German focus?

If you are playing Revised with a bid then one possibility is to add a 2nd G transport to the Med fleet instead of adding units to Libya/Algeria. It doubles the transport capacity and can make the Russian player weary on an amphibious attack on the Caucasus/Ukraine.
Like mentioned above the drawback is that additional units sent to Africa won’t be used on the Eastern front and the 2nd transport will be sunk with the rest of the fleet if the Allies decide to do so.

A)  As for the submarines, part 1 applies.  Let the submarines die so your surface ship gets more shots at the British air force (which I view as their navy, given that they are an island.)

B)  Given the location of Western Europe, leaving the fighters there makes the best sense.  They prevent the British from landing (and the Americans in round 2+) while still being used to pound the Russians.  Again, part 1 applies until Japan is in position to take over, then Part 2.  4 Ground units should be fine round 1, but review the board each round and up the defense as needed.

C) In general, keep parts 1 and 2 in your mind and act accordingly to the position on the board.  If you need to pull of Russia and start turtling in round 5, do it.  If you dont need to until round 7, then dont.  But certain things always apply:

1)  never let the Allies have Western Europe.
2)  Never let the Allies get Southern Europe
3)  Is self explanatory, derive from 1 and 2.
4)  Geramny’s goal is to inflict damage, Japan’s goal is to take Russia.  Not a hard and fast rule, but a good guideline.
5)  If you go navy with Germany, you will have to keep building up to keep it.  Personally, I dont recommend it unless you are strong with Japan.
6)  Tanks are good defenders.  I like stacks of 5 or 6 infantry and a tank in forward areas against the Russians.  It’s big enough that Russia has to invest heavily in winning, but small enough that Germany can recover the losses. (It’s economics, like the cold war.  Spend them into submission!)

@U-505:

I see no reason to use the bomber for SBR’s except when you are losing badly and you need to gamble. It is much more useful as a long range 4 based out of Southern Europe so it can threaten just about anything worth killing.

YES! the BOM is extremely versatile. I use it mainly in North Africa to support operations there and to give naval operations a boost. It never hurts to use it as ground support for a while and then when Germany starts to get a little fatter or thinner in the IPC realm then think about using it as an SBR. I’ve also found that using it in conjunction with submarines, depending on the game, is a great deterent to the US player wanting to use TRNs to invade N. Africa.

You definitely need the AC in a move to SZ3.  Otherwise UK can destroy you with just their AF.  If they have a BB to absorb damage, you could lose the Baltic Fleet potentially w/o loss to UK.

AC UK1 is standard for me, maybe UK2 but even if Germany don’t buy ftrs the UK fleet can be easily sunk.

There are a few threads already posted on bidding and how to do it…

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=1146.0
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=5580.0

Those should get you started.

You can also read the essays on the subject at DAAK
http://www.daak.de/indexe.php?sprache=e
(click DAAK-club rules along the left side, bidding is the second topic that will come up in the main window)

That should get you up and running.

If you still have questions after reviewing those, please feel free to ask :-)

My opening German move to attack UK fleet is ussually kinda like this (the availability of my fighters depends on russian player of course…)

Sub z8 attacks z2 along with Bomber from germany, fighter norway.  (a bit risky move i know…)

Battleship z14 to z 13 along fighter from france

Transport z 14 to z 15 along fighter from balkans,

What i buy is situated to the actions of the russian player, but either i go a battle ship and 3 tanks, or 8 tanks or 6 tanks and a transport to put in italy…  Option on 4 tanks and a transport (italy) and a destroyer (baltic sea) have crosed my mind…

Any thoughts?

Mayhem, we too play with NAs. Actually we did two games in a row with all NAs. On the first game, Germany bought 1 AC and 3 subs on G1. That left him with very little ground force but he just held his cocoon and on G2 built just INF and ART to compensate. In the end, Axis won the game and the subs made the Allies loose at least 60 IPC through the course of the game (which wasn’t very long, maybe 7 turns). Plus the allies were always threatened by a mighty fleet of 1 AC, 1 DD, 5 subs (attacking on 3s), and 2 trannies (one of which was built later on) plus all german air force.

In our second game, Germany made a G1 purchase of 1 AC and 8 INF. Every turn thereafter Germany purchased 1-2 subs. The end results was the same, an Axis victory, but it was a lot safer against Russia with the additionnal 8 INF on G1.

No matter if you play with NA or not, a G1 buy of an AC is HIGHLY recommended.