crockett36 - Allies need bigger bids in all versions

Also the Yunnan stack strategy might be over hyped. I would be inclined to favour:
sub sz98
sub sz106
ftr Scotland
ftr Malta.
DD 91.

That is 40 there.

@simon33 what about doing tech. maybe thats what the allies need.

@dawgoneit said in crockett36 - Allies need bigger bids in all versions:

@simon33 what about doing tech. maybe thats what the allies need.

Allowing the allies to bid a tech is a nice idea. O like it! Jet fighter would be awesome or heavy bombers or super subs!

If you do a Russian bid of 10!infantry you make it worth it to bring the Siberian troops back. This pushes Moscow back past round 10, maybe more.

In this scenario, you could take the fast movers south and make money and secure me

I would recommend trying this and not just theorizing or relying on consensus. I m probably wrong, but I just might be right. Sounds like a country song.

The English navy in the Atlantic is still needy. It’s like an ipc black hole. 10 Russians (half of a sixty bid) and Germany is now calling Japan with the message, “It’s up to you! I’ll keep them busy for as long as I can.”

@crockett36 said in crockett36 - Allies need bigger bids in all versions:

@crockett36 In case you missed it. Andrew said he’s NEVER played the allies on this site. That’s how imbalanced he thinks it is. Who in the world is going to give him 60 ipcs to play the Allies? Someone’s got to do it!

So based on this comment I went back and checked my record since joining the League. Since 2020 I have completed a total of 18 Global 1940 OOB 2nd Edition games. I am16-2. In ONE game I was the Allies with a 60 Bid. I won that game.

• Axis Record with Allied Bid of $57 or less = 9-0
• Axis Record with Allied Bid of $58-$60 = 6-2
• Allied Record with Allied Bid of $60 = 1-0

I suspect there is a lot of game play/strategy differences that come into play for someone to win as Axis against a ~60 Allies bid.

Maybe the best way to balance is to play 2 games, flipping sides with the same bid. Of course, dice luck can also come into play, so not a perfect measure.

@AndrewAAGamer So what you are saying here is that while you can occasionally be beaten as axis, your record playing the allies is flawless :)

So based on this comment I went back and checked my record since joining the League. Since 2020 I have completed a total of 18 Global 1940 OOB 2nd Edition games. I am16-2. In ONE game I was the Allies with a 60 Bid. I won that game.

• Axis Record with Allied Bid of $57 or less = 9-0
• Axis Record with Allied Bid of $58-$60 = 6-2
• Allied Record with Allied Bid of $60 = 1-0

@farmboy LOL. I guess that is one way of looking at it. :+1:

This is an exciting topic! And one that can be debated for ages I guess ;-) Nevertheless, I would like to give some thoughts into that.

First of all, I agree that the allies need a high bid in this game, obviously.

@simon33 said in crockett36 - Allies need bigger bids in all versions:

The longer people play this game the more the Axis seems to be favoured. Allies benefit from Axis mistakes or dicings a lot though.

And it is also true, that the game changed with the strategies that players employed over the years. If I remember correctly people saw the Allies in huge favour some ten years ago, nowadays this has completely turned. So the “fair” bid, meaning a bid that equals chances to win the game between players of equal strength, is also a kind of a flow, depending on what gamers call the “Meta”, the current strategies out there and employed by players.

My experience is also that not all players adapt correctly to this flow. Many players do not judge correctly what would be fair and what they need as allies to win a game. The problem here is perception. A bid of 30-40 is NOT a high bid, it is in fact pretty low. And many players do seem not to have realized that. So advising new players to target higher bids in their games will definitely help them.

The final bid of a game, the agreed bid, is from my point of view, also a projection of how both players view each other in terms of playing skill. If I think I am the better player, I am tempted to bid lower for the Allies, because I think I can still beat my oponent.

@crockett36 said in crockett36 - Allies need bigger bids in all versions:

would i be wrong in saying, the best players are giving the bid away and playing the axis?!

And the wrong perception is probably also the reason for that statement, the fact that the better players like Andrew playing the Axis far more often than the Allies. Is that the fault of the better player? Not sure… let us view this from another angle: If I bid 30 to play Allies against my opponent, I am basically telling him that I think I am the better player, because I can even win with 30 against his Axis. Question here is: Why does my opponent not read this correctly and let me play Allies with 30, a bid that is pretty low? This would actually even out the skill (given that I am indeed the better player in this example…). My answer is perception here, as stated above. Many players still think that 30 additional IPC is a lot of stuff, and that they can get the advantage with it… but no, it’s not.

