What is making Alpha 2+ unbalanced?

@Bung:

(1) Italy is too weak financially. Italy is simply not as capable as in AA50 due to the map changes.

Weak overall, yes. The UK can devastate Italy before Italy even gets a chance to go. Weaken UK a bit and they’d have a chance to get going.

@Bung:

(2) Japan is too weak on the continent in terms of possible unit count. I don’t mean starting set up, just the sheer cost and distances involved in getting sufficient units into Asia. I do not imply Japan invading Moscow either.

With China strengthened and fewer starting transports, Japan can only really handle one threat at a time. Any direction they don’t go, the Allies there can grow to overwhelming force. They can handle things if the US leaves them alone, but if the US comes in, it’s far too much to handle.

Yes, but by weakening Italy they lose any prayer of defending England.  This is primarily why many of us claim Germany should always treat Round 1 as if they are going to perform Sea Lion.  You can easily change your mind later, but it gives you very awesome odds if England goes after the Italian fleet.

I go so far as to not even bother defending the Italian fleet iwth German planes.  I want England messing around down there, not sending aircraft to England, makes it much easier to win England and less dicey. (Although, 99.1/99.2% odds in England can hardly be considered dicey.)

Absolutely correct Kobu.

“Italy is too weak financially” – the reason I word it like that is that there are other ways to deal with it than just the fleet problem. They need more money one way or another in order to handle the differences in the map(/game) compared to older versions.

“Any direction they don’t go, the Allies there can grow to overwhelming force.” This is a good statement I agree with. I specify the continent as a specific fix, unlike the general statement above with Italy. I feel it’s a stand out problem compared to the strength of HAW/AUS. One way or another, Japan can’t get enough troops to attack it (remembering that I prefaced my post with USA balancing fronts). And so, I voted for India.

@Cmdr:

I go so far as to not even bother defending the Italian fleet iwth German planes.

Yes I would hope this is common now, I do this as well. If you think it through it makes the most sense.

The idea, currently, is to take England with Germany.  IF you do this on round 4, you have 99% odds or better to win.  Now it is the German and Japanese navies vs the American Navy with Italy only having to deal with remnants of the British.

Italy shouldn’t have a very hard time growing to 40-60 IPC a round income in this manner.

It is unfortunate that strategies are forced towards a first turn Sealion threat. Other options allow the UK too much flexibility. This is a reason why I don’t think it’s just the US that is the problem. The Axis game shouldn’t get so much more difficult by Germany choosing some other opening.

I agree.  England should be buffed to make Sea Lion impossible in the first 5 rounds, Italy should be buffed to make up for England not having to worry about London anymore, Germany should be buffed to make Russia collapse farther and America should be nerfed BIG TIME.

One thing we’ve done is traded all the American fleet units in SZ 26 and replaced them with an equal number of infantry in England.  (1 Cruiser, 1 Destroyer, 1 Submarine, 1 Transport becomes +4 Infantry in England.)  That’s enough to stop Sea Lion on G4 as it gives the British 32 ground units and Germany at max 40.

We then dropped the Germans from 8 VCs to 7 VCs but they had to have either E. USA, England or Russia as one of the 7. (A capitol.)

Lastly, we removed the NO for the Continental US, replaced it with an NO for France being liberated. (10 IPC a round if France controls France.)

That balanced things WONDERFULLY.  Stopped all the gambit plays and made the game equitable for all players regardless of sides.  Russia could still blitz their fast units back or leave them to dissuade the Japanese, America had to invest in the Atlantic as it is quite easy to get 7 VCs compared to 8.  Etc

When you say “we” do you mean A+3?

No, I mean my core group of die hard players.

Our changes balance the game, but I fear would be way to radical for Larry to read!  We don’t want to give the old man a heart attack! lol.

In your balanced game, hows the record stand? 50/50 either one has a chance or is it like when ever one person plays this country they always win. Do you keep track of how you do as one side and the other against any and or all of the hard core addicts.
    We do in a way sometimes It will be a rematch from weeks previous. Our record so far is about 50/50 and we’ve done somewhere around 21 or 22 games. If I had to guess for our next game I would say the Allies because the Axis won the last two. we have 5 at the board every weekend. The last two I was the Axis in the first and the Allied in the second (Germ. & U.S.A.)

