For a while, 1941 was the first and only game of A&A I owned, and I tried going deep into it with strategies, variant setups and all that stuff. It really doesn’t work with this game, the mechanics are just too small. Sure you can have basic stuff like “Russia should occupy West Russia and buy Infantry,” or “Germany shouldn’t do Sea Lion,” strategies, but if you play it for the chess like strategies, then you’ll quickly get bored. And once you figure out that Japan’s only purpose in the game is to maybe take Moscow, the Pacific becomes extraordinarily boring.
1941 is a fun game by its own terms; definitely offers a more realistic play time, and far easier to teach. However, if you’re looking for the type of game you can write strategy guides for, look into Anniversary Edition or 1942 Sec Edition if you haven’t already (or if you’re crazy like me, 1940 Global). 1942.2 is interesting because it’s a lot like this map (especially in Eastern Europe, the West Russia strategy holds true) except more detailed, but I’d say the Anniversary Edition is the superior of the two.
Also, I have no idea where I found it, but I stumbled across a 1942 variant for this game if you’re interested.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bjDZwCuQ04cONaGwlQsAqIKt8BkkrJ1quEerHfufaMs/edit?usp=sharing