G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread

@MrRoboto:

So far I like BM a lot and wouldn’t change a thing.

That’s an interesting viewpoint. It surprises me that people like the guerilla fighters in particular.

I find that in BM you’re playing to the objectives a lot. OOB except for USSR lend lease and German land unit in Egypt, they’re pretty incidental in terms of the moves that are made.

@MrRoboto:

Egypt: Yes, it’s not that devastating to lose Egypt

I guess the distinction here is that UK get a bunch of extra money.

@simon33:

That’s an interesting viewpoint. It surprises me that people like the guerilla fighters in particular.

I find that in BM you’re playing to the objectives a lot. OOB except for USSR lend lease and German land unit in Egypt, they’re pretty incidental in terms of the moves that are made.

Absolutely! The objectives guide the decisions a lot. Which I consider a good thing. In many cases you can decide to go the aggro / fast way or the controlling long-running strategy. For example: Invest extra units and transports to get small Islands like Crete, Cyprus, Guam, Iwo Jima etc.? Or use those to throw as much as possible for the big goals like India / Moscow.

In the original 2nd edition, the control-style isn’t rewarded as much imho. This is particularly true for the Axis (which is why I love playing Axis in BM way more than in 2nd edition). But the Allies have those situations as well: Iwo Jima, Marianes/Paulau, Sicily and North Africa are investments, that only pay off after a couple of rounds.

Going for the big pushes asap is still a viable strategy, but your BM gives the option to play the slow game as well - especially for the axis.

The Guerilla fighters in China work similarly: While in 2nd edition, Axis players usually throw everything asap against India, in BM you’d be punished by spawning Chinese fighters, if you move too many of your troops to India.

well said mr Roboto :)

“An additional 2 PUs per each “open” Lend-Lease lane, when Russia is at war with European Axis, if Japan has also declared war on Russia.”

Does this mean only when Japan has declared war before Russia, when Japan and Russia are at war, no matter who declared first, or can Japan be at war with Russia without declaring war(Russia’s declaration is sufficient)?

It’s exactly like it says: If Japan declares war.

If Russia declares war, Japan can’t.

Why is it a problem that OOB is unbalanced? The bid adds diversity to the game which I think adds spice and therefore fun.

@simon33:

Why is it a problem that OOB is unbalanced? The bid adds diversity to the game which I think adds spice and therefore fun.

Agree.  And with thousands of IPC’s worth of stuff on the board, being within 20-40 IPC’s of balanced is very good.

I don’t know, Simon, I just gave up on the subject because quite a few players are just obsessed with the game being “balanced”.  Even CHESS isn’t balanced because white goes first and that gives an advantage.  :lol:

I think the quest for balance is a noble one. I’m glad you enjoy the variety of a bid system, but it feels like fixing something wrong with the game, to me. I want to chose a side, and play the game. It also reminds me of how I enjoy price tags on items in my country, versus other countries I’ve travelled and lived in require you to haggle for a price. It makes me uncomfortable, but I could see how others might enjoy it.

If you definitely want to pick one particular side, the bid system is certainly problematic. That’s also a problem if both players want the same side though.

I see your point though, saving the back and forth involved in bidding is a nice to have.

Main point of BM is improving the game, not the balance part. Bid is fun.

@Adam514:

Main point of BM is improving the game, not the balance part. Bid is fun.

BM mode achieves one very important thing compared to high bid OOB games. Italy. If you get a bid of 40 (and you need at least 40 to have an even chance) and spend it all towards taking out Italy it means Italy is neutered from round 1. That is not so fun.

Just look at the win% this year, BM is not balanced, it still favours Axis with a 54-46 ratio, so feel free to give the British the sz 98 sub

Are Axis wins up to a ratio of 54:46 now?

That’s a 10% spread. Does this meant that people may stop giving a small bid to the Axis?

You would think

Or take the Iwo NO away from Japan lol

Agreed. That NO is totally unnecessary. Japan starts strong enough, without added gifts.

@Ichabod:

Are Axis wins up to a ratio of 54:46 now?

That’s a 10% spread. Does this meant that people may stop giving a small bid to the Axis?

In a lot of cases this is indeed happening.

@Gamerman01:

Or take the Iwo NO away from Japan lol

Not sure what the big deal about the Iwo Jima/Okinawa objective is. Was it needed? No. Does it damage or improve the game? Neither really.

@oysteilo:

BM mode achieves one very important thing compared to high bid OOB games. Italy. If you get a bid of 40 (and you need at least 40 to have an even chance) and spend it all towards taking out Italy it means Italy is neutered from round 1. That is not so fun.

Hmm, my Italy achieves very little most games beyond can opening and defense. Perhaps I suck at playing Italy then.

If helping Italy was the main goal of BM, wouldn’t moving the starting position of the SZ95 Cruiser, DD and sub to SZ97 be an obvious move? That makes a maximum attack on SZ97 UK1 a 37% one with a German tac. Perhaps make the sub an additional one because I don’t like the idea that you can put an unescorted TT in SZ91 as the allies. I don’t really understand why there was this requirement to avoid changing the setup.

@Adam514:

Main point of BM is improving the game, not the balance part. Bid is fun.

