@Baron:

I would place Japan third while Germany in fourth position according to your criterias.
Japan have more strategic options than Germany.

I think you can definitely make the argument either way here, and it also depends on which scenario you are playing.

I agree that Japan technically has more strategic options, but in my experience with Japan, it’s almost imperative that Japan takes China on J1 or J2 and as many of the valuable Pacific islands as possible. They could immediately attack Russia, move against India, or against the US, but I think it is much more important that they eliminate China and raise their IPC count as fast as possible.

Germany does need to attack Russia, but can make decisions on which Russian VC to take first. They can also determine their level of involvement in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and whether to attack the UK.

@axis_roll:

My points are regarding '41 Scenario, since that is the most commonly played (from my experience)

You’ve classified Russia as a large military.  Yet, they start with only 1 tank and they do not even have a plane.

Something to consider regarding military size is order of play.  Russia being second makes up for this small number of non-infantry units.  I guess you can take your discussion one step further, breaking the ‘military’ might into offensive/defensive for further ‘general characterization’ of each country.

True - I mainly use the military characterization for a final tie-breaker, and order of play definitely makes a difference. However, I think the USSR is the most tactical power no matter what size the military is, so it’s not as important for them.

@axis_roll:

So does this mean that Russia doesn’t have long term, large scale planning of it’s IPCs and forces?

I guess I would like a better understanding of how characterizing the countries helps to make me play those countries better when I play a game.

I agree with most of what CWO says - strategy is the overall plan for the war while tactics describe how you fight the actual combat. For example, a major strategic decision for the US would be to focus on Germany/Europe rather than Japan/Pacific, while a major tactical decision would be landing in Northwestern Europe rather than France. Another example would be deciding to use a battleship to clear a sea zone rather than conducting offshore bombardment.

Russia does have long-term planning decisions to make, but they have fewer grand strategic options. They essentially have to commit the majority of their resources to fighting Germany on the Eastern Front. However, because of the large number of territories involved in this front, and large number of units, they have a lot of tactical flexibility. They can choose which cities to focus on defending, where to mount counterattacks, where to concentrate armor, etc.

The USA has many more strategic decisions to make (Japan or Germany, Europe or Africa, Central Pacific vs. Southern Pacific, etc.), but is more tactically confined because they start with a low number of territories and units.

All of the countries have both strategic and tactical decisions to make, but they each have more of one or the other.

I doubt my characterization is going to help anyone play any better - I think the main point is help players divide up/determine what country to play. If you’ve found that you enjoy or are better at the smaller-scale, tactical decisions, you would probably like playing Russia more. If you like the larger-scale, strategic decisions, you would probably like playing the US more.

@CWO:

The rulebooks in some of the early A&A games (I can’t remember which ones off the top of my head) included brief descriptions of each power’s strengths and weaknesses and of its general situation, followed by statement like “If you’re the kind of player who prefers such-and-such a thing, consider playing this country.”  Those were handy to new players, and they were a bit along the lines of what EvenkiNatlOkrug says about his own system for helping players decide which power fits their particular style.

If my memory serves, Larry’s summation about Germany was: “If you want to be the center of attention, consider playing Germany.”   :-)

Yep, this is actually where I got the idea. It’s in the rulebook from Revised. I’m not sure about all of them, but if you wanted a balanced game, you should play UK and if you wanted a big land war, you should play USSR.