Alternate bidding scheme

@Elrood:

(…)
The Theory is: if no extra UK Units and if G1 opens to threaten Sea Lion, then Meds have to (and should be) given up for protecting London.
Then Italy will grow wild and probably get egypt and possibly ME as well.
At that point the increased Income of US comes in and they should HAVE to invest something into Europe to prevent a loss there.

That is tactical decision making. It should not be clear that both London and Africa can be saved by standard builds/moves. Imho… (…)

Have you considered the approach Nippon also pointed out?
The USA does have options early in Europe without loosing in the Pacific. Those options are limited, yes, but you can calculate what forces the USA needs to punish Germany for taking London, considering the Germans already will have problems with Russia after that. IIRC, this means it is OK for the UK to loose London (and therefore, turn the Italian navy into dust anyway) as long as they make Germany pay enough for taking London. Building 9INF, of 6INF in London UK1 and 1FTR should do that.

In one of my previous posts I elaborated on how much IPCs the USA can spend in Europe early without loosing in the Pacific. Loosing India is not the same as loosing the Pacific war, ofc. Japan will be monstrous, but so will Germany be if the allies go (K)JF.

Well I haven’t done the math, but lets say you go for Sea Lion, then Japan should probably wait for DOW J3, but probably depends on some other factors as well. Also J2 is possible, seeing what US placed into Atlantic in US1

How badly can Sea Lion go, if properly executed?
Turn 1: 2 German TTs, Kills cruiser in SZ 91, convoy SZ 109,
Turn 2: Bombard London, as much as 7 more TTs (probably less are needed), also take Scotland with 6 Inf.
Turn 3: Sea Lion

I think just buying troops is not enough for London to discourage Sea Lion here. And they would even have to get an extra Fighter from UK for taranto, which will weaken it even more.

If US puts their mind to it, sure, they can liberate London, but would have to play it rather safe in Pacific meanwhile. But certainly would need to be tested.  :-)

Yes to testing!
Another SL game with a defensive pacific mind from the USA ;-). I won’t be playing anytime soon, but surely follow such a game.

I have to agree that Sea Lion can not be prevented by the UK.  I am of the notion that Sea Lion is not one of the best strategies for Germany.  Dark Skies seems quite unstoppable at the moment.  I haven’t found a way to defeat it yet and nobody else seems to have found a good plan, even with a ~20 PU bid.  I would think that a fighter in Scotland, an artillery in Alexandria, and a sub in SZ 98 will put a significant hindrance into the German SL plans, especially if the dice are unfriendly.  :roll:

I have to say I find the idea to bid for US income quite good. Very reasonable post and argumentation. Good job, nerqueen. I would consider to test this.

@Arthur:

Dark Skies seems quite unstoppable at the moment.  I haven’t found a way to defeat it yet and nobody else seems to have found a good plan, even with a ~20 PU bid.  I would think that a fighter in Scotland, an artillery in Alexandria, and a sub in SZ 98 will put a significant hindrance into the German SL plans, especially if the dice are unfriendly.  :roll:

I do not sign that. I think bombers are a valid strategy but they are not necessarily better than a brutal and perfectly executed Barbarossa (which I personally fear way more as Allies). Furthermore there are no TierE players yet complaining that bombers are imbalanced.

I simply think the high winning percentage a) correlates with the fact that Axis are strong in general and b) that playing bombers makes the game more complex and that specifically less experienced or mediocre players simply do not know how to react appropriately (yet).

The most important thing is: The counter strategy is not created on the flip chart but by playing each move precisely. Many people say “I did this and that and bombers still beat me” but in the end the execution was just poorly. Successful play always depend on execution and details.

Once again well said by JDOW

Yup, +1 for JDOW.
Although I wouldn’t always call it ‘poorly executed’ if the allied progress failed. It’s also that the axis are just very strong in general. Oh wait, he already said that ;-).

@ItIsILeClerc:

Although I wouldn’t always call it ‘poorly executed’ if the allied progress failed. It’s also that the axis are just very strong in general. Oh wait, he already said that ;-).

And bomber-games are of course dicey. In close games, they can make the difference. But in the end, dice decide less games than most people claim.

@JDOW:

And bomber-games are of course dicey. In close games, they can make the difference. But in the end, dice decide less games than most people claim.

Hehheh, I was thinking about that too but didn’t want to say it out loud. I’ve said it too many times already.

