I’m happy to play a casual game with you and provide feedback. Boston_NWO#4108

@nosho said in New Season, has there been any change to dice in ranked games?:

@brian-cannon Yes. I feel it should be done, unless there are juicier targets out there (Chinese fighter undefended, UK fleet spread out, etc)

Doing pearl or not is a reasonable point of disagreement. I’ve shifted my thinking from generally yes to generally no.

My motivation:

1. USA pacific units start really out of position. If going KGF, they’re 4 turns away from position.
2. Japan by doing Pearl, places 5 units out of position for a volatile battle moderate profit. These units are important for the India round 3 timing.
3. Japan has a formidable starting naval position that USA has to overcome whether of not Pearl Harbor is done.

@brian-cannon said in New Season, has there been any change to dice in ranked games?:

@marineiguana 1German fighter survived,UK battleship and transport died

That’s a bottom 15% result, but totally fine. Germany is in real trouble in the bottom 2-3% when both battleship and transport survive. It’s still winnable, I’ve won from that position but relies on the opponent playing worse or getting unlucky somewhere.

Germany making uk’s navy creation difficult through some combination of killing UK cruiser with the battleship, bomber buy and/or even a sub buy could be interesting. UK right now transitions so cleanly from round 1 carrier buy into Europe landings. Denying or delaying Nordic countries is worth 6 income a turn net.

Germany attempting to directly strike at uk’s capital is really an uninteresting line to discuss. UK has a guaranteed way to ensure that the capital does not fall with higher than 99% chance with an 8 infantry placement. Germany has minimal alternative follow ups since the entire Baltic region is already controlled by Germany. From Germany’s perspective, Sealion is a big investment at huge opportunity cost thst requires allies to absolutely blunder to gain a major advantage.

@domanmacgee I usually go directly for Russia as Japan in KGF. In my earlier post, I described exactly the kinds of Allies misplays that would motivate me to consider taking India round 3. In the first 5 rounds, I don’t seriously consider attempting India any round other than round 3 unless something really crazy happens. Round 3 is Japan’s power spike where japan’s starting units in Japan are fully deployed.

@snoil said in Game Imbalance massively obvious:

@marineiguana Yes well you’re definitely better at the game than I by far, and obviously understand the pathings and such way better than me. 90% in both means you’ve got it down. But after reading on some other parts of the forum, if it’s so balanced, why do GenCon games have a bid system for the allies to get extra help? I’ll admit, maybe as a noob I just do better having a load of troops and relative safety early on as I prefer inf/art in great big gobs over fancy schmancy battleships/tanks/bombers etc. At sea I even prefer subs due to cheapness. Easier to make impactful stacks, at least so far.

Anyway, genuine thanks to everyone, will keep stabbing at it diligently!

Your confusion is very understandable.

There is the original board game setup (OOB, out of box). This version blatantly favors Axis. If I played against myself, I would win as axis at least 98% of the time.

The Gencon tournaments attempt to balance this by bidding. People are bidding for the privilege of playing Axis and compensating the Allies player with an amount of income that the Allies player can use to immediately place units on the board. For example, a bid of 7 could be used to place 1 artillery in Karelia and 1 infantry in Caucasus Russia. Typical bids are 18 or more. A second big difference of tournaments is the time limit only allows for about 5-8 rounds of play. It’s more like a sprint to reach victory cities because of this time limit.

The Larry Harris game version is a set of adjustments that Larry suggested to balance the OOB map better. It notably makes changes to the Germany bomber placement and sz7 units. This version is well balanced, and we’re still deciding which side is favored with ideal play on both sides. The online 1942 ranked version uses this version as a default. In casual play, you can choose either this version or the OOB standard version.

Are you playing ranked with Larry Harris Rules? I suggest playing more and getting stronger before making blanket statements about the balance of the game. I have a 90% or higher win rate as both axis and allies, repeated across multiple seasons. I’m about equally happy to play axis as well as allies with regard to win likelihood.

Allies are definitely more difficult to coordinate in the early game. I’ve played enough to confidently say that the sides are very close to balanced at the highest competitive levels, such that there’s disagreement on what side if favored still. At lower levels of play, it’s definitely true that one side can win more.

General allies tips to start on a strong path:
attack WRUS with 12 units, Ukraine with 9 units
UK round 1 buy of 3 inf, 1 destroyer, 1 carrier is well balanced
US round 1 buy of 1 carrier, 2 transports, 2 inf, 2 art is well balanced

@brian-cannon said in New Season, has there been any change to dice in ranked games?:

@marineiguana 1German fighter survived,UK battleship and transport died

That’s a bottom 15% result, but totally fine. Germany is in real trouble in the bottom 2-3% when both battleship and transport survive. It’s still winnable, I’ve won from that position but relies on the opponent playing worse or getting unlucky somewhere.

@brian-cannon said in New Season, has there been any change to dice in ranked games?:

@marineiguana Boston, I expect to lose the battle and lose the transport and battleship, what amazes me is that the attack never goes bad, they never lose more than a bomber and I have never seen the Axis units survive. As opposed to the Axis attack on Sea Zone 7, this just occurred

Round 1 1 hit from 3 subs, 1 cruiser and 2 fighters
https://imgur.com/a/mYBZZlj

Round 2 1 hit by fighter/cruiser trio
https://imgur.com/a/xSPWehc
and finally round 3 1 hit
https://imgur.com/a/RERVYs6

As I have said repeatedly, I cannot buy a hit with fighters or anything whether its a 3 or less or 4 or less.

I can’t quite tell. Did Germany kill the battleship and transport and lose everything but 1 fighter? That’s unlucky but fine. If the battleship and transport both survive, then that’s really unlucky and game-changing. Most important part is that the UK R1 transport dies. Germany is fine with 4 fighters, though 5 would obviously be better.

@aardvarkpepper

A typical optimized India R3 timing is 11 inf, 4 art, 1 tank, 6 fighters, 1 bomber, 2 battleship bombard, 1 cruiser bombard. Japan can apply additional pressure by buying art instead of inf R1 and bombers R2. This assumes 3-4 infantry lost in the R1-2 trading.

I recommend that the allied player before uk1 movement think through the plan to defend this timing. By my analysis, UK’s starting Egypt units are more efficient to use towards India defense than pulling Russia units.

@aardvarkpepper stacking Egypt R1 is not good because it weakens allies defense to Japan’s R3 India timing. Losing India R3 is a big loss so this can force Russia to cover with fighters and even tanks.

UK can easily deadzone Egypt R2 and South Africa infantry deadzone Anglo-Egypt Sudan. So UK doesn’t gain much stacking Egypt compared to Transjordan.

@brian-cannon
As we’ve discussed, the Germany med fleet is like the Ukraine bomber. You expect it to be killed and it’s a bonus if you get any compensation. Looks like you didn’t this game.

The UK player actually made a major mistake that can be punished. the UK units should be in trans Jordan. Japan has a fairly free India R3 timing that will be very expensive to handle with 3 less infantry.