What's the consensus on a standard bid?

It actually makes sense if the Axis is winning more games than the Allies; that means your bidding is correct. Whoever is bidding the Axis is supposed to be favored to win.

What’s their bidding system?

@Cmdr:

What’s their bidding system?

IIRC, it’s a bid of 9, and only one unit per territory. This would be very workable for the typical bid here: 1 Inf to Libya, 1 Arm to Alg, and 1 IPC to Japan. It wouldn’t work well for attempting to stack Ukraine.

Then I guess you just flip a coin for sides…

Your forced to play as both axis and allies against one opponent.

2 games / opponent.  Otherwise it don´t count.

@Nix:

Your forced to play as both axis and allies against one opponent.

2 games / opponent.  Otherwise it don´t count.

Indeed. I think this is not a good system. A “very” good player will beat a newb without any bids also.
The bid is ok, with one unit pr. TT. The stats (51% axis victory) is also interesting and that means that with even players
and a one unit bid placement restriction, a bid should be about 8-9 ipc.
With your bidding rules (PBF), and the option to place 2 units pr. TT, the bid will be a little lower.
6-8 ipc.
My problem with the warclub ladder is that you have to play 2 games, I don’t see any good reason why they have this system.

I wonder what bids would be if there was no possibility of preplacement of units?
15-20?

Agreed, I’d not want to play 2 games every time - it would really slow down tournaments. And if you have a bid that has resulted in very equal results (Axis 51% win rate), you don’t need to play both sides, since each side has a roughly equal chance.

So I think I may bid 9 from now on, instead of 8 as I have been doing. I may get the Allies a lot more, but then I will just get better at the Allies.

Could be interesting to require the second game, if any, to be reversed teams.  I’d say that the bid should probably be the same, but can be used differently.  Dunno.  Don’t really like that idea on the bids, but hate to see someone lose as the allies cause the other side got to auto bid 10 for an extra fighter or something.  And hate to have a side lose cause they needed 8 IPC bid, not 7. Etc.

Have to think on that.

@Cmdr:

Could be interesting to require the second game, if any, to be reversed teams.  I’d say that the bid should probably be the same, but can be used differently.  Dunno.  Don’t really like that idea on the bids, but hate to see someone lose as the allies cause the other side got to auto bid 10 for an extra fighter or something.  And hate to have a side lose cause they needed 8 IPC bid, not 7. Etc.

Have to think on that.

The point system in the warclub ladder is flawed. I don’t know what it should be instead, but the bid system is good enough.
Except there should be open bids. Bid down for axis is the best alternative imo.
A “force play” of 2 games is also a bad solution.
There seems to be many different bid rules around, some use only cash, some
have limits on units, and other bid rules don’t allow ipc to be carried over.
There’s not much difference in placing all units on a TT and one unit pr. TT if the bid is not above 8 ipc.
It’s hard to tell if 8 bid (tank+inf) to Ukr is stronger than 9 bid, with 3 inf on 3 different TT’s, or
art+tank to Afr.
Imo an open bid down for axis is the best option, that means ipc can be carried over,
Bids can be split, and you can place all units wherever you
prefer, as long as the you own the TT from startup.

But still with the restrictions on the ladder you get a close to 50/50 result.  Without it i would imagine the result would be different.

Well, for now I’m just going to bid 9. If someone wants the axis with a less than 51% starting chance, they’re welcome to it.  :-D

And if I end up being stuck with the Allies all the time, I’ll just be getting better at my Allies game and facing opponents who are taking the Axis with a lower bid than they should be.  :-D

I still think bids greater than 7 give too much advantage for Axis. Sub at z8 kills both UK BB, thus destroing any allied chains of reinforcements for at least 3 turns. I tried that bid and it rocks. Too much powerfull.

I’ve never yet encountered the sub to Z8 bid, and have only heard it mentioned recently. Sounds like it would be worth trying.

Perhaps instead of a bid, one should simply alter the starting setup - put an Arm/Inf in Libya, and be done with it. No bidding.

But that would be boring. The varying bid placement creates a lot of variety in openings, and the games that flow from them.

