Well, it depends on the level of the allied players.  I can usually tell by my opponents uk1/us1 moves and buys whether I have a 100% to perhaps little over 50% chance to win the game, depending on bid.  A lot of players give the allies away at too high a bid, and take the allies at too low a bid.  All of this is much more important than if Germany decides to attack only one of the two szs.  :evil:

The problem with letting italy take bulgaria is that the uk will sometimes take greece with two units.  So, you have a stack of 6 units that cant be effectively countered for at least two rounds if uk smashed 2 italy trans. during uk1.  This costs Italy the NO for at least 1 or 2 rounds.  Germany may also have to divert forces to deal with this.

The axis has to be super aggressive to maximize their chance of winning.  By doing so, you force the USA player to sometimes make subtle purchase mistakes that can be exploited in a few rounds.  Only the USA can win the game for the allies.  So, I try to force them to make hard choices as early as possible.

The challenge of playing a tough opponent is fun.  Also, you might see some different ideas you can use in future games.

The fact that your opponent did a J1 attack on hawaii says it all.  That’s not the top opening for japan. 
if you want to see how your strat fares against an experienced axis player, we can schedule one.

Ichabod and I played the experimental bright skies game where he bought bombers only for the first 3 rounds for US.  The bombers definitely slowed Japan down as UK had Kwangtung and china had almost all the land from manch to fic and to the west at round 7 when the game ended.

The problem was that Germany and Italy combined to take Moscow on round 7.  Italy also moved strong into nw persia round 7 with German planes ready to reinforce it on round 8.  The game ended here.

Without US pressure, Germany and Italy were way too much for UK and ussr to handle.  Although Japan was weakened, they still had income of 43 from islands, fic and ne ussr lands.  Tokyo was under no threat to fall.

This was just one game under bright skies and the next game under these rules might be different.  But, without US pressure, Germany and Italy can steam roll USSR, which is what I’ve said earlier.

Also, if I had played Ichabod under normal rules where US can apply pressure in europe, the results might have been different and he could have very well beat me as his base strategy seemed solid.

If you check the dice stats in history, sometimes the air attacker and air defender rolls for factory raids happen and sometimes they don’t.  This is likely a triple a bug.  Can someone post this as a triple a bug?

Ichabod: I accepted and sent a PM to you.

Heh.  The US should never be able to completely switch to ger/italy without losing west australia permanently the next round against a good Japan player.  Alot of people post allied strategies here that work against weak players or if they get lucky against good players.  It should take a long time to beat a good axis player.

@Elsass-Lorraine:

@KGrimB:

@aagamerz13:

@Herr:

My specific reason for buying that sub is, to kill the SZ111 UK battleship G2, while keeping the German battleship alive. On G1, I like to to take out SZ110, but only strafe SZ111, and then retreat the German battleship. Ideally, this would leave the UK with only a damaged battleship in SZ111, and that battleship can’t escape from the range of the German sub and bombers. But I’d rather not loose a bomber when attacking the battleship G2, so that’s where the sub comes in.
If the strafe doesn’t quite go as well - say that the UK cruiser has also survived - then as Germany, I still have a fair chance of killing  both ships with 2 bombers plus the sub if the ships stay together. Or, if they split, I’ll probably just go after the battleship and leave the cruiser alone.

It’s always best to destroy the uk batt G1 even if you lose your own batt uk1.  The allies can easily make it so you either have a low odds fight g2 to destroy the batt or you have to use so many planes to scramble protect you are light in planes for other objectives like the med uk navy counter.  Also, the uk will likely use their destroyer as fodder in the counter against the batt and any surviving subs, which means when u destroy it g2,  if it happened to survive uk1, the sub u purchased g1 can take the 125sz NO from ussr without any counter.  Also, the uk will need to use planes with that destroyer to defeat the fleet left in 111, which means they might go a little light in some med battles, which can open up opportunities there for italy if you have above average dice in those battles.

Are you referring to ignoring sz 110 and instead of strafing 111 you suggest to take it instead?

If you ignore either SZ you�re leaving a battleship alive so probably that�s not what aagamer was going for.
However, responding to aagamer, I doubt that leaving a British BB alive would hurt you in the short term, especially if you can keep your own alive. There�s not much Britain can do with it early on, maybe it can go to the Mediterranean to help defeat Italy but britain usually is able to make Italy a non factor even without the BB.

Wipe out both 110 and 111.  That way, allies will only have a fleet if usa spends a lot for it.