If that’s the case, do you feel that guerilla fighters are a success in improving the game? I’m still a bit frustrated that most league games include this rule TBH.

I still don’t like the USSR lend lease bonus for a Japanese DOW on it either but I can accept that it doesn’t enter the game very often.

Little has changed my initial view of BM even after 114 games played (I just checked).

A lot of good/valid points here simon33.
I agree, I don’t see the need for the IJ objective for Japan either. However, it is not that bad and it is a fairly easy objective for the US to take out. I am not sure if it is worth it for the USA to mess with this as it is easy for Japan to take back. But honestly, I think the med islands objectives are worse. If Taranto is not done, then Italy has a good chance to take all three islands for a gain of +5 for Axis. If Allied controlled it is +6 for the British with a difference of up to 11 IPC. It is BIG trouble for the Allies if Axis gain +5 here. It can’t be ignored, but the problem is you loose sooooooooo much tempo in your play if you are going to protect your transports and re-take those islands with USA/British. I am not sure how to deal with it.

As for Italy, in my playoff game against Wittmann he got a +38 bid for allies and spent it “all” towards Italy. Here is Italys income: 3,18,10,3,5,7 …… single digits……7,8,13(round 16). You never see number like this in BM. I believe this is a good thing about BM. Here is the tread: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=41972.315 for that game. I am sure helping Italy to become a more playable power is one of the main things the developers wanted to achieve. I think it is very difficult to move units around in the starting set-up and I think it is fair not to mess with that. I did not understand your point with the unescorted TT in sz 91 though.

As for the guerilla fighters I think it is good improvement of the game. It makes it much harder for Japan and it seems like you agree that Axis are still overpowered in BM? If you disallow the guerilla fighters it is not even close to compensate with no IJ objective. Axis will be even more overpowered. I think China is more playable in BM than in OOB.

Then I agree with you about the lend lease and Soviet/Japan relationship. In OOB you can say it is a no-brainer to DOW on Japan with Soviet. In BM I feel it is almost the opposite. It is less need for Soviet help because of the Guerilla fighters though. But I would substitute the lend lease objectives (Persia and Amur) with an objective for holding Novosibirsk, like it is if you play Europe only. I would also keep the original Archangel objective of +5 and I would keep the original DOW rules for Soviet and Japan. The +3 for no allied units is good too. I guess this is the original +5 split up in two (+3 and +2 for Archangel). I also liked the Soviet money for Iraq and Africa. I guess I am the only one.

@simon33:

Little has changed my initial view of BM even after 114 games played (I just checked).

I love it.  :-)

@oysteilo:

I did not understand your point with the unescorted TT in sz 91 though.

I just meant that if UK1 a TT moves to SZ91, the SZ95 Italian sub can attack it. I think that’s a good thing. If you moved the sub from SZ95 to SZ97, it couldn’t reach.

@oysteilo:

As for the guerilla fighters I think it is good improvement of the game. It makes it much harder for Japan and it seems like you agree that Axis are still overpowered in BM? If you disallow the guerilla fighters it is not even close to compensate with no IJ objective. Axis will be even more overpowered. I think China is more playable in BM than in OOB.

Ok, but isn’t that just an argument about balance?

@oysteilo:

Then I agree with you about the lend lease and Soviet/Japan relationship. In OOB you can say it is a no-brainer to DOW on Japan with Soviet. In BM I feel it is almost the opposite. It is less need for Soviet help because of the Guerilla fighters though. But I would substitute the lend lease objectives (Persia and Amur) with an objective for holding Novosibirsk, like it is if you play Europe only. I would also keep the original Archangel objective of +5 and I would keep the original DOW rules for Soviet and Japan. The +3 for no allied units is good too. I guess this is the original +5 split up in two (+3 and +2 for Archangel). I also liked the Soviet money for Iraq and Africa. I guess I am the only one.

I’ve noticed a couple of players DOW on Japan USSR1 to allow the Soviets to enter China. But you need a real reason to do this - the idea of keeping peace is pretty appealing.

I like the change to the lend lease but it definitely reduces the incentive to block the lend lease as Germany with only 2IPC at stake.

A couple of minor points I’ve thought about and decided to ventilate them:

• What about having all nations starting with paratroop tech? Was there any nation which didn’t have paratroopers at some point in the war? Not sure who would benefit from that one.
• Would having fighters A1 D1 on a d4 in SBR be better in any way? I’m starting to think that the 33% chance of a hit is too high but 16.7% was too low. The problem with the A2 D2 on d6 fighters is that unless you can deter an intercept, you are unlikely to attack unless you have some gamey reason to do so.

BTW, I’m not sure if the last point is easy to achieve in Triple-A.

One other point I’ve wondered about. In lower tier G40 games, the bid is much lower than in the higher tier games where it is normally well above 30. Why is the bid for Balanced Mod normally about the same at the bottom and top tiers? Do top players feel that the allies have an advantage? Here’s some stats:
M level BM games Axis 44-5 Allies 45-14
E level BM games Axis 44-30 Allies 36-31

Looks like an axis advantage to me!

Other figures:
Level 1 BM games Axis 38-40 Allies 29-44
Level 2 BM games Axis 16-34 Allies 11-43
Level 3 BM games Axis 0-11 Allies 5-15