Posts made by Weekend Gamer

I love the part labelled “Same Goddamn State.”  Why DO we have two Dakotas, anyway?  Wasn’t one sufficient?

@Flashman:

@Gamer:

Those who complain about the dice being too big a factor in the outcome of A&A games should be the ones most against using tech.  Tech is pure, unadultered dumb luck and very little to do with skill.  If you get lucky and get the right tech, you have a big advantage over your opponents.  If you get bad luck, you get stuck with something useless or, worse yet, nothing at all for your trouble and IPCs spent.  Tech should have been eliminated when they came out with revised.  It did not work well in Classic (which is why NO ONE played tournaments with tech) and still sucks in Revised.  It sure hasn’t done you any good in our game, NPB.

You seem to have missed the bit in Revised where it says you can choose which tech to roll for, so it’s entirely your own fault if you get left with a useless tech.  I will only become a fan of techs when we get specific pieces to represent the new units, as I don’t like having to remember who has what.

Whatever.  It’s STILL a question of dumb luck IF you get the tech.  There is absolutely no skill involved in rolling a “6”.

@newpaintbrush:

1.  Delayed tech is a big change, not ‘minor’ at all.

2.  Tech isn’t unbalancing.  A good part of the game is about taking risks.

Tech allows for more depth to the game.  The same old grind into the Pacific or northern Europe/Africa gets, well, old.

Those who complain about the dice being too big a factor in the outcome of A&A games should be the ones most against using tech.  Tech is pure, unadultered dumb luck and very little to do with skill.  If you get lucky and get the right tech, you have a big advantage over your opponents.  If you get bad luck, you get stuck with something useless or, worse yet, nothing at all for your trouble and IPCs spent.  Tech should have been eliminated when they came out with revised.  It did not work well in Classic (which is why NO ONE played tournaments with tech) and still sucks in Revised.  It sure hasn’t done you any good in our game, NPB.

Or an even better solution – just get rid of tech altogether!  It just unbalances the game, mostly.

@Jennifer:

IPM isn’t the same in revised as classic.  IPM in revised still makes you think about what route you want to take, how to coordinate with allies, etc.

In classic, you just pushed for Karelia then game over.  You either got it before Berlin fell, or you lost E. Europe.  Boring game after you do that a few dozen times.

Against a good Allied player, you are correct, Jen.  However, I played a game of Classic against a friend who kept buying tanks as Russia and, guess what, I took and HELD Ukraine.  And THAT was game over.  :-D

@ncscswitch:

Back to straight IPM…

One of the biggest things that detracts from a straight IPM is not just the extra DISTANCE to Moscow, but the extra German territories to DEFEND.

In Classic you have 4 territories to hold:  Western, Germany, Southern, and Eastern, and you have nearly all of Germany’s IPC’s secured.  In Revised, to hold the same geography, you have to hold SIX territories instead of 4.  And you only get an economic boost of $5 in order to accomplish it.

That forces Germany into a trade mentality instead of the more static IPM of Classic.  Adding that fluidity to the Russian Front instead of the knock-down drag out stack versus stack of Eastern/Karelia makes for a VERY different game, and a much greater reliance on German AND Russian offensive power.  Fine tuning the balance of punch forces becomes the key to victory… preserving air power, the right combination of ART/ARM with your INF…

INF is still probably the single most important unit in Europe, but gone are the days of it being the PREDOMINANT unit in Europe.

And as that “trade” mentality settles in to a Axis Classic player as they change to revised, their is one other massive change that a German player has to realize…  German Navy is no longer a suicide force that you hope takes enemy with you as you die, it is now a key element to your economic and strategic advances in Europe.

36 IPC buy is no longer an automatic 12 INF.  It MAY be.  But more often than not it will be a MIXED buy to include other units:  ground air and even the occasional NAVAL buy.

And for that reason, I view Revised as being a hell of a lot more fun, because even after 48 games on here, there is still something totally new in every single game.

I basically agree with everything you said, Switch.  Nicely put.

@Magister:

[DarthMaximus said]
I think IPM is still valid.
Simply put if you are buying 10 inf (30 ipc) per turn it is going to take your opponent at least 40 ipc to defeat you.

