What are some clever bids for the Pacific board?

@squirecam
Its not if you win or lose a fight but how you win or lose a fight.
If germany does its normal france attack and wins with 1 tank left they got diced pretty badly.
But since they still won you dont consider it being diced?

But with dice the problem is that on average you get the right results but if you get an outlier on the wrong point in the game you will lose the game because of that. And there is nothing you can do about it.
Germany attacking moscow with 90% odds and losing, sure russia might have had bad luck before or you might have gotten lucky somewhere else but that 1 battle makes or breaks the game.

I dont like Low Luck because its basically deterministic to the point where you know the outcome of battles. Its 2 much like playing chess. But i dont like the idea of extreme dice as well. Ideally you want to cap the outcome of a attack/defence roll to like 30-50% of the bell curve of most odds. But doing that would require some app to calculate.

@Marshmallow:

I use black chips for 25 units. It helps with the swaying red chip stack!

Marsh

lol

Yes, I know you can’t see vote. I just took a guess based on voter results and comments. I did remove the quote. :-)

Well some interesting facts.

All agree that in Europe 1940 the axis need a bid.
All agree that japan is hard to stop unless US invest heavy in the pacific.

In global nearly all players give the bid to the allies on the europe board and nobody gives the bid to the pac board.

Has anyone tried the “China first” proposal I made? I used this solution in AA50 as a bid alternative, and I think it works well in G40 too, but haven’t received much feedback from actual games other than my own group.  Maybe its because the HR forums are a wasteland of forgetfulness? haha.  
:-D

The basic idea is pretty simple, everything else stays the same, but China moves first in the turn order!
So in Global that’d be…

China, Germany, Russia, Japan, USA, UK/Pac, Italy, Anzac, France (then back to China)

I’m not saying that this change does away with the need for an Allied bid entirely, but it surely makes the bid range a bit narrower, and a lower. I mean if you can bring it down from 15, back into the single digits that’s a definite positive right? And China is a lot more fun to play this way. Its not like you’re getting “11 infantry in Yunnan”, but it does allow China to pull back and consolidate their starting forces, and build 1 round worth of additional units. It gives them their artillery in the first round, and bonus for control of the Burma road. What’s more it gives them a much better chance to secure their National Objective in subsequent rounds. This adjustment in turn order, also affords the Chinese an opening attack option in they want to get balsy!

The reason I really like this approach is because it doesn’t mess with the Europe side of the map (e.g it doesn’t break the med.) Doesn’t change the situation outside of the Chinese theater, since those units are restricted on where they can move. And most importantly, it gives Japan more to worry about. Sure, you’re probably going to kick a lot more ass as Allies if you give UK an extra carrier in the Med, but if that kind of bid strikes you as overly distorting you might try this instead. It’s pretty easy to implement and makes China a lot more effective as a player nation, which eases the pressure on the other Pacific nations. China has an advantage (over India) in that it can’t be strategically bombed or convoy raided into non-existence. Also, you can preserve the illusion that the OOB force distribution of units on the gameboard, actually corresponds to something in reality. As if the units OOB units where chosen for some reason by the designer, to be at least vaguely historical. This change in turn order of just one Nation, allows to avoid bringing too many extra units into the board outside of the normal purchasing/placement mechanisms. Its at least as easy to explain to your opponent as a standard bid, and if you still want to bid anyway, then go for it. But the change is so simple, and it really does give Japan more to chew on, and it seems like the Pacific side of the map is the one that is grabbing all the attention lately in terms of balance.

Also, for the history buffs…I feel like this tweak gives a slight nod to the fact that the War had been going on in China, even before all of Europe and the rest of the world was embroiled in the conflict.

“July 7, 1937 a day that lives in”… I don’t know, the first turn of G40 at least? hehe. There are crazy numbers of potential players in China. The materials are produced there more often than not. Why not roll the dice and see if a China first approach will work? Anathema to all Americans, like me! But in the game’s turn order I think it is kind of cool ;)

Yes it was the first thing I printed up to use looking for game aids.

They look really cool.

Everyone kept losing one or dropping them on the floor.
(I dont know how many times someone has picked up their box with the lid on and the bottom tray falls out and spilled the contents all over the place. I even have one friend that keeps finding a Japanese infantry months after we played at his house. :roll:)

We have set up a small separate table to keep our IPC chart away from the game board and for us the larger objectives with token markers sit out on either side of the IPC chart or can be placed next to the actual player needing to keeptrack of their stuff.

I guess this style just meets our individual needs.

Thanks I’ll have to run that by the group, it will change things a little.  That’s too bad that they let it out without a note in the rulebook or a better review of all the components
Tanks again

I have just finished two games of Pacific 40 w/ the alpha+1 setup rules and i need a few answers, really appreciate any help.

Is america supposed to collect all of thier no’s after there at war, europe ones included. I only ask this because i was japan for both games and i completely dominated the allies, and it wasn’t because poor plaiing by the allies they really had no chance.
                                                    Breakdown
Turn 3 japan finishes off the last of the chineese and have thier ships off the coast of mallay.
Turn 5 Japan wipes out india and remaining fleets, there are two now are positioned off of japan and iwa jima.
At this time the allies surrendered because japan now has twice the fleet of america and almost twice the ipc’s. (This game was over before it started and the second game followed the exact same course even with the allied players switching forces.

Is japan to strong with the alpha+1 setup, i know there weaker than oob but it still seams 1 sided to me, i mean it was a total massaccer.

Oh yea i even took french indo-china on the first round both games and didn’t get the ten ipc bonus. I need help to understand how how the allies have a chance

For my Pacific (Europe/Global soon too) I used some velcro.  A local craft store sells self-stick rolls that are 2" wide (and 25’ long!).

I cut the ‘hooks’ side down the middle (so there are 2 1" wide strips - leave the loops side 2" wide though) and I stuck three strips (about 10" long each to allow for the folds) on the back of each adjoining edge of the map.

I left plastic backing on the loops side and now I simply press the board pieces into place (like you used to do with floor mats in gym class).  The map is held together (both side-to-side and up/down) until you WANT it to come apart!