Posts made by ItIsILeClerc

Yes, those 7 bombers are definately a complete overkill.
Understanding the SBR-dynamics, Germany would have to send in ~12 aircraft to compete with ~12 interceptors, or not raid at all in this example. Otherwise they are asking for lucky die rolls to prevent shooting in their own foot.

You can calculate the most likely damage for both sides if the interceptor has 12 FTR and the SBRing side only sends in 4Bombers +2FTR. Most likely the attacker will loose 2FTR + 1Bomber (32 damage), while the defender will suffer 27 damage (1FTR + 16,5 on the IC rounding up).
You are right ofc, about the AB also contributing to the damage. I didn’t take that into account because I forgot it, but it matters only for major powers that will have to repair any damaged AB and/or NB (not Russia in this example).

But like I said, this is only considering economics. There is also the military situation. The attacker has to be sure it can achieve its goals with its leftover aircraft and so does the defender, ofc…

@Baron:

(…) It is the same results from either side.
However, I didn’t get the same results as your calculation.

Do you see why?
(…)

Yes, in your calculation, there is no limit in how much damage can be done to an IC. If you would send 20 bombers, you would deal 20*5.5=110 damage to the IC.

Have I passed the test, dear sir ;-)?
EDIT: before I forget, I guess you are right about that 1:1 ratio. barring a few exeptions.

Having a lot of FTR interceptors somewhere doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to use them.
For example, if France, UK and maybe even ANZAC all have FTR in Moscow, Germany will be forced to either send in escorts with their bombers, or don’t raid Moscow at all. Escorting German FTR are aicraft not used against the allies in the west.

I 'd intercept if I can deal equal or more ‘economic’ damage than I expect to suffer, OR if the military situation gets better for me because of the intercept.
Continuing the example of allied FTR in Moscow: let’s say I can expect to hit 2 German planes during the intercept battle and the SBR consist of 5FTR + 7Bombers, they can also expect to hit 2 allied planes (no Russians, ofc). So both sides loose 2FTR (=20damage ‘economically’). The bombers will not have the option of not bombing, so Russian AA-fire has another 7 shots (expecting 1, maybe 2 hits). Let’s say 1 bomber is hit. German suffered a total ‘economic’ damage of 20+12=32, while Allies suffers a total economic damage of 20+20=40. 8 more than Germany.
Compared however to not intercepting it is much better, because A) Germany lost 3 planes (1 more than the allies) and B) if there was no interception, Russia would have suffered 8 more damage than Germany as well (20 on the IC versus 12 of a shot down Bomber). If Germany looses as much or more aircraft than the allies, this is always a good thing and the more the better. To Moscow it matters a little bit, but to the allies in the West it mattes much more.

The last thing to consider is purely tactical: what is your goal with the aircraft involved and can you still do it if loosing a few during an intercept battle. If Germany is aiming to assault Moscow, loosing a few aircraft while SBRing London may be a bad idea and vice versa. 1 unit more or less can make a shitload of difference during the ‘final battle’, especially units as heavy as bombers or FTR.

For conducting SBRs, I have the same considerations, ofc.
These examples may be extremes but let’s say I always compare intercepting with not intercepting and the obvious choice usually emerges from that comparison.

Thanks for sharing, Garg!
Excellent points, altough I understand people’s annoyance towards playing Russia. Loosing your Capital feels like loosing the game.

I do see that in order for Russia to be able to slow down Germany, the allies must have decent presence in the Atlantic. Otherwise Germany can beat up Russia with two fingers in its nose anyway ;-).

Well said hAwk,
though I don’t know how much of us here seem to be interested in more historical accuracy with less historical ‘abominations’ :lol:.
But we can’t have it all I guess, since more historical accuracy will come with more rules. And how much rules do we want for an A&A game, maybe that’s an underlying question ;-).

I thought a gameturn was about 6 months?
Anyway, let’s say a gameturn equals anything in between 3 to 6 months.

