@juliusborisovbeamdog
You are welcome. I cannot and do not expect that you monitor this forum 24/7. 😄

Unfortunately, it’s a known issue, and there is no way to resolve this. If this is a custom game (and you haven’t timed out yet), please tell me your Commander Name, ID, and the game’s title, and we’ll nuke it.

@juliusborisovbeamdog Alaskabeachboy, #2119, Dirkstir’s Game.

Some posters on Discord are saying how the Allies player counters Japan’s invasion of Alaska is dependent on “player level”. Sure.

But magical abilities are being ascribed, and it should be understood there is no magic.

For example, I read a “top level” player will supposedly “defend” Alaska. How, exactly? When, exactly? Is it magic?

The first post is to players that already have a very good grasp of what’s going on, telling them this is the timing, the timing shift, the opportunity cost, and so on.

This post is more basic.

Assuming Germany doesn’t have early advantageous dice against USSR (or other disasters), assuming Germany is not in a position to dash forwards and crush Moscow before the Allies can really do anything, the game takes a slower pace. Germany and Japan build up and move towards Moscow; UK and US carry out their own development.

But let’s give some concrete numbers. Suppose Japan decides to attack Alaska early. Why would Japan do this? If the US player was very silly, and only then. Generally at the end of J1, Japan should have made whatever opportunistic attacks to start choking USSR’s income. Every unit sent to Alaska is a unit not sent to Asia, and any units Japan dumps to Asia next turn from the Alaska transports will have to be to Buryatia or Manchuria, which is far from India; India has an existing industrial complex that UK uses to disrupt the Axis, and controlling that industrial complex is a big boost to Japan. For reasons I shall not get into at this time.

So the only reason why Japan should hit Alaska J1 or J2 (or generally early), considering it detracts from the basic Axis strategy, considering it detracts from what is normally one of the Axis’ stronger tactical focuses - is if Japan does better to hit Alaska somehow. Which amounts to US overextension. Which shouldn’t happen.

So Japan should not invade Alaska early, unless Allies are super unlucky or super bad. Or unless the Japan player just wants to have fun; games don’t have to be about “winning” or “losing”.

==

What about late in the game? Supposing the Allies go KGF?

We must first talk about tanks and opportunity costs. Suppose US buys tanks. A single transport can transport, say, two infantry, or an infantry and a tank. Though tanks are expensive, they can blitz (probably useless if dropped on France but whatever), and they are more efficient defenders than infantry. So should we expect that the US has lots of tanks? Probably not. Because infantry are much cheaper than tanks, and we may expect that the US will use IPCs to buy more transports and infantry.

But there are other reasons to buy tanks, specifically, tanks on Western US defend Western US and threaten Alaska. Tanks on Eastern Canada are ready for US’s usual KGF transport routes and also threaten Alaska.

Then there’s also certain things about timings at Finland. But suffice to say that building a heavy tank force is quite expensive, and though I expect US to build a few tanks, I don’t expect heavy investment.

Yes, three paragraphs to go over things that veteran players already know very well. I did mention this post is more basic.

Those things said, what can we reasonably expect of a Japan to Alaska invasion? Let’s say reasonable worst case.

REASONABLE WORST CASE, JAPAN TO ALASKA

In KGF (if KJF, then Japan hitting Alaska is opportunistic / “best chance”. After Japan takes India (before capturing India, Japan needs its transports to speed attacks on India. Even afterwards, one or two transports may be used for Africa and/or Australia.) US has a few tanks East Canada.

All makes sense? This is as bad as it gets for Japan hitting Alaska. But let’s throw in a few more things that we also know, if we think about it.

Japan isn’t making good progress supporting Germany in Europe. (If Japan were doing great with Germany, who cares about Alaska, just smash Moscow and win). Germany’s position isn’t hopeless, or near hopeless. It just needs a “little more”.

Okay. Now let’s say Japan dumps 2 units to Alaska, 4 units, basically a distraction. This is not the supposed “hard counter” that a lot of players are talking about on Discord. It’s just Japan saying “hi”, now Japan is +2, US is -2.

Now what is the magical defense?

Obviously if US has a pile of infantry on West Canada, then US smashes Japan in Alaska and sits there, and Japan can’t really do much about it. (Remember, we expect Japan to have 8-12 ground on the followup, plus up to six fighters, a bomber, two battleship and a cruiser support shots, plus maybe some more air power, who knows.)

