Posts made by Avin

I’m still not seeing it. I get that theoretically there is a use for turkey in avoiding going through Persia, but I just can’t see how that could practically be of any use through the course of a game, even given the bizarre circumstances you describe. Could you please list the exact move that is in question, and possibly the followup move(s) on the next turn?

Well I personally don’t get the thing with Turkey either. Is the proposed move UKR-CAU-TUR? I can’t understand how a Russian player would ever leave a situation with which Germany could execute that move. Russia will either attack UKR, strafe it (quite possibly eliminating all armor), or at very least not leave CAU undefended, therefore not allowing Germany to blitz through it. Am I completely misunderstanding?

I think I took Spain in a recent game I played, but I’m actually not sure if it was on these forums or not.

I also took Mongolia in my Axis game against DM a little bit ago, but then stepped into Nov too early immediately afterwards. Had I taken Mongolia earlier in that game I think I would have been better off.

The other thing about going for M84 is that Germany can theoretically take advantage of the fact that Russia doesn’t get to go again either: Germany can split forces to UKR or maybe even CAU fully knowing that if Russia got another turn their units would be horribly strafed or taken, but does so anyway because the UK or US may not have enough units on the continent to do that attack themselves and therefore Germany claims those IPCs toward the Axis.

I would agree with the sentiment that winning by M84 is not as satisfying as a normal victory, but I would never play without the option of a M84 victory as long as I was Axis because of the fact that merely by THREATENING M84 you can get the Allies to change their strategy slightly, often to the advantage of the Axis player. And while winning by M84 may not be satisfying, winning because you came very close to M84 several times and the Allies were forced to make attacks or defent territories they would not otherwise have done, which allowed you to secure the lead, IS definitely quite satisfying.

So far, I’d say the bombing has been about equally damaging to both sides in our game, MD. Note that I sacrificed a larger UK transport/unit build in UK2 to buy a bomber on UK1: had you done something similar with Japan you could have had an extra bomber against Russia as well. Next round I don’t think Russia is going to have hardly any money to spend at all in fact (on R5) given the production you’ve reduced me to plus the bombing.

So switch, are you saying that you’re willing to play LL again to contest your claim?

That’s a standard move and the primary use for that fighter for Japan on round 1. I mean it can’t be used against enemy territories in Asia on round 1 so if you attack Pearl, it’s pretty much a given that that fighter will be used, and if you don’t attack Pearl, that fighter is wasted on that round.

Switch you have to realize that if what you’re saying is true, then good players would simply not win with Axis in LL with bids below 25 or 24 against other good players. But it remains a fact that they do, and for all your argument you put up, you simply cannot contest that fact.

I agree with the position that SBR in LL is very different from SBR in ADS.

As DM explained, if you were to conduct 6 SBRs in LL and 6 SBRs in ADS, the result would be what you would expect given the respective natures of each dice system: in LL you would lose roughly 15 IPCs and cause roughly 18 IPCs of damage, whereas in ADS you would lose roughly one bomber (with larger variance than the attackers possible loss in LL) and cause roughly 18 IPCs damage (again, with larger variance than the defender’s loss in LL).

The problem lies in the fact that no one does 6 SBR raids in a single turn. So although one sixth of each of the above results is what you get in the respective dice systems, and conceptually they may make sense, it amounts to something very different. In ADS, doing an SBR amounts to essentially a “reverse lottery” : a relatively good payout the majority of the time, which is what you expect, and a really bad payout in rare situations. LowLuck gives you a really minor good payout pretty much all the time. Or at least, this would be the situation if 1 IPC in the hands of each country is equivalent, but all experienced players know that 1 IPC in the hands of Russia or Germany is worth a lot more than 1 IPC in the hands of any of the other powers. However the survival of the bomber is worth a lot more to the other powers. So there are a number of factors involved, the net result being that SBRs end up being very different.

Of course, different does not equate bad. After getting used to it, I don’t mind nearly as much now.

I wasn’t necessarily going to go through with it; I think about doing a lot of things and I only do a small portion of them :) But I think it’s interesting to ponder anyway and I figure it may help to improve our game along the way. You’re right that it would be a huge task, but the fact is no decent AI exists for A&A: the one for TripleA is horrible and the one for the CD game is at least as bad.

Actually, that’s a bit different from what I was going for, but that’s ok. Your post did give me additional food for thought that adds to my ponderings. What I’m thinking of is a computable function that, given the position of every unit on the board, will output a number which is representative of the balance of the game. This sort of function could be used to create an AI player for A&A because the AI player can try to maximize the value of the function at the end of their turn. This sort of algorithm is frequently used in simpler boardgames, such as chess or checkers.

So with regard to what you said, I’m thinking that one possible function could be:

The sum over every land unit K on a side of: The cost of K divided by the number of turns it would take for K to reach the “goal” for that unit. Obviously this entails being able to set at least one goal for each unit in the game, which may not be a bad idea, provided that goals can change.

