Best posts made by gamerman01

And that’s just ONE of the opening round matches.

We also have the Titan veteran ADAM514 as #2 seed ONCE AGAIN facing Pacifier’s board, a REMATCH of the first round 2023 playoff.
Pacifier is known to play very unconventionally and as such is a dangerous wildcard. Adam crushed the rebellion last year, but now he will have to prove it again.

Oh my goodness, we have a CLASSIC Ghostglider vs. Me1945 first round matchup, are you kidding me? These guys go waaaaay back and are VIP names in this league. Winner faces Axis-Dominion, assuming he squashes Flying Badger as a warm up (I can only say that because I now know Flying Badger is very cool and will not be offended. So if you are offended, stop it.)

That is quite the reward for the winner of the #4, #5 there. You get to face the all-time highest rated A&A player in the league, who has roared back in 2024 to make sure he was not forgotten.

2025 League rules have been updated from 2024.

There are only a couple sentence structure corrections, and proper links provided for the rankings, and that the BM and PTV rules are now located in their respective discussion threads and not on a dedicated pinned thread where it used to be.

Just remembered, the one change being made is @Arthur-Bomber-Harris proposal that the past year champion and runner up are automatic 1 and 2 seeds for the playoff, assuming of course they enter. After that, lifetime ELO score at 12/31.

Thanks, @Arthur-Bomber-Harris , that is a great idea.

Objection sustained, and thanks for another thoughtful post.

So I think I understand your sentiments, and it’s difficult to respond really well to all that so I’ll do it in summary of the history through my eyes.

1. We played Out of the Box to death when it came out. G40 was a very, very hot Axis and Allies product. Many more territories and zones, more playable powers, new units, airbases and naval bases, dual victory conditions. Mind blowing.

2. Many of us certainly couldn’t wait until the game was polished up. Larry wanted us all to go ahead and play earlier iterations and give feedback. So we played a lot of games before it was even done.

3. When the game was finished and done tinkering, we had yet another “new” version of the game. Like there was a major complex in Berlin now, and a minor in Ukraine that wasn’t there before. Exciting changes, but coming from the source, not from us, so it was global (pardon the pun).

4. In 2013 league players completed 619 games of G40
   2014 was 550
   2015 was 444
   2016 was 487, and this was the first year BM was played.
   2017 was 403
   2018 was 451
   2019 was 367
   2020 was 365 - COVID bump
   2021 I started tracked each version separately

OOB was down to 51
PTV 87
BM 201
Total 339 COVID still a factor

2022
OOB 30
PTV 38
BM 153
Total 221 Back to work LOL

2023
OOB 53
PTV 49
BM 118
Total 220

2024
OOB 53
PTV 83
BM 85
Total 221

5. So it is very clear that all of us big boys love “new, shiny” and enjoy it very much for a time, and it starts to get too familiar, or… stale.

Each of the versions started out very exciting because it was a significant twist on the much loved G40 game, and a mod that was widely loved and accepted as having

To your last statement,
Eliminating the small nagging skin tags is what started Balanced mod, for the most part, but I agree with you that the BM team went ahead and added a bunch of stuff to modify the game to be what they thought people would love most.

You are saying do a modification of OOB that is much smaller in scope that doesn’t add a bunch of features, it stops after fixing a few problems.

OK, that makes sense. And are you asking the league to come up with that fix, and maybe change it every year to mix it up? That does sound really cool and I would do it except then we’ve departed from actual out of the box as soon as we change one thing.

I’m not intending to make a closing argument, I’m putting facts and thoughts out there for discussion.

@AndrewAAGamer said in League General Discussion Thread:

What are other things people don’t like about OOB???

Well I’m starting to wonder if maybe the bids have mostly fixed it.
I was away from OOB for a long time and when I left, bids were about 20-24.

With bids 20 or lower, as you know the infamous problems were Russia and India too weak, Germany just go south if the odds aren’t good enough on Moscow, fork Egypt/India, and if going India, Japan only has to go get Hawaii or Sydney and game over. Or, Germany go Egypt, take a bunch of Africa, swing back to a Russia that has no chance, for the win.
Russia couldn’t go get African NO’s, every single unit was needed to survive in Moscow. Russia was often suffocated down to a few territories, earning 5 a turn and getting bombed so building nothing. That’s not fun.

