Is 6 ipc's enough?

[U-505]

The main reason for putting a bid inf in Belo is to make a Belo attack by Russia unfavorable with just the 3 inf from Karelia and air support. Effectively, it forces the Russians to perform only the West Russia attack or attack Ukraine and leave their armor hanging. And with a 4th inf in Belo, heavy Russian armor in Ukraine doesn’t scare the German player away from counter-attacking them. They won’t have to risk armor to do it, because Germany has enough air for that.

[Guest]

It is 50/50 for Ukraine/Belo.

Placed in Belo, it forces Russia to go with a Ukraine/West Russia attack, leaving Belo untouched with 4 INF ready to counter in Ukraine…
In Ukraine, that extra INF ends up dead anyway, and Russia still gets paid for Ukraine, and still loses all of their forces on the German counter-attack.

Libya is a good choice also, especially if Germany gets 2 INF instead of just 1.  More IPC’s faster and for longer.
The trade off is that it then leaves UK in India on UK1 and so they block Japan better (since the extra forces preclude an Egypt counter-attack).  Japan thus grows slower due to Germany’s bid.

Long term though (turn 3 and beyond) Germany’s African forces are easily countered by the USA and UK without any real diversion of forces (almost all units are immediately transportable against Germany’s southern territories, spreading out Germany’s defenses…)

So the net result is that Germany gets an extra 3 IPC or so per round for a couple of rounds, Japan is slowed, and Germany ends up with a larger “front” to defend against UK and USA…
And since the IPC gain will only last 2-3 rounds, why not just put the 2 INF in Europe to begin with instead of fighting and risking units in Africa for the same net gain?

[Guest]

@U-505:

The main reason for putting a bid inf in Belo is to make a Belo attack by Russia unfavorable with just the 3 inf from Karelia and air support. Effectively, it forces the Russians to perform only the West Russia attack or attack Ukraine and leave their armor hanging. And with a 4th inf in Belo, heavy Russian armor in Ukraine doesn’t scare the German player away from counter-attacking them. They won’t have to risk armor to do it, because Germany has enough air for that.

YOU GOT IT!  :mrgreen:

[tcnance]

ive tried both, the libya placement and the belo placement

[Jennifer]

I hate to ask this, since I don’t have much experience in revised, but what’s the point in Attacking Egypt?  America’s just gunna shove so many soldiers right up the Africa’s hoo-ha that it’s not worth the effort.

Much easier to take Africa after destroying Russia…then again, I don’t always play against the best players.

[frimmel]

Well I was already leaning to this but the site champion saying he doesn’t put his bid troops in Libya has pretty much locked it for me

@Jennifer:

I hate to ask this, since I don’t have much experience in revised, but what’s the point in Attacking Egypt?

There isn’t one.

Africa is a distraction. Get to Moscow.

I am starting to think it is mostly that the troops are there and I can claim all this UK territroy and “I hate to leave FTRs just sit when I can kill 'em” and this TRN isn’t doing anything, afterall it is only a ARM and an INF to get a WHOLE CONTINENT. And stuff like that. Or maybe a “How can you win if you don’t capture all the enemy territories?” attitude?

Axiom 5 “Stay on target. Pick a goal and stick to it.” The Axis goal Moscow.

[U-505]

Jennifer,

the reason for Germany attacking Egypt is primarily to prevent the UK from pushing their Indian Ocean fleet into the Med on UK1 and keeps them on the Pacific side where Japan is better prepared to deal with them…

Following the G1 landings the Uk will counter-attack (usually) with available forces transported from India and it just devolves into a small scale action until the UK runs out of units. By then the US is landing heavily so germany’s gains in Africa become a distraction at best. It almost always turn out this way unless Germany beefs up it’s Med fleet for heavier action in Africa, but that presents a whole new set of problems, not the least of which is a weaker Russian front.

[trihero]

I think 6 is the absolute lowest bid I will go with. I’m debating where it should be, and the whole 50% bid placement thing has thrown me off because that’s never the way I used to play with. I have to say it’s really damn hard to determine what the exact bid  is because you’d probably have to play 100 games or so at each bid level; individual games tend have some weird dice at weird times which makes it extremely difficult to determine the influence of the bid itself. Considering how long a real game takes to play, I’d venture that very few if any of us have enough information to make a good judgment call, so personally I’d rely more on consensus than individual experience.

I’m sure that for instance if you don’t play with a bid that the Axis can win maybe 30% of the time or so, and if you happen to be lucky a few times in a row you’d be convinced that no bid was needed. But from experience and playing against experienced players I currently cannot say you can go below 6 with the Axis and have something resembling a 50% win ratio. My initial feeling is that 6 is probably still a little bit too low, especially with the 50% placement restriction, but there are some annoying German navy strategies I’m still trying to muddle through that makes it harder for the Allies.

