Spain and the Axis

Our army knives are bigger than their army knives though. Waaay bigger.

Back to the OP. One other point I’m coming to see is devastating is to land 4 ground units on Kwangsi J1. These units really make a big difference in being able to hold on to Yunnan. While you can’t get the TTs back to Japan J2 unless you combine a Naval base on Hainan or Kwangsi, the main game in Asia isn’t to get Japanese land units on Asia but to deny the Burma Rd. If you can do that, your one step on the way to Axis victory in the Pacific. One of the land units can come from Okinawa, two from Japan so you are only relocating one unit within Asia, the artillery from Manchuria, but in a very advantageous way.

That is why I prefer to incorporate the “no more than one unit per territory or seazone” rule.

I think the great variation that bids provide allow for great replayability. Who wants a game that always depends on what kind of dice Germany got G1? Pick sides, set up the board, roll a couple dice, quit. Blech.

To your point about a 12 being too much, though - only 1 game has been finished in the league this year with a bid over 11, and the axis(-15) won.

Most good players are not going to give their opponent more than 10, is what we’ve been seeing in the league results. And among what appear to be opponents of close skill level, the Allies have won at +9, +10, +8, +10, +9, and +8. And the Axis have won at -9, -15, -7, -9, and -11. Yes, that’s a small sample size, but it seems to be pretty even.

I think the best judges of when a game is fair and balanced are the players. As you can see, over half the games have been run at an 8 or 9. And 2/3 of those games have been won by the Allies. You have people that don’t want to give bids too big, people that acknowledge the Axis has an advantage, people that don’t really want to play the Allies - it’s an interesting and fluid dynamic that always seems to find its own level.

Figure out how to hit the USA on G3-G7 along with Jap help and It help  Gib is key

if concerned about dice cheating, insist on using a dice tower :roll:

@Sgt.:

In AAP40 my one game as Japan resulted in a pretty easy win due to going all out on J1. But in Global you have to consider the USA getting that massive IPC boost if you attack UK/ANZAC. I find the best strategy is to focus on taking China and killing any Russian INF that get too close. Dare the UK to attack you early, if they do you get a free shot at the DEI.

That wont work as easily with alpha set up… J1 attack in Alpha is usually a bad idea if the allies know what they are doing.

In my first Europe game, the Allies won after 16 rounds.  When the US liberated France, giving them 4 extra men and their economy back, they did help by attacking and taking Western Germany.  The next round, USA was able to move through Western Germany and take Berlin.  Germany was not able to properly defend it’s territories, even Germany itself, because of so much stuff committed to the Eastern Front.  Moscow did eventually fall, but it took Germany a long time to get there and cost them a ton of units in the process.  Plus, the very round Moscow fell, the US took Berlin.
One strange thing about this game was that London was never liberated.  Once Germany took London, they built a strong force of infantry there and the US decided to bypass that to take Rome, liberate Paris and go after Berlin.  The German navy was decimated and the Atlantic was totally controlled by the US so all those troops on England were pretty much stuck there.  On the very last round, after taking Berlin, the US had enough forces left in the area and they liberated London.  Technically the game was over though because the final German round to see if they could retake their capital had passed.  It was really impossible for the Germans to retake Berlin because what was left of their forces were way east in Russia.
In my second Europe game, the Axis won in 8 rounds.  So with those two games, it kind of goes along with history.  Shorter game/war, Axis victory.  Longer game/war, Allied victory.  One big thing that did the Axis in was that they were planning on a short, quick war to achieve their goals.  When the war dragged out, the greater Allied industrial and mineral resources told.