Russian Strategy

@Bashir:

I understood perfectly what you trying to point out, but the point I was making, why do you want to play with these rules? If your are relying on luck you should stick to Risk imho. Axis and Allies was designed as a tactical game and not yatzee… And top notch players know how to handle those kind of strats, if Germany goes for tech, the US will do some tech roles as well, because in no RR no bid games Germany is under a lot of pressure from Russia alone and if they spend money on tech the US can easily spend IPC’s on tech as well (and more than Germany)

The risky Japan moves are quite useless, because you need your navy to assist your ground push in the west. Ok say you want to move your fleet to the atlantic, and Russia attacks Manchuria on R1 and the UK attacks kwantung on U1, you really need your navy to assist taking it back and establish a front in the west.

Your Japanese tech rolls on J3 will make Germany crumble! They will be under a lot of pressure and you are nowhere near Moscow, so again the Allies can easily counter your tech rolls with theirs…

I think with top notch players your winning% will drop below the 5% winning rate you might archieve with the Axis.

LOL… I still don’t think you understand my concept:

My post is about discussing the optimum axis strategy in no bids, no rr.

I’m not arguing whether Axis & Allies should be played with these rules or not. It is clear that many people prefer playing with bids -  Personally, I think bids is great as it adds a alot of variety and depth to the game

I’m also not arguing whether Axis & Allies should have a strong element of luck or not. I myself play chess at a high level.

I’ll give you another analogy of what I’m proposing - I shall refer a lot to chess as this game doesn’t involve rolls.

Imagine if you had a supercomputer which could somehow calculate the exact probability (at any stage of the game) of whether the Axis or Allies would win. In addition, the supercomputer would suggest moves that maximes the probability of winning.

It is my impression that this supercomputer would play allies almost identical to the standard textbook allies strategy. KGF with US doing shuck shuck. As I mentioned before, there are different tactical points but I believe the overall strategy would be the same.

However, I would think that the supercomputer would play Axis VERY differently to just always following the normal textbook Axis strategy. Let’s look at KwangBang as an example.

Imagine if Japan gets terrible rolls and Russia takes Manchuria and UK takes Kwantung with little or no loss. Also assume USSR has killed the Baltic fleet and strafed Ukraine (with standard results). Also assume Germany destroyed the UK fleet for the loss of 1-2 planes and didn’t do a suicidal attack on Karelia.

What do you think the supercomputer would suggest for the axis? I very much doubt it would follow the textbook Axis strategy. Why? Because even if Axis were to play “properly”, Axis is dead anyway. Set up the board at J1, with Russia already occupying Manchuria and UK already occuping Kwantung (with little loss), plus typical results of other USSR, Germany and UK moves. Try playing Japan using “textbook strategy” against top Allied players (or yourself) and see how many games you win. I would say close to 1%. Ironically, Axis should play even riskier if KwanBang really hurts Japan. My comment about Japan in the Atlantic is if KwangBang fails (or allies chooses not to do KwangBang). If KwangBang succeeds spectacularly, Axis might as well go for tech rolls or hope for a miracle with a G2 attack of Navy (and resign if it fails).

Conversely, if KwangBang/Baltic/Ukraine/Navy goes very badly for the allies, I believe the computer would suggest for Axis to play completely “textbook style” as the optimum play.

In chess, people have managed to program a 6 piece Table base (takes 1.2 terrabytes). This means that a computer implementing a 6 piece Table Base can play such endgames PERFECTLY. For example, if a computer was playing White in a (won) 6 piece endgame like King, Rook and Knight vs King and Two Knights, it may announce eg: White wins in 246 moves. If the opponent plays “PERFECTLY” as well, this number counts down by 1 each turn and the computer wins. If the opponent plays a “poor” move, he/she just loses faster.

What people found was that many Table Base Endgames were completely incomprehensible and broke “strategic” principles of chess (that were developed over hundreds of years). But what was particulary interesting was chess endings that for hundreds of years were considered “dead draws” were actually winnable.

Similarly, I believe if a supercomputer could ever be programmed to play Axis such that it always maximises its probabilitiy of winning (of course not possible), it may play seemingly ridiculously. Buying bombers, tech rolls, suicidal attacks etc. It may even lose games very quickly (and play like a “beginner”). Because the computer wouldn’t care whether it would lose in 5 turn or 20 turns - it would only care about probability.

Of course, I cannot say for certain how the supercomputer would play, but personally, I envisage that the supercomputer would try increase the luck factor if things are going badly, and reduce the luck factor if things are going well. If the supercomputer plays allies, I believe it would try minimise “risky attacks” and simply prolong the game and grind the opponent down. If it is Axis, I believe it would choose different strategies based upon the current situation. If Axis are in a “dead” situation, it would probably go all-out luck, or if going well, it would buy more infantry etc.

In the same way that the Table Base showed how the human chess “textbook” ending strategies were flawed, I believe that the supercomputer would also show that the human axis textbook strategy is flawed. Tim Krabbé wrote about Table bases:

“A grandmaster wouldn’t be better at these endgames than someone who had learned chess yesterday. It’s a sort of chess that has nothing to do with chess, a chess that we could never have imagined without computers. The Stiller moves are awesome, almost scary, because you know they are the truth, God’s Algorithm – it’s like being revealed the Meaning of Life, but you don’t understand one word.”

Secondly, it is my impression that the computer would announce at the start of a no bid, no rr game that the probability of Axis winning would be closer to 10-15%. If a top-notch human player would play against it, perhaps the supercomputer might win up to 20% of its games (as the human won’t be able to determine exactly what maximises probability).

