There have been a variety of Ways to Balance AA50 with NOs that people have come up with.
From the more mundane things like the normal unit bid system, or cash bids, or chinese infantry bids, to some more elaborate things like:
Bidding to Lower how much NOs are worth.
Making some NOs have stricter or easier requirements. (like Britain needing fewer, Japan needing more)
Playing with the Dardanelles Closed Option.
Playing with Interceptors and Escorts Optional rule for SBRs.
Being able to move the Chinese Fighter around before the game starts.
Letting China acquire Infantry based on the number of territory they own at the end of their turn instead of beginning.
Playing with modified versions of Low Luck. (like low luck enabled with 11 or more units, low luck disabled with 10 or less units total in btl)
While I have my own set of ideas, I think that having more options is better, so I have created a feature request post for TripleA. So to anyone who uses TripleA to play AA50, and would like to see some more features added to it, please visit this post I made on their development forum begging for a few new features. If enough players comment and ask for something, hopefully we will get at least one of them.
http://triplea.sourceforge.net/mywiki/Forum
This post isn’t to debate which Methods for balancing are the best, just to come up with ideas and ask that they be included into TripleA. Don’t trash someone else’s idea, you are under no obligation to use it if it gets included. More options = Better.
I was never a big fan of the unit bid. I posted years ago about bidding for NAs in revised. Also I wanted an option to play minor victory, which I think also helps the Axis. I used to like to play Classic with Restricted russia and Weapons Development Bonus. If this doesn’t eliminate a bid it should at least reduce it. I used to advocate for that option in the Axis & Allies Member’s Cluib (AAMC), but there wasn’t much interest.
I like the idea of playing with interceptors, and I like the option to play with the Dardanelles closed. But these don’t replace bidding. nicely. I’m not much interested in ‘house’ optional rules, but for optional rules to replace bidding, you need lots of them, they each need to clearly favour one side, and none of them should be crushingly powerful on their own.
The Revised NAs were the best system for non unit/IPC bidding. You could bid up to twelve to play the Axis - which I think is more than high enough a bid. Best of all, we’d be playing practically OOB! If the rules for NAs had been to use any, all, or none (instead of strictly even combinations), bidding as such would be playing one hundred per cent OOB! This is how NAs should have been handled. :(
Alas, with the awesomeness of AA50, the upcoming curiosity of AA42, and my recent acquisition of the 1981 Nova Games edition (which I’m dying to try), I don’t see much revised in my near future. I don’t think alternate bidding works nearly as smoothly in AA50 either. :(
One system I like is to play back to back games switching sides. A player is declared the winner as soon as they’ve won a game with each side. This is nice for tourneys. Sadly A&A is too long for this - especially considering you could play indefinitely with the same side winning.
Best of luck in your endeavors!
Now you could straight bid for NOs! each side has eight, so you could bid any number from zero to eight. The low bid would chose there side (with no NOs), and the winning side would take NOs of their choice totaling the number they bid. You could (or not) allow the high bid to take an extra NO for each one the let their opponent have. This works identically to bidding for NAs in revised.
My problem is that I love NOs and how they affect the game. I would hate to play without all of them! But the system is good, I think.
I was never a big fan of the unit bid. I posted years ago about bidding for NAs in revised. Also I wanted an option to play minor victory, which I think also helps the Axis. I used to like to play Classic with Restricted russia and Weapons Development Bonus. If this doesn’t eliminate a bid it should at least reduce it. I used to advocate for that option in the Axis & Allies Member’s Cluib (AAMC), but there wasn’t much interest.
Best of luck in your endeavors!
Alot of people played this way on the CD version (when those old gaming rooms were around).
