Posts made by Veqryn

May I suggest people help petition please?

I have sent an email to the following emails:
corporateinfo@wizards.com
Hasbrogamespr@hasbro.com
hasbro_investor_relations@hasbro.com

And it said:

Dear Hasbro,
As a good customer and fan of your products, I would like to show you some of the good reasons that you should allow TripleA to continue existing, or alternatively, that you should co-opt the developers to make TripleA for you.
TripleA is free advertising.
As a freely distributed program, developed at no cost to you, TripleA is a form of advertising for your Axis and Allies board game products.  TripleA increases the desire of its users to own the various board games in real life, and also increases awareness of your different board game products.  Anyone who plays such games online will also want a copy to play against their friends and family in-person. 
TripleA does not compete with your board games. 
Almost all users of TripleA already own more than 1 of the board game products that are simulated in the program.  It takes a very hardcore player to be willing to play such games online.
TripleA supports your customer community, eliminating TripleA will alienate your customers.
Many of the users of TripleA are among your best board game customers and fans.  Most of them already own the products that they are playing with online.  By shutting down their attempts to reach out and form communities online, meet other players, share strategies, and play games online, you will be hurting or alienating your best customers. 
TripleA is an open source and publicly developed application, which allows for continuous development and support at no cost to Hasbro or its subsidiaries.  Attempts to sell such narrow applications have in the past been complete failures, resulting in a loss of equity and time for the company involved.  After their marketplace failure, these pieces of software were abandoned and no longer supported, despite their bugs, resulting in a bad image for the companies involved.  Instead of viewing TripleA as a threat, though it positively impacts your bottom line, you could instead co-opt the developers of it.  Since it is doubtful too many people would be willing to pay for software to simulate the game they already own at home, a suggested path would be to continue releasing it for free, but with advertising banners to provide some revenue as well as to increase awareness of other Hasbro products.  Opensource software saves significant money by having the customers and users do the development, support, and bug fixing for you for free.  With the time and cost it would take to build a new version from scratch, significant money could be saved by employing or even just tacitly supporting the developers of TripleA, who have already experienced all the major issues and bugs surrounding building such an online application.

In short, TripleA increases your revenue through its free advertisement of your products, as well as positively affecting your public image and providing support for an important and vital portion of your customer community.  TripleA should be allowed to continue being distributed, and/or the development of it should be co-opted by Hasbro.
Thank you for your time,
XXX

sorry, but what is GTO?

@Cmdr:

Look, they shut down Dogs of War and that’s about as completely different a name as you can possibly imagine!  I still have a copy, of course, and the AI is WAY better than in TripleA (which sucks, IMHO) and the graphics were way better too, but that’s that.

I notice they went after TRIPLEA and not Battlemap. :P  I think the difference is that Battlemap is just a map with icons and the icons don’t really look like the ones you get with the boardgame.  On top of it, battlemap doesn’t have rules similar to Axis and Allies because it does not have an AI!

If you want my opinion, and you’re getting it no matter what, I kind of expected TripleA to be shut down because they shut down Dogs of War for the same reason.

PS: I would enjoy an “official” AA game to be released that had all variants of the game, an AI that didn’t use the tactics of a 5 year old, and a stable platform to run on.  Pretty would be okay, but function > aesthetics as I am sure most of you would agree.  Heck, make the download free and charge us $1/mo. to play it online!

One other advantage of TripleA was the ability to make your own maps and mods.  I haven’t done any yet, but I am learning Java right now with the intent to try one.

Second, can you either post or pm me a link to dogs of war? it sounds interesting and I want to see it

Oh, and the reason I like tripleA, is because the map comes setup for me, units are already placed, ipcs are counted for me, most of the rules are coded so that I don’t have to mess around with clicking a million times in battlemap

Edit:
TripleA is doing just fine.  We are still running, and have usually 30-100 people online during americas timezone and europe timezone, and many more people playing by email, network games, or single player hotseat or vs ai.  
Go here to download it or see the website: http://triplea.sourceforge.net/mywiki/

Old post:

Hasbro just shut down TripleA,
you can see it here:
http://triplea.sourceforge.net/mywiki/Forum#nabble-td3251158%7Ca3251158

What is next? Will they shut down ABattleMap too?  After, it has A&A maps on it.