So my perspective is the balanced mod arose largely as a result of this repeat over and over again, Allies keep losing, and the thought of a much bigger bid was distasteful at the time.

Now that I’m finally back and kicked the BM4 addiction, I find that the bids (which I play around 40) have pretty much fixed the earlier experiences. Maybe I lost a lot of experience, but my Axis are NOT rolling nearly as easily.

One of your respondents who had no PtV games played, was looking at overall which was very misleading.

Just look at PtV ELO and how many games someone has played, and if you want to go further, look into the results tab to see their detailed history

We put a TON of hours into putting that data in!

USE IT!!!

😜

Congratulations @ArtofWar1947 !

You are the first winner of a playoff this year,

Champion of the 2nd Path To Victory bracket

All hail

Art’s Allies prevail on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day - NICE!

I am interested in 2v2 tournament with BM3 or PtV - it’s been too long since last time. I won’t be too picky about who my partner is, either, I just want to have fun

I thought the same as you about the mech, Simon, but I didn’t realize they defended on a 3 when they are with a tank. It’s definitely a change, along with Strat bombers attacking on a 3 and carrier planes being able to defend land and neighboring sea zones. I’m still playing my first PtV game so am also trying to reserve judgment. When you’re so used to the old way, these significant changes take some getting used to.

The mech change does succeed in reducing the amount of mech (but not eliminating) and increasing the number of tanks in the game again, and I think that’s a good thing. They wanted to reduce the cheesy numerous fast cannon fodder mech were at 4, I believe. Sometimes I wonder if it would be a good idea to double all the IPC values of everything so that we could fine tune the values a little more on certain territories and units. Then mech could be 9 (not 8 or 10), effectively a 4 and a 1/2. If PtV isn’t finalized yet, maybe this is something to consider? Obviously a departure from all past A&A (goodbye 3 IPC infantry), but so is a lot of other things you guys have done here, so why not? :)

Sorry about delays in updating rankings - February is the most crucial month of the year for my work. Thanks for your patience. I’m updating them today.

@DoManMacgee Just to make sure you know, Classic has been added to the league (under play boardgames) so you can enjoy matching up with other Classic opponents to your heart’s content, supported by a community, moderator, league rules, and a rankings board

Get in on the ground floor!

@simon33 I think it’s great that you replied to the last post on this PTV thread that was made a year ago, and instantly revived fun and spirited discussion!

In the future, if your game was a Path to Victory game, please notate that in your game result announcement here.

@nikola1975 said in Post League Game Results Here:

@gamerman01 Sure, Italian tanks/bombers are nothing new, but they can still advance max 2 territories. Aussies can attack over 5 sea zones! A bit difficult to follow - they can start in Australia and kill Japanese transports near Korea in the same turn.

I enjoy the discussion, nikola!
You make a great point. To your point that Italian can-openers are nothing new, I say the same about ANZAC planes on US carriers - nothing new there either.
To your point that ANZAC planes can start in Australia and kill Japanese transports near Korea in the same turn, I say that the ANZAC planes had to land on the American carriers the previous turn. Then Japan goes. Then America goes, moving the carriers up to 3 spaces. Then ANZAC goes.

On Japan’s turn, therefore, the ANZAC planes are on the carriers. If leaving defenseless transports, the Japan player needs to consider where the American carriers can move, and where the ANZAC planes can move after that.
Nasty, but totally legal.

Watch out with Triple A, though, where the ANZAC color is close to the same as the USA color!

@PGsquig I think this is what you want to know -

BALANCED MOD 4 IS BALANCED MOD 3 with 14 IPC cost bombers. That is the only change.

Good discussion, I enjoy all posts.

We can do a separate ranking for P2V in 2021, no problem - probably should. Maybe we should do a separate ranking for OOB as well for 2021. Yes we do have a player who strongly prefers OOB in the top 8 and yes it puts others at a huge disadvantage who haven’t played it in years.

