1941 troop setup at the begining of the game?

@thedesertfox I don’t think you’ll get people to agree on a bid, which is why you should have an auction if you’re running a tournament – let one player say "I’ll take the Allies for 10 ipcs (or whatever), and then the other player can either say “Ok, take them” or bid lower and say “I’ll take the Allies for 9 ipcs.” This continues until someone says ok.

There are just so few games in a typical a&a tournament that you can’t afford to have anyone feeling like they lost a coin toss. E.g. if you have 3 rounds and someone plays allies twice and they don’t agree with your fixed bid, that’s a real feel-bad moment.

@Veqryn:

@cts17:

Reviving this a bit, I think that a 6 IPC bid is sufficent. Two infantry to Egy is often enough.

bids generally don’t allow more than 1 unit to a territory….

at least, that is what i’ve always been told

(a max of 1 unit to a territory, and you must have units in that territory already)

That’s a ‘house rule’ from the Triple A lobby, from what I understand.  Usually bid limits are listed with how the bidding works (i.e.  all cash (no immediate units), 1 unit per territory, etc).

In other words, bid rules are all over the board.

I have played both the 41 and 42 set-ups and found that the 42 is a little more balanced and the Allies usually win, but the Axis can win if well played.
The 41 set-up does favor the Axis but we have won as the Allies in a long and hard battle that takes a long time but eventually turned around. In that game UK bought a factory on India T1 and diverted resources that way to slow down Japan, and USA and Russia (a little) went after Japan right away aiding UK as best they can. Germany, Italy and Japan were making way too much money by T3, but smart decisions allowed the Allies to slowly climb back and turn things around by T7, so it can be done. China was no help at all so they are week. Victory cities is the key. Do not worry about crushing the Axis completely just getting the VC you need.
I agree that China does not start with enough and/or is not getting enough men per turn. That part alone would slow Japan down enough to make it that much more balanced. :-)
We play with the rules as is. :-D

The point is that randomness is assumed here… I am just as often allies as I am axis and it makes no difference.

that being said I think the game sides are equal. The stats show that.

Any decent A&A player wont care what side he plays.

If you ate truelly concerned about the skill issue, just review the tournies from R3 to the finish.  every player from that point knows how to play the game.

I rolled 3 1’s on Germany’s fighters in the G1 Karelia attack once.  Nobody’s dared try it since.

Yep, and it’s even more funny do it to the USA in a Polar Express campaign. Priceless

Also, western axis could make a try with SBRs on London if UK makes the error of not buying SAF IC. 16 damage on a country that is colecting about 25 or less? Deadly

Just had an 8 hour game with the 1941 setup. We played with NOs and techs enabled and I was Allies.
G starts by buying 7 inf and 2 researchers. It then attacks the CA and DD, the single DD and the 3 russian territories. G attacks Egypt with the BMR but it fails.
Russia counterattacks and retakes Baltic and Ukr. It moves 4 inf into China and masses all the inf on Bur.
J attacks EE, Borneo, Philippines, US BB and DD/TRN plus 3 chinese territories. It leaves the DD/TRN off India alone.
UK buys 1 IC for India and builds a carrier. The BB land units on Algeria.
Italy buys 1 DD and counterattacks on Algeria.
US starts building a fleet on the Pacific and gets 2 researchers.

From that moment on, the game went like this:

G and R were trading territories. G managed to conquer Karelia once but couldn’t keep it. Besides fighting G, R managed to sent some 9 tanks to help in China. J tried to attack India on J3 but failed due to the AA shooting 3 planes out of 5. Meanwhile it built some ships to counter the US buildup and had to deal with the Chinese and the Russians on China. After defending China, the UK moved to Burma and kept attack FIC. This, and conquering both Norway and Finland, securing Africa and liberating EE and Borneo (the Indian TRN went back to Australia and a US TRN moved from the Solomon) gave the UK a massive income (+50). Italy tried to attack the UK fleet off Algeria and lost big time. The US fleet eventually grew to 3 ACs, 1 CA, 2 DDs, 4 SUB. When we decided to end the game it had attacked and sunk the J fleet off Japan with the help of 8 jet fighters and 1 BMR (against 2 AC, 1 BB, 2 DD, 2 SUB and 4 FTR).

The game wasn’t really decided at the end, we stopped because of getting really tired but it was really interesting, although the Axis made some bad mistakes.