What a load of *******, don’t they know that everyone who plays TripleA has AT LEAST one of their A&A board games sitting at home?  Hell, I’d be willing to best the average number is higher than 2.  Hasbro obviously has no clue what their customer and gamer community looks like.  If anything, TripleA is a source of Free Advertising for their franchise.  
(As a some-time economist I have read many articles about P2P’s and copyright violations, etc, do to companies bottom line.  Take thinks like Napster and Limewire for example.  Common sense says that the companies and bands are losing money because of them, but all of the studies done on it have shown that something else: it is free advertising, and results in more sales of lesser known bands.  The bottom line with those things is that it lowers the revenue from Big-Name Brands like the Beatles or 50Cent, which people know of already and would buy normally, and it increases the revenue from not as well known bands and artists, who normally would get next to zero advertising without it.  In most cases the two trade off or are close to even.  These companies just have their heads up their asses and are unable to adjust to a changing marketplace.)

So, I ask, who do we need to petition and email to let TripleA be downloaded and updated and distributed, etc.?
I am guessing Larry Harris can’t help directly, but I’m sure he might be well placed to whisper into Hasbro’s ear.  IL, who do we need to talk to, who do we need to email, write letters, sign petitions, etc, for?  What method will be the most effective?

Hell, without this forum and without TripleA, I would not be at all as excited about Axis and Allies as I am today.  Flaws and all, I love A&A, and Hasbro seems to think they can p�ss me off and still get my money later.

EDIT:

PLEASE EVERYONE,
help your fellow A&A players, even if you don’t use TripleA yourself, please express solidarity with your forum members and SEND AN EMAIL TO HASBRO

May I suggest people help petition please?

I have sent an email to the following emails:
corporateinfo@wizards.com
Hasbrogamespr@hasbro.com
hasbro_investor_relations@hasbro.com

Here is what my email said, if you send your own you do not have to be as long, just try to be nice:

Dear Hasbro,
As a good customer and fan of your products, I would like to show you some of the good reasons that you should allow TripleA to continue existing, or alternatively, that you should co-opt the developers to make TripleA for you.
TripleA is free advertising.
As a freely distributed program, developed at no cost to you, TripleA is a form of advertising for your Axis and Allies board game products.  TripleA increases the desire of its users to own the various board games in real life, and also increases awareness of your different board game products.  Anyone who plays such games online will also want a copy to play against their friends and family in-person.
TripleA does not compete with your board games.
Almost all users of TripleA already own more than 1 of the board game products that are simulated in the program.  It takes a very hardcore player to be willing to play such games online.
TripleA supports your customer community, eliminating TripleA will alienate your customers.
Many of the users of TripleA are among your best board game customers and fans.  Most of them already own the products that they are playing with online.  By shutting down their attempts to reach out and form communities online, meet other players, share strategies, and play games online, you will be hurting or alienating your best customers.
TripleA is an open source and publicly developed application, which allows for continuous development and support at no cost to Hasbro or its subsidiaries.  Attempts to sell such narrow applications have in the past been complete failures, resulting in a loss of equity and time for the company involved.  After their marketplace failure, these pieces of software were abandoned and no longer supported, despite their bugs, resulting in a bad image for the companies involved.  Instead of viewing TripleA as a threat, though it positively impacts your bottom line, you could instead co-opt the developers of it.  Since it is doubtful too many people would be willing to pay for software to simulate the game they already own at home, a suggested path would be to continue releasing it for free, but with advertising banners to provide some revenue as well as to increase awareness of other Hasbro products.  Opensource software saves significant money by having the customers and users do the development, support, and bug fixing for you for free.  With the time and cost it would take to build a new version from scratch, significant money could be saved by employing or even just tacitly supporting the developers of TripleA, who have already experienced all the major issues and bugs surrounding building such an online application.