Well, if US was sitting on a huge chunk of infantry on West Canada, then let’s really think on it. Somehow, the Axis are not doing particularly well, despite the US holding back a huge chunk of income on a threat that Japan never even needed to commit to? Then why are the Axis generally doing not so hot in Europe?

You see the magic? Where did this perfect defense materialize from? It comes from the assumption that somehow the Allies are basically already winning.

But let’s make it a little less magical, you say? Let’s say there is a small infantry reserve on West Canada? Well, that infantry reserve will get blown up by Japan’s counter. So really, US needs a lot on West Canada. That’s just how it is.

But US can use fighters against Alaska? Most of US fighters are in or near Europe. They simply haven’t the range.

Bombers? Again, out of range.

But the US fighters and bombers are NOT out of range, one claims, if they are held back? True, but then we again have the situation where US is pre-emptively holding back counter forces, and considerable forces at that, against a potential Japanese invasion.

We need more magic!

Then let’s say US responds late to Japan’s attack. That is, Japan secures Alaska on the initial or the followup.

Then everything I wrote in the initial post is true; Japan threatens multiple locations with a single stack of units; US must pull multiple defenses or come out the loser, Axis units that would not be really relevant until a few turns in suddenly become immediately relevant.

This is just the numbers. The situation. The timing. The logistics. No magic involved.

Japan to Alaska isn’t about some poorly considered premature invasion that pulls away from Axis strategic and tactical goals.

Nor is Japan to Alaska about some late game Hail Mary, trying to brute-force some solution. This is what some posters are saying on Discord, but it’s not about that at all. It’s about pulling a US response, where US wants to invest more in the defense than Japan needs to on the offense, because US wants local superiority of force, Japan gains income from invasion while US is merely reclaiming, and US cannot really afford to lose, given the multiple threat development of Japan.

If US does not respond to the threat with sufficient force (including taking reasonable chances and getting unlucky), then Japan captures Western US. That shouldn’t happen, but Japan may still fuel its invasion with traded territory income. But those are both actually silly scenarios. What probably happens is, US responds “late” (if not, then US was paying an opportunity cost for a threat that never needed to materialize), then US has to keep shoveling resources into repelling the threat, then after Japan switches back to Asia, US’s logistics chains are inefficient for some time while US readjusts, and the majority Allied stack holder may be severely disrupted at least.

@juliusborisovbeamdog
Thanks heaps perfect timing I’m away from home and excited to carry on those games.

Your a star.

@panther @hush Please open a ticket at support.beamdog.com in the Account support with all the info, and I’ll handle it.

@jjwp Hello! Please open a ticket at support.beamdog.com with these details (in the Account support section), and we’ll solve this for you.

hey Someguy

This is just me commiserating more then helping, 🙂

but i can add sending 3 subs, 1 cruiser, 2 planes against a rus sub, 1 destroyer and 1 battleship and transport. and Britain keeps the battleship and transport.

Generally though if your opponent takes stupid risks they will keep taking stupid risks with all nations they are playing. it might pay off once against Germany but fail catastrophically against Japan.

I would recommend hanging around a few turns, underdog come back wins might be rare but they are the most satisfying by far.

@tenshi Done!

Axis & Allies 1942 Online on iOS will now use Minimal High Quality Sprites by default: only unit icon sprites will be used on the game & combat boards. The setting (which players can find & tweak to their liking in Graphics -> Image Content And Resolution) will hopefully mitigate black screens and constant reloading. The Use Minimal Resources setting will also cause no animations and unit icon sprites only, but at a lower resolution than default

https://steamcommunity.com/games/898920/announcements/detail/3364767712082060600

Please update your game and let us know about your experience.

We have made the app available for sale in the App Store so our existing users can get the update. We will remove it from sale again at 2:00 PM MST. As always, you’ll be able to update the game AT ANY TIME per these instructions:
https://beamdog.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/3/article/2655584284?src=397544773

@juliusborisovbeamdog thank you alot! 🙂 We sure will have a lot of fun!
In the next weeks, I probably will dive deep into strategy discussions. 😄

@taamvan Thanks for the update. Sounds like progress. Fingers crossed.

@juliusborisovbeamdog
Thank you for the info!

