A New Bidding System

[Crossover]

NOs is a fine rule, if that Russian NOs would not suck that much.

I suggest some ways of solving that problem, to still play with NOs

1. lower all NOs to 3 IPC

2. make easy NOs 3 IPC, medium ones 5 IPC and very difficult ones 7 IPC (Philippines for US is very hard)

3. Be free to create new NOs and play house rules with your friends. Especially new ones for Russia are needed.

here some ideas for Russia:

5 IPC if…allies control… 3 of the following 5 territories…Baltic States. Finnland, Belorus, East. Ukraine, Ukraine

and/or

5 IPC if Russia controls both, Karelia und Caucasus

I guess there can be many more, be creative ans invent some mew ones. They have to be fair, but not too easy. Russia should fight for its NOs, as well as other nations do.

[Funcioneta]

I’ll repeat again: China is broken. All the freak page 10 should be burnt

The minimal changes needed are:

1. Let China attack walk out of China. Having chinese borders as a invisible fence that only chinamen are not able of pass is ridiculous. I had a time italians in Kazah laughing at chinese forces in Chingai  :-P, and there are many others stupid cases like this
2. Use 1942 setup in 1941
3. In both scenarios, change the chinese fighter to a safe place. Another no-brainer  :roll:
4. Rework all building chinese mecanics to some stuff with sense (the mininal would be something similar to AA Pacific rules for China)

Without any changes, in a vanilla game, I would bid 12 and buy 4 infs to Yunnan. Yes, you could buy them in Egypt, but then all UK atlantic fleets would be totally toasted (since Luftwaffe would not be able of attack Egypt, their obvious target would be Royal Navy)

Or we could simply start bidding chinese infs instead of plain IPCs if Egypt bid shows too powerful  :wink:

[Jennifer]

@Unknown:

I think unit bids have a yucky effect on the game - changing the set-up completely alters the dynamic of the game.

What I would prefer is bidding away an amount of cash - your opponent chooses how the pain is distributed among your teams.

I agree with this. I’ve never really liked the fact that bids alter the starting setup. If a new bidding system is introduced for AA50 I’d like to see strictly cash bids.

I think it originally started as a way to alter the game set up because Germany’s chances of survival could be virtually destroyed by Russia round 1 if Russia scored slightly better than expected dice and went with an aggressive strategy.  The extra units stop that from happening.

In revised it was a mixture of cash and units (yes, you could get cash in classic too, most people did not and still do not take cash I have found) because you just needed that extra oomph to get Egypt or to stop Russia from taking Ukraine to balance things out a bit.

In Anniversary, I think (with NOs only) the game is pretty well balanced with the better player generally winning in the long run.  Techs might unbalance it but only because one side might get lucky and the other not so lucky.  Then again, the same could be true for any large scale battle, if one side does really well in round 1, it can shift the battle from 90% odds of winning to 10% odds in the blink of a die.

As for Dardenelles and Escorts, phooey.  Don’t need them.  I cede the validation for dardenelles from a logistical, historical and tactical standpoint.  I do not cede that closing the dardenelles is necessary or even helpful to the allies in a proportional way (that is, closing them can make it too easy for the allies (or too hard for the axis if you want to think of it that way.)

Escorts are just silly the way I read them.  If you want to use escorts, may I suggest the AARe/AA50e rule for escorts where you first have to get Jet Power and then they act like AA Guns hitting bombers on a 1 (and only if your opponent does not have Long Range Aircraft and sends fighters with their bombers on a 1 to 1 basis to negate the defending jets?)  At least that requires you to first get some technologies to establish Cover Air Patrol and to Negate Cover Air Patrol so SBR campaigns are not completely nerfed into uselessness.

[Lucifer]

I also think the China rules are stupid, they can’t move outside the Chinese TT’s.

Japan can move to Moscow, in the real WW2 this would take 30 years if US stayed out of WW2. Italy can take India, Germany or Italy can take Brazil etc….  :roll:

The Chinese production rules are ok with me, China is not a power like the other nations, but the movement restrictions to China only is a real design flaw in AA50 which in most aspects is better game than AAR.

