G1 I buy a CV and 2 transports and follow the plan Afrika Korps laid out in his posts: taking France and Normandy, strafing (or just outright taking) Yugoslavia, and sinking UK ships in 110 and 111. For the noncombat I take the two pro-Axis neutrals and send 4 inf. from S. Germany to N. Italy for eventual pickup. Italy’s turn is just a toss up as they usually only have the one transport left, two if the UK rolled poorly in Taranto. But I try to take Greece on I1 and sink the French ships while doing the standard moves in N. Africa.
G2 I buy inf., mech., and armor for Barbarossa, and for combat I take Gib. and Morocco with 3 inf., an art., and 2 tanks, and I take S. France. In the noncombat phase set I up for Barbarossa with the land units I have in the east as well as send the 4 infantry in N. Italy to S. France for a G3 shuttle. I2 I take Algeria and Egypt if the UK is struggling to maintain a strong presence (bad rolls and spread out units).
From there it is less scripted. Germany will buy a destroyer in the Med, likely a bomber or two here and there to keep pressure on the UK factories and any navy, and a steady stream of mech and tanks for the Eastern Front. Finally on G4 I can land my units in Syria or TJ, and push for Iraq and beyond. Italy rebuilds a navy with transports to ferry infantry and art. to Egypt to retain the VC and support Germany where it can. Some games I buy a MIC on Egypt as a supply chain investment.
The Allied strategy is relatively basic in the grand scheme of things. UK does Taranto, takes Persia, and sets up a few units to deal with the Ethiopian units while not leaving Egypt completely undefended (leave the inf. and ANZAC inf.). From there push units west from Persia and north from S. Africa and wait for American pressure in the east. My main issue as the Axis is not with the UK but dealing with the Russian wall. Most traditional Barbarossa campaigns get to Leningrad by G4, and have the units to push past that with limited risk of losing major stacks or armor and mech. For these games though, the money I put into reinforcements for the Med (the inf. from S. Germany, the units in the transports in G2, and the planes) really make the Leningrad battle more dicey with more losses. The Russians can easily have over 20 inf. with supporting planes and armor by G4, and if Germany gets past that, it is only because Romania is stripped and poorly defended. Maybe I am just doing Barbarossa wrong, but I find that the game will usually end with Germany and Italy doing well in the Med, but with the Americans taking Gibraltar (though not breaking through the Axis navy I station in 92) and the Russians pushing into the Balkans and maybe the Nordic territories. Germany simply doesn’t have the resources to back up its Med investment and take Moscow, and Italy has little say in how Barbarossa goes if it too is focused on Egypt/Iran.
I am not a top-tier player by any means, and would love to get some feedback on how to improve the maneuvers here. Thoughts?