Posts made by theduke

got it. i got confused. that sounds better. what about other unit types? no advantage for them? realistically is seems that it should be the same (or similar) for all supporting unit types.

i think it will play test well. after running some numbers through my head i don’t see any problems or ‘loopholes’. i think this is best house rule that’s i’ve heard from you.

the only problems i have with it, and this is more of just a personal bias, is that it seems a bit artificial. what i mean by that is that the air supremacy advantage is dependent on supporting ground troops. without these supporting tropps there is no advantage and that doesn’t seem realistic. the advantage should seem to be independent of the type of supporting units.

armor don’t get a bonus attack but it seems that an all armor and ftr attack force should share the same air supremacy advantage as when other ground unit types are present. also, there should be a air supremacy advantage at sea too but that’s not included.

Each infantry or artillery must be matched one-for-one with a supporting fighter.

by “or” do you mean you choose which ground unit type gets the advantage? so if i attack with 2 inf, 1 rtl, and 1 ftr i choose to add one on attack onto either the inf or rtl? there doesn’t seem to be a decision- you should add it to one of the inf. no one should add it to the rtl because if you add it to inf you are making that unit 2 times as likely to get a hit. if you choose rtl, then you’re only making it 1.5 times as likely to get a hit. 2 > 1.5, so always add the advantage to the infantry. no decision.

by the way, if you want to make it an air superiority rule instead, then you could just change the rule to say that you take the difference between the number of ftrs on each side and that is the number of +1 bonus attacks the side with more planes gets.

Hello again, “B. Andersson, All Powerfiul and Supreme Game Master but not at all Egotistical when it comes to Naming Himself” :D

Still pushing your house rules again? That’s cool, more power to ya.

The main problem I had with your house rule is that it doesn’t make sbrs statistically profitable once the opponent acquires jet fighters. I won’t bother typing out all the math since I don’t feel like it right now, but it’s not hard if anyone wants to calculate it out.

This is not the only problem but the other explanations are complicated and I’m too tired to go into it right now.

Also, I don’t remember reading about escorts. I assume you include them, right?

Also, I’m personally interested in rules that add to the realism of the game and IMHO your rule actually does the opposite. I know that many people don’t care about this but I’m a stickler for realism for my house rules.

Why is it unrealistic? Cause interceptors were present well before 1942 and didn’t have to be jets so why is it dependent on the tech advancement?

yes, interceptors composed the vast majority of the effective defense against sbrs.

my take on why the game designers only included flak in the game is because allowing interceptors into the game creates many ‘loophole’ problems. i don’t think there’s a way to have a simple interceptor (and escort) rule and have it fit in well. if anyone has one, i’d be happy to hear it.

the whole point of this exercise is to demonstrate the value of any one SINGLE unit– " MVP" unit of the game. Infantry stands best allways-

Well said. I think a better way (less confusing anyway) is to think of it like that. If you had to give an MVP award to any one unit type, what type would it be? I think this is better since just like in most sports, players play very different positions (just like transports and infantry play very different roles) but you still have to vote for only one MVP.

I still don’t see how anyone who knows the game can pick anything other than infantry.

transports are definitely better than ICs. once again, logic lessons feld….

transports overall better than ICs does not mean transports overall better than infantry. infantry rules!!! :lol:

i absolutely despise industrial and heavy bomber techs so much that i try to forbid techs when playing this edition. many times, to my dismay, this doesn’t go over. when it doesn’t go over i will roll usually roll for tech in a couple conditions.

since techs go in effect right away, i will roll for tech just before a key battle (like for an enemy capital). unlike techs, any IPCs spent on units won’t be able to effect that key battle.

i’ll roll if i feel russia or germany will fall in 2-3 turns if i don’t get industrial tech for that respective nation.

i’ll also roll if my opponent luckily acquired some key techs of his own. i find when an opponent gets industiral tech, many times the only way to beat him is with industrial or even heavy bomber tech.

thanks darth, i am serious about online play. can you post the info for everyone or is it better to send over email?

3 questions about PBEM:

what’s the avgerage duration per email (or turn) on this site?

directly related to the first question, how long do you find an average game lasts?

what are the specific rules for email syntax? i can get a feel for this by looking at your past games but i was wondering more specifically if there is any handy, organized info on this.

sounds more like air supremacy to me.

1 or 2 hit BB?

I think “overall value” includes possibility of mobilisation. Don’t you agree?

yes. all factors including mobilization (yes, it’s with a ‘z’… go america!) have been included in my analysis. even factoring in mobilization, the infantry are the best unit. they are that good on attack and defense.