Right, it’s mostly about how Defender’s advantage changed from Classic to Revised. The addition of arty decreased it.
I define here Defender’s advantage as the ratio of IPC costs for attacker to be ‘equivalent’ to defender (both grind to zero with average luck). Any better for one side gets a cascading victory.

Pure infantry is still the best at pure defender.
Inf vs inf: the advantage is ~1.41 (SQRT 2) from Lanchester’s theory. Would need slightly more than 14 inf to defeat 10 inf. And this is mutual - if the other side wants to attack the 14 inf, they would need 20 inf. A mutual advantage of 2 x.

A simple mix to defeat pure inf would be Inf+Arty in equal proportions.
5 inf+5 arty (35 IPC) are exactly equal to 10 inf defending (30 IPC). Each unit hits at 2.
The defender’s advantage would be 35/30 = 1.166 x.

Actually, the optimal mix for large attacking forces would be in the proportion of 60% inf, 30% arty, 10% tanks (calculated with a detailed, mathematically quite ugly model). 6+3+1 would cost the same 35IPC.
I’ve tested on simulators, for large forces (30+15+5) this is very slightly better than 25 inf 25 arty. But 6 inf 3 arty 1 tnk is very slightly worse than 5inf 5 arty to attack 10 inf (or 5 inf 5 arty). In general, most optimization problems have a ‘flat optimum zone’ around which small variations in decision result in extremely small variations in value.

If opposed by a similar force, the 50-50-0 force would have no defender’s advantage. The two forces each would cost 35 IPC and fight the same. On defence, the 6+3+1 would be a bit superior due to the 3 firepower of tank. (Roughly like 0.5 inf more, but without its staying power).

This has been posted before in one form or another.  This argument only works in a vacuum, however, where you can assume the attacker will be facing the exact same defenders in any situation and it is only a question of which mix of attackers to bring to the battle.  However, this analysis completely overlooks (or cannot effectively take into account) the blitzing ability of tanks!!!  The fact that tanks purchased the turn AFTER the infantry stack leaves Germany, for example, can still participate in an assault on Moscow makes the comparison particularly difficult.  In other words, it’s not a question of x amount of artillery/infantry vs. x amount of tanks/infantry, but x amount of artillery/infantry vs. x + y amount of tanks/infantry.  In addition, the defender mix is different because, whereas tanks take two turns to reach Moscow, infantry and artillery take four, so that the stack in Russia faced by the tank stack is TWO TURNS SMALLER IN BUILDS than the stack in Russia faced by the infantry/artillery stack, which arrives two turns later.

Thus, while ratios are interesting, I think their application in a real game setting is very limited, for the reasons mentioned above and others.

@newpaintbrush:

@Gamer:

But unlike in Classic, I think there are effective counters to the IPM.

By “effective counter”, do you imply that there is a strategy that renders IPM - ALL VERSIONS of IPM - ineffective?

zomg

:-o

I wouldn’t go so far as to say it will be ineffective in all instances.  I would say merely that the IPM is not the unbeatable strategy that it was in Classic.  There are counters that will work, depending on your skill and luck.  That was not the case in Classic – if the Allies went IPM, they pretty much won, every time, barring crazy dice.

It’s good to see all this discussion about the IPM in response to my article.  I am glad to see this is a topic of interest to others besides myself.  :-)

In response to some of the comments, I agree, as I said in the article, that infantry are still an important buy as cheap defense and cheap cannon fodder.  But as DM noted, buying basically all infantry is not a MUST strategy as it was in Classic.  You have many other options that can and will work.  But unlike in Classic, I think there are effective counters to the IPM.  For example, if the Axis go slow with IPM, they risk giving the Allies too much time to get the “shuck” going and reinforcing Russia to the point of being unconquerable.

The key points are:
1.  The Revised map – fronts are far more fluid than they were in Revised.
2.  IC limits – you can’t buy all infantry in Germany unless your economy is at 30 or below (you have to split it with Southern Europe, assuming you hold it)
3.  Tanks are now better at defense – so they are now a better offensive buy AND a very good defensive buy.