Following that logic, if all players had a better perception of what is “fair”, the better players would far more often play the Allies than the Axis (which is not the case, see Andrews post). So go on, shout it out to everyone: The Allies need bigger bids! We need to change peoples perception of that (and not enforce it with rules).

@crockett36 said in crockett36 - Allies need bigger bids in all versions:

I would recommend a bid that is also logical, reasonable AND historical. Dump it in the US fleet or the Chinese and Russian armies. OR change bid placement rules. Which are reasonable, but arbitrary. OR ask Andrew for a 30 ipc Allied bid placement and go from there.

I am actually against any proposal that will tell me what to bid. I think that the bid for the Allies is the one option, where the Allies can set a tone in the beginning of the game, where they can chose what is important. Other than only reacting this enables them to chose the battleground, at least in some limited places of the board. If you come up with fixed units, the Allied player will not be able to do this. I think we should not discourage allied creativity, and each player should come up with his own thoughts on how the IPCs given can be used best to stop the Axis.

Just my 10 cents…

@myygames said in crockett36 - Allies need bigger bids in all versions:

My experience is also that not all players adapt correctly to this flow. Many players do not judge correctly what would be fair and what they need as allies to win a game. The problem here is perception. A bid of 30-40 is NOT a high bid, it is in fact pretty low. And many players do seem not to have realized that. So advising new players to target higher bids in their games will definitely help them.

I totally agree with this. I have been saying for over two years that 60 is what I consider a fair bid and yet I see plenty of games with Allied bids in the 30s.

I think the Bid also reflects your skill as the Axis vs the Allies. For me, I am very good at playing the Axis. So I am willing to give a high bid to the Allies because I think I can still win as the Axis even giving out that high Allied bid. Because of this, for me to play the Allies, I also have to receive a high Allied bid and I think I can win as the Allies as long as a I have a high bid.

So my better skill level as the Axis protects my weaker skill level as the Allies by forcing my opponent to give me a high bid as the Allies; otherwise I get to play the Axis which is my strong suit.

Conversely, if you are a stronger Allied Player you are going to be willing to take smaller Allied bids because you don’t want to play the Axis.

For League play, could develop some kind of rating system, where a bid does not mean the same thing depending on the player level.

For example, if the players are equally rated, the bid is as given straight up. If there is a tier difference between players, it becomes the bid + say 5 ipc * (tier level differential). This could scale down or up the bid, depending if the higher or lower tier player is playing Allies respectively.

Actually, maybe too complicated to scale up and down, it just needs to go one way. If a strong Tier M axis player is up against a Tier 1, and thinks the fair bid to play Allies is 60, the Tier M would have to be willing to go to an Allies bid of 50, knowing the rating will be adding 10 to the lower Tier 1. This is assuming we think 5 * level differential is the right number.

Could help the strong Axis players get a little bit of variety. :)

What you are trying to do, is make the games more even by setting up a handicap system. The problem with that is it would require revamping the rating system as the rating system already has the handicap built into it.

For example, a Tier M Player versus a Tier 1 Player. If the Tier M Player wins they receive 6 points. If the Tier 1 Player wins they receive 8 points. Thus the handicap is already set at 33% more points for Tier 1 winning than Tier M winning. The same is true for losing. The Tier 1 Player receives 4 points for a loss against a Tier M while the Tier M only receives 2 points. The Tier 1 Player receives 100% more points than the Tier M Player does for losing the same game.

When I played at Days of Infamy they had, what I was told, a chess like rating system. If I recall correctly there was a 1 point difference in the value of the game for each 10 (or was it 20?) points of rating difference between the two Players. Thus a Player who had a rating of 1,500 versus a Player who had a rating of 1,400 had a 10 point difference. The mean of the game was worth 15 points so if the 1,500 Player won they received 5 points for the victory (15-10=5) whereas if the 1,400 Player won they received 25 (15+10=25). The loser lost the number of points that the winner gained. If I remember right the maximum to be gained by the lower ranked Player was 27 and the Minimum gained by the higher ranked Player was 3. So if a higher ranked Player consistently played low ranked Players they had to win 90% of the time just to break even.

I had a couple of suggestions for playing allies since I think (especially given the hefty bids) that you can win with them.

