Thanks a lot for the reply, that’s exactly what I was looking for. If we decide to use option 1 and/or 2 would a bid still be required? I didn’t even realise one could go through the Turkish straight, historically that’s just ridiculous (but I guess Japan starts with 8 million carriers and planes so historical accuracy is not paramount in the game design).

I’ll talk to my opponent when we play next (probably will be around Christmas) and see what he wants to do.

I would really appreciate it if an experienced player could tell around what the average bid rules/bid amount was. Looking online there are absolutely no clear answers as everyone uses different rules leading to different bid amounts and I can’t find any clear connection where I can say, with these bid rules the allies should get X amount of IPC’s.

I played my first game and it went fairly well. We played with techs but no NO and just used the out of the box rules (no bid). It was really an interesting game and coming from the original second edition a big improvement. I was playing the allies and the game was starting to spiral out of control (Japan was getting huge) when he left Germany open to a British naval attack and part of the Japanese fleet open to an American long-range aircraft attack.

I really like the new research rules they’re a big improvement over the base game. Anyways, although I ended up winning with the allies, this was pretty much only because he left the German Capitol open (and even then we considered not stopping as Britain had 90 dollars to build 8 pieces in England so they couldn’t even get much and like I said Japan was massive) and it would be fun to play with NO’s as it seems they add to the game and enable Italy to act more like a real power. However, we don’t want to imbalance the game and we don’t want to decide who plays what with a bid (we’d rather just assign roles). Is there any place where I could get the average bids for top tournaments and the bid placement rules so we can just house rule a ‘set bid’? From reading online I’m getting it’s somewhere between 8-13IPC’s but I can’t find anything about placement rules or a definitive number.

As in the title, I’m probably going to play my first game of the Anniversary edition soon here (I’ve played the original second edition lots). I’ve heard the 41’ scenario is more balanced hence why I’m posting here. A couple quick questions:
1. If we’re not using a bid should NO be used?
2. Should we use research and the optional rules?

I just want to know for balance purposes, as I’d rather not to use a bid. Also, I’ll probably be playing the allies so if you have any basic strategy tips I’d love to win my first game.

Think I’ll go with the anniversary edition. Thanks for the help.

@Private:

What do you mean by balanced GenQ87?

None of them are balanced in the sense of the axis and allies being equally well placed to win using the “out of the box” setup.

However these boards are full of suggestions for changing that setup to balance the game. The “best” IMHO is to use a bid system. Each player bids an income boost in turn to take the disadvantaged side. Player A might bid 20 ipcs to be allies. Player B then either agrees to that or bids less to be allies. The player that bids least to be allies then places units to the value bid on the board before the game starts.

This approach can be used with any of the A&A variants.

By balanced, I meant the one where, given two players of equal skill 1v1ing, the win rate for the axis and allies would be closest to 50-50. With the bidding system, I guess this would equate to the game system that usually has the lowest bid? It’s an interesting idea to bid.

All the Axis and Allies game aren’t complicated rules-wise so I’m not overly worried about complexity, especially considering the basic mechanics have been kept largely the same since the original. Space and keeping track of everything going on on the map might be a challenge for the Global version, and there’s the price. I’d probably be most interested in either the anniversary edition (the one that was just re-released, it’s abbreviated AA50 it seems?) or half of the global map. Doing some research on my own it seems that AA50 has a slight Axis advantage and the global game has a larger axis advantage. I’m currently leaning towards AA50.

How are the 1940 versions? More or less balanced than the Anniversary Edition?

Thanks for the suggestion.

Obviously, I’m new to the forum so if this isn’t the right place to post this please move it.

My uncle and I have played the 1986 version of the game for years but it’s become fairly boring as most of the ‘best’ first turn strategies are pretty well set and the allies win as long as the Axis powers don’t get a really good roll in the first couple turns. After failing to convince my uncle to play A World at War I’m wondering what is generally considered the most balanced version of the game.

As a side note, please don’t answer one of the mini-games like battle of bulge we’re more interested in the large-scale games. If the answer is 1940 Europe than that’s okay. ie. The game has to deal with at least one whole theatre.