How to know when to buy air as Germany

It’s not cost-efficient to buy equal numbers of inf art and arm.  A better working ratio would be 6:1:2.5.  However, buys depend on the situation–sometimes you will want all armor!  It’s better to be flexible and adapt your buys to the game then stick to a pre-established ratio.   Also, if you buy air for Germany then less need to buy art.

Air pays because its dual-use–buying air forces UK to buy more ships while you use the air to wear down Russia.

G1 seems like a good time to buy a plane.  2 bombers on G1 has worked well, but lately I just buy 1.  The main objective is to deadzone all the zones UK could place ships in, but naturally the bombers can be used for all manner of mischief.

Whether or not Germany should continue buying planes after G1…good question.  There are plenty of good reasons to continue buying figs or bmbs, but who knows if its not more efficient to invest in infantry and armor.

Planes are a better value for Axis in AA42 than in Revised.  Some reasons for this are transports have no defensive value, and aas don’t shoot at flyovers.

The classic buy R1 with gerrys is: bmb, 2tnk, 6inf. There is not much to add to the brilliant explantaion of Zhuk. You make UK/US worried about their ships while you have easy time trading with russians. Depending the agressivity of russians i might even buy 2bmb. I do if russia does only WR.

I am really not happy Germany player before I have 3 bmbs plus 6 figs. I also try to preserve the 2 German subs starting SZ5 as long as possible. I move SZ7 R1 and possibly SZ13 R2 and might even move them SZ 14 later on id my bb still lives. I really do not like to buy ships with germany, although there might be special cases when i do. But I am really trying not to lose my ships willingly.

They may be key to 1/ keeping Africa longer, 2/ Slowing the US/UK which are the keys for keeping Allies from Berlin long enough for Japan to take down Moscow.

I won my first league game after my 6figs, 3bmbs and 2 subs took down an immense American fleet including 8 trannies SZ8, causing the harm of 140 IPCs. I am not that proud of it because it was a risk  (70-30 to win) i need not to take, but hey, it still shows what the luftwaffe and u-boots can do.

So in principle it is really a good investment to buy approx. a plane a round especially if you can preserve some of your ships at the same time. I am esspecially eager to preserve the med bb. There is a special science about sinking it and also about keeping it alive. It is in fact worthy its own thread. The BB, can do miracles for Axis in fact. Like this: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=22516.0.

@Speusippus:

Regarding optimal ratios, everything’s situational of course, I was just saying the 1:1:1 ratio is what I generally shoot for when I’m advancing my troops forward.

If you are looking to advance your position then the best buy is a 2:1 or even a 3:1 of inf/arm, with the occasional artillery thrown in to use the spare IPC. A 1:1:1 ratio is not cost effective since the infantry will be reduced by casualties and afterwards the enemy can kill your tanks while losing only infantry. And the more you advance the more the infantry numbers will be reduced.

If you want to advance buy tons of infantry first, then start adding some tanks. The sooner you get a pile of infantry moving the better, and tanks can afterwards use their movement to join the stack.

I rarely purchase airforce for Germany.  If you place the planes correctly however they can have a negative impact on the allies.  In theory, a well position German plane in WEu can hit 2 fleets most of the time and possibly 3 if the allies are shucking into Africa, and possibly more if its a bomber, moreover, it prevents the allies from having lone transports floating around the atlantic.  The fact the allies have to defend against 1 bomber in 3 places at once, the threat often means a 2-3 times IPC advantage axis as the allies must defend against it.  However, with fortress europe it seems the Japs are the ones who can afford it while Germany really needs ground units to defend it coast and threaten the russians.  Mind you lots of allied fleet defense in the form of fighters on carriers also has a multiply effect as they can attack several territories for which you have to defend multiple locations from each plane.

Now against defensive land forces, what would you rather have, 4 infantry and a 2 fighters or 4 infantry 2 tanks and 1 fighter.  You need a few planes to trade lightly defended territories yes, but other than that, you need more punch in the form of more land units that are cheap.  By adding 2 tanks over 1 plane, the required defense against your punch is larger and you can tie up larger forces with your IPCs.