First, its good to ‘know your enemy’ and plan the bid around what they do. There are some axis players that mix it up, but quite often they have a default opening that they rely on. So you can bid for that. Whenever I play a game now, I check out the last 4-5 games my opponent has played as axis in order to plan my bid. I often see the same opening in all the games and if they adjust their opening as a result, you’ve at least made the choice for them, and they are probably not playing how they prefer.

I’ve mostly played BM since I started playing A&A here, and I’ve played a lot more and become a better player since making the switch. So, I’m rusty on OOB and it is worth taking this all with a grain of salt (and I’m relearning what a challenge the allies are in the one OOB game I’m playing). But, I think the principles are sound and apply across both versions.

I haven’t followed Andrew’s games too closely (since I play BM) but it looks to me that he prefers a J1. This is what I understand is probably the optimal strategy in OOB.

Knowing that, my bid is going to try to make that more difficult. Being able to hold Yunnan early as Oysteilo suggests is key so that Japan has a problem containing China. And you can very cheaply help out India as well.

I’d still prioritize the UK fleet over spending more on the Soviets. More Soviet inf might delay the Germans a turn or two, but it won’t allow the Soviets to alter Germany’s advantage over the Soviets. If the UK gets control in the Atlantic and the Med, it forces the Germans to spend to counter that, and it allows the allies to set up a pipeline moving allied air to Moscow. The sooner that happens the better. If it happens soon enough, you can actually delay the Germans from getting Caucasus and Volgograd, which is huge.

The allied player also needs to be less risk averse. You should still try to avoid risky attacks, but you should be more prepared to offer them to the axis, especially when you know that your opponent plays to avoid risk as Andrew (rightly) does. So for example, in the bid that Oysteilo proposed, he commits a bid of two Soviet fighters to Yunnan (+ the bid of an additional Chinese inf) because, I presume, that is the amount necessary to bring Japan’s chances attacking Yunnan below 50%. But with the bid of an inf and just one Soviet fig (along with the soviet fig and tac in Moscow), Japan’s odds are 51% (with a 5% chance of a draw) if Andrew goes all in (which is harder to do on a J1). Is Andrew going to attack Yunnan with those odds? Probably not, but even if he does, you are forcing someone whose win percentage is about 90% to gamble on a battle that has basically a 50% chance of setting Japan back.

A problem that allied players often have (and I certainly still struggle with it) is understanding that you can often get away with offering these riskier combats to the axis. For a long time, I played the game such that when my opponent had better than 50% odds of winning, I retreated. This is not the right way to play. It will sometimes be better to defend even when their odds approach 80-90%. Just because they have better odds of winning, doesn’t mean the battle is advisable. And Andrew has made clear that his approach to the game is risk averse. I absolutely agree is the right way to play, but that does create an opportunity for the allies to play a bit more forward and aggressively.

When Japan can threaten India you can think about this the same way. Japan may have very good odds of winning, but if the trade is India for a substantial portion of Japan’s airforce, it is probably better to defend India and dare them to attack rather than retreat.

So one reason to offer up these riskier battles is because the axis player will not risk them and in retreating you are conceding territory that don’t actually need to. But there is another reason too. A feature of the game is that both axis powers usually have the ability, when optimally played, to overwhelm the allies within a certain sphere of territory. When, for example, the Japanese fleet and air are stationed in FIC, and 35 or 36 sea zone, they can keep China back from Yunnan, the British out of Burma, the Soviets out of Manchuria, and the American fleet away from the money islands or Japan. But they can’t win the game there. What they need to win is outside that sphere, and as soon as they go for it, they are no longer able to protect much of it. So if India is defended, and Japan goes for it, apart from the risk that they are trading air for inf, it can often mean that Japan is out of position to counter the allies in the Pacific and in Korea. If the British do retreat, than Japan doesn’t need to move out of position to take it and the allies remain on the outside everywhere else.

There are circumstances where even 100% odds on India are not advisable, because it forces Japan out of position and the US is ready to pounce. But you need to set it up so that the allies are ready to pounce (I’ll note that this is probably harder to do on a J1 since Japan can often take India before the US is ready).

This logic also applies to the European theatre too. If the allies are ready, it is hard for the Germans to threaten Moscow without exposing territory in Western Europe and if they do go for Moscow, their air are definitely out of position to defend France and Norway.

This doesn’t mean you should never retreat, but it does mean that you shouldn’t automatically retreat because your opponent’s odds of winning are better. It’s often better to dare them to attack as long as you have set up the groundwork to push them elsewhere on the map.

by “+tuv” you mean that you the allies should anticipate regularly being a loser in the tuv comparison.