Seeking a better understanding of the bid numbers

[zlefin]

I’m trying to better understand the exact causes of the bid here being so much higher than I’m used to. I’ve already read what google threads I could find on the topic, some here, and some elsewhere; I’m trying to get a fairly precise and quantified understanding of how the advent or lack of particular strategies and tactics affects the bid.

One particular question I’m wondering about is the extent to which a J1 dow vs later J dows affect the bid need, if they make any difference.

I’ve noted the bid history seems to show a significant increase over the years, and I suspect that at least to an extent the win chances by side weren’t that much more lopsided then compared to now; which would mean that the shifting of the bid over time was in part a result of improved strategies and tactics over the years that favored axis moreso than the previous developments did. So I’m wondering if anyone remembers which particular shifts caused notable changes in results.

I’m also interested in looking at the very best tourney games, and in particular ones which showcase KJF strats, as that’s what my own area trends towards. So if anyone has particular games they’d recomend that’d be helpful. Ones that are also quite evenly matched skill-wise to limit confounding factors.

Does the net axis advantage vary significantly by skill level? that is is the bid needed higher at higher elo compared to lower elo?

Which particular planned allied strats have been proven to fail a lot? It’s always quite helpful to understand the history of those, and I’m not so aware of those.

[pacifiersboard]

@zlefin
great question I am unfortunately not able to answer…

@gamerman01
might it be helpful to move this topic to https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/category/29/league

[gamerman01]

@pacifiersboard You are so right, this post is begging for league attention. I linked to here from league discussion and OOB discussion in league

[gamerman01]

I’m afraid most of the elite players in the league abandoned the Out of the Box 2nd edition of G40 years ago. Still, some league players could be helpful with your (very complicated) questions. We do still have dozens of G40 games played each year in the league.

[Booper]

@gamerman01

I’m hardly a top player, but I think it’s due to an overall improvement in the play of the league over the years.

@AndrewAAGamer has an excellent series of articles educating players, which is a great starting point.

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/35286/warfare-principles-of-axis-allies-by-andrewaagamer?page=1

Also, the interviews conducted by @crockett36 with Andrew and other top players is great info.

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/40629/video-interviews-of-league-players-by-crockett36?page=1

Any of the OOB finals or semi-finals over the last 2-3 years would be good study material.

[AndrewAAGamer]

In my Seattle face to face gaming group we started out with no bids for G40 OOB initially and quickly determined the Axis was favored. I remember the very first Bid I took as the Allies was $6. Over time, as the Axis continued to win most games, the Bid slowly rose. We went from $9-12 to $18-20 and then into the $20s. As the Axis continued to win we went up into the $30s. It took a number of years but we eventually kept rising into the $40’s, $50s and finally all the way up to $60. In fact, I remember giving one Bid of $63 to be the Axis and lost. It was at this point we decided that $60 was a fair Bid and we played multiple games with both sides winning which seemed to acknowledge our Bidding system was accurate.

Due to Covid we had to stop playing and that is when I started playing here and I willingly gave out bids of $60 to be the Axis. I won my first 10 games and people were astounded I could win giving $60. Them JDOW did something no one had ever done before. He used the Bid to Stack Yunnan and it was devastatingly effective.

As others copied the strategy, it took losing a few additional games to get it through my stubborn head but, I have come to realize that play, the “Yunnan Stack” has forced the Bid to be reduced. The Bid is now probably around $40 to $50 depending on if you like to play the Axis or Allies.

As for reasoning, here is my two cents. It is easier for the Axis to win is they only have to win on one side of the board. I think initially, the Axis play in the Pacific was too tentative; giving the Allies much needed time to gather their forces and strength. Then COW came up with the J1 DOW which was a real game changer. It puts Japan into the game immediately and forces the Allied Player to try and balance the US forces as efficiently as possible to stop both the Germans and Japan. That is not easy to do.

The Yunnan Stack removes the J1 DOW from the game. Thus Japan is not as much of a threat as before so the Allies need less of a Bid to still win.

[farmboy]

@zlefin If this is specific to the data from league play, it is worth noting that there was a lull, after the introduction of balanced mode, where OOB play declined significantly. Most of the tournaments play, especially by top players, for example, was in BM in which bids were closer to 20 rather then 60. That has changed again in the last few years. @AndrewAAGamer joining a few years ago was a big factor in that. He had very effective and efficient Axis strategy in OOB that seemed to require a 60 bid. Over time, some high level opponents can, and have, been able to push that down a bit, and it may still go down further as play evolves, but we are now in a place where bids are typically 40+ including for high level and closely matched players.

