Bid a carrier in z98

[Whitshadw]

@ShadowHAwk:

@wheatbeer:

The average bid on forum games seems to be increasing and this includes matches between evenly skilled and experienced players.

If you don’t need a “hand out” Whitshadw, then you’ll find no shortage of Axis opponents here �:lol:

It could also mean that players are thinking inside the same box and all their strategies are based around the same basics. If most players are a lot better at the axis then they are at the allies they can be equaly skilled and the result would be as you describe.

If everybody paints their house blue it does not mean it is a better color then red :)

The carrier in the med is way overpowered for the allies, basicaly the axis cannot win on the europe board with that bid. You just crush the italian navy round 1 and then secure the med for the allies. After that italy is down to making nearly nothing and UK + russia can easy keep germany busy while the US polishes off japan.

The bigest allied advantage is that have a lot of money, as the allied player you just have to not jump the gun and use that advantage.

I agree with Shadow
There needs to be a reasonable balance as far as the bid goes for the game… 1 fighter sure… And extra Grunt or 2 also NP but let’s not get carried away as far as what’s needed to win .
I have no issues playing on Tripple A with or with out the bid and holding my own so be it .
What it boils down to is … Is my strategy better then his and how can I over come his?
It’s Axis act and Allies React until you get The point where your acting and the axis needs to adjust . With a bid of 33 why not put 11 grunts in China to prevent the Burma road from being cut off? It becomes silly

Also Adam you play Low Luck I won’t even begin to scratch the board on how flawed that game style is and keep on point

Again this is all a matter of opinion
If you play the same person 30 times then he’s bound to figure out what your strategy is and overcome yours correct?

I’m not entirely opposed to the bid but it has to be with in reason yes I understand the axis have an advantage but people make it out to be so overwhelming that you need to make some sort of ludicrous bid to even stand a chance

[Adam514]

Thing is the hypothetical 11 chinese inf would not be enough, that’s how much the Axis have an advantage. In the high bid games I bid to kill tobruk with no tp, 97, fig in scotland and inf in NG. I play dice as well, but yes dice lowers the bid by about half what’s necessary in low luck I would say. We stopped playing after those 30 games because Allies could not win short of an Axis blunder, and we’ve tried many different things as Allies.

[variance]

@wheatbeer:

Looking forward to testing this bid variance  :-D

The possibility of 2 loaded UK carriers ending in SZ97 is great … would give the UK a compelling reason to claim Greece too.

That’s all I need to know.  Thanks  :-)

[knp7765]

This is ridiculous. An AIRCRAFT CARRIER as a bid!?! This is going too far.
While I have never agreed with bids and saw no need for them, I do understand the wish for some people who think the game is unbalanced in the Axis favor to try and achieve some balance by giving the Allies a bit of a boost.
Now it just seems to me like you are carrying it to a point where the Axis simply can not win. Italy would end up being a non-issue, as would any ideas of sealion, and the UK would be able to give a lot of help to Russia to keep them afloat. Meanwhile the US would simply send everything into the Pacific, trash Japan and then it would be everybody against Germany.

Another point which I have made before is putting the Allied bid in the Med with the Brits. Obviously the Axis power that would most directly be affected is Italy. After 2 or 3 rounds, the Italian navy will be gone and there will probably be no Italian presence in Africa either. About the only thing Italy will be able to do the rest of the game is buy infantry to place along the coast. Imagine how boring that will be if you have a separate Italy player.
It just strikes me as odd that when Europe 1940 first came out, it seemed like everyone was so happy that Italy was represented and could do something to actually contribute to the outcome of the game. Now it seems as though certain people just want to rub Italy out as soon as possible. Makes me wonder why to have Italy in the game at all.

One other thing. While it already seems to me like the 2nd edition setup all by itself has just about taken Sealion off the table as an Axis strategy, now so many of you keep wanting to give the UK extra bids to make them even stronger. Now it seems like the only German strategy has to be Barbarossa. What happened to the variety?

[variance]

Hey I’m not playing allies unless I get $16 and I want an aircraft carrier.  :-D

[Adam514]

There are better bids for 16 than an aircraft carrier in 98, it’s really not game breaking.

