Posts made by JamesG

@triforce:

As for bids, well, I think that if your going to play the underdog you should expect a harder time than if you pick the favorite.  Nothing is more satisfying than kicking butt as the Axis with no bid.

Earlier you made it sound like you didn’t think a bid was needed to make the game even.  Now you paint the Axis as the underdog with no bid.  Which is it?

To summarize my view:
The Axis CAN win with no bid, but will lose more often than win without a bid.  One of my goals for a “perfect game” would be to have the two sides be totally even in their chances of winning before the start of play.  So in that sense, AA:R with no bid is a good game.  AA:R with an axis bid is closer to a perfect game.

But if the need for an even 50/50 shot at winning is not important to you, if you like playing as an underdog from time to time, then I can see why you would be against a bid.

Said it before and will say it again.  I agree the Axis can win in Revised without a bid.  Which is a major improvement from classic A&A.  But if you want the winning percentages to be about 50/50 over the long term, the Axis needs an 8-9 IPC bid.  The TripleA War Club stats bear that out.

Well said 88, I agree heartily that attacking Ukraine and WR is the way to go on R1.  Losing that armor to the counter on G1 does hurt, but I think the loss of the German Fighter hurts him more.

Though it may not be totally smart, I’ll even hit Ukraine with an extra Inf from an Axis bid sitting there.  Killing that fighter (plus the art and arm there) is that important to me.

But I only prefer to play real dice.  If it was a toss up, I’d have voted two choices.

@triforce:

I’ll I’m saying is that I don’t have any trouble winning when I play the Axis.  In 2nd I did.  Thats my point.  I think bids are silly, and I think that Low No Luck is for whiners.

Bids are silly?  I guess most people who play the game at a high level or tournamant levels are silly then.

And there isn’t much to whine about in Low Luck.  If you lose in low luck, its most likely due to your bad strategy.  In real dice, you could lose solely based on a bad set of dice.  From what I’ve seen, some real dice players are much bigger whiners than low luck players.  No names, but I’ve seen some of the real dice proponents on this board whine like crazy when they got a set of dice only slightly below average.

I voted Real Dice, though I don’t despise low/no luck as some others on the board do.  I think they are all valid ways to play, I just prefer the variable results generated by real dice.  But I don’t share the view that the low/no luck players are playing a lesser version of the game.  Just different.

@triforce:

I would argue that well played axis is almost unbeatable in revised but I’ll agree to disagree on this one.

I’m a little curious what you base your position on?  As I mentioned on another thread about what the “standard” bid amount should be, I base mine on the statistics of the TripleA War Club Ladder:
http://tripleawarclub.org/ladder/playedgames.php?startplayed=0&finishplayed=20

In brief, the Ladder features a bid of 9 for the Axis.  The bid can be used to purchase additional units or banked as the Axis player desires within a couple of restrictions.  No more than one unit can be added per territory/SZ, and units can only be placed on territories controlled by that country, or in SZs with other ships of that country.

Matches are played in two game sets, with each player playing once as the Axis and once as the Allies.  So the best players can not gravitate to playing one side or the other, like can happen in the tournament on these boards in the Games forum right now.  The winner of each game is determined by the player to reach 9 Victory Cities at the end of the USA turn, or by concession.

There are 175 players active right now, from all over the world.  This assures a wide variety of skill levels and strategies.

1140 games have been completed to date, which is a fairly large sample size.

Of those games, the Axis is winning 51% of the time.  This is almost 50/50, which implies a bid of 9 for the Axis is probably VERY close to perfectly balancing the sides.  Perhaps the Axis has a slight edge with a bid of 9, but the extra 1% might be statistically insignificant.  Maybe if the bid were lowered to 8, the Allies winning percentage would jump to 55%, which would mean 9 is more balanced.  In any case, the stats strongly indicate that a bid of 8 or 9 is the most balanced.

One interesting thing to note is that of the top 10 players by rating, 8 of them have a better winning percentage as the Allies.  This might imply that at the highest levels of play, the Axis is overmatched a bit even with a 9 bid.

One caveat; players can play either by Low Luck or Regular Dice, and the statistics for the two are not separated.  So if Low Luck favors one side, the statistics might be skewed.  But the majority of players seem to play Regular Dice, so I doubt the Low Luck stats are too big an influence.

@triforce:

I still dont think a bid is needed at all in revised.

With no bid, a well played Allies executing a KGF should beat an equally well played Axis more than half the time.  CAN the Axis win?  Of course.  Can they win quite often?  Probably.  Can they win as often as the Allies?  I think not.

I think that’s it.  With Octo he often leaves Western Europe as a 'space for rent" when he plays as Germany.

I agree that giving the players the option of “banking” a portion their bid is important.  Usually units pre-placed on the board are better than extra money in the bank, but there are obvious exceptions, such as the $1 to Japan allowing an IC and two trannies to be purchased round one.

