My brother-in-law and I have played 5 games of Axis and Allies. The axis has won 5 times. I have played axis 3 times and played poorly as at least one power each time, but what ends up happening is that Japan has complexes on the mainland in Asia and ends up overrunning any forces there before US or UK can put enough pressure on Germany (or create a situation in Asia that is to the allies favor).
Complex in India has been tried, and it slows the Japanese run into Asia, but then there isn’t enough pressure on Germany from Britain to slow Germany down from taking Moscow. I know that there is some kind of “kill Japan first strategy,” but I wondered how one went about doing that?
As the allies, I have tried a complex in India and managed to hold out against Japan for some time, but eventually Japan’s two complexes on the mainland out-produced my one complex. The US is two turns away from invading Europe or Japan, so Germany and Japan can always spend two rounds building up defenses to stop the US.
Last game I was the axis powers. I was getting my but kicked fairly well in Europe by Russia (yes, I played poorly as Germany) and ended up playing mostly defensively until Japan broke through into Russia and the US and UK couldn’t keep up with the infantry production of Germany (as they could never keep any footing in Western Europe or Southern Europe since they can’t really coordinate their attacks). My opponent thinks that a British complex in Norway is the way to go as the allies, but if I played Germany better, that doesn’t seem like a real threat (at one point I left my air force next to his stack-he killed it and just lost infantry to my 3 bombers and 6 fighters; my opening move I moved almost all possible ground units into Karelia-6 infantry, 6 tanks-and he destroyed that stack with only 2 infantry lost as I rolled poorly).