Posts made by Boston_NWO

A consistent cohort of players are consistently winning and reaching high ranks, which makes it doubtful that the game outcomes are primarily driven by the volatility of dice outcomes. You’re posit skill, wealth, internet connection speed, or time commitment. I’m making a focused statement about dice variance with respect to likelihood of winning.

@DoManMacgee My intent is not to accuse you. I’ve been engaged with many players the past two seasons and achieved a solid rank. Complaints about the dice doing something out of the ordinary, and almost always harming the poster’s game position, abound.

Yet if you look in aggregate, it’s a very consistent cohort of players who are at the top. We have had two major tournaments and the final 4 players in each are among the top 10-20 that I know of. I personally achieved a win record above 90% both seasons with over 40 games played. The variance in the dice are a factor in game outcomes, but player skill is the dominant factor on who wins.

Yeah, low luck is really tried and true. It’s amazing to me how bothered people get with “the dice” when they’re behaving exactly as defined. It’s like you have to design to human perceptions of what fair and random should be rather than true dice. Reminds me of the music shuffle button, which can’t be a fully randomized selection or people would complain about hearing the same song in quick succession.

@Eqqman I didn’t say anything about a round 2 timing. It does not exist. Round 2 allies ideally take nordics. R3 is when allies pressure on France and northwest Europe europe is severe. It is Germany’s elective if they want to stack France R3. But realize that stacking requires about 20 units.

Usa 1: 1 ac, 2 trans, 2 inf, 2art
Usa 2: 2 trans, 6 inf, 2 art
Usa 3: 6 land units 2 bomber

Uk 1: 1 ac, 1 dest, 3 inf
Uk 2: inf and likely 1 trans
Uk 3: depends but goal composition is to have 4 trans inf and art to land and fighters

@djensen I agree, familiarizing with the interface takes experience but that seems inherent to any game physical or virtual. The lack of undo is IMO the largest difference currently compared to the physical board. I have spoken to the devs and it is mainly that the current game architecture doesn’t store much historical game state information. This is necessary for an undo.

@aardvarkpepper You clearly have strong views on the direction that this game development should take. In the past 10 months, I’ve seen the game stability and user interface improve tremendously. When you frame your arguments in condescending terms of “teacher/student”, you’re not going to win many allies toward your argument. I don’t know the circumstances of you leaving the Discord channel, but I for one do not miss your presence or inflammatory rhetoric.

@Brian-Cannon Here is a super easy step by step guide to test for dice fairness https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/70802/how-can-i-test-whether-a-die-is-fair. If you’re going to make assertions about dice fairness it would be great to have some form of empirical evidence. As a professional software developer and statistician, it’s amusing to see the number of people moaning about bad dice without evidence. It’s incredibly more difficult to generate non-random dice than it is to import an established pseudorandom integer generator.

1. As allies doing KGF, do not fear trading Germany air for your navy on even or moderate loss terms.

2. Germany air purchases means less land units, shift every single available Russia unit towards Germany and trade as much as possible every turn. Realize that Germany air often has to choose between using the fighters to trade vs placing in the most anti-allies navy position of France. More Russia units makes it more painful for Germany to keep air in France.

3. The more Germany air, the less attractive to split allies navy. At worst, allies can trade or severely pressure northwest territory and France.

4. USA bomber purchases are very effective in kgf. Can attack outright or SBR. The purchase immediately places pressure on France. By Germany round 3, Germany must place about 20 units in France to make a safe stack against optimized allies kgf. This nearly guarantees allies stacking karelia if axis does so.

@Eqqman

There’s any number of ways of winning against poor play. I’m recommending lines of play that maximizes chances of winning across a broad spectrum of players and minimizes the opportunity for opponent counter play.

Always sz61. If the transport survives Japan can do a really strong India R3 timing attack that’s difficult for allies to handle. Attacking with 1 cruiser and 1 carrier is best if you send 1 fighters to kill Germany med fleet. The main situation where UK can’t is if too many Germany units survived s7 battle and needs UK bomber to secure.

Baltic sz is one of the worst territories in the game for Germany to position units. UK natural position of navy and fighters is in reach and Germany has nowhere to go. Germany navy buys go badly because us and uk starts with more navy AND more income. USA builds navy R1, UK creates fleet R2, and germany navy gets smashed R3 or R4. Germany navy purchases are a dead end strategy that’s reliably punished by top players.

