Here’s an idea, in conjunction with the poll thread below, it might be helpful to collect some ideas about the possible bids in the range between 6-12 IPCs. It seems to me that the bid will likely shake down somewhere between 6 at the low end, and 12 at the high end. So what is possible for those numbers?
At 6 ipcs: 2 infantry units, or 1 tank, or 1 sub, or 1 artillery/save 2 ipcs, or 1 aa gun/save 1 ipc
At 7 ipcs: Any of the above + saved ipcs, or 1 infantry and 1 artillery, or 1 transport
At 8 ipcs: above + saved ipcs, or 2 artillery, or 1 destroyer
At 9 ipcs: above + saved ipcs, or 3 infantry, or 1 inf and 1 tank, or 1 inf and 1 sub
At 10 ipcs: above + saved ipcs, or 1 fighter, or 2 infantry and 1 artillery, or 1 tank and 1 art, or 1 sub and 1 art
At 11 ipcs: above + saved ipcs, or 1 infantry and 2 artillery, or 1 inf and 1 destroyer
At 12 ipcs: above + saved ipcs, or 4 infantry, or 1 bomber, or 1 cruiser
Lets start with the low end at 6 ipcs and go from there. Which options do you like and where would you put the units?
At 6 ipcs, I think I favor 2 infantry. 1 for Egypt and 1 for the Russians, but basically to cover Egypt and then somewhere to enhance the odds on a Russian opening battle. Or 1 sub to use against Japan.
At 7 ipcs, I probably still favor 2 ground much the same as at 6 ipc, except here you’d have an extra artillery piece for the Russians. An extra transport might be interesting, but it would have to be placed somewhere safe and I’m not sure where it would be most useful. I suppose sz 35, 39, 56 and 19 are all possibilities. I have never seen this done in a game, so I can’t speak to it, but those are the only zones I can think of. I guess technically you could put one in sz 4 for the Russians, though I can’t see that doing much good hehe. Of the potential sz for a transport, only 35 allows it to be loaded to the max in the first round. I suppose 56 might work if you want to bring the gun and hawaiian/midway inf somewhere, but 35 seems more interesting for first round attacks.
At 8 ipcs, again I would probably go ground with 2 artillery pieces, though this is the first bid that gets you an option on a destroyer. If DD, you could try sz 11, though I’d worry that G might still take a run on it. Standard bidding rules say that it has to be placed in a sz with units already present, so the options are: sz 4, 7, 10, 11, 14, 17, 19, 35, 39, 53 and 56.
Any thoughts on the low end of the bid spectrum?
I think 9-12 ipcs will give more options, so we can explore that in more detail once we’ve had a good look at the 6-8 ipcs range. Probably the big question for the low end is, which territories can ground be most effective in? Can a transport be of any use? And are there any interesting locations for destroyers (other than the obvious sz 11) where they might have an impact? Is there any argument for saving extra bid ipcs for a first round purchase, and if so what to buy?