Terif defeated as Axis 1st time ever?

[Avatar]

In case some of you haven't noticed, I'm not a huge fan of AARing. In this case, though, it needs doing. It seems that Terif will lose his 1st game as Axis, ever. Does that mean he's getting senile? No, that means he got unlucky. However, I think every player who has ever played him has gotten lucky at one time or another. But in spite of any luck the Allies have gotten, Terif has simply shown consistently that he knows what to do, and brought every single Axis game to a victorious conclusion. But not yesterday! Let the AAR begin:

Late '39:

- Warsaw captured turn 3, but Poland survives until turn 4.

- 3 BB's and 1 carrier move towards Denmark. Within 5 turns, Baltic fleet is sunk. Denmark is captured turn 4.

- 1st Allied turn, moved UK corp next to the Dutch corp, 2 hexes NE of Brussels. This way, the corp can land and attack german AF in Hamburg turn 2.

- UK buys Monty, puts AFs in London, and hex NE of London.

- Fr Fleet goes to hunt for subs, and destroys them by turn 4.

- Terif attacks the corp on the boat with all 3 AF's instead of attacking LC (corp sinks).

- Allies attack LC turn 2, take it with the French, and simultaneously destroy german AF in Hamburg. It had to intercept London attack, and got intercepted when attacking the corp boat too, so its weak and I attack it with fr AF (who's in the maginot middle hex as a spotter) a carrier and the UK AF NE of London. AF dies, and Terif only left with 2 AF's. Good thing is that Italy is entering the war, because I had opted to destroy the german AF instead of opping fr air to malta.

Early '40

- Terif moves heavy forces into the South, into Italy.

- Monty and the 2 AF's move around the Paris area. They are shortly joined by an additional 2 UK armies. The first UK army is sent to defend Marseilles. A french tank is built and defends the mountain hex north of marseilles. Eventually both units entrench to 4.

- French build no Billote, and concentrate solely on corps, except for the tank.

- Germans try repeatedly break through the mountain hex held by a corp NE of marseilles. It takes around 5 turns to take the hex.

- Italians take out Egypt, Beirut, Malta and Algiers in quick succession, and most of the UK/French fleet that wander into the west med. A bad mistake of mine was not to concentrate all the fleet together, and Terif picks off ship by ship.

Mid '40

- Most of the rest of the year is spent by Terif trying to break through the south. French losses are quite light, and only the occasional corp is lost. Terif breaks through with Panzers and Italian corps later on, but both panzers and around 4-5 italian corps die as well. Additionally, another German AF and Italian AF are killed while attacking the UK army in Marseilles (he takes it at least tho). Another german army dies later on, along with a few german corps. All this while of course, UK AF's are intercepting, and helping to make counter attacks.

This continues until October 41 when Paris is occupied. Before it falls however, another german army dies on the fr mine, and another italian corp west of paris. UK holds brest and for 1 turn, Brussels.

Final losses by October 41 for UK:

1 AF (killed itself counterattacking german army)

1 UK army

1 UK corp

entire fr army

4 ships left, all but one badly damaged.

Few mpps left, and no chits

Germany hasn't conquered any minors yet, and russia is in the high 80's%, Terif must attack next turn, or at least the turn thereafter. It's Feb 42 on the last turn we played, and Romania joined only the turn before, and Yugoslavia hasn't revolted yet, so german attack on Russia will be very very weak.

Only 4 german AF's, and 1 italian. No research detected at all from german side, 0 in jets, 0 in LR.

Usa is at ~60%, so when he declares war on russia, it goes up another bit too.

Can Terif win this one? If not, it would mean a milestone in SC history, if anyone cares hehe. Only Terif could have made it this far, but far enough it is not.

Russia and Germany will be duking it out for the next while, because UK is too weak, and USA isn't in yet. I estimate around 10 turn, at the end of 42 before the Allies get seriously involved, but Russia is pretty much making the same mpps as Italy/Germany combined. Finland might join the axis tho, because USA isn't involved. It's an exciting game, and I haven't figured out what to do with Russia exactly, but it seems no matter what I choose to do (possible attacks on Finland, Sweden, Poland, Romania, Turkey/Iraq) I'll succeed everywhere. Germany is just too weak.

[Blashy]

If he has not conquered any minors he is doomed, I know he's the best player at this game but any decent player can easily win this one.

480MPPs for Russia and the same for Axis, all the while you have UK and USA building up while the east front is even.

This game is a race against time for the Axis, it has to make equal or better MPPs than Allies combined to succeed.

[hellraiser]

And the Sealion will come

most probably corps defence in the east (supported by some hqs) and the sealion gamble (usa being still out) - at least that's what i'd do in this position.

