Thanks to everyone for clearing that up. :)
Why bid?
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Just wondering why so many players think Axis need help with extra money in Revised. I seems pretty balanced to me. And it was playtested by some good gamers wasn’t it?
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Because once the players gain some experience the Allies have an advantage. Hey if you don’t think they need the money you can always bid 0.
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but is it enough of an advantage to justify a bid. Really if you are going to play the axis you should know going in that you are at a disadvantage and have to make it up quick!
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But WHY are the axis at a disadvantage? Has this been proven, or is it just how people “feel”?
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Mike due to the nature of the bid system it will soon find the balance in the game considering people want to win more so than play a side. This is probably a good assumption for the league here and in that the bid is usually 7-8 IPC. As far as I understand it the feeling is that the germans need to have Africa to have a game and this can only happen with a bid. Otherwise you are just hoping for good dice.
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Just to follow-up on Rhineland’s post, typically Allied strategies trail the Axis. The Allies need much more cooperation then the Axis in the vast majority of games, but once an Allied player perfects this they become very tough to beat and bids are required. Now I’m not sure how these games are play tested but having it tested in a 5 player scenerio is much different then testing it when there are only 2 players.
Some major disadvantages are:
1 - 3 vs. 2, with economic lead by the three Allies.
2 - Russia goes first.
Here they can attack and replenish supplies before Germany can go.
3 - Poor dice hurt the Axis more than the Allies.
If Russia gets poor dice, the UK and US can reinforce with troops almost immediately, if Germany gets poor dice it is not that easy for Japan to help quickly. Kill Germany First effect.
4 - It is cheaper to defend.
B/c the Allies start with the economic lead the longer the game goes the better it is for the Allies. So the Axis MUST attack and must attack early to change this. But the most effective unit in the game is infantry. For the price of one inf (3 ipc), the attacker would need minimally 1 inf, 1 rt (7 ipc). Now realistically you have units on the board and it actually works out to the attacker needing to spend 4 ipcs for every 3 ipc spent on defense once you get to stacks of about 10 units. So if Russia has a stack of 20 inf (60 ipc), Germany needs to have 80 ipcs worth of attacking units. Again this is a big difference that must be made up early on before the UK and US get up and running. Any delay in Germany adding to its IPC count helps the Allies even if they come out on the short end of the battle. This boils down to the Allies can do nothing until they have overwhelming odds in a battle, the Axis MUST make aggressive moves earlly where odds may be in the 60-70% range (sometimes lower when you consider all the battles together for one turn).
For Example, if Germany has to do 5 battles, and all are 90% to win, the odds of winning ALL of them is only 60%. (.9*.9*.9*.9*.9 = .59)
So now mix in one or two 80% battles and a 75% and all of a sudden a turn that looks like this:
.9 * .9 * .9 *.8 *.75 =
Turns out like this: 43%The Allies can pretty much pick their spots and wait (in no bid scenerio).
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I think the game is close to balanced, but there is good reason to think it might not be.
basically, if russia were any weaker (or either axis player any stronger), there might be a high number of games where a) novice players would have a terrible time as russia gets pwned, or b) early bad luck by russia would allow for allied defeat even with superior play.
In other words, if germany has the ability to force a battle early in the game against the least resilient allied power, then even when played badly the axis always have a chance of an upset win in that battle. The stronger you make the axis initially, the more risk that the game is decided by luck in spite of any allied skill very early on.
Having said all that, I think it’s pretty darn balanced and I’m just suggesting theories for why it might intentionally have been left with some imbalance.
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