Posts made by Unknown Soldier

Funcioneta, you make it sound like I want to ignore China, but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m only suggesting that taking Burma instead of Yunnan could be a viable open for Japan. You still need to take China out ASAP, I agree. I’m still attacking everything else like you, so China is only marginally stronger than they would be in your games. There are many thing Japan needs to accomplish on J1, killing China is only one thing.

The game is about trade-offs. You are choosing to take out China a turn earlier than me, while I am choosing to get an IC up and running in India a turn earlier. I think the latter may be more important, clearly you don’t. It’s something to consider is all.

Thanks for the reply Krieg. :)

Just to clarify a few of my points:

The problem is that Germany’s (a major industrial center) production is increased by 20%, while Algeria’s is increased by 200%.  That math just doesn’t work.

Yeah I mean obviously this is unrealistic (like many things in A&A), but I meant that I don’t see it as a problem from a game balance perspective. I guess I just don’t get why this is unrealistic enough to warrant errata, while something like transports passing freely through sub-infested waters is not.

These sites will be less lucrative, but that doesn’t necessarily make them less attractive.  True, they won’t get the increased production, but they will still benefit from the reduced repair cost.  If they are “fairly common sites”, why should they depend on success with a particular tech to make them so?

I don’t think it will stop players from building on those sites. But for nations like Japan, Increased Production was a very good tech specifically because of those 2 IPC build sites. Making 3 the minimum really reduces the value of the tech for them, by a big margin. Its just one less trick in Japan’s bag is all, and I don’t see how that is a good thing.

There’s a big difference between 2- and 3-IPC territories in the percentage increase achieved when adding two to the production cap.  2-IPC territories increase by 100%, while 3-IPC ones only increase by 67%.  Each one IPC of value from there reduces the percentage increase even further.

Yeah, I get this. The problem is arises from adding a constant amount to different production levels. I said the choice of 3 IPCs as the minimum was somewhat arbitrary because, well, where do you draw the line? 67% is acceptable while 100% is not? Why not 50%? You guys settled on 3 as the minimum, and that’s fine. I’m just curious if you guys considered whether 2 may have been better since it’s less “disruptive” to gameplay.

I really like the new rules with this one exception.

That an unescorted transport can pass through a sea zone with a sub in it unimpeded.

YES! Forgot to mention this one. The sub should definitely be able to prevent this in some way. Makes no sense at all the way this rule is right now.

Here’s an old one that uses Classic:

http://pages.videotron.ca/silexmt/optoaster/log1.html

I though consensus was the Axis have the advantage, so surely this just cements things even more!

I’m not sure this is true, the errata hurts Japan also.

Wow, the errata on increased factory production is huge.

There were two problems with Increased Factory Production as written:
Production was doubled or tripled in low-IPC territories.

True, but how is this really a “problem”? :?

One-IPC territories were impossible to shut down with SBRs, since the maximum damage that can be applied is two points (1 IPC - 2 damage + 2 for IFP = 1 unit produced).

Ok, this makes some sense, but then why not make the minimum 2 IPC territories? You can still apply 4 damage, thereby shutting it down. What’s special about 3 IPC territories?

Having 3 as the minimum detracts from factories in Australia, South Africa, Egypt, Karelia, Burma, FIC, and Kiangsu, all of which are fairly common sites for ICs and will now be less attractive. On the other hand, it’s not like anyone really builds ICs in 1 IPC territories unless they already have the tech. It just seems like having 3 IPC territories as the minimum is a kinda arbitrary and affects gameplay more than have a minimum of 2 would (maybe this was the goal?).

@Adlertag:

I love the new tranny rule.

Yep, add me to the list. The new tp rules are definitely a step in the right direction, from both a realism standpoint and a gameplay standpoint.

This:

Sure, there’s that 1 in 36 chance you can yell YAHTZEE with the price of 5 IPC, but odds are very strongly against that scenario.

is exactly why this:

Good players will account for the possibility of their opponent getting a technology that would be a thorn in their side and work preemptively to negate it’s utility

is false.

In general, planning your turn around someone acquiring LRA or HB or whatever next turn is bad strategy. The fact that you have to get lucky to get those techs is exactly why you shouldn’t be planning your turn around it, because it just doesn’t happen the vast majority of the time. Subsequently, when it does happen, it can unbalance the game since you are not given a chance to respond.

Rolling for tech at the end of your turn certainly would not “completely destroy the benefits of technology”. Honestly, where do you come up with this stuff? Are techs useless after the first turn you get them? Obviously not.

Don’t get me wrong, I like having tech in the game as it makes gameplay much linear. I’d just prefer to have more strategy and less Yahtzee.

@Cmdr:

I think Unknown Soldier may be playing sub optimal players if he feels that leaving the Chinese fighter alone on Japan 1 and not killing it is okay.