You play 1/5/30 - that's bad for axis now

The recent surge of allied aggro defence strategies will make a lot of ppl to hotseat some more adequate axis openings

For example, I hotseated Rambo's opening against me - our last game where i got whacked - (moving a ****load of ships towards LC/Denmark, using raf + faf + corps landing)

Allies can hold if no polish brkthru is achieved and axis have 1-2 bad rolls early on.

And JJR played not so carefully - but neither did I

Avatar's ideea of opp-ing malta raf to england during the first turn is very good - double the pressure on axis' mpps early on, carriers can finish off an AF near the shores...

One way to prevent allies from killing baltic fleet is not dow-ing denmark turn 1 - that means allies can dow it to deny axis the plunder

You can place the LFs a bit back (in striking range of brussels and copenhagen but not in interception range of brussels port) during turn 1, just to prevent raf , bombing the brussels port in turn 2, to force LFs to intercept. All heavy pieces used in turn 2 for hitting LC and the 3 LFs can be supported - only 3 troops for poland will be supported in this case.

The drawback - RAF/FAF/Carriers will tear the LC german troops down - carriers get xp fast and will provide quite a challenge to the LFs in 5-6 turns.

Difficult to find a bullet proof opening for axis - the early game is so luck dependant sometimes ...

[ May 24, 2005, 12:31 AM: Message edited by: hellraiser ]

[Avatar]

It's true, the solution is to move the german AF's back a bit, one or 2 hexes. That leaves the LC troops open to attack more however. But it seems that losing a german AF early is usually a very bad scenario for Axis, so better to be cautious.

[hellraiser]

Yup...i am toying with this ideea of keeping AFs a bit in the rear - you can hit polish troops as well if they become stubborn

The problem is LC but it maybe not such a big deal after all.

We'll see the following days new Axis openings if you guys continue to go nuts with the allies in the beggining

[Terif]

Yep, Avatar has now really perfected the luck game . The last dozen games as Allies he surrendered within the first 10 turns when Axis got the breakthrough... Like in our games before he tried to kill Axis in France – something that is not possible unless Axis makes mistakes and/or is extremely unlucky. Here both applied .

Since some minutes ago he just surrendered his allied game when I broke through the Ardennes, this time I choose to let him do the LC gambit and to go via Italy to spice up the game. Had been a long time since I fought this way so I did too much mistakes and also underestimated his luck in the end:

- in northern Germany he was able to kill the AF with some pretty lucky rolls (carriers have only an attack value of 1 when attacking an AF directly..). So this AF was missing in Italy and Axis needed some turns to rebuild its air to full strength (6 AFs).

- near Marseilles the first french corps survived 4 turns against expected losses of 10-12 each time...statistically it should have been dead in turn 1-2.

- this gave Allies the time to strengthen their line and UK even built 2 armies.

- After conquering the mountains, axis made the mistake to advance with their 2 tanks and several italian corps in the open terrain before killing the french tank or conquering Marseilles – but Axis commander couldn´t believe Allies would have so much luck like they had. Allies were able to kill each turn the unit that entered the open terrain with an unbelievable series of lucky rolls. 3 times in a row his 2 half-dead (2-3 airbattles..) AFs even did 5 damage to the tanks/corps and finally killed them each time.

- so Axis finally decided to go for Marseilles first and conquered it. But not without loosing 2 AFs to another ´Avatar luck series´ , all battles maximum damage for the AFs (str 7 AFs don´t survive an airbattle + groundstrike...) – chances were below 4% for this to happen...

Finally France surrendered October 19, 1941 – a new record for me .

Avatar threw really everything into the battle of France, so if it would have surrendered 3-4 turns earlier, Axis still could have conquered the usual minors or sealioned England and I would say good chances for Axis to win. Now it will be very difficult with the bid of 250 in 1:5:30 – that means Russia will start with over 8500 mpps...but you have only lost if you give up the game and here it is far from over .

At least UK is pretty much out of the war. During France they lost 5 ships and 2 carriers. The third carrier survived at probably str 1-2. UK also disbanded 2 ships according to the report screen to finance the french battles.

So UK now only owns a str 1 ships, a str 1-2 carrier, a damaged canadian army, a highly damaged AF + HQ and a corps (+ corps in Gibraltar). Another corps+army are trapped (or will be trapped next turn ) near Brest.

Summary:

Very good allied defence from Avatar´s side combined with perfect rolls and several axis mistakes created a very interesting game – will be very exciting to see how it will continue now with such a late France .

[zappsweden]

Originally posted by hellraiser:

Yup...i am toying with this ideea of keeping AFs a bit in the rear - you can hit polish troops as well if they become stubborn

The problem is LC but it maybe not such a big deal after all.

