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I will only tackle 4 at the moment. I'm currently playing a defence of East First where the player triggered East Invaded early by activating Poland. I would say that the tactics in 40 and 41 are similar because the forces are broadly similar, but there are some differences. The German army is a little bit weaker but the much lower NW means the Soviets have very little chance of surviving. You have to defend a bit more aggressively in an East First defence to give you a chance of winning, though still a retreat its probably more like playing the USSR 41 scenario (though you still don't usually try to hold border). The main difference is in effect, in both the Soviets surviving the attack is fatal for the Axis player, but in an East First there is no real downside to a Soviet collapse - its expected (as is a French collapse, the real fight in an East First is for Africa) - so an Allied player can take more risks to try for the Soviet survival.

Try a thought experiment. Ask yourself if modern Chess is a historical wargame? Then ask yourself what formal criteria would distinguish it from things which are historical wargames? Pretty quickly you realise that this is one of those 'know it when you see it' things. To some extent it depends on intent, there is zero question in my mind that Flames of War in its first two editions was a historical wargame, in a way Memoir 44 does not even compare to. I'm not sure I would be so confident in later editions of FoW. But the changes mirror those in Chess and in the line that runs from Warhammer Fantasy Battles to the most recent Kings of War. I've not played Bolt Action so could not comment on that. Though it is worth noting FoW and Blot Action are both miniature wargames, whereas Memoir 44 is a board game with miniatures, and more apt comparisons would be something like Conflict of Heroes or Undaunted.

That's a good idea for a video. I have not been playing for a while so don't feel confident answering but knowing which things stack (the overall tendency is for things not to stack but its not universal) I found confusing and never found a really good resource to help with.

Yes, the psychology of randomness is very interesting. I spent the weekend teaching Steve Jackson's OGRE, a game in which players feel a strong psychological pull to play poorly (by increasing the odds ratio on attacks, which makes that single dice roll more likely to succeed but reduces the overall effectiveness of their attacks).

@@Lessons_from_the_front And i really enjoy playing games with dice and randomizers, but I have no interest in gambling, which is for me an entirely practical thing. I don't mind losing. I hate losing anything of value, even money.

That would only be significant if those are the only 6 rolls. Otherwise you get xkcd 882 style publication bias problems.

Say everyone follows your reasoning. If 1000 people play the game, on average 1 will wrongfully conclude that their friend is scamming them. So, when human activities are involved, i think the better question is not the statistical significance, but rather the amount of people experiencing it. This still results in a significance threshold, but a very lower one. As Matt Parker says in his "how lucky is too lucky" video (min 29:00), we can define the measure of how many times it will happen if all of humanity did that activity once each second for a year, and you can see that a lot of wrong conclusions would be reached. Also, for human activity, a threshold p-val of 5% is very high: it means that 1 out of 20 people will reach the wrong conclusion. I also want to cite the bayes theorem P(A|B)=P(B|A)*P(A)/P(B) where A="dice are rigged" and B="6 times 6". P(B) = 1/(6^6)= 2e-5. Say we give a prior P(A) that 1 in 1 million friends would rig the dice, and say that rigged dice have P(B|A)=50% probability of giving all sixes 6 times in a row. That leaves us with only a 10% probability that your friend is scamming you

@@gioelechristille4650 Yeah, im aware that the nature of the significance level, with the 6 dice rolls about 16 out of 1000 games will get a false positive if you use a strict yes-no test. However it still is somewhat significant, more so for 10 dice rolls, so to say "its almost certainly random chance" is, just like blindly (and genuinely) accusing your play partner, not a reasonable thing to do. That doesnt mean you cant get suspicious and start taking a closer look at the dice-rolls in the future (should you genuinely suspect your friend is cheating at this casual game with no stakes, its another story if something is actually on the line), or at least reasonably complain in good spirits that youre being unlucky (everyone gets unlucky sometimes as the significance level shows). Like I said I only really calculated the probabilities because I was curious, and I fully agree that 6 or even 10 games arent enough to accuse your friend. It might be enough for you to get suspicious about your friend, if you deem their character or the circumstances to be compatible with cheating, and make you pay close(r) attention in the future, but thats about it.

Yes, that is to do with a fundamental problem with the thresholds for statistical significance. By definition applying a 5% threshold will get you the 'wrong' answer 5% of the time - which is why statistical significance is only a good heuristic in certain circumstances (and why publication bias is such an issue). Unfortunately statistical significance is a widely misunderstood concept even amongst people who engage in professional research, so its not surprising it gets misunderstood in wider contexts.

depends on if you are looking at the expected faces, or the expected value. imagine the faces are random arbitrary symbols and not digits, do you still think that three wugs and three forps is equivalent to one roll of each?

