ITALY IS SCREWED!

Germany helping Italy in the Med all depends on if you are looking to knock Russia out with a quick punch or throttle them slowly to death. If you’re taking the long game approach, a German fleet in the Med is worth every IPC. It creates an incredible headache for the Allied player who expects to dominate the Med early. Then it becomes an arms race, and guess who is closer to their supply lines?

And once the Med becomes an arms race, the Allied player often stops buying as much with the US in the Pacific… and Japan can wear down Russia from the back.

Just general thoughts - game by game will obviously be variable.

“Never” is a strong word, and you even went so far as to hold down shift as you typed it and then went back to underline it afterwards.

If the airbase lets you hold Gibraltar for one extra turn, maybe even two, then is that 15 IPCs worth it for you?
Very possibly, sure. Delaying a US entry into the Med for one turn probably saves Italy at least 5 IPCs right off the bat, not to mention delaying its eventual economic implosion by an entire turn more of income.

Is it still worth it if the Americans can fly straight to Egypt or Norway from Gibraltar now?
Maybe they can’t do that yet, and won’t for another turn or two. Very possibly, yes, it’s still worth it. Maybe because you had that airbase, however, your Axis units were able to abandon Gibraltar and get into a better position on their way out. Lot’s of “if”'s. A lot of combinations of them add up to it being worth it.

Is it still worth it if the Americans can scramble planes off of it to defend their navy?
If you weren’t planning on attacking their navy (maybe because you simply don’t have the resources to do so), yes, absolutely, then there’s no difference at all.

So, yeah, sometimes it’s alright to give your opponent a facility if you got your money’s worth out of it first, even if it is only for a turn or two. Plenty of US and JP plays depend on building a naval base that’s only ever really used once in the game. There are some cases where the same is true for air bases all over the place.

In the games a played it seemed that Japan could help the European Axis more by getting in positon to have enough victory cities on their side of the map than really pushing towards Russia.  If Japan pushes to Russia then USA is free to keep spending in Europe.  Maybe I will give this a try though with the newer edition of rules.

If you try it out, you’ll see that the U.K. can’t sufficiently reinforce France, even with the additional 6 French troops, from having Germany crush it on round 2.  Even if every available plane is landed there, and the strafe leaves 2 tanks plus the fighter, it’s impossible to hold.  So all that landing planes accomplishes is wiping out the British airforce (and keeping France from falling to Italy).  The payoff isn’t worth it.

The biggest downsides I can imagine are that (1) it is much more difficult to hold off serious landings at Normandy by the US and/or UK.  Italy then has to protect Western Europe and the Med–although with Germany taking S France, they can dump ships in the Med as well if it comes to that (subs backed up by planes would be cheap).  And (2) delaying the war on the Pacific side until round 3 (which would make this work much better at times, depending on the US builds) means that UK Pacific can shuttle some troops over.

The really nice thing about this strategy is that it’s more efficient to have Italy be the 1 force in the Med, and not have to worry about building enough ships off the S France factory right away to protect them from UK planes.

I think it’s going to be the standard opening in our play group for the foreseeable future.

The counter someone mentioned above about making sure to buy troops in S Africa–either mechs, or infantry/artillery to go with transports, in combination with some shuttling from India, is probably the safe response.

Grover and I just started another game, with me being the Axis, and I’ve got to say I’m enjoying the big Italian boost.

If Germany goes Sea Lion, Italy will thrive. If Germany goes Barbarossa, Italy will most likely slowly halt.

@kdfsjljklgjfg:

To be fair, I always like to hit NItaly once as Allies in order to knock that complex down to a minor and limit Italian ground troop production.

That is an excellent strategy.  I just recently started using it myself.  My gaming group, myself included, was always stuck with the notion that you didn’t attack a territory, especially an important one with an IC on it, unless you could hold it.  If the enemy takes it right back, we felt you just wasted your troops.  They thought I was crazy when I would take a territory with a Major IC on it but only have a little force left that was easily destroyed.  That is, until they realized that they could no longer produce 10 units.  Then they have to either spend 20 IPCs to restore the major or suffer with only 3 unit builds per turn from then on.  I have gotten away with it for a couple of games now while my opponents still shied away from it so I didn’t get any retribution from them.  I’m sure my next game will change that if they get the chance.

Finally got most of everything posted (minus Germany) on Ebay. For whoever is interested!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290544985361&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

Thats ANZAC but if you search my sales the rest will follow. Any questions please ask!

You are right.