I’ve been playing A&A since Classic, and so have my opponents. I guess since we don’t 273454849467 posts on A&A.org like you we must be morons though, huh?  :roll:

Maybe you could try, oh I dunno, discussing my actual argument instead of attacking the ability of my playgroup? Just a thought.

Not attacking Yunnan means:

• 1 fig alive (super good for China)
• 1 inf alive at Yunnan
• 1 more inf you pop

Really, none of these things are all that bad for Japan.

Keep in mind that as long as you take out the other 3 Chinese inf (or even 2 of them), China will only make 2 inf on round 1 and another 1 inf on round 2. That’s it. With Japs in Fukien, Hupeh, and FIC/Burma at the end of J1, that fighter is dead on J2 unless it retreats to Sikang. On J2 you plop down a factory in FIC and advance your troops, now you force the Chinese to retreat to Chinghai with a grand total of 4 inf and 1 ftr. The Allies have surely won now :roll:. What’s so scary about China when you have them backed into a corner with 4 inf and a fighter, and no reinforcements in sight? A few Russians helping out? C’mon. Try playing it out, its really nothing to worry about at all.

But more importantly, what you’re not seeing is what can be gained by not attacking Yunnan. You free up the inf from FIC and the 2 fighters to do other things, possibly better things.

For example, how about getting more ground units in range of India on J2? If you take East Indies, Borneo, and Burma you can have 8-9 ground units plus fighters ready to move into and hold India on J2. That means a factory can be built there on J3. If you don’t attack Burma J1, you’re looking at J4 or later before you can hold India against a competent Allied player.

So what’s more important: getting a factory in India up and running as soon as possible, ready to put pressure on Caucasus early on, or killing an inf and a fighter in China? Maybe killing the fighter is more important, who knows. Right now, I can’t see how, so I’m inclined to think that not attacking Yunnan is an acceptable sacrifice for getting India earlier than the Japs would otherwise. I’m not sure yet, but I doubt you or anyone else has conclusive answer on this yet either.

Now, you might argue that Burma and Yunnan can be attacked. This is true, but now you need to give up either Philippines or the 4 IPC British islands. Plus you won’t get the second Japanese NO. Neither is an acceptable trade though.

Alive chineses mean more free time to soviets against Germany

This is exactly what you’re hoping to prevent by not attacking Yunnan J1. Except you don’t get at the Soviets through China (not immediately anyway), you go through Persia.

BTW, you never told me what you consider to be the optimal J1 open.

If Germany is buying all aircraft to kill Allied fleet builds, what on earth are the Soviets doing the whole time?  :?

Red Army tanks should be rolling into Berlin within a couple turns…

@atarihuana:

is it possible to hit sz53 with 2 ftr, DD  and sz44 with 4 ftr  on J1 and then in NCM move the 2 AC to sz45?

Yes, but you would have to use the CV + 2 ftrs from sz61.

any J1 attacks not involving a total massacre of China is suboptimal axis play

This was my thinking for a long time, but I’m not entirely convinced of it anymore. The Chinese fighter isn’t nearly as important as people make it out to be. I’ve had some very successful opens with Japan (games which the Axis won, in fact) in which I did not attack the Flying Tigers on J1. It barely slows down the Jap expanse into Asia at all, as long as you make sure to push hard into China on J2 and J3. There are some other interesting things you can do by foregoing this attack, and I don’t think it’s obvious at all which is best. So I think it’s a tad early to be declaring this as “suboptimal”.

Which J1 open is optimal, in your view?

Uberlager, yes, that example is clearly correct. Not sure what your point is though, because the issue with the program is with the “Must take territory” button, which is not needed for that particular battle you just gave. I’m pretty sure that the prog works fine if you don’t use that button.

@Uberlager:

I will reiterate that you need to look at the probability of 0 units remaining as not being part of the distribution.  It is merely the chance of losing the battle.  The chance of winning the battle is actually greater, but is distributed over the number of units you can expect to survive.  Therefore, each row will individually be less than the ‘0 units’ line.

Yeah, I basically agree with this, I think I just worded my previous post poorly. So I’ll try again.  :-)

I understand that the 0 units result will often have a higher probability than each of the other individual rows. I’m saying in the particular battle DY gave, the 0 unit result should be much, much lower, since it’s at the extremity of the curve. It should not have a big spike because the probability of getting 9 or more hits as the attacker (i.e. 0 defending units left) is very low.

What I was trying to point out though, is that 0 unit result is not “merely” the chance of losing the battle and should be ignored as part of the distribution. It has meaning if you realize that the probability distribution for the surviving defenders is really just a reflection of the probability distribution of the number of hits the attacker rolls.

Specifically, the 0 units remaining result is the chance that the opposing side rolls a number of hits equal to or greater than the number of units you have. So, if the attacker rolls 10 hits and you only have 9 units, its counted under the 0 unit result (since you can’t have -1 units), just as if he had rolled only 9 hits. Thus, the 0 unit result is the sum of multiple probability events for the attacker, all of which have the same meaning in game terms: 0 units surviving. This is in contrast to the other results, which represent only one specific number of hits rolled.