In short, TripleA increases your revenue through its free advertisement of your products, as well as positively affecting your public image and providing support for an important and vital portion of your customer community.  TripleA should be allowed to continue being distributed, and/or the development of it should be co-opted by Hasbro.
Thank you for your time,
XXX

I think someone said something about rolling each set twice.  Anyway, here is another idea.

Any time there are more than X dice being rolled (you decide X for yourself, but I would say at least 4 dice [you can’t average 1 roll, and it would get absurd if you roll twice for 2 dice, perhaps absurd for 3]), then the person rolling them rolls them two times, then takes the Average number of hits between the two rolls.  In case of decimal, round in the direction of the first roll.
For example, I am attacking with 3 inf and 3 tanks against you with 3 inf.  I would roll twice, lets say the first roll I get 2 hits, and the second roll I get 5 hits.  The average of this would be 7/2= 3.5 hits.  Because the first roll was lower, you round down, so that is 3 hits now.  You would not get to roll twice because you are only rolling 3 dice. 
Or another example, I attack with 3 inf 2 art, against you with 3 inf.  I roll twice and get 2 hits the first time, and 1 hit the second time.  The average is 1.5, but you round up because the first roll was higher.  You again would not roll twice because you have less than X=4 dice to roll.  You get lucky and roll 3 hits.  Now it is 2 art against 1 inf.  Neither of us would roll twice because we are now both less than 4.

Or another way to do this, would be to use a certain number of “roll twice for an average” chips / tokens.  Lets say you get 5 total for each team, and are allowed to purchase more for 4 ipcs each.  You may use one of them up to do exactly what I just described above.

It might be a thought.  If you completely ignore China (and by that I mean you evacuate it asap), you can afford ICs in India (which falls turn 2), and Burma, and possibly even FIC (though you may not have the money to support it).  In the mean time, you are sending up to 8 infantry from Japan’s island to Soviet Far East.  Basically, Russia will get hit harder and get hit sooner, but if they can weather the storm it will quickly run dry, because Japan will have fewer troops flowing there over the long term if they lack the 13 IPCs of China and the 5 IPCs from the China NO (18 ipcs is a lot, though they do make it up with some ipcs elsewhere, quicker ipc gains against russia and UK).
The big problem with this strategy, is what the heck do you do with your troops in Kiangsu and Manchuria on the first turn.  If you attack Buryatia, that means you do not have enough troups to take any of the money islands.  If you take the money islands instead (or send everyone to Burma and ignore both russia and money island), Then what is there to do with your 6 guys in Manchuria and Kiangsu?  I guess they could just sit tight and defend for a round, or you could stack them in Manchuria and push Burya turn 2 (you also can’t do anything with 3 of your fighters).
If done correctly, Japan can have 34 IPCs plus 10 from India and Islands (44ipcs) at the End of Turn 2.  They would have 7inf 1 art In Buryatia, and 6inf 1art in India, as well as owning East Indies, Borneo, Philippines, and New Guinea (need it cus you will never get Kwangtung).  You will also have 2-3 inf sitting on those islands that you can move off later, plus whatever you built, either IC or more transports.  At the end of Turn 3, you can finish with 45 IPCs (which will drop to 44 if you don’t take Caucasus turn 4, but will go up to 48 if you do), and have 3 ICs in each of India, Burma, and FIC, as well as around 4inf 1art 1tank in Persia, and 10 inf 2 art in Soviet Far East / Stanoj, and also 4 in on Japan Island, 3 inf 4 tanks in India/Burma/FIC.  I’d say thats pretty killer.

Germany needs to be building tanks, not destroyers or ships of any kind.  the DD you start with, plus you buy1 DD, 1 Cruiser, 1 Carrier, and your 2 fighters that you start with, is plenty to deter germany from attacking your british fleet.  The cost is 34 for that.  If germany wants to expend her entire air force destroying my ships, go right ahead, but she is going to lose all of it (and that is only the UK fleet mind you, the USA is still around).  As far as the American fleet goes, I only buy 1 carrier, since you start with 2 DD and 1 carrier plus 4 fighters.  America’s fleet will never be in range of all of germany’s fighters, usually just the fighters in france, so two separate groups of 1DD + 1 Carrier + 2 fighters will work just fine.  Sometimes I do buy 1 Cruiser also as America, but I never spend more than 26 ipcs on America’s warships.  All of that money you guys are spending on warships could be spent on transports and guys.  You should have 4 transports with with 4 inf and 4 tanks flowing out of the UK by turn 3.  You should have a chain of around 8 transports flowing out of the USA by turn 3, and that increases all the way up to 12 by turn 5.  You guys need to buy less ships and more boots.  If Germany does actually buy ships and fighters instead of tanks, then you have to buy some extra ships and fighters/bombers too.  But that is great because now Russia can crush a weakened Germany who has fewer tanks.