So go IPM if you like, but you don’t have to.

Frood Bid #29739.  You should have the email.

Jenn – I will play you – league?  non-league?  NA?  Take your pick.  :-)

Linkon,

A nice article overall.  I have a few points in response:

@Linkon:

Reinforcements are never allowed into newly taken territory.

I am not sure if you are referring to OOB rules, but under LHTR, this is not true.  The only restriction under LHTR is that you cannot move forces in noncombat into “hostile” territories, which includes territories with no military units but which are enemy-controlled.  A newly-conquered territory is, by definition, NOT enemy controlled.  So you CAN hold back some forces to see how your attack goes and, if it goes well enough and you take the territory with sufficient survivors, you can then move in reinforcements in noncombat.  If the battle went badly, then you obviously would not move more units into a dead zone.

A second point is that strafing can also be successful when used in “tag-team” fashion.  For example, Britain attacks Eastern Europe to soften it up so that Russia can finish off the stack on its turn.  That can be a very effective strategy, especially for the Allies, who seldom have large enough stacks in one countries’ colors to challenge an Axis stack, but through “tag-teaming” can inflict serious damage.

Finally, I do not agree 100% with your comment about amphibious attacks.  Yes, you cannot retreat the land units, but frequently, you need to “strafe” Western Europe or even Germany with England before finishing it off with American forces, even though that means you cannot retreat the British land units.  You hopefully will be able to retreat the air units in time, and if the odds suggest your air will not escape certain destruction, then it is either (1) too early for that attack, or (2) Germany is so close to falling anyway that it doesn’t matter if you lose your airforce.

So don’t rule out amphibious strafe attacks, especially toward the end of the game.

England also has pieces spread out all over the map, so it’s better to have one player focused solely on England and it’s pieces to keep them moving in the right direction.

@newpaintbrush:

It’s radio controlled.  Think of the possibilities.

Come to think of it, that whole “infantry push mechanic” . . . just what are you trying to get at, Gamer?

Snicker  Umm, no comment.  :oops: :-D

Hey Jenn, I found a long . . . pointed . . . muscular . . . war vessel . . . that’s SIX FEET LONG!!!

Check out this link:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=9823.0;topicseen

ROFL!

@Jennifer:

@ncscswitch:

All she was missing was “hard” in that description for it to mean something COMPLETELY different…   :evil:

I purposely omitted it in a thinly veiled attempt to not turn the board into an X-Rated chat. =P

I’m afraid that ship sailed long ago, missy . . . .  :lol: :lol: :lol:

@newpaintbrush:

@Gamer:

@ncscswitch:

The secret to guaranteed victory:

R1:
With $24 to spend…
1 Battleship

I’ve always wanted to do that, LOL!!!

Hey, you can do it in our game.

So are we playing or what?  You never responded to my last PM?!

@ncscswitch:

The secret to guaranteed victory:

R1:
With $24 to spend…
1 Battleship

I’ve always wanted to do that, LOL!!!

@newpaintbrush:

My view on infantry:

You’ve got a 40% minimum discount on casualties.  Infantry have logistic problems, but that 40% is very attractive.

That is, an infantry costs only 60% of the cost of a tank (so 40% off).  Of course, for other units like artillery or fighters, the cost of an infantry is proportionately less.

(pushes infantry) whee!  :-D

BIG STACKS OF INFANTRY

HAWT.

That’s assuming you have the time . . . when my big stack of armor is sitting in Moscow, then 40% of nothing is still nothing!  :-D

@ncscswitch:

Another factor that played heavilly into the change of the IPM is the increase of ARM’s defenseive value to 3.  In Classic, with ARM defending the same as INF, ARM was a horrid buy defensively.  But in Revised, ARM now serves as an “anchor” to an INF stack on defense (soemthign that was only possible with 12 IPC FIGs in Classic) to increase the defensive punch value of a stack.

So, unlike in Classic where Tanks were only an OFFENSIVE buy, in Revised they are both an offensive AND defensive buy.

Switch – good point!  :-)  Which I made in my other article . . .  :-D