Which side has an advantage?

the consensus is Allies has advantage
looking at the tournament forum, typical bids are 5-8 IPC

so I guess 5-8 IPC makes it even, or at least a lot of player think so at this stage of gaming research

(an early stage at 4 years, the trend is upwards
9, 10 and 11 IPC is rarely but has been seen in the current tournament
for comparison, the bid for classic version ended up being 22+ IPC)

unit in Libya and Ukraine are amongst the most common placement
due to common round 1 moves
(Russia attacks Ukraine, Germany attacks Egypt)

In that 5-8 IPC range, how much of that range is influenced by the skill/desire of the player(s)?

That range is determined by the lowest bidder, not by what the players perceive the balance point is.  I believe there is a difference.  Lets say a skilled player believes he/she can win with the Axis with a bid of 6 but as the bidding process goes it stops at 8 because the other player is not willing to take 7, because they believe they cannot win as the Axis with 7 or they just want to play as the Allies or they want a challenge.  Therefore, the bid is 2 points above the first players perceived balance point and may or may not be below the other’s.

I would not be surprised if it was really at the lower end of that range.

Perhaps we should have a poll for this.  I did a few searches for “min bid axis” and “axis bid poll” but didn’t get any hits.  I’d be careful of the wording of the poll question.  You want to stress that they choose the bid value where they think it would be an even match if they played someone with the same skill as they have.  You may want to allow them to pick 2 or 3 values so they could give you a range.

Another option would be to do the cold, hard math and collect the statistics from the forums and other sources.  Record what the bid was and what the outcome was and do the various calculations like mean and mode or what have you.  By watching the percentage of axis wins at a bid value you should get an idea of where that balance point lies.  By focusing on the outcomes it should minimize the affect of a player’s desire for a challenge.

Whithout looking at the outcome of these games, the latest bid in the League forum where definitly higher then 5, 6 or 7.

These are the latest bids:

9 9 6 9 9 8 9 8 9 8 10 9 8 9 9 11 7 9 10 9 10 9 10 8 9 10 7 9 9 10 8 9

Resulting in an average of round about 9 ipc.

It would appear that after several years of heavy play, the Allied strat advancements (of which there are more potential versions) are finally catching up to the Axis strats (which are fewer in number overall).

I still win games with a 5 bid on occasion, but I have reached the point of feeling “safe” with bids of $7, and a reasonable chance to winning a bid with $8 or $9.  I even bid $12 in my DAAK Tournament Game (FIDA bid though) and won the Axis (and the game by default).

ah, a substantial different between Tournament and League

yes it would be very useful to consider outcomes as well
maybe Tournament and League results could include such information
then players can make more informed choices and bid statistics themselves becomes even more representative

as for rising bids, I think it’ll continue as long as Revised remains popular

You may have a point there Tekkyy.

With Classic declining in popularity, I would imagine that, excluding some of the few remaining “heavy hitter” Classic players here like Darth, Axis bids would be in the teens, whereas among the old school heavy hitters $24 or so would be the norm.

Over the past couple of years I have seen Axis bids increase to where naval unit bids are not uncommon in Revised games.

A couple of rare low bid games are keeping the averages down (such as my own $5 bid that resulted in a win in Round 1 of this year’s Tournament), but whereas I would have once stated with certainty that Axis bids ran $5 to $7, I would now have to state that they are running $7 to $9, and trending to the higher end of that scale.

Increased skill among top players with the Allies is probably the primary fuel for that increase in bids.

yeah and that comes back to the issue of informed choices
like, now and then we hear someone’s honest opinion that Axis is strong and stuff  :-D
peer review of strategies and playing online has changed a lot of minds

anyway I would be impressed if you and admins could include interesting statistics with the tournament and league results

I still think 7 is the optimun for a balanced play, but I’m tired of playing axis, so in my last games I bid 8 (and get finally allies, hurray!). But seems I’ll have to go even higher if I want play allies just for change… or maybe not? Who knows?  :-D

@ncscswitch:

I still win games with a 5 bid on occasion, but I have reached the point of feeling “safe” with bids of $7, and a reasonable chance to winning a bid with $8 or $9.  I even bid $12 in my DAAK Tournament Game (FIDA bid though) and won the Axis (and the game by default).