@Cmdr:

Russian submarine utility is not at the start of the game, it’s in the middle.  Russia gets to go right after Germany and before England, this means their submarine can “pave the road” for the British navy!

Situation:

England has 7 Cruisers, 1 Battleship, 4 Transports (and odds and ends.)  They are repeatedly bombarding the crud out of Germany and taking minimal losses to themselves. (Yes, it’s more than Germany probably, but imagine America following up with another wave.  The two will eventually break Germany’s back.)

Germany, in most games, would purchase a destroyer and plop it down in SZ 5, thus, negating 8 Shore Bombardments from England!  That’s potentially 4 unkilled infantry (figuring you get one hit for every two ships bombarding the shore on any given Sunday).  They’d be able to trade an 8 IPC destroyer, for 12 IPC in infantry (units they most likely need to defend the homeland, right?)

However, now you have Russia with a submarine and a couple fighters/bombers.  Germany puts their destroyer in SZ 5, Russia attacks with 2 fighters/bombers and the submarine.  Destroyer is almost assuredly dead and now, England may bombard at their pleasure!

If England has 7 cruisers and 1 BB, well…. lets just say that the cost of building that outweighs any benefits from shore bombardment.  While England is busy building that, Germany should have crushed russia and built a huge reserve in france and germany

In 1941, the Sub is 100% useless.  It can not back up UK’s Fleet, because by the time it comes to Russia’s Turn, Germany has already went and destroyed UK’s fleet (g1).  When it gets to UK’s turn, they will sink the remaining German subs/fleet and build their own fleet including a Carrier.  With a carrier and other ships in their fleet, the Germans will never be able to challenge the UK fleet, AND if they do, it will be with Planes, and so the Russian sub can not be taken as a casualty and so it is 100% useless.

In 1942, the Sub is Actually useful.  Because Russia goes first, Russia can move their sub to Seazone 2.  This causes Germany, if they want to attack sz2, to use 2 sub, 1 ftr, and 1 bomber.  The Russian sub can be taken as a casualty, letting the UK BB take one more hit before being destroyed.  Because of the Russian sub, the Germans should end up with just their ftr and bomber left, instead of also a sub too.  Big difference? No, it is not.  Especially because german subs defend on 1 and will be destroyed the next turn whether there are 2 or zero anyway.

In short, I think that after Larry Harris changed the rules so that Planes can not hit subs (a good rule change imo), he should have replaced the Russian sub with a Destroyer.  (remember that the OLD submarines attack and defend at 2 / 2, and the new destroyers are also 2 /2.  I feel that the reason the russian’s had a sub in the previous AA incarnations, was because destroyers back then were 3 / 3, and so it was a little too powerful to give them a dd)

Honestly, I think it is a good rule.  It is the attackers choice if they want to attack surface ships or not.  If they only want to attack surface ships, then only bring planes (and only lose planes).  If they want to sink subs, bring a destroyer.  It should not be the defenders choice at all.  I’m ordering my planes to attack ships, not subs.

Honestly… SuperSubs suck so much.  Here are a couple things that could be done to make supersubs better:

Attack at 3, defend at 2 (simplest solution, but might be too powerful, thought I doubt it would still be more powerful than heavy bombers, or paratroopers,etc.)

