@655321
It is permitted and not at all considered bad form. It would be expected from you.

If my opponent would NOT tip his battleship, I would probably ask him if he’s sure.

A bit late perhaps, but thanks for playing us. The other Axis players will be ‘Lederhosen macht Frei’ (Japan) and ‘hansworst’ (Italy).

Have a good game!

Nice idea!

People often encounter this when playing by forum: one player makes his combat moves, but needs to know a few things before rolling dice (like in your examples). In most cases, it can be solved by going ahead according to an honour system, where you choose the option you perceive as optimal. The opponent would be informed of choices you made on their behalf, and was given the option to redo a battle according to their wishes (this shouldn’t happen since the choice was obvious!).

When the optimal choice isn’t entirely clear, we’d usually ask the opponent (via phone).

You should probably state your goal: do you want to be able to enjoy a balanced game among friends, or do you want to spread this setup to the entire community?

Because people will only start playing this setup if it’s had a lot of feedback. If you want more (in depth) feedback on the setup you should think about setting up the pieces in TripleA, and post the setup as a savegame on the forums. No promises, but it will be easier for people to see what the board looks like and maybe try playing a couple of turns.

Could you edit 1 infantry from Karelia to Finland?

@The_Good_Captain Thanks for editing. And no worries, that Soviet sub is probably the most edited piece in the entire franchise

As to why playing online: I like playing this way because we can save the game and continue at a later time. I prefer playing face to face from time to time, but Covid has made that impossible.

As to why TripleA: The forum and its members made it very easy to start using it, when we first started looking for an online platform. Also it was free (not unimportant).
There are versions on Steam, but they offer only 1 scenario (1942) or seem very time consuming (Tabletop Simulator).

And a happy New Year

@hansworst You know me too well.

Have a good game, all.

I’ve only played a couple of Anniversary games with National Objectives, so not enough to give you an informed opinion. Forum consensus seems to be that NOs favour the Axis. I have a couple of generic thoughts on NOs and bids, though, maybe these answer your question in part.

Regarding National Objectives: The more games I play, the less I like NOs. The first reason is that they are forcing you to make moves that are strategically suboptimal. Most NOs are an incentive to conquer regions that were important in the real-world WW2, but these targets are sometimes not at all important in the A&A-universe. For example, most people playing Japan/USA will not be interested in diverting resources to Pacific Islands such as Midway and Wake Island, but there are multiple NOs that stimulate you to go after these 0 IPCs island that hold little strategic significance. It seems the NOs are mostly used to simulate history, but that’s not an interesting aspect to me. Other players are really into the historical aspect, however, so it’s a question of taste maybe.
The second reason is most NOs are valued at +5 IPCs, which is a huge amount in my opinion. In most cases, you cannot afford to ignore NOs. As an extreme example: France is mentioned in 4 NOs that are worth 5 IPCs each. Together with its 6 IPC value, that represents a swing of 12+20=32. In essence, once you enable NOs, France is not worth 6 but 16 (!). In this way, NOs force your hand, and you are discouraged to pursue other, non-historical paths.

Regarding bids: the question what a fair bid would be, has no good answer, I think. The first reason is that any bid is fair, since both players agreed to it. (I do understand, however, that it’s interesting to think about how large a bid should probably be).
The second reason is that the slightest mistake or bad dice roll can completely negate the bid. For example: If you look at the game of Go/Baduk, people have studies for years what compensation should be awarded to the player that moves 2nd (Go is won by gaining more points than your opponent, so unlike Chess, the score can be ‘corrected’). Although research is converging on a certain number for fair compensation, it’s mostly academic: the slightest mistake by a player – even at professional levels – completely overwhelms the compensation. And that’s a game without luck! So for A&A – a game with luck, played by amateurs – bids should be taken with a grain of salt.

@the_good_captain I think this was the last game for me, at least for the time being. Thanks for the good games.

Haha. It was just an initial guess. I’m sure it would go up or down depending on the following gameplay. By the way, I made my estimate based on two common restrictions that you can place only 1 unit per territory, and that the territory must already contain one of your units. So you can’t just place 8 inf in Karelia.

A couple of thoughts in addition to Hans:

I promised my train of thought regarding the American attack on the Japanese fleet: like you said, the Allies weren’t likely to win. So I had been looking for opportunities that might turn the tide. I knew beforehand that this winning this one battle wouldn’t be enough to turn the tide, even if wouldn’t lose a single plane. But we had to start somewhere.

