Best posts made by Arthur Bomber Harris

@shadowhawk if the United States invests heavily in the Atlantic, they will eventually capture Normandy in a typical match. There is little that Germany can do to prevent it without sacrificing the more important objective of capturing Moscow or the Middle East to achieve the massive income swing.

Germany can either try to slow down the invasion by making it more expensive to have an adequately naval force and expeditionary landing force that can survive a Normandy landing, or merely prevent the initial beachhead to turn into an expanded mission to liberate all of France and threaten the German homeland.

Capturing Normandy and making it into an Axis territory does make it significantly harder to have as a beachhead since American planes can’t reinforce the ground forces in the first turn of capture. That is a big swing and a key weakness of the strategy to leave it in France’s ownership.

Leaving it in French control means the United States needs 3 more transports and a loaded aircraft carrier to provide equivalent benefit as a factory and an air base. That is an extra turn of Atlantic-side spending and we find the games in such tight balance that this could tip the balance of power in high-level matches with battle calculators to exploit any slight odds advantages.

Pros and cons of Germany taking Normandy. It is not a clear and simple decision. I expect the meta to continue to slowly evolve in OOB League matches, although sadly there are not enough high-level games in this setting to get the strategies to advance as quickly as before.

@farmboy playoff games are so close that one extra artillery can have a huge swing in decision making. There is no way I would allow a NG infantry as part of the bid unless discussed pre-bid. It is way too beneficial for just 3 PUs, of similar cost/benefit as a Scotland fighter.

@dazedwit there is nothing wrong about waiting until turn G12-G15 to take Moscow, especially if you can prevent strong Allied positions in W Europe and/or have success with Japan. If you can narrow the income gap with the Allies to less than 20 PUs per turn by the end of turn 8, you can usually grind out an eventual win as you don’t need to waste as much income on fleets.

Axis airplanes are almost like cheating as they can simultaneously project power in so many directions. Bombing raids of Moscow are game changes as it can stop additional infantry building.

If the Russians, are buying an airbase, it should be possible to capture Moscow soon, or push down to the Middle East if he becomes very defensive.

If players want to try out a fixed bid set, easy for one player to propose the additional troops and/or income for the Allies, and the other player decide which side he wants to take. Nothing preventing such an arrangement for rebalancing the game.

This could go a long ways towards keeping historical accuracy as many of the common bids lead to unrealistic situations such as total domination of the Atlantic in the early game or a massive Chinese army that overwhelms Japan. Perhaps 100 bids for Allies accompanied with reasonable selections would be about balanced assuming a fair bit of extra units goes to the United States.

@Corperal-Siggy-F option 1: stand outside of Moscow while slowly building up ground trips. Germany should be able to gain 10 ground units a turn plus a couple planes. Russia can’t keep up and eventually gets overwhelmed. That happens on G7 without Allied assistance, and inevitably around G13 even with the best aide.

Option 2: head down to the oil fields and boost the German economy. Threaten Egypt and India, forcing more defensive spend by the UK powers.

Option 3: launch a surprise sealion attack around turn G10 if the Allies have been too focused on defending the Eastern front and haven’t invested enough in the Atlantic.

The Germans should getting 70 PUs a turn around G6, meaning that they out-earn Russia plus UK combined. If the United States focuses on Europe instead of the Pacific, Berlin can be forced to play more defensively so pivot to a game plan where Japan achieves victory.

You should be able to win 90% of the time with the Axis but sticking to these fundamentals.

@AndrewAAGamer another major adjustment would be restricting the number of non-Russian allied units in Russia. It does not seem reasonable that the US or UK could support a massive number of planes or armies with supply lines that far, and Stalin would not have approved.

While I am on the dream list, I would like a type of Russian and Chinese partisan unit with an attack of 0 and defense of 1 that costs 1 and a half PUs. That would give a wall of defensive troops that could protect the homeland but cannot easily counter attack.

Then our mods go on and on until we have a 500 page rulebook, a hex-based map that takes an entire basement, and a monstrosity that takes a couple years to complete.

