New Season, has there been any change to dice in ranked games?

@JuliusBorisovBeamdog

Thank you for that info. I moved your posting from “Account Merge” and reopened this topic (that was accidentally locked).

Does that cover the “Unhandled Rejection Error”, discussed in the very first stickied topic, too?

Oh, and to add my usual disclaimer, this isn’t meant to be some comprehensive address, it’s just a few random not terribly well organized thoughts. There’s much much more to everything, numbers, strategies, tactics, timings, opportunity costs, and so on.

Just picking one - the strategic use of small UK and US forces in Europe

Let’s say Axis want to cut UK/US reinforcements off at Karelia. This is pretty essential if the Allies are not to send cheap UK/US ground reinforcement to Moscow. There’s some timing issues where Axis are trying to shift off Karelia but I won’t get into how Axis handle that and Allied counters here.

The rules for land retreat are, all units retreat to a ground territory that at least one unit came from. This can be used to set up “teleports” where, say, Allies use UK ground units on Finland and West Russia to attack German-controlled Karelia, and all UK units “retreat” to West Russia. The same is true for US.

But thinking on it, UK and US won’t typically have units just sitting around in West Russia. (A related issue, one of the problems with 1942 Online is inability of defender to select the controlling power of a unit taken as a casualty, which definitely is problematic for this sort of tactic). Typically UK units have to deliberately be sent in from India in advance, and US ground unit(s) from China must be preserved.

But having a small number of ground forces has loads more applications.

For example, I mentioned above using German infantry to keep Japanese fighters safe. If UK only has air units in range, UK would end up trading expensive air units for cheap German ground - though that bleeds the German stack, it’s really often not worth the trade (as UK fighters can be used in a combined Allied stack defense as well).

But if UK ground units are in range, suddenly Germany has to use a lot more units to defend, which bleeds its major stack, or Japan’s air becomes unsafe, or any number of unpleasant scenarios.

Or, I mentioned if USSR attempts to move its Moscow stack into Kazakh, that Germany can smash it. If US has ground forces to recapture Kazakh from Axis, though, USSR fighters can land on Kazakh, which can make a difference, especially if a good portion of Germany’s attack units are at West Russia and/or Archangel instead of just a simple stack on Caucasus, which is what’s going to happen in the game described above.

When players attempt to “optimize”, often they may ignore these small but important things, instead doing things like “I must defend India with everything possible, because defending India is important”. True. But other things are also important. Depending on dice outcomes and player decisions, both the player’s own decisions and the opponent’s decisions, games change a lot.

But I don’t understand? India is important? Look at the screenshots. UK is holding India, but I don’t think any player would seriously claim Allies are in a winning position.

Or I don’t understand? Japan needs to be the major Axis stack controller against KGF? Look at the screenshots. It’s a KGF. Japan is far from the major Axis stack controller. Again, seems it’s working out for Axis.

And for those that say “well it’s not that simple, there’s other factors” - exactly. Which is why I detail and open for discussion what I think those factors are, and how different factors need to be weighed in the balance.

1942 Online’s lack of communications is on some level understandable. There are costs to implementing features. Simply removing communications options reduces options for toxicity. Sure.

But after a couple years of play, the 1942 Online meta is pretty awful by and large.

Maybe the thought was, players are going to be so casual, they won’t actually want to develop or learn. Communication? Who needs all that? Make 'em jump through hoops!

But for the same reason, I don’t find 1942 Online particularly compelling, particularly ranked with stale meta and compulsory 24 hour checkins.

What was the desired experience, really? What is 1942 Online’s “ideal player”?

On the one hand, a casual player that isn’t going to care if they can’t see unit movements and deal with an obfuscating UI, because “it’s just a game.” No need to chat, “it’s just a game.” But on the other hand, 24 hour checkins are pretty demanding, and where with other “free to play” games missing a day usually means losing some virtual currency or negligible opportunity cost, here a single missed checkin means losing potentially hours of investment made in multiple ranked games.