The goal for most units would be Berlin or Moscow, however alternate destinations might include Africa or east Asia (the latter in the case of Allied units that are just trying to hinder Japan’s advance). Fighters may have multiple goals: the place they are protecting and the place they need to be attacking range of, in which case we should somehow give extra points for being able to meet both goals. We can also quantify the usefulness of Carriers by what fleet they are protecting, and Battleships for the same purpose as well as what they are in shore bombardment range of. Subs can possibly be added on but I’m not sure they’re worth considering. The thing that would seem the hardest though is island hopping: how to quantify the usefulness of Japan taking AUS/NZE/HAW/MAD.

I’ve been thinking in the past few games I’ve played what a good heuristic is to judge the turns I’m taking, my opponent’s turns, the current situation of the game, and evaluating the different options I might have on a particular turn. Potentially this would have large implications for AI; particularly a possible approach for writing an AI to play A&A. I’m actually considering trying to write one that would work with PBEM.

I’ve come to the realization that income at a given point during the game is not nearly as important as I once thought: Position and net worth of land units on the board are a LOT more important. For instance, in my recent game with DM where I was Axis, our total net worth of land units was very even for a good portion of the game, reflecting the fact that it was a very even game for the first 9 turns or so. However, I really began to lose because of bad positioning on my part, which was followed by the fact that my total net worth of land units began to lag behind. On the other hand, in our next game where I was Allies, my net worth of land units increased above DM’s early on and he was never able to catch up. This has also happened in the two games I have been playing with Switch (well the second game isn’t over yet, but that’s my projection anyway).

So I’m wondering how effective some function of net worth of land unts plus some smaller function of income would be for a heuristic. Obviously it doesn’t take as much reflection on positioning, but that almost has to be handled seperately. Any thoughts?

For anyone curious about the distribution, there were

151 Ones
157 Twos
160 Threes
186 Fours
175 Fives
171 Sixes

… in the above roll.

Woohoo! How many hits did I get?

