I said allies mostly, because we haven’t finished all the games. We’ve played 6-7 games and the allies have pretty much dominate them all. I think the allies have too much of a sea advantage, and can move units too freely. The French fleet is over sized, and needs to be cut back some. UK spends in India is out of control, and needs to be limited. I agree the way that the French can ratchet up their income even though they have lost 1/2 their European lands is very unsettling (and the UK can get a healthy income boost when it spends in India).
We have done some good things with the CP though, and will be looking to see the next game through to the end. I think we may be pulling the plug a bit early, and maybe the CP can get its second wind after the allies go on the offensive for a while and have trouble with thier own supply lines (although the allied navies will most likely fix that).
The CP put Russia into a 5th turn revolution in our first game, but the cost was to severe as both the Austrian/German armies were wiped out doing it, and the western allies were approaching Berlin in force. It would have taken them at least 4 rounds to take it, but the CP income was plummeting.
In another game we had the Germans go 90% Paris (10% aid to the Russian front), and the Austrians did the opposite, 85% dig in to defend against the Russians, and 15% follow Germany to the west. The Austrian army hit Venice A1 with all 16 units (13 survived), but bailed on me and headed back to Austria when Italy bought a couple transports and made multiple landings in the Balkans (with some help from the French). The Austrians were stretched in the beginning, but they eventually over came the Russians. As it turned out the French can mount a hell of a defense by themselves too (all inf buys, and pull back to Paris). The UK went hard India the first 3 turns, then started making some landings on the French coast. My Germans attacked Paris, but it would have taken 3 rounds to drop it, and the UK/Italy were there to either move in to defend Paris after my first assault, or liberate it if I did get it (so it was pointless).
I think the Germans going hard France, and the Austrians going hard Russia might work, but you should have a small 12 unit ally force with you to head off trouble, or back you up, and the Germans need to keep a steady supply chain going, or attempt to stop UK landings. I think we focused a bit too much on def against the Russians, because the Austrians were eventually able to over power them, and push them back, but the Germans were pretty much out of steam in the west by then.
In our next game we are probably going to change the French sz 15 naval set up to just a cruiser (swap BB for cruiser, and remove the transport).
We are also house ruling a production limit of 8 units in India (2X its IPC value). It’s not much of a change but in one game the UK spent all income there for 3 turns (30+ units). 8 per turn would at least cut it down to 24 units over the 3 turns (we’ll see how it goes).