I don’t buy that it’s poorly balanced.
I think it just requires more brain power on the part of the allies, to use more cohesive strategy.
Several prominent players on this site have told me the same thing, they find the axis easy, because it’s clear what needs to be done, but that the allies are difficult, because it’s hard to know where to start, and without thinking 4 turns ahead, the allies struggle.
For example, alot of Russian players, spend their time at the beginning of the game, building expensive units, like fighters, bombers, etc. If they spent that time bulking out infantry instead, then the effects of SBR get mitigated during the late game. They suddenly are much more difficult to deal with, and they’ve got staying power late in the game.
Also, Too many people also don’t attack SZ97, which is hugely in allied favour, whilst still maintaining sea-lion prevent. Why they don’t attack is beyond me.
Neutralizing Japan is also a reasonably simple task too, I’m shocked how poorly most players coordinate thier allied units in the theatre.
I think the distance from the U.S. in the game, and the inability of average skill players, to maximize thier effectiveness of American units early, is where the discrepancy appears.
I don’t see imbalance. And if the imbalance the rest of you is discussing, can somehow be relegated by a single unit, on a board of something like 1000 units, then it’s suffice to say that the game is within 00.1% of perfection.
Each player here should be spending their time reviewing thier OWN strategy, and GAME, as opposed to blaming the setup for being out a “single” unit.