On the other hand, noncasual players that don’t need chat because they’re already synched outside the game. But then, all the limiting rules changes, lack of bid, and obfuscating AI make the program a bother to use. (Just use TripleA!)

So if the product fundamentally does not appeal to casuals or to noncasuals, the playerbase ends up being only players with very particular preferences, or one might say tolerances. Is that “just my opinion” or isn’t that just how things are?

Sometimes people protest that complaints don’t understand the realities of the situation (yet typically such arguments never provide such “realities” or leave anything open to discussion). For my part, I think the programming team was given limited time and limited budget to accomplish certain tasks that were designated by the design team; I think the design team was probably constrained by orders from up the chain which in turn were likely influenced by licensing and investor considerations. So where I would say the design was not good enough, or there are demonstrably bugs, well, I think that’s understandable, to some point.

But at some point someone needed to step in and take responsibility. Someone had to be in charge. It’s two years on, and I’m playing ranked games in a weak meta, with the altered rules, the no-bid, no balance, 24 hour checkin, and no-comms.

Look, I’ll tell you how I know it’s a weak meta.

Some might argue “not everyone wants to have a discussion, aardvark!” So true. But you don’t need a discussion if you understand fundamentals. If you understand the fundamentals, it takes ten seconds to respond in an intelligent way to basic questions.

. . . like?

Let’s take the basic topic of Axis vs Allies balance. The so-called conversation around that was, Axis win 55%, Allies win 45% at one point. And the narrative was, that’s balanced. That’s defined as balanced, you understand, that was the nature of the so-called “conversation”.

But the problem is, over large sample sets, 55% versus 45% indicates imbalance. And further, as I pointed out at the time, the data collection itself was suspect, because if weak players tend to play Axis, then reports would naturally skew against the “true balance” of the game when played by skilled players. (Similar things happen with fighting games and Starcraft, but I digress.)

The developers put in separate ratings for Axis and for Allies, which I disagree with, but all right, at least that addresses some concerns over imbalance. But the discussion I mentioned above was not about ratings validity, but game balance in general; Axis versus Allies. And again, the argument was made using facts that was presented as having one meaning when the actual meaning was literally the opposite.

Well, mistakes can be made. But back to player skill in the meta.

When you have players of a certain ability, they’re going to naturally draw up probability distributions, as was done in some articles for 1942 Revised edition. Seems most of what I remember has been lost to time, but I remember reading and writing such articles, so I know very well it happened.

And what is the nature of these probability distribution writeups? Well, what happens is one takes different proposed moves, writes up the probability distributions and sequential decisions based on information available, and creates probable outcomes. Over multiple turns, different opponent and player responses are each explored, each action having its own probability distribution. By understanding the probability distributions and their consequences, “balance” is proved or disproved for a skilled player set.

And that’s really all there is to it. If that sounds stupidly complicated, literally that was what I did this entire thread (without so much numbers) but one can very much see the numbers and the thinking behind everything if one looks. Would help if had TripleA’s .tsvg system but eh.

So how do you know when it’s a weak meta? When players keep asking about balance regularly, and they keep getting the same stock answers using statistics with no context with suspect data. Okay it’s pretty funny for some people, but come on. At some point you’ve just got to be like really now.

But nobody wants to do some sort of complicated writeup or analysis just to answer a question that doesn’t even apply?

Well, no. When a decent player creates strategies, they must understand their tactical tools, they must understand how to evaluate board state, how to optimally distribute forces and plan purchases not just for the current turn but subsequent turn. I hope that just makes sense. So naturally if they’re thinking through such things and trying to identify key timings, then they are going to do a certain amount of necessary work.

Which is why it was simple for me to understand quite early how Japan could use submarines to counter the KJF, and why and how Japan should pressure India, the timing of the German advance to cut off units at India, and various contingencies. Sure, a lot of the lessons in how to evaluate numbers and distributions came from reading up on Revised. But Revised allowed transports to be used as cannon fodder, had different setup at India and East Canada; anti-KJF in 1942 Online is a different animal.