From a more local point of view, winning the battle wasn’t that important. You needed 2 transports and a protecting fleet to maintain your island factory logistics, and even I won big you would be left with the nucleus of a new fleet, and opportunity to rebuild. So it was more a TUV-driven attack, where I hoped that your losses would be bigger than mine and you would be forced to spend money on ships. For the battle itself, I noticed that the expected TUV change for a single round of combat wasn’t too bad (minus a couple of IPCs). So that made me willing to see how the first rolls would turn out. And if things went south, I had the attacker’s advantage (i.e., I could retreat if I wanted).

Regarding the balance of the variant we just played: I think you’re a better player than I am, but under the ruleset we used, I think I will win most games against you if I can play with Axis.

Generally: I supposed you could try to offset pro-Ally rules (e.g. no interceptors) with pro-Axis rules (e.g. technology) but I think the net result will always be that one side will have some advantage. So that got me thinking: if it is true that every variant of the game is unbalanced one way or the other, maybe that’s not so bad. Players can pick the version of the game they like, discuss if they are going to use bids or not, and pick sides. For example, a game group might like using interceptors and technology. In time, their bids will converge on a number that promises a more balanced game.

For the ruleset we just played, I’m not sure what bid I would offer to take Allies. 25?

TripleA Turn Summary: Americans round 9

TripleA Turn Summary for game: World War II v3 1941, version: 1.7.0

Game History

Round: 9

    Purchase Units - Americans
        Americans buy 1 fighter and 10 infantry; Remaining resources: 0 PUs; 0 techTokens; 

    Purchase Units - Chinese
        Chinese builds 0 units.

    Combat Move - Americans
        1 submarine moved from 52 Sea Zone to 57 Sea Zone
        1 artillery moved from Rhodesia to Union of South Africa
              British take Union of South Africa from Japanese

    Combat - Americans
        Battle in 57 Sea Zone
            Americans attack with 1 submarine
            Japanese defend with 1 carrier, 1 destroyer and 1 fighter
                Americans roll dice for 1 submarine in 57 Sea Zone, round 2 : 0/1 hits, 0,33 expected hits
                Japanese roll dice for 1 carrier, 1 destroyer and 1 fighter in 57 Sea Zone, round 2 : 1/3 hits, 1,33 expected hits
                1 submarine owned by the Americans lost in 57 Sea Zone
            Japanese win with 1 carrier, 1 destroyer and 1 fighter remaining. Battle score for attacker is -6
            Casualties for Americans: 1 submarine

    Non Combat Move - Americans
        5 transports moved from 12 Sea Zone to 9 Sea Zone
        1 armour and 9 infantry moved from Eastern Canada to 9 Sea Zone
        1 armour, 9 infantry and 5 transports moved from 9 Sea Zone to 12 Sea Zone
        1 armour and 9 infantry moved from 12 Sea Zone to Morocco Algeria
        1 armour and 9 infantry moved from Morocco Algeria to Libya
        1 armour and 6 infantry moved from Libya to Egypt
        4 armour and 7 infantry moved from Egypt to Trans-Jordan
        1 aaGun moved from Trans-Jordan to Egypt
        4 armour and 4 infantry moved from Trans-Jordan to Persia
        2 artilleries and 5 infantry moved from India to Persia
        1 fighter moved from Persia to India
        1 fighter moved from Libya to India
        1 infantry moved from Persia to Kazakh S.S.R.
        8 infantry moved from Eastern United States to Eastern Canada
        2 armour moved from Western United States to Eastern Canada
        1 carrier moved from 12 Sea Zone to 10 Sea Zone

    Place Units - Americans
        10 infantry placed in Eastern United States
        1 fighter placed in 10 Sea Zone

    Turn Complete - Americans
        Americans collect 37 PUs; end with 37 PUs

Combat Hit Differential Summary :

Americans regular : -0,33
Japanese regular : -0,33

Savegame

@the_good_captain I had a feeling you would be curious We’ll get back to it when the game is finished.

By the way: I was having trouble seeing the game’s history. I usually look at the turns before I take mine, but I kept getting errors about “merging values Italians and Italians”. Does this happen to anybody else as well?

TripleA Turn Summary: Americans round 8

TripleA Turn Summary for game: World War II v3 1941, version: 1.7.0

Game History

Round: 8

    Purchase Units - Americans
        Americans buy 2 armour and 8 infantry; Remaining resources: 3 PUs; 0 techTokens; 

    Purchase Units - Chinese
        Chinese builds 0 units.

