Best posts made by DoManMacgee

Not a problem! Love your video series on Classic by the way. Hoping you’ll examine other versions at some point but it’s clear that your love is for Classic first and foremost.

@Xlome_00 That’s blatantly untrue in high-level play. There’s a reason Allies need a ~30 bid to compete on this map OOB. Maybe in BM what you’re saying has more weight to it but this thread isn’t about BM.

EDIT: I only brought up USA going 100% KGF because you said the following:

@Xlome_00 said in How do you win with Axis? SERIOUSLY NEED HELP:

@DoManMacgee If Japan kills Calcutta and/or the Phillipines and Money islands as soon as possible than that is a J1 Attack, which will bring America into the war on turn one thereby your first point about Germany is likely to fail because America is going to use all that money to go full KGF.

I’m not going to challenge you to a game or anything to prove my point because, again, I don’t play G40 competitively. So you’d probably win whatever game we played easily even without a bid. But I think the existence of BM and high bids for Allies in virtually all games of G40 is more than enough evidence that Axis have the blatant advantage in this game.

@taamvan said in Thoughts on the Scott Van Essen (Lead Developer for AAZ) Interviews:

And DMG; I didn’t allude to KJF only to the income disparity–I agree that KGF is also very effective in AAZ because Germany starts on the defensive. Heck, the US could spend $16 on each front, splitting the whole game and the Axis would still be in trouble.

I guess that’s a contributing factor I didn’t think to write down before. Both Axis Powers are effectively on the defensive (initiative-wise, anyway) from the onset, despite being at a serious economic disadvantage. They can’t really swing their TUV into key locations quickly enough, and ironically, it’s due to the Zombies, the mechanic that was meant to speed the game up.

A couple of artifacts from previous games show up here

1. the Game Designers love to hide the value of a risky Allied opener, whereas my first game I played vs. a team being coached by Charles M., an 8 time national champion and he attacked everywhere—Russia all in, Manchuria, FIC, all destroyed. That open is alot like 42.2/42.3. Unsurprisingly, on his first view of the game, Dave did the same thing even though he wasn’t at Gencon that year and didn’t see my game v. Charles+Family

If you read my other thread on this game’s balance issues, my playgroup figured out the value of being hyper-aggressive with the Allies almost immediately as well. No one is disagreeing with the basic premise that the Allies are stronger.

2. the designers are married to certain territory values and relative values (SVE admits this) from previous iterations that would have to be distorted in order for the game to be balanced

Certain territories need certain values to keep the game at least vaguely historical, though. If France/India/the Money Islands weren’t worth higher IPC Values no one would go for them.

Agree with your other two points, though (and I basically agree with Point #1 as well).

@Panther I disagree. The rule changes are not major enough to call them different games in the slightest. It’s just OOL being predetermined, and no shared carriers/transports.

TripleA has a 42SE scenario that I can play online, and dozens of other scenarios that I can also play online. TripleA also has a built-in forum poster.

A&A Online has a 42SE scenario that I can play online, with shiny graphics. Other than tutorials to help new players get up to speed, that’s about all the game has to offer.

One is clearly superior to the other here, at least initially.

@domanmacgee Game History

Round: 3

    Puchase Units - Americans
        Americans buy 1 artillery, 1 cruiser, 1 infantry and 1 transport; Remaining resources: 0 PUs; 

    Place Units - Americans
        1 cruiser and 1 transport placed in SZ 1
        1 artillery and 1 infantry placed in United States of America

    Turn Complete - Americans
        Americans collect 20 PUs; end with 20 PUs

Combat Hit Differential Summary :

As I’m sure you’re already aware, starting from round 4 the Russian Revolution is in effect and America is allowed to actually start playing.

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Similar to what @Imperious-Leader said, just go for Navy. It’s not the optimal Japan strategy (getting a land-bridge to mainland Asia and driving to Moscow with an INF push while simultaneously gobbling up the Pacific Islands/attacking Africa is), but it’ll at least give everyone a good time.

Just remember, Battleships suck and it’s ill-advised to spend money on new Carriers. Build Submarines and Transports out the wazoo, and do your best to keep your initial, valuable starting boats (Battleships and Carriers) alive at all costs.

The thread in this board that’s directly under yours already has lots of people commenting on it. It probably has what you’re looking for.