No matter how long a gameturn is supposed to be, German bombers could not reach Gibraltar, not even if based on Sardinia (which is about as close to Gibraltar as it gets). Let alone attack a fleet there and then land in Morocco. Named German bombers had an action radius of 1500km, but those were very few and they were Naval Bombers. German Strategical bombers had a smaller action radious (about 1200km). So how about German FTR/TAC that also can attack a fleet at Gibrlatar if Italy takes Morocco? They had an action radius of only 200-400km… Humbug ;-).
Same story for allied aircraft, although a little bit different: allied aircraft were designed for long range, German aircraft were designed for ‘air-artillery role’. Ridiculously short ranged, very effective against land units and much less so against naval forces (IF they could ever get to attack them, as it was very easy to stay out of their range).

Now for Naval Units. What could they do back in those days, assuming >3 months of time…
It depended a bit on the speed of the ship. A slow transportship could sail from South Africa, load in Plymouth, Liverpool, London, etc., and be part of an invasion of Norway. Battleships, which were a bit faster, could even leave port in Singapore and be part of that same invasion of Norway. The much faster Cruisers and destroyers are the cream of the crop: they could even start in Sydney, sail around South Africa and be part of an invasion of Norway >3 months later.
CV are a bit more difficult to catch, because they differed much from Major Power to Major Power. The US and Japanese ones were very fast and could very easily move from Sydney to Norway in 3 months. UK ones were much slower and would have to start in South Africa if they were expected to show up during the now famous invasion of Norway ;-).

One last rant to add to every excellent point every1 has already made, the options the USA has seem to boil down to this (very basically, because I don’t want to complicate things anymore at this point):

1). Go GF for the first 2-3 turns and then switch gears to JF. This has good uses and the resulting monstrous Japan is not the end of the world, because the upside is that either Russia will survive, or, if Germany takes it down, the allies will make monstrous gains in Western Europe;
2). Go JF for the first 3 turns max and then switch gears back to Europe. This looks as good (or bad ;-)) as the above GF proposal, but this time Germany will become monstrous instead of Japan;
3). Go 'K’JF. Same as point 2 above, but now continue against Japan for 3 more turns. Allies need to realize that either Moscow or Cairo will be lost to Germany and they will have to fight for control of the other, remaining VC. Looks very dangerous but do-able.
4). KGF is not an option, unless, to a somewhat limited extend, if the allies can see Japan focus a lot on Russia and the Med, after they took India.

With all the above strategies, the allies need a perfect tactical execution. Somethig many players fail a lot at, which causes so many allied losses these days. And if playing with dice, they need luck as well.

@nerquen:

@aequitas:

So a plus 20 or even 25 ipc income each round would be ok to ask for?

After my first 3 test games I would say 20 is a reasonable bonus for US.

Here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TRZcA7zK3-B31ipA9cOzaiLnwiCrJlY7aWlvFMSo4J4/edit?usp=sharing is a google sheet summarizing all played test games. Please let me know if you would like to add a game.

Hi Nerq, good job with the sheet!
Like we discussed in private (after my last online games), we can add some other game(s) to this in the near future. I’d like to give GF a couple more tries (especially with increased US production), as in USA 2 turns Europe-production, then switching back to Pacific. At least with DS, I have seen enough of (K)JF to think that this is not the thing to do with the allies: Germany will become monstrous and a monstrous Germany is even worse than a monstrous Japan. Caveat emptor :wink:!

But I have to say that my last tripleA games were a bit of an eye-opener for me as to what my play(time!) limits are and I had to stop playing after about 19 turns (spread over 3 games) during 5 weeks in a row. Too bad my opponent overreacted, but in any case I would not want to repeat this… 5 weeks clearly was too much for me. But anyway, we discussed most of this before.

