Can Egypt be saved?

@BJCard:

Do people actually lose Cairo with a Taranto attack?

You can lose it all too easily, but only if Germany sends it air force south to deal with the UK.  In the vast percentage of games I’ve played, Italy doesn’t scramble at SZ97.  Then either Italy or Germany wipes out the UK remaining in SZ97 (this usually depends on what is left of the French fleet).  So even though you did do a number on Italy, by the end of round 2 they are ready to come back.  If the UK didn’t build the Egypt IC, then they come back quite quickly.  The UK gets off to a nice head start, but if Germany is willing to send their planes down there, the situation turns quite quickly.  Many of my opponents are also mating this with sending a small trickle of subs out into the Atlantic, which slows down the Allies’ ability to bulk up Egypt since you either have less money to spend from convoy losses or you spend your money on DDs.

My typical round 1 progress is to have Italy only collecting 7 IPC, but then in round 2, Germany has Greece, Italy or Germany has Gibraltar, and then Italy is up to 20+ IPC since the UK Med fleet has been wiped out.  More than enough to put holding Cairo into question when the UK has to waste money on ICs or TTs for a Cape Town shuck and the Italians still have their nice chunk of men that started in Tobruk.

Part of what concerns me about Cairo is how quickly Russia can fold.  However, I’ve done some more tests and seen that with max Infantry buys you can get Russia to last past round 6 (how much longer past that they can go, I’m not sure, as their income will basically be pretty nil).  So I think the Allies should certainly focus on making Cairo a crisis point for the Axis.  If the Axis don’t divert all their resources to taking it out, then Italy will be out of the game sooner rather than later.  I think this is more cost-effective than threatening the Axis through northern Europe since the US player is free to spend more in the Pacific and ensure than Japan will never be a problem.

@BJCard:

True, if germany commits significant support to the Med then Italy can get Cairo.  To be honest I haven’t seen that happen very much in my games.

Whatever you see is likely just a direct response to whatever level of interest you are showing yourself down there.  If you start making moves that threaten Italy’s long-term viability, expect your opponent to suddenly show a keen interest in wiping Cairo out.

@elevenjerk:

That was the only time in our games that the axis were the dominant controller of Cairo and the Allies still won with not much scare of losing.

If Russia held out and was in no danger of going under in the next few turns, then yes, you can handle losing Cairo- especially if the Axis committed a lot to it.