Link: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/34797/current-2020-global-1940-2nd-edition-bid/13

The more I think about it actually, the more I realize that the Zombies slow the game down more than they speed it up. Turning territories into meat grinders dissuades players from committing forces to said territories before they have stacks that are large enough to:

• Survive initial Zombie Attrition and possibly take the territory.
• Survive the counter-punch/strafe attempt from the neighboring stack.
• Survive another round of Zombie Attrition brought on by the casualties from the counter-punch.

I think someone in another thread made a note about refraining from building INF to keep the Zombie Count under control. That might actually be a viable option for Germany (not so much for Japan, due to their lackluster income).

@djensen said in Q&A with Axis & Allies Online Developers, Beamdog:

@DoManMacgee said in Q&A with Axis & Allies Online Developers, Beamdog:

Support for additional games (G40, Revised, AA50, etc.) down the line.

@redrum said

I’m interested to see if they eventually try to tackle say Global 40, how they would try to adjust that to fit the vision of make asynchronous play easier and faster.

As the article mentioned, they’re putting all of their focus on 1942 Second Edition. However, you should take a look at Beamdog’s track record. If A&A Online is successful, the sky could be the limit.

Hence the “down the line” comment from me. I understand fully that A&A Online is just going to be 42SE at-launch. That’s not really anything I care about, since 42SE kind of sucks. But I will still be buying/supporting the game with the hope that A&A Online can be fleshed out into a better TripleA. Who wouldn’t want a better, official/legal TripleA? Why shouldn’t we want that?

@the_good_captain That might have been bad, but we’ll see how things go:

Game History

Round: 4

    Puchase Units - British
        Condition TankProductionBritish: British has their production frontier changed to: lateWarProduction
        British buy 3 artilleries, 1 fighter and 6 infantry; Remaining resources: 0 PUs; 

    Combat Move - British
        2 artilleries, 1 fighter and 8 infantry moved from Sevastopol to Ukraine
        1 infantry moved from Persia to Sevastopol
        1 fighter moved from India to Sevastopol
        1 artillery and 8 infantry moved from Persia to Sevastopol
        1 artillery and 8 infantry moved from India to Persia
        1 artillery and 3 infantry moved from Kamerun to Nigeria
        1 transport moved from SZ 7 to SZ 2
        2 infantry moved from Canada to SZ 2
        2 infantry and 1 transport moved from SZ 2 to SZ 7
        2 infantry moved from SZ 7 to Ireland

    Combat - British
        Battle in Nigeria
            British attack with 1 artillery and 3 infantry
            Germans defend with 1 infantry
                British roll dice for 1 artillery and 3 infantry in Nigeria, round 2 : 2/4 hits, 1.67 expected hits
                Germans roll dice for 1 infantry in Nigeria, round 2 : 0/1 hits, 0.50 expected hits
                1 infantry owned by the Germans lost in Nigeria
            British win, taking Nigeria from Germans with 1 artillery and 3 infantry remaining. Battle score for attacker is 3
            Casualties for Germans: 1 infantry
        Air Battle in Ukraine
            British attacks with 1 units heading to Ukraine
            Germans launches 2 interceptors out of Ukraine
                Attackers Fire,  : 0/1 hits, 0.33 expected hits
                Defenders Fire,  : 0/2 hits, 0.67 expected hits
                Attackers Fire,  : 0/1 hits, 0.33 expected hits
                Defenders Fire,  : 0/2 hits, 0.67 expected hits
                Attackers Fire,  : 0/1 hits, 0.33 expected hits
                Defenders Fire,  : 1/2 hits, 0.67 expected hits
                1 fighter owned by the British lost in Ukraine
            Air Battle is over, the attackers have all died
        Battle in Ukraine
            British attack with 2 artilleries and 8 infantry
            Germans defend with 1 artillery, 2 fighters and 7 infantry
                British roll dice for 2 artilleries and 8 infantry in Ukraine, round 2 : 3/10 hits, 4.00 expected hits
                Germans roll dice for 1 artillery, 2 fighters and 7 infantry in Ukraine, round 2 : 7/10 hits, 4.83 expected hits
                3 infantry owned by the Germans and 7 infantry owned by the British lost in Ukraine
            Germans and British reach a stalemate
            . Battle score for attacker is -12
            Casualties for British: 7 infantry
            Casualties for Germans: 3 infantry

    Combat Move - British

    Place Units - British
        3 artilleries, 1 fighter and 6 infantry placed in India

    Turn Complete - British
        British collect 32 PUs; end with 32 PUs

Combat Hit Differential Summary :

Defenders Fire,  : -1.00
Attackers Fire,  : -1.00
Germans regular : 1.67
British regular : -0.67

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I’m not very good at Classic, but I’ll throw my two cents in.