Also worth noting that players come and go and so the wheel does get reinvented. There aren’t too many people playing OOB now that were playing it 5 or 10 or more years ago. So while I’m sure changes in game strategy are a factor, we are a small sample size and the variation over time of who is playing may be significant too.

I suspect one factor in the bid is the J1DOW so it might be able to go down with later DOWs.

My own allied play tends to be more balance between theatres and any variation in emphasis on theatre depends more on what the axis is doing, when the Japanese DOW is, and what the opportunities are. So others may be able to speak better to KJF or failed strategies. But I think it is probably useful to look at some of the recent OOB tournament games and especially those that involve Andrew’s axis.

[gamerman01]

I need a love button

[zlefin]

The tourney games that I could find the numbers for seem a bit odd to me, a lot of choices I don’t really get and they seem weak/suboptimal; hard to tell how much is my estimation accuracy and how much is bein gused to odd strategies,
Looking at 40891 the 2023 final for instance, it just felt like there were enough questionable choices/errors to significantly reduce its utility as a source for analysis/evidence.
I need to find some good KJF games to analyze.

I’m certainly not used to dice as much and the effects it has on planning for variability, as I mostly play the larger ll maps.

The history is interesting; looking around I do see a lot of possible bids not yet mentioned and I wonder how each of them would turn out, some are rather dicey of course, and some seem too long term. When you have 40+ there’s a lot of room for all sorts of shenanigans and side objectives, so many possible tradeoffs to consider, most of which i never have cuz there’s lower bids in the 24 range where I am. There may just not be enough good players where I am (on triplea lobby), resulting in a lot of tactics and details being underutilized. most of the really good AnA players long since migrated to the larger maps, as I mostly have as well.
I may try digging up the older tourney games here, from when the OoB player base was larger, to see if those offer insights.

The extent to which a single strat development is affecting bids on a comparatively small map makes me suspect there’s a lot of not yet done optimization, and a low innovation rate, or at least that hasn’t filtered into at least one of the communities.

I may never be able to get enough data to definitively isolate the cause of the community discrepancies, as I just quite dislike async play. Still very interesting to try to assess though; I do suspect the difference in Japan DoW pattern counts for part of it, and I’m going to remath the relative value of the DoW choices.

[farmboy]

@zlefin you might just find its too small a pool to draw from. And of course playing is always the best way to understand these things, although I can appreciate the preference not to play async makes that a challenge.

[zlefin]

I suppose I should at least consider trying async play if it’s the only way to get the data I want, to assess how onerous it is or isn’t.

It is a rather small pool indeed, maybe once the changes are put in that makes it easier to extract game IDs from the elo table tools it’ll be easier to find enough examples to look through.

Do any of the major live tournaments still use Global 1940? I’m tryin to search for them but all I’m finding is ones that use 1942 or House Rules expansion.

[BobbaRossa]

@zlefin said in Seeking a better understanding of the bid numbers:

I suppose I should at least consider trying async play if it’s the only way to get the data I want, to assess how onerous it is or isn’t.

I think async play also adds to the Axis favor. Being able to take time and analyze a significant number of options (plus prodigious use of battle calculators) really changes the flow of the games. There have been many times where I open up the game and think I’m going one way, then sleep on it and come up with a much better plan that had initially alluded me. This obviously helps both sides, but I think the Axis are more favored here as they have the initiative and are mostly driving the board states for the initial rounds.

Also, async play isn’t really that onerous once you get used to it. It’s just a little odd at first. The worst part is itching to get your turn again :P.

[barnee]

@zlefin

Idk if you’ve seen this thread but there’s some good information it. Imo anyway :)

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/41788/bids?_=1769449021573

[zlefin]

Ok, so what version is used on the forum games? is it consistent? from a quick skim it looks like some people use the most recent prerelease, which is often a bit buggy, as opposed to the latest relatively stable prerelease, which was back in the 2.6 line, but noone uses the old 2.5 stable. It also seems like people may be using slightly different versions.

I haven’t fully assessed the effects of a round 1 Jdow, but I redid the math and it does seem like it may account for some of the discrepancy between community results; Some of it is also because of my area allowing the ANZAC inf to just be placed so they can get the territory for their NO, which accounts for 7 of the difference.

