[House Rules] Should allies receive a bid?

[Kreuzfeld]

With every single A&A game, the bid have increased with skil-level. The better you are. the more ability you have to use your advantages.

[taamvan]

The name “Balanced Mod” begs a conclusion. A better name would be “Different Mod” as it contains a lot of really fun ideas, but not all of them are particularly balanced (esp. SBR and China Guerilla Warfare). Some of the stuff (esp. Marines and NOs) are completely different than other, previous incarnations of that idea, and I don’t really understand why the Marines get to ride on the capital ships as it isn’t realistic IMO and would prevent you from bombarding AND landing, or combat AND noncombat. The Vichy Rule is sorta fun too, but its more for flavor than balance, I think.

The game will never be exactly balanced. What most people who have argued this for several years would say is much like what Simon33 just said; you have to first learn how to exploit the critical paths in the game, avoid non-critical or inefficient distractions, and you’ll magnify the Axis starting advantage. Against noobs, even a 100 bid wont prevent moscow’s fall because they’ll put the bid down in the wrong place. Against most players, russian isn’t the recipient of the bid, because players correctly understand it would be more powerful to put it with UK v Italy and leverage that advantage over 10 turns, than waste it on a blowout you lose on turn 6. Argothair probably makes the best point that the game designers probably intended for Moscow to fall in almost every KRF game, and that its actually a healthy part of the fun of the late game (with really only 4 surviving powers, not 9) once you get there.

Having said that, Dave and I have begun playing with 1 extra Russian fighter and 1 extra armor in Urals, and 4 of the $5 Axis bonuses reduced to $3. It has a DRAMATIC impact on the balance of the game rest of the otherwise unchanged game, even though I reckon the value to be only about $36-$44 bid equivalent.

[oysteilo]

@taamvan said in Should allies receive a bid?:

Having said that, Dave and I have begun playing with 1 extra Russian fighter and 1 extra armor in Urals, and 4 of the $5 Axis bonuses reduced to $3. It has a DRAMATIC impact on the balance of the game rest of the otherwise unchanged game, even though I reckon the value to be only about $36-$44 bid equivalent.

Which ones? Would be interesting to try

[taamvan]

@oysteilo

Leningrad, Caucasus (to Germany), Stalingrad and Moscow. All become $3. Tried it with the other $5s…we ended up leaving India, Spice and Iron alone because they need to be $5 in order to make those areas really desirable to fight over.

Both of the changes 1) don’t alter the opener 2) dont change the early game much or the decision making process 3) but have a big effect over time, preserving russian choice and moving the bid to the “correct” team, not the “most efficient” bid target (ie UK). They do reduce the wildly overpowered income that Germany gets even when Moscow plays well.

Dave easily shut germany down last game, though my open luck was horrible.

and Curtfungus is back! Sweet! Rage and rip the board in half!

[Gargantua]

This post is deleted!

[djensen]

Okay, okay. Time to give out the yellow cards. Please don’t hijack a good thread with trolling, it’s a bad look for the site. Plus, Curtmungus you’re supposed to be on an indefinite vacation from the forums.

[simon33]

@djensen Curtmungus was an asset to the league. Is there a way he can play again or is it that he’s a sock puppet and can play under his normal name anytime he wants?

[Panther]

@simon33
Dave is referring to https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/30356/say-goodbye-alter-ego-accounts/

[djensen]

@simon33 That’s an interesting point. I actually use a sock puppet account for my games but I have the unique problem that this account has admin privileges. It’s also quite obvious that it’s my sock puppet account @djensen47

[Panther]

@djensen Of course it is: You actually do follow our forum rules:

9. Multiple Accounts
   Undisclosed multiple accounts are not allowed.
   Disclosed multiple accounts should be limited to 2.
   -2 accounts are allowed mostly for the purpose of playing TripleA games.
   -Your second account must indicate you primary account in the username or in the profile. For instance my second account for TripleA is “djensen47”

:wink:

[djensen]

@Panther I outsmarted myself again!

[Mursilis]

@taamvan

So you don’t use any of the other NO’s from the balance mod or the SBR rule change or any other rule change for that matter in regards to the balance mod? Tank/fighter in Soviet Union and the NO for taking the caucasus, leningrad, stalingrad and moscow go from 5 to 3.
If this is true and really balances the game then a mod should be put forward on AAA I feel. Small changes like these drastically fixed 1942.2 with LH’s tournament rules.

If would be nice to have some more feedback and testing done on this.

[oysteilo]

@Mursilis said in Should allies receive a bid?:

@taamvan

So you don’t use any of the other NO’s from the balance mod or the SBR rule change or any other rule change for that matter in regards to the balance mod? Tank/fighter in Soviet Union and the NO for taking the caucasus, leningrad, stalingrad and moscow go from 5 to 3.
If this is true and really balances the game then a mod should be put forward on AAA I feel. Small changes like these drastically fixed 1942.2 with LH’s tournament rules.

If would be nice to have some more feedback and testing done on this.

I feel the same way, as it is much needed to present an alternative to BM3

[barnee]

@Mursilis said in Should allies receive a bid?:

@taamvan

So you don’t use any of the other NO’s from the balance mod or the SBR rule change or any other rule change for that matter in regards to the balance mod? Tank/fighter in Soviet Union and the NO for taking the caucasus, leningrad, stalingrad and moscow go from 5 to 3.
If this is true and really balances the game then a mod should be put forward on AAA I feel. Small changes like these drastically fixed 1942.2 with LH’s tournament rules.

If would be nice to have some more feedback and testing done on this.

it would be pretty easy to do. I can add that option to the house rules mod if you want. Be doing an update soon anyway.

[Mursilis]

@barnee
If it is easy to do why not. I would appreciate it and I’m pretty sure everyone else would too. It would be nice to have a balanced game instead of just a “different” game. It would be quite interesting of Taamvan’s simple changes could easily balance out the game and remove the need to bid at all.

[barnee]

@Mursilis right on. The more ways to play the merrier imo : )

although I don’t think you can really balance A&A for all skill levels in the same game

[General 6 Stars]

Ha Ha My lovely G40 game.

[barnee]

@Mursilis

I added “Option taamvan” to triplea. It’s under experimental “Global 40 House Rules” .
Changes the Volgograd, Novgorod, Russia NO to 3 bucks and Caucasus to 3 bucks.

Adds a Fighter to Russia and a Armor to Urals.

Rereading taamvan’s post i might have screwed up Caucasus as he says “German” controlled, so Idk if that means Germany has to own it to get the dough and not just the axis, which is the way it is now.

Also Idk if Italy gets anything for it if they own it then. Probably not. I guess i should ask @taamvan for clarification on that. No biggie to change it.

I didn’t test much, just enough to see if the stuff showed up so…: )

Anyway, sounds like a fun twist to things : )

Peace Out

Oh yea, so go to “Map Options” before you start the game to get to it.

[Mursilis]

@barnee
Hey thanks for putting the effort in but it doesn’t seem to be working for me. I’m in global house rules and checked the taamvan option in the map options menu. I started the game and it had the changer round. I opened up the game tab and went to map options and it showed that taamvan was checked but no tank in urals and no extra fighter in russia. :(

[barnee]

@Mursilis yea the fighter and tank don’t show up until after Germany’s politics phase

I’ll see if i can activate it a little sooner.