I am wondering what everyone thinks about saving most of the bid the allies would receive instead of placing units on the board. Most games I have played lately start with a bid of 12-20. Lately I have found myself only spending 6 of that on a sub and then banking the rest for UK London. I really like the flexibility this provides since I have been able to use the money saved to buy factories in Persia and Egypt even earlier or make sea lion even harder if Germany is showing it.
As UK I usually do not play very aggressive on round 1 and avoid the Taranto raid. Most of the time I opt for stacking sz92 instead with an AB on Gibraltar. Then with the extra cash saved up use it to either fortify London or build factories in the ME basically a round early. So far the strategy has worked in a couple of games but I am wondering what everyone else thinks.
What are your thoughts on this? Do you think it goes against the spirit of the bid or is it fair game? Also, is it foolish to not use it on troops right away?
Sounds fair to me. Foolish? No….troops on the board could be a better play, but letting the axis show their stategy first is arguably viable.
Doesn’t sound optimal. The bid is normally used to slow Axis advance on the first turn. Doing it in this way means you forego the opportunity to do that.
So basically you don’t like attacking round 1? That sucks.
If you achieved positiv results with this, go ahead and refine it for your self.
Usually the bid is used up for fortifying certain Areas or get a better Punch in an attack for the Allies e.g. Taranto Raid.
Keep us updated.
I am not sure it is a good idea, either.
You need units on the board and in the Axis’ way. Mess up Italy on land as well as at Sea.
Perhaps, uou could give the UK one IPC, so it can buy 3 Inf and 2 Fts.
Instead of saving, just buy 2 infantry, 1 for london 1 for scotland. Bam you buying that anyway for london, except you have the added advantage of being able to scramble round 1 knowing you can place 10 units.
@wittmann:
I am not sure it is a good idea, either.
You need units on the board and in the Axis’ way. Mess up Italy on land as well as at Sea.
Perhaps, uou could give the UK one IPC, so it can buy 3 Inf and 2 Â Fts.
My reason for saving the bid is that it allows me to safely purchase factories for ME as early as possible while at the same time spending the least amount possible to prevent sea lion. Some one mentioned using the bid to place land units on UK but I feel like that not an optimal use of resources since that only accomplishes one of the objectives. If you save enough you can buy two in round two for both Persia and Egypt.
I believe that it is best to save the money until Germany has shown it’s plans. Spending the rest of the bid on land units in med will be a waste if Germany goes sea lion but any land units purchased for England will be wasted if they go for USSR.
If you are able to purchase a factory a turn earlier because of the money saved from the bid that means you end up with the at least the same amount of units as using the bid to purchase the land units. The major advantage though is you will know what is more needed after Germany’s turn if it is saved where you will have to guess if you spend it before round 1.
You could also bid a factory if that’s what you think is a priority.
The major advantage though is you will know what is more needed after Germany’s turn if it is saved where you will have to guess if you spend it before round 1.
Imho, we need to weight the advantage of putting units immediately. There are several advantages.
First is to strength our turn 1 attack. For example, if we put 1 tank in Egypt, 2 art in Alex and Sudan, we have high odds of removing most Italy units in Africa. So in later turns we do not need to spend UK money to deal with Italy units in Africa. The saved money in most cases should be >12. Actually, the aim of putting IC is to produce units. Why not place those units immediately in turn 1 that gives you the most options?
Second is to strengthen some crucial defense area like North Sea fleet and Yunnan. Admittedly even with bids these areas would fall, but we can make the Axis pay a higher place in these crucial areas (e.g. loss of German planes or Japanese land units).
Everyone’s comments about getting units into action on offense or defense asap is valid. Like someone earlier mentioned, play test saving and give us your opinion. You have a plausible theory, now it’s time to prove or disprove how well this works.
Saving the money decreases it’s value.
The bid is the ONE time you get an opportunity to place units on the front line, basically anywhere on the board you want. That’s it’s power. To just save the money… even with some purpose in mind (like complexes) still makes it less valuable then it is once the game starts.