Attack at 3, defend at 1, cost 1 less (so they would cost 5 instead of 6 normally, or 4 instead of 5 if you also have improved shipyards)

Attack at 3, defend at 1, may hit airplanes, and may be hit by airplanes unless user chooses to submerge them (could be interesting)

Attack at 3, defend at 1, unaffected by destroyers (may pass under destroyers, may submerge from destroyers, destroyers do not take away 1st strike ability)

Attack at 2, defend at 2, cost 2 less (so they would cost 4 instead of 6 normally, or 3 instead of 5 if you also have improved shipyards)

And lastly, Any combination of the above.

What could make Adv Artillery better?  Or at least more interesting?

Instead of upping the attack power of one extra infantry, Adv Artillery may now be used to “bombard” an adjoining territory.  This uses up the movement points of the artillery, so you can not also attack with the artillery after you bombard.  Works just like a Naval Bombardment except you do not need to attack the territory you are bombarding to be able to bombard it with Adv Art.  (example, germany has 2 artillery in Ukraine, and 2 artillery in the Baltic States, Russia has infantry in Karelia and the Caucasus.  Germany decides to bombard both Karelia and the Caucasus with its artillery, and also attack Karelia with 5 tanks, but not attack Caucasus.  Germany rolls double snake eyes.  2 russian inf in caucasus die immediately since there is no attack there.  in Karelia, Russia moves 2 infantry to the casualty space, where they will still get their rebuttal against the german tanks.  Now the german tanks and russian infantry get to roll the rest of their battle.)

War Bonds is boring and not very useful, while Rockets is a bit more interesting because you can purchase additional AA guns / Rockets (AA guns should cost 5 each again).  War bonds could be made more interesting by allowing the person who own’s war bonds to purchase additional War Bond dice for 8 IPCs each (takes 2+ turns to pay back).  (Germany gets war bonds on a research roll.  Next turn, they choose to purchase 2 additional war bond dice for 16 ipcs total.  at the end of their turn they will be rolling 3 total war bond dice, at 1d6 each, to determine total money received)

Improved Shipyards is crap if you are past the 2nd turn and are not the USA and you are not attacking Japan.  That is a lot of IFs, which means Impr Shipyards sucks.  How about this, when you get Impr Shipyards, you ALSO get a free Carrier next to your factory at the end of the turn?  That might convince, say, germany to try it out.

Radar is useful only for Germany, Italy, and Russia.  And 2 of those will never ever be able to afford researcher dice, so that means Radar is only useful for Germany.  How about this: Radar also improves the defense of Carriers by 1.  Or alternatively, Improves the range of all Fighters you control, that began their turn on a Carrier you control, by 1-2 (5-6 movement points instead of 4).  Or another alternative, all your cruisers or carriers also count as an AA gun, so they get to take an AA shot at the beginning of battle (limited to 1 per territory, just like aa guns).  Or another alternative, America starts with this tech that way they never have to worry about getting the most useless tech for them.

Absolutely noone playing LL would not bid at least 3 ipcs and put an Infantry in Karelia, which makes this attack irrelevant in a LL game.
Generally speaking, you will lose 1 or 3 fighters depending on the AA hits, if the AA does not hit, you lose 1 ftr to get your artillery/tank in there, if the AA does hit, you are going to lose the other 2 to get that art/tank in.  It is totally not worth it, especially considering you can just take Karelia the next turn anyway with your stacks in baltic and east poland.  The 5 ipc NO plus 1 build there is not worth the loss of your fighters, and the risky position you will be in by not using those fighters on other targets in the atlantic.
Besides, the battle calc includes many results in it that you would not include in real life, such as when the enemy does 4 hits in the first round and you do 0-2, normally you would retreat your fighters, but the battle calc pretends that you stay and fight and get lucky and win with just 1 fighter/tank/art left.  I would say, in reality, including those times when you would retreat your planes, the actual chance to win is closer to just 70%, not 78%.  This isn’t great considering the cost.

Any money spent my the UK in Egypt/South Africa/India is money not spent landing in France/Poland.  If I was the Japan, no matter what my strategy was, or how badly my luck failed me, and I saw an IC in india, I would make it priority number 1, to the exclusion of even China and russia and usa.  You can be sure it will fall within a couple turns of it being built.

