@surfer I’m tempted by Normandy as well because the fleet is better positioned and the us can start using a factory sooner. Plus some of the fleet can still end up in 92 since 110 is pretty safe. But I think the fleet should be safe. It’s quite a risk for Andrew to attack. Trulpen can land UK air on one carrier. They would still be in range of Moscow if needed because the us carrier can move them in range. If he is attacked by Italy he can take one air as casualty and land the French fighter. And UK fleet in 98 might be enough to pressure the med. I’m on my phone though so maybe I’m mis judging but I don’t think the risk to the fleet would be the reason not to go to Norway.
Best posts made by farmboy
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RE: Tutor game: AndrewAAGamer (X) vs trulpen [and everyone else] (A+50) OOB
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RE: BM3 (Bombers cost 14) Adam514 (Axis) vs farmboy (Allies+10)
@axis-dominion said in BM3 (Bombers cost 14) Adam514 (Axis) vs farmboy (Allies+10):
great game guys, one for the books for sure. farm boy’s allies are now a force to be reckoned with… no pressure hehe
The games against you and Adam (and also observing some of the games with JDOW) have made a real difference in my play. I still did some overblocking and I wasted far too many transports, but on the whole think I’m doing a better job of being efficient and patient, conserving forces, and have a much better sense of what to prioritize on the board.
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RE: G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread
I buy them a lot and have used them with each power. The USSR is the only one where I wouldn’t normally buy except in the rare situation where that cruiser survives and an opportunity arises for me to be able to threaten Germany with it. I agree that they are more useful early game and to go with BBs and cruisers that I expect to survive long enough to be able to use them. And I won’t buy new ones unless I have a bb and cruiser to carry them (and I don’t typically buy battleships or cruisers). Transports will often be the better buy, but mariness can be a comparatively cheap way to add (to) an amphibious threat. I’ll also typically limit the number of transports I have to the number of land units I can expect to produce to load them with (so for example, I won’t usually have more than 5 UK transports near the UK since I can never build more than 10 land units there), So having marines gives me a way to increase by attack power without building transports that will end up being wasted some turns.
I’d say the bigger issue is that cruisers and battleships are not typically worth buying. If they were, there would be more reason to buy marines.
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RE: League General Discussion Thread
@amon-sul I doubt it will be much of an issue since i expect most people at the highest level will focus on one or the other in any case so there should be a lot of room for others to join in even if a couple of people try their hand at two or more tourneys. But I think it is a bit more exciting to play for 1st then for 9th and this gives more people the opportunity to do so.
Also while I think we need to have only one ranking for all variants for it to be meaningful, and I also think the threshold to join a tourney should be low (8 games in total and 3-4 of the variant) I can see situations arising where a top oob player is kept out of that tourney because someone else who has a higher ranking due to their play in another variant decides to play in two.
Also, I’ll just note that right now, the league is much more competitive than it was a year ago. There are players in each of the three tourneys this year that played in the top 8 last year. That may change when covid passes, but right now we can have a pretty high level of competition with the top 24.
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RE: League General Discussion Thread
@gamerman01 sorry to lose you as a moderator and thanks for all your efforts. Its been really appreciated! I hope everything works out and I looking forward to a future game.
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RE: Find League Opponents Thread
@mozkaynak Not sure if you have found a game. It can sometimes take a few days and a couple of posts to find an opponent if you are new. One thing to note that this is league play. Everyone is welcome to join (so if you are interested please do), but the games here are always 1 vs 1. There are other options on the site for team gaming as well which you can find here https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/category/65/play-online-axis-allies
If you are interested in league see https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/28660/2020-league-rules for the league rules as well.
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RE: League General Discussion Thread
@flyingbadger French and UK units can move onto US transports on the UK and French turns but they can’t unload into Normandy until the following UK and French turns the next round.
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RE: Find League Opponents Thread
@mike64 @Gunnastunna93 welcome to the league!
I’m not sure if you have found games yet but it can sometimes take a few days to find a match especially when you are new and unranked. This time of year can make it more of a challenge too. I’d offer to play but I’ve got more than I can take on right now.
If you don’t hear back from someone who can play just post a reminder or two and also message those who are looking for games. Persistence pays off and once you get a game or two under your belt it is usually easier to find more games. And you can always start a game with each other as that will count towards league play too.
Also be sure to read through the league rules as well (its a link on the league page). If you have any questions feel free to post in the league general discussion page. Good luck and have fun!
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RE: Post League Game Results Here
@Myygames, @TinCanoftheSea, @trulpen, @Arthur-Bomber-Harris, @feltmarskal, @pacifiersboard, @crockett36
We are short a couple of players for the OOB playoffs (and there is room in BM and PTV as well if you have enough games for those.) If you are interested, reach out to @gamerman01 by tomorrow night.
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RE: Post League Game Results Here
@pacifiersboard it’s all good. Simon just means that he drops out of the top eight. But he can still play in the playoffs and you joining in isn’t pushing anyone out
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RE: Post League Game Results Here
My recollection is that until the last couple of years, bids were typically under 10. I wonder if the bids going up has shifted that average in favor of the allies.
