Germany playbook: overall strategy guide

Yeah, the Allied strategy is hard to prescribe as the Axis decide the direction the game goes, best way is to just get some games under the belt. I have some sugestions, based on the few games I’ve played, which are hopefully are easy to follow. I’m not very experienced though, so these tips may be sub-optimal.

Russia:
1 Avoid losing units, focus on gradually pulling back and defending Moscow.
2 Build defensively (infantry, maybe mechanised infantry in Leningrad so they can get back to Moscow when needed).
3 Pull infantry back from the far east and try to keep Moscow until they arrive.

US:
1 Put most of your IPCs into the Europe side.
2 Get transports shuttling troops across to Morocco and have enough navy to protect them. Push the Italians out of North Africa.
3 Threaten landings on mainland Europe to force Germany to spend defensively and ease the pressure on Russia.

China:
1 Be careful of leaving units in range of Japan’s air units, and be sure to protect your one fighter.
2 Take out any Japanese land units you reasonably can, they are hard for Japan to replace initially, but focus on staying alive for as long as you can.

UK:
1 Try to deny Italy income. Attack Italy’s African territories where reasonable (e.g. Ethiopia), and stop it from getting objectives.
2 Concentrate whatever navy remains after German and Japanese attacks, try to get control of the Atlantic and Med to help move troops.
3 Keep hold of key territories (e.g. Egypt and India) and if you push out from these be wary of being outflanked by transports and losing them.

ANZAC:
1 Your income is limited, if possible grab an objective or one of the Dutch East Indies to boost it.
2 If Japan comes after you early then defend as long as you can as it keeps their ships and planes out of position.
3 Otherwise annoy them as much as possible, keep grabbing Dutch East Indies islands and forcing them to invest units in takling them back.

France:
1 Stay out of the way and enjoy the ride!

If you are playing a VC game then keep an eye on the VC count, if Moscow falls make sure to hold Egypt, if India falls make sure to hold Sydney and Hawaii.

I view the essays as para-historical entertainment from someone who contemplates the board waiting to find an opponent.

Welcome to the forum and try the game online. It’s much more interesting than writing and speculating about the game. :wink:

If Japan does a great J1 DOW on W.Allies,  ie:loses just 1-2 inf… ,

how should US respond? It’s first 2-3  rounds of buy?
And UK India? Should it keep its FTRS or send them to the Med?

@Gamerman01:

Getting the money when taking a capital is as old as A&A itself, so what, about 35 years?

Never a good reason if it’s the only reason.

they asked this in the faq to find out the answer. I know the rulebook needs an update.

As the Germans another fun little trick is use the transports you start with to land in lenningrad and take it very easily on G2 and maybe even G1.

I am in a Global game now.  We just finished Round 9 and decided on a break for a while.  I am playing Germany and the Russian player is also handling China.
Germany captured Paris Round 1, forced a Sealion Round 2 and was successful but at somewhat high cost.  Round 3 took the 3 big neutrals - Spain, Sweeden and Turkey - which also took a fair amount of resources.  Therefore, I don’t think I was able to build up enough in the east for Barbarossa like I would have preferred.  I had a good force by end of Round 3, but it certainly could have been better.
Italy really struggled with Britain in Africa and the Med.
Japan took a gamble by bringing USA into the war Round 1 by attacking Brits and the Philippines.
As for Russia, first three rounds she spent building a lot of infantry along the border with a few artillery and tanks.  Round 4 Russia actually attacked Germany, which I really was not expecting.  Sank all my transports and took an unoccupied Sweeden from me.  Round 5, she had destroyed all three army groups in Europe, took Warsaw and was only frustrated by Finland with a bloody repulse.  Round 6, she threw a massive army at Berlin.  Lucklily, the last couple of rounds of combat went my way and Berlin survived with just 1 fighter unit left.  Both sides were severely depleted but Germany still had her capital.
Fast forward to Round 9. 
Now Germany is getting strong again, starting to advance into Russia itself and threatening Leningrad.  German Navy has been sunk by the US Navy and they keep fighting back and forth over Spain, which US currently holds with a fairly strong force. 
Italy finally finished off all British and French troops in Africa and has a tank running around blitzing territories.  Most of Italy’s resources have been spent trying to help Germany with Spain and threatening Russia with a small force from the south.
Japan has all but destroyed China – 1 territory and 1 infantry unit left.  They have grabbed Calcutta and control Eastern Asia and the DEI.  However, both the Imperial Navy and the US Navy have been slugging it out and are almost non-existant.  Also, Japan has tanks creeping west toward Russia.
So, while Russia is still a ways from being “out of it”, they are in pretty bad shape.  I have seen this in other games as well.  Russia is just too dang big and can’t seem to get a decent number of reiinforcements to the front.  When they start a big offensive, if it runs out of steam then it seems like Germany always grinds them back.  Unless the US can get over there with a large enough force to really threaten Germany in Western Europe, Russia will be taken out and then Germany will have plenty of money to deal with the US and push them back out of Europe with help from Italy.

In my experience so far a good Russian player playing conservatively can make Moscow close to impossible to take.   The way Russian territories are set up allows them to fall back and shadow any approaching German army until the Russians have reinforced their stack to the point where it can turn around and chase out or destroy the invaders.  There’s no real downside to this vs standing and fighting as you’re only giving up 1-2 ipc provinces as you fall back and you’re continuing to preserve and grow your Russian stack at a rate faster than the Germans can hope to reinforce theirs (assuming, of course, that GB and the US are putting any sort of pressure on the other side of Europe).  I’ve pretty much given up going for it and instead have resolved to find some way to take Leningrad and Stalingrad.  I’ll admit that Germany and Italy, given free reign to attack Russia can eventually bring them down if they focus all their strength on it but how are they doing this while preventing or counter-attacking allied landings?  There’s just not enough IPC’s available for them to effectively do both.