Posts made by Complexity

@Bunnies:

Under LowLuck, G1 responds with 6 LRA tech dice and a transport buy.

If you are playing with LL, you are trying to minimize randomness, so why would you even have tech in the game?

@Bunnies:

This is why I think Low Luck players require less skill than regular dice players.  Low Luck players can predict battle results with higher accuracy BECAUSE they are playing Low Luck, and so do NOT have to worry about the other results that could happen.

This is a faulty argument because it ignores the additional responsibilities LL places on the player. Because you can predict battles with higher accuracy, you know that each unit you buy, possibly 3 turns before it even gets to the front, will be crucial in a close game. In ADS, you go with a general plan that gives you some flexibility, like buying a mix of infantry and artillery in a certain proportion, maybe adding a few tanks or a plane if you have a surplus, but in LL you can make specific economic plans because the battles are much more predictable. In my LL games, I’ve sometimes found myself fighting over 1 IPC territories because that territory would give me, say 40 or 42 IPCs with Japan in a KJF game, and buying 5 subs or 2 AC + 1 Ftr would stop America from going further. In ADS, America might just charge on and your subs might all miss. Then you’re screwed.

You can say it’s a form of skill to recover from such a bad roll of the dice, but even if that point is conceded, the entire reason you’re in such a predicament isn’t your fault. Your dice were just bad. In LL games, when you get in a tough position, it’s generally because you made a mistake and not because your dice were bad. In LL games, the skill is in not getting in such a position in the first place.

So, yes LL does change the game in significant ways, and probably screws up traditional bids, but if you prefer a more chess-like approach to the game with greater certainty, it is not necessarily a change for the worse. Try telling a chess grandmaster that making him roll dice to determine whether his queen can capture his opponent’s pawn will add skill to the game. He’d obviously laugh. I doubt he would be consoled if you told him he could demonstrate superior skill by making a comeback after he lost his queen trying to take a pawn.

I just re-read the original post and a thought occurred to me. Even if ADS strategies don’t work as well in LL, how does that make the LL system inherently inferior? If the argument is that LL changes the game by removing certain ADS strategies, isn’t it also possible that it could introduce strategies that wouldn’t work (or work as well) in ADS?

The Axis will never take Africa if the Allies want it bad enough. Building a Russian carrier qualifies as wanting it pretty bad in my book. Germany will just go after Russia right off the bat if the UK and US land everything in Africa and don’t bother Europe, and Russia will have nothing to stop them without an air force. They won’t be able to trade without losing an artillery or a tank, and that disadvantage can add up fast, because without the ability to trade or counterattack you are going to lose Caucasus the moment Germany first steps on Western Europe, and then Germany will be laying down Infantry or Artillery on the Caucasus factory followed by tanks from Germany and Russia will fall. Japan won’t even need to help that much.

I get what ADS is, but can’t figure out the meaning of the acronym. Anyone care to explain it?

Jennifer, assuming you go KJF and build a SA complex, how would you deal with a German player adding transports in the Baltic (or in the Med and then stationing in SZ 12) and threatening an invasion of the UK and/or US? How much does this slow down the UK Atlantic navy? I’ve never tried this strategy, but that would be my biggest concern. The US wouldn’t be landing units in Africa if you shoved all American units into the Pacific right off the bat, and a Japanese player that bought all transports on R1 could slow down your Solomon unification if you didn’t bring the Atlantic units too.

Not to mention that fighters prevent the UK/US player from isolating transports.

Nevermind, I figured it out.

When setting up a PBEM, what is the game ID supposed to be?

triplea16186.tsvg

@Cmdr:

Another point, name one game that was won by defense?  Every game I have ever seen required the winner to attack the loser.

Some games have been won because the defender’s defense prevented the attacker from attacking.

@Cmdr:

You could argue it, DM, but I think it is an invalid argument.  A good German defense may hold off Germany from losing for a good Japanese OFFENSE to win the game.  But it’s not the defense that is winning the game for you, it’s the offense of Japan.

A machine doesn’t work if even a single part is broken.

@Cmdr:

If Germany and Japan make no attacks the entire game, they cannot win.

If Germany and Japan make no defenses the entire game, they can win.

Of course, that’s the absolute most extreme views, but it helps to demonstrate my point.  No turtling method in the history of games has ever won the game.  Only offensive strategies have won.  Even the Pawn Defense in Chess requires you to plan some sort of attack route to win the game.

No one is disputing that offensive strategies are necessary to win. But I think switch’s original point was that, in A&A, most successful attacks are possible because of a defensive failure on the part of your opponent. But it is impossible to defend against every attack, hence the “art” in the title of this topic.

As switch said it:

ultimate victory comes down more to what you choose to DEFEND with… and WHERE you choose to defend.  As the defender, economics of combat value are on your side… all you need to do is figure out how to coerce the Attacker into combating you at your points of STRENGTH.

It mostly depends on the game momentum. If I have a borderline shot at taking Russia a few turns before the US and UK start doing some really heavy landings, I’m going to take it. But if I can afford to wait and work for better odds I will.

