After you play Axis & Allies for a while, it becomes obvious that the game is slanted in favour of the allies. For example, it becomes commonplace for all three allies to attack Germany and spend everything on sending stuff against Germany, so that Germany is usually dead in 3-5 turns. There is almost nothing Japan can do about this, because even after 5 turns they have only taken over lots of territory in Asia and elsewhere. With Germany dead, the allies just have to march back across Asia and kill Japan. This is a common strategy for experienced players. Because, in this method, the allies win 95% of the time, people have come up with bidding to even out the game. In bidding, everyone who’s playing writes their name and a bid of units/IPC’s on a piece of paper. The people with the lowest bids play Germany and Japan. The axis players get to either place the units that they bid right on the board before the game starts, or they get that value of IPC’s as extra money to start with. For example, say the two lowest bids are 1 tank + 1 IPC and 3 infantry. If the lowest bid goes to Japan, Japan can place an extra tank anywhere they want on the board, but it has to be in their original territory. Also, the Japanese player would get 1 extra IPC, so they would start with 26 IPC’s instead of 25. The German player could place the 3 infantry anywhere he wants to in his original territory on the board.
