@marineiguana You tell me of the importance of Japan’s timing to India? I’m the one that added “timing” to the lexicon of the 1942 Online meta.
You’re saying UK2 has a deadzone against Egypt, you’re saying Japan captures India, I’m saying there’s more to it.
@marineiguana We agree India is weakened. We disagree about consequences.
New players don’t understand what “deadzoning” is. Call it overextension.
As to referencing “deadzone” like it’s a final answer -
http://donsessays.freeservers.com/deadzone.htm
“The first sure sign of the A&A novice is to simply move forces to attack attack attack, and react react react, without recognizing the immediate and future effect it has across their fronts, over the future turns.”
Overextension is just one application of the core issue of players not thinking through the consequences.
I am saying the India/Africa situation is not as simple as it’s being made out to be. I am saying a lot of things are not as simple as they’re being made out to be.
@marineiguana said in New Season, has there been any change to dice in ranked games?:
@brian-cannon
As we’ve discussed, the Germany med fleet is like the Ukraine bomber. You expect it to be killed and it’s a bonus if you get any compensation. Looks like you didn’t this game.The UK player actually made a major mistake that can be punished. the UK units should be in trans Jordan. Japan has a fairly free India R3 timing that will be very expensive to handle with 3 less infantry.
Actually, the Germany player did get compensation, and I don’t know that I can say bulking Egypt was a “mistake”.
Other players taking their sweet time is not unusual.
I think your unranked games are reflected in your record that others can see. So perhaps your “record” will be tarnished!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Kyi0WNg40
also in recent fun news
@marineiguana said in New Season, has there been any change to dice in ranked games?:
I’m happy to play a casual game with you and provide feedback. Boston_NWO#4108
Always nice to see players willing to put time in.
@marineiguana said in New Season, has there been any change to dice in ranked games?:
The same people are at the top every season because they execute excellently and minimize risk. Jan, Quintin, Battousai, CND, Il_principino. I’ve played all of them and they execute excellently.
It’s not just about execution and risk management. The ranked system rewards grinding. I really don’t feel it’s appropriate to even call it an Elo-based system with rank degradation over time, never mind twenty-four hour limits.
If you have two players with equal skill, but one of them can make the regular 24-hour checkins every day over a few months and another can’t, the rankings are going to reflect that.
So I’d say perhaps it’s that there’s just a few players that meet some level of competency that can also grind consistently. But even if that’s true, that separate to the question of whether any players are using dice exploits or not.
@marineiguana said in New Season, has there been any change to dice in ranked games?:
Specific examples:
don’t attack E Canada, send all 6 units to sz7. By sending 5, you’re turning a 99% battle into a 90% battle with variations in the 90% where Germany loses a fighter.
Pearl is a risky battle. If you want to minimize risk, stop attacking it as Japan. I have.
Stack 5 fighters in reach of UK sea zone and surviving units in sz7 makes it difficult to create a navy. UK will feel strong pressure to use the bomber to trade sz7 instead of attempting to hit Germany’s med fleet round 1. Sounds like UK gets to hit med fleet for free in your games since Germany takes unnecessary risks in SZ7.
Germany’s med fleet is expendable. Treat it as dead, and a bonus if it survives round 1. It’s just like the Japan transport in sz61, bomber in Ukraine.
I understand your intent was to provide examples, not discuss the particular merits. But your point was to eliminate “unnecessary” risk - what is “unnecessary”? How is it defined?
I feel I’ve been through this particular example before, but that’s all right.
“don’t attack E Canada, send all 6 units to sz7. By sending 5, you’re turning a 99% battle into a 90% battle with variations in the 90% where Germany loses a fighter.”
“Stack 5 fighters in reach of UK sea zone and surviving units in sz7 makes it difficult to create a navy. UK will feel strong pressure to use the bomber to trade sz7 instead of attempting to hit Germany’s med fleet round 1. Sounds like UK gets to hit med fleet for free in your games since Germany takes unnecessary risks in SZ7.”
I get around 98%.
A bit less than 92%.
Ignoring questions like what if USSR sub submerges for simplicity (which does not hurt the counter-argument, as it is sufficient to demonstrate one counterexample) - we know that aacalc has rounding errors. But using the above, 40% of the time Germany has 2 subs and a cruiser or more surviving, 60% less.
We know the UK cruiser survived, why? Because we’re talking about ranked games that use the LHTR setup. It’s said that 5 German fighters are stacked in reach of the UK sea zone, which means the fighter starting on Germany didn’t attack the UK cruiser. We also know no German submarine in the Atlantic attacked the UK cruiser. The assumption here is that USSR captured the Ukraine, which we could say bears closer examination, but I don’t think MarineIguana/BostonNWO would disagree, because he favors the 9 units to Ukraine / capture Ukraine opening, is that not correct? Well, if it becomes a point, we can address it then.
So we know the likely scenario is UK can hit German defenders of 1 submarine 1 cruiser with destroyer from East Canada, cruiser from Mediterranean, and two fighters. Even if you say Germany had two submarines, it’s still a reasonable attack. This still leaves the UK bomber free to hit Germany’s Med fleet on round 1.
But also, why will UK feel strong pressure to use the bomber to trade sz7? Yes, the Allies want to chase the Germans out of the Atlantic, but UK can do a fleet dump on UK3 followed by US reinforcement on US3. That’s assuming Germany doesn’t shift off threatening the UK sea zones on G2. On the other hand, UK is the only one in position to do anything about early German incursions in Africa. You get German income in Africa, that has to be rooted out, and it’s a lot of trouble if Japan is competent. I would say the pressure is on UK to blow up the German Med fleet, that’s why the UK hits the Med fleet at all. If some players don’t, that’s on them.
So you get two reasonable battles for UK at Mediterranean (2 fighters 1 bomber vs German battleship) and another (likely) northwest of UK at sea zone 7 (destroyer, cruiser, two fighters vs sub/cruiser, or optionally 2 sub/cruiser, or you could argue for 3 subs if so inclined. Are those unreasonable battles? Is that not what is indicated?
Are there tradeoffs? Sure. I think it’s more compelling that UK fighters then can’t land on West Russia. But suffice to say it’s not so much that surviving German units in sz7 make it difficult to create a navy along with 5 German fighters, because the German units in sz7 don’t survive, right?
Unless MarineIguana’s talking about pressuring against a UK1 build? I’m perfectly willing to accept that as I think it makes sense, except the details, once worked out, argue against Germany sending everything to SZ 7.
But before starting on that, a brief recap. I’ve explained that Germany sending everything to sz 7 isn’t necessarily a good “brute force” that pre-empts any reasonable UK response. Also, I’ve explained that just about nothing can stop a UK3/US3 fleet drop timing. I’m not saying UK3/US3 is great or optimal, it’s slower than one likes and if one can get away with doing things faster then you definitely do it. But if the Axis do some high pressure options, then UK3/US3 meets most answers, except the ones that pretty much mean the Axis didn’t buy ground, which is another thing entirely. Which I’m fine with addressing, maybe in another thread.
So I’m saying already there’s reason to think twice about Germany sending everything to sz7. Which is without even discussing the points of German fighter placement, because there is going to be a difference between placing fighters on Finland, NW Europe, and France; if you bulk or split, each has its own scenarios.
But then, maybe some players start talking about the edge cases. In which case, there’s even more reason for Germany not to send everything to sz7. Because once you’re arguing on the basis of Germany can possibly get great gains, you have to look at the probability of a proposed action’s getting those gains, as opposed to the probability of a proposed alternative action getting different gains, then you compare the two. If an alternative action is more likely to succeed and has higher payoffs, then that is reasonable risk. Make sense?
