Spain or Russia

[Red Prince]

The situation in Communist China:

ORIGINAL: Centuur

So it might be a good idea to surrender China, if China isn't able to put up a good fight anymore. However: don't do this in 1940! Wait until 1941 (higher US entry chits). If China still has a good punch in them, don't surrender... How many Chinese cities aren't controlled by Japan at this moment (since there isn't an entry hit for cities surrendered by China...)? This should be taken into account when making this decision. It might be possible to clear non essential cities from Chinese troops and withdraw without a fight, thus speeding US entry... 

As you can see, the Communists are pretty much trapped. There are 5 nearby cities, but only the 2 double-circled cities really need to be taken for conquest.

[Red Prince]

And in Nationalist China:

I'd say 'punch' is one thing that China does not have. All four cities here need to be taken by Japan, and it'll have to wait at least another turn or two, since taking Kweilin disorganized so many units (including the HQ).
-----
Edit: I forgot to circle one of the cities (where the 5-2 Warlord is sitting), but it probably doesn't absolutely need to be taken for conquest.
-----

[Red Prince]

And, finally, this is what is coming up for reinforcements next turn for all nations. As things stand, the 2 Chinese units you see here are the only units they have on the "production circle".

[Orm]

I think surrendering China at this point would be a mistake.

[Red Prince]

ORIGINAL: Orm

I think surrendering China at this point would be a mistake.

When do you think it should be done, if you think it should be considered at all.

[brian brian]

I well understand that one game does not a rule subsystem make. And I know this decision is water under the bridge, but as the years roll by it gets hard to recall what flowed under that bridge at times.

So it looks as if the bug I was thinking of was in my assumption that those were truly random results. Manipulating the numbers for testing purposes is a very good idea. If that sequence of US entry results came up randomly, it would be astronomically extra-ordinary I think, even with the Axis front loading the process with all the 1939 activity (good weather in Nov/Dec?)

And I think I do see a real bug in that there should not be a separate USE roll for the sequence of Italy DOW France, Italy DOW Greece, and then Germany DOW Greece. The rule is "once per neutral minor country".

I think changing to unlimited chits was a solution in search of a problem. A major part of the re-design of the game in the Final Edition was to eliminate critical luck, I believe I read that in the Designer's Notes. For that reason the game was changed from a d6 system to a d10 system. A further wrinkle was added in 2007, changing the values of the entry chits to reduce the high & low value chits in favor of more middle value chits. The unlimited chit system is a move in the opposite direction for the game. Let's say the US got truly lucky and drew all the "4" chits at once. The unlimited chit system magnifies that luck as the US always has the same chance of pulling more "4" chits, and could also magnify the bad luck of the US pulling all of the "1" chits. There will be more such games in MWIF than in the cardboard game, and may result in players increasing the significance of the USE system in their decisions, which is good strategy for this game actually. But there will also be a few more games where unusual USE results determine the winner perhaps more than the skill of equally matched players.



Thanks Red Prince for all the work and the game reports, etc. It is quite a game you have going, but a game to test what happens when the US passes War Appropriations on the 6th turn of the game is a bit less interesting, just as a game to see what happens if one side always rolls 20 in combats would be dull.

I would add that perhaps in China, I would guess that the Chinese could have benefitted from choosing the Blitz table to conserve units and trade away more space, of which they have a lot, for time. A concept it took me quite a few games of WiF to figure out. I wouldn't surrender them though, the US will be in the war shortly anyway as the 1941 chits come online, and you should just force the Japanese to dig out the last of the Chinese, who should be just fine over the winter now that they don't have anything left to defend in the North Monsoon zone. I would use some Intell points to help increase Partisan activity in China if I were the Allies; those supply lines on the new map get pretty long...

[Red Prince]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I well understand that one game does not a rule subsystem make. And I know this decision is water under the bridge, but as the years roll by it gets hard to recall what flowed under that bridge at times.

So it looks as if the bug I was thinking of was in my assumption that those were truly random results. Manipulating the numbers for testing purposes is a very good idea. If that sequence of US entry results came up randomly, it would be astronomically extra-ordinary I think, even with the Axis front loading the process with all the 1939 activity (good weather in Nov/Dec?)

