How to re-balance the -41 Scenario (team effort!)

@ckladman Yes, the game tends to favor the allies without objectives, and the axis with. To balance, you could trying giving a bid (additional starting units) to the side that is at a disadvantage, or play with objectives but reduce the payout. (3 ipcs vs 5.)

@thedesertfox I don’t think you’ll get people to agree on a bid, which is why you should have an auction if you’re running a tournament – let one player say "I’ll take the Allies for 10 ipcs (or whatever), and then the other player can either say “Ok, take them” or bid lower and say “I’ll take the Allies for 9 ipcs.” This continues until someone says ok.

There are just so few games in a typical a&a tournament that you can’t afford to have anyone feeling like they lost a coin toss. E.g. if you have 3 rounds and someone plays allies twice and they don’t agree with your fixed bid, that’s a real feel-bad moment.

@taamvan Can you say a bit more about what Japan is doing in your games? It’s true that with a well-executed KGF Germany will be contained to the core territories of France, NW Europe, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania – but that’s still worth $30 a turn and it takes the Allies a very long time to build and load enough transports to crack it.

Meanwhile, a pure KGF usually leaves Japan free to take India, then the Caucasuses, then Moscow – the Allies can certainly rush a few fighters to Moscow, but sending even one ruins the only practical Russian national objective, and if you build too many then you never get enough Allied ground troops to crack the German turtle – fighters in Moscow can’t reach to support an attack on France.

In my experience, without a bid and with NOs on, the Japanese attack on Moscow is much faster than the American attack on Paris, let alone Berlin. How does the Pacific play out in your games?

players have experienced with a allied inf bid in asia

Bid is +9 IPC of which it is exactly 3 infantry units which may be placed on any one territory or any combination of territories east of the Arc, Mos, Kaz, Per line which already has at least 1 land unit on it, or any Chinese territory including Chinese territories which are empty (of course Russian units on Russian territories, Chinese units on Chinese territories, and so on)  So you could place 3 UK infantry in India if you wish, 3 Chinese infantry in Yunnan, or even 3 infantry in Hawaii or something like that.

This makes for a fun game

Honestly Func, you haven’t tried to play KGF if you think its boring.  It’s true it would be boring if the Allied opponent simply regurgitated Revised strategies, but that’s not how you play KGF in 41–KGF in 41 requires aggression and timing and closely coordinated attacking.

It’s true that KGF is harder for the Axis to play against, because Axis has to think hard to anticipate the 1-2-3 attacks and coordinated movements.  But I don’t mind the challenge…it’s more interesting to fight a KGF then to win an inevitable economic victory or quickly stomp Russia if the Allies divide their focus.

What I can say with certainty is its lots of fun to be Allies when executing a KGF strategy, especially the sort of aggressive KGF strategy that Gargantua is talking about above.   It’s more exciting to be Allies in AA50 then in any previous version of AA, partially due to the challenge involved, and partially due to KGF being much more exciting and diverse with the inclusion of Italy.

Assuming 1941 setup and using NO’s, here are a few minor, simple, yet helpful setup changes to the board.

1.  Exchange the sz4 Russian sub for a Russian destroyer.  In Revised, Russia had an 8 IPC, 2 attack, 2 defense unit which could block ships, so give it back to them.  This both helps Russia and Germany, because if Germany wants to, it can hit it.

2. Exchange the sz56 US transport for a US cruiser.  This seems to make Japan’s opening moves a little more clear and it means that the US cannot immediately take a Pacific island on its first turn which helps Japan, but having a capital ship, helps the US as well.

3. Add 1 Chinese infantry to Yunan.  I know that many people want more than this, but I think that this would force Japan to be more careful with its first turn moves, but I think that Japan could still do just about everything that it wants to.

These changes actually give the Allies 10 IPCs worth of unit/unit upgrades, and with all of the talk about the Axis having the slight advantage, maybe these changes would help.

@Omega:

I think, although my experience is limited, that no Nation can go in a war on multiple fronts.

Well since USA has no true ‘fronts’ per se, THEY can split their income and fight a two theatre war.  In fact, that is looking to be more and more a requirement.  The problem is deciding which theatre has a greater need for the US war machine.  Often times, the pacific investment looks like it is easier to just ignore (meaning Germany is the ‘easier’ target), but the IJN needs to be forced to keep an eye on her back door.  Those carriers need to be forced to be loaded.