So let’s say UK tries to wipe out Germanys sz7 fleet and doesn’t do great - loses a fighter. Not great. Fighters are expensive. If Germany put 5 fighters in range of UK’s sea zones then it can blow up UK’s fleet, right? But no. Because UK can simply opt not to build any naval units, saving it for UK2. And again, this ignores the scenario where UK doesn’t lose any fighters, which is reasonably likely. This is sort of like, UK decides to be super antsy, then decides not to build a navy to challenge Germany’s air force in the first place, which it very well might because if Germany trades off its air against a UK fleet with no transports then it’s Germany bleeding out its stacks against UK, which is what UK/US want to do anyways. But again, we’re projecting that UK is antsy.
So let’s say UK doesn’t build a fleet. What does Germany gain? Finland/Norway for a turn. Maybe two. But that’s all.
Which isn’t bad, sure. Not bad at all.
But think about the chain of assumptions that led to this point. Germany gets lucky in sz7. UK then gets unlucky in sz7 and/or is afraid to grab the bull by the horns. I don’t know that I would assign fantastic odds to this line.
Contrast to what happens if Germany splits a sub off to hit the East Canada fleet. 1/3 chance to destroy the UK destroyer, 1/3 chance to destroy both UK destroyer and transport, 1/3 chance fail. Plus risk of German fighter, but follow along.
Suppose Germany gets lucky at East Canada’s sea zone. 1/3 chance. Compare to the sequence of events needed in the other scenario. I think I would perhaps prefer 1/3.
Then what happens if Germany does get lucky? Germany doesn’t need to defend France or NW Europe at all. So Germany can shift all its units east. And that’s going to be perhaps two or three mobilized units that are going east of Berlin instead of west.
But Germany can just drop AA guns and fighters to defend? UK can hit France and NW Europe with infantry, tank, two fighters, and bomber. If the Allies KGF, Germany will want its AA guns later, and those things are not cheap. But more, Germany always wants its fighters. Leaving German air without ground units helping on defense, even with AA, is a risky proposition. It’s not great if Germany retains its Med fleet, but normally UK doesn’t get a chance to pick off German air either. It’s not the worst.
So already you’re looking at a much better payout. 6 IPCs in the bank (at best), versus two to three mobilized units saving two turns worth of movement and still getting the 6 IPC with the latter. You just have better opportunities for early pressure, it’s so much better.
What if Germany doesn’t get so lucky? 2/3 chance to blow up the UK destroyer; if that happens the Allies have no way to destroy any German submarines at sz 7 that survive the battle if they simply submerge.
So which scenario really favors German survivors in the aftermath of sz7 attack then counter? A better attack, followed by a much stronger counter? Or a weaker attack, followed by a nonexistent counter?
Then too, I’m obliged to Baron Munchausen for his comments in the 1942 Second Edition forum about thinking about taking submarines as casualties after cruisers.
Do I disagree about execution and taking unnecessary risk? Of course not. It’s axiomatic, like “you want to take a lot of unnecessary chances? of course not!” But exactly what is “unnecessary” is, I think rather more of a discussion.
But returning to the point, some players say something works for them, that’s great. They’re sincerely trying to be helpful. But players that experience issues think they are already playing correctly. Telling them to not take unnecessary risks just don’t compute, because they don’t think they are taking unnecessary risks. Giving them a list of specific moves doesn’t work either, because after they do those moves, their game falls apart on the details elsewhere.
I think in the end, the player has to be responsible for seeking out answers if they want them. They have to put in the time if they want their answers. If others are willing to help, that’s great, but others can only do so much.
Returning to the OP, though, I’m not saying everything is the responsibility of the player. There’s a difference between being frustrated by gameplay, and having legitimate concerns over product features.
@drdachel said in newbie with a bunch of questions:
@aardvarkpepper
I assume by what you’re saying that I can go backwards in the game and relive the various moves.
Nope. You could try setting up a game with you playing all powers, and try to recreate the situation though.
I wasn’t trying to eliminate them, but in the videos, the swooshes appeared to be 1/4" or so and on my screen they were like 3/4 of an inch. They pretty much covered the width of Japan making it hard to see what else I had left. No biggy.
They used to have the lines connected to the UI, with individual lines for each unit (not merely unit type), which resulted in literally uncontrollable situations when there were too many lines.
You’re writing that sometimes you get good results, sometimes you get bad results, and you don’t seem to know why. I think the most likely causes are either 1) you don’t know all the details of how naval and air units work (even if you know a lot you could be missing important parts), or 2) you don’t have a grip on the mathematics.
Board Game Nation has some videos on youtube you could check out. Or you can dig up links to the 1942 Second Edition rulebook, and try to find what changes 1942 Online made to the rules (note the changes aren’t all documented well at all.)
For the math part, try using an axis and allies calculator as at
@quintin said in German Mediterranean Cruiser?:
Playing around with the calc
You “play with the calc” saying UK is hitting with loads of fighters. But I already addressed those scenarios and more besides to explain exactly how they don’t happen.
The process of logical fact-based reasoning requires resolving differences between frames of reference. It’s a lengthy process. If that was “Tl:dr:” (too long didn’t read) to you, it’s on you if you refuse to read the point, just as it would be on me if I didn’t make the point. (But I did make the point.)
I understand running projections and thinking through the details isn’t for everyone. But game mechanics and probability distributions don’t care if you don’t care to read or think through the details. It’s purely a question of mechanics and numbers. Not egos.
@aardvarkpepper said in German Mediterranean Cruiser?:
So if UK has fighters at Asia, then how does it really use them to destroy Germany’s fleet, especially if Germany is just bridging units to Libya? UK2 the fighters aren’t in position at all, Trans-Jordan can be recaptured but the fighters can’t land there this turn
Informally, in this post I’m explaining how a G1 German Med carrier is inferior to a German cruiser on G2+ in specific situations.
In a previous post I wrote how UK can have a pretty hefty UK1 fleet. Could be easily up to 2 destroyers 1 cruiser 1 carrier 2 fighters if the East Canada destroyer and Atlantic cruiser survived. But that does not look at the German greed scenario.
Which is? G1 open 11 inf 2 art, hits Trans-Jordan, 1 Atlantic sub goes after the UK destroyer at East Canada.
So what you can get in some games is Germany having 1-2 subs surviving the UK battleship fight, with the Allies having no destroyers in range to pick off any survivors. If the UK transport off East Canada is destroyed, then Germany is free to leave France and NW Europe entirely undefended, which means a faster harder push towards Europe. Then if UK wants to build a fleet, it perhaps has to fight off up to six or seven German attackers, one of which Germany is perfectly fine with seeing destroyed. Even if Germany doesn’t carry out the attack, the German submarine can perhaps escape into the Mediterranean where it poses a threat for quite a while.
Or Germany can send the German submarine after the UK cruiser with a better than 50% chance of survival if assisted by the German fighter. Then Germany has two groups of submarines, and it’s not like the Allies just want to hunt them with destroyers if Germany has a chunk of fighters. Could be. But maybe not.
But if you build a G1 carrier? Well, I’m not saying any of these possibilities threatening any UK1 naval build will happen. There are different variations based on dice. But if you build a Med carrier and land fighters on then you have fewer options in the Atlantic. There’s no way around it.
(Note - I wrote if Germany hunts the UK destroyer/transport there are advantages. But then that leaves US free to dump to West Africa (perhaps). So there’s more to it than just what I’m writing here. Also, if you take off more than one sub off the G1 attack on the UK battleship, that’s going into risky territory. It’s already risky to take one, heck even not taking any away the attack still has some risk.)
But why would fewer options in the Atlantic be a problem? Because of UK2-3.