@Eqqman USA lands 1 transport to Africa round 1. Ideally Morocco but southern half of Africa otherwise. Round 2 two transports. Round 3 or 4 Germany should be kicked out. UK should try to kill med fleet round 1 with 2fig, 1 bom. Africa should be allies favored in kgf.

Luck is definitely a factor. I am currently 20 wins and zero losses this season, so skill is the major factor in the outcome

Focus on things you can control like your purchases, unit movement, and choice of battles. Germany should buy almost all infantry and maybe a couple art for the first 10-15 rounds. Prioritize shifting units to karelia. Germany has a very strong round 3 stack of karelia if you up 10 inf in Germany round 1. Avoid losing a stack of units. It is totally fine to give income to allies. Many intermediate players spread their units over many territories that get picked off. Focus on 2, maybe 3 stacks of units leaving nearly all others empty or with 1 inf (I prefer empty)

They key timings for allies kgf:
Rus: Round 1 Ukraine and west Russia. R2 and after trade ukr, Belo, and karelia as much as possible.

UK: buy 3 inf/art to India a turn. Round 1 creat a navy with carrier destroyer almost without exceptions. R2 prioritize taking nordics with USA. R3 and after build up to 4 transports and put remaining to fighters and bombers.

USA: buy two rounds of inf/art/transports. Usually you have to buy a carrier. Round 3 start buying 1-2 bombers
with inf/art and stop buying transports.

Adding 2 income to UK would be a game breaking advantage. UK doesn’t need a stack of units in Europe. Maximize threat with 4 transports and fighters and bombers. This ties up a lot of Germany resources without any battles.

Always move all units from France round 1. Allowing Allies to take France for 1 round is surprisingly not that valuable. UK gains 6 income but Germany stacking France the next round is a +2 counter (kills 1 inf, 1/3rd chance of losing an inf). Also I’m must commit enough navy purchase to keep the landing transport safe and forgoes other attractive landing options like Norway.

If Russia goes west Russia only, Germany should be able to stack Ukraine Round 1 and trade Caucasus.

Other strong players but air as Germany. I personally aim to produce 15 units every turn if possible. This is usually all infantry with a couple artillery at most. Just based on status, infantry are by far the most broken unit in the game. This has been the case in every version of Axis and Allies but the unit is so common that many people don’t appreciate the brokenness in plain sight.

Perceptions on biased or non-independent dice are due to a host of human perception biases rather than any issue with calculation. A pseudo RNG library is available in every major programming language. People love to complain about how the dice are “not fair” but never back it up with an empirical statistical test or propose an alternate hypothesis in number generation that differs from a [1,2,3,4,5,6] uniform and independent event space.

The main way to solve user complains would be to implement Low Luck or implement a non-independent number generation. League of Legends implements that latter on critical hit chances where each non-critical attack increases the likelihood that the next attack is critical. Both of these would reduce the variance of the dice distributions.

R1: Stack Karelia if possible. If not, tanks in Poland, infantry in baltic. Aim to threaten to stack Karelia R2 and onwards. Completely evacuate from France.

Germany if Allies commit to killing Germany is actually remarkably easy.

Each round, ensure that allies can’t stack france or Northwest Territories. Second, stack Karelia if possible and otherwise position in poland and baltic to aim to stack next round. Avoid engaging in any battles. 15-20 rounds later, Allies are forced to move from Moscow or take a -200 battle.

@Brian-Cannon

Deadzone is a territory that a player can’t move a stack of units without the opponent threatening to attack it profitably. Germany should trade Ukraine with fighters and just enough land to retake. Do not attempt to stack. Don’t leave any infantry in belorussia. Germany battleship and transport and hit Ukraine Round 1 if Russia got an especially nice round 1. In fact I favor this over trans Jordan in many cases.

The key lesson is to trade efficients and don’t engage in stack battles where many units are lost. Germany can safely stack 2 territories and eventually 3. By round 20, the Germany stacks will exceed 60 units and are hard to kill.

The sz7 is 3 sub, Cru, 2 fig. Possibly 2 subs if you are a risk taker. I strongly recommend a battle calculator if you aren’t using. The difference of one cruiser is stark.