@djensen That would have been a great idea, as well as some communication with your players. I picked up up 4 auto forfeits, including two games that had been going on for 10 days. Totally done. I just want my time back.

@juliusborisovbeamdog Oh sorry we just forfeited the game after another day and started over.

@bob-loblaw

Re: “ussr will have 2 aa guns, 3 tanks, 2 art, 5 inf normally in west russia (sometimes 6 or 4 inf)”, “attack Baltic states, belorussia, and West Russia”, “ussr Baltic opener . . . two of them have >90% chance of victory (3 inf, 1 tank, 1 fighter vs 3 inf) and (8 inf, 3 tanks, 2 artillery vs 3 inf 1 art 1 tank).”

. . . and 1 inf 1 art 1 fig vs 1 inf 1 tank at Baltic States, I assume.

Superficially, the numbers seem to check out. But take a good hard look at the numbers, and not just the net IPC changes, but the resulting positions, counters, and followups remembering dice variance.

Saying you’ll have 5 infantry at West Russia? Reasonable, but not something to depend on. Sometimes 6? If you get lucky. Sometimes 4? Perhaps, but also you might see 3, 2, or less.

And what happens in case of cascade failure? Suppose you do a bit badly at West Russia. You’re prepared for that? But suppose you also do badly at Belorussia. Now Germany has more to counter with, and there’s nothing USSR can do about it once the triple has been committed to.

Nothing can counter super bad dice, but a Ukr/W Rus open is slightly less vulnerable.

"I doubt a smart player would . . . "

You really think Germany would hesitate to destroy both USSR’s AA guns, three tanks, and two artillery, and cut off UK fighters flying from London to West Russia, along with a possible G1 tank build for quick early pressure and possibly even a J1 Manchuria IC to pump tanks on the timing - along with G2 starting with control of Karelia?

“a retreat after round 1”

Instead of assuming Germany stupidly overcommits tanks and loses them to an easy counter that can’t be punished, or assuming Germany needlessly exposes air to AA guns, how about assuming Germany correctly calculates the balance of ground and air that has about a 85%+ probability to capture West Russia and destroy all USSR’s valuable ground units? Not overkill, not underkill, but just about right, and if the attack on West Russia isn’t favorable then of course Germany doesn’t hit that and goes to Caucasus - but again, Germany doesn’t overcommit.

You’re assuming Germany does a 1-turn attack into West Russia then retreats after exposing German air to AA fire, without Germany even attempting to blow up USSR’s valuable tanks. What was it you were just saying about smart players? So it won’t just be a 1-turn attack, right?

“so you prefer Germany can put 5 tanks and 9 inf in Karelia”

Let’s not get sidetracked. There’s a lot that could be said about R1, G1, builds, attacks, counters, contingencies, percentages - but suffice to say I don’t say Ukr/W Rus is SAFE (in fact, I don’t think it IS, and that’s one of the reasons I push for preplaced bid which the developers won’t do but eh whatever).

But I do think Ukr / W Rus open has better outcomes than a triple open.

As to “you prefer Germany can put 5 tanks and 9 inf in Karelia”, do you think there’s a perfect answer? What would that be?

You do R1 tank build and retreat tanks from Ukraine for a heavy R1 counter to Karelia? Even then, how do you answer G1 tanks mobilized on Berlin? I don’t say G1 super heavy tank build, but just say Germany sticks two tanks on Berlin. Pretty good odds that means G2 captures and secures Karelia, especially if Japanese fighters are in range, which they may well be. But then you do an attack/retreat into Karelia to strain German logistics? Very well, then on G1 Germany sees USSR lined up with that mighty counter and instead just doesn’t do a heavy push to Karelia, then Germany captures and holds Karelia on G2.

Plainly, I’m saying if the Axis player is competent, Allies won’t have easy answers. Won’t matter if it’s USSR triple open or Ukr/West Russia, it won’t be easy. If it were, wouldn’t be much of a game.

If you want to go into R1 W Rus/Ukr open and the Karelia game, let’s have that discussion, but that’s a thread of itself.

“med fleet . . . allows uk fleet in India to . . . nearly impossible to take Egypt in (g2)”

I believe this is another topic better covered in another thread.