@Speusippus:

Your ratio (6:1:2.5) gives 9.5 hit points with an attack value of 16.5. My ratio (1:1:1) gives 8.7 hit points with an attack value of 20.8 for the same amount of IPC. Vs my ratio, yours gives 4/5 more hitpoints at the cost of about 2/3 of a kill. It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish exactly, and I’m not sure how to weigh hit points against attack value in general, but I don’t think either of those is clearly any more optimal than the other. I guess against smaller armies with more powerful units (fighter heavy for example) 6:1:2.5 might be a little better, while 1:1:1 might be a little better against larger army with weaker units (infantry heavy for example)?

I’m not sure I follow your math exactly but when you take ratios into account, you need to be thinking about the infantry you will lose on defense, and in trades.  You want to get the most defensive efficiency for your $.  So a sound working ratio will not overbuy art, since art is not efficient on defense, and is only efficient on offense insofar as there are sufficient infantry to support them.

I believe the most cost efficient inf/art ratio for offense is around 2:1, but in practice you want a considerably higher ratio for an advancing army because you want plenty of inf for defensive fodder and you already have tanks and fighters for offensive trading punch.

So if you are prepping for a big attack on a capital then surely 2:1 is better than 6:1 if you can swing it….but 6:1 is a better estimate of what the Germans will require turn by turn, on offense and defense, advancing and retreating.

Hobbes is wise to favor tanks over art–more mobility and better defense.   Since Germany starts with plenty of air and armor and usually buys even more…only minimal artillery purchases are needed–some experts buy none at all.

Not all players have the same vocab for these factors.

I learned this stuff from the Caspian Sub Papers and for them the relevant terms were 1) count (total number of units involved a battle) 2) punch (total attk or def values) and scew (the degree to which the odds in a battle are likely to change over the course of a battle).  For example, if I attack 2 bbs 1 dd with 4 figs, then the attacker has 4 count, 12 punch and the defender 5 count, 10 punch.  The punch favors the attacker, but the count and the scew favor the defender (the scew is favorable because with average rolls the defender will acquire a punch advan by the 2nd round).  Overall, the defender is more likely to win.

1:1:1 is not optimal, even on offense.

Let’s say you’ve got 4 inf 4 art 4 arm (48) up against 16 inf (48 ipc).  Attacker only wins 14.6%.

I can get 7 inf 3 art 3 arm for the same price.  Not as many attack units, 3 less punch, but the scew and count are more favorable.  With this combo, my odds increase to 16.5%.

Not a huuuggee difference but a palpable one…bottom line is either 2:1 or 3:1 inf/art is closer to optimal efficiency than 1:1 on offense, and on defense there’s no contest which is better.

@Zhukov44:

Not all players have the same vocab for these factors.

Let’s say you’ve got 4 inf 4 art 4 arm (48) up against 16 inf (48 ipc).  Attacker only wins 14.6%.

I can get 7 inf 3 art 3 arm for the same price.  Not as many attack units, 3 less punch, but the scew and count are more favorable.  With this combo, my odds increase to 16.5%.

This is actually a very good AAA puzzle. What is the best skewed 48 IPC unit to get highest possible likelihood of winning, and what are the least IPCs for a unit to win the fight?

Trying to solve that puzzle gives you a clue how great really the Caspian Sub people were in understanding the subleties of the game. The count really is most important. Then comes punch. And then the skew which is almost as important asthe punch in general and even more important then the punch in the big battles lasting many rolls of dice.

So the puzzle is solved I think this way:

It is really funny you most likely stand the best chance if you got 48 IPCs with 9 inf, 4 art, 1 tnk against 16 inf.

And I think the cheapest way to get you over 50 % is: 9inf, 5art, 2tnk: 57 IPC and 55 %. It is also 16 units and only 9 IPCs more.

EDIT: Changed wrong 8 to correct 9, sorry.

57 IPCs is 9 more than 48.  If you change from 9inf, 5art, 2tnk to 13 Inf and 5 Art for 59 IPCs you would consitently get 60-62 win % with 5000 trials.  It looks like a rough 3:1 ratio of Infantry to Artillery with no tanks if the best pure offensive punch against a stack of Infantry.  I`m going to do some trials with 100 defensive Inf to test that theory.