Anyway, we are rather off topic……

I view taking Karelia turn 1 in 1941 as very inadvisable.  Yes, it is basically 78% chance to win, with an average of 3 units left… but you are attacking with 3 ftrs, so that means you either lose a ftr and keep karelia, or you merely destroy his stack.  Also, you have a 55% chance of losing at least 1 ftr out of 3 from the AA gun (no, it is not 50%, it is 55%, statistics is fun!)

I ended up picking:

Super Subs
Adv Artillery
Radar
Improved Shipyards
War Bonds
Rockets

in that order (so only the first 4 showed up in the poll)

@bugoo:

forgot to list the bomber at egypt =)

What would the odds be on how many fights would go bad, like for example, if 53% of the time i will win all 6, how often would i win 5, or 4, or 3?  Or how badly I would loose them?  Because if I lost Kar but got all other 5 I would still be happy.  I’m not trying to be argumentative i’m just bad with statistics and curious.  I normally play LL anyway.

If you include the bomber, you chance of winning OR eliminating all units in Egypt is = 80%, so that total for you would be 47%, not 53%.
I’m guessing the chances for winning 5 would be around 35, winning 4 around 15, winning 3 around 2.5%, winning 2 around 0.4, winning 1 around 0.1.
I’m not willing to do the math right now, but I do want to do it at some point.

Ok, so using NCn = N!/(n!(N-n)!), we find that
there is only 1 way to win them all,
6 ways to only win 5,
15 ways to only win 4
20 ways to only win 3
15 ways to only win 2
6 ways to only win 1
1 ways to lose them all

Odds = P = {.78 , .80 , .83 , .95 , .98 , .98}
Q = 1 - P = { .22 , .20 , .17 , .05 , .02 , .02}

Matrix that shit….
etc. etc.
do the rest tomorrow

Oh, and my earlier calculations got me interested in some more, so here are some opening Japanese moves:

Typical Japanese Naval Opening:
Seazone 56 (2ftrs): 95%
Seazone 53 (2ftrs, 1DD): 90%
Seazone 35 (2ftrs): 95%
Seazone 50 (1BB): 94% + 3% mutual destruction = 97%
East Indies (1or2inf): 100%
Chance to win all naval btls: 78.5%

Risky with Yunnan and Burma:
Philippines (2inf, 1tank): 81%
Yunnan (3inf, 2ftr): 98%
Burma (1Bombard, 3inf, 1art): 100%
Suiyang (4inf): 97%
Fukien (2inf, 1ftr): 98%
Chance to win all land btls: 75%
Chance to win all battles: 59%

Risky with Yunnan and Burma and most of China:
Philippines (2inf, 1tank): 81%
Yunnan (3inf, 2ftr): 98%
Burma (1Bombard, 3inf, 1art): 100%
Suiyang (3inf): 90%
Hupeh (2inf): 67%
Fukien (1inf, 1ftr): 90%
Chance to win all land btls: 43%
Chance to win all battles: 35%

Less Risk, Capture NOs first turn, India 3rd turn:
Philippines (3inf, 1tank): 94%
Yunnan (3inf, 2ftr): 98%
Kwangtung (1Bombard, 1inf, 1art): 100%
Borneo (2inf): 100%
Suiyang (4inf): 97%
Fukien (2inf, 1ftr): 98%
Chance to win all land btls: 87%
Chance to win all battles: 68.5%

IL’s AntiRussia:
Buryatia (5inf, 1art, 1tank, 1ftr): 73% (higher if there isn’t 7 russian inf there)
Yunnan (3inf, 2ftr): 98%
Burma (1Bombard, 3inf, 1art): 100%
Hupeh (3inf): 90%
Chance to win all land btls: 64%
Chance to win all battles: 51%

Using 59% chance for Japan, and using 62% for Germany (average), we come up with 36.5% chance that all axis t1 attacks will succeed (not including italy).
This isn’t great, but to be honest, the chance of either zero or just 1 attack failing, is pretty high.  Japan can recover from failed attacks much much better than germany, so I prefer a riskier japan plus a less risky germany.  However, if you are playing LL, you would be very much encouraged to run the most risky attacks you can for both Germany and Japan, and though I do not have time to run the percentages, I’d say you’d have a pretty high chance of winning all of them, like around 80% in total for axis. (resulting in a swing from 36.5% chance to 80% chance, which is why the game is so different with LL).

