@Stough if the Axis captures Moscow, India, China, and the Iraq before the Allies have a major threat to capture an Axis capitol, the Germans and Japanese can focus on the long-game plan of massive air force in Europe and massive navy in the Pacific. Eventually, a slight economic advantage will allow them to force the Allies to surrender.

If you can build 5 planes/round for Germany, the mobility will make the USA/UK position untenable as they can’t afford to protect Egypt, their W European beach head(s), and their fleet. The Allies will eventually quit without needing to actually capture a final victory territory. There won’t even be a major decisive battle for play-by-email games as you can carefully avoid any significant combat which would have disadvantageous odds. A bit boring, but effective.

I get around a 94% odds in the Taranto battle if you go all-in. Usually the Axis chooses not to scramble and either takes out the UK fleet with the Italians on I1 or the Germans on G2. The biggest question will be how many Axis planes are lost in the battles, with outcomes ranging from 0 to 5.

If half of the German air force is lost in the first couple of rounds, the game shifts dramatically with Moscow not being in danger for a much longer time and the Allies able to land forces in W Europe way earlier. In the OOB rules in PBEM games, the Allies are at such a massive disadvantage that they need to pray for an early turn dicing to have any chance of winning. Avoiding major conflicts just ensures that Moscow will fall around G6, followed by an inevitable economic victory for the Axis if they choose one of the long-term strategies like Dark Skies.

Get in big battles early if you are playing Allies and don’t wait until you have overwhelming odds, since that will never come against a strong opponent. Sometimes you have to opt for battles with only a 25% chance of a favorable Allied outcome since that can be as good as it gets.

I have seen an increasing number of top players focused on KGF with ANZAC turtling for much of the game. It truly is hard for Japan to capture Australia or Hawaii with just a little bit of USA assistance. Fighters are such a great unit since they provide so much protection on defense, can threaten fleets with a few sacrificial subs, and can strafe ground units. Never underestimate the strafe against Japan as ground units are so precious. Often I will sacrifice USA planes for Japan infantry. A 1:2 exchange can still be a strategic victory for the United States.

@trulpen depending exactly on how Italy tries to help out, there is about a 60% chance of capturing Moscow. Many of those statistical victories are Pyrrhic with too few ground units to continue protecting the Eastern Front from a UK counter-push. I would give him about a 30% chance to win Moscow and still have 10-20 tanks left to continue expansion towards the Middle East.

G9 is his most likely moment to capture Moscow until perhaps G14. I see a continued growth in allied defenses there as Russia adds another 10 infantry/turn and UK+USA can probably get another 4 fighters there / round. There is no way that Germany can devote another 32 attack points/round of additional forces there while trading off units in Scandinavia, the Balkans, and the Caucuses.

Hence his only choices for victory is a G9 desperation assault or a long-game economic win. In such a case the fastest way to gain income would be recapturing Scandinavia, capturing and holding Caucuses, and conquering China. The trifecta is likely required if he wants to make progress in unit value.

I reran the numbers and he actually could capture Moscow on G9 if he goes all out next round in preparation. He likely wouldn’t lose any of his air force during the raid, although insufficient ground units would exist to follow up for a run towards Egypt unless the dice heavily favor him.

The final push to the capitol would leave a big gap in the other fronts that the Allies would have three rounds to exploit. You would have room to establish a third beachhead in S France. I probably would take the gamble if I were Axis as there are few options to regain income now unless Moscow falls ASAP.

@trulpen Is moscow on the roadmap anytime soon? I don’t see that Germany+Italy can overcome the stalemate on the Eastern Front unless they get their income up. The only way to get that up is to reclaim Norway. The Med is lost.

I would attack Finland with ground troops and strafe Norway with the air force in the hope of getting lucky on G8. Perhaps send 18 mechs towards Greece that can be backed up with additional plane build. He needs to avoid the meat grinder in the Middle East.

Nice to see the Italian income finally reduced to a small value. I will be interested to see if Germany focuses on attacking Moscow, the Middle East, Greece, or Sweden. So many areas in trouble and only resources to focus on one at a time.

I don’t think that you are ready to yet take Greece. Normandy is a far easier place to hold since you can easily move UK fighters there to protect after an American invasion. Italy can be far more easily crushed with 6 Mediterranean subs convoy raiding them to death.

@crockett36 for noobs you can just hope that the opponent thinks that the Italian capitol is in Milan and he leaves Rome undefended. Or miscalculates with USA taking Denmark and UK capturing an undefended Berlin. One of these two strategies always works…

Honestly noobs turtle down so much that virtually any attack strategy will work since you will soon have a huge economic advantage.

You usually would launch your Australian invasion from SZ56, dropping off 3 or 4 transports of troops into W Australia. If you miscalculate, they get immediately strafed off the land by Allied ground forces+planes and your efforts are wasted. Alternatively, the Allies can pile all of their planes into NSW and move their fleet a safe distance away, such as Philippines or Korea. Very annoying for the Japanese player because so much of the Pacific has opened up.

You will have to move a sizable number of the Japanese airforce to reinforce the ground troops and threaten a more significant strike at NSW around turn 7. It probably will fall then, but China+India should be having success in the mainland, and the United States should have been able to make progress in whichever theater they focused on.

With OOB rules and no bid, this plan could potentially work. Having said that, a standard Axis strategy works 75% of the time so the only reason to try would be for the thrill of doing something new.