Let’s say UK1 ends with a UK fleet in Atlantic. Depending on Germany’s ability to threaten such a build, you could see UK being greedy (in turn) to a weak German threat and building, say, carrier, transport (and three infantry for India).
Say the UK transport off East Canada survived. If UK1 built a carrier and transport then it ends UK1 with two transports, then on UK2, UK can capture both Norway and Finland. That gives UK badly needed income and starts the Finland stacking that pressures Germany at Karelia. But it also means German fighters on France can’t hit the UK fleet. UK gets early income, Germany loses income. It’s not something you want to happen. If you decided that you really wanted Africa income and you were willing to take some risks and maybe make some sacrifices then okay. You pay for what you get, and that’s just how the game is.
But then things get awkward all around. UK can’t build more navy without it being subjected to German air attack. So if UK wants to build more navy, absent other factors it’ll have to park its fleet adjacent to London. It’s also awkward for Germany, as trying to have air in range to hit UK’s fleet can mean leaving it out of position to pressure USSR.
If Germany’s threat in Europe continues to be weak, UK can continue to get away with sheananigans. And timing, well.
Suppose UK doesn’t make a drop of eight units to Europe. What will UK do? Buy two more transports and try to make up the difference over a couple turns? UK will never recoup the costs of those two transports. UK loses out one way or another, IPCs that could have been spent for ground units were spent for something else. But if UK doesn’t buy any more transports? Then that’s eight units that never landed in Europe. It’s like destroying eight units for effective purposes without ever firing a shot.
Finally, the UK3 fleet timing. Imagine if the Axis have a huge threat against the Atlantic. There’s still not much the Axis can do about a US1 Pacific carrier build, US2 air build, then UK3 building a full fleet all at once (having saved IPCs on earlier turns), then US3 moving its fleet and air to reinforce. That navy is gigantic.
But think about what happens in Europe during that time. UK1 there’s no drops. Nor on UK2. Or even UK3. The first UK drop of eight units happens on UK4, then you can perhaps have a fifth transport catching up from southeast Australia on later turns until UK’s excess land units are spent (if it had any). Nor is US necessarily dropping to Europe during that time; you could get a defended US3 drop to Finland/Norway, but not if US’s fleet is trying to protect a UK fleet build. Or you could get US3 to the sea zone adjacent to London and Norway but the US will have to miss a drop anyways if it’s rerouting transports to avoid Japan’s bomber which should be in the area by then.
So if Axis credibly threaten the Atlantic, they have a lot to gain. It’s not necessarily flashy with units being blown up, but if UK/US units are not being funneled into Europe, it’s almost like they died without ever firing a shot. Actually yes, the Allies are saving IPCs to hit harder for when they do hit, but all that time Germany’s benefiting from increased income while the Allies have less income, and it’s exactly these small differences that strong players use to their advantage.
To end - I’m not saying G1 carrier is wrong. But I’m saying sometimes in niche situations a G2+ cruiser is appropriate, and that that when it is, it’s a different situation. You’re not fighting for prolonged control of the Mediterranean, you’re just trying to fight long enough to establish control of the Suez for a turn then you want a fleet that can escape to safety without being easily targeted and blown up at little cost. Then you take that fleet and grab Madagascar and points east then Japan reinforces, securing German income in Egypt unless the Allies really fight for it (which detracts from their Europe game). If you manage to get into the long game, again you want Germany’s fleet to have some survivability so you can move it around without UK easily blowing it up, then Japan can reinforce. And again, you can just buy a carrier and park fighters on, but you won’t necessarily be able to spare the fighters. If it’s KGF then German fighters probably end up on Karelia; if it’s KJF then German fighters probably end up in Ukraine or east of that, rather than floating around.
One more thing. If you’re considering Germany seriously trying to contribute a naval effort against KJF, forget it. The first problem is Japan goes, then US, then Germany. If Japan wants to initiate anything then US can respond before Germany can do anything. So Germany has to end up initiating, and Germany just doesn’t have the force to really do anything, even if it does bring a loaded carrier and battleship. So Germany just gets relegated to helping Japan’s defense, which is admittedly something, but you take the cost of the carrier, and putting German fighters in the Pacific where they can’t help out against Russia at all, and the opportunity cost is pretty big. You CAN get away with it in some games and it works fantastically, but if your opponent is competent and dice aren’t too weird, then probably you won’t get much out of a German carrier pushing into Pacific. What you can really use is a German bomber. If US tries to push its main fleet and use a destroyer blocker, a German bomber can blow up a blocker - and a German bomber can simultaneously threaten targets in Europe.
UK goes after Germany so could destroyer block anyways, but UK should have difficulty establishing a surface fleet as 1942 Online is different to 1942 Second Edition. (If UK fighters could land on US carriers, US could push a lot faster and harder). Plus there’s getting UK established in Borneo or East Indies which can be a lot easier if US transports can load UK units.
The core for Pacific fighting is subs for Japan, fighters, and its starting fleet. Maybe some carriers if it lost some early and some destroyers for hunting/blocking, and fighters/bombers later. For US it’s destroyers, carriers, fighters and transports.
But Germany in the Med is not like that necessarily. If you’re trying to fight UK and US’s navy, that’s a loss. You don’t want to fight, you don’t even want to block sea zones, you just want to fend off opportunistic air attacks, and a cruiser can also naval bombard.
I read through my previous post.
When I say I don’t play on the level I’m describing - mm, okay, I sort of do. Players that have played commented games with me know that I’m regularly running projections that go four or five turns in advance as a matter of course. Sometimes I even use aacalc (gasp).
But that’s not the same as having a detailed complete playbook of branches and contingencies in case of aberrant dice and/or player action, or having the tools necessary to building such a playbook. I know it’s possible in a practical sense. I just haven’t gotten around to it personally. Lot of work. Collaborative effort.
Okay so, back to German Med cruiser. From the last post we know it wasn’t a G1 cruiser.
But let’s take a glance at some other lines. Destroyers and carriers.
First, G1 Med carrier. I don’t know if it’s a solid line of play, but I think it very well might be. I wrote out details of the projection somewhere on Steam, but for here let’s just say Germany can bridge to Libya, risk a fighter to hit the UK destroyer, use a sub and fighter to hit the UK cruiser, and if Germany gives up position on G2-G3 as it’s sending infantry to defend France against UK invasion from East Canada, what of it? Sending a single submarine against the UK destroyer/transport only has a 1/3 chance of clearing the transport anyways; sending a submarine to the UK cruiser instead has compensatory factors in that Germany threatens any US1 landing to French West Africa. And if you’re playing for the long game with a German Med carrier for African income, if you give up some short-term considerations oh well. Costs and benefits, that’s how it goes.
But a G1 carrier is not the same as a German Med cruiser. A G1 carrier is part of a calculated brute force strategy that sacrifices some of Germany’s ability to push in the first few rounds in exchange for a good chance at African income. A G2+ Med cruiser is not a brute force strategy, it’s an opportunistic build that exploits dice outcomes and/or opponent play to change key timings in Africa.
That said, why not a German destroyer? Or two? Instead of a cruiser?
Because Germany is never meant to hold the Mediterranean by itself.
At this point, we have to consider some aberrant dice and non-meta moves. Why? Because you can expect the German Med battleship to be destroyed after capturing Trans-Jordan (previous post had details). So why didn’t UK blow up the German battleship?
Three major possibilities.
Other things, like UK did try to wipe out Germany’s battleship but failed - it happens. But whatever.
This is where things start to branch out a bit.