Please define the following:
“on occasion”
“feeling safe”
“reasonable chance”

The balance point should be where you win half the time with a particular bid.  Which one of the above phrases is closest to 50% win ratio?

Actually, my win percentage with a 5 bid is almost 100 percent.

My win percentage with a 7 bid is MUCH lower.

@ncscswitch:

Actually, my win percentage with a 5 bid is almost 100 percent.

yep 1 for 1 is as close to 100% as you can get :)

Actually, based on memory, I am 4 for 4 in revised with a bid of 5.

5 is lowest ill bid, but I like 6. I usually play with FIDA bid, so inf lib, 2 ips Ger, ipc Jap is how i go.

I think the TripleA ladder comes pretty close to 50-50 with a 9 bid (limit 1 unit per ter).

Since we have no placement restrictions it is much harder to figure out, because all bids are not equal.  For example, 3 inf bid to Fic may not be as strong as 3 inf to Ukr or 3 inf to Lib.

IMO, if you just picked two random players who are familiar with the game and had them play, you’d probably want to give the Axis player 8 or 9 to make it 50-50.

And at this point I’d be even will to take the TripleA numbers and say 9 gives you a 50-50 shot even though we have different placement requirements.

:|
What we are seeing is a comfort zone, so to speak, with playing the Axis against more experienced allied players, (and we must assume that our opponents are experienced). At tripleA 9 IPC has been the required bid for all their ladder games, and as static as that may sound, it gives everyone the same balance irregardless of their experience level. Some may say that that is too high, but the wins vs losses show that that has been a very good balance point. One unit /territory is the only restriction. 3 extra Infantry in the Ukraine would be very tough for the Russians right off the bat!
On live play I will go lower, if nothing more than to give my opponent a better fighting chance, unless I know that they are a good or expert player.  :wink:

So my bid usually starts at 12 and goes down to my comfort zone, of 8 or 9.

Bids have to be bassed off of skill, both yours and the opponant. for now my friend and i have yet to have the Axis loss with a bid zero… why? we havn’t mastered the Allies stratagy yet, although i think i have just won the first time with Allies at bid 0.
on the reverse by same friend and i have played a friend that i used to play a lot who is highlly skilled but is new to Revised. we gave him a bid 8 and kicked him all over the place as we had been playing a few games already against each other and had a good idea of how to make the Allies work right.
as a reverse i have played 2 games with mjkusn01 now both he was Axis and we went with bid 8 for those (or was it 7?) and he won both games. first i was beat around like a rag doll but i was still prity green to the game (had played 3 games before that with only one as Allies). the secound game my record had only changed to 5 games and 2 as Allies; i lost again but my mistakes were less and i feel i did much better and my loss was due over all to 1 or 2 bad timed moves and Allied build up that took a little too long for Europe. i think i would have been in place to land in Europe a turn or two too late.
now what am i saying hear?
that a Bid is based off skill/confert. if a player is confident in there skill then a low bid is fine, but not so much then a higher bid should be taken. i feel the 7-9 is probably prity center of the road, but a 0 against some one who hasn’t got the Allies down yet is perfectly with in reason. i mean if you were to play me as the Allies based on my track record with them why would you need a bid of 3 even? i can’t win with a bid 0  :lol:

:-)
Yes of course, one must always consider the experience level of their opponent/s.
But, in a tournyment or league game, You better not play anything less than 8 for the Axis, if you want to have a good shot at winning.
New players generally won’t get into tourneys or league games by themselves, too many good players there, and not much fun to get wipped out early.
Team play is another story, as experienced players teaming up with COOPERATIVE newer players can guide them through good strategies. Best way to learn IMHO.
And that goes back to the COMFORT ZONE I referred to, I will play “0” bid against newbies as thew Axis, but I insist that they take 9IPC if they want to play the Axis.
I do it all the time on line and when teaching new players here at home.
So, bid or no bid, Happy Gaming!

I am extremely confident that I can take most players down if they have the axis w/an 8 bid.

I will bid no lower than 9 myself as I don’t want to under estimate my opponent’s skill set as the allies and assume they know what they are doing.

In my Tourney game against both Switch and Darth I bid 12 since I highly respect their skill.

I believe that the axis, with an 9 bid, still need to have sound strats, make no mistakes and require some luck to beat me.