Hi guys,
I’ve played a lot of straight up games (no bid) and Axis is clearly favoured
Personally though, I would like to see something other than your standard Egypt/Eastern Front bid placements as these do nothing to correct what I see as the MAJOR FLAW with A&A50. Specifically, I’m tired of the old “Will Allies get to Berlin before Japan gets to Moscow?” playout.
If you guys really want to think out of the box, I’d suggest a house rule like the following…
Pre-placed UK IC
-On UK1 only, during the Purchase Units phase, UK may purchase a “Limited IC” for placement in either India, Australia, or Eastern Canada.
-This “Limited IC” costs 8 IPC. Units purchased on UK1 may be placed at the IC this turn (up to the territory limit)
-This “Limited IC” can only produce INF, RTL, and ARM initially but can be upgraded to a full IC on a future turn (for an additional 7 IPC)
-Now if you’re wanting to decide who plays who, you can simply bid for the starting cost of the IC (anywhere from 0-15). If you felt you were a strong Allied player, you would be willing to pay more, whereas if you felt stronger with Axis, you would be willing to give/take the IC for less.
-The idea here is that instead of a very static and nonchallenging push game (Ger–>Rus, UK–>Ger, US–>Jap, Jap–>Rus) you actually get a very dynamic game with multiple fronts and strategic decisions (UK, US, and Jap must split resources more, Germany becomes the dominant Axis player rather than Japan)
-In one fell swoop, you automatically correct for game balance PLUS you make the game a LOT more fun to play :-) Anyone whose played AAR: Enhanced wll know what I mean as we incorporated a similar rule to keep UK in Asia/Pacific. The results were very successful as the game was a lot more enjoyable than regular Revised.
-The game also becomes a lot more competitive. When you’re playing a simple push game, there is very little strategic decision making. You just buy the units and move them to your target. I’d say these games are about 80% dice rolls, 20% real strategy. With a UK IC in Asia/Pacific, you increase the number of fronts and tough resource decisions, making the game more like 60% strategy, 40% dice.
-Anyways guys, that’s my take on the whole thing. I really think we need to start thinking out of the box when it comes to this whole bidding thing. Thanks :-)