cmdr:

With most people you would be fine doing that.  With a few people, you would literally have to stick with the rule and this is a prime example of why these people require the letter of the law, so to speak.

Although, I would agree that:

Number of games = n
As n increases towards infinity
The limit on the number of games that Germany is in position to take Moscow just before Japan declares war on Russia, and Russia or Japan have not yet declared war is zero.

I could be wrong, we do not, yet, have enough data to support my statement, but I leave it to you to disprove my hypothesis.

You are right

@RedHunter:

Wow that was too many pieces left on the board. Like holy crap. How much % does the Axis win without VC to aid them?

I do not know the answer to that. We may be the only ones on this forum who play without VCs.

thank you once again for the prompt response

Bob has told me that he’s too busy to update his creation, and he has denied me permission to do it… so I it looks like these charts will remain obsolete.