Grand Strategy Victory Stats and Summary

[shawkhan]

I think the game is balanced when experienced players play. When newbies play, the Allies are favored, as it takes more skill to attack than to defend. The goal then, is for all of us to become experienced players.

[BuddyGrant]

It looks like the majority of the Grand Strategy (GS) changes to the vanilla Commander - Europe at War (CEAW) game favor the Allies. If that is a generally accurate statement, were the game victory conditions changed fairly dramatically from the vanilla CEAW? Specifically - can you get a major Axis victory in the vanilla game just by barely surviving in Berlin until May '45?

[gerones]

It looks like the majority of the Grand Strategy (GS) changes to the vanilla Commander - Europe at War (CEAW) game favor the Allies. If that is a generally accurate statement, were the game victory conditions changed fairly dramatically from the vanilla CEAW? Specifically - can you get a major Axis victory in the vanilla game just by barely surviving in Berlin until May '45?

Certainly, it looks like a strange victory if the axis by only barely surviving with a handful of low quality german inf corps until may 45, get a major victory and it would sound more appropriate consider this endgame situation as a draw. I mean a draw since if the allies don´t seize the two german capitals before the historical date of may 45, then we would have to penalize the allies for not finishing their work in time.

This is exactly what I try to raise with everybody on the forums here: viewtopic.php?t=14810

But as you can read on this thread quoted and started by me, no way for changing the current victory conditions for now and on the near future. Anyway, there´s always the chance to set a different victory conditions previously with your PBEM opponent as it is also mentioned on this thread.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

It looks like the majority of the Grand Strategy (GS) changes to the vanilla Commander - Europe at War (CEAW) game favor the Allies. If that is a generally accurate statement, were the game victory conditions changed fairly dramatically from the vanilla CEAW? Specifically - can you get a major Axis victory in the vanilla game just by barely surviving in Berlin until May '45?

The vanilla game and GS have two very different victory conditions. In the vanilla game you had to control more of the 6 major power capitals than your opponent in May 1945 to win. If both controlled 3 then it was a draw. So for the Germans to win they had to hold Berlin, Rome, Paris and either Moscow, London or Washington. That was possible with the vanilla game because the game balance was not very historical.

Every time I played the vanilla game the Allied player won. Only the best Axis players had a chance to keep the initiative for so long so they could get a draw or a victory.

In GS we tried to simulate the historical flow of the war so the Axis player is supposed to lose Berlin in May 1945 as they did historically. GS is balanced accordingly. The Axis player will win if he holds at least one of the 6 major capitals in May 1945.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

The victory levels are:
1 capital = minor victory
2 capitals = major victory
3 capitals = strategic victory
4 or more capitals = ultimate victory

I've won every time with the Axis so far and usually got a strategic or ultimate victory. I might lose against Joe, but I think I can keep it down to a minor Allied victory.

The Allied victory levels are:
All capitals captured after February 1945, but before May 1945 = minor victory
All capitals captured after December 1944, but before March 1945 = major victory
All capitals captured after June 1944, but before January 1945 = strategic victory
All capitals captured before July 1944 = ultimate victory

If all capitals are captured by the Allies only in May 1945 then the game is a draw. This happens rarely.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

We have too little data yet to make conclusions of the GS game balance. What we've seen so far is that for the Axis player to win he need to be good at both offensive and defensive play. He has to get quite far from 1939-1942 when he has the initiative. From 1943 and to the end he has to delay the Allied offensive in order to survive to the end.

It's my impression that the Allied player usually wins because the Axis player has made significant mistakes. An important mistake is to not do what you can to save oil and manpower. If the Axis player runs out of oil in 1943 then it's game over within a year. If they drop below 50% manpower too soon then their units can't hold the Allies for long enough due to a drop in both quality and survivability. This happens if the Germans are too aggressive and don't know when to turn to defense. A typical mistake is to attack for too long.

Remember also that most of the games reported are done with v1.00-v.102. There have been some changes done after that. One important chance is that the Russian surprise loss is increased from 20 to 30 efficiency. Another is that the Russians have a more forward defense line. This means the Germans can afford to be more aggressive in 1941 and push as hard as they can. They can kill more units and get further for a strong 1942 offensive. This means 1943 will be a year with balance in the east and the Russians will only start their steamroller in 1944. That means the Germans can hold out long enough.
So far we haven't got a single end game reported with GS v1.05. I believe that the changes we did will make it easier for the Axis to handle aggressive Russian play in 1941.

I play against Jim with v1.05 and in 1941 I got to Rostov, Voronezh and Ore. I stopped early to prevent counter attacks in the severe winter. If I had pushed all the way I would have been at Stalingrad and maybe Moscow, but then I would have lost several units during the winter. I'm in a stronger position that ever now early 1942. Jim will have a terrible time in 1942 to avoid losing too many units.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

One thing to remember about game balance is WHO are we balancing the game for. An elite player like Supermax struggled a bit with the Axis in GS and had to fight hard to get minor victories (he even lost once with the Axis). But now he has found a way to use the Axis to the maximum and manage to force a Russian surrender, thus being sure to win an ultimate Axis victory.