And as a side note it’s nuts for me when I read players write about “shucking” East Canada like it’s Revised. In Revised, you needed one transport per transport drop from East Canada to northeastern Africa, there were fewer territories in Revised making it faster to march through, transports acted as ablative armor protecting Allied fleet cores. In 1942 Second Edition, you need two transports per transport drop, Japan capture of Alaska threatens the Eastern Canada sea zones, etc. etc.

The real key identifier for lack of thought in a meta is a lack of discussion about pros and cons and real consequences.

Oh, G1 can build Berlin tanks to help secure Karelia on G2? Well I suppose that might not have been incredibly obvious to some players so was worth mentioning. But what about the loss of infantry on the G4 push towards Ukraine? What, nothing? Somehow Germany magically makes up the difference? But look at the numbers on the income, these different branches - no? Just take your word for it because you’re “top platinum”? What about where you say this and this happens, but it doesn’t happen if an opponent reasonably does this and this? Doesn’t the whole supposition just break apart?

Players don’t want to have involved discussions? Sure. But when there’s authoritarian commands like “build 2 tanks on round 1”, well, there’s an old joke I think about George Washington and the Continental Congress, something like that. Someone proposed that the army be limited to whatever number of soldiers, and Washington said “Let’s also pass a motion that we’ll never be invaded by armies above a certain size too” or some such thing. Ha ha. No, it’s really funny, you know?

But when such hilarity is said in all solemnity and expected to be taken seriously, well, you know.

Thanks to moderators for certain recent action.

I mentioned earlier going into detail would derail the thread, but reading through this thread can give incorrect impressions. So some comments (though brief) are appropriate.

Even if imbalance only applies to new players before they get used to certain strategy and tactics, it’s still an issue.

I believe there is mathematical imbalance favoring the Axis, not limited to new players. Roughly, the argument:

A. If either side has a fairly “safe” move that offers good chance of advantage, that action should be taken.

B. The Axis have a higher chance of such occurring than the Allies (after player action, dice outcomes, and contingencies). Particular conditions include Germany’s counter to USSR1’s West Russia capture, contrasted to Germany’s failing the UK battleship fight / UK destroyer at Mediterranean fights. For both Axis cases the chance of failure is lower, and Axis ability to recover from bad dice is higher, compared to the Allied position.

Readers should understand B is not an argument that should be undertaken lightly. I make an especial point, as on several past instances some readers would take some parts of what I’d write, and try to twist the argument to support their diametrically opposite positions. But the proof is not in some grandiose “concept” or whatever flim-flam trickery. The proof is in pages and pages of reasoning, mathematics, explanations of contingencies &c, and if you don’t have that, you will fall on your face.

I think posters in search of an absolute truth won’t have a problem with falling on their face sometimes. But for posters that just want to prop up bad arguments with “impressive sounding” phrases, best not.

==

There are a few points that ought be brought up regarding panzer666’s posts.

First, the question of versions. EricB’s second post referenced ranking, which uses the LHTR setup. Snoil’s eighth post referenced his initially referencing the OOB setup and later using the LHTR setup. MarineIguana/BostonNWO’s second post questioned whether LHTR was being used - and for all posters and posts, I think generally the thought was that the LHTR was being used, for 1942 Online in particular.

Then panzer666 posts, and you see where he talks about 12 to West Russia / 9 to Ukraine being soft. (Reference MarineIguana/BostonNWO’s first post / panzer666’s first post).

Panzer666 is right about that in the OOB setup because OOB Germany’s bomber won’t be destroyed at Ukraine, so Germany has a better counter to West Russia. It’s only in LHTR that USSR1 12 WRussia / 9 Ukr becomes more viable.