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RE: L22 playoff game Pejon_88 (X) vs. Farmboy (A+17), BM3/4
@gamerman01 no we should all be good as there wasn’t really a dispute. Pejon was hoping he could do it but didn’t think the rules allowed it. I was pretty sure the rules did allow it, but was hoping he couldn’t. :)
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RE: Post League Game Results Here
@crockett36 said in Post League Game Results Here:
@pejon_88 what round did you call it? If I may ask?
it was round 12. You can see some discussion of it in our thread. Pejon has a very challenging axis opening that I was barely able to survive.
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RE: pacifiersboard (X) vs Me1945 (L +23) BM (2022 playoff)
@gamerman01 I think the distinction is there so that people don’t claim the bonus from Iraq or the Italian territories in N Africa. And in my googling this online, I did read that while Scandinavia is generally included in mainland Europe because there is a land connection, it often isn’t in practice because the easiest way to get to the rest of Northern Europe is often by sea.
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RE: crockett36 - Allies need bigger bids in all versions
@crockett36 I’m pretty rusty with OOB but I do understand that it is definitely the case that the allies need a hefty bid to make it competitive. But as I understand it, PTV slightly favors the allies (hence the low bids for axis) and BM is pretty balanced with the existing bids which hover around 20.
And although it would be fun to have bids that focus on things like historical accuracy, against an efficient axis player, its going to usually be most useful to have bids that prioritize turn 1 and either enable round 1 combats, deter round 1 combats, or perhaps delaying your opponent’s preferred DOW if they have a standard opening. If bid units are waiting until turn 3 or 4 to be brought into the game, they are often too late and effectively neutralized anyway.
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RE: crockett36 - Allies need bigger bids in all versions
I had a couple of suggestions for playing allies since I think (especially given the hefty bids) that you can win with them.
First, its good to ‘know your enemy’ and plan the bid around what they do. There are some axis players that mix it up, but quite often they have a default opening that they rely on. So you can bid for that. Whenever I play a game now, I check out the last 4-5 games my opponent has played as axis in order to plan my bid. I often see the same opening in all the games and if they adjust their opening as a result, you’ve at least made the choice for them, and they are probably not playing how they prefer.
I’ve mostly played BM since I started playing A&A here, and I’ve played a lot more and become a better player since making the switch. So, I’m rusty on OOB and it is worth taking this all with a grain of salt (and I’m relearning what a challenge the allies are in the one OOB game I’m playing). But, I think the principles are sound and apply across both versions.
I haven’t followed Andrew’s games too closely (since I play BM) but it looks to me that he prefers a J1. This is what I understand is probably the optimal strategy in OOB.
Knowing that, my bid is going to try to make that more difficult. Being able to hold Yunnan early as Oysteilo suggests is key so that Japan has a problem containing China. And you can very cheaply help out India as well.
I’d still prioritize the UK fleet over spending more on the Soviets. More Soviet inf might delay the Germans a turn or two, but it won’t allow the Soviets to alter Germany’s advantage over the Soviets. If the UK gets control in the Atlantic and the Med, it forces the Germans to spend to counter that, and it allows the allies to set up a pipeline moving allied air to Moscow. The sooner that happens the better. If it happens soon enough, you can actually delay the Germans from getting Caucasus and Volgograd, which is huge.
The allied player also needs to be less risk averse. You should still try to avoid risky attacks, but you should be more prepared to offer them to the axis, especially when you know that your opponent plays to avoid risk as Andrew (rightly) does. So for example, in the bid that Oysteilo proposed, he commits a bid of two Soviet fighters to Yunnan (+ the bid of an additional Chinese inf) because, I presume, that is the amount necessary to bring Japan’s chances attacking Yunnan below 50%. But with the bid of an inf and just one Soviet fig (along with the soviet fig and tac in Moscow), Japan’s odds are 51% (with a 5% chance of a draw) if Andrew goes all in (which is harder to do on a J1). Is Andrew going to attack Yunnan with those odds? Probably not, but even if he does, you are forcing someone whose win percentage is about 90% to gamble on a battle that has basically a 50% chance of setting Japan back.
A problem that allied players often have (and I certainly still struggle with it) is understanding that you can often get away with offering these riskier combats to the axis. For a long time, I played the game such that when my opponent had better than 50% odds of winning, I retreated. This is not the right way to play. It will sometimes be better to defend even when their odds approach 80-90%. Just because they have better odds of winning, doesn’t mean the battle is advisable. And Andrew has made clear that his approach to the game is risk averse. I absolutely agree is the right way to play, but that does create an opportunity for the allies to play a bit more forward and aggressively.
When Japan can threaten India you can think about this the same way. Japan may have very good odds of winning, but if the trade is India for a substantial portion of Japan’s airforce, it is probably better to defend India and dare them to attack rather than retreat.