I probably would favor cash only bids instead of preplaced units if I had chioce, but I play in the TripleA community and they used the preplace bid since Classic. It is well established, so I think TripleA players will use preplace bids also in AA50, but imo (within the KISS principle) cash only is better then units.

As for the Dardanelles closing, maybe Larry Harris should include the closing of the Gibraltar as well, unless you own it. Only subs can then move freely.

[Jennifer]

I like the idea of China collecting infantry at the end of their turn based on the number of free territories they have at that time, and place them at the end of their following turn. (just treat infantry like money, you collect it at the end of your turn, you buy with it at the start of your next turn, you place what you bought at the end of your next turn.)

The Chinese fighter really should be moved.  I like Chihang for it myself.

[d142]

i do not think that the total war game has a imbalance, the imbalance occurs when playing a 12 or 15 victory city game, if the axis do not make great advances within 7 round’s the advantage swing’s greatly toward the allies,
i would like to see the addition of / egypt / czech/hungary / south africa / and 2 - 3 more victory cities,
and national objectives could be a victory condition

[Jennifer]

If you had 2-3 more VC where would you put them?

I’d like Egypt, S. Africa, Borneo, Sumatra and Norway to be VCs myself.  But that’s +5.  Makes a 15 IPC game possible without having one allied capitol lost and all other VC in axis hands.

[Lynxes]

How about listing possible advantages for optional rules and you then bid “one advantage for the Allies”, and so forth, with a die roll determining ties. You could also pick one advantage each on a one-to-one basis if you would both agree.

What do we have?

Allied advantages:

1. Dardanelles closed
2. Use '42 China setup in '41 scenario
3. Move Yunnan fighter to any China territory

Axis advantages:

1. SBR interceptors
2. DDs do not block sub movement (this is all on my part!  :wink: The idea is to boost a German sub war)
3. Heavy bombers reduced to LHTR (if using tech)

[Funcioneta]

@Lynxes:

2. DDs do not block sub movement (this is all on my part!  :wink: The idea is to boost a German sub war)

It can affect seriously Pacific war and doesn’t do much for germans in most cases. But can be an axis advantage if aids Japan

[Funcioneta]

@Subotai:

The Chinese production rules are ok with me, China is not a power like the other nations

It’s not totally a need giving China the same building rules as the rest. Even if I think it’s better doing that, I could live with the rules they had in AA Pacific. At least, if they take the Manchurian IC, they could build inf there  :-P

[d142]

brazil, egypt, south africa, norway, western canada, czech/hungary, borneo, the balkans,

they are all possibilities,

it is possible for the axis to get to 14 victory cities, although the 15th is the tough one , they have to take london, washington, ottawa or los angeles, even moscow is tough to break without japan joining in,

the balance of victories leans toward the allies for a 12 or 15 victory city game,

this is just a suggestion, i have not played enough AA50 games to determine the full extent of the allied advantage,
it is possible for the axis to win, it is more challenging to play the axis,  :-)

[Jennifer]

Honestly, I prefer to play until two enemy capitols have been captured or capitulation.  Victory Cities are a less cheap method of winning than Magic 84 was. (I nearly punched the last person to say he had 84 and America had better pull out a hat trick so the allies could win.  I was 1 move from taking Japan itself….luckily, my tank bested 2 infantry and an armor and took France denying him his frazzin Magic 84 win AND I took Japan next round!  - I still wanted to deck him though.)

[Lucifer]

@d142:

this is just a suggestion, i have not played enough AA50 games to determine the full extent of the allied advantage,
it is possible for the axis to win, it is more challenging to play the axis,  :-)

You are aware of the premise for this thread, -41 with NOs?

[BadSpeller]

One thing a bidding system allows is to quantify a rule set up.

Example if 1941 setup with NOs after a while settles on a bid of oh…let’s say 5ipc.

If 1941 w/NOs + closing the Dardanelles changes the bid to 2ipc (or to Allied type of bidding), that would tell HOW much the certain rule changes things.

