Alternate bidding scheme

@wittmann:

(…) I suppose I am not normal though.

At least you seem to be a nice guy and that’s far more important than being 'normal’  :-D.

@wittmann:

I think giving the US a NO bonus is necessary, but I also think it needs to go hand in hand with another modification. Either a deduction in Japan’s Air (let’s start with one Ft and one Tac) or a permanent 5 NO for Russia too. I fear that without a bid the Med can too easily become a safe haven for the Euro Axis. The Med is too easily a bread basket for them and makes the European defence harder.
But then I would remove all of Japan’s NOs. (There is  enough income there, without the DEI bonus and a bonus for holding India or Sydney.)I would also like to see Germany lose half of its easily attainable ones (Leningrad, Cairo and Volgograd). Actually, once Moscow has fallen does it really need another 5 income?
I suppose I am not normal though.

Well, thats a very delicate topic. There is this dogma in economics: “ceteris paribus”, meaning if you want test something by by changing an equation, then just change one value at a time and leave all else untouched. Else you will get a lot of distortions and unforeseeable consequences and in the end you learned nothing out of it.

So in our case (I know you kind of refer to our current game) we should may be increase the additional US income to above +10. May be +15 or more. But we should not judge after just one game. A&A is not only won by economics as we all know.

Changes or removing NOs… whoo. I find that of course arguable, but should be done separately…  :|

@ItIsILeClerc:

I really like the gentleman’s approach here :-).
Unlike some people who would call other ideas ‘idiotic’, ‘weak’, or discard them as ‘inexperienced’ right away.

Its probably due to the fact that A&A players are much more likely to be well matured old school gamers, instead of the youngsters at Dota or Counterstrike.  :lol:
But thats just my theory… hehe.

Balance values need to be put in the center of the board and not the outlier.  5 IPC’s in Russia, is worth 15 IPC’s in USA.

To reduce the risk of wildly increasing balancing efforts, the lesser value should be used, and should be of primary importance.

Put the money in Russia.

@Gargantua:

Balance values need to be put in the center of the board and not the outlier.  5 IPC’s in Russia, is worth 15 IPC’s in USA.

To reduce the risk of wildly increasing balancing efforts, the lesser value should be used, and should be of primary importance.

Put the money in Russia.

Begin rant.

One thing I really don’t like about axis & allies is how it always exaggerates the American contribution to defeating Nazi Germany.  It is true that they beat Japan fair and square, but their contribution to beating Hitler was minimal compared to what the Russian people endured.

Now I know someone will say “we gave them lend lease supplies blah blah” which is true, but to put things into perspective, please consider the number 3000.  That number is about how many Americans died at Pearl Harbour, D-Day and Sept 11.  Those events were tragedies, but compare that to the 3000-4000 Russians who died every day in the siege of Leningrad alone, which went on for some 900 days (total Soviet casualties around 3.4 million, plus 600 thousand axis casualties).  And that was just one battle.

So I agree with Gargantua that for gameplay reasons, as well as for historical accuracy reasons you need to bump up Russia not America.  It makes the game more phoney baloney if you bump USA even more than it already is.  If anything the USA should be toned down in the game.

Rant complete.

@variance:

@Gargantua:

Balance values need to be put in the center of the board and not the outlier.  5 IPC’s in Russia, is worth 15 IPC’s in USA.

To reduce the risk of wildly increasing balancing efforts, the lesser value should be used, and should be of primary importance.

Put the money in Russia.

Begin rant.

One thing I really don’t like about axis & allies is how it always exaggerates the American contribution to defeating Nazi Germany.  It is true that they beat Japan fair and square, but their contribution to beating Hitler was minimal compared to what the Russian people endured.

Now I know someone will say “we gave them lend lease supplies blah blah” which is true, but to put things into perspective, please consider the number 3000.  That number is about how many Americans died at Pearl Harbour, D-Day and Sept 11.  Those events were tragedies, but compare that to the 3000-4000 Russians who died every day in the siege of Leningrad alone, which went on for some 900 days (total Soviet casualties around 3.4 million, plus 600 thousand axis casualties).  And that was just one battle.