So one reason to offer up these riskier battles is because the axis player will not risk them and in retreating you are conceding territory that don’t actually need to. But there is another reason too. A feature of the game is that both axis powers usually have the ability, when optimally played, to overwhelm the allies within a certain sphere of territory. When, for example, the Japanese fleet and air are stationed in FIC, and 35 or 36 sea zone, they can keep China back from Yunnan, the British out of Burma, the Soviets out of Manchuria, and the American fleet away from the money islands or Japan. But they can’t win the game there. What they need to win is outside that sphere, and as soon as they go for it, they are no longer able to protect much of it. So if India is defended, and Japan goes for it, apart from the risk that they are trading air for inf, it can often mean that Japan is out of position to counter the allies in the Pacific and in Korea. If the British do retreat, than Japan doesn’t need to move out of position to take it and the allies remain on the outside everywhere else.
There are circumstances where even 100% odds on India are not advisable, because it forces Japan out of position and the US is ready to pounce. But you need to set it up so that the allies are ready to pounce (I’ll note that this is probably harder to do on a J1 since Japan can often take India before the US is ready).
This logic also applies to the European theatre too. If the allies are ready, it is hard for the Germans to threaten Moscow without exposing territory in Western Europe and if they do go for Moscow, their air are definitely out of position to defend France and Norway.
This doesn’t mean you should never retreat, but it does mean that you shouldn’t automatically retreat because your opponent’s odds of winning are better. It’s often better to dare them to attack as long as you have set up the groundwork to push them elsewhere on the map.
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RE: crockett36 - Allies need bigger bids in all versions
@crockett36 Its not so much that you should anticipate being a loser in the tuv comparison but that you offer combats in which the axis player has better (but usually not certain) odds (which would mean that if they went for it the axis would indeed, on average, have a better tuv outcome).
One example of this is a game I played with trulpen last year. In Round 3 the German air could attack the British fleet with about 80% odds. He went for it, rolled above average and won the battle. He lost 5 planes, but I lost 5 planes, a carrier, two cruisers and two transports. The TUV exchange was 54, double the average expected. Its a big defeat for the British navy but despite the TUV exchange (which I admit I worried about at the time) it probably lost him the game. He needed his 5 air more than I needed that 54 tuv and he also had to land most of his surviving air in Algeria. His air is either destroyed or out of position and he no longer has the ability to push the Soviets out of Bryansk and can’t reach Volgograd or the Caucasus.
The right move for him was to ignore my fleet because of the risk to his air which was needed elsewhere. So it was actually safe for me to offer those kind of odds.
If I’m worried about offering that 80% odds than I keep my UK fleet back so its putting less pressure on the axis. He then can’t attack the fleet but he also doesn’t have to worry about it and can focus on the Soviets,
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RE: Find League Opponents Thread
I’m up for a game, either OOB or BM. Andrew you can PM if you didn’t get your game yet. I’m rusty on OOB, but trying to shake that off.
I think you are all right by the way. All games are, in a sense, made up. But OOB is the original and the one that was designed ‘professionally.’ And the second edition was nicely done despite the balance issues. Its more universally played, at least outside here, and going to be understandably what some people prefer.
But sometimes the professionals do get it wrong as gamerman notes. And occasionally the fan made house rules are actually an improvement on the original, even when the original is good. That is rare, but that is how I feel about BM. As much as second edition fixed things, I do like the changes in BM and I think they are an improvement over the original. Obviously a very subjective position and open to debate.
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RE: 2022 OOB Playoffs R1 - AndrewAAGamer (X) vs oysteilo (A+60)
Epic game. Congrats to Andrew for the win and to both of you for the excellent play.
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RE: L23 2nd Ed OOB AndrewAAGamer (X) vs farmboy (Allies+60)
@andrewaagamer because I’ve mostly played BM (and my thinking around allied strategy really developed while I was playing BM), its not a move I have a lot of experience with. BM gives the soviets and Japanese more of an incentive not to declare war on eachother and gives the axis more of an incentive for a later Japanese DOW.
So others might have a better sense of what happens when that move goes south for the allies. I knew it wasn’t a risk you typically go for and had checked out a couple of the games you had played where the allies did do that, and saw that you didn’t attack. So I thought it was pretty likely you wouldn’t go for it.
I was also fairly certain you would go for the British Battleship (and I think it may have been a mistake not too) and so that removes at least one bomber.
It is definitely bad for the Soviets to lose that air. And I’m definitely replacing at least one of them so that means the Soviets are also down 3 land units. But because I only need that air after the Germans invade in round 3 (or later when they reach Moscow), I do have time to make that up. My strategy for defending Moscow is always about allied pressure in the West and in making sure I have a ton of allied air that can reach from the Middle East (if not also from Greece and/or Norway) and so I would try to make sure a bit more allied air is going to be available for that. And knowing I have a weaker Japan makes it a bit easier to direct more resources to the Atlantic
And because Japan loses that air in a J1 DOW, its going to be immediately felt. I haven’t really looked, but I suspect it will mean, as Govz notes, I can stack Yunnan, and India, the US fleet, and the Soviet stack are all going to be a little safer.
But I’m definitely going for it in large part because I’m fairly confident my opponent isn’t going to attack, and its not a move I would necessarily make against a weaker player, precisely because they are more likely to go for it and let the dice determine the game. If Japan does go for it, and the dice go their way, the allies are in trouble.