Seeking a better understanding of the bid numbers

[zlefin]

I assumed from the fact that it’s not more common that something about it doesn’t actually work well. I mean, there are ways to play around it; but it does seem a bit silly to be able to be able to, in cases of a high bid like 54, give it all to china, and have them use it plus their starting cash to add 22 inf to yunnan.

and yes, someone did, that’s where I heard about it, from reading somewhere else on this forum.

[farmboy]

@zlefin I’ve seen the occassional cash bid where both players agreed, but normally the bid buys units and only left over cash (1-2 ipcs) is given to any player. It may not strictly speaking be a break of the bid rules but I’ve always taken it to be just because the rules speak to bid unit placement and not banking. And I think banking has the potential to be more seriously game breaking.

With a Yunnan stack, Japan can still kill the Burma road by getting India but it is often only after China has benefited significantly from the extra cash. Japan is usually short on land units, so even without India, a strong China and American pressure can make it hard for htem even if they have managed to get India. That being said, I don’t see the Yunnan stack as game breaking. It means Japanese strategies can’t rely on getting Yunnan round 1 but that can be overcome.

[farmboy]

it was ABH and Andrew that played that and the game should be somewhere here.

[AndrewAAGamer]

@zlefin said in Seeking a better understanding of the bid numbers:

I’d be interested to see some of the best and/or first games with the Yunnan stack to see how they played out and to see which countermeasures were deployed, as I do wonder if a J1 dow is still feasible vs a Yunnan stack.

I tried multiple strategies against the Yunnan Stack. One of the reasons my recent games have not gone so well. In my opinion the only counter to the Yunnan Stack is NOT to do a J1 DOW. Otherwise, the Allies just gang up on a much weaker Japan. I think the proper response is to not do the J1 DOW and try and put as much pressure on China as possible before declaring war and threatening India. I tried this against @Farmboy in the 2024 playoffs and it was fairly successful. Unfortunately, I lost an 84% chance to wipe out the entire Allied Pacific Armies in Burma and that ended the game prematurely.

The Yunnan Stack allows China to gain more monies, consistently buy artillery and force any threat on India to be an all water adventure. Makes life very tough.

[AndrewAAGamer]

@gamerman01 said in Seeking a better understanding of the bid numbers:

@zlefin said in Seeking a better understanding of the bid numbers:

@gamerman01

Though I’m not sure how much it changes compared to the bid that just gives the cash to China and they buy a huge inf stack on Yunnan on their first turn.

Uh… I think you cracked the code. It doesn’t give Russia extra fighters, but at first blush this seems more effective. We just don’t think in terms of banking the IPCs. This seems a great example of why you should - China can place her infantry anywhere controlled at the end of the turn, so with China this… could be… a real game changer. It follows the rule of one unit per territory but breaks it by getting around it. China doesn’t have IC’s of course so it works differently.

However, the league can simply make a rule limiting the amount banked to any power.

I like that - that would be fun to play. A bid of 30 to China… 10 men right on the front line. No more cowering

Indeed, @Arthur-Bomber-Harris did put his entire Bid into the Pacific area with, as I remember, $51 being banked by China. On C1 he placed 17 infantry in China to go along with the 3 British infantry he earlier placed. It was very difficult for me to deal with and worked up to a point Luckily, for me, he made an error and I was able to capitalize on it and win the game even though it was a tough bid to counter.

Though that Bid seemed to work, since it required a) a Bid of $60 which I will never give again and b) using the entire Bid to stop Japan the detriment of not putting anything against Germany was a hindrance.

Whereas, the Yunnan Stack only costs $23. A mere pittance, and as @gamerman01 already alluded to those two Russian fighters fly home to assist in the defense of Moscow against Germany. It is a significantly better way to stop Japan.

[zlefin]

@AndrewAAGamer

Thanks, I’ll be sure to look up those games once there’s a good way to look up by game number, so I can see what you tried and how it all worked out. I remain surprised that the effect is so profound, it doesn’t seem like it should shift the theater so much compared to other methods; and if just the russians being there for a turn or two is enough to really change the theater, I’m surprised there isn’t a stronger effect from other bids that put more in the theater in general. I must be underestimating how fast it affects the Japan collapse and Japan’s sensitivity or some details about how it causes the theater to evolve.

The sites search feature seems to specifically not look in the league subforum, so I can’t use it to search for the specific games in question.

Have you been using the yunan stack against others? or do you wholly avoid it on both sides?