If Germany comes straight at you with everything it can (the G1 Romania Factory buy is a big clue), then you will need to be conservative and that means not buying “luxury” units (anything but the cheap stuff), making spoiling attacks, or splitting your stack in multiple directions in order to retake your shrinking money supply.
In the Global version, you do get the 37 IPCs (most versions its 24 or less) and there are some ways to make that bigger
- take Iraq with a special expeditionary force, since you get the $3 NO bonus. Problem is that the UK has 2 chance to take it before you have 1, and it may require a dice battle in order to win it with Russia, also diverts key mobility units.
- take scandanavia at some point. This is really tempting because you get the bonuses and your other allies can help. the problem is the geometry of spaces up there and the german Baltic fleet trap the Russians in scandananvia away from their capital
- Novosibirsk is lost. You can’t really hold or retake St. Petersburg from the Germans, unless they make a mistake. If somehow you can make this battle difficult or impossible, do, but it wont be easy.
4) once China is gone, you’re cooked because youre double teamed and backdoored. An early and ongoing intervention in china by USSR and UK is great, but you need to dedicate and focus all 5 of your eastern teams to stop Japan. Remember there is no consequence for Russian declarations of war against Japan (only crossing the border loses your Manchurians), so the Russians can freely enter china by declaring an early war. The UK can too, but they have to step up and they lose the ‘trigger’ that brings USA into the war.
5) Work your convoy NO. A smart german will fight for this.
- if Japan doesn’t take your east, you’re better off than in most games
The retention of the 7 income from the Russian east, 5 from Iraq and 5 from the convoy NO can make the difference between triumph and defeat.
Brining in a holy-heck stack of fighters from the other allies by Turn 5 is awesome. Many AAA games have Moscow turtled past turn 8 with a jumble of other Allied efforts to relieve/protect Moscow.
You probably can’t stop Russia from getting shredded but you have to stop Germany from taking your $$, they typically conquer Moscow just in time and use that $100 payday to end any hope of Western Allied relief…
American needs to cross knowing that it will face around 8 small planes and 5-7 strategic bombers, a navy worth at least 12 hits will be required to stick together, though it can be made of UK and US units. If you are uncertain that you can withstand the concentrated attack of the Axis, then don’t put all your transports in one pile where they all die; spread out the risk. Be careful using screens/blockers because Italy can kill them (sometimes very far away using purchased Strat bombers) before Germany attacks…