Go ahead and buy 60 IPC’s worth of infantry. Good luck to mobilise them though.

not that i need much luck, the infantry get to move 1 per turn no matter what. luck doesn’t play much of a part in it. A few turns is pretty much all it takes to move across asia or between moscow and berlin. that’s not that bad in the long war of attrition. thank you for the encouragement anyway.

This game is not a science, it’s an art.

newsflash, it’s both. just like most things in this world.

Numbers may favour infantry in a purely -out of context situation- but everyone knows that infantry are cannon fodder, nothing more…

infantry are so much more. if they’re just fodder than play your next game with your infantry attacking and defending at 0, but still able to be hit (ie fodder), and see how you do against your opponent who still gets infantry attacking and defending normally. huh, perhaps they’re more than just fodder after all?

bye duke

bye feldy.

I’ve never play’d with a bid before even though from what I hear it appears to be the norm. I’d like to try it out on this site, but unforturnately the ‘Play’ section on this site is down. Do you moderators know if anything is being done about that?

Feld, the only way you can logically connect your statement…

Whthout them the allies can do nothing.

to the question at hand, which is…

Which unit do you think holds the most overall value? (including price, abilities, atk/def, etc.)

is if you assume that the question implies an all-or-nothing scenario (i.e. that you can only buy 1 type of unit).

‘Without (transports) the allies can do nothing’ is logically the same as ‘transports are needed for the allies to win the game.’

Can’t you see how the 2 statements ‘transports are needed to win the game’ (your position) and ‘transports have the most overall value’ (which could be an answer to the question of this forum) are totally dissimilar statements logically and neither one implies the other?

For example Feld, to win against a competent opponent you need transports. This does not logically necessitate that transports have the most overall value because you also ‘need’ other units too, including infantry. Now let’s take the converse, Feld. If someone thinks inf have the most overall value this does not logically necessitate that you need inf to win the game (although if certainly implies it!). Maybe you can win the game by using the unit with the second-best overall value and overall better strategy than your opponent (this is hard but logically possible). This is why needing a unit and that unit having the best overall value are not logically connected. To make a logical connection I had to fill in the blank with assuming you thought the question asked that ‘if you could only buy one type of unit, what unit would it be.’

Moving on Feld, the simplist way to determine which unit has the best overall attack/ defense value is to assume you buy nothing but that unit with a certain amount of IPCs (say 60) and use it against the same amount of IPCs spent on another type of unit. Then put the two types against each other and see which type of unit most likely wins. This is the hypothetical scenario I was proposing in the last post. True Feld, it is a hypothetical, but it is the easiest way to make conclusions that can be applied to the real game. If you don’t like this method, perhaps you would like to another method to mathematically convince to me which unit (or mix of units) has the best attack/ defense value???

It’s the side with most tanks, fighters and bombers that wins.

This came out of the blue. Care to convince me of this Feld?

Bye, Feld.

Why does it seem that lately everyone is posting their house rule ideas everywhere other than the house rules forum?

IMHO, I don’t like your reasearch points idea. All it’s effectively doing is just reducing the variance in the cost of each tech. You could make an argument that reducing the variance a little might improve the realism, but this is reducing it way too much.

Now the probability of getting any tech on 1 roll is 0 and only 1/36 on 2 rolls for a ‘cheap’ tech (too low). For the cheap techs, you’re looking at >95% that you get the tech for either 15 or 20 IPCs. That is rediculous IMHO. If you’re going to do that, just make the tech cost 15 or 20 IPCs and save everyone the time of rolling dice (for the record I don’t like this idea either). With your research points idea, every player who wanted a 12-point tech, for example, should just spend 15 IPCs for 3 rolls. If they don’t get it then, then they are pretty much guaranteed to get it for 5 IPCs on their next turn.

IMHO, I also don’t like your heavy rtl idea either. The implications are that rtl are now better than inf defensively and better than arm offensively. Since the latter units used to be tops in their respective category it seems that once a player achieves this tech they should only build rtl for ground units. (Maybe they’d buy a very few couple infantry for fodder and transporting purposes). I think the backbone of any army should be the infantry and under your rules it is going to be heavy rtl.

I’m just curious B, is ‘Game Master’ just a self-professed moniker or what?

…updating the ‘Play’ section so you can actually use it. It’s been down for way too long and needs to be made a top priority. Put new strategy and house rule postings on hold until it is determined whether or not this section can be made functional (I figure that it can be since many other sites have it). If for whatever reason the section can’t be made functional then the section should be deleted and never spoken of again.

I think it would be incredible for this site if they could get the ‘Play’ section working and keep a record of rankings or wins/loses. Then registered players who also post on the site could have 3 things in their description- name, # of posts, and play ranking. This would give a more accurate description of the poster’s playing ability and experience than just having the # of posts.