As I am reluctant to find out where my ‘breakpoint’ (how much time on end) exactly lies, I’d rather stay on the safe side and not get close to the breakpoint in the first place.
So if/when I play on tripleA, I should play as if I play FtF at the table: not longer than a couple of days in a row but those days should be reserved for playing A&A completely. I see you live in Europe (like me), so we should be able to arrange a long ‘tripleA game-weekend’, in which we play 1 or 2 complete A&A games in just 3 to max 4 days. That is way safer (and much more appealing) to me than playing for (5) weeks on end. Depending on how fast we can play, of course, but if we can do >½ a gameturn per hour we should be able to complete at least 1 monster game (of >20 turns) or 2 shorter ones (<11 turns each). If you (and/or any1 else) is interested in playing like this we’ll discuss the exact planning in private.

Difficult to answer, Garg!
I think it should stay the way it is. AFAIC there are not enough penalties as it is if the axis switch from North to South or Vice Versa (for example if Russia locks either Bryansk or Belarus).

Why give the axis more room to maneuver (that is what I think will happen)?

@nerquen:

(…)
I am currently playing three test games with extra US income and I believe we have not observed any strange artifacts felt by the additional US income, so overall I like it. In 2 of the games, it is first time for me to face the dark sky strategy (Germany having 27 bombers in 9th turn), and I don’t enjoy playing against that strategy much, it feels so unrealistic and misused. It feels that Germany is overpowered by massing bombers in such an extreme way.

Gargantua and Gamer don’t think the DS is overpowered and I don’t think so either. Their comments in the DS-thread make a lot of sense. In fact, I basically said the same thing before, but ‘failed’ to execute the plan perfectly (always an allied requirement). GF against DS is not dead as far as I’m concerned.
On the contrary, from what I have seen, JF does not get the job done and I suspect KJF will only be worse for the allies. Which leaves only GF. Surprisingly, since I don’t think GF works as good against other German strategies.
Especially with DS, a monstrous Germany is worse than a monstrous Japan. Germany has the center and if it can eliminate/bypass Moscow unopposed… you know what happens. Japan has a much harder job trying to win with ~90IPCs after India is out of the way.

Poor Gamer, I feel your pain ;-).

I have (hopefully had?) similar problems but somewhere else on the map: the UK ships off Nova Scotia.
I almost always seem to loose that battle no matter what side I play and if I play Germany, no matter if I send 1 or 2 subs (couldn’t get myself to send in more subs).

Truth be told, I have no problem with the game if the Axis (by allied bidding or otherwise) could not do anything in Africa at all. It’s just history, could not have been otherwise and the axis still have a good shot at victory in A&A.
In real life, the Italians faced too much problems in the med (apart from their lack of morale because the average Italian was an unwilling ally to Adolf): the RN cut off supply (very important in a real war) so the Italians in Africa had to do it without. Even if all the Italians in Africa would have been Germans, the axis would not have stood a chance there because of the RN in the med cutting their supplies every day.
The RN is too weak in A&A and too easily wiped from the globe completely. It is kinda sad because the RN was the one thing the UK could rely on during the early months of the war -apart from ‘the few’ that so many owed so much to ;-). But in A&A-terms, the latter is just a stroke of luck with the dice.

The argument that a German inability to kill the RN at start would result in an invasion of Europe too early (which looses the game for the axis) is easily neutralized by giving Germany additional land units to start with. Germany can choose what to do with them -use them in Russia and face the hammering of these early invasions or they can leave troops in Europe (like they historically did) to ward off an invasion for a while. The latter should be the obvious choice, as winning Moscow does not make up for loosing Western Germany (and everything west of it) -something that is true even in A&A.

But since A&A is what it is and strengthening/positioning the RN to a point where Germany can’t kill it G1 is too much of a game-changer (let alone the playtesting required for this and for more German land troops added), we’ll have to deal with (Alternate) bidding schemes either for units or for additional income that satisfy both sides.

@Gamerman01:

If we could add to the premise that neither player knows the results are going to be neutral (that is, they are not playing low luck or something), then

Wait. ��� It also depends on whether these players of “equal skill” have low, medium, or high skill.

If I assume both have equally “high” level skill and experience, I would say no the Allies do not have an equal chance. ��� And apparently almost everyone agrees with me, because in league play the Allies always have a bid.

