Victory conditions Big Tournament

[MonsterClaude]

I would ask gentlemen involved in the AoD Tournament their opinion about our victory conditions. Here are few thoughts of mine collected over many multiplayer and hotseat games still going on.

First of all, it appears extremely difficult to contain Russians let alone beat them sure enough to free up german forces for the 1943-44 allied threat. In every test I have run and 2 multiplayers I have heard of, German forces were stalled long before they can take Moscow or Stalingrad. It seems Russia has questionnable starting Tech. Anyway, we can't change it now but we can adjust victory conditions.

The main problem as I see it would be the obvious allied strategy players will quickly figure out. Among Seoul, Tokyo, Manilla, Berlin, Rome and Paris, the last one is by far the easiest to reach. Since the allied player only need one of those cities to get a win, it doesn't take a 10 hours analysis to conclude that EVERY things on hand should be thrown over there, air forces, fleets, land units for a massive, repeated assault on France.

Now, here is my point. The russian front will absorb close to 70% of all german mpp/units available no matter how successful the axis player can be. In the short run- games ending in 1944 because of time/turn limitations- the allied player can virtually ignore the Pacific theater and concentrate 80% of his American, British forces on the Paris objective. The Japanese income and force pool are not big enough to turn japanese offensive into a winning drive before 1944. So the allied player will get away with his victory even if he has lost India, Australia, Alaska, Hawai, etc.

My suggestion would be:

A) the Allies need to take 2 of the aformentionned cities

A+) The Allied need to take at least 2 of these cities, one in the Pacific theater ( Seoul, Tokyo, Manilla), one in the european theater ( Berlin, Rome, Paris)

We give a score to a whole lot of significant cities in AoD ( for instance Bucharest, Cairo, Bakou, Bombay, Calcutta, Melbourne etc) Some would be 1 point victory worth, other 2, other 5, etc) I let you come up with your own list and rating.

Time will tell if I am wrong but I do suspect Paris will be the winning strategy for most allied players. I also feel the burden on the Axis player is no trivial and requires an almost mistake-free game or unusual poor allied gameplay to bring him victory. Maybe some veterans with superior generalship can make it, I want to see it though.

[steel32]

First question I have is why must this tournament be time constrained. To me this seems like some pre-set time line that does not really matter.

2nd is if you talk about 44 compared to 45 or 47 is a different time line. I play for the long haul and might be hit by this short-term approach but am ok with it if this is what it is and will play just for this victory condition that must be met.

3rd why does everyone always think the Jap's are not a force. In terms of territory they can and are a lot the biggest beast on the planet if played right. You can have just as many land units as the Germans but not as many against you.

Up for whatever but feel games should be played out or to a point where not redeemable.

[Amadeus]

I agree with you guys that we have to watch the best victory conditions. Because of this I am happy that you made this thread. For me the jury is still out.

[Clausewitz]

I would ask gentlemen involved in the AoD Tournament their opinion about our victory conditions. Here are few thoughts of mine collected over many multiplayer and hotseat games still going on.

First of all, it appears extremely difficult to contain Russians let alone beat them sure enough to free up german forces for the 1943-44 allied threat. In every test I have run and 2 multiplayers I have heard of, German forces were stalled long before they can take Moscow or Stalingrad. It seems Russia has questionnable starting Tech. Anyway, we can't change it now but we can adjust victory conditions.

The main problem as I see it would be the obvious allied strategy players will quickly figure out. Among Seoul, Tokyo, Manilla, Berlin, Rome and Paris, the last one is by far the easiest to reach. Since the allied player only need one of those cities to get a win, it doesn't take a 10 hours analysis to conclude that EVERY things on hand should be thrown over there, air forces, fleets, land units for a massive, repeated assault on France.

Now, here is my point. The russian front will absorb close to 70% of all german mpp/units available no matter how successful the axis player can be. In the short run- games ending in 1944 because of time/turn limitations- the allied player can virtually ignore the Pacific theater and concentrate 80% of his American, British forces on the Paris objective. The Japanese income and force pool are not big enough to turn japanese offensive into a winning drive before 1944. So the allied player will get away with his victory even if he has lost India, Australia, Alaska, Hawai, etc.

My suggestion would be:

A) the Allies need to take 2 of the aformentionned cities

A+) The Allied need to take at least 2 of these cities, one in the Pacific theater ( Seoul, Tokyo, Manilla), one in the european theater ( Berlin, Rome, Paris)

We give a score to a whole lot of significant cities in AoD ( for instance Bucharest, Cairo, Bakou, Bombay, Calcutta, Melbourne etc) Some would be 1 point victory worth, other 2, other 5, etc) I let you come up with your own list and rating.