(But as I read it, everyone else, including myself, was referencing the LHTR setup by that point. Well, these things are easily missed).

Second, though

@panzer666 said in Game Imbalance massively obvious:

@ericb you say Germany is in a lot of trouble if allies target her .that’s a funny joke

Doubling down on advice without knowing the version under discussion (at least, that’s how I read the situation), plus calling something a “funny joke” on top of that, plus being wrong on the actual points why something is supposedly a “funny joke”.

Wrong on the actual points? Well, I think so.

@panzer666 said in Game Imbalance massively obvious:

@ericb you say Germany is in a lot of trouble if allies target her .that’s a funny joke .first of all Germany targets the allies first round except Russia which should be on the defensive anyway unless you think russia can just walk on into Berlin .just look at the facts Germany starts at the gates of Moscow ,real good way of targeting Germany.so Germany can all but sink the allied week indefensible navy because that’s realistic to ww2 ,British Navy is nothing but tug boats .apparently.then good luck rebuilding the navy having to abandon the pacific to Japan ,leaving you wide open for a victory city loss.

Let’s assume it is OOB setup (which again I’ll point out isn’t how I see any other participating poster in this thread commenting.)

First, about victory cities. Axis control Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Philippine Islands, Kwangtung. Allies control Eastern US, Western US, Hawaiian Islands, United Kingdom, India, Russia, and Karelia.

The assertion is Axis win on victory cities, but that’s not really the focus in games between skilled players. Chess games are not won by the actual capture of an opponent’s king, but by material, by position, by pressure. Similarly, victory cities are a pressure condition skilled players work with and around. A game may end with Axis victory city condition, but with competent players it’s far less about raw power and some forced scripted inevitable victory, and far more about pressure and best chances.

Practically, the Axis need three out of four of the usually-contested territories of Karelia, India, Hawaiian Islands, and Russia to win. Capturing East US, West US, or United Kingdom is not possible with normal dice with reasonably skilled players. I trust I need not go into detail.

The obvious response is the Axis can capture Karelia, India, and Hawaiian Islands, so “the Axis get a victory city win”. But by the time that happens the Allied player should be able to contest Kwangtung, Philippines, Karelia, France, and/or Italy. I do not say the Allies can always contest one of those victory cities, what with dice and player actions - but understand the definition of a competent Allied player is one with a plan with some reasonable expectation of preventing loss by victory city.

Second, about the Allied navy. “Germany can all but sink the allied week indefensible navy because that’s realistic to ww2 ,British Navy is nothing but tug boats .apparently.then good luck rebuilding the navy having to abandon the pacific to Japan ,leaving you wide open for a victory city loss.”

There’s a lot to unpack there, but none of it is necessarily correct. There’s just a bit too much “magical thinking”.

“good luck rebuilding the navy”? On the contrary. Even if Germany positions its air west, there are reasonable scenarios that have UK opening with a fleet buy - which you can reasonably say Germany may be able to sink. But if Germany does expend its air on UK targets, that means less that can hit at the Allies in land territories in Europe. To be clear, even if German air has decent odds on a favorable-odds battle against a UK navy, that can still be a strategic mistake. The Axis still need to break the combined Allied stack on land, and if Germany is losing fighters in other battles - you see.

Then too, there’s the question of US1 navy build into US2 air build into US3 noncombat movement and air unifying off UK after a UK3 fleet drop. The Allies don’t want to do things that slowly if it can be helped, but even so it’s moderately quick and there’s almost nothing the Axis can do to stop it, short of measures that end up costing the Axis so much that the investment is questionable.

Finally (for the second point regarding Allied navy anyways), there’s the question of what, precisely, you’re recommending. What, precisely, you think the Allied naval situation is and should be. You dismissively say the Allied navy is blown up, but is it really? If the two US transports off East US survive, for example, they can make a drop to French West Africa, then both UK and US have counterplay against German income in Africa. If that covers Africa, what of Asia? Well, what would you recommend, that the Allies try to fight Japan in the Indian and Pacific Oceans? I’ve written quite a lot elsewhere about how I don’t think that works well at all. So if you’re going to say the Allies go Atlantic, and if the Allies can go Atlantic, and if the Allies have reasonable chances elsewhere, then perhaps the Allied position isn’t that bad.

