@teslas:
This is all very standard stuff. I do very much the same most games if I am going for the throat. Outside of extremely bad dice luck, or UK putting nearly 100% of its economy into fighters sitting on Moscow (and even then…), a G6 Moscow is quite possible. An I6/G7 Moscow is basically guaranteed.
I usually don’t end up taking Moscow until G9 or G10. But he’s making under 15 income several turns before that so it’s a matter of convenience. Since you can finish him off at your leisure, there’s no need to sacrifice position elsewhere to rush it. And if UK panics and dedicates his whole production to shipping fighters there, great! That’s production that is not able to be useful in any other way, so it’s not being efficiently used against Axis.
Germany:
Why take Greece as Germany? Is it merely to help Italy? Judging by your comments about them, probably not.
The tanks you could potentially afford to send down there because they can make it back into Russia in time to be useful, but sending the Bulgarians means those guys are never making it to Moscow until G8 (one round after the potential 12 far est ruskies show up). Is the gain of 2 IPCs/turn for Germany/Italy worth the loss of 5 infantry for your Moscow crash (or the threat of a crash while you duck south and grab Volgo/Caucasus)? Is the main reason just to make sure you don’t give the allies a juicy landing point later in the game?
I have Germany do it since Italy loses their transports before they can get to it and I’d rather Italian slow units opening cans than being extra turns behind. Germany can afford for the Greece attack to go poorly but Italy cannot, so this plays into my risk aversion. Also, I’m not in a rush to kill off Russia at any particular time so there’s time for those inf to play catch-up. You need a few spare inf to picket Belarus and other territories and they can get to those places when you need them, even while they are a move or two behind the main stack.
Italy:
Standard. Tanks/mechs I1/I2, then turtle up hard. Even buying planes to support the can opener is possible I3/I4 if the allies are nowhere to be found in Europe. I try to let Italy grab as much land in Russia as it can (exempting the mICs and victory cities).
I’ve been buying a fighter for Italy on I1 but a tank/mech would probably fit better, that’s a good suggestion.
Japan:
Why not do most of this J1?
I don’t do it on J1 because I don’t have the transports to move enough units to create the follow-up threats on J1, so it is riskier and less solid in my opinion. Being risk-averse, I try to have a robust enough position that it can sustain getting diced once in a while, since that is inevitable. Odds become much better on J2; with the air pre-positioned, all the attacks are overkill attacks and getting diced is less likely. Waiting a turn also makes it much less likely that the US will build full-Pac and extends the time that Japan has a free hand.
The US needs minimum 2 turns of building to create a threat in one theater or the other. If they split then they don’t have threat in either. In the absence of J1 the US usually builds Atlantic, and of course it takes a move to position the US threats, so Japan doesn’t need to deal with it until as late as J6. If they build Pac anyway, Japan can efficiently stall the threat for a long time; build carriers and pull back air to protect them, as you don’t need much air on land past J3, DDs to block and limit US threat to air only, and subs to kill off his blockers to make him deal with the counterthreat to Hawaii from your growing SZ6 defensive stack.
Japan getting to 68 production on J3 means you can full-build tanks/mechs in FIC and still have enough to defend even a full-build US pac strategy for a very long time. Japan’s expeditionary fleet never gets more than 2 moves from returning to SZ6, so bringing it back to allow your full fleet to counter a move to the Carolines stalls him further if need be.
If US does full-build Pac, Japan can’t be quite as aggressive, but Germany can be more aggressive and kill Russia off faster, as it doesn’t need to repel the US from Western Europe. Italy can also consider building ships and reviving its Med game in that case. Alternatively, Germany can start adding subs to raise the cost of the eventual US entrance in the Atlantic theater, which is an efficient delaying tactic.