[variance]

@Adam514:

There are better bids for 16 than an aircraft carrier in 98, it’s really not game breaking.

really?  like what?  I needs help

[Adam514]

I’d always take sub in 98 and fig in scotland over the carrier.

[knp7765]

@Adam514:

I’d always take sub in 98 and fig in scotland over the carrier.

I personally still think that’s too much but at least it’s more reasonable than giving the Allies an extra carrier. Carriers have too many uses which make them overpowering, particularly when you are talking about a starting bid.

Also variance, I understood that most people considered an Allied bid of 8-12 sufficient. Why do you need so much more?

[Witt]

Morning Knp. I am struggling to win with 12 with the people here. Many are accepting 14+ as the norm now.
I will lose the game I am playing against a similar ranked player and I took 16 as the Allies.

[knp7765]

@wittmann:

Morning Knp. I am struggling to win with 12 with the people here. Many are accepting 14+ as the norm now.
I will lose the game I am playing against a similar ranked player and I took 16 as the Allies.

Really? Hmmm. Maybe it has been too long since I have played Allies. I will admit that the majority of our games end up in Axis victory but we have had several Allied victories as well. We have never used a bid in any game for either side. Most of the Allied victories involve the US going heavy Pacific first and really pounding Japan. I don’t think we have had an Allied win where the US went after Europe first unless it also involved an Axis screw up as well.
We haven’t actually played Global in a while. I think I’m going to have to get together with my gaming buddies for a few games in the near future and just play it out with somewhat “basic” strategies, nothing really weird that might really tilt the game one way or the other. I think I also need to keep the same people playing the same countries each game (we usually switch around so no one has to play the same country every game).
We only use dice in our games (no low luck). Is that how your are playing wittmann? If I am running sort of “test” games, do you think I would be better trying low luck? I know that the randomness of dice can often throw the outcome of a game into question in spite of possibly good or bad strategies.
The people I play with vary somewhat in strategical prowess. If I let everyone change countries around, I don’t think I would get a decent idea about whether the game is balanced or not due to differing playing styles.
I think if I can get 3 or 4 “regular” games played, I will have a better idea about the balance. I’ve always thought the game was balanced but with so many claiming it needs bids for the Allies, I am starting to wonder.

[Witt]

I did think like you, because I always played the Axis and my best friend is a better player, so I struggled. Here on the forum (League) players know how to best use Germany and I have since changed my opinion. Russia is too easily robbed of any income, while Germany grabs all its NOs and can then split between Russia and holding the West.
Japan, well, that is another matter, as you know. Leave it to grow at your peril.
I always bid Sub and UK Ground for Africa, but am now wondering if I need another placement. A Carrier is worth considering. I do like to keep Italy weak.
Always good to talk to you knp.

[variance]

To all the guys who say you don’t need a bid, I think its a lot different playing online versus face to face.  Online players typically use an odds calculator before every little battle so things are very tight.  The consensus seems to be that a bid somewhere between $10-20 is needed.  The very best “E” ranked players strongly prefer to play axis and bids are higher.  If there were no odds calculators being used and people were just going on their gut from experience or crude low luck estimates in their heads, the need for an allied bid would vanish amid that variability.  I don’t mean this to say face to face players are sloppy players; its a lot harder to think and decide on the spot without a computer to guide you.  But its just  not humanly possible to tune every battle (including battles planned several rounds ahead) with that kind of precision in a face to face game.  There is too much variability for a few units here or there to matter much, but in online games every unit on the board has a job to do every turn and for the next several turns.  The only margin for error comes from dice, and under those conditions a bid is definitely needed to even it up.  The setup for second edition came out of a ton of testing in the alpha era and its very well balanced, but only when played face to face without odds calculators.

The scotland fighter + 98 sub is a strong placement for a $16 bid, but although I haven’t tried it yet I am thinking the carrier thing will more strongly shift things in allied favour (and if an expert like wheatbeer is willing to try it, then I know its a good idea).

As for Russian builds, I have seen people build a bunch of infantry.  Its not as effective as things for UK in the med because it doesn’t take the initiative away from the axis in the early rounds.  G1 attacks are super fun and if done correctly they can bring down the USSR in a hurry but you probably never get Cairo if you go that route.