So I agree with Gargantua that for gameplay reasons, as well as for historical accuracy reasons you need to bump up Russia not America.  It makes the game more phoney baloney if you bump USA even more than it already is.  If anything the USA should be toned down in the game.

Rant complete.

But historically, the US, and not Russia, was the economic power of the Allies. The US was virtually untouched by war, and increased in production capacity. Russia was ravaged by war, and lost production capacity.

Stalin practically begged the Western Allies to open up a second front in Europe. If the US had not come in to North Africa and Italy, the Axis might have yet been victorious in Africa and Russia.

The final blow was dealt by the US in its invasion of continental Europe and push into Germany. This is not to ignore the contributions of UK and Canadian forces in the invasion, but the invasion would not have been possible without US support.

And of course, the US provided most of the troops and ships that halted Japan and turned the war in the Pacific around.

I think the US actually plays a smaller role in A&A than it did in real life.

@amanntai:

The final blow was dealt by the US in its invasion of continental Europe and push into Germany.

Bagration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6UkVl3ZFuI&list=ELlzBS5WrPu4s&index=10

EDIT:
What Germany faced in June 1944:
Allied troops on D-day: 156,000
Soviet troops in Operation Bagration: 2.4 million

The Russians produced more tanks then the Americans (and certainly better tanks); twice as many artillery pieces, and twice as many soldiers as the US. Russian aircraft production exceeded Germany throughout the war (and Germany’s went UP every year through 1945). An extra income bid for the Russians makes far more sense than for the US.

Eliminate the pre-game unit bid for the Allies (effectively the UK) this allows the Russians get the income Bid each turn. With no extra units for the UK, Italy can make a fight for the Med and assist the Germans in Russia. The Eastern front is now a battle of uncertain outcome every game, and if Germany knocks out Russia, the extra income for the Allies is gone! (It never goes away for the US).

The original post is the right idea; it’s just for the wrong country. I gotta go along with Vance and Garg on this, and I think it makes for a better game all around.

Kim

A Russian bid sounds good. Maybe even better than a US one. Maybe you should have both. Is a US cash bid  better than a unit placement bid? It’s cool some people are testing it to find out.

I too think it should be both. America’s is historical, Russia’s practical. I do also believe the Axis need to lose some NOs. Leningrad and the DEI would be a start.

I don’t know about the others who are trying this, but I am struggling to make America’s 10 bonus count. The UK can’t control the Med, without my usual bid, with all the advantages that gives the Axis. Actually, I think I have done a poor job.

I like the idea of an USA Bid NO.

The guy with the lowest US Bid plays the allies, or at least the US.

I figure this US Bid NO must be received from turn 1, even if US is not at war, because if it should be a war NO, it wont make any difference before the end game.
And I agree with Elrood, we must playtest the US Bid NO alone, before we start messing with Russian or German NO*s

But one issue we can all agree on, is that a bid NO that gives a cash disbursement is way better than to mess with the set up pieces.

@Narvik:

But one issue we can all agree on, is that a bid NO that gives a cash disbursement is way better than to mess with the set up pieces.

I would agree with that.

As far as a bonus (bid)income for the USA: it is not that strange of a thought. The USA alone, easily produced more than all the axis combined. Though their factories were geared for naval and aircraft production, while the Russians produced much more land forces.

Something similar is true for bid income for Russia!
The Russian production capacity never fell far behind that of Germany, even though they were pushed back all the way to the eastbanks of the Wolga. If history is our guide in restoring some economic balance, Russia being reduced to an economic non-factor while Germany makes 60-90 IPCs per turn is just not it.

Giving bonus income to Russia would be as valid as giving it to the USA I’d think 8-).

Well… may be we should make a step back from trying to catch all historic references and limitations.
After all we all know the good guys lost in WW2…. Just kidding of course  :mrgreen:

Axis lost the War, but A&A should be a balanced game, not a way to play out again what happened back then to a 100%.

