I wouldn’t worry too much about bidding at this point. Especially if you’re just a few games in. In the future someone in your playgroup might want to explore some additional options to improve the Allied game, but a bid really has more to do with “who” you are playing, rather than the objective starting conditions/balance. The level of confidence or perception of fairness they have about the balance, will help to determine whether a bid is needed, and if so, by how much.
What I mean is that, a bid is used primarily as a way to put both players on an even footing, to balance things out, according to skill level and familiarity with the game map among the players who are actually playing. The process comes to us from competitive play, where you really want either player to have a reasonable expectation they might “win” provided they play well. And that it won’t be some 7 hour uphill slog, where the best you can hope for is “not to die too soon!” :-D
But how the experts do things, only really matters if that’s who you are going up against. And remember that even experts can get it wrong for months, thinking one side has the edge, until someone comes along and shows them a new opening move, that blows their mind, bulldozes the entire strategic edifice to the ground, and resets everything back to square 1.
It usually takes at least a year, and at least a tournament or two for the top tier players to settle on a “fair” bid. Even then, sometimes the tables can turn unexpectedly. So its hard to know who to trust, beyond your own playgroup. A good place to get a feel for what’s common, is to check the play by forum section and see what sorts of bids players are using.
The method Zhukov outlined above is the most popular.
But a lot of it has to do with what victory conditions you are playing, and whether you’re limited by time to some set number of hours/rounds. The overall balance of power can shift, after Russia is eliminated, which means that if you are playing to concession, the game could go on for a very long time. On the other hand, if you’re in a tounament, there might be other limitations put in place, to ensure that the tournament resolves in an expedient amount of time. So again it depends on where you’re playing, and who you’re playing against.
The main thing a bid does, is to allow a way for players to choose sides based on their own assessment of game’s overall balance vs their own assessment of the opponent’s skill. So you could just as easily bid for the Axis, if your friend is brand new to A&A, and just really wants to play Germany for some reason. That would work well since the board is basically Axis advantage in the short term. You might even give them something extra to work with, to prevent an all out slaughter. ;)
When I play 1942.2 against the HardAI in tripleA I will give the Axis a bid. Not because I think the board is Allied advantage in general, but just because I know I can beat the AI too easily otherwise for the game to be enjoyable. Enjoyment is the key. You want both players to go into it feeling good about their prospects, rather than constantly lamenting “such and such” about how the boxed game is unbalanced by sides. If nobody has noticed or brought it up yet, I wouldn’t bother with bids until that point occurs. ;)