Is this a sign I have too much time on my hands?

I had as my target army 100 Inf.  I started out using a ratio of 8:3 Infantry to Artillery and did runs with 5000 trials.  I then varied the ratios while maintaing the same exact IPC value ratio of 300:310 IPCs defense:attack, my results

Offensive Force Win %
80 Inf+30 Art 64.1, 63.9, 64.8, 64.9, 63.4
76 Inf+33 Art 67.9, 66.6, 66.7, 66.0, 66.5
72 Inf+36 Art 69.8, 68.6, 69.5, 69.4, 69.9

68 Inf+39 Art 70.5, 70.3, 69.9, 70.4, 70.3

64 Inf+42 Art 69.5, 69.5, 69.4, 69.1, 69.5
60 Inf+45 Art 68.2, 68.1, 68.3, 68.8, 68.2
?

So it seems the ratio 68:39 or round it off to 7:4 which is closer to 2:1 than 3:1.

A side note, take the case of:

68 Inf+39 Art 70.5, 70.3, 69.9, 70.4, 70.3

Trade 10 IPC in the form of 2 Inf and 1 Art for 2 tanks.  Run the 5 trials and you get:

66 Inf+38 Art+2 Tanks 70.6, 69.8, 70.2, 70.6, 71.6
64 Inf+37 Art+4 Tanks 70.4, 71.9, 71.4, 69.8, 71.3
62 Inf+36 Art+6 Tanks 70.6, 70.4, 70.7, 71.3, 71.1
60 Inf+35 Art+8 Tanks 70.5, 70.3, 70.5, 70.8, 69.7
58 Inf+34 Art+10 Tanks 70.1, 71.3, 70.5, 70.8, 70.6
56 Inf+33 Art+12 Tanks 69.9, 70.0, 69.5, 69.6, 69.3
54 Inf+34 Art+14 Tanks 69.4, 69.5, 67.8, 69.7, 67.8

It would seem against lots of infantry at least, that attacking with mostly Inf and Art in a ratio of about 7:4 is best.  Having a few tanks doesn’t seem to hurt but as you add more tanks at the cost of Inf+Art your odds of success go down.  At least in this isolated scope!

Malachi

Yeah, did the mental math a bit too quickly.  I ended up with those numbers as it gave good variance for win percentages and not so much a difference in IPC values.

@Granada:

It is really funny you most likely stand the best chance if you got 48 IPCs with 9 inf, 4 art, 1 tnk against 16 inf.

Good catch, 17.5% for 9 inf 4 art 1 arm has a clear edge over the 16.5% for 7 inf 3 art 3 arm.

This would appear to support the idea that approx 2:1 inf/art is the most cost efficient offense available, but of course in practice one wants more inf and arm for defense, flexibility and mobility.  Armor’s offensive value is pretty darn close to inf/art and when you add in its mobility and defensive value, then it gets pretty fuzzy whether armor or inf/art are better choices for offense.  I like that about the game–it would be boring if one unit was dominant or more efficient than the other units.

@MrMalachiCrunch:

Is this a sign I have too much time on my hands?

I had as my target army 100 Inf.  I started out using a ratio of 8:3 Infantry to Artillery and did runs with 5000 trials.  I then varied the ratios while maintaing the same exact IPC value ratio of 300:310 IPCs defense:attack, my results

Offensive Force Win %
80 Inf+30 Art 64.1, 63.9, 64.8, 64.9, 63.4
76 Inf+33 Art 67.9, 66.6, 66.7, 66.0, 66.5
72 Inf+36 Art 69.8, 68.6, 69.5, 69.4, 69.9

68 Inf+39 Art 70.5, 70.3, 69.9, 70.4, 70.3

64 Inf+42 Art 69.5, 69.5, 69.4, 69.1, 69.5
60 Inf+45 Art 68.2, 68.1, 68.3, 68.8, 68.2
?

So it seems the ratio 68:39 or round it off to 7:4 which is closer to 2:1 than 3:1.