Thank you ItIsLe, although I want to say I am not trying to brag.���  I was just trying to give evidence that the Allies are not all weak and helpless.

Thanks for the smart answer Gamer. And no worries about any bragging ;-).

Yes, Gamer, impressive record you have as allies :-D.

I’m with Nerq in this, although I am not out of allied ideas yet, but may I ask the question a bit differently then?
For two players with equal skill, no bid (need to have a neutral reference point) and perfectly neutral dice. All combats run 100% like predicted by the BC. Do you think the allies have an equal chance?

@nerquen:

(…)
Interesting are GDP data, before the war US was 800 b$, USSR 359 b$, during the war USSR went down to 274 b$ in 1942 but by the end of the war it recovered back to the prewar level. As for US however GDP was gradually rising, reaching almost 1500 b$ by the end of the war.

So if Moscow manages to protect east from Japan it shall still be able to make about 23 IPC = 18+ 5 (Iraq). If it even managed to collect 5 IPC from lend&lease NO then it would be 28 IPC which is perfect match to the historical drop of GDP (28/37 ~ 274/359). So I would say Russia’s economy is reasonably accurately modeled in the game. What makes it hard for Russia in my games is that Germany can allocate almost 100% of its resources on Eastern front. If this was the case historically I believe Moscow would not be able to hold. The reason why there is no western front in my games is poor US or I would also say rich Germany and strong Japan. With OOB rules, US has to focus on Pacific early just to slow down super strong Japanesse. So just few bucks are left for European theater… which typically would not accomplish anything significant in Europe anyway so I also rather allocate them to Pacific as well.

But without pre-placement bids, axis can get control of ME so easily so I believe US is forced to enter European theater early. With western front opened Germany has to allocate resources to West so Russia gets more air to breathe.

So I believe boosting US (by extra income) and Italy (by removing pre-placement bids) shall result in opening of Western and African fronts early and thus help Russia as well. I am worried that by pure Russia boost we would get two separate games (Germany against Russia and US against Japan)

I would also not mind to remove some of the starting Japanese military (so US can allocate more into E. theater) and weaken German economy (probably by downgrading its lebensraum NOs). But all of these go beyond a simple bidding scheme and are real rule modifications. Well, I would be happy to playtest anything that would make the game better but would be hard to actually agree on it as a community. Gamerman started his house rule project http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=25260.msg1206272#msg1206272 18 months ago. He is changing so many things and initially was getting a lot of feedback but the project is kind of dead now(no activity this year yet).

Indeed interesting data, nerquen!
I know (also from some historical simulations) that Russia transported its European factories into Urals and destroyed those they couldn’t. German reinforcements certainly had to come all the way from German cities. Russia also lost a few European resources (resources + fatcories = production), but those that were lost were replaced by lend lease.

The fact that they shortly went down from 359 to 274 was due to the fact that the world held its breath because they were certain Russia would go down. After it became clear Russia would not go down, lend lease started to flow in and Russian production was restored.

Side note that I find very interesting: German troop numbers in Russia (~2,500,000) remained pretty steady during '41 - '43 because their reinforcement rate was roughly equal to their loss rate. Russian troop numbers however, went from ~2,500,000 in '41 to 4,500,000 in '42 without lend lease. Production is one part of a war machine, manpower certainly is the other part. During '43 the Russian troop numbers went up to 6,000,000….

After all we all know the good guys lost in WW2…. Just kidding of course :mrgreen:

I bet you are German, Elrood?
Don’t worry, it won’t be held against you :-D.

I have used a ~12-bid to add all Russian Units, once. And it didn’t make much of a difference against a G4J4 used against me that time. If used in the Med it certainly would have been of better use… Don’t know what it could have done against a different axis strategy, though.

Whoever is interested in knowing what would have happened if certain historical mistakes would not have been made: A&A is not the right game for that. It is certainly a fun game, but with more similarities to chess than with WWII, I’m afraid.

