1. I do not directly want to avoit 50/50 battles, but i do want to avoid musthaves.
The chance to sink 2 US transports and a destroyer is too tempting not to do it. You can only lose one sub if you fail. Therefore, to maximize axis chances to win, moving this sz8 sub to sz10 is inevitable.
I dont like having only one way. Before, this sub could do various moves, depending on what you do in med and in north atlantic. But with transports not being able to defend, this 8-10 move is he best you can do, independent of how you want to attack the british ships. I think it is the best option to simply move the starting position of the sub from 8 to 7, here it is still possible to help attacking british ships in 2 or 13. You simply lose this (too profitalbe) US attack (that was anyway impossible in revised).
In The sz8 sub only has one optimal move in standard revised. That’s to hit the med. Attacking the uk sub is only a 75% chance and is guaranteed sunk by US R1. Med takes a (66% chance) hit from the battleship that would otherwise be a german fighter loss.
Russia hitting Wrus, Japan hitting pearl, Germany hitting egypt. These are all very profitable “must have” attacks. Yet, the game is still fairly balanced on the net.
I think what you want to avoid in R1 are high volatility plays that have a big impact. For example, hypothetical 2 bombers attacking 4 transports defending at 1 would add a large amount of random luck.
B) Im not sure how this should (auto)happen, as G can act before UK, and has various options in the med. Dont see such a big problem here. Maybe I’m not experienced enough to see that, could you explain it more detailed? I think with fighters, bomber and the battleship (and even the sz8 sub) it is possible to crash both, the UK battleship AND destroyer in the med, and therefore saving the german med fleet (at least for a while). Sure, you cant use those air units at the east front or in the north atlantic, BUT you have the option.
The normal optimal play on both sides is germany sends atlantic sub and 3 fighters to sink the sz13 battleship. 1 battleship, 1 fig, and 1 transport go to sz15 and sink the destroyer. 4 land units (+1-2 if germany bids to africa), 1 bomber attack egypt. This makes sz15 guaranteed safe R1.
C) Sure this transport is an autoloss for J if UK attacks it with a fighter form sz or the destroyer from sz 35. BUT if UK does so, the carrier and/or the destroyer is a (nearly) autoloss afterwards. This is not a very profitable move I think. You CAN do it to slow down Japans land offensive, but it costs UK more than J. UK has other useful options in the indian ocean. I dont see a general problem here. Maybe im wrong here, and the other options are crap, but me as UK-player would more like to save the indian fleet in the fist round, trying to meld it with either survivors from the med or with the australian.
The sz59 battle, along with egypt R1 are the most important battles R1 in my view. 1 Dest vs trans only has about an 85% chance of destroying the transport. It’s so important that many top players send both the dest and carrier to sink the transport. If Japan starts with both transports, Japan’s opening is accelerated by ~1 round and that makes it much easier for Japan to secure India, Persia, and Egypt.
Honestly (and sincerely don’t mean to insult), your comments suggest to me that you are not playing at a high competitive level. Against typical players, the skill level will have a much larger impact than a few bid. This is because people will mistakenly leave units in a position for the opponent to win 10-50 point battles. Bids to balance really shine when both players are playing optimally, the games are going 20+ rounds with 150 unit stacks. I would stick to my suggestions in the original post if you’d like to try revised with the new rules.