Does anyone know some good strategies for playing Italy without the pacific(focusing more on Mare Nostrum)

Ok, sounds like a lot of guys think it is not necessary to take London to win?
For sure you already have your “sealion” invading force on the board by turn 2 (as demonstrate by Siredblood) but i have to admit that 63 IPC for those 9 missing transports is a lot of money!

The main (and maybe only) reason why i thought about taking London (besides extra IPC) was to prevent US/ UK from using it as a launching platform to bomb/ invade mainland Europe by turn 5 and up!!

My current plan is this (almost cut/ paste from Siredblood’s Cobra-Kaï):
G1:
Eliminate Royal Navy in SZ106, 110, 111
Take France (leave normandy/ south France to Italy)
Ping-Pong Yugoslavia back in Romania (Leave it to Italy)
Barbarossa (Bessarabia + Eastern Poland)
Of course annex both Finland and Bulgaria
Build a Minor Complex in Romania (to pump tanks all along)
put a destroyer in SZ113 and regroup navy.
Italy 1
Buy 1 tank & 1 mech (to speed up with both tank from Albania/ North Italy and meet German forces near Bessarabia)

G2
Retake Bessarabia (unless Russian player is too dumb to give it a thought)
Take West. Ukraine
Strategic bombing of London
Move all my “Sealion” forces into West. Germany/ Germany (to "bluff away" Sealion)
Pump 3 tanks in Romania and keep all the rest of my IPC (42) to keep my opponent in the dark as much as possible!

G3
Take Ukraine
Drop 9 transports in SZ113 + 3 tanks in Romania
Italy 3
“can open” Rostov with tanks and all air force!

G4
Tank rush into Stalingrad with all tanks and air power (2 Tac, 2 Strategic)
“Sealion”! Bouum!
Pump 3 tanks in Romania and in Ukraine
Move back 6 of the 7 guys from Finland to Norway (will bridge to uk/ Scotland in T5)

G5
Rebuild forces in Stalingrad/ Ukraine, bring some planes
Strat bombing Moscow
Bridge some infantry from Norway to London and 1 to take Scotland
Buy a max of aircraft (strat. and Fighters)
Italy 5
“Regroup and can open” Tambov or Briansk with tanks and all air force!

G6
Moscow boum!

By then the Axis should have 8 victory cities (Italy’s role is to take Cairo and reinforce by turn 4 max)
I don’t even give a rat ass about Leningrad as it is already way too strong right off the bat!
Also on turn 6 i would start to take back infantry Eastern Poland/ Baltic states/ Romania that might be scattered to turtle them up on Warsaw!
At this point the goal is to hang on tight for 1 turn!

Of course all along Italy is putting 3 infantry per turn on South France and move them to Paris on turn5
Italy is also to put 1 destroyer in SZ92 on T4 simply to delay US and buy Axis 1 turn.

This strategy is stretched to the max and of course bad/good rolls might turn it into either a brilliant victory or a shameful beating!

Any piece of advise or parts that i am missing?

I usually figure half and hour to an hour per round as long as players have a concrete idea of what they want to accomplish and plan during other people’s turns.  So, the fastest game of Europe I have had so far was this last weekend, at 4.5 hours and 5 rounds.

I’m no veteran, but from my experience you can’t really focus on Sealion AND the Soviets.  Sealion OOB is really quite easy but then you’ve neglected the Soviets and turning your attention to that front while holding London can be difficult.  People have mentioned G4 attack on Soviets and had success but I’ve found with my own games that it’s difficult for me to take them out after waiting so long.  So that’s my suggestion, do one or the other, not both

@Ruanek:

@Gargantua:

Don’t ever capture paris - you’ll see why.

Advertise to your opponent, if you want to stress him out, all your “Possible angles” of attack…  all the territories you can take… he’ll likely try to underdefend everything, and forget what actually matters.

Why wouldn’t you take Paris?  It’s not really that difficult, and every turn you don’t take it you’re denying yourself France’s IPCs and letting them build up more (probably not a huge amount, but it’s so easy to stop early).

Depending on who you capture Paris with, when you do it, and when the Axis takes it back, it could be bad. For example, if Great Britain liberates France (their capital, not the other territories), Italy can ignore it. If the US doesn’t have a lot of units to reinforce it, France will collect their income of X IPCs. Then, on Germany’s turn, they can take France back, not only gaining back the income of the actual territory, but also getting all the IPCs that France is holding at that time.

first thing to do is you should take gib and look like you are going to liberate Nth Af and egypt then turn your forces to spain and then get germans to recall units from Britain who should look to place units in ontario early in the game if sealion is imminent so when the Germans get forced to tak units back from UK to defend france the UK can liberate itself and Germany is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If germany deal with the Americans the Brits are back int he war. If they retake Uk the Americans are attacking france and getting four extra inf to deal with not to mention french buying power. The Germans will be stuck and need Italian help which will be shucking across from Africa if the US has a mnr in Spain they can spend 9 ipc for 3 inf or 1 hit every turn resulting in a killer force that the Euro Axis can’t deal with and with The Mnr in spain you can then send some troops from the initial landing spot to liberate Nth Af and egypt allowing you to then put the pressure on Turkey which most likely has been used to get the 8 inf because the Germans need all forces to be around France and going to turkey would be a waste of a move as then they have to get the 8 inf to follow them back. The Brits being recently liberated should build mnr in egypt and use it to start attacking from the east relieving the soviets and allowing them to help put pressure on the germans and with three majors attacking them they will probably turtle allowing Italy to fall and you will end up with 4 allies(Because France will be liberated attacking Germany) The attacks will go USSR-UK-US-France so the Germans can’t rebuild after one round of combat. If it gets to this the German will surrender and the allies win. If playing a newbie he should only hold out for a couple of turns before the pressure starts. Especially since you will put a major in Rom or Nrwy

@MarkVIIIMarc:

Interesting about the American landings.  Do you think the Italy first strategy would have gotten better results?

That would have worked better than the landings on France. Italy was earning some 30 IPCs and was preparing to defend S. Italy from the US (it was sending a DD to block the US fleet from moving into the Med) but the US could have gained access easy. Another thing that he should have done would be to force passage through the Danish Straits by taking Denmark with the UK then sending an US fleet through it. Then Norway would be impossible to take back (bye bye Sweden NO).

@calvinhobbesliker:

It’s not that hard to roll dice. For example, to roll 2 infantry, a tank, and a bomber, you’d type : aaa 2@1 1@3 1@4 : without the spaces

DiceRolls: 2@1 1@3 1@4; Total Hits: 32@1: (4, 1)1@3: (1)1@4: (1)
This also tells you how many hits you got

Perhaps if my computer and board were in the same room I’d be willing to do it, but since they aren’t I would have to write all the rounds down on paper and THEN type it out on the computer.  I’ll probably just wait till my friends can get together to play it in person.  Unless there is someone out there willing to play an email game without all the rounds of combat being shown?

@The:

I agree. Wouldn’t want to give them any undeserved credit now, would we?  :lol:

Yeah, if they were actually trying to keep it a secret, then the whole world would know. :lol: