Posts made by Avin

TripleA Turn Summary: Americans round 1

TripleA Turn Summary for game: World War II Classic, version: 2.0

Game History

Round: 1

    Purchase Units - Americans
        Americans buy 1 armour, 5 infantry and 2 transports; Remaining resources: 0 PUs; 

    Combat Move - Americans

    Non Combat Move - Americans
        2 infantry moved from East US to East US Sea Zone
        2 infantry and 1 transport moved from East US Sea Zone to North Sea Zone
        2 infantry moved from North Sea Zone to Finland Norway
        1 fighter moved from East US to North Sea Zone
        1 fighter moved from West US to North Sea Zone
        1 fighter moved from Hawaii Sea Zone to Yakut S.S.R.
        2 infantry moved from Sinkiang to Novosibirsk
        1 armour moved from East US to West Canada
        2 infantry moved from West US to West Canada
        1 bomber moved from East US to Russia
        1 transport moved from West US Sea Zone to West Panama Sea Zone
        1 battleship moved from West US Sea Zone to West Panama Sea Zone
        1 submarine moved from Hawaii Sea Zone to West Panama Sea Zone
        1 carrier moved from Hawaii Sea Zone to West Panama Sea Zone

    Place Units - Americans
        2 transports placed in East US Sea Zone
        2 infantry placed in East US
        1 armour and 3 infantry placed in West US

    Turn Complete - Americans
        Americans collect 34 PUs; end with 34 PUs

Combat Hit Differential Summary :

Savegame

Sure, will do.

I actually already did and moved it further now.

TripleA Turn Summary: British round 1

TripleA Turn Summary for game: World War II Classic, version: 2.0

Game History

Round: 1

    Purchase Units - British
        British buy 1 carrier and 2 infantry; Remaining resources: 0 PUs; 

    Combat Move - British
        2 infantry moved from United Kingdom to North Sea Zone
        2 infantry moved from North Sea Zone to Finland Norway
        1 fighter moved from United Kingdom to Finland Norway
        1 fighter moved from United Kingdom to Baltic Sea Zone
        1 bomber moved from United Kingdom to Baltic Sea Zone

    Combat - British
        Battle in Baltic Sea Zone
            British attack with 1 bomber and 1 fighter
            Germans defend with 1 submarine and 1 transport
                British roll dice for 1 bomber and 1 fighter in Baltic Sea Zone, round 2 : 2/2 hits, 1.17 expected hits
                Germans roll dice for 1 transport in Baltic Sea Zone, round 2 : 0/1 hits, 0.17 expected hits
                1 submarine owned by the Germans and 1 transport owned by the Germans lost in Baltic Sea Zone
            British win with 1 bomber and 1 fighter remaining. Battle score for attacker is 16
            Casualties for Germans: 1 submarine and 1 transport
        Battle in Finland Norway
            British attack with 1 fighter and 2 infantry
            Germans defend with 1 armour and 1 infantry
                British roll dice for 1 battleship in Finland Norway, round 2 : 1/1 hits, 0.67 expected hits
                British roll dice for 1 fighter and 2 infantry in Finland Norway, round 2 : 0/3 hits, 0.83 expected hits
                Germans roll dice for 1 armour and 1 infantry in Finland Norway, round 2 : 0/2 hits, 0.67 expected hits
                1 infantry owned by the Germans lost in Finland Norway
                British roll dice for 1 fighter and 2 infantry in Finland Norway, round 3 : 2/3 hits, 0.83 expected hits
                Germans roll dice for 1 armour in Finland Norway, round 3 : 1/1 hits, 0.33 expected hits
                1 armour owned by the Germans and 1 infantry owned by the British lost in Finland Norway
            British win, taking Finland Norway from Germans with 1 fighter and 1 infantry remaining. Battle score for attacker is 5
            Casualties for Germans: 1 armour and 1 infantry
            Casualties for British: 1 infantry