It is true, ofc. I may be a bit more pessimistic about the long term effects the dice have on a game (especially during the opening battles) but I agree with the spirit of what you are saying. And in good spirit as well ;-).

It is an exciting prospect. But a shock to play the UK on T1. Am so used to the bid in the Med, I found playing the UK strange. And scary!
We are playing +10 from US1, regardless of Japan’s DOW. I would have happily played +30 for holding America when at war and started on 52 still.
I think 80 as a base war income makes more sense(Philippines lost, obviously), so hope this experiment helps the Allied cause.

Yeah.

Imho the initiative of this game should be at Axis side. I find it weird that because of bids in range of +20 the Init changes, since suddenly Allies dictate which ways Axis cannot go anymore.

So in first turns sure, Axis is most likely having the time of their lives, but eventually the US income will come crushing in, and then its Allies turn.

Posted by: nerquen

There are currently 4 games underway with the proposed bidding scheme:

Nice to see it getting some attention. Too good of an idea to just disappear.

Thank you for your input Nerquen. Perhaps I should have done Taranto anyway, but Elrood’s  opening German go combined with a 2TT buy, scared me off. I lost SZ91 Cruiser and both DDs. Caution seemed the word of the day.
Has really piqued my interest.

Elrood said the same. Glad we are all on the same wave lenght.
He had an unlucky I1, so we are probably close again.

Nice idea Nerquen.

But I’m inclined to defend unit bids.  A bid averaging 20 means spectacular diversity of bids and bidding strategies (the revised bid of 6-10 was great but 18-22 is even better).  A high and variable placement bid helps keep the game fresh and interesting (longer than it would be w/o a bid), as bids can be used to frustrate previously dominant strategies.

I worry that if a single means to balance the game is universally adopted (say by a cash bid to USA), then that risks an impasse where there’s one ‘winning’ strategy that everybody plays.

Looking forward to seeing/hearing about the results of the experiments with this.

@Zhukov44:

Nice idea Nerquen.

But I’m inclined to defend unit bids.  A bid averaging 20 means spectacular diversity of bids and bidding strategies (the revised bid of 6-10 was great but 18-22 is even better).  A high and variable placement bid helps keep the game fresh and interesting (longer than it would be w/o a bid), as bids can be used to frustrate previously dominant strategies.

I worry that if a single means to balance the game is universally adopted (say by a cash bid to USA), then that risks an impasse where there’s one ‘winning’ strategy that everybody plays.

Looking forward to seeing/hearing about the results of the experiments with this.

In theory you might be right, but is that really the case in practice? Most unit bids I see are used to help beat down Italy with UK early. And that leads to the infamous KJF strategy by Allies. since when Italy is gone, UK and Russia have it much easier with holding Germany back.
So for Axis it means they have less options now, while THEY should have the initiative. We all know they lost the War, but isn’t this game to see “what if?”
E.g. Germany is starting the game. In my current one with Wittmann I chose to push hard on UK to prevent them from Taranto, and it worked, but for a cost, since in Ger2 I was not ready now for Barbarossa. Isn’t that what this game should be about?

Little detour:
–-
I tend to compare the A&A with chess. (As weird as it might sound chess is a game with some portion of chance as well.)

And at chess, what would you do to give the opponent an advantage? “you can use another pawn, just put him somewhere next to a starting pawn” ;-) Rather not, more likely you set yourself a tougher time limit to give your newbie some edge when it comes to thinking and planning. And imho thats what this proposal of nerquen equally does. Having more income with US is more forgiving in case of bad moves or mistakes made. So Allies get “more time”.

I know some people see it differently, but changing the starting units on the board is much worse than putting more troops onto ii in later turns. Since thats when actual uncertainty begins, like bad or overly good dice rolls etc.

How the game will evolve should be in Axis hands, else creators would not have chosen them to be the ones starting the game and by that giving the allies an direction how it will go.

Speaking to these last two posts, I can see the merits of both perspectives. What I would really prefer from an alternate bidding scheme, is not a balance corrective for one side or the other, but some element of equitable variability that makes it effectively impossible to say which side has the advantage in any given game at the outset. A&A doesn’t have a standardized way to achieve this, at least no OOB way provided for us in the manual.  A&A is a bit strange on this account, since the game is fixed in the first round.