We'll see the following days new Axis openings if you guys continue to go nuts with the allies in the beggining

Against Rambo, I placed 2 of my luftwaffe in north coast Germany to prevent corps landing threast. However, they did not get the time to entrench, Rambo bombarded them every turn with fleet and he scored 2 point damage hell of lot of times.

[Terif]

Concerning the recent aggro/all out France defences:

They are perfect to kill new/unexperienced players and also good against uncautious or imptatient ones.

But against a prepared axis player who knows what he does, these strategies don´t and didn´t work.

As long as Germany moves forward cautiously hex by hex, avoiding the coast and protecting their units, they will always reach Paris (some turns later doesn´t matter in the long run) and then Allies are doomed with this strategy - especially if they even disband their fleet to stop Axis.

However, this playing style is highly luck dependend and leads to very short games one way or the other (see current AARs..) where one side usually surrenders during the first turns and then the game is restarted.

Sorry, not my cup of tea - I prefer the long and good games where strategy matters, not luck. If I want to play roulette I go to the casino .

However, when playing Axis these strategies never worked against me and a lot of players tried it many times in all variants - perhaps this shows that if you counter them correctly, Allies have no realistic chance to succeed.

[zappsweden]

Originally posted by Terif:

However, when playing Axis these strategies never worked against me and a lot of players tried it many times in all variants - perhaps this shows that if you counter them correctly, Allies have no realistic chance to succeed.

Play Rambo, he has a new All-In Strategy. Convince us that u can beat that by force, because I start to believe that the Rambo strategy is open for both sides actually with advantage for Allies (unless bids go way down)

[hellraiser]

hey avatar!!!

'Final losses by October 41 for UK:

1 AF (killed itself counterattacking german army)

1 UK army

1 UK corp

entire fr army

4 ships left, all but one badly damaged.

Few mpps left, and no chits

'

no mention about the 2 lost carriers

@Terif - as i previously posted in some other thread, Avatar identifies himself with luck - you knew what to expect from his part, so don't come up with lame excuses that 'he got lucky' !!!

OMFG, we all know Avatar gets lucky every fricken game!!! Tell us something new!!!

ok

Avatar - bro, go play poker or roulette, you're wasting precious time playing SC ... go get some cash fast ...

Terif - i can hardly wait to see the outcome of this game; 99.99% of the players would have surrendered a lot of turns ago. Kudos for the patience, high morale and will to fight!!!

Good luck (lol) in kicking Avatar's @ss in this one!!!

[Terif]

@Hellraiser:

Yes, Avatar was surprised I didn´t surrender and even asked during the game if I would . But I already won games with France surrendering in June 1941 (ok, bids were lower at that time..). And as mentioned above: 3-4 turns earlier in France and most probably Allies would have already lost here too .

Many players think if they are delayed some turns in France they would have lost and surrender. This is simply wrong. Longterm it makes usually not much difference since Allies pay a huge prize for delaying Axis and this more or less compensates for the late France. In general I would say surrendering when conquering France before March 1941 is a unnecessary present for the opponent - nothing is lost at this point, only if the player looses his morale and surrenders he has lost - and wasted a good chance to fight and win.

Since Avatar only very seldomly played past France, it will be interesting to see what he will do with the Allies now .

BTW:

Yep, should have expected Avatar´s luck - he always had. On the other side his chances in total to have such a luck series were certainly below 1% (I can only second your advice for him to play poker or Lotto for money ). But it gets kind of boring after a while to do only these mini games against the all-out defence when I go via LC.

Perhaps I should have choosen the save way again, but then I would miss the fun this game provides . Better to loose a game from time to time than to do the same thing again and again or to use the same strategy every time.

[ May 23, 2005, 05:09 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]

[hellraiser]

hahah indeed - maybe too many mpps for him will cloud his judgement?

now seriously, i would very much like to take Avatar's place right now in the game vs you

I think I have some pretty good ideeas how to make good use of 8500 mpps

If UK survives ...

[Curry]

Fun reading. But with Terif its not over till its over. The Fat lady may be warming up but she hasn't begun singing yet.

[jon_j_rambo]

(Paris, October 1941) + (Russia 8500 MMPS) = Allied Win.

[Avatar]

Ok people, that's it, I've had enough! All said with a good sense of humour, you think I'm so 'lucky'. It's NOT pure luck. Yes, luck is a factor, but it's not the only factor. I put up an excellent defense of france this game, and Terif chose to go through the south, I didn't force him. He chose to be uncautious, and I made him pay every step. I, like most some others, choose to opt for a shorter game for a multitude of reasons:

1. Playing Terif = playing Deep Blue, why make it any any any ANY easier for him, just for the sake of a longer game? I want to win against him, I have always since I started playing. I don't use any ultra cheap methods, but legal and proven tactics. The only thing I've done is fine-tune some strategies for defending france.