First, when does Germany probably NOT have to build any Med navy whatsoever? Suppose UK tried to hit Germany’s battleship and failed. UK lost all its air, Germany kept its battleship. Now what? USSR risks its fighters against Germany’s battleships? Ew. US isn’t in position. If Germany DOES want a fleet, it should maybe try building it on G2 while bridging to Libya make sense. On later turns Germany certainly wants to push Egypt and/or Trans-Jordan and/or slip its fleet out through the Suez. But that game isn’t necessarily a G2 Med fleet buy. There won’t be any air for a while, and why bother to buy expensive navy if Germany does all it really wants to do with its Med fleet anyways
But when would you want a German cruiser? Again, if Germany hit Trans-Jordan on G1 and its Med fleet survived, here’s how it plays out.
Probably UK hit the East Indies fleet. I’m not saying it’s a fantastic attack, but I think it can be argued the line is competent. But then, UK is not in position to blow up Germany’s fleet on G2 either. If the UK Indian Ocean fighter survived it’s on Persia. The UK Egypt fighter is probably destroyed (no place to land unless the UK carrier survived which is pretty aberrant dice though it does happen). UK’s bomber is wherever. UK’s starting London fighters are on West Russia. So of those, how much has range to Italy’s sea zone? Just the bomber.
Meanwhile, remember Germany bulked up at Libya (moved Algeria units over, the transport went with the battleship to hit Trans-Jordan), perhaps even using a Germany fighter. Perhaps not. But whatever. If UK doesn’t blow up Germany’s battleship then there’s really not much point in UK trying an aggressive hit on Libya against not-great odds as Germany can just drop bridge units to hit Libya even if UK wins, and UK loses Egypt anyways when Germany hits Egypt from Trans-Jordan, and if UK hits Egypt and Trans-Jordan, just look at what UK has in the area, it’s going to give up odds somewhere. And remember, we’re thinking about hitting UK hitting the East Indies fleet which is probably why the German battleship and transport aren’t destroyed in the first place.
But then what? On G2, Germany’s Libya stack advances to Egypt and Germany can re-take Trans-Jordan. And what does UK do, exactly? The UK bomber can have range, no question. But how do the UK fighters reach? If the UK fighters park in Persia they’re out of range of the Italy sea zone, and Germany can still be pushing units with units fed into Africa from Libya. I know it’s expensive for Germany but more on that later. If UK doesn’t counter Germany’s push, great, Germany controls the Suez and that gets dirty. If UK does counter Germany’s push, great, Japan has less to deal with in capturing India. And if Japan builds pressure on India then the UK fighters have to park on India unless the Allies pull out early, and every turn the Allies pull out early mean three less units for UK’s medium-sized India stack and three more units for Japan’s push.
Yes, you don’t use UK to fight a losing-stack battle for India. But you don’t just give up that unit differential either without fighting for it like crazy. You stick around until the last moment (remembering that UK has to pull out of India before Germany cuts it off with a capture and hold of Caucasus). And if Africa has to go, that’s just too bad. If India gets bled out faster to protect Africa, Japan captures India then leapfrogs into India and grabs it all shortly anyways.
So if UK has fighters at Asia, then how does it really use them to destroy Germany’s fleet, especially if Germany is just bridging units to Libya? UK2 the fighters aren’t in position at all, Trans-Jordan can be recaptured but the fighters can’t land there this turn. Egypt is unsafe. UK can try to defend Trans-Jordan past G3 then land fighters so Germany can’t escape. So you start to see if the German battleship wasn’t taken down on G1, even with no build it’s still very tough to take down.
But that only accounts for UK in the east. We still have to think about US in Atlantic or Pacific.
First, the Atlantic. I already described that maybe you get this whole scenario off a KJF, so I’ll get into the KGF first to get it out of the way.
Suppose US1 builds a carrier, then US2 captures Morocco. (Ideally UK2 captures then US2 reinforces but eh.) So as early as US3, US threatens to whack the German battleship; the US bomber on London can hit the Italy sea zone and land in Morocco which was captured on UK2/US2. This cuts off Germany’s options in the west.
But here you start to see where a G2 naval buy can make sense under the right conditions. If you only think about UK then it looks like Germany can play keep-away in the Mediterranean forever. But actually Germany’s on the clock if US pushes in Atlantic, and if Germany doesn’t get its business done before the clock runs out then it just runs out of time.
What if US is pushing in Pacific? There doesn’t seem to be any clock on Germany then. But Germany doesn’t want to bridge to Libya forever; that’s just inefficient. Besides if Japan’s pulled away from India then UK has more breathing room. So again, you can get UK pushing into position then threatening to destroy Germany’s fleet with air. Regardless, Germany wants to consider some sort of naval reinforcement. It’s just too easy and cheap to blow up a lone battleship.
So this gets into the question of why a German Med build at all, and exactly how it’s used. Depending on the Allies’ play, if you want to defend against air, then subs won’t do, and cruisers have a little bit of an edge over destroyers. Cruisers also give the bombard ability, which helps in capturing isolated territories. If you’re satisfied with what you’re doing in Europe and want to send Germany’s fleet to help do something, then what do you send? Do you really want to allocate a full carrier and fighter escort, considering you may need each and every fighter to get an on-odds attack to break Russia? Probably not. Will a destroyer be adequate? The odds on the defense are not as good. And what about a cruiser? The cruiser can be used for naval bombardment; if you’re trying to hit isolated territories that are defended by 1 unit, does it make sense that you would bring a cruiser or destroyer? As to destroyer coverage, that should be handled by Japan in any event.
If you sent two destroyers with Germany’s battleship, well, that would be a lot better than a cruiser. But you don’t know that you’ll need those destroyers. You want to make use of every IPC to fight in Europe.
That said, why get a cruiser at all?
Because of German income in Africa. Japan starts with few forces in Asia/Europe, Germany starts with a lot. Germany has a load of production capacity and all its territories with industrial complexes are connected through land to Russia. So either Germany pushes sheer unit count (in which case it needs income; it has 15 capacity between Germany, Italy, and Karelia, then 19 after it captures Caucasus, and you can see how Germany even with Africa probably won’t have 57 IPCs every turn to spend on infantry. Or if Germany wants to push speed, then it needs IPCs to buy tanks. Regardless, Germany wants income and can use it.
Contrast to Japanese income in Africa. Japan’s industrial complex on Tokyo is horribly placed, and industrial complexes on Asia are expensive. Japan can build air for flexibility, but there’s nothing Japan can do about starting stack sizes. Instead of feeding Japan to try to get its stacks to eventually rival USSR’s for a major stack battle it just makes sense to feed Germany to get its already large stacks over the top. If you have a choice between Germany getting IPCs and Japan getting IPCs, it’s probably best to choose Germany.
So you look at Africa and think well it’s just four or five IPCs. But that’s another entire whole unit, or another tank instead of an infantry that’s produced on Germany, which can catch up to the front and hit the timing. And you’re also doing this a bit early, robbing UK of IPCs, and UK has an IPC income issue especially once Africa falls. UK just has a hard time building up forces to really make a difference; true UK is best used to make a lot of small plays all over the board that add up to a big difference, but it does mean UK has a hard time trying to build any sort of critical mass.
So far I wrote mostly about the KJF scenario. But returning to the KGF scenario. Maybe UK thinks it has something really important to do with its bomber and air elsewhere or something and the German battleship survived to G2.
So far I’ve been writing about the German timings and counters in the Mediterranean/India region. But there’s a lot more to the game than that. What does UK do? What does US do? What if it’s KGF?
Well suppose it is KGF. Suppose Germany builds an early carrier in the Med. And how is that good, exactly? A carrier is a lot more expensive than a destroyer but has the same defense and can’t even hunt submarines. So when is it good? When you land fighters on, of course. You can cycle fighters into Africa and southeast Europe, and that’s nice.