And I think I do see a real bug in that there should not be a separate USE roll for the sequence of Italy DOW France, Italy DOW Greece, and then Germany DOW Greece. The rule is "once per neutral minor country".

I think changing to unlimited chits was a solution in search of a problem. A major part of the re-design of the game in the Final Edition was to eliminate critical luck, I believe I read that in the Designer's Notes. For that reason the game was changed from a d6 system to a d10 system. A further wrinkle was added in 2007, changing the values of the entry chits to reduce the high & low value chits in favor of more middle value chits. The unlimited chit system is a move in the opposite direction for the game. Let's say the US got truly lucky and drew all the "4" chits at once. The unlimited chit system magnifies that luck as the US always has the same chance of pulling more "4" chits, and could also magnify the bad luck of the US pulling all of the "1" chits. There will be more such games in MWIF than in the cardboard game, and may result in players increasing the significance of the USE system in their decisions, which is good strategy for this game actually. But there will also be a few more games where unusual USE results determine the winner perhaps more than the skill of equally matched players.



Thanks Red Prince for all the work and the game reports, etc. It is quite a game you have going, but a game to test what happens when the US passes War Appropriations on the 6th turn of the game is a bit less interesting, just as a game to see what happens if one side always rolls 20 in combats would be dull.

I would add that perhaps in China, I would guess that the Chinese could have benefitted from choosing the Blitz table to conserve units and trade away more space, of which they have a lot, for time. A concept it took me quite a few games of WiF to figure out. I wouldn't surrender them though, the US will be in the war shortly anyway as the 1941 chits come online, and you should just force the Japanese to dig out the last of the Chinese, who should be just fine over the winter now that they don't have anything left to defend in the North Monsoon zone. I would use some Intell points to help increase Partisan activity in China if I were the Allies; those supply lines on the new map get pretty long...

A few things in response:

1. I don't think I did actually alter the chits selected. I just know that it is possible that I did and didn't record it.

2. The actual purpose of this game I'm running is to see if there are any errors that crop up after 25-35+ consecutive turns are played in a single game. Sometimes this can mean memory leaks, corrupt data getting into the saved game, and other things. For the most part, the tests we run rarely require more than 10-12 turns to complete. I don't actually know if anyone has taken a game all the way from 1939 into the late stages of the game. Thus, this test.

3. I actually made the same argument about the effects of the unlimited-chit system about a month ago as it relates to the additional Chinese cities. I then examined the analysis that was made and did a few calculations of my own. End result -- there are still a few questions that can't possibly be answered until several hundred "real" games have been played, but overall, the system works as intended.

4. Similarly, the critical luck you are talking about is only possible if a player does not take US Entry trends into account when planning his actions. Obviously, this was the case for the Axis in 1939 in this game.

5. I think you're right about the Blitz table in China. I'll probably look up the odds for all of the attacks that were made just to satisfy my curiosity, but when I started testing 6 months ago I was using the 2D10 rules. I wanted to get used to the 1D10 system, so Orm and I ran the Barbarossa AAR using it, and I decided to use it for this game, too. Being unfamiliar with it, I don't always make the right choicee.

6. Intelligence is not part of the game yet, and will not be in the initial release. It will be added as part of a later release.

7. The multiple rolls for DOWs on a single minor are not bugs. It's how it is supposed to be. The only DOW that is rolled only once for US Entry, even though 2 countries are making the DOW is the first Allied DOW on Germany, by France and the CW.

8. You're very welcome . . . I really do enjoy hearing all of the opinions about how a game should be played, and I'm happy to supply whatever information I can that helps the discussions. It's a lot of fun, really.

If I've left anything out, or if I'm completely wrong about something, let me know.

[brian brian]

I watched a game in the pre-2007 distribution of USE chits at the table next to me at WiFCon once. The US drew about 9 "0" or "1" chits in a row through 1940, and couldn't gear up for the first time until the end of 1941, with still a very long way to go on other entry options. Results like that can flow just from the one/turn USE draw, _regardless_ of player decisions. MWiF does use the latest chit distribution totals, so extreme results are still a bit less likely, but are more likely than in the limited chit system.

Yep, armchair WiF is fun, that's for sure.

Perhaps I still need to learn the DOW rules?

