Which is strongest side, and what to do about it?

  • '19 '17 '16

    There was one thread where a poster asked why and how the axis are stronger than the allies.


  • In the online League matches between skilled players, Axis is able to win slightly more than 50% of the time even when they spot the Allies a bid of 20-25.  Bids have been steadily increasing as Axis players are learning to compensate for the additional pieces.

  • '19 '17

    Between skilled players Axis win at least 75% of the time at 20-25 bid. Vanilla G40’s balance is broken in that regard.

  • '18 '17 '16

    I’ve only been reading these forums for about 4 months now. I had a lot of time on my hands so I was able to read quite a ways back into the older posts. It almost seemed to me that most people enjoyed playing the Axis more and spent more time developing strategies for Germany and Japan. You can see why that is, those powers have more units on the board at the beginning of the game and therefore are more fun to develop strategies for. Also, it provides more options for developing strategies with more units to work with. As a result, the strategies for the Axis are more numerous and well developed.

    I’ve always enjoyed playing the Allies more so as a result my Allied strategies are more developed. I feel it’s much more of a challenge to win against long odds and I like that challenge. That being said, I don’t know how well that would hold up against the quality Axis players here on the forums. I might need a hefty bid or a bit of luck to have a chance.


  • And among our group until one of us came to this forum to ask we were convinced global was very much skewed to the Allies.  To the point we were convinced we were doing something wrong and the game was broken.  But after being exposed to some outsides (here and other groups) the axis are starting to come back.  First Axis win ever two games ago (out of maybe 10) followed by another Axis win.

    Were just stuck in our playing ways that wasn’t axis efficient I wager.

  • Sponsor

    @eladimir:

    And among our group until one of us came to this forum to ask we were convinced global was very much skewed to the Allies.  To the point we were convinced we were doing something wrong and the game was broken.  But after being exposed to some outsides (here and other groups) the axis are starting to come back.  First Axis win ever two games ago (out of maybe 10) followed by another Axis win.

    Were just stuck in our playing ways that wasn’t axis efficient I wager.

    This is the common evolution of becoming experienced… it’s exactly what happened to our group.


  • Yeah, the general evolution is doing J4/G4 DoWs and then trending towards earlier attacks.  I love doing J1 if there is no bid and it is nice when the dice work out on the first round to launch a G2 invasion of Russia.  I am amazed that the Axis still have a good chance to win the game even with a 40 point Allies bid.  The flexibility of the Axis planes allows them to find the weaknesses of the Allied defenses.

  • '21 '20 '18 '17

    The flexibility of the Axis planes allows them to find the weaknesses of the Allied defenses.

    I call this the lightsaber, it can cut apart any stack and its simply a matter of figuring out which attack has the best odds.  The combination of giving the Axis a ridiculous number of planes and the initiative is simply too much.

    “Allies seemed to have an advantage at first…”

    well, for our first 40 games, I won 90% of the time with either team.  That’s because I was the only wargamer and was teaching the other guys how to play.  That wasn’t reflective of the balance of the board, it was the advantage of experience.  They got frustrated, especially when I was lucky on top of that.    Now, my win rate is closer to 50/50 (or less!), with either team.

    “I am amazed that the Axis still have a good chance to win the game even with a 40 point Allies bid”

    the bigger the bid gets, the more it distorts the game’s opening.  That’s why a patch is preferable, but…


  • Axis has the advantage but it makes sense for 1940 when the allies weren’t called the allies, they still went by Entente powers. The Soviet Union is by far the weakest nation on the board on round 1, I know that sounds strange to say when you try to compare them to China or ANZAC but if Germany and Japan decided to invade USSR right from the get go, USSR has nothing to work with and because it didn’t have time to build up, it will lose ground much faster.


  • Yeah our first couple game “maths” was to leave any ally you could out of the war as long as possible. But apparently that just come back to haunt you.

    Once people get set in their way and opennings are going the same the idea of bids seem pretty cool. Because you can spend that money to load up the weakness they were focusing on.  So that axis need to work out a new weakness.

  • '22 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16 '15 '14 '12

    Ah, the age old question!

    The answer is: Yes, the Axis have a clear advantage G40 OOB. No question. The reasons are clear and mostly stated above: Axis planes, victory conditions, weak allied economy etc…

    Higher bids and balanced mod have done some good changing this, esp the BM.

    However, how about this: forget the bid and BM and just change the turn order: Rus, Ger, Jap, UK, Anz, Fr, Italy, China, USA.

    USA going last would totally F’ up the Axis, render almost all sea blockers meaningless, not to mention make the Berlin end run much more possible.

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