The analogy to chess isn’t entirely insignificant. Between two novice players there is no real difference between opening as White or following as Black in Chess, just like in A&A it doesn’t really matter between two novice players if you play as Allies or Axis. At a higher level of play though, usually one side can be said to have the advantage out of the first round (in this case Axis) just like at a higher level in chess, White can be said to have the initiative, and a better chance to win rather than draw. The psychological pressure of thinking that the game is “yours to lose” based on which side you play, is probably even more stark in A&A. But the issue with the preplacement bid, is that you reset the starting conditions and potential TUV trades. There is no second bid phase for example, to offset the balance of the initial bid. Imagine a situation where the Allied player receives 18 ipcs on the bid, places their extra units, then the Axis player looks at it and says “damn, those subs in the Med!” Based on these new conditions maybe the Axis could really use a 6 ipc bid of their own to adapt? But of course that would just be silly, because before you know it, the whole starting unit set up and balance of local power would be totally different. And none of it “by the book.”

What does a pre placement bid for Allies really give you? I think its largely psychological.

A single decisive roll in the second round could easily undermine that starting advantage a bid provides just in one combat round alone. So the bid is more about starting confidence, than anything you can really depend on for the duration. A competent Axis player acknowledges this when they accept an Allied bid, otherwise they’d just bid lower. Its the equivalent of saying “I know what extra units you can buy, I’m familiar with the bid strategies at that amount of IPCs, but I think I can still beat you!” Again pretty much a psychological thing, at least in a dice game, since we can’t predict the future or see the rolls in advance. We’re really just going off expectations or odds in the opening round of play. The reason why I like a bid to income over preplacement, is that it doesn’t distort the opening battles, and it pushes the bid advantage out one full game round. The “extra” units, in that case still have to enter play through the normal purchasing mechanism. I think this makes it somewhat harder to play fortune teller and predict outcomes. Players have to plan further in advance via purchasing/placement, which in turn makes it more likely that the actual effect of the bid on game balance is harder to isolate. I think there is enough variability in purchasing/production, to ensure that the same amount of dynamism can be achieved as you’d find with a preplacement bid. But eventually you will hit the same wall, if there is a magic number that makes the game perfectly 50/50, we’d probably get bored of that too, and still desire some way to randomize the first round for novelty.

I often come down on preplacement bids as something I find slightly unnerving, but I appreciate what they do in preventing the game from getting stale. Each time you reset the board with some new starting unit, the whole thing changes. I think its the cascading effect of the small change that keeps the game feeling fresh, not the specific advantage provided for one side or the other. Basically once the bid becomes “standard” and you’ve played it enough times to get bored, then you need to find new ways to keep it enjoyable.

Bids are House Rules. If we wanted to be really strict, all these threads should end up in the house rules section (where most of the threads I start seem to end up haha), because most of the strategies and game situations we talk about in the G40 section assume a standard bid, or at least have to reckon with it. I don’t suggest that these threads should be moved. Merely to point out that if you dig one house rule, why not try some others?

There are many ways we might change the game to tweak the balance, other than adding more starting units at the outset. Popular conventions, function mainly because they’re popular. If enough players want to try alternative “bids” to starting income or production, or recuring income bonuses, rather than bonus starting units, maybe we can come up with more ways to keep the game fresh, after the preplacement bid thing has run its course.
:-D

If variation or diversity is the goal, you could just as easily give every nation a bid, either to starting icome or secret ballot style for preplacment units. Then you’d have like 10 times the diversity, and who knows, maybe a nation like Italy or China or Anzac or France would be a bit more interesting to play? But that might be more than most players are after, perhaps some are content with just a USA boost, and that’s fine too. It all invites at least some level of A&A apostasy, and admission that the OOB game could use a fix or two.
:evil:

I still wish some of this stuff would get an official nod, or official recommendation, by being written down somewhere in a game manual. You know, on some final page of the rulebook, that offers different options and systems for incorporating them into play. Meanwhile, it’s up to us to figure all this out I suppose.

Ps. Just as an added curiosity or possible encouragement, it’s perhaps worth remembering that even a “perfect” game like chess, has had a few house rules of its own added in over the centuries. It took a couple hundred years and an India factory just to nail down the basic shape of the chess “Map.” Queens, Rooks and Bishops etc. didn’t have their “unit stats and abilities” formalized until what? like the Quattracento? Remember when the pawn’s opening movement ability was increased? and you thought defenseless transports were bad! Then there are all those pesky “one-off” rules like Castling, En Passant, and pawn-promotion. A&A has only been around since the 1980s, so we’re probably doing alright in the grand scheme of things. ;)