The map showed up in the mail Saturday about 1pm. It was a Chrismas miracle! LOL. We got it set up and went over some gameplay details and got some gaming in yesterday -about 8hrs worth.
There are a few questions I have reguarding the game balance.
1) unit placement: Russia can effectively place 20 newly purchased units and rail 20 more to any given production center. Holy crap! How does Germany ever take more than one major VP city in Russia? A good Russian player seems to be able to handle the Whermacht every time.
2) Japan has no money! Until they DoW the Western Allies, they are stuck around 20. They don't seem able to ever get above 40.
It has only been 1/2 a game played, but balance seems to be in the Allies favor. By a lot. Sure mistakes can be made and such, but really good players seldom make those kind of mistakes.
I read a bunch of after action reports today from your website. Seems Eric wins whatever side he plays, lol. I avoided the pitfalls that a lot of the other allied players did not in most of those games. We acclimated to the rules awfully quickly, there were very few violations, and none which we could not quickly correct.
I guess I'd like to know if you guys agree the balance is pro-allied too. I'm ok with that, we could easily play with some sort of a bid, like giving japan/germany/italy a free factory, extra units at start, fewer victory city requirements, etc.