So experienced players will always exploit the possibilities and get victories. Our goal was to make GS balanced when two experienced player met each other. It's very hard to keep a game balanced for both experienced and inexperienced players. One example is that experienced Axis players will always capture Paris in June 1940 or earlier. Inexperienced players may struggle so much so they don't take Paris until 1941. It's quite obvious that if the Axis player didn't take France early then Barbarossa will suffer dearly. That means that the Allies will most likely win the game.

So in order for the Axis player to get decent results he first has to have a good strategy for taking out Poland, Holland, Denmark and then Belgium, France Norway, Greece and Yugoslavia. Good players always capture all these countries in time before Barbarossa and still can launch a devastating offensive against the Russians. I would say that Axis players struggling to take Paris in June should practise how he attacks to learn a better method. Learning from experienced players is also a good idea. As I wrote before, you HAVE TO know how to attack efficiently in order to get a good result with the Axis. Also remember that what you learnt in the vanilla game has to be unlearned for GS. Different strategies are needed in GS to be successful. Look at Supermax. He was the ultimate vanilla game Axis player winning big every time. He used his skills in GS and got a nasty surprise and lesser results. Now he has adapted his strategies and is back to sweeping the board with his opponents.

So the game result can show a difference in experience with GS. I would claim that an average player who has played GS 10 times has a fair chance against a good player who has only played the vanilla game.

[rkr1958]

Update the stats to include the victories by supermax & massina_nz in their two AARs that just ended. By the way, if you don't see updated stats you need to hit your Browser's refresh, or reload, button.

[rkr1958]

Added PanzerGeneral.

[rkr1958]

Updated the stats.

[rkr1958]

Updated the stats.

[rkr1958]

Added shawkhan to the stats.

[rkr1958]

Added gchristie and updated the stats.

[patton]

^^^ Very interesting, and I am sure it was a lot of work to compile, thanks very much.

Question: doesn't a 2/3 Allied win rate suggest that the game is imbalanced? I know it is more "historical" that way, but I wonder if it wouldn't be more fun to play if the balance was more 50/50, even if that made it a bit "ahistorical."

[rkr1958]

^^^ Very interesting, and I am sure it was a lot of work to compile, thanks very much.

Question: doesn't a 2/3 Allied win rate suggest that the game is imbalanced? I know it is more "historical" that way, but I wonder if it wouldn't be more fun to play if the balance was more 50/50, even if that made it a bit "ahistorical."

This point has been made before but I think what the stats are capturing is that it's more difficult and less forgiving to the play the axis. If you only take the stats for players who have a 60% or higher winning percentage then the axis record is 16-6-1 (or 71%) and the allied record is 24-3-0 (89%). For the rest (which includes anonymous) the axis record is 0-15-0 (or 0%!) and the allied record is 7-13-1 (or 36%).

And even if the chance for victory was 33% for the axis and 67% for the allies, I would personally prefer that to making the expansion less historical to try to tune the stats to 50/50.

[patton]

I dunno, all the additional stats that you quote only reinforce the point that the game favors the Allies.

It's your game and you did a great job with it, no doubt about that, but as a "game" I would prefer it to be closer to 50/50. I think it would be more fun that way.

[rkr1958]

STOP THE PRESSES!

I have another GS result to report, one that may surprise you. Borger (Axis) v. Joe (Allies) ends in a minor Allied victory. Germany surrendered on April 2, 1945. This one went down the wire, and it was only in very late 1944 that I realized I would win unless I really screwed up. Neither one of us got lucky or unlucky with the weather. 2 of 3 turns were fair in Oct.-Nov., and 2 of 3 were mud in Feb.-March. Borger and I agree that the deciding move came in summer 1944 on the eastern front, when I was able to cut off a handful of strong German units at the Dnepr by using a solid line of Soviet-controlled hexes created by partisans behind enemy lines. If I hadn't done that, I think we might have fought to a draw.

It was a great game either way, and I almost wish I had done an AAR. Perhaps next time. We haven't decided yet whether we will switch sides for our next game or play a rematch.

[joerock22]

Eh, everybody loses sooner or later. I'm confident that in a few months time there won't be a single undefeated person on this list.

[rkr1958]

Updated stats.

[rkr1958]

I've added a thumping that I took as the allies against Supermax (i.e., he achieved an ultimate victory as the axis against me). I have the honor of being the only player in the below list who has a losing record when playing the allies. That is, I'm 2-3 as the allies. My only comfort is that my three losses as the allies have come against three of the CEAW GS player elites (Borger, Neil and Supermax).