I haven’t noticed that about infantry. No, I mean, I’ve seen the AI buy a lot of infantry, but it’s usually in situations where I, too, would buy infantry. Russia buys inf; as does Germany and Japan. The US doesn’t, though. Britain does sometimes, but usually they go for a navy, as they should.

The biggest weakness I see is that the AI buys a lot of transports and sometimes leaves them undefended. As Germany I’m often able to keep the Allied navies in disarray for 10+ turns without major aircraft losses, when a human player could’ve made a solid fleet I couldn’t attack (or could, but at a cost of most of my planes) by turn 3 or 4 at the latest.

I’ve also never seen the allies pull off the US planes landing on freshly bought UK carrier.

I tend to plan with a bit more involvement than simply “see IPCs, must take”. :) The chief consideration for me is not the weight of one particular territory or its nationality, but the strategic situation taking it will create.

For instance, you mentioned the choice between taking Sinkiang and India. Sure, one is 2 American IPCs and the other 3 British and based on that consideration alone I should strike India, but look at where it will put my forces if I take Sink. Right smack under Russia. Sudenly the Russians will have a few more threatened territories and since I know they don’t usually have infantry to spare, if I have at least one armor in my force, I can blitz some of those IPCs. Even without armor, I can draw some of their forces out. If I have another force working up to Russia’s capital, that’ll be a nice help for them. If I don’t, presumably Germany does.

India, on the other hand is a nice choice because it will open the way to mideast territories that are usually ill-protected. It may make strategic sense to take if it is not too heavily defended. If it is, an attack there will be diverting a large force into a very bad position where it will have nothing to do for the next 1-3 turns.

In Africa, I don’t see how it matters that much if you hit UK or US territories. Both of them are overseas, so those IPCs would arrive on transports exactly one turn after being built anyway. So, when I do look at nationality, I mostly differentiate between Soviet and non-Soviet.

I, too, play the Hasbro’s version of A&A. I do lose to the AI sometimes, though. Like you, I only play as one nation, which can be a huge cripple in the case of Allies. The AI is simply not smart enough to cooperate with you like they should and the weight of just one Allied nation is not always enough to win if the others mess up. I’ve had, for example, Russia throwing a stupid “counterattack” onto a German territory and burning half of their infantry this way. Naturally, two turns later Germany took their capital and it was game over. As UK in that game, there was little I could do to stop it. I’ve seen the US and UK completely ignore Europe and Africa, instead building a horde of transports and using them to shuffle units between Canada and Britain, while I did my best to hold Russia and smartly counterattack against Japanese when I could, using the space in Asia, but eventually got overwhelmed as well.

The Axis nations are a pleasure to play as though. :) Both of them are isolated and have fairly little interaction except that they both need to make an effort against Russia. Japan especially can become so powerful by itself that short of Germany doing something incredibly stupid it’s hard to lose.

I guess it’s a possibility, but think of all you’d be giving up by keeping 5 fighters and a bomber in useless transit for the first three turns.

No Pearl Harbour, for one. That means in addition to what the allies build in Europe and bring over, you’ll also be looking at an extra carrier, fighter and sub.

Without those fighters and a bomber Japanese advances on the mainland will be slow. Mostly, I find, Japan does so well in Asia not because it’s particularly strong in land forces, but because of its large airforce, which can easily be shifted wherever it’s needed on that huge continent. Take it away like you are suggesting and Japan will be facing all those assorted infantry units on much more even footing. The result is that US, Britain, and worst of all USSR will get to keep a lot of production. This move may delay western reinforcements for Russia for a little bit, but Russia itself will have a lot more units to throw at you.

That Germany lost all of its air force isn’t going to help them in taking Karelia either.

So, I’ve never this strategy either, but something about it sounds wrong to me. It’s giving the Allies too much of a break with those Japanese air assets out of action.

What do you guys think about this additional victory condition for the Allies (and Axis too, I guess)? Instead of just declaring Allies or Axis a winner of the game, the winner is instead just one nation - that which has the most income after the opposing camp is defeated. So, if Germany and Japan are beaten, but Russia took all of Europe, the other Allies probably lose, and similarly for the other nations.

What I think this will make for, practically, is somewhat of a reluctance to cooperate between Allied players. On one hand, you want your allies to beat the mutual enemies, but on the other you don’t want them to win too strongly. For one, this will help the Axis, who are largely confined into two independent theaters and wouldn’t change their strategies too much as a result. And the Axis need help, it seems, to make the game more balanced. It would also create an interesting spirit of competition between players within the same camp.