Typically, I commit 1-2 rounds of shucking INF from South Europe -> Africa to try to rack up some IPCs. After the first two rounds or so you’re going to need 100% of your IPCs to commit to the stack war in Eastern Europe Vs. USSR/UK.

If UK wastes their money on a South Africa/India IC I’d punish them by committing the Germans to a Egypt -> Syria -> Persia -> India trajectory, while also sending as much of Japan’s navy as possible towards India to take the free factory. If Japan/Germany can break a hypothetical India Factory early on, it can give Japan some real momentum in gobbling up IPCs in Africa + putting pressure on Russia.

Remember: In Classic, Germany has to play defensively, as they stand no chance of breaking Karelia unless your opponent is really weak. Japan has to be the main breadwinner for the Axis, abusing the weak starting setup for the Allies in Asia and the typical hyper-KGF Allied strategy to try to either take Moscow or win an “economic victory” before the Allies manage to break Germany.

I’ve never had any issues using the calculator hosted by this very site:

http://calc.axisandallies.org/

It uses the Monte Carlo method of computing probability for complex scenarios (tl;dr run a large amount of trials and take the average of the results to fetch an extremely close approximation of “probability”). This is done because a single A&A battle (especially a huge scale one) would probably take an absolutely absurd amount of time to write-out and solve a 100% accurate probability equation for.

Just make sure you always pick the options “All” rounds of combat and “10,000X” trials for peak accuracy/consistency.

Creds (because you asked, IMO college isn’t as important as IRL experience): M.S. in Software Engineering (Meaning I understand the mathematical theory behind computers am am capable of communicating with other human beings) + B.S. in Computer Science (Meaning I know how to program) + Minor in Mathematics (Meaning I took Calculus-based Probability/Statistics courses, among other things).

@taamvan I think your mistake may have been actually taking the clay in Manchuria and SEA instead of just strafing them and leaving the Japanese to suffocate in a pile of Zombies.

Plus, if you just strafed Manchuria, now Japan’s forced into a lose-lose situation. They can either waste their first big wave saving Manchuria from the Zombies (allowing the Siberians to reach Moscow in time for the final battle) or abandon Manchuria and defeat the main Soviet stack (a huge hit to their income for J2).

Actually keeping your main stack in West Russia after R1 is probably bad too, just let the zombies defend the territory for you while you gather resources in preparation for the final battle.

Zombies controlling originally Axis controlled territories is good for you, because it means you win if you trigger the Zombie Apocalypse.

I think you have the Axis strategy mostly down though. Kill USSR ASAP to end the game. If you can actually get through the Zombies the Russians are just as frail as they are in 41 (yes, that 41)

@crockett36 said in Grand Plans, 3rd Edition?:

argothair,

Is there a map you like, one that you are thinking of?

To be fair, Revised is a more-balanced and less-nuanced 42SE, and AA50 is a slightly-more complex but infinitely superior 42SE. Either of those would have been preferable as a starting point in my mind.

I understand Beamdog’s choice though, as 42SE is the most “modern” edition the developers are most familiar with (Revised is like 15 years old at this point, Classic is over 30).

Here’s an interesting but possibly off-topic thought I had. According to the interview Beamdog gave djensen, development has been going on for >2 years, from a time before the reissue of AA50. Is it possible that 42SE was chosen over AA50 because no one from Beamdog was aware the game even existed?

@the_good_captain Sorry I was out for the last few hours but you more or less pieced together what I was thinking of doing (Forcing contested territories by any means necessary, up to and including sacrificing the air force).

I’m not sure if entering Moscow itself was a “noob mistake” as it’s a fairly logical trade. I lose the IPCs/production for about 2 turns but the German stack dies immediately with the AH stack following in relatively short order. You would have gotten the free money from taking Moscow and been able to use that to seriously push back on the France/Italy/USA line so the game would have probably turned into either you trying to stabilize the Russian front and making a second attempt at beating Russia Vs. a race of seeing if you can take down Italy before the Russians regroup and kill/cripple AH.

Let’s try flipping sides. It it just as simple as creating the thread then firing up a PBEM game?

I don’t have any delusions of grandeur to expect that I’ll be able to beat you with Central Powers with no bids/no LHTR, but I’ll show you how I usually approach playing them to see if it gives you any ideas/data to work with. Probably will post AH1 in the morning or in a couple of hours.

