There really isn’t a counter b/c that’s what its designed to do and can be done by anyone. Maybe if I actually taught Newbies ‘how to’ do this the online clubs would respond and change their rules.
Is that what you’re looking for then, the Clubs to try and do away with PE bids, or lower the frequency of their use?
Are you saying, if you teach new players PE bids, then they could go in beat the the higher skilled players in PE, thus forcing clubs to rethink this, or to do something about it, because that club’s “rankings” aren’t really a valid indication of who is the most skilled.
Is this the jist of it, or did I completely miss what you are getting at.
I wonder if you could give PE victories less points if they win. A PE victory gets you 5 pts, but a PAfr gets you 15 pts, while a PA might get you 20pts.
You’d have to define what each bid type is, but that would be fairly easy.
Persoanlly if I were to start a Club, I would mandate the same style of game for every game, so all the games are uniform from the start.
No bidding, No PE, PAfr, or PA. I and those helping to start it would come up with what we believe is a fair starting pt.
Example Ger gets 4 inf, 1 arm in Afr, 1 inf in EE/Ukr and J gets 1 inf for Man
Then every 3 Months (or whatever time frame you desire) or “X number of games” the Club leaders re-evaluate your standard set up and adjust accordingly based on all the game results.
If your first setup yields Allied victories 60% of the time, then you must add to the Axis at your next adjustment period to level the playing field.
And adjust the Rankings due to the skewing of the first set. If the results come out 55% Allies, you might say that is good enough and stick with it, until that starts to skew more.
Be very careful when trying this strat yourself DM b/c it is IMO weak. One of the best reasons for an early purchase of a few bombers by the Allies is to preclude this from happening. If the Allies get a bmb lead b/c they go first(the axis reacts to them) then they should be able to build and maintain a bmb edge over Japan. If Japan starts a tech war/bmb race when the Allies already have on the board 3-4 bmbs then they are asking you to let them slit their own throats b/c they should not win such a tech race. The loss to the Allies is minimal in doing this as well if the UK builds its fleet on turn1 and turn 2 moves its carrier 1boat to Africa to start the retake with the US then they can put off the rest of their fleet build enabling them to do something exotic. I for one have never seen the Japs start a tech war when the UK has 3bmbs to their 1. This is a great example of how its necessary to think outside of the box as the Allies. As I always say a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush, and getting 4inf as the UKto Africa on turns 2-3 can be almost as good as 6 on turn 3, but getting something like an extra bmb to prevent losing the tech race…priceless.
I’m not a fan of Tech, so the likelyhood of me using this are slim, but it is still an option. And I definitly WOULD NOT press my luck if UK bought 2 boms on UK 1 or something. Like you said that is just inviting disaster.
BUT if I was putting a pretty good move on Russia, and maybe the UK or US bom was shot down in rd 1 or 2, I might sneak a 2nd Jap bomber in rd 4, then if it appears to go unnoticed or unchallenge I may try in the next rd as well since Boms can directly stike Russia’s Eastern border with ease they aren’t harmful to buy. Then maybe just then Tech could be an option.
But if the Allies make an early bom purchase or maintain a bom lead over Japan, I would not go this route. You don’t want to wake a sleeping giant.
Also, this strat is helpful in RR with Axis Adv, since SuperSubs is out of the way, but you do still have to play attention to what the Allies are doing as you pointed out.