On a technical level: we should not try to focus on what each power was capable of at the end of WW2. Sure…

• Russians tanks and men were crazily outnumbering Germans, but that was also due to the fact that stupid “prestige” battles were fought for the cities with fancy names instead of going after the proper targets
• Japan attacked US, but didn’t accomplish all what they aimed for (e.g. destroying the oil depots, dockyards and carriers), so pacific fleet was able to easily compensate for the losses in due time

Isn’t a goal of that game to give us coffee table generals the possibility to avoid these mistakes so that it wont happen that e.g. Russia is able to outproduce Germany eventually?

In my first games on 1940 1st Edition, when Germany made some wrong moves on the Russian front line and invested IPCs in worthless goals, it easily came to that disaster, and suddenly I felt like sitting in the Führerbunker in Berlin wondering what Allied Power would capture it first…

And back to our current discussion: I think A&A is STRONGLY designed on the fact that Moscow can only go down or at least be minimized to Moscow for a final all deciding battle, while Germany needs to distribute its resources for that goal while maintaining western Europe under its rule.

US should be hard to play, decide how and when it can intervene and they should be the last chance for an allies victory. If Russia has a real chance to win against Germany… then what is US good for? They easily can crush Japan right now with the infamous KJF strategy.

Has anyone tried this proposed increase of Russian income or sth similar?

After all we all know the good guys lost in WW2…. Just kidding of course :mrgreen:

I bet you are German, Elrood?
Don’t worry, it won’t be held against you :-D.

I have used a ~12-bid to add all Russian Units, once. And it didn’t make much of a difference against a G4J4 used against me that time. If used in the Med it certainly would have been of better use… Don’t know what it could have done against a different axis strategy, though.

Whoever is interested in knowing what would have happened if certain historical mistakes would not have been made: A&A is not the right game for that. It is certainly a fun game, but with more similarities to chess than with WWII, I’m afraid.

Moscow is definately the kick-dog of this game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCARDozMEU
Aren’t the developers Americans? If so, this is probably by design :P.
But seriously. I think you are right about Russia being designed to go down economically. I don’t like it, but if Russia could hold their own against Germany, it would certainly be moot to play the game (USA would kill Japan, while UK + Russia sandwich Germany). Though it could be a little harder for the axis to reduce Russia to an economic non-factor.

@variance:

@amanntai:

The final blow was dealt by the US in its invasion of continental Europe and push into Germany.

Bagration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6UkVl3ZFuI&list=ELlzBS5WrPu4s&index=10

EDIT:
What Germany faced in June 1944:
Allied troops on D-day: 156,000
Soviet troops in Operation Bagration: 2.4 million

D-day was a very small portion of the US military during WWII. In total, the US had over 16 million serving in the military throughout the war, only about 500,000 of them died. The USSR had more troops committed, but also far heavier casualties.

@KimRYoung:

The Russians produced more tanks then the Americans (and certainly better tanks); twice as many artillery pieces, and twice as many soldiers as the US. Russian aircraft production exceeded Germany throughout the war (and Germany’s went UP every year through 1945). An extra income bid for the Russians makes far more sense than for the US.

Eliminate the pre-game unit bid for the Allies (effectively the UK) this allows the Russians get the income Bid each turn. With no extra units for the UK, Italy can make a fight for the Med and assist the Germans in Russia. The Eastern front is now a battle of uncertain outcome every game, and if Germany knocks out Russia, the extra income for the Allies is gone! (It never goes away for the US).

The original post is the right idea; it�s just for the wrong country. I gotta go along with Vance and Garg on this, and I think it makes for a better game all around.

Kim

I haven’t had time to look up the statistics on unit production in the USSR and US during WWII, but your post does neglect one rather important factor: Naval Production. The USSR was by no means outproducing the US in that regard, and the US, fighting a largely naval war in the Pacific, obviously put a large portion of its production into naval vessels. I don’t know whether that outweighs the extra Soviet production in other areas, but it certainly would affect it.

But those are excellent gamewise reasons for shifting the bonus to Russia.