That’s basically all I was getting at when I said the 0 units result was the rest of the distribution curve crammed into one category.

I agree that, in your first two points, there would appear to be an error.  Your last point, though, is affected by the “Details Cutoff” slider, whatever that does.  Move the slider to 0.0% and look at the details again.

D’oh! I didn’t even notice that slider, thanks for the info. That would explain why some probabilities are not listed. As you say, though, there are still some errors.

The skewed distribution is correct, I believe.  I have seen this shape many times before when using the sim during previous games and in battles with several different unit types (when not using “Must Take Territory”).

I don’t think it is correct. Usually with these sims, the “meat of the curve” is clustered around the most likely result. A normal-ish looking distribution, in other words. In this case, the most likely result (at least the one this program says is the most likely) is 0 units remaining for the defender. So, we would expect the probabilities for various other results to cluster around this point. Obviously since the defender can’t have negative units, we only see the tail-end of the distribution, with the result for 0 units spiking up since it represents the “rest of the curve” crammed into one result.

However, looking at the actual distribution of results for surviving defenders, we see that the high point occurs in the 5-7% range around 5 units remaining, and actually declines for fewer units remaining. I think this is probably what the actual distribution should look like, but somehow the result for 0 units is messed up. It would be correct I think if the results for 0 units remaining were fixed so that it’s less than the result for 1 unit remaining, and the probabilities were all increased proportionally so that they equal 100% again.

The chance of 0 units surviving (losing the battle) coincides with the chance of victory for the attacker - with some small apparent error.

If I’m not mistaken, the difference arises because the chance of 0 units surviving for the defender equals the sum of victory for the attacker and and the chance of a draw (both sides destroyed). If you add up those 2 numbers it should be the same as the probability of the defender having 0 units remaining.

The number of units remaining if the defender wins the battle then takes a normal-looking distribution.  So you have to first separate winning and losing the battle, then think of how many units you have left.

Yes, this has to do with only getting the “tail-end” of the curve if you are favored to lose the battle, as I mentioned.

@atarihuana:

the subs screw up too

4 ftr attacking any small fleet like ac 2 ftr. add 2 subs and it shouldnt change but it does significantly

Actually, this is not a screw up. What’s happening is that the fighters cannot kill the subs, so the attacker can only “draw”, since there will be surviving defenders every time when the subs are added.

So while 4 fighters vs. 1 CV, 2 fighters is ~73% for the attacker to win and ~7% to draw, if you add 1 or more subs to the defender side you’ll instead get 0% win for the attacker and 73% draw.

I made a post about this earlier in the thread in response to someone else complaining about the sub battles. I guess you missed it.  :-P

No, something is definitely not right.

Run the battle that DY gave in his post, making sure to select “Must take territory” under “Set unit loss order” on the attacker side. You should get a 65.439% chance of attacker victory. Looking at the battle itself, anyone with a decent amount of A&A experience should realize right away that this has to be wrong.

Now, click on “Details”. Then make sure the “Exactly” button is pressed.

There are a few problems here. First, notice that there is no probability listed for 0 units surviving on the attacking side, even though the main interface of the program says the defender wins over a third of the time. How can the defender win if the attacker has units remaining (including land units) every time?

Second, look at the column for 3 units remaining. The probability is listed as 67.51%, higher than the combined probability of the attacker winning! This obviously does not add up.

Finally, if you look at the distribution for surviving defenders, you’ll see that you get an approximately normal looking distribution for 2-8 units, but for 0 units, it spikes to 65.62%. The probability of 1 unit remaining is not even listed.

So something is definitely not right here. I think its only a bug with the “Must take territory” setting thouigh, as it appears to run fine when this isn’t selected.

Wow, I ask a question about playtesting and my post gets deleted? What’s the deal? My post did not break any forum rules, and was pertinent to the topic of this thread.

Depends what Germany did.

Sometimes its a good idea though. If Germany went hard into Baltic States, then I’d probably pull out. Buy some tanks in Russia, then stack everything possible in Belorussia. This will not only dead-zone Karelia, but often the Germans will be forced to retreat from Baltic States and East Poland. Then you can take Karelia back on R2, plus the scandanavian territories on R3.

If Germany goes light into Baltic States and didn’t stack Finland with 4 inf, then I’d probably just counter-attack to create a buffer zone around Karelia.

@alwayswin:

Just for the record, in one of the games I played my opponent got LRA with the UK first turn and despite doing what I needed to do with Germany, my Italian fleet was lost……he still had the Egypt fighter as well.

Yeah, that’s one thing that really irks me about this game. Why didn’t they make it so that you roll your tech tokens at the end of your turn? Didn’t the designers learn their lesson from the whole Sealion debacle in revised? It really makes you wonder…