Sub to SZ8 is indeed powerful, but you got to pay close attention to the details of it. First, there is like…about 50% chance that you will lose an aircraft or both. If you’re hell bent on taking out that BB, you have to be willing to commit both fighter and bomber to die, as there’s an 80’ish% chance to clear - if you stay with all units.

Second, if you send both subs to SZ2, that pretty much means you have to send your med bb/tran westwards to tag the UK BB there. That almost guarantees Egypt will survive. In fact I can’t see anything else happening since the best you can do considering Ukraine is attacked is 1 inf 1 arm 1 fig vs 1 inf 1 arm 1 fig, and that’s to the defender usually.

Even if Ukraine wasn’t attacked and you send 1 inf 1 arm 2 fig at 1 inf 1 arm 1 fig, there’s about 80% chance you won’t take the territory (left with 1 or 2 figs, unless you want to sacrifice them to close the canal).

While you can hamstring the UK, you are at the same time hamstringing yourself.

You can send the BB and tra for egy still and kill the BB at Gibraltar with 3 figs

You can send the BB and tra for egy still and kill the BB at Gibraltar with 3 figs

Yuck! Big chance to lose 2 figs. If Russia attacked Ukraine, you have 5 figs. 1 used in SZ2, 3 used in SZ13, then you have 1 left between the destroyer or Egypt. Whichever battle you don’t use it in lowers your chances of getting anywhere.

I see it this way: one Z8 sub goes to Z13 as fodder for an attack on that BB, and the other heads to Z2 or Z1, whichever. Now that I think about it though, you are really stretching out the Luftwaffe, but anyway…

So in the north atlantic, you are essentially trading a TRN for a sub. If you press the attack, you might trade a BB for some air units. Is that worth it? I’m thinking not.

You have 5-6 fighters and a bomber. Those have to:

• retake Belo if it was taken
• trade Karelia if Russia left an Inf there
• Help with Egypt
• Help with attacking the DD in Z14
• Help with attacking the BB in Z12
• land in WEU if possible to deter an Algeria landing in UK1/US1

I will always commit whatever I can to taking Egypt. If you fail to take it, not only is UK possibly up 1 Ftr, they can also bring 1 DD 1 TRN 1 AC into the mediterranean. That’s a lot more navy than 1 BB, and it will end Germany’s hopes of getting any income from Africa.

So 1 Ftr 1 Bom are going to Egypt, and if I can spare it, 1 to attack the DD in Z12. 2-3 ftrs minimum are needed for that, because if the BB lives any longer than 1 round, it’s very likely that you’ll lose an air unit.

The Bom is needed for egypt b/c that is priority #1, which leaves 1 Ftr 1 Sub at most to attack the north atlantic BB+TRN. Not a good attack.

I can see that if the dice are in your favour, that it could work out very well. But I think you’ll get burned more often than not.

Someone played the Submarine to SZ 8 card on me.  Russia took Norway on round 1.  Threat to UK BB in SZ 2 ended.

More deadly would be the transport to SZ 14.  Now you can carry 4 ground units out of the med on G2, that’s pretty significant.

And for the record, I’m not for forcing 2 games per opponent.  But I am for heavily suggesting that the second game be flip sides.  Maybe if the bids were logged we could arrange it so that when the second game is played, you get the bid you originally put in.  Dunno how we’d do that though without some kind of cheating. (One player bids 8 IPC, the other bids 30 IPC to get 10 infantry on the rematch, etc.)

There’s over a 50% chance not to take Norway.  :|

If you’re desperate to clear that fighter and want to risk your fighter you can up it to about 70%, but that’s really desperate.

Just build 3 Infantry, Armor, Fighter with Russia and kill a fighter if Norway goes bad.  Thing is, you need to take Norway to end the landing zone and kill the fighter there.

I just happened to be lucky and take it with infantry, armor, fighter left when I did it.

Think of it this way.  1 Fighter for Russia is cheaper to replace then 1 Battleship and 1 Transport is for England to replace.

Good reasoning, but the Germans also have to give up a lot to try to claim both BBs as well. They would be pitting 3 figs vs a bb, 1 inf 1 bom 2 sub against 1 bb 1 sub 1 tran which often loses them a fig if not a bom, and Egypt would be very risky. I’m kind of inclined to let them try it and get burned. That’s a lot of battles with success very far from guaranteed.