@Brian-Cannon said in I do not see any difference as far as a change in dice rolls in this season.:

Devs said they were reverting to a model they had used previously…

Yes, so if you didn’t like it before, it will be the same since there are no changes yet to ranked play dice. The nature of the headline of your post implies you thought things might be different for some reason.

@Brian-Cannon You shouldn’t expect to see any change if you’re playing ranked games, the ‘stabilized dice’ were only supposed to be appearing in custom games.

Not sure why I started thinking about this…

In chess (as far as I know) you only have 1 rating even though there are two sides to play. Yet in A&AO you have a separate rating for each side. Let’s say for the sake of argument you need a 80% win rate to be a platinum player. So how can you maintain an 80% win rate against people who also have to win 80% of the time? Having 80% for one side would seem to imply that the other can be 20% at best. I’m presuming this can only be possible if a loss lowers your score far less than a win does, but it still seems odd.

@EricB said in UK to 10 IPC's?:

So, Germany basically has 4 rounds to try to take out Russia if it’s going to. I think defending against all tanks would be dicey because the US can’t get there quick enough.
Yes, the Axis gets round 4 to do whatever they can do under this plan. I don’t like ‘defending’ against this strategy because the whole idea is that the Axis is just gambling to win. Germany may have 30% - 40% odds to get Moscow G4, and if they don’t, then the Japanese stack certainly will. These odds are just good enough that I can see why some Axis players might like to try this strategy, but if it fails then it’s a bit unfair to the Allied player since there’s no real backup plan for Axis victory. You can’t stop a player from gambling if they want to and these types of games are not fun for me.

The biggest choice the Allies make on defense I think is when to pull out of India (I discussed this on the A&AO discord). If you pull out UK2 then you can lower the odds of the Moscow attack, but then you have nothing left in Asia if Moscow goes down. If you pull out UK3 then there’s a chance of liberating Moscow and getting Russia back into play.

If Moscow falls and is not immediately retaken I doubt the Allies have any chance even though Germany will be weak in Europe at this point. They will likely not be able to retake every territory that the Allies can grab in the round 4 attacks, but likewise it will still be several turns before the Allies could actually take Berlin, especially with Japanese planes arriving for defense and Japan starting to bleed off UK income in Africa.

@EricB said in UK to 10 IPC's?:

Another tactic to get rid of some German planes is with Russia. If you attack Ukraine and the battle goes really lucky for Russia and you’ve got something like 3 tanks, 1 artillery left in Ukraine, then pull in an AA gun. Set it to die first in the battle. Germany either has to risk planes taking it back, or they have to bring in a lot of tanks to take it. Either you’re picking off their planes or their tanks.

I’m starting to wonder about this a little as I try it. It may encourage Germany to go too all-in on Ukraine G2; I usually see things like 4inf 5tanks sitting there on R2. Even if I can destroy this stack then the majority of Russian units will be lost on the G3 counter, making Russia too weak. And if Ukraine is not traded this gives a big boost to the German position.

Literally right after I make my last post I try to start another game and I get an Axis opponent that buys a Carrier and Subs for the Mediterranean. I’m reprinting here a post from Julius in the Steam forums as it might help other players who aren’t reading those posts:

“If you want to minimize chances of connecting to a player of not “your level”, then don’t leave the game searching for a match for too long. Cancel the process after about 1 minute and start searching again.”

Although I would mention it shouldn’t be up to the players to have to jump through hoops to avoid getting matchups that are potentially too out of balance.

Bumping this up a little so I can rant rather than make a new post. I’m getting so frustrated with the online games but since my family doesn’t do gaming to the degree I do my gripes have no significance for them and my outlets for venting are limited.

I continue to be undefeated with my Axis partners in unranked play since the Allies players are so terrible. Everyone insists on either doing full KJF or some hybrid where the US player tries to keep both theaters going equally. Even with this, I don’t think I’ve had a single opponent send their US fleet to the Solomons, it’s always up to Siberia with the Alaska IC.

So then I look to ranked play to get some more quality opponents, but since I got into the last season very late I didn’t get past silver, so now I’m starting in silver again. Over here I’m getting games where Axis opponents do stuff like buy 4x transports + carrier to try a G2 Sea Lion (as I just mentioned in the Steam forum). I guess I’m supposed to happy to be in a situation where I will be heavily favored to win, but such games just feel like a waste of time and are not fun to play. I don’t enjoy winning just because my opponent chose to gamble and lost, and players can and do drag things out long after it should be obvious that the game is effectively over. If I knew how many of these games I’d have to slog through to try and get up to gold level where (presumably) this kind of heavy gambling isn’t taking place it might be different, but right now it’s just a chore that really cuts down my enjoyment of the game. At this point I’m not even sure if I will continue playing throughout the season.

@djensen said in Roll Call! Who is on AA42 Online?:

@Imperious-Leader Because it’s Eqqman and not Eggman?

Sorry for any confusion. ‘Eggman’ is one of the most popular user names and almost never available. I switched to the double Q variant a long time ago as it’s usually open. Goo Goo G’Joob!

@aardvarkpepper said in How does Russia stay alive in KJF?:

@Eqqman - I don’t mind if you edit your posts. But you gotta understand sometimes I’ll be writing responses to stuff you edited out or whatever. Like how Imperious Leader addressed your saying Germany buys a carrier and stacks Norway to threaten invasion of London, and now I think you edited your statement about that out.

My edit actually just added new content, originally I was only focusing on your insistence on being the Donald Trump of the A&A world (personality-wise, not as regards any alleged ability to accomplish anything past, present, or future). I get the idea you prefer to focus on discussing facts, but the medium of the message does matter. Something I don’t get is how you feel people will listen to the portion of your message that is worth hearing when you go out of your way to deliver it in as insulting a manner as possible. I actually feel bad for you as I can’t help but point out that nobody else (as far as I know) was publicly willing to join you in a game when you were looking for an opponent in the Steam forums. These two things are likely connected.

In the future I’ll try to just make new posts rather than add to existing ones if I think I left something out, sorry for any confusion I may have caused. Since your main reply is another massive wall of text I haven’t read it all yet and will have to put it off for when I’m in a more snark-tolerant mood.

@aardvarkpepper said in How does Russia stay alive in KJF?:

Jesus.

Still classy, I see :).

@aardvarkpepper said in How does Russia stay alive in KJF?:

" Japanese air force will be sent to Europe where the Axis can then clean out any Allied fleet with a 1-2 punch (although at the expense of the Japanese air of course). I haven’t seen any human opponents cotton on to this trick yet."

Every single Germany and Japan strategic/tactical post I’ve made (that I recall) says to send the Japanese air force to Europe. It’s like my whole thing. Posts going back for months on Steam forums.

Since I haven’t played you in a game I stand by my statement. Presumably there is a drawback to this strategy or more people would be willing to try it.