@ItIsILeClerc:

After all we all know the good guys lost in WW2…. Just kidding of course :mrgreen:

I bet you are German, Elrood?
Don’t worry, it won’t be held against you :-D.

I have used a ~12-bid to add all Russian Units, once. And it didn’t make much of a difference against a G4J4 used against me that time. If used in the Med it certainly would have been of better use… Don’t know what it could have done against a different axis strategy, though.

Whoever is interested in knowing what would have happened if certain historical mistakes would not have been made: A&A is not the right game for that. It is certainly a fun game, but with more similarities to chess than with WWII, I’m afraid.

Moscow is definately the kick-dog of this game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCARDozMEU
Aren’t the developers Americans? If so, this is probably by design :P.
But seriously. I think you are right about Russia being designed to go down economically. I don’t like it, but if Russia could hold their own against Germany, it would certainly be moot to play the game (USA would kill Japan, while UK + Russia sandwich Germany). Though it could be a little harder for the axis to reduce Russia to an economic non-factor.

Hmmm… an interesting point. If the game is made truly historically correct, can the Axis ever win? In this case for the sake of game play Russia cannot be historically correct, for the same reason France is not historically correct.

@nerquen:

(…)
Interesting are GDP data, before the war US was 800 b$, USSR 359 b$, during the war USSR went down to 274 b$ in 1942 but by the end of the war it recovered back to the prewar level. As for US however GDP was gradually rising, reaching almost 1500 b$ by the end of the war.

So if Moscow manages to protect east from Japan it shall still be able to make about 23 IPC = 18+ 5 (Iraq). If it even managed to collect 5 IPC from lend&lease NO then it would be 28 IPC which is perfect match to the historical drop of GDP (28/37 ~ 274/359). So I would say Russia’s economy is reasonably accurately modeled in the game. What makes it hard for Russia in my games is that Germany can allocate almost 100% of its resources on Eastern front. If this was the case historically I believe Moscow would not be able to hold. The reason why there is no western front in my games is poor US or I would also say rich Germany and strong Japan. With OOB rules, US has to focus on Pacific early just to slow down super strong Japanesse. So just few bucks are left for European theater… which typically would not accomplish anything significant in Europe anyway so I also rather allocate them to Pacific as well.

But without pre-placement bids, axis can get control of ME so easily so I believe US is forced to enter European theater early. With western front opened Germany has to allocate resources to West so Russia gets more air to breathe.

So I believe boosting US (by extra income) and Italy (by removing pre-placement bids) shall result in opening of Western and African fronts early and thus help Russia as well. I am worried that by pure Russia boost we would get two separate games (Germany against Russia and US against Japan)

I would also not mind to remove some of the starting Japanese military (so US can allocate more into E. theater) and weaken German economy (probably by downgrading its lebensraum NOs). But all of these go beyond a simple bidding scheme and are real rule modifications. Well, I would be happy to playtest anything that would make the game better but would be hard to actually agree on it as a community. Gamerman started his house rule project http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=25260.msg1206272#msg1206272 18 months ago. He is changing so many things and initially was getting a lot of feedback but the project is kind of dead now(no activity this year yet).

Indeed interesting data, nerquen!
I know (also from some historical simulations) that Russia transported its European factories into Urals and destroyed those they couldn’t. German reinforcements certainly had to come all the way from German cities. Russia also lost a few European resources (resources + fatcories = production), but those that were lost were replaced by lend lease.

The fact that they shortly went down from 359 to 274 was due to the fact that the world held its breath because they were certain Russia would go down. After it became clear Russia would not go down, lend lease started to flow in and Russian production was restored.

Side note that I find very interesting: German troop numbers in Russia (~2,500,000) remained pretty steady during '41 - '43 because their reinforcement rate was roughly equal to their loss rate. Russian troop numbers however, went from ~2,500,000 in '41 to 4,500,000 in '42 without lend lease. Production is one part of a war machine, manpower certainly is the other part. During '43 the Russian troop numbers went up to 6,000,000….