    Non Combat Move - British
        1 fighter moved from Finland Norway to Karelia S.S.R.
        1 infantry moved from South Africa to Kenya-Rhodesia
        1 infantry moved from Anglo Sudan Egypt to Kenya-Rhodesia
        1 armour moved from Anglo Sudan Egypt to Persia
        1 infantry moved from Syria Jordan to Persia
        1 submarine moved from Red Sea Zone to East Compass Sea Zone
        1 transport moved from Indian Ocean Sea Zone to West Australia Sea Zone
        1 infantry moved from India to Sinkiang
        1 fighter moved from India to Sinkiang
        1 bomber moved from Baltic Sea Zone to Karelia S.S.R.
        1 fighter moved from Baltic Sea Zone to Karelia S.S.R.
        1 fighter moved from Karelia S.S.R. to Russia
        1 bomber moved from Karelia S.S.R. to Russia
        1 armour moved from East Canada to West Canada

    Place Units - British
        2 infantry placed in United Kingdom
        1 carrier placed in North Sea Zone

    Turn Complete - British
        British collect 31 PUs; end with 31 PUs

Combat Hit Differential Summary :

Germans : -0.17
British : 1.50

Savegame

Actually knowing that you weren’t going to attack Egypt I would have preferred to retreat my sub to the Red sea instead. Main reason I wouldn’t normally is I can’t get back with Egypt lost, but the Red sea gives strictly superior flexibility if I knew I was holding Egypt. Would you mind if I made that edit?

Interested! I’m pretty excited to see something very different however it goes now.

If the Eastern med sub has the option to retreat again, please do so as before. But I’m sure you won’t give me the opportunity this time!

@AcesWild5049 Sure no problem. Some people really dislike the idea because they feel like Axis and Allies is made for random lucky swings and it removes part of the game without it. I disagree, particularly because of the interesting effect that when you do use LowLuck, you can engage in what would otherwise be riskier battles, but the potential swings within those are still present and do make more of a difference because of the ability to calculate things more certainly.

I’ve also heard the dismissal “If I wanted to decrease luck I would play chess!” That’s a silly argument because I happen to very much enjoy chess too!

But I’m happy to play either, regardless.

TripleA Turn Summary: Russians round 1

TripleA Turn Summary for game: World War II Classic, version: 2.0

Game History

Round: 1

    Purchase Units - Russians
        Russians buy 8 infantry; Remaining resources: 0 PUs; 

    Combat - Russians
        Trigger Russians Can Move: Setting movementRestrictionTerritories cleared  for rulesAttachment attached to Russians
        Trigger Russians Can Move: Setting movementRestrictionType to disallowed for rulesAttachment attached to Russians

    Non Combat Move - Russians
        2 infantry moved from Soviet Far East to Yakut S.S.R.
        1 armour moved from Soviet Far East to Novosibirsk
        2 infantry moved from Evenki National Okrug to Yakut S.S.R.
        4 infantry moved from Russia to Karelia S.S.R.
        1 fighter moved from Russia to Karelia S.S.R.
        1 submarine and 1 transport moved from Karelia Sea Zone to North Sea Zone
        4 infantry moved from Caucasus to Karelia S.S.R.
        2 armour moved from Russia to Karelia S.S.R.
        1 aaGun moved from Russia to Caucasus

    Place Units - Russians
        8 infantry placed in Karelia S.S.R.

    Turn Complete - Russians
        Russians collect 24 PUs; end with 24 PUs

Combat Hit Differential Summary :

Savegame

Sure! I’ll start the new game now. Would you like to play with LowLuck dice this time or continue with normal dice, just with Russia Restricted then?