Thank you.

its actually the reason i stopped watching the video. insulting people for not agreeing with you is never a good look. it wont convince anyone to come to your side, and i dont believe someone who has been lied to is an idiot.

@@arcanealchemist3190 That is true...but people should be more concerned about being wrong than about not being insulted. If I tell anyone my theory how I think Baseball works..everyone who actually understand the game will probably think. I'am an idiot and maybe even tell me...especially if I come from a position that all the people who claim that Baseball doesn't work like I think it does are payed liars. And If I listen to them I might actually learn how it works..and If I don't I stay ignorant. I agree that insulting people isn't. helpful...but it also isn't helpful to pretend someone is smart or has a good point or understands something if he clearly doesn't.

@@arcanealchemist3190 The interenet has not helped with the number of insults either. Its good and healthy that you turned off at that point. But some people enjoy a well time piece of vitriol and see the humour in it, and RUclips likes divisive content, so I'm going to be content with my self-restraint that 90% of my content is not tempted by the algorithm.

1) That is the percentage of wins IF you pretend the player also lost one game, so number of wins/number of games+1. The reason for the +1 is so that winning consistently matters more if you have played more games 2) I have not seen a Vichy activation yet so that change had not really registered with me, yes, a potentially interesting idea. 3) I think you might be right. My schedule is a little full at the moment but I will take you up on that offer at some point. I found our games very fruitful for developing opening strategy with the previous version. 4) I played going for a Poland activation under the old rules but have not tried under the new ones. I think it definitely has potential. 5) Agreed. 6) Yes, as long as Belgium is neutral withdrawing a little to Dusseldorf will usually protect the Luftwaffe units. 7) I've not had an opponent execute a successful Sealion against me. I don't think it has much chance unless the Allied player diverts units to another theatre (like North Africa). 8) That is a really clever idea I had not considered. The change allowing conquests to activate countries has turned out to quite significant in subtle ways.

Yes, I've never seen much utility to it though because activation would trigger East Invaded if you deployed the unit.

@@Lessons_from_the_front The IDea is to activate and not place the unit, you change the "front line" for the Soviet Defense

There have been quite significant changes to the opening rules which are still a little in flux. A lot of small changes to the diplomacy make it less swingy and changes to the way the Moscow treaty works to stop exploits (which I discuss in the video on openings ruclips.net/video/jpSFcjEicWY/видео.html). Its still fundamentally the same game so some issues remain (the problem of the Axis essentially controlling the shape of the game) but at some point I really should do a video on the differences between 2.5 and 2.

I was in similar situation about 3 or 4 year ago, when i started playing USE. First is good to know basic concept, about moving, combat and zones of control, you don't have to know them precisely, only some simplest thinks. I think it is good to play some basic scenarios (Poland 39', France 40', Rus 41' and Med 40-42 in this order). Also in the best scenario with somebody, who known the game(to help you). After it you can play full scenario. The most important think is to have a fun, so don't bother about not knowing everything. If you watch Robert's videos i think you should know most basics. And if you have any questions, you can ask me, i will be happy to help.

I would strongly recommend Board Game Arena. Play the Poland 1939 scenario solo to get used to the basic rules (if you have some patience play some of the other scenarios solo), try to read the rules. Find an opponent and play the USSR 1941 scenario a few times. Play turn based and look up rules as you go. After USSR 1941 you should play Main Event 1944. You can try other scenarios but those will give you enough to tackle the full game. There are active players on BGG boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/61487/unconditional-surrender-world-war-2-in-europe who will help or offer games if you want.

In addition to what others have said, the Playbook has a Training Scenarios method for learning the game. You start with small scenarios and each one tells you which rules to read and play with. It allows you to ingest the rules in small chunks.

@@lordvasta I did quite a bit of solo play with the BGA module - the North Africa scenario is particularly useful for understanding the naval supply rules. But, while it is very useful it is very much down to your individual patience, some people want to leap in and get playing.

@@Lessons_from_the_front For those new to the game, that would be the Mediterranean scenario rather than the French North Africa one.

Unfortunately I made them myself. I don't know of anyone making them.