But I will say, before starting another thread, think on it a moment. If Germany’s about to smash the **** out of Europe, it doesn’t need to push in Africa, and there’s a decent chance something like that gets lined up after a USSR triple open. Also, you’re not considering what happens if Germany lands a chunk of air in Africa, and of course why would you because you probably don’t see it much. And maybe you’ll pull the ‘UK builds an Atlantic fleet if Germany puts fighters in Africa’ and I’ll shrug and say I don’t care because if UK dropped a carrier and a fighter I’ll reposition air on G2 (even better if I have the bomber) and blow up UK’s fleet at low cost to German air if they dare to drop, and if they stand off then I’ll just continue shenanigans in Europe. Then you can come back and say something else and I’ll say something else and that’s how it goes. But on balance, the question is what is gained and what is lost?

“not destroying the fighter in egypt . . . sz 37”

You want to roll the dice on UK1 vs Japan’s East Indies fleet, go for it. I think it’s a bad deal. Which is another thread.

Yes yes, you have ideas and you won’t be dissuaded, and that’s fine. Either you’ll try it over and over and fail when you come up against decent competition and you’ll change your mind, or you’ll try it against decent competition and win and maybe do a writeup and I’ll change my mind. But either way we’re not there right now.

But before you get into future writeups:

I don’t worry too much about IPC swings. I tend to think about things in terms of unit counts, positions opening up, and other less-tangibles. Yes, keeping an eye on IPC changes is important, but it’s definitely not the only thing to keep an eye on by far.

Don’t just think about 95% or whatever. Think about the resulting position. Think about the opportunity costs. Think about dice swings. Cascade failure. Concentration of force versus spreading out.

It is not safe to assume an opponent will not attack because of negative IPC expectation. No, really.

http://calc.axisandallies.org/?mustland=0&abortratio=0&saveunits=0&strafeunits=0&aInf=3&aArt=&aArm=1&aFig=1&aBom=&aTra=&aSub=&aDes=&aCru=&aCar=&aBat=&adBat=&dInf=3&dArt=&dArm=&dFig=&dBom=&dTra=&dSub=&dDes=&dCru=&dCar=&dBat=&ddBat=&ool_att=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Sub-SSub-Des-Fig-JFig-Cru-Bom-HBom-Car-dBat-Tra&ool_def=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Bom-HBom-Sub-SSub-Des-Car-Cru-Fig-JFig-dBat-Tra&battle=Run&rounds=&reps=10000&luck=pure&ruleset=AA1942&territory=&round=1&pbem=

At Belorussia you look at 3 inf 1 tank 1 fighter vs 3 inf, see 95% win, looks super good, right? But actually it’s not that hot, as the above link and some thinking shows.

4.58% no attackers survive (disaster)
5.56% attacking fighter survives (lost 15 IPCs of units for 9 IPCs of units and didn’t gain any income from capturing territory. Unless you want to lose the fighter, which is amazesauce for Germany so I assume you don’t do that.)

(Calculation aids state 5% loss. But there are different degrees of loss; here there’s at least a 10% of a strictly unfavorable outcome. That’s one thing players using aids often may miss.)

15.1% attacking tank and fighter survive. Which is where the situation becomes barely tolerable; at least you capture the territory and trade off 9 IPCs of attackers for 9 IPCs of defenders. But the tank is lost on the counter.

But what happens after the German counter? Pretty good chance that 6 IPC tank dies in exchange for perhaps a German infantry. Let’s say the tank has 2/3 chance to destroy a 3 IPC infantry (I know tanks hit 1/2 the time, but let’s just use 2/3 for Reasons), so USSR expects to gain 2 IPC from possibly destroying a German infantry, 2 IPC from the territory, meaning net gain 4 IPC in exchange for a 6 IPC tank.

Yes, USSR does have positional considerations that offset the 2 IPC difference, but the positional pressure isn’t all that great. Germany has much better options when USSR is spread thin, and if as already mentioned there’s some level of cascade failure then USSR will be in big trouble.