TripleA Turn Summary: Americans round 1

TripleA Turn Summary for game: World War II Classic, version: 2.0

Game History

Round: 1

    Purchase Units - Americans
        Americans buy 6 infantry and 2 transports; Remaining resources: 2 PUs; 

    Combat Move - Americans
        1 infantry moved from Sinkiang to French Indo China
              Americans take French Indo China from Japanese

    Combat - Americans

    Non Combat Move - Americans
        2 infantry moved from West US to West Canada
        2 infantry moved from East US to East US Sea Zone
        2 infantry and 1 transport moved from East US Sea Zone to North Sea Zone
        2 infantry moved from North Sea Zone to Finland Norway
        1 fighter moved from Hawaii Sea Zone to China
        1 infantry moved from Sinkiang to China
        1 fighter moved from West US to United Kingdom
        1 bomber moved from East US to Russia
        1 fighter moved from East US to United Kingdom
        1 battleship and 1 transport moved from West US Sea Zone to West Panama Sea Zone
        1 carrier and 1 submarine moved from Hawaii Sea Zone to West Panama Sea Zone
        1 armour moved from East US to West Canada

    Place Units - Americans
        2 transports placed in East US Sea Zone
        2 infantry placed in East US
        4 infantry placed in West US

    Turn Complete - Americans
        Americans collect 39 PUs; end with 41 PUs

Combat Hit Differential Summary :

Savegame

Wow, that’s crushing! Would you like to take a mulligan on at least that Manchuria battle, or perhaps at least take a fighter back or something? You’ve just been so crushed thus far by dice more so than anything I’ve done that even if things swing back the other way, the damage has already been done since the first turn is so important.

If you do want to continue to play things out just for the sake of completionism of your stats and records I’d respect that but I’ll also be anxious to quickly move on to a second game.

I’ll start the US turn now based on your save as is but feel free to decide if you’d like to amend anything here.

I wouldn’t necessarily describe that as “my” version of G1 since with G1 I typically kill off the North Sea fleet, but I’m also assuming a bid to Germany. I was just assessing the hypothetical of playing by your rules with starting Germany in which I’d agree that there’s not enough material to cover all your bases.

From your J1 video I actually feel like I got the insight into my own bidding patterns: I usually put bid a couple infantry into Manchuria, but then I always end up doing the Pearl Harbor attack because with those extra infantry, the entire Japanese navy is more or less useless on the first round, so I might as well use it to clear the American fleet even though there’s little reward to it. But maybe if I wasn’t bothering to bid anything to Japan then I would have more need of the fleet and therefore can skip Pearl Harbor.

For USA, you mention having up to 10 transports with the US. This is way, way too much unless Germany is already conquered and therefore the game essentially almost over. The cheapest load of units 10 transports can fill up with is 10 tanks, which costs 50 IPCs, which you could never sustain unless you had an income around that level. So unless you are considering two transports in your supply chains that’s a bunch of wasted transports. If you are using two levels of transports, then you’re not correctly shucking: you really should only need one per tank/2 inf to transport your troops to either Europe or Africa.

For the UK video, that does seem like an interesting play but I generally feel like it’s too slow for not enough benefit. In fact even Don’s recommendations are too slow, as it feels like it’s a wasted turn. I always go for building up my UK fleet on turn 1. If somehow my battleship survives in the North sea and it looks feasible, then buying transports should shore that up. If not, then building a carrier and transports on turn 1 should still be sufficient to dissuade the Germany air force from sinking them again. I can’t recall why Don thinks waiting the turn is a good idea - if it’s because he prefers to keep the US fighters to counterattack Pearl Harbor, then I’d say that that’s a bad tradeoff, since the US really doesn’t have any need to do that counterattack; being able to immediately start funneling troops into Europe is well worth giving Japan more freedom in my opinion.

Oh and I forgot to mention that TripleA supports LowLuck with a single option when you set up the game. It also has additional options to explicitly set LowLuck for antiaircraft guns (which works similarly: instead of rolling one die per aircraft, you add up the number of aircraft, divide by six if greater than or equal to six, and roll one die total for the remainder), LowLuck for Bombing and Territory damage (which I believe gives you either 3 or 4 ipcs of damage per bomber every time, depending on a die roll) and LowLuck for Technology (I’m not sure how this works, but my guess is divide the number of dice you purchase by 6 again for that many advancements).