I don’t think there is a consensus “best bid” on the War Club for that standard $9.  Common options include:

3 Inf (either all for Germ or 2 Germ, one Jap).  If a Jap Inf is used, it usually goes to Frindo.  Extra Germ Inf may be in Europe or Africa, or split between them.

Tank and Inf in Africa for Germ, $1 to Jap.

Trannie for Germ, $1 to Jap

Many others I’m sure.

@Nix:

Now, i submerge my Subs, can he be still retreat to SZ2 or must he stay in SZ3?   (rules seems to be unclear)

Based on what what was posted above, he can not retreat in response to your subs submerging.  Basically, he would need to decide if he wants to press the attack vs the two remaining subs.  If he does, then you get to decide if you want to submerge or not.  If you do submerge, he can not retreat, since he already decided not to.  But looking at the game log, Sankt WANTED to only strafe you, so he should be able to retreat after round one of combat.  And it looks like that’s exactly how you ended up playing it.

Excellent point mateooo, I had not even considered that.  That does further skew things in the axis favor.

And I don’t think I mentioned the War Club games are in sets of two, with each player in a pairing playing once as the axis and once as the allies.  In other words, the alternating sides you just proposed, mateooo.

But with such a small sample size, it is really impossible to draw conclusions.  It could just be the superior players are drawing the axis.  Or flukey luck is running in the axis favor.

As counterpoint in your favor, on the war club, of the last 20 games, 13 were won by the Axis.  So it is possible that new Axis tactics are being developed making a bid of 9 a mite high.  But since the previous 20 were 11 axis, 10 allies, its too soon to tell.

True, but your sample size is much smaller than the War Club….

@ncscswitch:

To be honest though, I think it is such an exceedingly rare occurance that I don;t think it will be an issue in 999 games out of 1000.

Agreed

And I still like the “logic” of not being able to blast away Parisian INF from the Normandy Coast; or Chicago National Guard Units from the Virginia coast…

Yeah, that is kinda wonky.  But no more so than some of the other abstractions the game makes.

The Triple A War Club uses a 9 IPC bid for the Axis with the stipulations that you can only place one new unit in a given territory, and you can only place sea units with other units of the same country (not SIDE, country).  Ground units can be placed in any territory controlled by that country; and some, none, or all of the bid can be banked.

With over 1000 games played, the Axis holds a slight edge winning 51.1% of the time.
http://tripleawarclub.org/ladder/standings.php

Seeing as it’s almost 50/50, a bid of 8 or 9 for the Axis is probably about right.

Switch,

I totally agree with your interpretation of the rule, and have used the tactic myself in games when faced with a mass of BBs preparing to bombard.  (Though in my case it was US BBs going after Japan).

But that does not mean I don’t think it’s a bad rule.  What I proposed would be a HOUSE RULE, I fully know that it is against the PUBLISHED rules.

About “nowhere in the rules are you allowed to selectively attack”, how about Bombers?  When they move into a territory containing an enemy IC, they get to choose whether to strategic bomb or attack the ground units there.  This house rule for BBs would be very similar.  When moving BBs into a seazone where they could bombard, they have to choose whether to bombard or attack the enemy sea units there.

@88:

Facing me you would never have the Ukrainian Fighter if you were wondering why only 5 German Fighters. I’m an aggressive M-f-er with Russia. Dead Ukraine, dead W Russia, nice Armor reserve (3 Inf/ 3 Arm R1 purchase).

Hey, that’s my usual R1 move and purchase too!  I’ve even been known to go after Ukraine even if its reinforced with 1 German Inf from a bid…

Overall, I agree with mateooo that the "single sub blocking infinite BBs” is a pretty bad rule.  Fairly simple to house rule it by saying that attacking BBs (and DDs with the right tech) get to choose whether to participate offensively in the naval combat or the amphibious landing.  They are present during the naval combat either way (and can be chosen as casualties), but they only get to fire during naval combat if they forego their bombardment shot.  And vice versa.

@critmonster:

88, when do you land in algeria initially? if you did it to me in usa 1 you would have to rebuild your entire fleet, thats gets expensive.

If the Germans attack the Eygypt SZ on G1 with the BB, then the UK can pull down its BB and trannies to Algeria on UK1, and US can join with trannies and DD on US1 (and the Russian’s SS comes over on R2 as well).  Germany can counter with air on G2, but they will probably lose a LOT of fighters doing so.  Also if the German altantic sub is still around after G1, the German counter on G2 is more effective and the move to algeria by UK/US is riskier.

If Germany goes for Gilbralter with the BB on G1, or UK does not pull its navy down on UK1, then sending US forces to Algeria on US1 is suicide for that little US navy.