What does annoy me a bit lately is how I tend to see A&A as more of a dice game than a strategy game when your bid is about right; since it’s so even, some screwy dice early on easily decides the game for you. Once you’re put into a hole you can’t really get back on track without taking unadviseable risks. Especially battles involving navy are impossible to recover from if you get fracked one way or the other since it’s so expensive to rebuild.

[tcnance]

tri, one of my favorite sayings is “good dice beat great strategy every time”, you want to see ridiculously good dice look at ny game vs sime from r1 to j1,

[Guest]

I would go as low as 4 IPC against all but the best players with a free placement bid…

Restricted placement, 6 minimum.

[Jennifer]

TC

That’s what they came up with low luck rules…

But yea, it’s one of my favorites too.  I actually have a button that has that on it I wear at GenCon every year

[jsp4563]

Moved this over from another thread.

@ncscswitch:

For an experienced player like me, sure I’d take the 6 bid and placement restriction.

Others who have posted seem to feel that 9 unrestricted is “balanced”…. but I think that is too high with an experienced Axis player.

For someone new to online gaming…
I’d go at least 7 IPC, and probably go unresticted bid (allow for 2 German INF, and an IPC for Japan at start)

Split the difference and allow an unrestricted bid. Or go 8 IPC and restrict the bid (still only 1 INF or 1 ART to start) That is the least you should offer for your “choice” of sides to play…

And as I play more games since the mid-stage of the Tournament, the more inclined I am to shift the Axis minimum bid up from the Tournament 6 IPC restricted standard bid to at least 7 preferably unrestricted. Allied play on these boards is imply improving too much to maintain the lower 6 bid restricted…

My opinion, your mileage may vary.

I’ve only played 4 games online as the axis, 2 I lost to TC (6 bid 50/50), 1 draw (6 bid 50/50) against bebo (he resigned before the end of round 1) he advocates a 9-15 bid (way too high IMHO), 1 game against U505 still in progress (3 bid) we’re on round 24 with no resolution in sight.  I’d say 6 is probably about right, maybe remove the 50/50 restriction but keep the 1 unit per territory placement rule.

[trihero]

I have never understood the premise of the 50% bid placement restriction. This artificially inflates the bid; if you think you need just 1 infantry on the board you have to bid 6, whereas with 100% bid placement it’d be a simple 3.

I think the limit of 1 bid unit per territory makes a lot of sense, but not restricting it to 50% in placing the bid.

[Guest]

My understanding of the reason for the retriction for those forums that use it is that it prevents a total change in the T1 moves of the game.  It provides for additional forces, but not at the expense of changing core strategies.

I am leaning away from the restricted bid myself.  And with a 1 unit per territory limit to replace it, then yes, I would see the average bid shift down, potentially as much as 3 points from the average that another posted demontrated was 9 IPC in another venue.  A two point drop, to a 7 bid, would be almost certain.

[U-505]

I’m thinking 5 is a fine bid for full placement. With 1 inf to Germany and 2 IPC’s to Japan for a 4 TP build I think it’s possible to hang with most players.

You could probably get away with a 4 bid and only 1 IPC to Japan, for 2 TP, 1 IC, but with all this recent talk about US naval superiority and what to do with the UK Pac fleet, I’m expecting that someone might take a shot at KJF in the tourney so I’m leery about it. If the US goes KJF, then 4 TP’s on J1 really helps evacuate most of the islands quickly enough to get the infantry to the mainland and the TP’s back into an attack position before the US gets rolling.

But, judging from jsp’s post, our team might have a small disagreement on what bid is too low.

[jsp4563]

@U-505:

I’m thinking 5 is a fine bid for full placement. With 1 inf to Germany and 2 IPC’s to Japan for a 4 TP build I think it’s possible to hang with most players.

You could probably get away with a 4 bid and only 1 IPC to Japan, for 2 TP, 1 IC, but with all this recent talk about US naval superiority and what to do with the UK Pac fleet, I’m expecting that someone might take a shot at KJF in the tourney so I’m leery about it. If the US goes KJF, then 4 TP’s on J1 really helps evacuate most of the islands quickly enough to get the infantry to the mainland and the TP’s back into an attack position before the US gets rolling.

But, judging from jsp’s post, our team might have a small disagreement on what bid is too low.

Our 3 bid game went 25 rounds before I threw in the towel.  Would 2-3 more IPC’s at start changed the outcome, probably not.  However I won’t be making any more 3 ipc bids  :-D

[tcnance]

maybe i just suck as the axis, my online record in 8-1 allies, 1-3 axis, i have 1 axis game in progress no2w against sime that is in round 6 and its a virtual deadlock with germany and russia in trouble