Testing …

Rolling 1000 6-sided dice:
3, 3, 5, 5, 2, 1, 4, 2, 3, 6, 4, 5, 1, 5, 3, 6, 4, 3, 5, 2, 5, 6, 3, 3, 1, 4, 3, 3, 5, 1, 3, 2, 3, 2, 6, 5, 2, 3, 1, 4, 3, 5, 3, 4, 3, 5, 4, 1, 2, 3, 3, 1, 2, 5, 3, 2, 2, 5, 5, 1, 6, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 6, 4, 5, 6, 1, 1, 4, 3, 5, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 3, 5, 2, 5, 1, 4, 4, 5, 4, 3, 6, 6, 5, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 4, 6, 6, 2, 2, 5, 2, 4, 6, 4, 6, 3, 1, 3, 2, 3, 2, 2, 6, 5, 1, 4, 2, 6, 4, 6, 2, 5, 4, 6, 4, 2, 5, 4, 3, 1, 2, 4, 4, 2, 2, 4, 4, 2, 6, 6, 5, 2, 2, 5, 1, 3, 2, 2, 3, 6, 2, 4, 4, 6, 3, 1, 1, 2, 5, 4, 2, 1, 1, 6, 2, 3, 4, 6, 4, 4, 5, 3, 5, 1, 1, 5, 3, 2, 1, 5, 1, 3, 2, 5, 3, 5, 6, 3, 1, 4, 6, 2, 4, 1, 2, 6, 4, 6, 5, 2, 3, 4, 4, 1, 4, 4, 6, 1, 6, 6, 6, 1, 3, 1, 5, 5, 6, 4, 2, 6, 2, 2, 2, 6, 3, 4, 5, 6, 3, 4, 1, 5, 1, 4, 6, 5, 1, 5, 5, 1, 4, 4, 1, 6, 5, 5, 5, 5, 3, 6, 5, 4, 1, 6, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, 6, 6, 2, 4, 6, 6, 3, 4, 6, 2, 3, 6, 5, 1, 1, 5, 6, 6, 3, 5, 2, 3, 3, 6, 3, 2, 3, 6, 5, 5, 2, 4, 5, 3, 2, 4, 3, 5, 2, 2, 6, 5, 2, 5, 5, 3, 4, 5, 2, 6, 3, 3, 3, 5, 3, 6, 1, 5, 5, 6, 4, 6, 4, 2, 3, 5, 6, 5, 4, 1, 1, 3, 6, 3, 1, 5, 5, 4, 3, 1, 4, 6, 3, 1, 5, 5, 6, 6, 4, 4, 5, 2, 4, 2, 4, 6, 1, 4, 5, 4, 5, 6, 1, 4, 2, 1, 2, 1, 5, 5, 1, 3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 6, 6, 3, 3, 2, 6, 3, 3, 4, 1, 6, 2, 1, 1, 5, 2, 1, 6, 3, 6, 4, 4, 2, 2, 1, 4, 4, 4, 6, 5, 4, 5, 5, 6, 1, 6, 6, 4, 3, 3, 5, 3, 4, 5, 3, 3, 1, 3, 2, 3, 3, 6, 6, 5, 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 2, 2, 2, 6, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5, 3, 4, 3, 5, 2, 1, 1, 4, 1, 4, 5, 4, 6, 5, 4, 4, 5, 4, 6, 2, 2, 2, 4, 3, 2, 4, 4, 2, 5, 4, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 3, 4, 6, 6, 5, 3, 5, 2, 3, 3, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6, 4, 4, 2, 2, 6, 3, 6, 4, 5, 4, 1, 5, 4, 3, 1, 2, 5, 4, 1, 5, 2, 4, 4, 4, 6, 1, 3, 6, 2, 5, 6, 6, 3, 2, 1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 2, 3, 1, 6, 6, 3, 1, 2, 2, 4, 3, 6, 6, 6, 4, 3, 6, 4, 6, 6, 5, 4, 6, 4, 1, 1, 5, 3, 4, 4, 3, 6, 6, 3, 6, 6, 5, 6, 1, 1, 4, 4, 6, 3, 4, 3, 6, 4, 1, 5, 3, 6, 3, 3, 4, 3, 3, 2, 6, 1, 5, 2, 1, 5, 5, 6, 4, 4, 5, 5, 4, 2, 2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 5, 3, 1, 4, 5, 6, 6, 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 3, 5, 2, 4, 5, 6, 3, 5, 4, 6, 3, 2, 3, 5, 4, 6, 4, 3, 6, 2, 5, 6, 5, 4, 5, 5, 4, 2, 1, 2, 5, 3, 1, 1, 1, 6, 1, 3, 4, 4, 3, 1, 6, 5, 6, 3, 5, 3, 6, 5, 4, 4, 5, 2, 1, 4, 1, 5, 5, 1, 1, 4, 4, 1, 4, 5, 1, 4, 2, 4, 2, 4, 5, 1, 3, 4, 4, 2, 1, 3, 6, 4, 1, 5, 6, 2, 2, 6, 6, 1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 1, 1, 3, 2, 5, 4, 5, 1, 2, 4, 1, 4, 2, 5, 6, 2, 2, 5, 6, 3, 3, 5, 4, 5, 5, 4, 5, 6, 4, 2, 4, 5, 3, 6, 6, 2, 4, 5, 2, 5, 2, 3, 2, 3, 1, 1, 5, 3, 6, 4, 5, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 5, 6, 1, 3, 2, 4, 1, 5, 3, 6, 6, 6, 4, 1, 4, 6, 3, 6, 2, 4, 1, 1, 6, 1, 4, 5, 4, 6, 1, 5, 1, 6, 5, 1, 2, 1, 5, 2, 5, 1, 1, 4, 1, 5, 5, 4, 4, 1, 4, 6, 4, 5, 6, 4, 5, 3, 2, 3, 3, 2, 1, 4, 2, 5, 5, 3, 6, 3, 4, 4, 3, 5, 2, 4, 3, 6, 2, 1, 1, 5, 6, 4, 4, 5, 2, 3, 2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 5, 2, 1, 4, 6, 3, 3, 3, 1, 1, 6, 6, 2, 3, 3, 2, 4, 3, 2, 3, 2, 6, 6, 1, 2, 2, 2, 5, 6, 1, 4, 5, 2, 4, 3, 2, 1, 6, 5, 1, 6, 4, 1, 2, 6, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 1, 5, 6, 1, 6, 2, 3, 4, 2, 3, 1, 6, 5, 5, 2, 1, 5, 1, 5, 6, 1, 2, 6, 2, 2, 2, 5, 5, 6, 4, 5, 6, 2, 5, 1, 1, 6, 4, 4, 1, 1, 4, 1, 5, 2, 3, 5, 1, 3, 4, 6, 4, 5, 5, 6, 1, 6, 4, 6, 6, 1, 5, 6, 2, 3, 6, 3, 2, 4, 6, 3, 4, 4, 3, 2, 6

Could this be modified to allow an additional parameter that would count hits for you? This would be hard to use with ADS then with big battles because you would have to count through all the 2 or lesses, etc. It might be easier for LL.

I’d pick Switzerland. Your IPC production is really low all game, so it’s really hard to make what units you can manage to produce do much, so it’s a huge challenge. Also you start off pretty much surrounded, and you’ve got to fight your way out. On the plus side, I have never played a game as Switzerland where I ever had to defend, so you can focus 100% of your effort on attacking.

Hmm, I’m logged in “forever” both on my home computer and my computer at work. I never have to log in on either computer, and neither locks the other out. Odd.

Oh come on, this is pure laziness. If I enter the exact contents of your post (“where can i find the axis and allies cd-rom patch v1.33?”) into Google, the top link has exactly what you’re looking for. Actually it’s worse than lazy, it’s slothful - it would have been less work to enter it into Google than posting here!

LOL @ Imperious Leader.

Well, I answered this question differently from the map thread… I voted Asia because I was born in Sri Lanka, making me the only Asian voter so far. How many people here can name several major Sri Lankan cities? (Googling doesn’t count!)