How precisely is this supposed to be “simple” or “open” to new gamers?
Yep it’s tough, but there isn’t a simpler version
But a good board game designer makes its games “easy to learn, hard to master”. It’s a cliché, but it’s true. Unfortunately, Larry Harris does not always adhere to this principle.
Sorry, I think my logic is correct here, since while the first bmb dies on the 3rd-4th roll of dice, it will take 6 more rolls to get you to the 3rd-4th roll of the second half dozen of rolls. Of course, we work with averages because average is what is likely to happen most often: there is no mean when rolling a dice; and it is exactly between the 3rd and 4th roll when the cummulative likelihood you roll 1 exceeds 50 %.
Mathematics doesn’t agree:
“average” != “what is most likely to happen”. What is most likely to happen is an event with the biggest chance, given a set of events and a probability function over the events. For instance, let’s take the set of chances of a bomber dieing in raid N. For N=1, this is 1/6. For N=2, this is 5/6 (not dieing raid 1) * 1/6 (dieing raid 2). For N=3, it is 5/65/61/6. So the chance of dieing in raid N = 5/6^(N-1)*1/6 = the probability function. Dieing in raid 4 has a chance of 9.6%. As told, dieing in raid 1 has a chance of 16.7%. So according to your own definition (“most likely to happen”), it should be the first turn, which contradicts your conclusion of 3rd/4th turn.
Ofcourse, you can use other sets of events. I’ll indulge you, and define the set you mean, which is cumulative: chance of getting shot down before raid 5, and chance of getting shot down on or after raid 5. Not getting shot down before raid 5=(5/6)^4=48%. Chances of getting shot down before raid 5 = chances of opposite = 1-48% = 52%. The result we can extrapolate is it is more probable to get shot before the 5th raid than after the 4th raid. But also: it is almost equally likely to get killed before the 5th raid as after the 4th raid (52%~=48%). Anyway, this is probably what you mean with “between 3rd and 4th”, only it should be “between 4th and 5th”.
The problem with this definition of the set of events however is that it doesn’t tell you at what raid the bomber will probably die (you need my first definition of the set to do this). It only tells you before or after what raid the bomber will probably die. Which is utterly pointless in the purpose of determining average damage. As is the first definition too…
Anyway, enough chit-chat, strategy talk.
USA 1: buy 3 bmr. Gives 4 bmr total. After that, buy 2/3 of a bmr every round. This way you’ll always have 4 bmrs pounding Germany from round 3 upwards.
Germany has an income of about 40. Let’s assume it needs 10 units each turn. So its best bet is to only repair Germany fully, giving you 20 IPC’s a turn to shoot at. With 4 bmrs, this will seldomly (=in less than 1.5% of cases) be overkill (chances of getting >20 are (5/6)^4 -getting past AA with 4 bmrs- * 2.7% -throwing 21 or more, see http://anydice.com/- < ~1.5%).
Using this strat, your land troops arrive one turn later, with 1 inf 1 arm (=8 IPC’s = 2/3 of a bmr) less each turn. This is the drawback.
What do you get in return? From turn 4 onwards (3rd turn you’re shooting at Italy, which doesn’t get repaired) Germany is denied 12 IPC’s worth of units, or 4 infantry. You always have 4 bmrs to support an invasion. You need less transports (remember, 1 less inf+arm means less units to shuttle). You start hindering Germany from turn 3, which is faster than you can do with any newly built land army + fleet (the invasion of Africa is done with the starting army + fleet). Lastly, Germany cannot use Italy as a building point (for instance to build fleet or troops for Africa).
The initial investment is high (3 bmr turn 1, 1 bmr turn 2 etc.), but what strategy with USA hasn’t got a high initial investment? After this investment you trade 8 IPC’s for 12 IPC’s each turn. It is a decent trade-off, possible in 1942 because bmrs are cheaper. Can you show me a strategy with US that trades IPC’s faster?
All I am saying it is a “prayer” based method, not a strategy.
It is not a prayer, but a decent strat, the quickest one I know to trade American IPC’s with Germany. I hope my point is more clear now.
Moreover there is another important factor coming into play omitted in the CS analyzes. The truth is that your first bmb is killed on average on the 3rd to 4th roll of dice for the AA gun and on every sixth roll only from then on.
Sorry, this is wrong. Given a chance of 17% (=1/6) to hit a bomber, the chances of not being hit after 3 raids are 58% (=(5/6)³), and 48% (=(5/6)^4) after 4 raids. Even stronger, there’s a decent chance (40% = (5/6)^5) that your bomber even survives 5 raids. Or a 16% chance it survives 10 (!) raids, etc. All I’m saying is you can’t say a bomber will die “on average” after x turns, because that’s not the way chance works. At most you can say that there’s a ~50% chance a bomber lives past 4 bombing raids. If that’s your definition of “on average”, be my guest, but I don’t see how this could contribute to the effectiveness calculations of a bombing raid.
If we follow your reasoning, every bomber built will fall after 3/4 bombing raids, because there is no inherent dice difference between the starting bomber and the newly built bombers. The former is, ofcourse, a false statement.
So I agree with the Caspian Sub, mathematics-wise it executed the correct calculations, in this respect their reasoning is 100% solid. The only thing I’d like to add that USA executing a bombing campaign against Germany -buy 3 bmrs the first few turns to bomb the greycoats back to the stone age- is a viable strategy: it is a swift way to use American IPC’s to hamper Germany’s war effort. It’s faster than stacking up in UK and invading Europe mid-game. It’s about trying to fully utilize USA’s IPC’s, which often is not trivial to do.
Other than the low income, Russia fits your bill perfectly. It’s easy, so you won’t make too many mistakes, and it doesn’t pose a hard challenge, just keep the Germans and Japs out of Moscow.
