I had never attempted it, so I built the Minor IC for Japan on the mainland (Manchuria). Ends up this is better than Korea because I believe only the Chinese can take that IC and they can’t utilize it anyways.
I moved almost the entirety of Japan’s aircraft to support units moving across Eastern Russia after denying the Chinese the Burma Road for 2 or 3 (I forget now) turns. After that I ignored the Chinese and focused on defending Tokyo and advancing to Moscow. Japan had good success on J2 of removing the majority of the Allied fleets from the Pacific - with the exception of the US fleet that found its way to Sydney. US did make a move on Tokyo, but I got my fleet back in time and was able to sink the fleet. The US then abandoned the pacific, but not before sending a bomber from Hawaii to SZ6 to destroy my 6 undefended Trn (Aircraft were not on Tokyo) and land on a Mongolian territory.
Germany sent primarily stacks upon stacks of Infantry towards Moscow in a long drawn out process. I supported their advances with Ftr/Tac or Bomber combinations and one stack benefitted from a stack of 9 Tanks with a few TacB on them. Russia had an issue where a counter attack weakened its stacks punching power against my large infantry stacks, but if it tried to defend, Germany had plenty of infantry being supported by aircraft to roll over it.
Italy collected at one point 41 IPC, but was largely irrelevant in the advance on Moscow, and instead assisted Germany’s defense of Paris and W.Germany (I lost it and had to reclaim it). The combined moves of Italy and Germany were able to repel (after losing) Normandy and Holland multiple times. I thought to do it but missed the opportunity to disable the NB in Gibraltar with Italy which allowed the US to get into W.Germany.
In the end, Italy held Egypt, and Rome. Germany held Berlin, Warsaw, Paris, Leningrad and took Moscow. Japan held Stalingrad. That was the VC Victory.
Moscow was not possible to take down in one round, but between SBR runs from both Japanese and German Bombers I was able to cut down their production immensely and after 3 rounds of ground units supported by aircraft the double hits from Japan and Germany burt Moscow down. I don’t know if Russia got lucky or not, but I lost half my Bombers on the SBR runs over 3 rounds of it.
The Allies made one more move to reclaim a VC (Paris) after I ignored the invasion force that landed on Normandy and instead stacked 10 Inf from N.Italy on Paris and kept the German units there and reinforced them. They were not successful. Rome was their other option, but I had 15 Inf, 2 Italian Ftr and 3 German Ftr and 4 German Tnk there. Their last option was Egypt, but their primary forces were on Normandy and out of position to reach it before the round concluded.
Looking at it all, I think the US should have largely ignored trying to get into France (I think they landed sizeable forces there for 4 or 5 rounds) and instead moved against Egypt. It is the hardest VC to reinforce, especially once the US gets into the Med.
I was also surprised with the freedom the Allies had in the Atlantic, they never took Denmark and let the UK sneak units through to Berlin.
