Europe map

@Oyvind:

Could someone explain the “bid” in the first question?

It is a way of evening up the playing field when it is generally considered that one side has an advantage over the other. Using this as an example:

@Colt45:

Personally, i take Axis with a 3 bid otherwise il take Allies.

Colt45 554 has said that they’ll take Axis if they are given a bid of 3. This means that at the start of the game before the first turn they either get to put down units to the value of their bid, 3, in any of their territories, or accept 3 bonus IPC into one of their countries for spending at a later time.

In a general bidding arrangement, the opponent would have the opportunity to take the Axis for a bid of 2 if they thought they could win with that and that process repeats until a bid has been determined and teams are set.

A bid of 3 is considered a pretty well balanced game. I believe the current bid for 1940 Global is sitting between 20-30 for the Allies. We can read into that that people think that playing the game without bids leads to many more Axis wins than Allied wins by evenly matched players.

Hi L0ken, I’ve been trying for a while to find a copy of Europe that isn’t those crazy high prices you saw on ebay.  If you can let us know where to find it that would be great, or if you want to let me know how much you want for your extra copy that would also be fine by me.

I’ve been hoping to get it before a big board game part that I’m going to next weekend so e-mail really wouldn’t work for me, but let me know if you could do a faster transaction.

Thanks, and congraulations on your luck!

@LHoffman:

Interesting, yes… but I don’t think the similarity between the A&A game and Axis pact you reference is intentional. By that I mean it was a total coincidence. Taking into account all of the other errors in Pacific and previous versions, there is no way that the designers paid that much attention to detail. I bet it just looked like a logical place to split the board for them.

Yeah. I think they just split it where China ended, and that happened to be there.

Besides, 10 degrees is a large error.

It doesn’t really matter to me if the US is a match because I would not think of playing a game like that, however it would be cool to see it from that view.

@idk_iam_swiss:

happy now?

yes, very

Can we combine this with A&A on a Colonial Diplomacy map and play global?

@Yoper:

I gave you the answer that I feel he will give you since it is similar to that which I believe he has given before.

Plus, it is better if you do the asking.  If you feel that it is a big deal, then take the time to ask a thoughtful question of him on his site and he should answer you.

Maybe I will. Who is the moderator on that site?

Meh, really, it simply depends on the Axis’ focus on any particular game.  It looks like Russia only gets a crappy +5 NO once it is at war with the Axis, so compared to pissing off the Americans, war with Russia (only) would be a much more palatable option for Japan.  18 land units, while it is quite a lot, would not be expected to be massed together right at the border with Japan, so they could be picked off a bunch at a time, and definitely doable if Japan gets a major industrial complex in Asia (which it probably will in most games).  Plus, Moscow it so far away that sending reinforcements east is probably not Stalin’s top priority, so Japan could hold onto the Russian IPCs for a long time, gaining back whatever the cost was in killing the units over 3-4 rounds.

Also, it is subterfuge to some extent; forcing the Soviets to respond to threats on their eastern front would pull some attention (and troops) away from the western front, which would help Germany and Italy pull off a successful Sea Lion AND Barbarossa in turn.  Kinda of like not letting your left hand knowing what the right hand is doing.  However, with a Sealion going into action on Round 3 or 4, Japan may be forced to focus entirely on eliminating India so that the UK is incapable of sending reinforcements anywhere else.

I’m wondering what Italy will be required to take in the Med to stop UK air from reaching England.  Definitely Gibraltar and Malta, and all of the African coast, excepting Egypt maybe.  Italy has its hands full.  Maybe it would be best for Germany to ditch Sealion and just go after the Med early and take what it can get?