I’m, happy to play this out further and appreciate your willingness to stick it out, but definitely let’s rematch after this as I’d much rather face you on a more level playing field.

LowLuck is where instead of rolling one die per unit in each round of battle, you instead add up the strength of all your units for each round of battle, divide by 6, and get that many “guaranteed” hits, and then roll one die for the remainder. So for instance on that first battle with Russia against Manchuria, 5 inf 1 arm would be a single guaranteed hit, then I would roll one die and get a second hit at a 2 or less. On defense, you would get one guaranteed hit and roll a die at 4 or less for a potential second hit.

The net effect for large battles especially is that it chops off the ends of the bell curve, so that there’s still room for a variety of results but you will never see the extremely lucky outcomes one way or another.

It however does nothing for small unit count individual battles, like the lone fighter against LAB transport - that plays out exactly the same way. So you still have to be careful with potentially swingy battles like that.

I hadn’t been keeping up with these but I’ll continue now.

Just finished the Germany video. I largely agree with your recommendations with the caveat again that I still think Allies are at a significant advantage so it’s hard to assess one weak position versus another weak position. Don’s recommendations, as you note, have a much higher variance of results due to engaging in riskier battles, but from the perspective of a side that is “behind” then engaging in a riskier battle is often what you need to do in order to have a chance to pull ahead.

One curious omission to your otherwise conservative play though is the fighter against the LAB transport. That’s probably the riskiest battle of them all in my opinion! There’s only a 5/7 chance of the ideal result, which is only slightly better than the bomber versus the sub in the Eastern Med that you wanted to avoid, with a 1/7 chance equally of mutual destruction (which is significant since losing the German fighter is pretty bad) as well as a 1/7 chance of the transport winning. If instead of sending two fighters against Egypt you only sent one, instead sent one of those fighters against the sub along with your battleship in the Eastern Med, then you can spare the bomber to also join the fighter against the LAB transport. I feel like that arrangement much safer overall.

The main omission in this segment that I see is that you don’t really address what to do without Russia Restricted. Without RR, Germany has one fewer fighter to work with as Ukraine is almost certainly lost. Don recommends only a strafe attack on R1 but most people I’ve played with will just do the outright attack against Ukraine as there’s really not much of a risk anymore especially if the Baltic fleet is taken care of too.

I feel like I’ve been doing quite a bit better than average on rolls so far; let’s see if that holds up.

What is your opinion on LowLuck dice? I feel like based on the videos of yours that I have watched so far, you tend to favor relatively conservative play in order to mitigate extreme swings of the dice, which LowLuck is meant to help with. If you’d like. we can play a followup game that way too.

TripleA Turn Summary: British round 1

TripleA Turn Summary for game: World War II Classic, version: 2.0

Game History

Round: 1

    Purchase Units - British
        British buy 4 infantry and 2 transports; Remaining resources: 2 PUs; 

    Combat Move - British
        1 infantry moved from Syria Jordan to Anglo Sudan Egypt
        2 infantry moved from India to Indian Ocean Sea Zone
        1 fighter moved from India to Anglo Sudan Egypt
        2 infantry and 1 transport moved from Indian Ocean Sea Zone to Red Sea Zone
        2 infantry moved from Red Sea Zone to Anglo Sudan Egypt
        1 submarine moved from Black Sea Zone to East Mediteranean Sea Zone
        1 bomber moved from United Kingdom to East Mediteranean Sea Zone
        2 fighters moved from United Kingdom to Finland Norway
        1 armour moved from East Canada to East Canada Sea Zone
        2 infantry moved from United Kingdom to North Sea Zone
        1 armour and 1 transport moved from East Canada Sea Zone to North Sea Zone
        1 armour and 2 infantry moved from North Sea Zone to Finland Norway

