L23 2nd Ed OOB AndrewAAGamer (X) vs farmboy (Allies+60)

@andrewaagamer Great game! You have a very tough axis strategy and for much of hte game it felt like one mistake or one dicing would be the end of me. Even at the end, you were doing a great job staying in it despite my economic advantage.

I’ll comment more later. I’ll certainly be up for a rematch, but need to decide if I can do that now or if its better to wait to close out one of my other games first. At some point I have the BM final coming too and I’m finding it tough to keep up with 3 games as it is.

@andrewaagamer said in L23 2nd Ed OOB AndrewAAGamer (X) vs farmboy (Allies+60):

I do have one thought. Early on, J1, you gave me an even battle in Yunnan.

51% Axis win
6% draw
43% Allied win

I contemplated making the attack but decided against it thinking it may be a game winning or losing battle and I didn’t want get diced. However, since I lost badly, I wonder if that is a battle the Axis should take assuming the two players are of equal skill.

Do you think it is a game winning or losing battle?

I’m not sure if it is a game deciding battle, but it feels pretty significant. I attempted this in a face to face game this weekend, and for 13 in bid, it seems to help hold India as well as bringing the Med fleet around.

Assuming a draw or an Axis win that means 57% of the time the Axis win and 43% they lose. I certainly would be happy to win 57% of the time against a person of your caliber.

Assuming a draw Russia loses 3 planes. 2 of which were starting units and one from the Bid. Japan loses 4 planes. Which hurts more? Japan being down 4 planes or Russia being down to just one fighter? My gut is it hurts Russia a tiny bit more than it hurts Japan as it makes it easier for Germany to take Moscow.

If it is a game winning or losing battle then a lesser player would certainly make that attack.

I think a draw may be an Allied win - China can still buy artillery and land the fighter there. Also, those odds assume both bombers are attacking Yunnan, so the BS in 37 survives.

Making Japan risk a 50 / 50 battle on J1 is a win for the Allies.

@andrewaagamer because I’ve mostly played BM (and my thinking around allied strategy really developed while I was playing BM), its not a move I have a lot of experience with. BM gives the soviets and Japanese more of an incentive not to declare war on eachother and gives the axis more of an incentive for a later Japanese DOW.

So others might have a better sense of what happens when that move goes south for the allies. I knew it wasn’t a risk you typically go for and had checked out a couple of the games you had played where the allies did do that, and saw that you didn’t attack. So I thought it was pretty likely you wouldn’t go for it.

I was also fairly certain you would go for the British Battleship (and I think it may have been a mistake not too) and so that removes at least one bomber.

It is definitely bad for the Soviets to lose that air. And I’m definitely replacing at least one of them so that means the Soviets are also down 3 land units. But because I only need that air after the Germans invade in round 3 (or later when they reach Moscow), I do have time to make that up. My strategy for defending Moscow is always about allied pressure in the West and in making sure I have a ton of allied air that can reach from the Middle East (if not also from Greece and/or Norway) and so I would try to make sure a bit more allied air is going to be available for that. And knowing I have a weaker Japan makes it a bit easier to direct more resources to the Atlantic

And because Japan loses that air in a J1 DOW, its going to be immediately felt. I haven’t really looked, but I suspect it will mean, as Govz notes, I can stack Yunnan, and India, the US fleet, and the Soviet stack are all going to be a little safer.

But I’m definitely going for it in large part because I’m fairly confident my opponent isn’t going to attack, and its not a move I would necessarily make against a weaker player, precisely because they are more likely to go for it and let the dice determine the game. If Japan does go for it, and the dice go their way, the allies are in trouble.

@andrewaagamer I disagree with your assessment, Andrew. Against equal opponents, it is worth rolling the dice in Yunnan on J1 with that type of stack. If the Allies get more hits than the Axis on turn 1, retreat. You likely only lost your ground units. Maybe one or two planes if you are really unlucky.

If Japan is ahead on the dice after the first turn, they likely will win the territory without losing their uber-important bombers. It is a major blow to China as they might not be able to stack on Yunnan on J2, and a huge blow to Russia as they lost those critical planes that are necessary to defend Moscow and strike surgical counterattacks against German invaders.

Having the ability to retreat after seeing the results tips my recommendation towards Yunnan strike for equally-matched opponents. Definitely avoid against vastly inferior foes. Curious, based on my skill level, what did you think your chance of a W was at the start of the playoff match? 85%?

@arthur-bomber-harris If Japan really needs to go for it, than that is the way to do it. And you should be able to save most if not all the air. But I’m still probably not going to do it, unless I’m convinced that this is a game deciding battle (and I don’t think it is). One reason is that the battle is evenly matched in the first round, and the odds of coming out of it knowing that you will win will be less than the odds of actually winning. So you will often have to commit to the second round likely without having significantly improved odds. And of course you forgo the safer attack on the battleship for a riskier one that might either fail or cause significant attrition. Its also a set back to trade Japanese land units in a loss given how relatively scarce they are.