2. France is 60% the game, so losing badly in france = losing game most of the time, ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY against Terif. Why bother continuing for 15+ hours when I've already lost? I'm just not one of those people. I play for fun BUT I also play for the win (especially against Terif

3. I've lost against Terif 10+ times now, most of them mini-games (which I know he hates, sorry for that), but it's because I'm trying to learn from him. I can't really learn from a game if I'm way behind in France, because the odds are already stacked against me. Terif can't lose as Axis post-france, UNLESS you've done what I just did. And the position in this game is what I've been trying to do to him every single time we've played. He's just really really really good at what he does, and I was just trying to mirror him.

No matter what is said, this game isn't cheap, or unrealistic. I've lost a lot too, and feared a Sealion, but I also knew around late '40 that it would still take a LONG time for him to get to Paris, and I would make it as long as possible. Sealion was a threat, but it was almost 42, so UK threw everything, incl. the kitchen sink. Did it pay off in the long run? I think so. I HOPE so ;P, October 41 Paris + 8500+ mpp for Russia should be insta-victory. His only loss with Axis, that's pretty insane. Terif's been playing this for 3 1/2 years now and never lost as axis in 1000+ games, so it's cool that i'm the first.

[zappsweden]

I was the first one to beat Terif (he was Allies), you will be the first to beat the Terif Axis Cookie Cutter play.

[Avatar]

No insult Zapp, really, none, but beating Terif back then was (and I'm going out on a limb here) much easier than it is now. Between now and then, Terif's had, what, at least 800+ games extra experience. It's a different ball game now.

[Terif]

@Avatar:

I know you prefer the short games - with this one we played exactly 18 (mini) games so far - and knew what was awaiting me . As you mentioned some time ago you developed and perfectionated these all-out France defences in order to beat me someday in France.

So yes, you played an excellent defence and really earned that win, you worked hard for it - in case you really win .

But be sure this will be your only win as long as you don´t train your post France play. Don´t forget this only worked cause I allowed the LC gambit by free will and made some stupid mistakes in Italy (something that will not happen again vs you ), so this success is not because of your normal all-out France defence.

As long as Axis uses the counter to the all-out strategies, you will always loose the game very fast like most of the 17 games before .

[zappsweden]

Originally posted by Avatar:

No insult Zapp, really, none, but beating Terif back then was (and I'm going out on a limb here) much easier than it is now. Between now and then, Terif's had, what, at least 800+ games extra experience. It's a different ball game now.

Yeah, but we all got better at SC. Top Players of today would beat Terif of 2 years ago, why? Because strategies evolved.

Terif was harder to beat back then because he knew more rules, flaws and had strategies that no other had learnt to master.

Today, many players know the myriad of opening theory and how to gamble, how to exploit advantages.

Evidently, Terif loses more games now than he used to because ppl have caught up with some of the things that made him great. However, ppl will never totally catch up, just look at the statistics win-loss ratios and it is obvious.

[jon_j_rambo]

Yoda scowls at the taste of defeat. Vows revenge.

[Avatar]

Terif's right about everything. Really. It kind of is a fluke I have him in a headlock. But, it happened, not my fault!

In all seriousness, I have a very demanding girlfriend, who, unlike zapp/jjr/hellraisers' girlfriends, she will NOT let me play 12 consecutive hours. She's the type who literally pulls the plug on my computer. I just can't play super long games! I have no choice but to go for shorter ones! Deutsche Telekom charges ISDN by the minute, so in my old appartment, a 2 hour game of SC would cost me around 10 euro. In Canada, it was different, but here.....

Well, Yoda will have his revenge sometime soon. My dream would be, of course, to beat him twice consecutively

[ May 23, 2005, 07:58 AM: Message edited by: Avatar ]

[jon_j_rambo]

@Avatar --- Dude, my g/f is no more. I'm working on a better one The day I let a biotch in the USA control my life, is a day that is never going to happen. 50% divorce rate in the USA, & the biotch ALWAYS walks with dude's cash.

"Control your biotch! Wanda you're not going to shoot anybody" --- Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction.

[zappsweden]

Originally posted by jon_j_rambo:

@Avatar --- Dude, my g/f is no more. I'm working on a better one The day I let a biotch in the USA control my life, is a day that is never going to happen. 50% divorce rate in the USA, & the biotch ALWAYS walks with dude's cash.

"Control your biotch! Wanda you're not going to shoot anybody" --- Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction.

Amen!

[ May 23, 2005, 08:26 AM: Message edited by: zappsweden ]

[Liam]

don't got time to read but I will say 1 word, "Congrats!"

"I sense a disturbance in the force."

[MrSpkr]

Originally posted by jon_j_rambo:

50% divorce rate in the USA, & the [expl. del.] ALWAYS walks with dude's cash.

You need a better lawyer.

Plus, you need to move to Texas.

Steve