But if you have fighters in the Mediterranean, then they don’t have range to the Atlantic. And this creates some weirdness.
Suppose you say that you don’t want to use German air to hit Allied fleet anyways. You use German air to threaten Allied fleet, but actually you want to use German air to trade with USSR. But then what? If there’s a light escort fleet with a huge juicy stack of transports, you want to hit it right?
Consider UK. Suppose UK1 builds 3 infantry, destroyer, carrier. You’re already doing okay as that’s fighters that didn’t land on West Russia. But depending on whether UK’s East Canada destroyer/transport survived or not, maybe you’re starting to look at a kind of bulky fleet. If USSR captured Ukraine Germany only has 5 fighters. Risking 5 German fighters to go after 5 UK defenders isn’t the greatest, and if you win you only get one transport. Eurgh.
So this is why some Germany players just shrug and go ahead and build the Med carrier. They feel that they’re not going to challenge UK in the Atlantic meaningfully anyways. But actually that’s not really how it plays out.
So now we have to look at projected outcomes of the G1 attack on the UK battleship and various opportunity costs.
In future posts in this series -
Projected outcomes of the UK battleship, opportunity costs and France
UK3 fleet timing and German air positioning
@eqqman said in German Mediterranean Cruiser?:
How exactly
My previous post in this thread, as typical for me, rather than listing out all the details, only alluded to the things that needed to be considered. Two reasons why.
A proper address would involve an amazing amount of text that I refuse to undertake without a collaborative effort with very able people. Simply, I can make mistakes, and to find and work those out I’d need people that have different perspectives. (It’s not that I object to a few thousand words, but addressing “how exactly” for this question in particular, maybe a few hundred pages?)
Also, I find that often points I’m making are lost by people trying to make their way through text.
But you did ask specifically, and to leave things where I did might be considered dismissive. So perhaps some details (though hardly a proper address).
Before starting, I tend to use a lot of specifics and numbers, far more than other writers addressing Axis and Allies that I’ve seen, so my writing can be very convincing. But I could miss something. Even if you have a load of mathematical tools, there is a question of whether or not those tools were used in a way that would find any weaknesses in premises or reasoning.
That said, if someone says things don’t work as I say, you should ask them exactly how.
Another thing, I myself don’t play on the level I describe. First, I don’t have the tools available to play on that level. Second, even if I had the tools I wouldn’t bother to use them. I’m not trying to say “this is the correct way to play”. More it’s I’m saying “if you want to use mathematically analyzed lines then here’s how you would start going about it, though remember the game’s very different if your opponent has a different understanding of the game to you.”
OK, let’s begin with some premises.
You try to squeeze EVERY BIT of utility out of EVERY IPC. Sometimes that means you don’t spend IPCs or do other things that might seem odd.
The game collapses around control of industrial complexes, production, stack bleeding, and building.
The game’s initial board state leads to only a few different optimal lines, which branch into other optimal lines, which in turn branch into yet others but that recombine at some point. Roughly speaking, for the first two turns a player’s purchases are very much dictated by a combination of starting position and necessary responses to other players’ moves; it’s only after those first two turns that deliberate actions of a player start to really have an impact.
There is no general purpose advice. There is ONLY the specific. If specific advice is diluted into general purpose advice to try to guide newer players, that’s fine if the new players want to eat it up, but it’s not how you play.
So we talk about “how exactly”? All right. Let’s talk.
First, we need to understand what board setup we’re looking at. LHTR, or OOB? And we’re going to say LHTR, why? Because the ladder uses LHTR. Because LHTR is more balanced (an unbacked assertion, I know. If you disagree on any point, feel free to bring it up.)
And we MUST know our starting setup! Again, this is not “general purpose” stuff for the masses. It’s very specific stuff, that “how exactly”.
Besides knowing the setup, we also assume a competent opponent. This is very very important. And we also assume reasonable dice.
So, German Med cruiser. We know it’s not a G1 build. But why? Why do we know this?
I’m not looking at the board, but if I remember right it’s something like UK controls a cruiser in the west, a destroyer in the east, a bomber on London, a fighter on Egypt, a fighter, transport, cruiser, and carrier in the Indian Ocean.
And what else? USSR blew up the German bomber on Ukraine, because USSR is competent and we’re not stipulating aberrant dice. (It’s not that I object to assuming incompetency and/or aberrant dice. But addressing each such means addressing a lot of additional branches. Suffice to say if your opponent is bad you win. If you get a load of aberrant dice you can get a temporary advantage in a theater that maybe you can leverage into gains. But your opponent will find somewhere else to push back. That’s how it is.
So let’s say Germany hit the UK cruiser. I’m not trying to do a proper address so I won’t get into the opportunity costs and projections, but better believe it’s not an easy thing for Germany. Let’s say Germany bridges units from Europe into Libya and bulks Libya and lands a fighter there, and builds a cruiser.
UK can hit Germany’s battleship/cruiser/transport with destroyer/two fighters/bomber. I don’t need to run the numbers by you. You can see that’s garbage for Germany. Especially since the UK bomber can safely land on Trans-Jordan. It’s just so garbage for Germany. That’s how we know it’s not a G1 cruiser.
(But you didn’t want to assume? Perhaps. But UK keeps its bomber, blows up Germany’s reinforcement to Africa, and leaves UK freedom to act in both Trans-Jordan and Egypt, plus leaves passage through the Suez to UK. And there’s other things I’ll get to in a bit. Simply, Germany walks face-first into a bad-odds expensive defense, loses position, loses pressure, UK gains flexibility and keeps its valuable bomber that has huge applications if it lives.
If you don’t want to assume a line of play is invalid, all right. But if you see a lot of compelling points to think it invalid and no counter-reasoning, well, you have to act on the information you have and the paradigm you’ve constructed. Because doing nothing is probably going to be worse than whatever plan, no matter how flawed.)
So we know it’s not a G1 cruiser. But then do we see it on G2? Maybe not. It is situational.
Particularly, what I expect to see is Germany capturing Trans-Jordan, then UK hitting Germany’s battleship and transport with two fighters and a bomber.
As an aside - a lot of writers that I’ve read assume that there’s this big standard meta or whatever, they have vague projections that involve their opponents collapsing, or they have this convoluted string of things that doesn’t actually happen resulting in them getting some glorious victory. It’s bad practice to assume, so why do I do it here? But I am calling out the point that it IS an assumption, rather than simply taking it as a given that an assumption be accepted.
Though I will also comment as to why I think those specific things happen.
Suppose Germany just parks its battleship and bridges to Libya. Destroyer, fighter, bomber, UK keeps its bomber in all likelihood, too bad for Germany. Suppose Germany captures Gibraltar. Then Germany misses a drop to Africa, which affects Germany’s holdings there. Germany also must destroy UK’s cruiser, or face destroyer/cruiser/bomber. Which I get to later.
But what if Germany captures Trans-Jordan? It could fail, the UK destroyer can blow up the German battleship. But it’s improbable (and again, for simplicity we’re not addressing all the branch scenarios). But then Germany’s out of range of the UK cruiser in any event and the Suez is closed. If UK wants to take the German battleship out, UK must risk its air. Also Germany puts pressure on Egypt so UK has to abandon it.
Why does UK hit the German battleship with air? Because it can and should. If UK doesn’t do it, then Germany can do another cheap ground drop into Africa. And that creates real problems.
In future posts in this series -
G2 cruiser - why not a destroyer, or two destroyers, or a carrier? Differentiation to the G1 Med carrier line.
Projected outcomes of the UK battleship, opportunity costs, and France
German income in Africa as it relates to starting stack sizes, German logistics, and timing
UK3 fleet timing and German air positioning.
maybe some other stuff
In PMs, Imperious Leader disavowed the German Med cruiser.