[Red Prince]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I watched a game in the pre-2007 distribution of USE chits at the table next to me at WiFCon once. The US drew about 9 "0" or "1" chits in a row through 1940, and couldn't gear up for the first time until the end of 1941, with still a very long way to go on other entry options. Results like that can flow just from the one/turn USE draw, _regardless_ of player decisions. MWiF does use the latest chit distribution totals, so extreme results are still a bit less likely, but are more likely than in the limited chit system.

Wow. That's incredible. [X(]

Yep, armchair WiF is fun, that's for sure.

Perhaps I still need to learn the DOW rules?

Not necessarily. This was actually a subject of discussion on several different occasions, in relation to several different related DOW issues, and a few of them actually went all the way to Harry Rowland to find an answer. [:)]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I watched a game in the pre-2007 distribution of USE chits at the table next to me at WiFCon once. The US drew about 9 "0" or "1" chits in a row through 1940, and couldn't gear up for the first time until the end of 1941, with still a very long way to go on other entry options. Results like that can flow just from the one/turn USE draw, _regardless_ of player decisions. MWiF does use the latest chit distribution totals, so extreme results are still a bit less likely, but are more likely than in the limited chit system.

Yep, armchair WiF is fun, that's for sure.

Perhaps I still need to learn the DOW rules?

If it is any consolation, in September I make a bunch of changes to the DOW code based on a discussion of what the rules actually are (suppose to be).

[Extraneous]

Which is correct Post #: 121 or Post #: 129?

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: brian brian
I think changing to unlimited chits was a solution in search of a problem. A major part of the re-design of the game in the Final Edition was to eliminate critical luck, I believe I read that in the Designer's Notes. For that reason the game was changed from a d6 system to a d10 system. A further wrinkle was added in 2007, changing the values of the entry chits to reduce the high & low value chits in favor of more middle value chits. The unlimited chit system is a move in the opposite direction for the game. Let's say the US got truly lucky and drew all the "4" chits at once. The unlimited chit system magnifies that luck as the US always has the same chance of pulling more "4" chits, and could also magnify the bad luck of the US pulling all of the "1" chits. There will be more such games in MWIF than in the cardboard game, and may result in players increasing the significance of the USE system in their decisions, which is good strategy for this game actually. But there will also be a few more games where unusual USE results determine the winner perhaps more than the skill of equally matched players.

This has a long history back to around December of 2008. As originally designed, the distribution of the chits for the infinite distribution was the same as for the finite one in WiF. Several of us expressed concern about the resulting standard deviation being much greater and the outcome of that would be more games with luck extremes. That's why the distribtion was redesigned (in a fashion similar to what you describe above) so that the averages were the same but the standard deviation was reduced to something much closer to the finite pool. In other words, lower numbers of zero and five or six value chits (or for an infinite distribution, lower probabilities than before).

Looking at Post 139 it would seem the law of averages is kicking back in, although very little can be done (just like in WiFFE) about the high value chits already in Tension. Extreme luck in any facet of the game can have extreme results, but the likelihood of extreme luck in MWiF's chit draws is not that wildly different than in WiFFE. I'll dig up the standard deviations for "before and after" and post them.

I'm actually looking forward to the fact that knowing a bunch of chits as the Allies in a 2-player game will no longer give a person a superb guess as to the German chit totals in the N-S Pact.

[Red Prince]

ORIGINAL: Extraneous

Which is correct Post #: 121 or Post #: 129?

You're going to have to be a little more specific than that. They are both correct (though there may be a typo in one of them somewhere). Post #129 is just a more detailed version of Post #120. What is the problem that you think needs clarification? I'll try to answer, but I need to know what your question is.

[paulderynck]

Here are the standard deviation results from the "re-modeling" of the chit distributions:

Edit: It is interesting that you get different divergence depending on the strategic choices of the Axis. This is because the pre-programmed distribution has to stay the same regardless of those choices.

[Red Prince]

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

Here are the standard deviation results from the "re-modeling" of the chit distributions:

Edit: It is interesting that you get diefferent divergence depending on the strategic choices of the Axis. This is because the pre-programmed distribution has to stay the same regardless of those choices.

Paul, I always forget. Are these 'average' numbers in chits or in turns?