[madquest8]

I’ve seen all the chat about how the game is ‘balanced’…

But in the real world, where I live, the players are not living odds calculators or tactical geniuses… the 1941 NO with tech set up is HEAVILY in favour of the axis… in my FTF games I have never seen an allied win…(around 8-9 games so far)

This is among ‘normal’ people mind you, sure there are people on here who could thrash me if I was playing the Axis… but among the ‘civilians’ there is no way for the allies to win…

Every game is the same… Japan goes mad… and if the Yanks try to stop them then Germany and Italy smash the russians and own Africa… nuff said!  :mrgreen:

30 IPC bid to the allies I think ! :-D

[Lucifer]

I didn’t start playing Revised until 2006, I didn’t know there was a new version, and I didn’t learn about TripleA so I got a head start with bids, only played a few games f2f before I started playing online.

I’ve heard that it took several months, after Revised was released before bids started to reach 7-9, which is where it should be, granted experienced players and equal skill. It sure didn’t take long until AA50 have been perceived as biased against one side, dependent on what scenario and optional rules are included.

One of my AA50 games I won as axis -41 with NOs, was against an allied player which I think is at my level or better, the allied player got a 6 ipc bid.

[Jennifer]

@Mr:

I’ve seen all the chat about how the game is ‘balanced’…

But in the real world, where I live, the players are not living odds calculators or tactical geniuses… the 1941 NO with tech set up is HEAVILY in favour of the axis… in my FTF games I have never seen an allied win…(around 8-9 games so far)

This is among ‘normal’ people mind you, sure there are people on here who could thrash me if I was playing the Axis… but among the ‘civilians’ there is no way for the allies to win…

Every game is the same… Japan goes mad… and if the Yanks try to stop them then Germany and Italy smash the russians and own Africa… nuff said!  :mrgreen:

30 IPC bid to the allies I think ! :-D

That’s how my results go too.  But things are calming down now.

Perhaps you need to teach the allies to not all pounce on Germany.  Most times that results in an Axis victory.  Instead, America should be primarily focused on Japan which gives the allies a chance to win.

[Lucifer]

A saying goes, don’t fix it if it ain’t broken.

Is the current bid system broken, and does it need fixing?

I could try cash only bid, but it would be hard to determine the amount when we’re all used to unit bids.

I don’t see any threads with players unhappy with the current bid system on this forum.

[Chi Chi]

New to the group, and I have voted.

I will applaud you all for your creative thinking.

Here are a few questions for you all.

Presuming it is true that the 1941 scenario with the National Objectives is biased towards the Axis, then is the opposite true that the 1941 scenario without National Objectives is biased towards the Allies?

Here is another question, National Objectives are an optional rule, right?

As you all say, earlier versions of this game also favored the Allies, right?

Always respectful of Larry Harris and impressed with his games, I offer the following suggestion, that perhaps National Objectives are part of his grand plan.  Due to the inherent bias of the war/game towards the Allies, he created National Objectives as an optional rule to turn the tables on the Allies.

So while I applaud your creative thinking about lump sum bid systems and moving units around the board for the 1941 scenario, maybe the point is that National Objectives are supposed to favor the Axis.  And if it is true that without National Objectives the game/war favors the Allies, then without redesigning the game or the setup or implementing new rules, maybe the simplest way to play “balanced” game is just to reduce the value of the National Objectives from 5 IPC to 4 IPC or 3 IPC or 2 IPC, depending on the skill level of the players at the table.

This way requires no new rules, no new units, no new setups and fixes any balance issues quickly and with a minimum of fuss.

[Telamon]

Good thinking Chi Chi, +1  :-)

It’s elegant in its simplicity, provided the two premises are true (that 41 +NO favours axis and -NO favours allies).

However, it would impact on the strategies and flow of the game in ways that are not immediately apparent.  With reduced NOs, the US is far more likely to focus on Germany rather than the pacific.  German strategic options would also be limited due to lower funds and Italy would have an increasingly marginal effect on the game (they really rely on NOs to be able to build the fleet or produce land troops).

The generally increased cash levels of all the teams makes the game far more interesting and strategic IMO.