“You’ve saved a little money over buying a Carrier just to get far less operational capability”. Rethink that whole sentence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRBPS3o_IvU
@imperious-leader said in 🎲😢 PRNG dice support group — and ranting:
@aardvarkpepper Since you don’t own the program and may be unaware that they installed 2 dice systems…perhaps you may have a more informed opinion of their efforts?
But I do own the program.
You can see I have an excellent grasp of 1942 Online’s applications. It would be hard to comment to the degree I did regarding the specific issues without firsthand knowledge.
We’ve even played multiple multiplayer 1942 Online games together. You’re the first and only player (other than myself) that I’ve seen build a German Mediterranean cruiser.
As to the matter of PRNGs and dice, for over a year I posted extensively on Steam forums, and I’ve made comments on these forums as well regarding the system, the implementation, what I say should have been done and which was not done (even allowing for budgetary constraints).
As to having a “more informed” opinion, I flatter myself to think that I probably have one of the most informed opinions.
Some of the things that stick out to my mind -
Over a year ago, a developer (more correctly, someone working for the developer’s company) commented to the effect it was “proved” that the PRNG had no issues. But that simply isn’t how things work. Proper statistical analysis does not prove things, it merely provides get calculated probabilities that for a given dataset gathered under a given specific set of conditions, there’s a 99.998% (or such) that that particular dataset is in accordance with a particular predictive model.
Well, that was their first mistake, but what of it? People make mistakes. Especially when people get told things by other people, there are misunderstandings, no matter how small, and just because I thought it was a very bad look, eh.
At that point I didn’t think that players would make a big thing of PRNG. I’d noted in my google document (link below) that I thought the developers ought to make data importable and exportable, but that was a matter of general utility.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17F3TotY7HEKeiLv3ewlfYotQv_hWXqh5PDo7B0exXpY/edit?usp=sharing
You’ll see one of the first comments was dated September 11, 2019, well over a year ago. Well, all that’s an aside, though it comes up later.
But back to the story of PRNG and the developer response. Some players started saying that the PRNG was suspect, which personally I’m indifferent to (as I consider the rules changes far more an issue, which is something that I think Panther commented on, on these forums, more than a year ago? He wrote about how the differences were not advertised which is coincidentally one of the things I personally rather dislike, and in fact I’d go so far as to say the game’s features are falsely advertised, but that’s another matter.
So more than a year ago, some players said there was a PRNG issue, and some other players said there wasn’t a PRNG issue, it’s all “in your head” (though fancier terms were used). The developers COULD have responded acknowledging the legitimacy over concerns over the PRNG, but that didn’t happen. At the time.
That was the developers’ second mistake. Which, okay, again, let’s be fair here, people make mistakes. You get a program, you think you need programmers, that’s what you hire for, you hire marketers, support staff. If you don’t think you need statisticians then you don’t put them in the budget, if you don’t think you need a decent public relations team then you don’t budget for that either. Well, sometimes you get lucky and you get something good you didn’t pay for. In this case, not so lucky. But okay.
The developers were very dismissive, and about that time I wrote a bunch of posts on Steam forums about how exactly PRNGs work, how you get emergent behaviors that are not easily detected, and why concerns over PRNG were legitimate. I wrote that it could be the case that there was an issue with the PRNG, but that they wouldn’t know, as they hadn’t run the tests.
The developer response? First, they said they’d looked at whatever many number of dice rolls. Just a really very basic test, which granted should have been done as it would detect the most egregious of issues, but nowhere near what was needed or appropriate. I wrote that isn’t what was needed, you need to look at groups of dice. I wrote more posts, months passed.
The developers released another statement, stating they had run a Dickey-Fuller test, then I forget if they said they ran chi-squared or whatever. So I looked into the tests, I really looked. And the fact is, the developers were still making the same mistake (making this their third) in that they were not testing what needed to be tested. Same mistake, so why count it again? Because they had the opportunity to look at and consider their methodology and they did the same thing over again. Only this time, instead of “eyeballing” it they tried using technical gobbledygook. Which actually ISN’T gobbledygook if it was being used correctly which it wasn’t.
And all this time, there was just the most dismissive attitude by the developers, with various posters getting banned or censured - which, really, I wouldn’t complain about, except only those with criticisms of developers were clamped down on. Those that “supported” the developers were allowed to repeatedly post the most egregiously nasty sort of nonsense, and their behavior passed uncommented (and certainly uncensured).
I had quite a number of unpleasant interactions on Discord (which were probably unpleasant for others as well, considering I was pointing out their faults), and as usual, when I made specific points or asked for specific answers, what I wrote was blatantly ignored. Not in the context of “we don’t have the time to look at this right now but we’ll get back to it later”. I mean I made the same points in public and private repeatedly, and the points were IGNORED, there is no doubt about it.
Well, you could see how this was going. I knew the developers had the point made to them, and how? Because I had made the points, personally! And if it was said (fairly enough) that they didn’t work for me, that they had budgetary concerns, that they weren’t necessarily professionals in statistics or even in the scientific method, well, still, things were what they were. There were any number of good responses they could have made that weren’t made, and they chose bad responses so many times.
(And I want to be clear, sometimes there are chain of command and information flow strictures that others are not aware of. Or sometimes there are multiple “bosses” that give conflicting orders that are left for others to resolve, with the whole mess covered up by nondisclosure agreements. I’m used to that sort of thing. But the sort of pushback I was receiving, I really felt that it was on a personal level. Like it’s not someone just going along because they have to, they want to do what they’re doing.)
But about at that point, a few months ago, the developers MOSTLY stopped trying to make boasts like “it’s proved that there’s nothing wrong with the PRNG” (still popped up now and then). Maybe they’re back to their old shenanigans, since I was wrongfully banned on Steam forums I haven’t checked, and I don’t bother with the Discord I see one of their representatives touting either. But if the developers aren’t false virtue signaling about the PRNG in my face, then good enough for me.
But the developers made a fourth mistake! I’d made the point on Discord that resolving player concerns over the PRNG was a public relations issue. But by that I’d only meant they needed to have it properly looked at instead of doing a patch job, I meant they needed to be understanding of customers rather than clamping down on them and denying / attacking them. But apparently “public relations” didn’t mean to them what it means to me, and I suppose if someone’s used to an authoritarian regime and not from the West then maybe that’s natural for them, I don’t know.
But anyways, they released a statement about stabilized dice - or was that the one? Anyways at the end, they said they’d switched up their PRNG a bunch of times and they hadn’t noticed any differences in complaints. And I was like really now. They’d always been very reticent to release the details of their studies (which frankly I don’t know that they ever made a study worth publishing), and here they said they “didn’t notice any difference” - using what metrics, specifically? I say they didn’t know what the issue was, they didn’t know what to look for, then they shouted “victory!” from the rooftops without looking down, without even checking, the situation on the ground. Which was precisely what they had been doing right along, but making a point of it and attacking their customers that way and saying they were trying to run games behind the scenes and being all “tee hee!” about it was . . . I don’t even know what to say. It’s just outside my understanding of how you would ever want professional to act. I mean, it’s very normal for “attack politics”, I expect it there, but here I just don’t even know.
So would it be fair to say I have an informed opinion of their efforts? Or not? And let’s not say that I decided to close the door on the developers. They banned me, not the other way around. And the criticisms I make are not just about what happened in the past but what is happening now, what continues to happen, and what continues to NOT happen.