@gamerman01 I need to warn you that Pacifiers has insane dice luck. Now might be a good time to concede.

@gamerman01 He lulls you into a false sense that victory is possible. Then you send your bombers over Moscow and watch a full turn of economic output evaporate in a sea of snake eyes.

Idea for next year’s OOB playoff system: #1 seed sets the bid for every match (exact same for every game for every player. The worse ranked person in a match gets to decide which side to play.

There is a strong incentive to set a fair bid as the top player will be forced to defer side selection in every match.

@simon33 you don’t have to discuss NG infantry. Just deny the placement if they want to put a troop there and hadn’t requested that exception prior to bidding. Rules are clearly posted on the forum and their job to know they have to ask for exceptions.

If nobody has made a move in the game, it would be a bit rude to claim a win for a League match. Call it a “no-contest” and move on to an opponent who is capable of reading the rules.

I have certainly had many times where my opponent pointed out rules that I did not fully understand. Sometimes they showed me the statement in the rulebook. Sometimes it was ambiguous and a mod had to make a determination. In all cases, I was able to resolve the interpretation differences and continue playing the match (like most grown-ups are capable of).

Looking for my first PtV game. Anyone want an easy W?

@AndrewAAGamer my problem with Axis and Allies League matches is either 1) I am playing against inferior opponents and I know by turn 4 that it will be an easy win for me but I have to wait ten turns for them to inevitably concede, or 2) I am playing against superior opponents like you and I have to play through the next full turn every round to make sure I am not making a dumb mistake and also have to take a 40/60 odds battle to have a chance of winning since you will inevitably grind me into the dirt if I don’t take any risks. I spend a month to get to that huge attack on Moscow or massive battle in the Pacific, get either good or bad dice, and then either win or lose based on the outcome.

I could play low-luck matches, but then I am guaranteed to win against inferior opponents and lose against people who have better gameplay so the outcome is essentially determined from the start of the game. There probably is no solution to this general situation in 2-player matches.

@gamerman01 the era of 20ish bids was a bit crazy. The axis had an obvious advantage at that point. I didn’t even bother going after Moscow as I knew I could bulldozer my way into the Middle East, and have a sufficient German Air Force to prevent Allied invasion in Normandy.

Even the ~50 bid is sufficient for Germany to slowly overwhelm Moscow around turn 15 as long as Japan remains a threat that the United States must divert resources to contain.

We have reached near the theoretical maximum as there are so many nasty things that can be done with a 60+ bid. Andrew won’t give me that much money ever again.

Thank you so much Mikawa for showing me PtV. This was my first match and I truly enjoyed it. There are so many more options than G40. The Axis capturing and holding Africa was such a game changer for the income.

I made many mistakes and hopefully will play better the next match. Your defense of the Middle East was spectacular.

Congrats PB!

@Gargantua It was a 15%-outcome for the Axis. Certainly not an unlikely outcome.

We all have had far worse dice beatdowns in pivotal battles. Those 1% outcomes in Paris on G1 are awful, and all of us have had 0.1% results that just seem implausible.

@Stucifer I find it fascinating that we probably only have a decade before a good AI is developed for Axis and Allies, one that can consistently beat the top players. Even an AI that can identify all major weaknesses 3 turns ahead would be a massive tool to take gameplay to a much higher level. Moscow falling a turn earlier is a game changer.

Chess has mostly managed to keep their top ranks honest, but I don’t think we will be able to maintain the League for very much longer. We are counting down the days of top human players.

@pacifiersboard net income earned during turn 10. That has convoy damage subtracted from the gross income.

I went into the save files and looked at the PU totals at the end of the France turn.

65 IPCs spent on non anti-Russia fighting forces generally means that Moscow cannot be captured in any reasonable period of time.  It also means that the Russian stack can stand toe-to-toe with the German stack and not be afraid.  That frees up the UK to start producing fast units in Persia.  Combined with a significant UK air force, that can usually push a minor German expedition out of Russia’s soft belly.

I am not saying that it couldn’t work, but I am saying that I rarely see Germany succeed if they significantly spend on anything other than ground units and planes.