5 games completed, 1 game in progress.  Axis = 3, Allies = 2, last game is on Round 2 so too early to tell.

Seems about as balanced as things can get, and while this is way more accurate than the latest gallup poll on which flavor of ice cream is better (Vanilla vs Chocolate) it is not all inclusive by any means.

However, before this we had a dozen or so games and the Axis only won once out of all of those, so this is certainly more balanced - for our group at least - than Alpha 2 is.

i think whatever way you bend it italy is to weak

@Cmdr:

However, before this we had a dozen or so games and the Axis only won once out of all of those, so this is certainly more balanced - for our group at least - than Alpha 2 is.

- for our group at least - : Well said.

Since Alpha+ was so broken we gave up Alpha+ setup and there followers.

Basic setup is the best balanced.

First we balanced it by creating a US bonus on Philippines. Move 1 IPC to Philippines for every Allied win and move back one for every Axis win. Balanced within 7-9 ICP.

Later

We use modified alpha+ bonuses. German extra bonus in France. 5 IPC.
Japan 5 IPC for not declaring war against India/Anzac/US or France Indochina.

We are also discussing changing US entry to turn 4 and Soviet allow to declare war to turn 3.

Easiest way to bid is by bidding on an Philippines bonus. How much out of US 30 ICP bonus being in war should be put to a Philippines island bonus. No extra ICP in the beginning of the game because that destabilizes a complete zone. 12  ICP gives one axis power the possibility to do every thing what they want. Two additional G sub/tr, 2 Japan transports or two Italian subs/tr is way to strong.

Sorry, my english is not that good (working on it), so I’m not sure I understand what you say. If I understand right, you say :

1. Out of the box rules are better than Alpha 2.
2. Out of the box rules are balanced if you give 12 IPC to Axis. (I understand it’s a one time bonus, i.e. not +12IPC every turn)

Please correct me if I misunderstand you. But if I’m right, then I think otherwise. I’m positive that Axis don’t stand a single chance with OOB rules… and giving them 12IPC at start of the game won’t change a thing.

12 IPC Bid may or may not make this more balanced for OOB.  Why?

New South Wales will die on Japan 1 every game without fail.
Japan will have significantly more ground forces in China.

Just my UNTESTED opinion.

@Cmdr:

fun games include cashing in all your pieces and spending it all over again.  Caveat: Any territory worth 2 IPC or more must have an infantry unit per IPC.

I want to try this.

What about ICs and bases?

Would you require minimum’s be spent on naval for some countries?

i like the idea of a few extra german subs in the med or south atlantic, close to african convoys…

@taschuler:

@Cmdr:

fun games include cashing in all your pieces and spending it all over again.  Caveat: Any territory worth 2 IPC or more must have an infantry unit per IPC.

I want to try this.

What about ICs and bases?

Would you require minimum’s be spent on naval for some countries?

There were no naval bases or airbases when I used this last (because they did not exist in classic) but we stated that all facilities (AA Guns and Complexes) had to stay where they were, but you could buy more with your cash.  In this situation, I would say AB/NB would have to stay as well, but you could buy more.

There was no limit on what you spent it on.  If you wanted to cash in 309 IPC for America and get all infantry on E. USA, then you had 103 Infantry on E. USA and nothing else.

Two things stand out in my humble opinion as problems. First the Italian player loses a large portion of his fleet before he can even make his first move even if the Germs fly two fighters to help. Granted part of the time the U.K. will suffer a large number of casualties but it just does not seem right that the Italian player does not even get to make one stratigic decision before he has lost a portion of his navy. The U.S. can have a Pearl Harbor and bounce back because of a huge income. But Italy is poor and for game purposes their fleet should be combined as the U.K. has the initative and moves first. Second problem is the huge U.S. income before they are even at war. With their prewar income and starting units they are able to build a large fleet before their war even starts. If an adjustment were made by lowering their prewar income to more historical levels and then have them make up the difference in gradual steps during later turns. The total IPCs would eventually be the same but the difference would be that the U.S. would not start turn four with a huge fleet and all prepared to go to war. Now if the axis is crazy enough to attack the U.S. on turn one or two then leave the income schedule as it is.