I vote none of the above. You should generally cycle between defending Eastern Europe and Western Europe. This way you don’t go down any IPCs on top of the Allies going up those IPCs.

If Germany ever leaves nothing in Western Europe you should unload 1 inf there. If he leaves 1 inf there, then so should attack with 2 inf and 1-2 ftrs. The object here is to take Western Europe light, go up 6 IPCs with only a 1/3 chance of losing 3 IPCs worth of inf. In the long run the Allies will come out ahead. Take Western Europe strong (send in everything) only when you think you can survive against the Germany counter-attack.

As a general rule, there are 2 common ways to protect a territory:

1. directly defending the territory by strongly occupying it
2. indirectly defending the territory with a strong counter-attack potential.

In your example, the German player is using the latter approach. This approach is not at all uncommon but still hardly ever used by novices. Generally speaking, in both cases you should only attack when you can defeat the large buildup of units. In the first case, attack strong when you can beat the built-up defending units offensively. In the second case, attack strong when you can beat the built-up defending units defensively.
Until you can beat the built-up indirect defense, you should attack the first territory light (1-2 inf and 1-2 fighters).

There isn’t any Archangel. Do you mean another country or should this post go into AAR forum? I’m not being nit-picky, I’m asking because I need to know what version you’re talking about to give an adequate answer.

If Russia sends 1-2 fighters to UK there is no realistic way the Germans can take UK on G1. Easy as that.

OK Jen, so you sent all your fighters into Karelia and took it strong. I take it that UK has all their navy still in tact and still has Egypt? You didn’t mention any other battles so I have to assume this.

First, let me say that something has to be wrong with your logic. I don’t see how Germany still has 5 fighters since they start with 5 and on average 1 fighter will be shot down (not 0). 1 fighter being shot down will result in 1.5-2 hits less by the Germans assuming the battle goes for 3-4 rounds. Maybe then only 5 arm and 4 fighters remaining would be more accurate given the rest of your assumptions.

To make things simple let’s assume Germany ends up with 6 arm and 4 fighters. The fighters have to land elsewhere, which leaves 6 armor in Karelia. Since Germany used all the fighters in the battle for Karelia, UK can apparently counter-attack with 1 BB, 2 transports with 2 inf and 1 arm, and 2-3 fighters (however they see fit) and a bomber. Let’s assume that with whatever force UK decides to attack with, the UK ends up retreating the remaining airforce left after 1-2 German armor remains. Russia may then attack on R2 with 3 armor and whatever inf were not left in Karelia at the end on R1. Jen, you never told me how many inf you assumed Russia left in Karelia so I don’t know what I’m dealing with in terms of a Russian counter-attack.

Anyway, long story short, if Germany atttacks Karelia on G1, they will have unprotected armor in Karelia. The Allies should try to whittle this down. This will make the German assault to Moscow come to a screeching halt even if Germany survives the UK and Russian counter-attack with a couple armor left. Germany cannot realistically count on taking Moscow without the armor they start with.

People who seem to be against this strategy are apparently just writing that Germany can take Karelia on G1 and thus the game is over. I think people need to think a little more long-term here or at least state why it’s apparently over for Russia if Germany takes Karelia with 6 armor on G1.

"Feld"marshall Hartmann (I’m just going to assume this is a pun of some sort and not a horrible misspelling), IMHO I do believe you are wrong on both counts.

I chose “this question is stupid” It is stupid because you couldn’t choose Transports. Without them you can’t do anything. Your precious infantry can’t swim across the English Channel nor the Atlantic. Whthout them the allies can do nothing. They are the units that make winning the war possible. Transports are the most important units of the game, period.

So what exactly are you going to move in your ‘precious’ transports? Inf can’t cross SZs and transports need something to transport, so apparently you need both (note, this does not agree with your ‘balanced force’ theory- more on this latter).

If you’re assuming the question implies that you can only buy one type of unit, I would definitely go with only buying infantry. Only buying transports would mean that you can only move the ground units you start with. This is not enough to win the game by a long shot. If you could buy only inf than at least Russia can put up a good fight against the Axis. Can you imagine the game if Russia couldn’t buy infantry???

For the record I don’t think the question assumed you could only buy 1 type of unit, just that it was asking what unit had the greatest overall value (aka what unit is most important to winning).

And now, who would only buy infantry in this game? Sure, INF are the backbone of your army, but nothing equals a well balanced force. You build infantry to lose them, nothing else!

You care to back up this ‘well-balanced force’ theory up with some actual numbers? Let’s each buy up any units we want with 60 IPCs. I’ll buy only inf and you buy any mix of units you wish. I will win >99% of the time on defense. I’m not doing very badly on offense either. All infantry might lose on offense but it will be close and it will never be as bad as a mix of units will lose on offense.