@Imperious:

Chess also requires much more coordination of pieces to produce winning combinations.

Definitely agreed. The concept of piece range is much reduced in AA for all but a few units like bombers. And the few units that do have large ranges are the ones that are the most critical to position correctly. But imagine trying to balance a game where every unit had a large range, but some units were more lethal than others. In chess the piece lethality is even. If you can arrange the proper positioning, a pawn can take a queen just as easily as another queen can. A&A would probably not be competitive in any sense of the word if the average unit range was increased much–unless the initial setup were made symmetric.

@Imperious:

A plan that is “approximate” is a much less accurate way of doing business and strategy suffers. So the resulting calculations from Chess moves involves more thinking because everything must be exact or you lost the game.

Yes, but this does not affect the defensive aspects of A&A. In a way, the uncertainty involved in battles encourages defensive play. I usually play with low luck (mostly) because of this.

I’ve found that games with strong defense mechanics like Chess and A&A have a very strong positional element to them. A&A is like asymmetric chess with the ability to buy new pieces. The two are pretty similar when you look at the underlying mechanics. You have forking maneuvers (most often done with knights in chess) in A&A that can be done with tanks, planes, or even infantry in certain positions. And obtaining even a very slight material advantage can be used to obtain an even greater positional advantage, and vice versa.

@DarthMaximus:

If you are brave you can even pick up the 2 inf on Aus and have them sitting in Sz 30 on your unification move.  This makes an even more inviting target for Japan, but again the cost is high for them and if they see the bomber in Novo/Mos/Yak they may think something is up.

I did this in my last game as the Allies, sorta. I only brought 1 man on the transport because the economics of that battle tilted toward Japan (if I recall correctly) when there are 2 men on the transport, especially if Japan exercises the option to retreat.

@DarthMaximus:

It also weakens the attack on Pearl.  This means if they choose to attack China, Sz 30 and Pearl, while they should win all three, there is still a chance one or more goes horribly wrong for them, not to mention they still have to worry about the UK bom which means Sz 60 (or even sz 61) could be in jeopardy on UK 2.

In my current game as the Axis I attacked SZ60, Pearl (heavy), and China, and won all three (low luck helped). I had to storm China with only 7 men as all my planes were occupied, but since my transport off Kwangtung wasn’t attacked by the UK destroyer I could reinforce FIC with men from the islands and a surviving plane from SZ 60 to prevent its capture. It set up Japan quite well and they’re still doing pretty good (6th turn) even though the US is doing a KJF strategy.

@a44bigdog:

For the reasons Jen and Bunnies posted above the southern route is better. The northern route is too obvious and takes to long to set up with the amount of forces needed to do anything against the western US.

So, to answer the original question in the topic: no it is not possible against a player who’s paying attention.

Honestly, what kind of opponent would miss a Japanese fleet in the Solomons threatening WUS (unless maybe you’re playing under some strict time limits)? If you bought factories on T1 and don’t need to land many units on the mainland, then your fleet has good business taking Australia and New Zealand, but if you are actually TRYING to invade WUS, the northern route has to be better.

@Cmdr:

I have begun playing around with the purchase of 2 complexes on Japan 1 lately.

Theoretically, against a good opponent who left their options open with Russia and UK, wouldn’t this incline the US toward a KJF strategy?

@bcclark7:

The way the rules read is that each bomber can inflict a max of the territory value.

I haven’t read the rules in a long time, but this is not how the game is played. Like Nukchebi is saying, each strategic bombing raid can inflict the maximum value of the territory. So if you’re bombing a 6 IPC territory with 3 bombers, you’re only going to inflict a maximum of 6 IPCs of damage. The game is extremely imbalanced in favor of the allies if played in the way you describe :-).

@bcclark7:

First of all the thrust for the US and UK should be to limit German IPCs.  The best way to do this is through strategic bombing.

Actually, strategic bombing is the worst way to do this. On average, your bombers will take away 3.5 IPCs (assuming you only bomb territories with 6+ IPC values). Your bomber will be shot down, on average, on its 3rd or 4th bombing run, so you will remove around 10 IPCs from Germany’s pockets before your bomber is destroyed by an AA gun. If you are buying bombers specifically for this purpose, you’re losing even more, because you are immediately down 15 IPCs for each new bomber, but won’t remove ~10 IPCs from Germany’s wallet until the 3rd or 4th turn. Money has a time value.

I only do strategic bombing in 3 cases:

1. There’s no AA gun present and no better target for my bomber.
2. It’s late in the game and, for whatever reason, I won’t need my bomber after this turn and can afford to lose it (really rare).
3. I know exactly what my opponent needs to buy the next round and stand a good chance of preventing him from buying it with a bombing raid. This usually happens when I think he’ll buy something like 2 carriers or some other large naval buy.

@bcclark7:

Germany taking Egypt is not a foregone conclusion on turn 1. Britain should have enough time to evacuate.

Basically the only time I see Germany forgo Egypt is when they’re setting up a Sea Lion attempt. If that’s the case, the UK doesn’t need to be playing around in India.