Time will tell if I am wrong but I do suspect Paris will be the winning strategy for most allied players. I also feel the burden on the Axis player is no trivial and requires an almost mistake-free game or unusual poor allied gameplay to bring him victory. Maybe some veterans with superior generalship can make it, I want to see it though.

I am currently playing two mirror matches in tournament (my only experience with 1.02) and I agree with much of Monster Claude's analysis. It may be difficult to change rules for games in process but I favor option A. The other options all dictate strategy in some form and I prefer to permit Allies to choose their own battle plan. All my respect to Amadeus and his judgment.

[gkizziah]

hi guys... agree with analysis regarding allied winning formula... in mirror-match I have going, however, I have captured and hold Moscow (so it is possible)... but not sure it is going to do much good, relative to the game-victory criteria!? ...and holding it will leave Paris more vulnerable! Maybe we shouldn't give away so much info. (PS btw...Pacestick (Peter) has won as AXIS, but he is a superior player, having been playing him a lot in last 2 years, + he won the SC WW1 tournament).

So... here is what I am thinking for now....

1) Since Round-1 is on-going, I don't think we should change victory conditions for this round (just let everyone figure out the strategy);

2) There is still a very large question as to tie-break formulas, which have not been determined...and I have some thoughts on this (below)... however, (I am backing way off the idea of having NM be the sole determining factor.)*

3) If we are correct, that the allies can "easily" win by getting Paris by the maximum game length, then there should be a lot of "tie-results"...with 80-90% Allied wins (?)... I think you would all agree, that as a game goes later...particularly into and past 1946, a good player should certainly be able to get a least one of the objectives (again Paris being the easiest).

4) To make things a little more dicey, if a game only goes the minimum 105 turns, it makes the allied win not so automatic....hopefully an axis player who still holds all 6 objectives doesn't then begin to drag his feet on additional moves...but based on tournament outline, there would be no reason for him to continue (??)... unless Amadeus calls a foul. Additionally, at turn 105, an Allied player having already met victory conditions, has little reason to go forward either? (or am I missing something here?)

5) Accordingly, we should see a lot of matches where both players have achieved an Allied win in a mirrored match. Also, in a 3-way round robin played without mirrored matches... it is very conceivable (likely) that all 3 players would win their allied game. (if we are correct, then a player who cannot take the allies to victory, apparently doesn't deserve to play on in the tournament...hope that's not me!)

6) I think the best solution is to come up with a good tie-break protocol for round one. Then, after analyzing the play-balance aspects of the scenario (obviously with changes due to patch 1.02), possibly determine a new winning description for round 2... and as someone has recommended above...set the game as a specific game length, to avoid problems (see #4 above).

7) The sooner the better as developing a tie-break protocol, so that players will not feel cheated out of a win by last-minute and possibly arbitrary determinations.

8) So what would make a good tie-break formula??? ... well the scenarios to determine are: a) both players win as allies; both players win as axis; c) in a mirrored match where 1 player wins as axis and the other as allies; d) in round robin where all 3 players go 1 win-1 loss.

As mentioned by others above, looks like we would need an EASY scoring system to rate the win. I propose that the 6 objectives of our current victory conditions be given a value of 2 points. Additional objectives be given a value of 1 point.... (There are probably at least a dozen valuable objectives....so I will make an attempt at them here...

London, Moscow, Chungking, Delhi, Canberra, Washington DC, Stalingrad, Cairo, Honolulu, Singapore, Vladivostok & Ploesti.

With this system as AXIS win would always be at least a 'score' of 12, because (by definition) the player must have control of the main 6 objectives.... if he also holds Chungking(+1), Cairo(+1), Singapore(+1) & Ploesti(+1), he would have a score of 16.

So How to Score the Allies Win? .... my idea is that the FIRST of any of the 6 primary objectives be given a score of 12. Then additional cities from the remaining list be scored with the remaining 5 objectives worth 2 each and the 12 added objectives be given a value of 1 each. ...so, if the allied player holds Paris (value of win = 12) + also holds Seoul (+2), Manila (+2), plus Moscow (+1), WashDC (+1), London (+1) = 19 points.