Unless you’re saying Germany destroyed everything in the Atlantic, which with OOB setup it has some reasonable chances at. But destroying everything requires some extraordinary luck, even in OOB. If you disagree, go ahead and post the OOB Germany1 turn moves and probability distributions that demonstrates otherwise.

The third point is claiming Russia should be on the “defensive”. Actually USSR needs to produce some offensive units to prevent Germany from early gains. I’m not saying USSR should go bombers, but pure infantry isn’t great for USSR either.

If you want to recast that in the context that you’re talking about West Russia being broken, remember. As I read it most others in the thread are assuming LHTR setup, which means far weaker Germany in Atlantic, plus Germany’s bomber almost certainly being destroyed. It’s still quite possible that West Russia gets broken, but it’s not near as likely as in OOB, nor is the position nearly as bad even if it does happen.

The fourth point is the general pessimism and dismissiveness of panzer666’s view of the Allies. If someone’s a bit vague, or even pessimistic, fair enough. But an argument consisting of saying UK is reduced to “tugboats” and Allies “abandon” the Pacific and claiming the Axis win by VC, well, some of that can happen, but what of Allied pressure at Karelia? What if Allies open up early trading at France/Italy? These possibilities are not considered, and even dismissed as a “joke”. There’s good points in what panzer666 writes, especially if you’re thinking about the OOB, but even for OOB, it’s a bit much.

Suppose it’s KGF. Why don’t the Allies develop pressure at Karelia? Obviously the Allies do that; once the Allies can shuttle stacks of cost-effective ground units to reinforce Russia then if the Allies haven’t fought any severely losing stack battles the Allies have real chances (even if down on economy). Besides that, as I wrote, the Allies must have a plan that prevents loss by victory city. It is accepted Axis will have a strong hold on Karelia, will capture India, and Hawaiian Islands. By the time that happens, Allies must contest another victory city. That’s just how it is.

But what if the Allies don’t develop pressure at Karelia? But as I wrote, a competent Allied player will play to prevent VC loss. So the only reason Karelia doesn’t open up is if Allies managed to open up trading at France/Italy instead.

So no matter how you slice it, you see the Allies are preventing loss by victory city condition - provided Russia doesn’t fall. (I’m not getting into KJF/antiKJF here as I’m just illustrating general points).

But you want to say that Karelia, India, and Hawaiian Islands all fall before that happens? How, exactly? Karelia, sure, but if you send towards Hawaiian Islands early then you’re not pushing to Asia or India early. If you push India early you’re not pushing Hawaiian Islands early. There’s going to be a delay one way or another if the Allies player is competent.

As usual I’m not trying to establish any sort of comprehensive argument. At the open, I usually start by saying look at least at the few things I’m pointing out, think about how things really happen, think about the validity of the counterargument.

If there’s still disagreement that’s fine, but at least there should be a framework of logical argument, of points that can be proved or disproved. When an argument is based on a logical framework, there can be progression in the discussion.

@aardvarkpepper I replied to you but deleted it because I didn’t see @djensen 's post asking everyone to knock it off and agreed with it. There’s no point in getting into a flamewar over dice RNG.

All I will say is that, if you’re that burnt out by bad dice, just take a break from the game dude.

@JuliusBorisovBeamdog SWEETNESS. Thank you

Doesn’t help that the animation exaggerates hits over non hits.

Shift-Window-S brings up crosshairs for the Snip & Sketch tool on windows 10.

The bug fixes are super appreciated. I can get through my 8 active games in ~20 minutes now Vs. ~2 hours before. Having the LHTR as an alternative setup is fantastic as well!