Agree with @cds. The original game is not meant to be historically accurate. It’s just a strategy game with a World War 2 can-of-paint that’s one or two steps above Risk in terms of complexity. I would highly suggest looking into newer editions, like Axis and Allies: Anniversary Edition, Axis and Allies: Europe 1940 and Axis and Allies: Pacific 1940 (the latter two games can be combined to form one, extremely large game called “Global 1940” (G40 for short)).

I would recommend looking into the Anniversary Edition first before diving into the “1940” series of games. There have been many new unit types, playable countries, and rules since the original version and Anniversary is a happy medium between the original game you’re familiar with and the much more complex 1940 games. However, based on the nature of your complaints, I do think you’ll end up liking the 1940 games the most, as they (to an extent) accurately portray the political situation of 1939-1940 (US Neutrality, Soviet-Japanese non-aggression pact, Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, etc.), and had a very large and detailed map (to cite your key complaint here, in Classic Egypt is 4 tiles away from Indochina (Indochina -> India -> Persia -> Trans-Jordan -> Egypt), in G40 Egypt is 9 tiles away (Indochina -> Shan State -> Burma -> India -> West India -> East Persia -> Persia -> Iraq -> Trans-Jordan -> Egypt)).

EDIT: Cited an example to show just how much bigger in scale A&A games have gotten over the years.

@Robert G40 uses the same combat stats/IPC Costs (if you’re checking net IPC swings/TUV) as “1942” for past units. You’d need to substitute-in units with appropriate combat values for units exclusive to that game though (Tacs and Mech INF), which is a bummer. No idea if there’s any plans to update the calc, unfortunately.

If you’re using TripleA, that game has a built-in calc too that’s effectively the same source code as the calculator I linked above (I think, anyway, @redrum (AKA the guy who runs TripleA) would know for sure).

Okay.

/thread

@Argothair said in Grand Plans, 3rd Edition?:

I also think that the interviews from Beamdog so far don’t admit that they’re focusing on casual players – the marketing pitch says that people like me are supposed to enjoy this game. So, that’s part of why I’m pushing back

Agreed with this. If Beamdog was more honest with their/WoTC’s intentions I imagine all of us would be on the same page.

For example, WoTC pretended Zombies was going to be accessible to “long time fans” and it’s mostly turned out to be 41 but with a tiny extra pinch of depth from the play-testing myself and others have done.

@the_good_captain Game History

Round: 2

    Puchase Units - AustroHungarians
        AustroHungarians buy 4 artilleries and 4 infantry; Remaining resources: 0 PUs; 

    Combat Move - AustroHungarians
        15 infantry moved from Tyrolia to Venice
        4 artilleries and 11 infantry moved from Galicia to Romania
        2 artilleries and 5 infantry moved from Serbia to Romania
        2 artilleries and 4 infantry moved from Vienna to Galicia
        2 artilleries and 2 infantry moved from Trieste to Venice

    Combat - AustroHungarians
        Battle in Romania
            AustroHungarians attack with 6 artilleries and 16 infantry
            Russians defend with 5 artilleries and 14 infantry
                AustroHungarians roll dice for 6 artilleries and 16 infantry in Romania, round 2 : 5/22 hits, 9.33 expected hits
                Russians roll dice for 5 artilleries and 14 infantry in Romania, round 2 : 12/19 hits, 9.50 expected hits
                5 infantry owned by the Russians and 12 infantry owned by the AustroHungarians lost in Romania
            Russians and AustroHungarians reach a stalemate
            . Battle score for attacker is -21
            Casualties for AustroHungarians: 12 infantry
            Casualties for Russians: 5 infantry
        Battle in Venice
            AustroHungarians attack with 6 artilleries and 23 infantry
            Italians defend with 1 infantry
                AustroHungarians roll dice for 6 artilleries and 23 infantry in Venice, round 2 : 9/29 hits, 11.67 expected hits
                Italians roll dice for 1 infantry in Venice, round 2 : 0/1 hits, 0.50 expected hits
                1 infantry owned by the Italians lost in Venice
            AustroHungarians win, taking Venice from Italians with 6 artilleries and 23 infantry remaining. Battle score for attacker is 3
            Casualties for Italians: 1 infantry

    Combat Move - AustroHungarians

    Place Units - AustroHungarians
        4 artilleries and 4 infantry placed in Vienna

    Turn Complete - AustroHungarians
        AustroHungarians collect 30 PUs; end with 30 PUs

Combat Hit Differential Summary :

Italians regular : -0.50
Russians regular : 2.50
AustroHungarians regular : -7.00

The lol dice are back again.
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