[paulderynck]

Thanks I should have mentioned that. It is in turns.

[Red Prince]

Impulse #5 (2nd Axis impulse) for N/D '40 had favorable weather for the Axis: Fine weather in the Med. Italy cleared the last remaining CW units out of the Middle-East, and Gibraltar defended against the first attempt to take it:

First of all, Germany conducted Ground Strikes against both Gibraltar and Tangier, disorganizing the MOT in Gibraltar and both units in Tangier (very unlucky for the CW there).

Then, the attack:
16 German Land Factors
4 Paradropped Factors
19 Italian Shore Bombardment Factors
20 Ground Support Factors
= 59 Factors attacking

16 CW Land Factors
2 Notional Unit Factors
8 CW Shore Bombardment Factors (most of those ships are actually French -- the CW hasn't fully recovered from last turn's evacuation of the Med yet)
= 26 Factors defending

59/26 = 2.269:1 Odds
Fractional Odds Roll = .221 = 3:1 Assault CRT (lucky roll for Germany)

Die Roll Modifier = +3 (+2 for disorganized units, +1 for the paradrop, -1 for combat friction)
Note: Yes, those numbers don't add up. I have to check this to see what happened with that. Either I calculated something incorrectly, or the program did.

Die Roll = 4 (could have been better for Germany, but not unreasonable)
Adjusted Die Roll = 7
Result = 1/2 = German PARA snagged his parachute on a tree, making an easy target for the CW riflemen, but while they were shooting at him, the German troops arriving by land managed to kill off the AA Division and the INF Division.

Outcome:
CW holds on to Gibraltar, with a disorganized 5-4 MOT. They have a 6-4 INF ready to debark into the hex next impulse, and TRS at sea able to reorganize both the MOT and the INF (if necessary). Unfortunately, Gort is useless in Tangier.

German land forces nearby are intact, though disorganized. Gudieran is nearby, though, and can reorganize them and/or some LND support. Rundstedt can be in the area in another impulse or two, as well. However, this attack used up the Italian Navy's ability to provide Shore Bombardment.

Analysis: Looks like Germany might have to wait another turn to try this again, and this time there is no PARA available to help out.

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: Red Prince

ORIGINAL: Orm

I think surrendering China at this point would be a mistake.

When do you think it should be done, if you think it should be considered at all.

I think that surrendering China should only be an option when China is reduced to a couple of hero cities that there can never be a way to return. And then it should not be when US is close to entering the war. And if China still has the Burma road open there is even less reason to surrender.

In my humble opinion China is worth alot as an annoyance to Japan even when it is reduced in size and capability. Even a weak China will at times force Japan to consider making precious land moves in China when Japan would rather just do a naval impulse.

In my opinion Japan do not need to DOW any other major power if China surrenders and Japan returns to neutral status. Japan can manage a couple of turns as neutral when it prepars for war with the Western Allies. And if Japan does not DOW any MP because of China surrendered then the US entry effect is not so big that it is worth the surrender of China.

[Extraneous]

ORIGINAL:  Red Prince

ORIGINAL:  Extraneous

Which is correct Post #: 121 or Post #: 129?

You're going to have to be a little more specific than that. They are both correct (though there may be a typo in one of them somewhere). Post #129 is just a more detailed version of Post #120. What is the problem that you think needs clarification? I'll try to answer, but I need to know what your question is.

Ok, figured it out my error.

But Post #: 121 goes to S/O 40 while Post #129 only goes to J/F '40.

What happened after J/F '40?

[Red Prince]

ORIGINAL: Extraneous

ORIGINAL:  Red Prince

ORIGINAL:  Extraneous

Which is correct Post #: 121 or Post #: 129?

You're going to have to be a little more specific than that. They are both correct (though there may be a typo in one of them somewhere). Post #129 is just a more detailed version of Post #120. What is the problem that you think needs clarification? I'll try to answer, but I need to know what your question is.

Ok, figured it out my error.

But Post #: 121 goes to S/O 40 while Post #129 only goes to J/F '40.

What happened after J/F '40?

Ah. I see what you mean. I'm taking care of some end-of-month bookkeeping at the moment, but I'll try to post J/F '40 through the current turn in the same way as Post #129 in the next few hours.