I’m curious what you saw as your other mistakes Andrew. I gave you several battles on the mainland with odds of better than 90%. I did so thinking these were likely going to be pyrrhic. In that while you would almost certainly win, you always had to go all in and would lose scarce ground units and/or trade air for inf and so would ultimately be in a weaker position in relation to the US or the other stacks I had on the mainland. I don’t think you were ever in a position where you could likely take and hold India or Yunnan. But given the situation, maybe you had to go for one of these and hope the dice helped.

Things have become a bit of a blur now but I had some thoughts on how it might have gone differently. Until I grabbed the Caroline Islands you were really efficient at ferrying land units from japan to the mainland. But I think a mistake may have been not building 1-2 more factories early in the game to keep producing land units.

And in Europe, you traded away the Italian and German fleets very early. In the long run, they are not going to survive, but I think you would have been better off making me go for them. Its not always easy to get enough allied force to feel that one can safely do it, and as long as they are there, I have to worry more about the threats to Egypt, Gibraltar, London and my landing on Norway and I may have had to play a bit more conservatively as a result.

@farmboy said in L23 2nd Ed OOB AndrewAAGamer (X) vs farmboy (Allies+60):

@arthur-bomber-harris If Japan really needs to go for it, than that is the way to do it. And you should be able to save most if not all the air. But I’m still probably not going to do it, unless I’m convinced that this is a game deciding battle (and I don’t think it is). One reason is that the battle is evenly matched in the first round, and the odds of coming out of it knowing that you will win will be less than the odds of actually winning. So you will often have to commit to the second round likely without having significantly improved odds. And of course you forgo the safer attack on the battleship for a riskier one that might either fail or cause significant attrition. Its also a set back to trade Japanese land units in a loss given how relatively scarce they are.

All of this is correct, and I would not attack as Japan because of it. The risk is way too high. Add in the opportunity cost of not being able to kill the BS in 37, and it isn’t worth it. The Axis are still the favorites. Japan has other options to win (or just help Germany win) than to risk a coin flip on the first turn.

And if this battle was really game deciding, the Axis could just lower the bid - though my 1st 13 in bid will be going to this. So my question is how does this change the bid?

@andrewaagamer If I remember correctly, @oysteilo used it too. He came close to winning too, but came up short. I’m guessing though that he might have played a bit more conservatively with the allies, retreating in situations where he may have been able to risk holding his ground.

Because I know Andrew does a J1, I am putting a good chunk of the bid in support of the Yunnan move and to defend India. In this game, I think the art in Amur was wasted and I could afford to drop a sub on the Europe side and another land unit without losing too much. After that, it feels hard to give things up.

I have updated my self on the discussion here. I am sure farmboy is correct abd i should have made a stand at places where i retreat. However, if defender (allies) only have 10% as farmboy suggest my DNA tells me to back off just because of the attackers advantage of retreating. Exactly what the limit is here is hard to say at least for me. Maybe 30% win is good enough for allies in many situations, but dont underestimate the power of going for it and retreat.

For the bid, I am convinced the allies should bid at least 2 art if not 3 in soviet far east. I think that is one of the reason i lost against Andrew. The soviets lost all income, with the art it would definately have happened much later.

+12 in soviet far east
+23 for the yunnan stack
+10 for scotland
+12 for 2 subs 106 and 110
+3 inf ng

@oysteilo If the axis do start attacking Yunnan and I’m finding the cost of it higher than the benefit, I’m adding another fighter too. I haven’t done this move a lot (I htink this might be the second time) because I haven’t used this approach in BM. So right now I’m willing to play this with a bit more risk just because it strikes me as a high risk move for the axis.

And just to clarify the odds, when i give the axis 90% (or better) odds, the goal is to create situations where there was allied pressure somewhere else and, if he went for it, he would always have traded units that he was going to need elsewhere. The point is not only to rely on your opponent’s playing conservatively but to create conditions where in the context of the whole board, victories are pyrrhic. In the pacific the Japanese player often is relying on a tonne of air, but lacks ground troops, an outcome is that they often trade the land units they need to hold and take territory on the mainland, or lose air that give him the edge in those battles and help keep the US fleet on the outside.

I think this is good stuff, but also to some degree basic knowledge. A few examples would be helpful here!

the axis attack on yunnan is a no brainer in a no bid game, it is also a no brainer as long as bids are not placed here or to support yunnan. Yunnan should not be attacked by axis if bid 2 fighters and and 1nf, 1 fighter and 1 inf is also questionable

i ask of examples where allies should make a stand at 10 or 20% chance elsewhere (not yunnan) I agree making a stand is a good move, but I am unsure about 10-20 % chance. Of course if this means disaster elsewhere I 100% agree. Can you pin point examples? i am just curious!

1. The only place where I would make a stand at 20% chance or lower would be Moscow, Egypt, India, any China stack, and a key blocking place in the Middle East where you are defending in depth so the weakened stack won’t be able to continue the charge very far.

2. agree with the 3 art bid the soviet far east. It has rendered Japan very weak in Asia.

3. do opponents actually allow you to do the inf in NG bid?

4. 13-23 is good for yunnan stack depending on the strength of the opponent. More bid for a weaker opponent who might yolo it.

5. I like having another 10 bid for ground units to help out in Africa as the game is a L if the Allies get diced on UK1. Happened to me even with a big bid.