I suspect that Gargantua has not actually tried the rule yet, but is making his observation about “extreme” unbalance in the abstract. Am I wrong Gargantua? :)
As I’ve tried to stress, it is worth trying the rule in an actual game, because there are subtle game balance effects that are not particularly intuitive but which do seem to even out, almost immediately after the first round. At first I thought, as you do, that the rule would heavily favor the Allies. But one thing that is hard to see, until you play it out, is how the bonus effects the midgame. For one thing, Germany requires much less money on the bonus to retain a forward fighting position against Russia, and the additional money makes a naval purchase or air (for naval nuke against UK) easier to afford, without yielding so much ground to the Soviets. Alternatively a consistent inf wall approach, makes G much harder to crack on direct invasion. This is from the KGF perspective. From the KJF perspective, the difference is, all those valueless islands add up for Japan. So a KJF that ignores them, leaves Japan with enough money to make a much more effective defensive of the home island and the mainland. A KJF that does focus on the islands will necessarily move more slowly than one which just jumps south.
Also, and this is very important, the UK is perhaps the most dependent of any Nation upon the double dip to maintain economic parity. It is more important for them even than Germany. In all the old boards, the British empire is designed to basically collapse, and the way you make up the money is by double dipping in Europe. We’ve all seen this play out, where France alone is worth as much as basically everything east of Suez. Africa can be made up in Eastern Europe etc. But the bonus is dependent on territory held at the beginning of the turn. So their boost drops sharply after the opening rounds, while Germany and Japan’s increases in inverse proportion to what UK is losing. The UK situation is highly dynamic. It is much harder for them to recover their starting territory than it is for the Axis to take it. Basically they are reliant upon the US to do this for them. So by round 3, it is quite possible for them to go from holding 20+ territories at the start of the game down to just a handful. And territories which are not held at the start of the next turn do not count for the bonus. So even if you are recovering income on the double dip, your bonus income relative to the Axis will drop quickly. The UK home island, the Canadas, and Iceland are only worth 4 taken together on the boost. Almost everywhere else on the board is vulnerable to Axis attacks, in the first few rounds. In short the challenge for UK has more to do with their production limits than their starting cash/bonus cash.
You also have more aggressive builds that can be supported by both G and J. So the lopsided war you might expect, ends up being a lot less lopsided than it seems at first glance.
It is true that the rule does advantage the Allies initially, which is part of the point, because the OOB game in 42.2 is unbalanced in favor of the Axis. In Revised, where the OOB advantage is to Allies, I will sometimes include a Berlin Boost +5 to balance G against experienced allies. The standard Axis Bid may also be necessary for Revised against an experienced Allied opponent. Classic may require a larger Berlin Boost +10. But Japan does pretty well without any assistance on all boards. Personally I find this rule at it’s best on the 1942.2 and 1941 boards.
To point 3, the “strategic value” of surviving units holds for both sides, and the Axis start with more of them, so the ability of Germany and Japan to get extra ships and tanks early is much the same as it is for the Allies. This is because they are not directly threatened in the first and second round the way that the Allies can be. And also because the Western Allies must build many more transports than the Axis to get their units into the fight. If you just try to model what might happen in your head, or by playing a game against yourself in tripleA, you’re not going to see the midgame balance. Fighting into the 3rd round, it becomes much clearer, and you start to see how the rule holds up. Basically if the Allies do nothing to adapt their strategies from the normal game, Axis can win pretty handily. I’ve seen it happen many times. I’ve also seen Allies pull ahead quite handily, if the Axis player does nothing to adapt their strategy from the OOB game. And of course, much of this still comes down to dice rolls and individual battles.
to knp7765, the problem with overall doubling was starting factories. This is kind of easy to imagine when you think about Germany at 20, or Russia at 16. Basically the geography and the ipc totals just don’t support the simple doubling very well, as it pretty much eliminates a production cap in regions where the production cap is usually significant. It also proved extremely damaging to SBR. Since it was almost impossible to bomb up to the cap on a starting factory, and the damage was too easy to repair. So that was that for the simple doubling.
The add +1 method at normal collect income, is the one that balanced better, the main problem here was new factories and the enlarged double dip. Basically it made it too easy for esp. USA and Japan to push inf by simply purchasing factories chains in front line territories at 2 (that usually wouldn’t support them at 1). You could eliminate that issue with a rule stated the way CWO Marc and KNP put it, but then you would lose the cool effect of having the bonus at the start of the the turn, which is something I quite liked for the gameplay. You also lose that Russian initiative bonus, if you do it all during normal income, since they would have to wait until the second round, which would probably make the German tank drive too hard to defend against. And again, the double dip gets much larger. It could work, but I haven’t tried it like that to my satisfaction, so I would just be musing without any experience to back it up.
Basically the reason I keep coming back to the rule I proposed at the outset, is because I have tested that one and it seemed to hold up. Changes to it, I would have to play first, before giving any recommendations. Just because I have seen firsthand, how sometimes what you expect to happen and what actually happens in game, can end up being quite different and dramatic. Gargantua’s concern about the Allied advantage being one of the main ones, that I was not able to dispel for myself, until I first played several games to conclusion.
Finally to the Sea Lion point, the limit on UK is not money but production. It is the fact that they can only drop 8 units on UK, and the fact that USA is two rounds out with fighters, that gives Germany a Sea Lion option. In simple terms, this is not a game breaking round 2 sea Lion we are talking about here, but a risky round 3 Sea Lion, a double attack Sea Lion, or an endgame Sea Lion. England has a defense against round 2 Sea Lion, but it gets harder as time goes on, if they are dedicating all their money to defense of the home island (giving up India, not building ships etc.) And again, the starting bonus that UK receives is much larger than the bonus they receive in later rounds. Into round 3/4 that bonus will start to drop, from 20 to 10 or into the single digits, whereas both the Axis will climb, unless USA does something to one or the other.
Oh also, to the point about lowering unit costs as an alternative to raising the total ecomony. The problem here is infantry. Inf at anything other than 3 ipcs is too jarring for anyone used to A&A. Its a major part of the built in mental math that we are all habituated to. Altering the cost of individual units but not altering the cost of inf is just distorting and also cumbersome in that then it wouldn’t be universal across all units. Again though, it is the difference between something I have tried and can speak to, and something untested. The effect might be similar, but I haven’t tested that alternative the way that I have the rule stated in the original post.
