Is 6 ipc's enough?

I am not ready to conceed the 6ish bid.

I have been stung twice by an American Africa Dominance strat, but in both cases was playing with a restricted bid placement.

With a free-bid (all of it potentially being placed at start, though with the option to take as Turn 1 IPC’s) I think it will push the bid line down again…

All of the players here are improving, and I think the Tournament aided in that, as does the ongoing strat discussions and hairbrained idea airings on the discussion board.  Having so many games in the Games thread for folks to look at to review moves, ideas, and results is also a major change from a few months ago.

When the Tournament was first planned, we had 8 players.  Now, we have more than that many games going on right now in the Games area.

People are playing, reading, and learning.  Most of the discussion regards the Axis moves, so that gets ‘boosted’ first from discussion.  Now the Allied moves are also getting some ‘air time’…

When it all shakes down, I figure about 8 will be the median Axis bid for Revised, with 7 and 9 being as common, and as likely to win or lose.  I do see the old 6 bid fading away though with free placement, with the Axis opting for 2 German INF, and 1 IPC to Japan.  With restricted placement, I see 6 bid staying viable though for the aggressive Axis players.

And here I thought the whole idea of Revised was to stop the need for bidding by equalizing the teams more. :)

I’m still not convinved any bid is needed. The toss up nature of the EGY battle is pretty much the tipping point. I need to review more of the forum games but it seems to me it is uphill for whoever loses that one. Especially since it seems any bid troops end up in Libya. How often do bid troops go somewhere other than Libya?

I would have to agree with Frimmel on the Egypt point.  If you don’t take it, it is somewhat a hard slog afterward; I had my entire attacking force wiped out in a single attack by Frim’s men even with a bid.

And while Germany’s generous donation to the limey cause helped  :-) the Brits were never really strapped for cash.

@frimmel:

I’m still not convinved any bid is needed. The toss up nature of the EGY battle is pretty much the tipping point. I need to review more of the forum games but it seems to me it is uphill for whoever loses that one. Especially since it seems any bid troops end up in Libya. How often do bid troops go somewhere other than Libya?

I have ALWAYS placed my bid INF for Germany to Belorussia in every game I have played thus far that had a bid, and where I ended up with the Axis…

I have never played Axis with a bid but I was wondering where on the Eastern front troops should go. Moscow is where you have to get no matter how great your desire for Africa cash.

Why Belo and not UKR or EEU? I know West Russia is out cause Russia can hit it hard.

I need to take some time and move out a few of your games.

The main reason for putting a bid inf in Belo is to make a Belo attack by Russia unfavorable with just the 3 inf from Karelia and air support. Effectively, it forces the Russians to perform only the West Russia attack or attack Ukraine and leave their armor hanging. And with a 4th inf in Belo, heavy Russian armor in Ukraine doesn’t scare the German player away from counter-attacking them. They won’t have to risk armor to do it, because Germany has enough air for that.

It is 50/50 for Ukraine/Belo.

Placed in Belo, it forces Russia to go with a Ukraine/West Russia attack, leaving Belo untouched with 4 INF ready to counter in Ukraine…
In Ukraine, that extra INF ends up dead anyway, and Russia still gets paid for Ukraine, and still loses all of their forces on the German counter-attack.

Libya is a good choice also, especially if Germany gets 2 INF instead of just 1.  More IPC’s faster and for longer.
The trade off is that it then leaves UK in India on UK1 and so they block Japan better (since the extra forces preclude an Egypt counter-attack).  Japan thus grows slower due to Germany’s bid.

Long term though (turn 3 and beyond) Germany’s African forces are easily countered by the USA and UK without any real diversion of forces (almost all units are immediately transportable against Germany’s southern territories, spreading out Germany’s defenses…)

So the net result is that Germany gets an extra 3 IPC or so per round for a couple of rounds, Japan is slowed, and Germany ends up with a larger “front” to defend against UK and USA…
And since the IPC gain will only last 2-3 rounds, why not just put the 2 INF in Europe to begin with instead of fighting and risking units in Africa for the same net gain?

@U-505:

The main reason for putting a bid inf in Belo is to make a Belo attack by Russia unfavorable with just the 3 inf from Karelia and air support. Effectively, it forces the Russians to perform only the West Russia attack or attack Ukraine and leave their armor hanging. And with a 4th inf in Belo, heavy Russian armor in Ukraine doesn’t scare the German player away from counter-attacking them. They won’t have to risk armor to do it, because Germany has enough air for that.

YOU GOT IT!  :mrgreen:

I hate to ask this, since I don’t have much experience in revised, but what’s the point in Attacking Egypt?  America’s just gunna shove so many soldiers right up the Africa’s hoo-ha that it’s not worth the effort.

Much easier to take Africa after destroying Russia…then again, I don’t always play against the best players.

Well I was already leaning to this but the site champion saying he doesn’t put his bid troops in Libya has pretty much locked it for me

@Jennifer:

I hate to ask this, since I don’t have much experience in revised, but what’s the point in Attacking Egypt?

There isn’t one.

Africa is a distraction. Get to Moscow.

I am starting to think it is mostly that the troops are there and I can claim all this UK territroy and “I hate to leave FTRs just sit when I can kill 'em” and this TRN isn’t doing anything, afterall it is only a ARM and an INF to get a WHOLE CONTINENT. And stuff like that. Or maybe a “How can you win if you don’t capture all the enemy territories?” attitude?

Axiom 5 “Stay on target. Pick a goal and stick to it.” The Axis goal Moscow.

Jennifer,

the reason for Germany attacking Egypt is primarily to prevent the UK from pushing their Indian Ocean fleet into the Med on UK1 and keeps them on the Pacific side where Japan is better prepared to deal with them…

Following the G1 landings the Uk will counter-attack (usually) with available forces transported from India and it just devolves into a small scale action until the UK runs out of units. By then the US is landing heavily so germany’s gains in Africa become a distraction at best. It almost always turn out this way unless Germany beefs up it’s Med fleet for heavier action in Africa, but that presents a whole new set of problems, not the least of which is a weaker Russian front.

I think 6 is the absolute lowest bid I will go with. I’m debating where it should be, and the whole 50% bid placement thing has thrown me off because that’s never the way I used to play with. I have to say it’s really damn hard to determine what the exact bid  is because you’d probably have to play 100 games or so at each bid level; individual games tend have some weird dice at weird times which makes it extremely difficult to determine the influence of the bid itself. Considering how long a real game takes to play, I’d venture that very few if any of us have enough information to make a good judgment call, so personally I’d rely more on consensus than individual experience.

I’m sure that for instance if you don’t play with a bid that the Axis can win maybe 30% of the time or so, and if you happen to be lucky a few times in a row you’d be convinced that no bid was needed. But from experience and playing against experienced players I currently cannot say you can go below 6 with the Axis and have something resembling a 50% win ratio. My initial feeling is that 6 is probably still a little bit too low, especially with the 50% placement restriction, but there are some annoying German navy strategies I’m still trying to muddle through that makes it harder for the Allies.

What does annoy me a bit lately is how I tend to see A&A as more of a dice game than a strategy game when your bid is about right; since it’s so even, some screwy dice early on easily decides the game for you. Once you’re put into a hole you can’t really get back on track without taking unadviseable risks. Especially battles involving navy are impossible to recover from if you get fracked one way or the other since it’s so expensive to rebuild.

I would go as low as 4 IPC against all but the best players with a free placement bid…

Restricted placement, 6 minimum.