This method gives an option to compare an ALLIED win versus an AXIS win... in my example an Axis win rated as a 16 score vrs an Allied score @ 19. (Again, if we are right, it will usually be Allied wins...but we need a system that addresses an allied-vrs-axis possibility!)

*Using NM is just too complicated. (I have tried to work out an analysis...but any formula that I came up with is WAY more complicated than the above. Additionally, NM was not used by the game designers to determine victory conditions...and not really even mentioned in the game manual...so I think NM is probably not the best tool to use for the tie-break)

As Clausewitz has suggested, any similar list would do...it's just that we should firm this up as soon as possible.

Anyway...that's what I am thinking. Again thanks to Amadeus, for all his work... I am really enjoying the tournament and both my mirror-matches are too-close-to-call.

[Amadeus]

A simple list sounds very good to me. Let us work on this and talk about it here. What do you think which cities are key objects?

DC, Berlin, London, Moscow, Rome, Tokyo, Seoul, Paris, Manila, Delhi, Canberra, Stalingrad, Cairo, Chungking, Singapore.

Do we need more? And what cities received 1, 2 or 3 points? And finally how many points should go to a win for what side?

[Clausewitz]

Amadeus; I believe the game is best when played using the standard victory conditions and allowed to play until conclusion. However, I agree with the comments in this thread that some mechanism for resolving ties should be in places pre start of round 2. In my opinion when one adds cities beyond standard victory cities one starts to artificially influence a player's battle plan. Thus I would favor only assigning values to victory cities.

[MonsterClaude]

Gentlemen, I think we should keep in mind victory conditions for a Tournament cannot be based on standard ones mainly designed to give the AI opponent a chance. Frankly, does it make sense an Axis player holding only Seoul by May45 can win a tactical victory? This is for the AI, so let's be cautious here. Same thing with games time length. This is a tournament and we all have lifes out there. I know some guys can manage to play 4-5 hours a day but for most of us, forget it. So there has to be victory conditions, not necessarily with a set time limit, but surely with some score points threshold reached at some point in the game to help finding a winner more quickly.

I know there will be tight games going into 1946 or so. Fine, it means we have equal skilled players. I said Allies are stronger so longer games do favor the ally side. A threshold score point means the Allies will have to set a global containment strategy not just go asap for an Axis Capital and forget about the other continents. It also means that a successful Axis advance can be decisive as early as 43. So I agree there should be victory points given to cities instead of a preset city victory list only. In fact, a preset list do impact a lot on strategies and leads to same moves recipy used over an over.

A threshold means if some time in 1943, 44, and so on, the Axis player reached a specific score, he won. BUT... it is asymetrical. the Allies threshold will not be the same. Of couse Major Capitals will have more points. Having other cities on the list, in due respect despite what you thought Clausetwitz, actually open gameplay in every directions and prevent repeated use of recipes or proven tricks . I'm running out of time now so I come up with a detailed proposal tomorrow.

[gkizziah]

hi... okay, agreed that the 'victory cities' from the campaign should be used FIRST. However, there is still the possibility of an Axis-v-Axis Tie...meaning both players would have finished the game with all 6 victory cities in Axis control....so some protocol must be developed for that possibility...meaning adding additional victory objectives. If we are coming up with a victory & tie-breaker formula, it should cover as many possibilities as we can to prevent having to re-think all of this again.

So as I suggested previously in the thread... there are 3 possibilities...

1)Both players win as Axis

2)Both players win as Allies

3) in a round robin, all 3 players win 1 side...1 player has an allied win...other 2 players have an axis win (this cannot happen in heads up, as it is a mutually-exclusive event)

I do not see an 'easy' way to resolve all these possibilities without adding other 'minor' objectives... getting us back to the scoring issue... and I agree that the original 6 victory objectives should be valued in such a way, that they are heavily and equally weighted in the formula.

The hardest thing to compare will be an Axis win ...compared to an Allied win. Since the final round (I think) is still planned to be round-robin...it is possible, so should be addressed beforehand.

So... back to the scoring issue... I'll work on my suggestions & respond to Amadeus' request soon. If anyone else is to make a proposal, don't forget to figure out how to compare scores of an allied win vrs an axis win.

[Catacol Highlander]

I think it is a mistake to mess with the standard victory conditions. The game has been designed to end in May 47 and not in 1944 or 1945... and any attempt to try and balance new victory conditions with early finish dates is likely to come apart. It also makes it possible for players deliberately to play slowly if it suits their position. That is simply wrong. The game must finish when it supposed to finish - May 1947 - or earlier in the event of a surrender. All players in the tournament are in it because they enjoy playing, and they will take a turn every day and often more than once in a day and the game will move fast. The outcome of many games will be obvious by 1944 anyway.

