Anniversary Edition purchased in Florida today!

@taamvan said in Anniversary 2017 Reprint - rule changes?:

The reprint could have re-organized the setup charts, which are not very rationally laid out and appear to just wander around the area and put the units in a different order in each list. In the better organized versions, the lists are alphabetical, or some snake around the land then the sea–but it would be more rational to have some uniformity to that, rather than just a messy list without any rhyme or reason.

As to the tournament rules, the game is VASTLY different in that setting than OOB. The NOs add a ton of money, the tech adds a lot of randomness. I think the tech favors the allies because they are well-positioned to invest in that starting on turn 1, and would probably make better use of most of the random outcomes than the Axis.

I find both games to be quite imbalanced, towards the Allies. There are no other maps where fighters can fly in one move from US to London, then from London unblockably to Moscow (over the top, 4 moves). There are more layers of buffer territories for moscow–almost as many territories in the “maze” as global. In the 42 scenario, the Germans just punch themselves out really quickly trying to fight in the russian maze. And the 5$ tanks are a big boon for Russia because it can fight Germany on even terms. You might argue that goes both ways, but in most of our 41 and 42 games, Germany has to buy DEFENSIVELY, all game–not just $5 tanks. The Allies have easy choices of what to buy–tanks for russia and fighters for the other two powers, until Russia is absolutely untakable. India without a factory is a lost cause. Both setups are an easy 5-turn KGF, OOB.

In the tourney, its a 6 turn game with less than a 6 bid for either side. The Allies won 1-2 more games than the Axis did, in 2018, under these parameters. I think the only way this is possible is for the Axis to grab Sydney, India, Karelia, and then hold those, plus the original Axis cities. They can lose 1 and still win a tie, I believe.

Not having watched the invitational games in detail, that’s the only conclusion I can draw from the available data.

This is an odd reply to a question about the rules being reprinted…

my Anniversary edition when it first came out.

@SS:

Ok then. Axis player what is the best way to play it , with or without tech and NO’s?

I would preface this with my opinions about these options.

National Objectives

Usually these are more often lost and hard to (re-)obtain for the allies.  The axis are usually advancing and can more easily achieve their national objectives, with the exception of Italy, whom the allies can deny the Italian NOs more easily.

Advantage with National Objectives:  to the Axis

Weapons Development

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I am not a big fan of the randomness that is built into the achieving of technologies.  Plus the techs are not even in their strengths:  Super Subs for Russia?  practically worthless

But if you play with tech, I think that favors the Axis.  Why?  Most techs are offensive in nature, which is the Axis main strategy/strength, especially early.  It would be nice if Jet Fighters were still a ‘5’ on defense instead of a 4 on offense (no longer a defensive tech).  Similiarly, advanced art could be a defensive aid as well (inf defense to a ‘3’).

Advantage with Weapons Development:  to the Axis

Again, merely my opinion, but with the reason(s) I why I believe so.

@shifty:

What kind of “program” are you writing?  What equation/algorithm are you using?

It’s written in BlitzMax. The source below should (hopefully :)) not be too hard to understand - if you have questions, feel free to ask:

' Compares 2nd ed. A&A tech dev cost/rate with Anniv. ed. A&A ' 20 turns to test; record turn number that a total of 2 breakthroughs were achieved.  Test 1 & 2 rolls/turn. ' If two breakthroughs aren't achieved, "turn 0" is recorded (ignored for graphing & turn average) ' (When going for two breakthroughs, two aren't achieved in about 2% for both 2nd and Anniv.) Strict Local breakthroughs, totalCost, turn, totalTurns Local answer[21], prefix$, graph$ Local breakthroughLimit = 2 For Local rolls = 1 To 2 ' actual rolls for 2nd Ed, Researchers for Anniv. Print;Print; Print rolls + " Tech Roll(s)/Researcher(s) per Turn:" Print; Print "2nd Edition" totalCost = 0 totalTurns = 0 For Local c = 0 To 20 answer[c] = 0 Next For Local test = 1 To 100000 ' a hundred thousand tests for accuracy breakthroughs = 0 turn = 0 While breakthroughs < breakthroughLimit And turn <= 20 turn :+ 1 totalCost :+ rolls * 5 ' each roll costs 5 IPCs For Local c = 1 To rolls If Rand(6) = 6 Then breakthroughs :+ 1 Next Wend totalTurns :+ turn If turn > 20 Then answer[0] :+ 1 Else answer[turn] :+ 1 EndIf Next ' display results For Local c = 1 To 20 graph = "" ' divide results by 1000 so each asterisk represents one percent For Local cc = 1 To Int(answer[c]/1000.0 + .5) graph :+"*" Next If c < 10 Then prefix = " " Else prefix ="" ' extra space for single digits Print prefix + c + " " + graph Next Print "Avg turn = " + totalTurns / 100000.0 Print "Avg cost = " + totalCost / 100000.0 Print; Print "Anniversary Edition" totalCost = 0 totalTurns = 0 For Local c = 0 To 20 answer[c] = 0 Next Local researchers ' researchers accumulate from turn to turn For Local test = 1 To 100000 researchers = 0 breakthroughs = 0 turn = 0 While breakthroughs < breakthroughLimit And turn <= 20 turn :+ 1 totalCost :+ rolls * 5 ' each researcher costs 5 IPCs researchers :+ 1 * rolls ' accumulate 1 researcher per "roll" Local success For Local c = 1 To researchers If Rand(6) = 6 Then success = True ' only one regardless of # of sixes rolled Next If success Then researchers = 0 ' eliminate accumulated researchers when successful breakthroughs :+ 1 EndIf Wend totalTurns :+ turn If turn > 20 Then answer[0] :+ 1 Else answer[turn] :+ 1 EndIf Next ' display results For Local c = 1 To 20 graph = "" ' divide results by 1000 so each asterisk represents one percent For Local cc = 1 To Int(answer[c]/1000.0 + .5) graph :+"*" Next If c < 10 Then prefix = " " Else prefix ="" ' extra space for single digits Print prefix + c + " " + graph Next Print "Avg turn = " + totalTurns / 100000.0 Print "Avg cost = " + totalCost / 100000.0 Next

I release it into the public domain (modify it as desired/convert it to the language of your choice).  breakthroughLimit is initially set for 2, which generated the first set of graphs in this thread (I hand-rounded the accuracy to a single decimal place when copy/pasting results in the thread). Setting it to 1 (i.e. stopping after getting one breakthrough) produced the second set above. I also made another, slightly tweaked version to generate the “only buy Researchers on turn 1” version for wodan46.

The colours in Revised can vary. I bought one of the later prints of Revised (3-4 years ago) and the UK colours are the tan of Anniversary (or Bulge).

Why do I not enjoy ?  :oops:

We have a bunch of threads on this in the other forums.

@Hobbes:

There are a few interesting differences from the map pictures:

Japan is now surrounded by a single SZ, instead of the 2 in Revised. This allows for US bombers to attack any ships there and land on that new Russian territory adjacent to SFE and Bur. Japan has a lot of hard choices to make: to take out the 7 inf Russian stack on Buryatia (after moves on R1) or to prevent Manchuria from falling to the Russians; to take Borneo/E. Indies/Phillipines; to hit Pearl; plus Burma/HK/China Egypt is tougher to crack for G1: running a calc gives G 73% odds of conquering it, where before 2 inf 2 arm 1 bmr gave it 95% odds. The Italians seem to have 2 choices: either reinforce Egypt or try to retake it in the case of a UK counterattack, or do the same for the Ukraine. Which would open the way for a German tank rush on Caucasus…i guess that’s why there’s no German INF on Austria, otherwise they could be moved to Rom/Bulg and the G transport on the Med could be used to lift INF for that attack on the Caucasus. G has the option of making an attack on Kar on G1 using the Finnish INF and the transport, plus all of the Luftwaffe, but the AA makes it risky. It can really pay off though because it secures the Baltic countries from any Russian counterattack.

The single seazone around Japan deters even more invading Russia and trying to achieve its historical objectives.