Ok…. total Noob when it comes to bids.
What/how are the “old” bid systems? We never played w/ bids and always tried to resolve game imbalance by using house rules, etc.
I’d like to hear a simple concise explanation of what bids are and how the are/or were used.
Our '41 games have been Allies heavy for sure. We’ve played w/ Techs and NOs. I think Techs are going bye-bye next game for sure.
Our '41 games have been Allies heavy for sure. We’ve played w/ Techs and NOs. I think Techs are going bye-bye next game for sure.
Just make your techs delayed till the end of the player turn to reduce techs wild influence on the game outcome
There’s plenty of posts on bids and how they work… let me see if I can quickly find one.
Dakota,
Some of the more popular bid styles are:
1 - Blind Bid (used for a lot of on-line play)
It is a secret bid, Player A and Player B would each write an amout of IPCs on a piece of paper and the lowest amout would get the Axis with that amout of IPC to spend. Ex. Player A had bid 10 and Player B had bid 7, so Player B is Axis with 7 ipc to spend on units and/or cash for one of the Axis powers.
2 - Auction Bid
Just as it sounds.
Player A bids 12, then Player B bids 10, now it goes back to Player A and he bids 9, and Player B counters with 8 and finally Player A says fine you can take the Axis with 8.
3 - Bid with declared placement
This increases the variety of the game. You specifically bid for an amount or units and it is treated as an auction style bid. For Example you may never grant Germany a 18 bid b/c they may place 6 inf right on the Russian front. However, with declared placement if the player bids 18 and said I’d like 1 Cruiser and 1 Sub for Germany for Sz 5 then you may grant that.
there’s a sticky in the player help section:
there’s a sticky in the player help section:
Good call.
Lovely info all. Thank ya kindly for the sticky post and the brief explanations…… EXACTLY what I was looking for.
For the topic at hand, I don’t mind the standard bid for unit/cash type bids, it is easy to understand and can potentially open up different lines of play.
As an alternative, I also like unit reallocation. That is taking units already on the board and moving them to better locations. For example the German CA and Trn get killed on UK 1 every game, well what if you move the CA and Trn to Sz 14 or move the Sz 5 sub to the Atlantic. If you think Russia gets taken out too quick move an inf or 2 from SFE to closer to the front lines. Maybe you just move the Chinese ftr to a safer location so they can attack a little easier.
In this case new armies aren’t added/subtracted you just beef up the areas that you feel are prime targets or are out of place.
For the topic at hand, I don’t mind the standard bid for unit/cash type bids, it is easy to understand and can potentially open up different lines of play.
As an alternative, I also like unit reallocation. That is taking units already on the board and moving them to better locations. For example the German CA and Trn get killed on UK 1 every game, well what if you move the CA and Trn to Sz 14 or move the Sz 5 sub to the Atlantic. If you think Russia gets taken out too quick move an inf or 2 from SFE to closer to the front lines. Maybe you just move the Chinese ftr to a safer location so they can attack a little easier.
In this case new armies aren’t added/subtracted you just beef up the areas that you feel are prime targets or are out of place.
That’s an interesting idea. The only issue is how to judge one bid against another.
For example, I bid moving the chinese ftr but you bid moving the UK ftr in egypt.
Who wins that bid?
Are you then bidding to move X # of units worth your bid or bidding to move specific units?
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.
Although, I’m not sure a bid is necessary, at least not yet. There seem to be a lot of people claiming the Axis have the advantage in '41 with NOs, but there are also people convinced that the advantage belongs to the Allies. This is very good as far as game balance is concerned, IMHO.
I don’t think I’ve played enough to make a decision abou this. Most of my games seem fairly balanced though.
Are you then bidding to move X # of units worth your bid or bidding to move specific units?
That’s an interesting idea. The only issue is how to judge one bid against another.
For example, I bid moving the chinese ftr but you bid moving the UK ftr in egypt.Who wins that bid?
Yeah, I don’t know. :-)
I guess it isn’t really a bid, it’s more of a general understanding among the players or play group that side X always wins (or has an adv) so we must do something. You still have to probalby flip coins for sides or something.
I would say before the game starts all players (without knowing who they play) agree to a revised setup. Maybe all the players agree to move 2 Russian inf from SFE to Kar. So they all agree this is a 50/50 or fair setup. NOW the sides are chosen, probably by coin flip or whatever.
Neither party should be able to complain since they all agreed before they knew who they’d be. It could turn out to make no difference or be a good/bad move but it is still something everyone agreed to.
You could just alter the setups until you find something you like.
The great thing about reading all these posts is that no one’s games match 100% w/ another groups games.
Some are Axis heavy and some are Allies heavy. The beauty part is that we have someplace to discuss this stuff and can kick around ideas w/ like minded people. I think the differences indicate a pretty well made game that has its biggest variations in who is playing the game.
No braggin, no “my strat is the best’”, no “your math is wrong because mine is right”…. Well - almost none that is.
Will kick around the bid straight cash vs unit moves and see what our gang thinks.
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
lower all NOs to 3 IPC
make easy NOs 3 IPC, medium ones 5 IPC and very difficult ones 7 IPC (Philippines for US is very hard)
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.
I’ll repeat again: China is broken. All the freak page 10 should be burnt
The minimal changes needed are:
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:
@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.
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.
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.
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
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.