So basically you want:

SBR = LHTR, roll 2 dice, pick better, add one
Normal Attacks = Attack at a 6 (ie: always hit)

I would totally support this, and I think it is a superior modification of LHTR

I am copying this from another post i made, but basically here are 4 standard opening with Germany (with dice).  Now, if you are playing LL, then each % chance to win on each individual battle goes up to around 100%, giving you a total chance to win also closer to 100%, which makes Germany’s opening moves ridiculous, and also discourages more conservative, less risky, playing.  Isn’t it odd that by supposedly eliminating luck and dice, you are actually encouraging people to play more risky?  Interesting ah?

My Heavy without Karelia:
Seazone 2 (1sub,1bomb,1ftr): 95%
Seazone 6 (1sub, 1ftr): 92%
Seazone 12 (1sub, 2ftr): 86%
Baltic States (1bombard, 5inf, 2art, 1tank): 100%
East Poland (1inf, 3tank): 98%
Ukraine (2inf, 1art, 2tank): 99%
Egypt (2inf, 1art, 2tank): 34% win + 7% no uk left = 41% (this attack is optional)
Chance of winning all without doing Egypt: 72% (<- a strong opening without NOs)
Chance of winning all with Egypt: 30%

My Risky with Egypt, without Karelia:
Seazone 2 (2sub,1ftr): 83%
Seazone 6 (1sub, 1ftr): 92%
Seazone 12 (2ftr): 50% win + 15% no enemy left = 65% (optional attack)
Baltic States (1bombard, 5inf, 2art, 1tank): 100%
East Poland (1inf, 3tank): 98%
Ukraine (2inf, 1art, 2tank): 99%
Egypt (2inf, 1art, 2tank, 1bomber): 75% win + 5% no uk left = 80%
Chance of winning all without doing sz12: 59% (<- a strong opening with NOs)
Chance of winning all with sz12: 38%

Super Risky with Egypt and Karelia:
Seazone 2 (2sub,1ftr): 83%
Seazone 6 (1sub): 40% win + 20% no units left = 60%
Karelia (1bombard, 3inf, 1art, 3ftrs) = 78% chance (ftrs: if you lose zero you have 89% chance winning, lose 1 ftr you have 68% chance winning, lose 2 ftr you have 35% chance)
Baltic States (4inf, 1art, 1tank): 98%
East Poland (1inf, 4tank): 99%
Ukraine (2inf, 1art, 1tank): 97%
Egypt (2inf, 1art, 2tank, 1bomber): 75% win + 5% no uk left = 80%
Chance of winning all without doing sz6: 49%
Chance of winning all with sz6: 29%

IL’s Not Risky without Karelia and Abandon Africa:
Seazone 2 (1sub,1bomb,1ftr): 95%
Seazone 6 (1sub, 1ftr): 92%
Seazone 12 (1sub, 2ftr): 86%
Baltic States (1bombard, 5inf, 2art, 1tank): 100%
East Poland (1inf, 4tank): 99%
Ukraine (pulling 1inf and 1tank from africa: 3inf, 1art, 2tank): 100%
Chance of winning all: 74% (<- Strong opening with or without NOs, though Italy will never get its NOs)

I believe that is pretty much all 4 different openings with Germany that people use, subject to slight modifications and subject to what you decide to buy as germany.

@bugoo:

Actually the odds are better than 58, that is without the bomber at egypt.