I’d be interested to see some of the best and/or first games with the Yunnan stack to see how they played out and to see which countermeasures were deployed, as I do wonder if a J1 dow is still feasible vs a Yunnan stack.

[gamerman01]

I’ll just give a short reply to that very last statement about J1 and Yunnan,

Japan can’t attack Yunnan in that case, so Japan can’t do much of anything if she doesn’t declare war on the allies. That’s a lot of aircraft not attacking anything.

[zlefin]

@gamerman01
It is indeed, which makes me wonder about the earlier statement by another about Yunnan stack discouraging j1 dow.

I wonder why the Yunnan stack proved stronger against Japan than any of the other ways one could spend part of the bid to disrupt Japan. Admittedly some of the alternatives are dicey, so they create high variance.

I’m guessing attempts to use the bid to shore up the Russian front didn’t work out because of the time delay before they really accomplish anything? Mathwise it looks like they could adjust the theater income, but probably not by enough to really matter, though it does make me wonder abotu some KGF strats.

At any rate, I look forward to exploring this a bit more, try out some things, at least if I find someone who wants to.

[gamerman01]

With the Yunnan bid, some would also put a couple artillery on the Siberian stacks. As exciting as that seems at first, after playing a number of 2nd edition games since then it seems almost rare that the artillery tips scales for the Russians, like in some big attack.

@zlefin said in Seeking a better understanding of the bid numbers:

I wonder why the Yunnan stack proved stronger against Japan than any of the other ways one could spend part of the bid to disrupt Japan.

With rules of only one bid unit per territory, you can’t possibly stack a defense against a G1. But with Russian aircraft + a Chinese man on Yunnan, that is EXACTLY what you can do to Japan. You need the Russian air anyway, and they can fly back home soon. The stuffing stopping power at Yunnan on J1 is the most prohibitive bid placement I can imagine.

Admittedly some of the alternatives are dicey, so they create high variance.

Yeah. No attack, no dice, no chance of failure. That’s the Yunnan bid

At any rate, I look forward to exploring this a bit more, try out some things, at least if I find someone who wants to.

Not telling you what to do, but there are players here who will play Yunnan bid games with you.

The Yunnan bid is extremely powerful. I won’t play against it because I consider it game breaking - it flat out goes against the obvious design of the game for round 1. I have my opponent name his bid placement during bidding so that I know what I’m bidding against. With really high bids, this makes sense to me, but I think I’m the pioneer there.

Securing the Burma road, probably permanently, messes Japan up BIG TIME. Not to mention the sexy artillery China could buy C1, but doesn’t even need to, because she can buy them later. +6 NO every turn, right in the heart of the SE Asia theater, just suffocating.

[zlefin]

@gamerman01

I see, I didn’t think it was that bad; from my look-over it seems like Japan could still shut off the Burma road by killing India. But I guess that costs them too much to do so? Certainly it’s not a huge loss to Russia to have that stuff occupied for a bit.

It certainly does change J1 a fair deal. Though I’m not sure how much it changes compared to the bid that just gives the cash to China and they buy a huge inf stack on Yunnan on their first turn.

I’m surprised nobody has found another bid that so sharply changes the game; bid numbers around 50 seem to have a lot of room for really reshaping a theater, but the lack of focal points for an allied attack do limit it I guess, only so many good round 1 battles you can do.

So what do you do with your bids?

[gamerman01]

@zlefin said in Seeking a better understanding of the bid numbers:

@gamerman01

Though I’m not sure how much it changes compared to the bid that just gives the cash to China and they buy a huge inf stack on Yunnan on their first turn.

Uh… I think you cracked the code. It doesn’t give Russia extra fighters, but at first blush this seems more effective. We just don’t think in terms of banking the IPCs. This seems a great example of why you should - China can place her infantry anywhere controlled at the end of the turn, so with China this… could be… a real game changer. It follows the rule of one unit per territory but breaks it by getting around it. China doesn’t have IC’s of course so it works differently.

However, the league can simply make a rule limiting the amount banked to any power.

I like that - that would be fun to play. A bid of 30 to China… 10 men right on the front line. No more cowering

[Booper]

@gamerman01

I believe someone did try playing a large bid to China. Not sure, but I think it was @Arthur-Bomber-Harris vs @AndrewAAGamer