Another way to look at this. Imagine if Russia had 25 IPC’s Round 1, vs 100 IPC’s round 8. 25 extra IPC’s that early, out there producing units for you and getting things done, vs 100 IPC"S when it’s already too late… it’s a big difference. Remember that your dollars are fighting for you every second they are on the board; but not until so.
You could also bid a factory if that’s what you think is a priority.
This is true but I assumed that a bid must be spent on units and not factories. Plus I still think it is best to save the money until you know what Germany is going to do. I mean if I place a factory on Egypt with the bid I feel like that is just asking for a sea lion feint while Italy bull rushes Egypt.
I mean it is no secret that the allies are generally being reactive instead of proactive early. I am having a hard time seeing why giving your self the most flexibility is a bad thing. It seems to be well established that the bid is best given to UK. As far as I see it UK has 3 objectives that it should focus on early. The first and most important is preventing sea lion. The next would be protecting Egypt and finally the last would be establishing dominance in Med. You could argue about whether the last two should be flipped but both are important. At the start of the game it is not clear how much focus each objective needs. However, after the first round it becomes much easier to guess how much will need to be spent for each objective and once they are completed UK can now focus on getting troops on Eurasia.
I know that with a bid of 20+ you can give your self good odds to attack Ethiopia , Tobruk and Taranto but 2 of those three battles need to go in your favor otherwise it spells disaster and that to me is a bad risk to take unless I have 90% plus odds. The benefit of this plan is its flexibility and that it allows you to maximize the use of the bid. I mean that 12 IPC saved could be either 4 extra inf on London round 2 or an extra factory on Persia/Egypt and you will not know what is a better to have at the start of the game but you will know by the end of round 2.
I reckon it is hard to get better value than the sub in SZ98 and fighter in Scotland. If the Germans attack both UK fleets evenly, full scramble; you’ll kill a bunch of Luftwaffe. Generally, the Germans really need to let one of the fleets escape, and perhaps hit the Cruiser in SZ91.
How is your saved money going to get better value than that? I can’t see it.
The fighter is a very good purchase for the bid but the sub in sz 98 is only good for Taranto raid which I am against doing unless it is very clear Germany is going USSR. Even then I still feel stacking sz 92 is the optimal play. I realize I am in the minority with that belief but I feel a failed Taranto is catastrophic and the costs of ensuring a victory require all of UK’s projecting power spent in the first round.
The one thing I really like about the fighter in Scotland is that it will usually cause the Germans to bring more than they are used to and this could possible cause them to outright win the battle instead of just strafing. Depending on their buy this can mess with their plans which is always a plus.
Hmm. I was going to say that with the sub you can leave out the CV and still stack SZ92. Perhaps if the Italians don’t scramble and the Germans took Southern France such a strategy would be pretty risky. Also risky if the Germans buy 2 more bombers.
However, if your objection is Taranto going wrong, then you don’t want to do that. I don’t know, I kind of reckon that the allies have to take their chances in a few battles unless they have a monster bid, in which case they might go with a reinforce Yunnan strategy.
If you don’t like ss 98, there’s always ss 110. You can use it to defend 110, or submerge it and use it on UK1, or move it to 92.
The best use of the bid will be something that either
So as discussed fig Scotland is a very strong bid. It makes it risky for Germany to go both 110/111 and it’s a critical additional attack unit on UK1. I wouldn’t want to pass up the (potentially cascading) advantage such a unit gives me for a unit I won’t get to place until UK1.
I prefer ss 98 to ss 110 because I’m usually going Taranto and more units are better–I want overkill in case of scramble and if there isn’t a scramble I want more fodder against an Italian counterattack. But there’s a good case for ss 110 as extra insurance that Germany will forego hitting 110/111 as too risky and as extra fodder for countering the Bismarck.
Depending on the size of the bid, adding a fighter on Malta can also work and address your main concern of not having good enough odds against a scramble in SZ97. I guess I’m not that risk averse though.
Fighter Scotland is better than saving, again it is something you planned on buying anyway so slap it down.
Curse that fighter bid in Scotland. In so many battles it has managed to shoot down two German planes. That changes all of the math in subsequent battles throughout the game. Arghhhh!
