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I have a question about victory bidding for solo games.

As it is meaningless to secretely bid against yourself as part preparing for a new game, I wonder if anyone is aware of any system that might have been designed to do the victory bidding for solo games.

Thank you in advance for any reply.

ORIGINAL: eouellet

I have a question about victory bidding for solo games.

As it is meaningless to secretely bid against yourself as part preparing for a new game, I wonder if anyone is aware of any system that might have been designed to do the victory bidding for solo games.

Thank you in advance for any reply.

In *\Matrix Games\World in Flames\Data there are two files, ObjHis.csv (screen cap below) and ObjAv.csv. Not sure what ObjAv.csv is but I'm pretty sure that ObjHis.csv are the number of objectives controlled by each MP as a function of turn. I'd recommend you incorporate that into your "solo" bidding model. Possibly build some sort of probabilistic "AI-type" model or algorithm to do your bidding. Pun intended. [:D]

Thanks rkr,

I guess there is no such system yet developed, either computerized, or more simply with dice.

I wonder if an adaptation of the original WIF victory system would be a better approach. It was a very good and clever system, far superior to what it became in the 7th edition.

I have played many games with two or more players without bidding. If you look in the Scenarios booklet in the World in Flames Manuals folder there's a table on page 2 that shows the axis winning at the end of a game if they hold 15 objective cities. That is the "baseline" bid if all players bid zero.

Modify that by one if the USA aligns both Brazil and Mexico (which pretty much is a no-brainer) as you would do for the USA if everyone had bid at the beginning. In solitaire I doubt you are gauging individual country wins.

Therefore, if the axis holds less than 14 objectives at the end of JA45, the Allies win. If the axis hold 14, it is a draw.

(In CE those figures are now 11/10 instead of 15/14.)

ORIGINAL: rkr1958
Not sure what ObjAv.csv is but I'm pretty sure that ObjHis.csv are the number of objectives controlled by each MP

Concluding from the naming of these two files, I would guess ObjHis.csv contains the number of objectives hold by the Axis historically and ObjAv.csv the number of objectives hold on average in games already finished, both values as perceived by the creator of these files?

Thanks Paul for that. Well, it sounds like "why bother with the victory bidding system"?

The margins 15+/14/13- objectives is pretty narrow. Depending on which game options are selected, some creating significant change in game balance while others are questionable from an historical standpoint, such static margins become almost meaningless.

I will look more seriously into an adaptation of original WIF victory assessment system, as a manual mod.

I have never been interested in bidding but many like it, especially at Cons, since it is played multi-player and bidding can produce a "single" winner.

I plotted the ObjHis.csv and ObjAvg.csv, which I referenced above, a couple of different ways and thought I'd post the set of 5 PowerPoint charts that I built from the Excel plots.

Historical Control of Objectives by Turn

Game Average Control of Objectives by Turn

Difference Between Game & Historical Control of Objectives by Turn

Historical, Average & Difference Control of Objectives by Major Power (1/2)

Historical, Average & Difference Control of Objectives by Major Power (2/2)

For those interested in such I've uploaded the Excel spreadsheet with the data and plots from which the previous charts were generated.

Looking at the data the thing that surprises me most is how well on average that Germany exceeds historical objective control. They their end game historical control of 0 objectives by 10! Next is Japan which falls below their historical by 4 at end game.