A side note, take the case of:

68 Inf+39 Art 70.5, 70.3, 69.9, 70.4, 70.3

Trade 10 IPC in the form of 2 Inf and 1 Art for 2 tanks.  Run the 5 trials and you get:

66 Inf+38 Art+2 Tanks 70.6, 69.8, 70.2, 70.6, 71.6
64 Inf+37 Art+4 Tanks 70.4, 71.9, 71.4, 69.8, 71.3
62 Inf+36 Art+6 Tanks 70.6, 70.4, 70.7, 71.3, 71.1
60 Inf+35 Art+8 Tanks 70.5, 70.3, 70.5, 70.8, 69.7
58 Inf+34 Art+10 Tanks 70.1, 71.3, 70.5, 70.8, 70.6
56 Inf+33 Art+12 Tanks 69.9, 70.0, 69.5, 69.6, 69.3
54 Inf+34 Art+14 Tanks 69.4, 69.5, 67.8, 69.7, 67.8

It would seem against lots of infantry at least, that attacking with mostly Inf and Art in a ratio of about 7:4 is best.  Having a few tanks doesn’t seem to hurt but as you add more tanks at the cost of Inf+Art your odds of success go down.  At least in this isolated scope!

Malachi

It’s interesting that throwing in some tanks didn’t hurt your percentages–64 inf 37 art 4 arm appears to be the most cost efficient package for 310.  Thanks for the analysis…

@Speusippus:

Scew! That’s what I’m missing!

Thanks for explaining this to me.

Np, good questions make for good discussion.  So thank you for posting!

Actually, my math was a bit out, it was 360 IPC worth of offensive equipment not 310.  What I found interesting was the variance between trials where each trial was 5000 runs.  I would have thought the averages would be closer together but I suppose variations of 2% aren’t much with such large forces in the battle.

I was surprised with the tank values.  I started out with the intent to prove tanks were not a good choice for this narrow example but the numbers proved no harm and arguably a slight increase in effectiveness up until a point.

I enjoy the mental exercise examining what works best in particular situations.

NO!  you guys aren’t getting it!
1.  First, this whole thread has been threadjacked from the topic of when to buy German air.  I will continue this evil trend so I can address what I consider a dangerous misconception.  Well, dangerously funny maybe.

2.  Kids . . . don’t plug your brains into calculators.  Use your brains.  That’s what they’re for . . . those lovely plump juicy brains . . . Think about what must be.  Yes, it was correct to think about the relative costs of artillery and tanks, but that was only a SMALL step on a MUCH LONGER ROAD.  Completely ignored was the LOGISTIC and PRACTICAL applications of REAL WORLD SITUATIONS (insofar as a “game” has “real world situations”  :-P

3 LOGISTICS?  Let’s say you have a big fat stack of infantry and artillery, you have more offensive power for your buck.  But in the actual game you don’t just have a fat stack of infantry and artillery slammed up against another fat defensive stack. You have territories in between that must be crossed, and TANKS have an important LOGISTIC advantage in that they MOVE TWO SQUARES.

So if you produce nothing but infantry and artillery, let’s say on round four your attack might be 12 inf 8 artillery.  (68 IPC worth)  But if you do inf/art tanks, on round four your attack might be 9 inf 2 art 10 tanks (85 IPC worth).  All these calculations on whether there is some “ideal” ratio COMPLETELY IGNORE the fact that when you are on the ATTACK, the LOGISTIC POWER of TANKS GREATLY CHANGES THE FORCE YOU CAN BRING TO BEAR.

Furthermore, there IS the fact that tanks CAN move two.  Already said, you say?  But it’s only been mentioned on the attack.  FORWARD progress tends to stall out.  BACKWARDS progress, though, means defense, and that’s something that hasn’t yet been addressed here.

That is, imagine this situation - you have 10 infantry on Berlin, 10 infantry on Eastern Europe, and scattered light forces at Karelia, Belorussia, Ukraine, and Western Europe.  Now drop 16 tanks on Eastern Europe.

