You can play on GameSpy (last I checked) but there are very few players there…
As far as the Germany pile-on strategy, it is basically an easy strategy that doesn’t require a lot of thought and is solid if unspectacular. It will win a few games, leading the people that do it to think they are clever strategists. What it really does is put all the pressure for the Axis on Japan and therefore the Japan player has to be pretty active in order for the Axis to win.
One thing to do, heathbar is think of the game in naval terms–UK/USA/Japan have it (and depend on it), Germany and USSR don’t. The only way USA/UK can put pressure on you (aside from a buildup in USSR or by airraids) is to build fleet units to attack you, so the easiest way to prevent that is to block their fleets. But this is hard to do for Germany because they are not essentially a naval power, so have to rely on expensive FTRs rather than less-expensive SUBs and more efficient CVs: often if you try to float any of these they are immediately sunk and HUGE IPC investments lost.
You definitely need to take over Africa, but this will get difficult when the Allies sink your navy. One thing you can do is have Japan sieze India w/ support of 1/2 her navy and then sail thru the Suez–now you’ve got a more substantial Navy in the Med which helps to threaten the Allies’ TRs–it also makes it less risky to build a few SUBs when they have a force defending them–a few SUBs, if they survive the trip to the Atlantic and combined w/ air power, can majorly disrupt Allied invasion plans and are a LOT more cost-effective for this purpose than just FTRs.
Most importantly, don’t let the Allies get off with an easy trade: if there is NO PRESSURE on Japan, they should have to suffer for it–Japan should take advantage quickly and start attacking in Asia and linking up w/ German forces to help them out.