The whole point of my post is that I believe textbook axis strategy maximises the length of the game, and not necessarily the probability of winning. The problem is that people would rather lose in a “hard-fought” but close game than being crushed in a few turns. If you don’t care how you win or lose, then I believe there are more optimum ways to play Axis.

I believe the optimum Axis strategy isn’t just a single strategy, but multiple different strategies. At one end is the textbook Axis strategy, at the other end is buying multiple tech rolls. In between are a mixture of strategies like infantry/tech roll, infantry/bombers, G2 attack on Navy etc. Axis chooses which way to go depending on the current situation. Clearly, if the game is already lost, why bother buying infantry just to hold out another 5 turns? Alternatively, if something miraculous happens like Russia getting crushed in Ukraine, Baltic and Manchuria - Axis should probably play “textbook”.

I wrote this post to see what plausible strategies there are for Axis. Obviously, something like G1 1 battleship + 1 Armor / J1 battleship is rubbish, but G1 5 Infantry + bomber or 7 Infantry + tech /  J1 3 inf + 2 trans seems plausible to me.

One last note, you might want to switch to Russia restricted first. The Rusky’s can’t attack on their first round, wich will balance the game a little bit more. If the Allies are still winning like 15-5 you have to start playing with a bid to make it a game.

We started this way and when we progressed we got things balanced by first playing RR, then playing RR and a small bid (it went up from RR with +6 to +12) and finally we started playing full bids (ranging from 21+ to 24+). After that we added some extreme bids (32+ if you went with a full Asia bid) or we gave Japan all the techs and no bid which was really fun to play.

Those are just ideas which are fun to change the setup of the game slightly if you become bored with the KGF ‘shuck shuck’ method ;)

Well, here is one strategy I’ve used in the past that may help with Africa (RR, no bid). You won’t be able to keep Africa with this, but you might have a chance to at least take it for a turn or two.

On G1, sink the UK Navy in the North Sea as usual, but do not use the Baltic sea transport as fodder. Once all Allied ships there are sunk, take the Baltic sea transport and move either the Norway tank (my preference)or two Norway infantry to Morocco. Also land at least one of your fighters there as well. Instead of taking Egypt, simply move two infantry into Libya.

This sets you up fairly well for G2 in the following ways

The transport blocks the UK/US from an easy run through this area. The UK will sink this, but this will divert forces from other uses (i.e. if they use fighters, they will not be able to land in Karelia on UK1 - possibly making a G2 assualt there feasable). Probably the UK will also sink the German Med fleet (its really inevitable).

The extra forces in Morocco will delay UK/US forces from landing in Africa on round 1.

On G2, use all available forces to take Egypt. The extra tank and fighter(s) will help defeat any forces that may have been moved to Egypt on UK1 . You should also consider using the bomber as well if they have done so. Now the Allies either won’t have sufficient forces to effectively counter-attack, or you will have sufficient forces in Egypt to make a counter difficult at best.

On G3 and onward, you then use these forces to fight north-south. You should be able to reach S. Africa then retreat back to Egpyt to defend that against the Allies. Here you are just scrambling to keep as much as Africa in German hands as long as you can. The Allies are able to take it all back, but now they must devote more resources to do so. Also, it is possible for Japan to bring in reinforcements to help Germany, but I never do so since the Allies are closer to Africa than Japan and the Japanese forces are better used elsewhere, IMO. At some point you should probably conceed Africa and move the fighter back to the relative safety of Europe.

There are problems for the Germans with this (loss of a defensive fighter in Europe for a few turns, Norway is weakened, and the odds for this working as stated are not exactly a slam dunk) but you should try it to see how it works for you.

@Zakes:

The trick to screwing over Russia on the first round is to throw everything, literrally everything at Karelia on the very first round, and buying tons tanks so you can reinforce your front on the second turn.

I initially thought so as well.  But these folks showed me the implementation of US and UK strategies that I had never seen developed to the level they use them that preclude Germany from HOLDING Karelia to be able to build there in G2.

To take Karelia against the best defensive buildup that Russia can muster requires your Air Force.  But if you use your Air Force against Karelia, the UK navy is intact, and does an amphib in Karelia (2 BB’s, 3 fighters, 1 bomber, 2 INF, 1 tank) to kick Germany’s few remaining forces out in UK1.

Even if UK fails to kick Germany out of Karelia, what forces does Germany have left?  2 INF in Western, 4 INF and a tank in Eastern, 1-3 tanks in Karelia, 2 fighters, and a bomber; and their “total tank” build of 6 tanks in Germany.  That is a BEST case survival scenario.

Going forward against this, you have Russia building 7 (or more) INF per round, UK with a “full” transport fleet to use against Germany and the US also with a transport fleet that starts hitting Germany in US3.

Believe me, I used to agree whole heartedly with you, but failing to take out the Allied naval forces in the 1st and 2nd rounds is certain quick death for Germany.  And without them, you can;t crack Karelia.  Even if you can, you can;t crack it with enough force to threaten Russia the following round.

It works that way with the A&A PC game as well, but Bolter is correct the AI is just plain bad in the game. In fact I have said this before if you want any challenge out of the computer game double the opposing teams forces for more fun :D

Don’t think it will work. Your going to have Allied Transports up your ass quickly. The Russian (or British) airforce is going to sink that transport in the Med. The Russians could just be smart and attack Eastern Europe when you get to Caucases. By doing this, you can freely take Moscow, but the Russians are going to take Berlin. After the Russians take Berlin, the British and Americans can reenforce the Russians there or take out W.Europe or (ideally) Eastern Europe.

You can build an IC in previously neutral territories, and in other territories without any income value. An IC in territories like this can produce one unit each turn.

Look at the manual (second edition) page 14.

RW

Sorry, I got confused with AAAA - Always Active Anti-aircraft battery.