With 16 tanks on Eastern Europe, first, there is a fat chunk of units on Eastern Europe that is hard to attack.  So the tanks are acting as defense that protect the flow of German infantry east as well as the 3 IPC Eastern Europe territory.  But also the tanks threaten Western Europe, preventing an Allied landing in force, and threaten to attack through Karelia/Belorussia/Ukraine into any of the key territories of Archangel (where a stack of Germans can prevent Allied landings), Belorussia (where the Allies are forced to choose between Russia and Caucasus), and Caucasus (where there’s an industrial complex).

Compare with a stack of 20 artillery on Eastern Europe.  That won’t help prevent an Allied landing in force on Western Europe, nor does it threaten Archangel, Belorussia, or Ukraine.  Incidentally it also can’t do things like hit Norway when necessary/appropriate.

In other words . . .all this talk about infantry being in a 3 to 1 ratio to artillery, or whatever and whatnot - TRASH!  It’s like you washed up on a deserted island shore, and you have a cookbook that tells you how to make the most delicious duck . . . only you have rocks and pineapples to work with!  What you need is a book that tells you how to use rocks and pineapples for food, shelter, weapons, entertainment, and long-range communications.

I know.  Ducks are smexy.  But you gotta use what you have to work with.  Which means not thinking about those beautiful laboratory conditions that specify 3 to 1 ratios, and working with the real situation.  Or . . . getting a better laboratory that can better describe and approximate real world situations . . . but that would, like, involve work and stuff, and that’s scary.

4 PRACTICAL application - again, using these wonderful JUICY BRAINS . . . probably I will not need to say that on the front lines, artillery are usually “better” than tanks, because they’re cheaper.  When they’re being ground up and thrown on a pile of corpses, you want your casualties to be on the cheap.  But your RESERVES should not be artillery.  Your RESERVES should be smexy wonderful tanks.  Even for seemingly end game situations in which Germany’s been pushed out of Africa, and the Allies have a fat stack on Eastern Europe, tanks have their application - say if Germany takes Western Europe, Balkans, and Southern Europe on its turn, UK can take Western Europe and Balkans on its turn, and HAVING TAKEN BALKANS, US can blitz tanks through Balkans into Southern Europe - but ONLY if US has tanks in the first place!

Okay, having read this wonderful text wall and not having fallen asleep by this point, I suppose I will reward readers with . . . a wonderful real-real-world application!  “Wonderful” being the word my agent’s telling me to use of course.  Buy the book.  Watch the movie.

Anglo-Egypt Sudan!  Yes, in MYSTERIOUS AFRICA, the DARK CONTINENT!

Let’s say on G1 that Russia did Ukraine/West Russia (WHICH IT MAY NOT DO, I KNOW), and that you’ve decided you want to wipe the UK battleship.  So you send sub/fig/bomber there, leaving only a limited amount left for Anglo-Egypt Sudan (AES).  What you got?  You got the Balkans fighter, the inf/tank in Africa, and either inf/tank or inf/art from Southern Europe.  So what should you use, inf/art or inf/tank?

(runs to frood net for calculations)

If you use inf/art, there’s about 91.74% you kill all defenders.  11.12% you lose all attackers, 10.74% you only survive with tank or fighter, 24.22% you keep tank and fighter, 30.66% you keep artillery, tank, and fighter.

If you use inf/tank, you get 91.62% to kill all defenders.  11.14% you lose all attackers, 10.16% you only survive with tank or fighter, 24.14% you keep tank and fighter or two tanks, 31.96% you keep two tanks and fighter.

So everything seems pretty cool right?

BUT WAIT!  (exclamation mark!)

Think about the UK turn.  Probably UK will counter Anglo-Egypt to stop tanks blitzing through Africa.  So if you take inf/tank, probably you will just lose the tank.  Therefore, it’s probably better to use inf/art.  The inf/art will be on the “front lines”, probably being ground up by the UK counter, and inf/art in THIS situation gives decent percentages when compared to inf/tank, so . . . you see?  And the Southern Europe tank can potentially be used to create a hard point at Karelia that Russia won’t be able to attack (depending on the particulars of R1 choices and dice of course).  The artillery from Southern Europe can’t reach Karelia.

(closes book) okay class remember to study study study!  Quiz on Tuesday!