As for piling a bunch of infantry in Yunnan, Cow pointed out long ago that would be a game breaker so it is usually agreed that you can only place 1 unit per territory or sea zone that you already occupy.

[Adam514]

Then the bid would have to be higher if you put more restrictions on it, such as not impacting the first round. As for the 11 chinese inf, I was talking about the normal bid restrictions, but even if you put 11 more inf on yunnan I can pretty much garantee an Axis win in low luck.

[Zhukov44]

@wheatbeer:

Looking forward to testing this bid variance  :-D

The possibility of 2 loaded UK carriers ending in SZ97 is great … would give the UK a compelling reason to claim Greece too.

It’s a strong bid.

Germany might respond by purchasing 3 fighters in order to increase its attack odds in case UK stacks in sz97 or sz 92.  However, though 3 figs are a good investment, they do not bring Germany closer to taking London or Moscow.  And UK can, if faced with 15 German aircraft, simply forego the 97 megastack.

This could play a role in pushing the “standard” bid down to 15, which is still a reasonable amount for Allies imho.

[variance]

@Zhukov44:

@wheatbeer:

Looking forward to testing this bid variance  :-D

The possibility of 2 loaded UK carriers ending in SZ97 is great … would give the UK a compelling reason to claim Greece too.

It’s a strong bid.

Germany might respond by purchasing 3 fighters in order to increase its attack odds in case UK stacks in sz97 or sz 92.  However, though 3 figs are a good investment, they do not bring Germany closer to taking London or Moscow.  And UK can, if faced with 15 German aircraft, simply forego the 97 megastack.

This could play a role in pushing the “standard” bid down to 15, which is still a reasonable amount for Allies imho.

Personally I would not want to play against UK with that extra carrier, so $15 would have to be the limit.

[knp7765]

@variance:

To all the guys who say you don’t need a bid, I think its a lot different playing online versus face to face.  Online players typically use an odds calculator before every little battle so things are very tight.  The consensus seems to be that a bid somewhere between $10-20 is needed.  The very best “E” ranked players strongly prefer to play axis and bids are higher.  If there were no odds calculators being used and people were just going on their gut from experience or crude low luck estimates in their heads, the need for an allied bid would vanish amid that variability.  I don’t mean this to say face to face players are sloppy players; its a lot harder to think and decide on the spot without a computer to guide you.  But its just  not humanly possible to tune every battle (including battles planned several rounds ahead) with that kind of precision in a face to face game.  There is too much variability for a few units here or there to matter much, but in online games every unit on the board has a job to do every turn and for the next several turns.  The only margin for error comes from dice, and under those conditions a bid is definitely needed to even it up.  The setup for second edition came out of a ton of testing in the alpha era and its very well balanced, but only when played face to face without odds calculators.

The scotland fighter + 98 sub is a strong placement for a $16 bid, but although I haven’t tried it yet I am thinking the carrier thing will more strongly shift things in allied favour (and if an expert like wheatbeer is willing to try it, then I know its a good idea).

As for Russian builds, I have seen people build a bunch of infantry.  Its not as effective as things for UK in the med because it doesn’t take the initiative away from the axis in the early rounds.  G1 attacks are super fun and if done correctly they can bring down the USSR in a hurry but you probably never get Cairo if you go that route.

As for piling a bunch of infantry in Yunnan, Cow pointed out long ago that would be a game breaker so it is usually agreed that you can only place 1 unit per territory or sea zone that you already occupy.

Okay, I never thought about that. All of my games have been on the actual board game. I have never played the online version nor have I used an odds calculator. I wasn’t thinking about how much that would change the game play.

[theROCmonster]

Some one stole my carrier idea that I put down months ago. hehe.

BTW whoever said they would still win axis when an 11 infantry bid in Yunan is crazy. Japan would be screwed!

[variance]

Hey ROC, it seems like a good idea!  Have you tried it out in any games?

[theROCmonster]

I haven’t really played Global in a while. Once I realized how powerful German planes were it kind of killed my appetite for the game. :/