    Combat - British
        Battle in East Mediteranean Sea Zone
            British attack with 1 bomber and 1 submarine
            Germans defend with 1 battleship and 1 transport
                British roll dice for 1 submarine in East Mediteranean Sea Zone, round 2 : 0/1 hits, 0.33 expected hits
                British roll dice for 1 bomber in East Mediteranean Sea Zone, round 2 : 1/1 hits, 0.67 expected hits
                Germans roll dice for 1 battleship and 1 transport in East Mediteranean Sea Zone, round 2 : 1/2 hits, 0.83 expected hits
                1 transport owned by the Germans and 1 submarine owned by the British lost in East Mediteranean Sea Zone
                British roll dice for 1 bomber in East Mediteranean Sea Zone, round 3 : 0/1 hits, 0.67 expected hits
                Germans roll dice for 1 battleship in East Mediteranean Sea Zone, round 3 : 0/1 hits, 0.67 expected hits
                British roll dice for 1 bomber in East Mediteranean Sea Zone, round 4 : 1/1 hits, 0.67 expected hits
                Germans roll dice for 1 battleship in East Mediteranean Sea Zone, round 4 : 0/1 hits, 0.67 expected hits
                1 battleship owned by the Germans lost in East Mediteranean Sea Zone
            British win with 1 bomber remaining. Battle score for attacker is 24
            Casualties for British: 1 submarine
            Casualties for Germans: 1 battleship and 1 transport
        Battle in Anglo Sudan Egypt
            British attack with 1 fighter and 3 infantry
            Germans defend with 1 armour and 1 infantry
                British roll dice for 1 fighter and 3 infantry in Anglo Sudan Egypt, round 2 : 2/4 hits, 1.00 expected hits
                Germans roll dice for 1 armour and 1 infantry in Anglo Sudan Egypt, round 2 : 1/2 hits, 0.67 expected hits
                1 infantry owned by the Germans, 1 armour owned by the Germans and 1 infantry owned by the British lost in Anglo Sudan Egypt
            British win, taking Anglo Sudan Egypt from Germans with 1 fighter and 2 infantry remaining. Battle score for attacker is 5
            Casualties for British: 1 infantry
            Casualties for Germans: 1 armour and 1 infantry
        Battle in Finland Norway
            British attack with 1 armour, 2 fighters and 2 infantry
            Germans defend with 1 armour and 3 infantry
                British roll dice for 1 battleship in Finland Norway, round 2 : 1/1 hits, 0.67 expected hits
                British roll dice for 1 armour, 2 fighters and 2 infantry in Finland Norway, round 2 : 2/5 hits, 1.83 expected hits
                Germans roll dice for 1 armour and 3 infantry in Finland Norway, round 2 : 0/4 hits, 1.33 expected hits
                3 infantry owned by the Germans lost in Finland Norway
                British roll dice for 1 armour, 2 fighters and 2 infantry in Finland Norway, round 3 : 1/5 hits, 1.83 expected hits
                Germans roll dice for 1 armour in Finland Norway, round 3 : 1/1 hits, 0.33 expected hits
                1 armour owned by the Germans and 1 infantry owned by the British lost in Finland Norway
            British win, taking Finland Norway from Germans with 1 armour, 2 fighters and 1 infantry remaining. Battle score for attacker is 11
            Casualties for Germans: 1 armour and 3 infantry
            Casualties for British: 1 infantry

    Non Combat Move - British
        2 fighters moved from Finland Norway to Karelia S.S.R.
        1 fighter moved from Anglo Sudan Egypt to Syria Jordan
        1 bomber moved from East Mediteranean Sea Zone to Syria Jordan
        1 infantry moved from South Africa to Kenya-Rhodesia

    Place Units - British
        2 transports placed in North Sea Zone
        4 infantry placed in United Kingdom

    Turn Complete - British
        British collect 31 PUs; end with 33 PUs

Combat Hit Differential Summary :

Germans : -1.50
British : 0.33

Savegame

Hmm, the save complained about being corrupted the first time I loaded it and my credentials weren’t correct. Let’s see if there’s any glitches after this.