Germany has a higher income and thusly allows for more mistakes, but it’s harder to play good (3 fronts: East, Atlantic, Africa) and poses a greater challenge, and makes you play with a navy.
All the other nations need a big navy, making the game more complex, so those are a no-go. All in all, you just want a nation that’s easy to play, and Russia is the easiest one. But what’s the point of playing A&A if you’re not into complex games?
@special:
Only Germany qualifies to your wishes
No, it doesn’t: it’s not easy to play and it does have a navy. But then again, there are no nations that qualify to all your wishes. My advice: look up some Russian strategies, and try to play that one, it is by far the easiest. Good luck!
@Rakeman:
I’m surprised more people aren’t suggesting attacking the American fleet G1 with that sub… 1/3rd chance you sink 2 transports and 1 cruiser for nothing (I did some simple math… 1/3rd chance you sink them, 1/3rd chance they sink you - 2/3 * 1/2, and a 1/3rd chance a second round of combat, so basically it’s a 50/50. But if you win, you do 26 IPC worth of damage, vs. taking 6 IPC worth of damage if you lose). I personally consider this strategy kind of cheap, as it’s a decent risk but extremely high reward. Of course, it will put the UK in a much better position as you are letting their navy start out at nearly full strength. Perhaps that is the balance - having to deal with a full strength UK navy?
Thoughts on the G1 sub move?
This is bad game design, turning A&A into a gambling den. Our playing group plays with the “gentleman rule”, moving the German sub from SZ 8 to SZ 7. It can reach all important SZ’s from there, except the one with the American navy. Problem solved, you’re welcome Larry 
About the “full strength UK navy”, you’re still killing the med fleet with air, so the navy is still cramped, and the bmr is useful in egypt too. And it’s not like Germany lacks any targets for fighters on R1.
I recall that revised OOB rules weren’t very clear on this, and that the LHTR specifically stated that a destroyer only allows hit units to fire back, but they do not cancel opening fire of enemy subs. So in your case, subs on both sides do opening fire at the same time, and destroyers allow each hit unit (non-sub, cuz they already fired) to fire back. So yes, the attacking subs get to fire back.
It all depends on the definition of how your destroyer “cancels” enemy subs. I too think this is a broken rule, and I thought that Spring 1942 repaired this rule, so that a destroyer simply prevents opening fire from enemy subs, thus when hit in opening fire, a sub without opening fire because of an enemy destroyer doesn’t return fire. This is the way how you thought, and how it ought to be imho, the rules work.
@Nix:
ok quick check of mape etc, seems to me this is revised with new units and new naval rules correct?
Pretty much. There are a few differences in the map, mainly in North America. There are also differences in
- Strategic bombing (it now causes damage to the IC instead of simply removing IPCs)
- AA Guns only fire during combat (no more firing when a plane overflys it)
- Fighter escorts during bombing is optional.
- No technology
- During amphibious assault only 1 ship (Battleships and Cruisers) per unit landed can conduct bombardment.
And finally most players seem to consider that it is balanced and a bid is not required.
The reasoning is that combat ships protect transports, not the other way around.
Naval combat is completely changed from Revised. Mostly for the good: buying a couple of subs @ 6 paired with a decent airforce is now an option for Germany. Transports do no longer protect the fleet they should be protected by. Fighters are no longer clearly superior to any naval buy. Submarines have their unique role: attacking and sneaking throughout the oceans.
Transports no longer able to take hits is one of those changes, to be seen in an attempt to make naval warfare more diverse and interesting. For instance in Revised, when I played Japan and USA tried to kill me, I started with a headstart in fleet, bought 4ish transports and a carrier, and was safe untill round 5, even with USA going all naval on me. This is no longer the case, which opens up new possibilities.
If you really want to pull it off, you have to totally commit to it. Kill the Jap transport with the Indian des. Invade Ngu with 2 inf from Aus, invade Bor with 2 inf from ind, put the indian fighter on the hawaii carrier, move all inf in Per and Trj towards Ind, put a British bomber in Nov or Sin. Depending on the battles of Borneo and Ngu, put the australian sub in SZ 47 or 45, put the Indian aircraft carrier in SZ 36 or 49 (to block any J1 reconquering of Borneo). Make sure you put 6 russian inf in Bry, and maybe buy a russian bomber to invade Manchuria with the 6 inf + bmr in R2.
The whole goal of this setup is to counter anything the Japanese player tries. If japan tries to kill off a lot of the British fleet, plus Hawaii and Chi, it will be very vulnerable to American (pacific), Russian (Manchuria) and British (sub+bmr) counters. If Japan concentrates it’s forces leaving few weak spots, a considerable part of the UK navy survives, and will annoy the Japanese for a long time, giving time to the IC’s to produce units.
The British bomber in Nov or Sin will hinder Japanese fleet builds, the spread out British fleet will cause serious headaches to the Japanese, resulting in probably at least a submarine surviving, combined with the british bomber in Sin, this is already something to take into account, the reinforced Hawaiian fleet is less tempting to attack because a counter on A1 is more likely.
Send UK fighters to Cau when possible, to defend USSR and threaten Fic. Build an IC in Ind, maybe even Sinkiang (if Japan pulls a complete fleet build with little transports J1). Build some extra arm with USSR in Cau to quickly reinforce Ind or Sin when needed.
Even against an experienced player, this is worth a try. The one big drawback: it’s dice heavy. Bad dice will ruin this, good dice make this a genious opening (winning both Ngu and Bor really hurts Jap).
If Japan plays right, the IC will fall. That was the big con in revised, don’t know if it’s still this way in 1942.