Do the developers need to own up to past mistakes? I don’t insist on it. Do they need to “fix” their PRNG? I don’t even insist on that. At this point, I’m only really saying that they should either implement the game as it is in the board game for the “full experience”, OR they should correct the description they have on Steam’s front page, openly acknowledging the differences between their program and Axis and Allies 1942 Second Edition. (Oh, and also I say the developers shouldn’t say things HAVE been fixed and/or properly analyzed when they have not been. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. And if players push on their claims that things have been “proved” or “disproved”, then I’ll often say something about that too.)
To close this out - I know a lot gets taken out of context, and maybe some readers will look at this and get the takeaway that I think things were done wrongly (fair enough). But they won’t understand the methodology that I’m saying should have been done. So I’ll repeat here what I’ve written I don’t even know how many times between Steam, Discord, and I think I’ve made some allusions on these forums but not a proper address. Heck, even the following isn’t a proper address.
I’ll use an analogy, as in my experience, when I write exactly how it works mathematically a lot of times readers just don’t understand. Nor do readers even understand when I explain exactly why it’s important in actual game terms. They need something to relate to.
So, cards, not dice. Think about what I’m writing, then try to understand how it applies to Axis and Allies.
Four suits, thirteen ranks, deck has fifty-two cards. Now suppose I were to say “nobody knows what a single random card draw will be!”. Well, you don’t know, precisely. But assuming conditions to be equal and the deck to have been fairly randomly shuffled then you have a one in fifty-two chance of drawing any particular card.
But already we have our first set of assumptions - that the deck is shuffled fairly and conditions are equal. A lot of people dismiss the details, but those details are important. What’s the first card you’ll draw off a fifty-two card deck that you just bought from the store? I don’t know, King of Hearts every time from a particular manufacturer? And if you shuffled and cut a deck of cards, if one of the cards has a little bend in it - no matter how slight, one that you won’t even see if you visually inspect the deck as a whole - the deck will cut at that place.
And something that a lot of readers do with dice is they assume they know how it all works, but they don’t want to be bothered with those pesky details, you know, the ones that challenge the paradigm they’ve built for themselves? But the more you know about mathematics and practical data sciences, the more you know about programming, the more you realize there MAY be issues.
Such as? Let’s say that in the LHTR setup a USSR player opens with 12 units to West Russia, 9 to Ukraine. Yes? That is the meta, is it not? But then what happens?
PRNGs do NOT generate a series of random numbers. Hence the name, “Pseudo Random Number Generator”. They take a time seed and generate a sequence of numbers and use that. And the issues that result come from how and when those time seeds are taken, and how the PRNG output is applied.
So what then happens is, without anything needing to have been deliberately programmed in (though for those that claim things could have been deliberately programmed in that’s a possibility) - but even WITHOUT deliberate programming, you get these sequences of calculated numbers with the methods of generation that result in - what? Emergent behavior.
To use another analogy, when you go to the ocean, why are there waves? Why isn’t the ocean as flat as glass? There are currents and winds that bunch up and move water in different ways, there are thresholds that are surpassed, and though each individual molecule of water may not have a predicable pattern as such, groups of water molecules do*. That is why there are waves.
So a lot of what we see is people look at the interactions between various agencies and individual molecules of water, then claim, because they can detect no pattern, that things must be “random”. Some may even go so far as to say we will see no waves in the ocean because analysis of collective and emergent behaviors is not a “thing” - it’s confusing, and it just makes sense to say very loudly and repeatedly that waves are nonsense, you have a glass of water and IT doesn’t have waves, and if you drop a pebble in your glass of water and it causes ripples, well, that isn’t a wave, it’s a ripple, and how dare you throw pebbles in my glass of water that’s just impertinent etc.
Right. But back to this comfortable simple model. You have a randomly shuffled deck, nobody’s put bends in the cards or dropped any sawdust, just a single draw.
So then we proceed to hands of cards, in, say, poker. Suppose someone were to claim that they are just “lucky”, they just HAPPEN to get royal flushes all the time, or if they’ve picked up on card sharping, maybe they just so happen to have gotten high pair a lot.
Which is an interesting story, sometimes you have people that refuse to believe that there’s anything wrong with their play or with the deck, and they end up losing all their money. And the one that takes the money is so sympathetic, you’re good at cards! really! just a run of bad luck!
In cards, you have to understand, there’s probability, then there’s being able to read and predict opponents. How does this relate to Axis and Allies?
On both sides of the argument, you have players saying there are problems or there are not problems, but who is doing the statistical studies? And I mean PROPER statistics, it’s a lot of real work.
But back to poker. So let’s say you have a player that’s “lucky” a lot. Then they say “I can’t help it! I’m just lucky!”
But you have to really think about what’s going on there. Suppose a player is ACTUALLY just lucky on a PARTICULAR night. Well, that happens. Everyone’s number comes up once in a while. But suppose someone is CONSISTENTLY “lucky”, repeatedly. Suppose it’s not just that it’s casually THOUGHT that the player is lucky, suppose you can demonstrate the truth of this luck through mathematics. Can we say “that’s just how luck works!” But that isn’t how luck works. One night sure, but repeatedly? No, that player probably has an edge. And you just have to figure out how that edge works.
And I’ve seen all sorts of players try to figure out what the “edge” is. Mirrors? Angles? And often they overlook something. Like a bit of sawdust. Switching out decks. Confederates. No matter how clever you are at cheat detection, there’s a cheat out there that’s figured out what you’re going to try, and figured out a way around it.
Well, that’s another topic. But what I’m trying to impart is the sense of coldness about it all. You have a very sharp sort of game in cards, where you have to think about things very coldly and rationally and using calculations, whether you are cheating or trying to detect cheating, and at some point if a lot of players are fed up they don’t care about calculations and there’s heck to pay. Which is another topic.
But what I’m getting at is in that cold and sharp rational game, suppose you have a player that doesn’t understand mathematics. They start saying things like “you can draw any one of fifty two cards, but nobody can know what the probability of a given hand is” (even though you can CALCULATE the probability of a given hand). I’m not trying to shame anyone here, but readers have got to understand. There’s entire different levels of understanding, you have the very sharp knowledgeable players that know what to look out for, whether they’re cheating or trying to make sure others don’t cheat, then you have players that understand the vague concepts and why a straight beats a pair (and maybe even the probabilities of each), then you have absolute rubes that hardly even understand mathematics at all, they know a straight beats a pair because everyone knows that, but the question of probability does not enter their mind. And it’s these rubes that proclaim there’s nothing wrong with a system they don’t understand, that it’s impossible that anyone’s cheating (which they wouldn’t begin to understand how to do or prevent), and though some are well-intentioned, still. You just don’t want to be taking their advice, and if they “can’t be bothered” with the details, then you want to think about that. You really do.
But how do you calculate probabilities for combinations of cards? Unlike with dice, there’s a load of literature about calculating probabilities for meaningful combinations of cards. Feel free to read up on it.
Again - it’s not that I want to jump around between dice and cards and the movement of the tides. But I’ve found again and again, when I explain the literal case and the mathematics, readers sometimes just can’t relate their everyday experience to the points I"m making. When there’s nothing for them to relate to, they think it just doesn’t apply to them for some reason. Though it does, of course.
So, hands of cards. If a particular player is drawing a lot of straight flushes, that’s going to be weird right? But why? Are we seriously going to argue that any player can draw any hand, and everything’s random and everything defies analysis? Even players that don’t understand numbers don’t hold with such truck. If you see the same player winning over and over, well, let’s just say that if there aren’t other factors involved, that player isn’t going to be with the group for long. But you understand, the question is not about a single card, it’s not about the fact hands exist, it’s about WHO gets WHAT hand. Yes?