Up til now, it has made a lot of sense to have a default version in the league rules that also applies to the playoffs. The biggest reason being that one league (one standings) together keeps more players together and maximizes number of completed games. Makes sense to have a default version for if players can’t agree what version of the game they want to play, and everyone should know what that default version is, all year.

But now we have a bigger disparity in versions, and more versions, than usual. Pretty big differences between OOB, BM, and PTV. And others could come along, of course.

ksmckay is correct in saying the league belongs to the players - the moderator’s role is to play judge and facilitate the community’s wishes.

I am a firm believer in following the rules that have been established and understood and agreed upon, therefore the 2020 playoffs are absolutely governed by the league rules posted 1 year ago, no debate.

2021 league rules are on the table. I would propose that there are 3 different standings kept for 2021, being OOB, BM, and P2V and the league rules will be changed to reflect this. Any other version that comes up during the year or is played outside of these 3 versions (with BM and P2V including different iterations under those umbrellas) would need to be addressed too. Do they not count in the league - so basically not allowed? For example, you couldn’t really play AA50 or Spring 1942 or A&A&Zombies in 2020 and expect to have it counted in the league here.

The preceding paragraph is for you all to agree, disagree, discuss, or amend.

@nikola1975 said in ANZAC planes on US carriers:

@martin

This combo is strong, not only due to colours, but because you really need to watch the whole Pacific - there is no safe place anymore for Japanese.

But, we could create a thread with “nasty but legal tactics”, as you called it, @gamerman01.

One that really made me angry was the fighter attack “over” the wall of ships. Let me explain. Germans were essentially locked in the Mediteranean, with my strong US fleet at Gibraltar. They had fighter on the carrier just inside Pillars of Heracles, launched the attack of a single sub to the whole US fleet of 20 ships, and on basis of that, were able to launch the fighter to sink 10 US transports, 3 sea zones away, at West Indies :)

The explanation was that the sub had tried to break through and if it would have succeeded (?!), the carrier could go through and take the fighter. I was seeing it as sending to a suicide mission - I was wrong obviously. :cry: :face_with_head_bandage:

BRILLIANT post nikola. Your opponent has a lot of experience and strong grasp of the rules. Looks like you learned a couple of them the hard way. Very hard. But now you won’t be caught by this many times in the future, and you can use the A&A rules, though quirky, to your advantage!

@PGsquig Would be exciting to see you play a league game, let us know if you have any questions about it

Good news - rankings updated by version for 2021!
Overall combined ranking sheet still to be set up later - it’s not needed yet anyway.
The changes will be formalized in the league rules at some point. Until then, if you have any questions just PM me or ask on the boards and someone who’s read my posts may be able to help you.

I will use the same method as before, for establishing early rankings. That is, if you didn’t finish 3 games last year, I will find your most recent “firm” ranking (year where you had 3 games completed) and subtract 1 tier. If you completed 3 games last year, your tier carries over to this year. If you’ve never completed 3 games in a year or you were tier 3 last year, you start this year tier 3.

When you reach 3 games in a version in 2021, your tier will change to reflect your 2021 PPG rather than your previous year’s tier. There are a few exceptions, where I make a judgment call that does not follow these rules, in the spirit of making the rankings more accurate (generally when a player is clearly better than tier 3 but according to these rules because of few games played would otherwise be assigned tier 3)

It’s good you asked, Amon, others are probably wondering too.

There’s one league.
Four standings sheets - OOB 2nd edition, BM, P2V, and overall/composite.

8 games needed in BM to play in BM playoff
?? games needed in OOB to play in OOB playoff
?? games needed in P2V to play in P2V playoff

Number of games required for OOB and P2V will be determined around mid-year (like July) because then we will all know how much activity/interest there is in each of those. That leaves plenty of time for players to get the # of games they need to qualify if they want to play in those playoffs (about half a year)

Composite/overall standings is for everyone’s information, to help you size up your opponents and see where you stand overall. Standings within each version of 1940 A&A govern playoffs by version. Does that answer all questions? If not, please ask follow-up questions. I will update the official league rules someday, but this is the most hectic time of year for me.

Hey everybody,

Life events took me away from the computer and internet - I just got back home this afternoon.

I am posting here to let you all know that I will be updating the league standings later this weekend -

happy gaming!
gamerman01