I do not agree that victory conditions have only been created for matches against the AI - the global balance favours the allies but the victory conditions favour axis tactical victory. That is a perfect problem to try and work out, and good players will find a way to win as either axis or allies.

And to make it perfectly balanced every match should be a mirror match. In that way there can be no complaints and everyone knows where they stand. In the event of a mirror tie then Amadeus decides who wins using the standard victory conditions using the listed cities. In the very unlikely event of both players having exactly the same number of victory cities in their possession at the end of the mirror then Amadeus makes a judgement of the winner based upon the global position and also taking into account NM.

This is not complicated. Leave the game alone - dont make up rules just for a tournament and let players learn to play the game as they will have to play it in any other non-tournament match.

[Clausewitz]

Thank you Highlander! Amen, Amen, Amen, At the risk of repeating myself the game design favors allies in playing strength but that strength takes time to develop thus the need for longer games. The balance to allied player strength is easier axis tactical victory conditions. The skilled players in tournament playing mirror matches will find their own path to a well earned victory. We do not need to artificially guide or impede their battle plans. All due respect to differing opinions but the design team has built a great game.

[Catacol Highlander]

Agreed. No need to change something that doesnt need changing.

[Amadeus]

OK, based on your requests I will make a finetuning for better victory conditions. Nothing serious but a good compromise on what you said. Keep me informed here and in the tourny thread.

[MonsterClaude]

It seems we have a bit of confusion here. Amadeus proposed and organized this AoD tourney. He set some rules to make sure it would go smoothly unlike many tourneys of this kind ( just watch previous tourneys threads, you will see what I mean). There has never been standard victory conditions agreed on for this tourney. Amadeus made these rules clear 2 months ago and I expressed concerns over these victory conditions namely the 6 cities mentioned in his post: Manila, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Tokyo, Seoul given the time length 105 turns in 105 days. All is written black on white in that post and we all have taken for granted, players knew it and accepted it. If anything, this unilateral switch to standard victory conditions suddenly popping up is the major change in sight and should be discussed accordingly. In any case, Amadeus has rightfully the last word on that matter and I leave it to him whether we should simply adopt standard victory conditions or not.

Secondly, I would like to underline the problems this thread was supposed to address.

1) The initial 6 victory cities as per the tournament rules thread may open ways to exploit by allied players.

2) The Allies are stronger. Whether this historical imbalance is justified or not in this World at War scenario would prove irrelevant as long as victory conditions are corrected to give the Axis player its due. Don’t forget, SC is a game not a simulation.

3) Time constraint is a fact in real life and gaming time management cannot be ignored. That is why Amadeus tried to bring a flexible formula that suits most people. If too many players drop the tourney by lack of time, we completely missed our goal here. One day, hopefully next year not the next century, this tournament should come to its conclusion, with SC3 around the corner.

Few words on mirrored games and 1947 end games. In an ideal wargaming world, we would all play mirrored games without date limit where good players gameplay would sure prevail. I am afraid there is no such a world and for the better or worst we live in the real world where playing 4 games ( 2 mirrored) could required strenuous efforts to keep up with a tourney schedule (in this case 105 days). Of course, we could tell these guys this tourney is just for the most zealous wargamers who are willing to devote all the hours needed to their hobby. Or, we could say gaming fun is the point so there is no point to have schedule at all no matter how many years such a tourney can last. My point, as far as a tourney add something to gaming thrill, was to avoid slow death in everlasting games where players must wait month after month for their opponent and everyone eventualy lose interest in the process. I thought, just like Amadeus that 105 days was a good limit, 1947 is not! With something like 400 turns to be played ( 800 or more in a mirrored case), it cannot be serious!

True, most of the time, one side will be undisputably winning by 1944, so why pushing it? If good players are good players, then, just like any other restrictions or challenge involved in the game mechanics and scenario design they can deal with time limits. This is the way many games including chest are played. If a battleplan , specialy for the Allies side, relies on some slow long term attritional war giving results beyond May45, I think the Axis guy should be given the possibility of victory if by that date or before, the Allies have not taken at least some proposed cities or reach some threshold point by then. What are you afraid of? Good players are good players, aren’t they?

I am testing now some set of victory conditions based on cities/resources points threshold. More on that later. So far, I have to admit I have not found a better solution so I wait for Amadeus to bring his own revised version.