Yes, I definitely need to revisit this. I'm not sure when I will get the chance (I'd played all of the openings multiple times when I did this, and I have not done that yet with the 2.5 rules, which have shifted a little as well so are not completely stable - in fact at the moment I have only played East First openings and Historical defences). I think the new rules have increased the importance of Yugoslavia. They tend to stop dramatic cascades, which is broadly a good thing, and they do tend to focus you on Italy (I can't decide in the historical if you are better off trying to activate Italy with the French collapse, something I toyed with in the older version but never really pressed for).

I think USE is a very different game. In principle it is possible to win from almost any position as the Axis (just keep rolling 6's). There is no real equivalent to the moment in a Memoir '44 match when a win (other than under time control) is impossible for one side. And, of course, the endgame in USE is complex and quite different to opening and midgame play, so you have a lot more to learn from playing it out. I still think there are resignable positions in USE - but it almost has the opposite problem, with players mistakenly believing a position is lost when it is comfortably winnable. Understanding that is equally valuable in USE for the same reasons - at its heart its about understanding *why* positions are won or lost.

03:10 If I land directly on to a garrison then a bad roll bounces the attack and prevents the unit getting ashore (note that I cannot use the airdrop because Antwerp is more than 3 hexes from my air units and Antwerp has air support). If I landed west of Antwerp and dislodged the garrison and then launched another a surprise attack into the city the second unit would have to attack NE because it is in a ZOC, which is over a river and into a city. If that attack failed I would not be able to bring a third unit into the city. So, Antwerp is, despite superficial appearances a much stronger position, there is a lot more that can go wrong. I sum up the general principle in amphibious landings as get ashore - get off the beaches. If you have a weaker target you generally take that over a stronger but more valuable one (like Antwerp) because the key thing is to get ashore.

Its RobertBr on BGA. The league is at boardgamearena.com/group?id=10555035

Of course (from a victory point of view, there is much reason to play other than victory). The game's victory conditions are calibrated around major Axis success. If the Axis do not outperform their historical counterparts on either the eastern front or in Africa they are usually in a lost position. In the Long Opening (and East First twice) the Axis have to collapse both the Russians AND French or they are in a lost position. Assuming experienced players - the game is, as all games are with beginners.

Its a genuine simulation problem you have encountered. Miniature wargames tend to adopt one of two approaches. Either units are of fixed size, so a small battle (like Peipus at say aprox. 6000) might be just 6 units, while a large battle (like Philippi at say aprox. 200000) might be 200 units. This tends to create problems as rule systems often break if too many or too few units are employed. The alternative approach, often accompanied by an argument that commanders tended to subdivide their command in similar fashion regardless of size, is to fix one of the sides, so that is always has X units, and then only the opposed side varies in size, relative to the standard size. Some systems just struggle with giving two sides disparate for want of a better term 'units of maneuvre'). Field of Glory clearly has issues in this regard as do a couple of other modern sets which work hard to assume similarly sized opposing armies. There are a few rules sets that take alternative approaches. Ironically Kings of War: Historical, which is otherwise (obviously, because it is a fantasy set) at terrible set of historical rules, has different sizes of units - so a historical battle could be arranged with both sides having a similar number of units but the larger siding having larger units.

@@Lessons_from_the_front or you could just line up even numbers of DBM elements

This is written 9 ,months later but... 10,000 Vs 50,000 is a bit much. Unless you have a very restricted front, the overlap would be very large. However, lets look a 10,000 man army of veterans split into 20 units of 500 men each and a couple of great generals. Now let us compare it to a completely levy force of 50,000 men split into units of 2,000 men yielding 25 units with a poor general. In Lost Battles this might be considered an pretty even fight. As in numbers alone in the rules a unit of 500 veteran infantry is a normal sized unit with 2,000 levies. A veteran unit is assumed to be 1/2 the size of a average unit and a levy unit contains twice as many men as an average unit. So a veteran unit is 1/4 the size of a levy unit. So 10,000 men facing 50,000 men with around 20 units can work out. Additionally the veterans would have a fighting power of at least double that of the levies. More likelihood of acting during the game. So the veterans should actually be stronger.

Yep brilliant statement - check out the guys post asking how players deal with shooting in the DBM gaming system, some one asks (being helpful) if he has seen a questions and answers page, this arrogant narrow minded individual comes straight back and says that’s a strange question, the guy says why is it strange I don’t know what you may or may not have seen. A genuine attempt to be helpful is rebuffed with a stupid post re comparing walking into a car dealership and looking at a cars steering wheel. The post attacking lost battles is a dam right self righteousness piece of crap, written by someone who has not taken the time to play or fully read let alone understand the design basics.