Now let’s look at West Russia.

http://calc.axisandallies.org/?mustland=0&abortratio=0&saveunits=0&strafeunits=0&aInf=8&aArt=2&aArm=3&aFig=&aBom=&aTra=&aSub=&aDes=&aCru=&aCar=&aBat=&adBat=&dInf=3&dArt=1&dArm=1&dFig=&dBom=&dTra=&dSub=&dDes=&dCru=&dCar=&dBat=&ddBat=&ool_att=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Sub-SSub-Des-Fig-JFig-Cru-Bom-HBom-Car-dBat-Tra&ool_def=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Bom-HBom-Sub-SSub-Des-Car-Cru-Fig-JFig-dBat-Tra&battle=Run&rounds=&reps=10000&luck=pure&ruleset=AA1942&territory=&round=1&pbem=

Let’s say 20.22% for 4 inf 2 art 3 tank 2 AA or less. Reasonably likely, and I’ll use 4 inf 2 art 3 tank 2 AA as the baseline. Germany’s counter is up to 3 inf 1 art 3 tank 4 fighter 1 bomber, without giving up attacking the UK battleship/destroyer.

https://aacalc.freezingblue.com/?rules=1942&battleType=land&roundCount=all&attInfantry=3&attArtillery=1&attTank=3&attFighter=4&attBomber=1&defInfantry=4&defArtillery=2&defTank=3&defAAGun=2

But also G1 capture of West Russia prevents Allied fighters from landing on, keeping it in play.

If you’re thinking “nah, Germany needs to maintain its air force to threaten Atlantic shipping” - as I’ve written in other threads, I use Japanese air for that when going anti-KGF. Germany still does well to have some air, the more the better, but smashing all USSR’s tanks and preventing fortification of West Russia? Maybe that’s only 20% to have favorable odds of all that following a USSR triple open as was described, but that’s still more than the odds Germany has against a Ukr/W Rus open.

@barnee I would recommend watching this video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=446952789235203

Also, try the in-game tutorial and read through in-game help articles.

Attention commanders! Do you want to test your mettle and compete with the best Axis and Allies players? Announcing the 6th Axis and Allies 1942 Online community Discord solos tournament - all skill levels welcome! The format will be FIFA World Cup style: group stage followed by a single-elimination bracket. Prior winners include some of the best players on the A&A Online leaderboard: Quintin, Elrav, COW, Davinator.

Join the tournament, engage in the Discord participant banter and watch marquee match showcases.

Details and sign-ups on Discord: https://discord.gg/9qMjufc

While we understand your frustration from combat with bad results for your power, we would like to forward you to these threads:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/898920/discussions/0/3186862118573965934/?fbclid=IwAR3W6LmvQVFRKkCPcPMtme2Vl2UY7DAp5Q7IgVSZZ3sKk79RfODxGQPUbIw

https://steamcommunity.com/app/898920/discussions/0/3186862118580593607/?fbclid=IwAR0uNm1gAkiy37tfvJv3LKX3kdLZ-j4_e51O378AGCFVPTTOqNgWBdJD0rE

If random dice feels like too much a challenge or unfair to you, please play with Low Luck.

Having played the classic edition back in the day, the wild swingyness of the dice mechanic was always a bone of contention. A lot of board wargamers dismissed it as a kids game because luck was such a big factor, I always appreciated the unpredictability.

There are basically two types of wargamer, or two ends of an axis we all lie on. Some treat these games as puzzles to solve, to find the ‘right’ tactic or the perfects strategy. Then there are those that like having to think on their feet and adapt to the situation as it unfolds.

A&A in all its forms has always been a game for the latter group. Yes you need to strategise, but you need to hedge your bets, have a backup plan, adapt creatively to unexpected reverses. That’s the fun of it.

As for randomness, if you randomly generate points on an x/y graph, you’ll quickly notice that the points tent to form clumps and little chains. Truly random distributions are not smooth or evenly distributed. Humans are hard wired to see and create patterns. We’re truly awful at generating random numbers ‘by hand’ and also terrible and judging whether a range of numbers are random or not. There’s been bags of research on this. I play role-playing games so Ive rolled huge numbers of dice and seen some amazing runs of luck, disastrous bad luck and just numerically weird looking results. That’s just randomness for you. I’ve had this argument with gamers ‘proving’ that particular outcomes were almost impossible. Yes. All the possible outcomes are almost impossible, when you roll enough dice. They’re all equally unlikely. That’s the point.

@juliusborisovbeamdog 🙂 Very cool

https://www.gog.com/news/release_axis_allies_1942_online

@topernicus Hello! We don’t have it in the works, but now you can go to your Profile - Game History and observe finished games from turn 1 until the end.