So now we have posts by some posters - not singling anyone out in particular, there are a LOT of posts by DIFFERENT posters - that CLAIM they are all about that data and proof yet they refuse to understand the conceptual argument and even say things indicating they do not understand the argument. Then the same posters often dismiss these things that they do not understand as “emotional” or “cognitive dissonance” and sometimes they drag up fancy words to belittle those they disagree with - but what you notice is they do NOT themselves have a reasoned approach, they do NOT present DATA, or PROOFS, nor do they even extend the benefit of a reasonable doubt to others. No, they are DISMISSIVE, ABSENT PROOFS. And that just isn’t right.
(Isn’t it right? Well if you’re accepting of every point then you end up with people coming to you with weird propositions and expecting you to swallow whatever story they’re selling, so you have to be dismissive sometime. Right? That’s just how people live. Right?)
Sure. But I’m saying even so there’s a line. If it affects you personally, then be dismissive as you like. But if you have a professional obligation, then you can’t just be dismissive. And if you’re being dismissive of others, without reason then you’re on shaky ground. When people refuse to discuss things, what sort of discussion or community does that create? We don’t have to discuss everything, sure. But when posters just say “you’re wrong! fancy term saying I’m right! no proofs or explanations! you’re emotional! go home!” I think we need a lot less of that.
Back to Axis and Allies and dice.
You need a lot of data if you want to look for patterns. That’s just how it is. That isn’t me trying to push the developers to do anything, it isn’t me trying to dictate to others what is right or what is wrong, that’s just how it is.
And when you look at that dice, you need what I call “complete data”, because you need to be able to look for patterns of emergent behavior.
And now I’m going to get into the theory of the ACTUAL case. Well, briefly, anyways, I’ve written much more elsewhere.
We know that PRNGs do NOT actually generate random numbers. That’s why they’re called PRNGs, “pseudo” means fake. Not random. Get it? Like how “I can’t believe it’s not butter!” is NOT BUTTER.
Depending on the implementation there’s broadly two ways it can go, assuming a simplistic implementation (which, considering 1942 Online doesn’t even implement the board game rules, I would think a reasonable assumption.) Either a single time seed is generated for an entire game, in which it’s susceptible to reverse engineering and manipulation by players picking the order of combats and the units allocated to battles, and in which case you can get emergent behaviors that lead to clustering that creates anomalous dice results. OR you get multiple time seeds that are generated individually based on players sending requests, in which case cheaters have finer control over how they can manipulate the time seeds, and which ALSO can result in emergent behaviors.
Emergent behaviors? Remember again, PRNGs are not truly random. Remember Axis and Allies games involve a single setup - and even if you account for LHTR setup and even for preplaced bids, there would still be convergent points for any particular player.
So what happens when you have the same player doing 12 to West Russia and 9 to Ukraine, over and over again? If the dice were actually random, then the results would be whatever they would be. We would see some clustering of results that player would interpret as “good”, we would see some clustering of results that player would interpret as “bad”. But if it is a given that the dice are really random then that’s just how it is.
But how is that different to clustering observed with PRNGs? Because PRNG clustering is simply different. Suppose a player assumes that the dice are fair (and without a huge dataset and proper analysis, that’s the going assumption that players would reasonably make). But suppose the PRNG implementation and clustering of outputs is such that instead of 85% favorable results at Ukraine (including attack and retreat actions), the player instead has only 65%? Depending on the PRNG implementation we are going to possibly see such skewed results because you are relying on a PRNG that outputs a sequence of numbers on a time seed for a game that has a single static setup that encourages groupings of the same moves that results in clustering. It is NOT actually RNG, that is the POINT.
Dismissive readers will say things like “85%, 65%, what’s the difference?” Or they’ll say things like “you can still get good and bad results, so what’s the difference?”
The difference is that players assume they’re playing the game according to their model, but actually the game works on a different model, one that’s never explained to the player.
Let’s say I have a coin. I flip it. Heads you give me a dollar, tails I give you a dollar. Okay. Right? Let’s play this game a bunch of times, maybe you win, maybe you lose, whatever.
But now let’s say my coin has two heads. You could say it’s less egregious, like maybe we pull a coin out of a small jar each time, and out of ten coins in that jar only four of them have two heads. But do you think that’s the sort of information you would want to have about the game before playing? I would hope so.
Returning to the actual case, what I’m saying is you need to be able to differentiate each dice so you can put them in groups, then you need to look at the behavior of those groups. Is one player getting a load of “lucky” rolls? How do antiaircraft guns work?
And some responders say things like “they work, sometimes AA shoots bombers down”. But that totally misses the point. If you’re not reverse engineering the program to look at the specific PRNG implementation, how do you know how, exactly, how that PRNG implementation works? What if the PRNG has different implementations? Even if it’s not programmed for bias, can you guarantee there’s no bugs in the code? Even if there are no bugs and it’s not programmed for bias, have you accounted for emergent behaviors? You can’t, unless you look at the data.
Anyways in closing:
What’s in the past is in the past. But for the present, the developers should REALLY change the description on 1942 Online’s Steam page to reflect the fact 1942 Online is NOT like the board game in terms of gameplay. Or better, they could put in live play. Ooo yeah. They should do THAT. But if not, at least change the store description.
As to the PRNG, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to believe the PRNG may have issues, because as far as I know it might really have issues. I’ve seen a lot of bad “studies” and a lot of specious arguments arguing there aren’t any issues, but the fact is it’s the groupings of dice that need to be looked at, not the individual dice, or even the aggregate of individual dice taken all together, but sub-groupings, that’s just how it is, and nobody’s even attempted to do that properly that I’ve ever seen.
And if anyone wants to undertake it, better believe there’s a lot more to it than just what I’m writing here. If a proper job is to be made of it, it’ll require a lot of work.
I’m personally unhappy with the developers for various reasons, and I’m not interested in wasting my time dealing with them or contributing to their sales numbers.
But if there’s people that really want to do some work to evaluate 1942 Online dice, let them step up. I have some understanding of the issues, and provided personnel of sufficient quality I can train and administer an organization until it can run itself.
So how about it? Step on up!
No money
Get told what to do by an aardvark.
You can contribute to a community with a better understanding of statistical analysis as it applies to Axis and Allies, and an answer, once and for all, to “ARE these dice messed up?”
(Note: I don’t really expect takers, but if there ARE serious takers, then we’ll see what happens.)
@nosho said in What is going on with Infantry and arty paired to attack??:
Weird how people who claim PNRG is noticeably not random don’t need data to convince you
Since that isn’t my position at all, I’ll let you get on with arguing with yourself.
@nosho said in What is going on with Infantry and arty paired to attack??:
even though the burden of proof is on them
Which, again, it isn’t.
@nosho said in What is going on with Infantry and arty paired to attack??:
, but me claiming the already know fact that PNRG is close-enough to perfect randomness for most practical purposes, including this game, need to show you data.
Using your own method of argument that “data” is clearly fabricated.
@nosho said in What is going on with Infantry and arty paired to attack??:
The average value of thousands of rolls, for each units, averages 3.5, I’m not too sure what more you want.
The. Data.
So no program, no data, accepts no responsibility for doing any sort of work, just undermining others’ arguments with only “it must be right therefore it’s right”.
That isn’t “the world of rational people”, as you put it. That is the world of rationalizing people, though.
@nosho said in What is going on with Infantry and arty paired to attack??:
How many data points do you have? After a few hundreds of games, I’m at an average of 2 hits per 3 rolls by an Inf paired with an Art.
So you’ve created or accessed a program that pulls data from player games, and used that program to record “a few hundreds of games” worth of data?
Perhaps you’d share access to that program and/or dataset.
If you do actually have such a program but elect not to share it, that’s your business. But for purposes of discussion you understand absent such proofs you’re asking others to take you at your word.