I ll put in a bit of strategy in our gamegroup.
Ill try ot put up the germany strategies:
First barbarossa.
In short the war on russia is either round 2 or 3 and seldom 4. Round 4 war on russia is when you try to hold the russians as bay and spend your resources on other things.
First principle:
The key to barbarossa is who controls easter poland, if russia manages to push you off this square you ll be in big trouble. But this is up for german player to decide since they spend the money on enough boots on the ground in order to control the square. From this square all manouvers as germany begins.
In order to win this battle you need to calculate 2 rounds in advance since you see the russian troops standing on the field and also the amount that is walkng towards you. If oyu cut it short first round you need to seriously pull in more then him for the next round in order to be able to stand there anyways.
Remember that he can get in 3 extra from leningrad buying takns also he can build loads of mech one lap and get in 20 untis very quickly. So you need to have a solid grip on the square.
Second principle:
You cant just run in and smash moscow, even though you have a extra +5 ipc from controlling france (our house rule). You have to starve the russiand before commencing the final assault.
The best ways to starve russia is to deny the russians their warbonus and taking 4-5 ipc with Japan on the far east. The war bonus is easiest denied with buying a destroyer and place it on zone 125. Forcing USSR to kill it with planes or not having the bonus. If you havent a use for your BB Cruiser add it up there 4 hp is a lot for british planes too.
Thrid Principle:
Do you go for a offensive war or a defensive one?
A defensive war is when you expect heavy allied push into europe, the key of defending as germany then is a factory in Finland. If you lose norway you lose loads of income and also a american norway factory (that can be upgraded to a big one) is only conutered by raising berlin and pulling up loads of infantry and hope Japan becomes a monster.
Key here factory in Finland.
Offensive war: Different paths.
In order to go to war round 2 you need to do the yugoslavian jump with your inf and put up factorys.
Here there is a lot of options: 1 rasie berlin reliy heavily on mechanized in order to pump into eastern poland. This is a expensive strategy but your strategic plan is when you reach 25-30 mech is that italy opens to leningrad or south russia this depends on russian players setup he chose to defend north or south. And then your bulk of mech goes where russians isnt (most often south). The key of raising Berlin here is that if you go south with your mech you can still defend berlin if the russians move onwards.
The other option is to do a ultra push:
That is to maximize the amount of troops that can hit R4 on belarus. (buy 1 DD, 2 inf berlin, 1 art berlin, 3 mech West germany), do yugoslavia jump. R2, go towards east poland, build a IC in poland, and romania. Build 8 mech 2 tanks. Then on round 4 you got a nice attack on belarus and you got 2 factories on the front pushing the russiand back.
Round 3 war: here one can go with 3 small ic in finland, poland, romania. Then get a bulk of inf/art into eastern poland, this is a slow strategy that is bit though if allies go all in europe. But hey then you got a defensive factory in finland that defends norway (also you got a indirect threat on russia if he decides to go for your finland factory by pushing the middle).
Another strategy is to go with transports on round 2 and few small factories in poland (romania?).
This strategy is based on forcing and keeping leningrad by shipping in units to leningrad and putting pressure on the center. This is best combined with a DD, IC poland R1 and war on R2 (yugoslavian jump).
I’ve never played with it so the details are not upto what I want to present as a strategy.
Alternative strategies:
One of them is relied on building the yugoslavian factory and maybe building a carrier R1. This puts a lot of ipc on the sea so a defensive russian campaing is a must against a good russian player.
In the yugoslavian strategy and the carrier pulling the german northenfleet down to gibraltar and into mediterrean
is that UK london cant build a IC in Egypt without you having the option of smashing it. Since you can pull in 2-4 german transports and air onto alewxandria.
Now this implied threat is better then actually building the transports so one of the better uses of the yugo factory is to pull in one transport and then pull in troops into eastern poland which is the key defence square for you to fend of the russians. This takes a lot of calculations in order to pull off since you must control EP and this is depending on the losses of air and troops in germany R1/R2.
In this plan you want to lower UK londons income a lot and subs in canada is a good start (having lost few troops in france and air on sea and having 2 subs alive outside canada is probably a must for this selection to be a good plan).
The fleet on gibraltar is quite annoying for US since you can hit panama and let a japanese fleet sail into the atlantic. Another idea is to have low planes count on the fleet and let japanses planes from Zone 11 land on this carrier.
It can also obviously hit canada (this manouver sux and should not be mentioned) and washington etc. Both these plans can be blocked by US but still it foreces him to do something and sometimes they bungle up later on since people get tired under constant longterm pressure.
Turkey smash:
This is a R3/R4 german strategy: Build a factor R2 on finland, yugoslavia and romania.
Place bulk of mech in bulgaria on R3, the inf close to eastern poland. You need serious low losses in paris, air on sea for this one also you need to do calculations on mech/tank combos and how to check eastern poland the key square on russiand front).
Build a few artillery in finland, every round in order to take sweden. Set up japan with a attack on mongolia (probably a factory in manchuria).
R4 smash turkey and build a factory in grece, go south, use italian fleet to hit caucasus and try to force turkey.
Tactics:
I like the following attacks (the buys are strategy dependent in order to do the strategies above you have to amend your buys from R1).
Hit all in on france with landforce.
On sea:
2 subs on Canada transport/destroyer
1 sub 1 figther on zone 109 (outside UK).
1 sub on each battleship have 3 planes on both these battles.
Situation dependent hits:
Yugoslavia if germany wants to go yugoslavia factory they need to win here, and then R3 war with russia is earliest option). If they go for R2 barbarossa aim for 3 hits and retreat inf artillery from Germay to russian front. Let italy take bulgaria and use those 4 inf to take grece for you.
If you go carrier then hit with one plane on the double cruisers outside denmark and your fleet, if they socre double tap take cruiser or plane depending on situation (and opposition!!).
Else leave these (buy a sub so you can hunt them lateron).
If oyu leave the cruisers you got a spare plane, use it either on the Battleship/cruiser combo outside scotland or put in a tactical bomber into paris battle (saving you on average 3 ipc).