Kar - G: 3 inf, 1 art, 3 fig, 1 cruiser bombard vs R: 5 inf, 1 art, 1 AA gun = 78% odds typically 3 units left
Egypt - G: 2 inf, 1 art, 2 arm vs B: 2 inf, 1 art, 1 arm, 1 fig = 90% odds typically 3 units left
SZ 2 - G: 2 sub, 1 fig vs B: 1 BB = 83% odds typically 1 unit left
Baltic - G: 3 inf, 1 art, 1 arm vs R: 3 inf = 95% typically 3 units left
Poland - G: 2 inf, 4 arm vs R: 2 inf = 98% odds typically 5 units left
Ukraine - G: 2 inf, 1 art, 1 arm vs R: 2 inf = 98% odds typically 3 units left

Now those are pretty good odds, but with the small number of units anything can happen.  Baltic/Poland/Ukraine if you loose you were gonna loose anyway, and it still sets up the can opener for G2.  Provided you do not get diced hard in any of the fights, you should win, esp when your collecting 50+ IPC to spend on G2.  And of course, J1 can get dicey too, I’ve seen the pearl fight go south before, or the DD at india destroy 2 figs, etc.  Typically if J looses 2 figs on J1 and the DD at pearl your alright as allies, if they loose no figs, or keep the DD, it can get ugly real fast.  Same with the 3 inf vs 1 inf fights if they take that route in china.  Playing with dice though, I see no reason not to play to win on turn 1 with axis, the odds are in your favor.  Also, even when the dice do bite you, many allied players get too aggressive in there counter attacks on turn 1 making it hard for them to hit in force in the mid game.

Actually the odds are worse.  Although each of your 5 battles has very good odds individually, the odds of you winning ALL 5 of those battles is just 53% (multiply all your odds together as decimals).  And i do not know how you got those odd for Egypt, because 5 germany units vs 5 uk units = 41% win, not 90%

For a few other kinds of openings:

My Heavy without Karelia:
Seazone 2 (1sub,1bomb,1ftr): 95%
Seazone 6 (1sub, 1ftr): 92%
Seazone 12 (1sub, 2ftr): 86%
Baltic States (1bombard, 5inf, 2art, 1tank): 100%
East Poland (1inf, 3tank): 98%
Ukraine (2inf, 1art, 2tank): 99%
Egypt (2inf, 1art, 2tank): 34% win + 7% no uk left = 41% (this attack is optional)
Chance of winning all without doing Egypt: 72% (<- a strong opening without NOs)
Chance of winning all with Egypt: 30%

My Risky with Egypt, without Karelia:
Seazone 2 (2sub,1ftr): 83%
Seazone 6 (1sub, 1ftr): 92%
Seazone 12 (2ftr): 50% win + 15% no enemy left = 65% (optional attack)
Baltic States (1bombard, 5inf, 2art, 1tank): 100%
East Poland (1inf, 3tank): 98%
Ukraine (2inf, 1art, 2tank): 99%
Egypt (2inf, 1art, 2tank, 1bomber): 75% win + 5% no uk left = 80%
Chance of winning all without doing sz12: 59% (<- a strong opening with NOs)
Chance of winning all with sz12: 38%

Super Risky with Egypt and Karelia:
Seazone 2 (2sub,1ftr): 83%
Seazone 6 (1sub): 40% win + 20% no units left = 60%
Karelia (1bombard, 3inf, 1art, 3ftrs) = 78% chance (ftrs: if you lose zero you have 89% chance winning, lose 1 ftr you have 68% chance winning, lose 2 ftr you have 35% chance)
Baltic States (4inf, 1art, 1tank): 98%
East Poland (1inf, 4tank): 99%
Ukraine (2inf, 1art, 1tank): 97%
Egypt (2inf, 1art, 2tank, 1bomber): 75% win + 5% no uk left = 80%
Chance of winning all without doing sz6: 49%
Chance of winning all with sz6: 29%

IL’s Not Risky without Karelia and Abandon Africa:
Seazone 2 (1sub,1bomb,1ftr): 95%
Seazone 6 (1sub, 1ftr): 92%
Seazone 12 (1sub, 2ftr): 86%
Baltic States (1bombard, 5inf, 2art, 1tank): 100%
East Poland (1inf, 4tank): 99%
Ukraine (pulling 1inf and 1tank from africa: 3inf, 1art, 2tank): 100%
Chance of winning all: 74% (<- Strong opening with or without NOs, though Italy will never get its NOs)

I believe that is pretty much all 4 different openings with Germany that people use, subject to slight modifications and subject to what you decide to buy as germany.