Moscow is definately the kick-dog of this game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCARDozMEU
Aren’t the developers Americans? If so, this is probably by design :P.
But seriously. I think you are right about Russia being designed to go down economically. I don’t like it, but if Russia could hold their own against Germany, it would certainly be moot to play the game (USA would kill Japan, while UK + Russia sandwich Germany). Though it could be a little harder for the axis to reduce Russia to an economic non-factor.

As far as a bonus (bid)income for the USA: it is not that strange of a thought. The USA alone, easily produced more than all the axis combined. Though their factories were geared for naval and aircraft production, while the Russians produced much more land forces.

Something similar is true for bid income for Russia!
The Russian production capacity never fell far behind that of Germany, even though they were pushed back all the way to the eastbanks of the Wolga. If history is our guide in restoring some economic balance, Russia being reduced to an economic non-factor while Germany makes 60-90 IPCs per turn is just not it.

Giving bonus income to Russia would be as valid as giving it to the USA I’d think 8-).

@wittmann:

(…) I suppose I am not normal though.

At least you seem to be a nice guy and that’s far more important than being 'normal’  :-D.

I really like the gentleman’s approach here :-).
Unlike some people who would call other ideas ‘idiotic’, ‘weak’, or discard them as ‘inexperienced’ right away.

Really, really curious about how this project will play out… I’m following.
Sadly I can’t play myself, as I have to carefully dose my time spent on A&A and I’ve already played for 5 weeks in a row quite recently.

I really hope this bidding scheme delivers something to work with, because right now I am at a loss about how the allies can win the game OOB ever again. Even with a +20 bid it seems too hard, but I must admit I have not experimented a lot with bids yet.
I am also starting to think that with A&AG40, balance is an illusion. Once axis players have fully grasped the ins and outs of the economic game, it’s either the allies (like in the first edition) or the axis (second edition) that will be ‘overpowered’.

On a sidenote, it is the split 8/6VC rule that is making the axis currently overpowered, while the simple 14VC rule (1st edition) did that for the allies. Maybe the answer to balancing the game indeed lies more in the VC rules than adjusting economies… A simple 13VC win for the axis, perhaps?
Or a time-limit. In the real war, time was a huge enemy for the axis. The allied production capacity started out even below that of the axis at the start of the war, but was easily more than twice that of the axis by the end of the war. Though that is definately not represented in the game by actual economic power, it doesn’t have to mean that it is not in the game at all.
The axis could be forced to win the game within an x amount of turns or else lose the game on sudden death conditions. That should break open the game. In my experience, if the axis rush, the allies stand a chance but if the axis just don’t attack well-defended VCs and take their time to build up their economies first (time they shouldn’t have, I feel), the allies don’t stand a chance.

Anyway, back to the USA bidding scheme.
I was thinking if players bid for extra USA income, they could bid a number between 1-6. The player with the lowest bid has the most faith in the allies and therefore plays allies.
The USA is then given 1-6IPCs per turn once it is at war, and this bonus is also increased by the same 1-6IPCs per turn as well, to a maximum of +30IPCs per turn (5-30 turns after war entry).

Do the math and weep… in the mid game, Russia will be an economic non-factor. Same for Calcutta. This leaves the USA (83IPCs IF they managed to take some DEI areas) + the UK (30IPCs if they’re lucky) + ANZAC (18IPCS) = 128IPCs total per turn.
ONE of the major axis partners (the one not focused on early) will have an income of 80+ IPCs, the other will have around 60, with Italy topping it off at around 20. These are the rough comparisons if the USA went for an early JF and the numbers will be more in axis favor if the USA went early GF.
128 allied income versus >160 axis and by that time the allies doesn’t have a meaningful military advantage anywhere. With a late (slowly building up) +30 for the USA, this could look like 158 vs 160. THAT sounds more like a balance to me ;-).
Maybe this increasing income will also offer Japan some more considerations as to when to DOW, since the NO will only start (and increase) when at war.