    Combat Move - Americans
        1 artillery moved from Italian Africa to Rhodesia
              British take Rhodesia from Germans
        1 bomber and 6 fighters moved from India to 37 Sea Zone

    Combat - Americans
        Battle in 37 Sea Zone
            Americans attack with 1 bomber and 6 fighters
            Italians defend with 1 battleship, 2 cruisers and 1 transport; Japanese defend with 1 carrier, 1 cruiser, 2 fighters and 2 transports
                Americans roll dice for 1 bomber and 6 fighters in 37 Sea Zone, round 2 : 4/7 hits, 3,67 expected hits
            Units damaged: 1 battleship owned by the Italians
                Japanese roll dice for 1 battleship, 1 carrier, 3 cruisers, 2 fighters and 3 transports in 37 Sea Zone, round 2 : 3/7 hits, 3,83 expected hits
                1 cruiser owned by the Italians, 1 carrier owned by the Japanese, 3 fighters owned by the Americans and 1 cruiser owned by the Japanese lost in 37 Sea Zone
                Americans roll dice for 1 bomber and 3 fighters in 37 Sea Zone, round 3 : 2/4 hits, 2,17 expected hits
                Japanese roll dice for 1 battleship, 1 cruiser, 2 fighters and 3 transports in 37 Sea Zone, round 3 : 1/4 hits, 2,50 expected hits
                1 fighter owned by the Japanese, 1 cruiser owned by the Italians and 1 fighter owned by the Americans lost in 37 Sea Zone
                Americans roll dice for 1 bomber and 2 fighters in 37 Sea Zone, round 4 : 1/3 hits, 1,67 expected hits
                Japanese roll dice for 1 battleship, 1 fighter and 3 transports in 37 Sea Zone, round 4 : 2/2 hits, 1,33 expected hits
                1 fighter owned by the Japanese and 2 fighters owned by the Americans lost in 37 Sea Zone
                Americans roll dice for 1 bomber in 37 Sea Zone, round 5 : 1/1 hits, 0,67 expected hits
                Japanese roll dice for 1 battleship and 3 transports in 37 Sea Zone, round 5 : 1/1 hits, 0,67 expected hits
                1 bomber owned by the Americans and 1 battleship owned by the Italians lost in 37 Sea Zone
            Japanese win with 3 transports remaining. Battle score for attacker is 18
            Casualties for Americans: 1 bomber and 6 fighters
            Casualties for Italians: 1 battleship and 2 cruisers
            Casualties for Japanese: 1 carrier, 1 cruiser and 2 fighters

    Non Combat Move - Americans
        1 artillery and 3 infantry moved from Persia to India
        1 infantry moved from Anglo-Egypt Sudan to Egypt
        4 armour and 6 infantry moved from Morocco Algeria to Libya
        4 armour and 6 infantry moved from Libya to Egypt
        4 infantry moved from Egypt to Trans-Jordan
        3 infantry moved from Trans-Jordan to Persia
        1 fighter moved from 10 Sea Zone to Libya
        5 transports moved from 12 Sea Zone to 9 Sea Zone
        1 armour and 9 infantry moved from Eastern Canada to 9 Sea Zone
        1 armour, 9 infantry and 5 transports moved from 9 Sea Zone to 12 Sea Zone
        1 armour and 9 infantry moved from 12 Sea Zone to Morocco Algeria
        1 carrier moved from 10 Sea Zone to 12 Sea Zone
        1 armour moved from Western United States to Eastern Canada
        9 infantry moved from Eastern United States to Eastern Canada
        1 bomber moved from Wake Island to India
        1 fighter moved from Persia to India
        1 fighter moved from Karelia S.S.R. to Persia
        1 submarine moved from 57 Sea Zone to 52 Sea Zone
        1 aaGun moved from Egypt to Trans-Jordan

    Place Units - Americans
        2 armour placed in Western United States
        8 infantry placed in Eastern United States

    Turn Complete - Americans
        Americans collect 37 PUs; end with 40 PUs

Combat Hit Differential Summary :

Americans regular : -0,17
Japanese regular : -1,33

Savegame

@the_good_captain You scored 1 hit, I assigned it to a fighter.

I persist, and score 1 hit. How would you assign it?

(There are 2 fighters + 1 bomber remaining, against 1 damaged battleship + 1 fighter)

@the_good_captain Japan scored 3 hits, USA sacrificed 3 fighters.
Remaining units:
USA: 3 fighters, 1 bomber.
Japan/Italy: 1 cruiser, 1 damaged battleship, 2 fighters.

USA persists in the attack and scores 2 hits. How would you like to assign these?

@the_good_captain USA attacked SZ37 with 6 fighters and 1 bomber, and scored 4 hits. How would you like to assign losses?