[MonsterClaude]

Oops! I meant CHESS in the above post not CHEST! I must have been gathering too many thoughts too quickly!

[Clausewitz]

I would like to add a few clarifying comments as I see them for the benefit of Amadeus's deliberations. The six victory cities were not created by Amadeus they are the encoded six cities of an axis minor victory. Amadeus merely chose to use them for both axis and allies to accommodate the many and sometimes competing desires of players on a totally new release with many unknowns regarding playing strength. Both sides of this discussion quickly learned that for all the reasons discussed in these posts that modifications were advisable for round 2. In my opinion moving to the complete encoded victory conditions is less unilateral than artificially assigning point values to 10-15 cities across the globe. The game we all bought and love has no such point value approach anywhere in game. However if Amadeus determines for the good of the tournament that points values should be assigned to the encoded cities to judge tied games I believe we all would be satisfied. Speaking for myself I would also find it acceptable to judge games at the end of '45 using encoded cities with point values if this is Amadeus's conclusion.

[Hubert Cater]

Hello everyone, I just wanted to make a quick post as it has been brought to my attention that there is likely a bug in the Victory Conditions in that the Axis Tactical conditions will trump the Allied Minor victory condition.

Essentially, if I'm seeing the bug properly, an Allied Minor Victory will never fire as the Axis Tactical conditions precede them and the the only Allied condition that will fire is the Allied Major Victory condition.

I would therefore suggest that the Axis Tactical conditions be ignored for now until we correct this for the next patch and an Allied Minor victory be awarded should the condition be satisfied at the end of the game.

This is of course provided that the current conditions are still deemed acceptable for the tournament.

Hubert

[Amadeus]

Thanks Hubert, we will take that in mind and act on this assumption as a starting point for the tourny.

I believe that victory conditions deserves a closer attention in the future (not only SC2 but SC3!) too. Maybe it is possible to mark kind of waypoints particulary in Multiplayer. I have this feeling since our discussion here and even before.

[MonsterClaude]

On second thought, I realized Catacol Higlander is right about smart Axis guys who might use turns/date limitation (105 turns/days) to deliberately have Allied gameplay bogged down with some astucious gambits and not bother at all with 1944-45 consequences.

105 turns goes into Sept43 only. As Clausewitz underlined, the Allies usualy need more time to get their power in motion. It wasn't a problem in my games but it could definitely become one with a non-cooperative axis opponent aiming at the 105 days deadline with slow play or gamey delaying tricks I won't reveal here.

The breaking point in this scenario is Summer 1944 where allied strategy has not only stopped the Axis expansion but also pushed sizeable forces to the Reich or Japan borders as such. In the other event where an Axis player has managed to preserve most of his conquest, I think he deserved the win. So maybe the 105 turns limits should be raised to 125 ( July44) or 130 (Oct44). Just as reference, historically the Allies took Rome in June 44, Paris in August 44, Manilla in Feb45, Berlin in May45. , Seoul, Tokyo were occupied after japanese September2nd capitulation. Ironically, the Allies would have lost according to standard victory conditions!

For all other aspects discussed above, I agree with Clausewitz last post as far as we don't take into account encoded conditions victory beyond 45.

[Jollyguy]

Hey guys, I'm the player that was supposed to be in the tourney but due to a clear case of operator error had to withdraw since I couldn't get the game to run. Hubert got the game running for me the other day...thank you Hubert! So, if any of you now deep in the tourney have finished games and have time and need a good Allied opponent, fire off an AoD 1939 Axis first turn to rrweeks@comcast.net

I think those of you that have played me know I can play the Allies about as good as anyone out there, except maybe for Dragon...is he still playing? Clausewitz, I know we had some great SCG Gold 1.04 games, so if you want to resume the wars send me a file. Time permitting I'd fire back an Axis game but I've found that my ideal number of games is 3, maybe 4, otherwise I get in a personal battle at home...with the better half. I want peace on the homefront! So it's kind of first come first served.

I'm the type who likes to learn as I go so you folks might have a slight advantage as I'm not going to spend hours on an AI game learning tips and tricks. I'll read the posts and keep them in mind, but all-in-all my forces will have to gain experience the hardway, at the college of hard knocks as my dad used to say.

Bob

[steel32]

Stated same thing early on in this post that more time is needed for some allied players to start their main assaults especially against good axis players.

Perhaps the end of the game is not needed as I stated but more time than 105 turns.