@Lifthil said in Questions from a returning player:

@Panther
With LHTR and LL, what’s a pretty standard bid for 1942-2e?

No idea here, someone else should answer this.

And is the bid per nation or per side? I.e., if the bid is 12, does that mean that Russia, UK, and USA each get 12 IPCs to pre-place, or is it 12 to be spent among all 3 Allied powers?

Usually the bid is per side. It depends on what the players agree.
In our Golbal 1940-league, these are two of the basic bidding rules:

Default settings for bidding:

Limit one bid unit in a territory or sea zone. The nation placing a unit in a territory or sea zone must have started with a unit in said territory or sea zone prior to placing the bid.