I’ve been playing G40 a lot over the past few weeks and have quickly gained a lot of skill with it. In the process I’ve developed this strategy which I am finding even some of the best online players are having trouble defending. It’s a good strategy for players who are very conservative and risk-averse like myself. I’m going to try to outline it here.
The general framework for the opening is that Japan is going to attack on J2, and Italy starts the European war on I2.
Setup:
Germany
G1 - buy a carrier only. This will compel UK to waste a turn’s income defending the Sealion (which you should not do unless he offers a ridiculously easy walk-in. Good odds are not good enough to divert from the plan). Do the following attacks:
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SZ111: 2 sub/BB/ftr/tac/bmb. Optimal result is to leave UK with a damaged BB only, retreating your BB to SZ112. Next best result is to clear the SZ of all enemy ships. Should work fine even with a Scotland fighter bid by UK.
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SZ110: 2 sub/3ftr/3tac/bmb. Clear the zone of enemy ships. Unless you get completely diced you won’t lose more than the subs.
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France: All land units which can reach in G1 attack France. Do not throw any planes into the attack, it’s very solid without them and you should not let the AA gun get a free shot.
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Yugoslavia: All land units not in the France battle EXCEPT one inf from Romania, plus the remaining ftr/tac, attack. Clear the zone, don’t leave it for Italy.
G1 noncombat pick up Bulgaria and Finland, shuttle the Denmark inf to Norway and set your fleet up in SZ112 with 1 ftr and 1 tac. All air used against UK lands in Western Germany, the Yugo tac goes to Rome and the ftr goes to Tobruk. Land units from Germany go to Poland. Place the carrier in SZ112.
G2 buy all land units to attack Russia.
Clear the Med of UK ships used against Italy with your air force, use the inf in Bulgaria and three tanks from Yugoslavia to kill Greece. If you can spare the air, feel free to add air power to the fight. Doesn’t really matter if you win, and you can leave Greece for Italy to finish off if you like, just weaken it to 1-2 units to make it easy for them. Clean up Southern France and Normandy with whatever is left over from the France battle.
Noncombat, any remaining mobile units from France go to Yugoslavia, Yugoslav units go to Romania. Air power goes back to Western Germany, some fighters can be spared to protect Italy if desired. Stack Finland with the 9 inf you have up there. Place land units in Germany first.
Italy
The only things that matter for Italy are a) to move the tanks and some slower units east as can-openers for the German stack, and b) hold onto Rome. Keep enough in Rome to deter landings, move the rest east. Your ships’ only required function is to attack Allied ships (leave SZ97 for Germany). It’s perfectly OK if you have no ships left by I2.
In Africa grab British Somaliland because it’s a royal pain for UK to recover it. The rest of your units in Africa have one job, which is to survive as long as possible and kill/divert as much Allied attention as you can. If you have a transport left over feel free to rescue some of them from North Africa and bring back to Europe. Don’t attack Egypt, no decent player will allow it, and moving in that direction just makes killing your units convenient. To be honest, half the time I forget I have Italian units in Africa at all, that’s how little they matter. Their sole function is to draw enemy units away from other conflict zones, as far away as possible.
Japan
J1 buy three transports and an artillery unit. Combat move is very simple, attack Yunnan with everything that reaches, attack Hunan with everything else that can reach it, take Chahar with one inf and take Anhwe from the north.
J1 noncombat is staging for the J2 attack. You have a wide variety of options in ship placement, just don’t leave your transports vulnerable to a UK/ANZAC early DOW. Transports should move as many units south as possible, and stay along the coast. At least two transports should be able to reach Malaya, and the remaining four will go to Phillipines. Set up so that all six can be fully loaded for the attack (which will require grabbing a couple from Manchuria).
Make sure that at least one DD can reach SZ16 as a blocker if needed. I tend to put one of each ship type in Carolines for flexibility, and stage the rest off Hainan (if you don’t the US or UK can put a blocker in that SZ and screw up your attack).
Kiangsu units move south towards Kwangtung, not west into China. Remaining land units should beeline to Yunnan, save an inf or two to take Chinese territories.
Every air unit not needed to land on a carrier goes to Kwangsi. Have a transport land an inf/art from Manchuria there as well. They can be used to recapture Yunnan if need be but ideally they’ll get shipped to Malaya next.
Come J2, declare war on all Allies, hit Malaya (1-2 trans full plus half the fleet) and Phillipines (other 4 trans plus other half of fleet), crash Yunnan and take the easy shots at China/FIC/Shan State, and any ships left lying around in the South Pacific. This is both an attack and another staging round; your fleets will now be set up to either drop a ton of units in Burma (unblockable), or capture all the DEI in J3. This is going to force UK-Pac back home (or he hands you India for J4).
If US stacks Hawaii in US1 then block SZ16. If he can air raid SZ6 then buy a carrier. Buy more loaded transports with whatever else is left over, and another DD if you require it (be able to block SZ16 every round as long as US has threat on SZ6). You have about three times the air power that you actually need, so don’t be shy about sending fighters or even an extra capital ship back home to protect SZ6.
At this point you are set up for a J3 which will accomplish the following: wear China down further, punish UK Pac if he’s adventurous and moves to Burma (6 loaded trans plus ALL your fleet and 15ish air units can reach - he cannot defend that territory), or take all the DEI in one turn if he isn’t. You should also drop a factory in FIC which should push out tanks if you can afford them, or mech inf if you’re on a budget, and these will seal the doom of a UK Pac which will be making 6 income or less at that point, allowing you to focus the rest of your considerable production against another enemy.
At the end of J3 you are now pulling high 60s income, UK Pac is already neutered, China is separated from support, and the only way there is any threat against you anywhere is if US went full Pacific (which you can now defend solidly with high income and already-existing air power). From there, I tend to wipe out China then India since both are weak targets, and if the US is not full-building Pac you can also attack Russia at that point since the extra 6 inf from Mongolia will be no big deal to clean up.
Following Through
In Europe, the follow-through is now very straightforward - build fast units to stack against Russia and push him back. You want to go south, not north - Novogrod will be abandoned by Russia by necessity, he hasn’t the units to defend it and counterstack Bryansk both. He probably can hold Bryansk, though and stop your stack from moving directly east. The way to get around this is to literally move around him - to Ukraine, then Rostov, at which point you can cash in on Volvograd and Caucasus NOs, plus your fast units can swing around to Samara, forcing difficult choices and collapsing the defensive position. Trading off units works in your favor the whole way, as you can replace them faster than he can even buying more expensive units. You can now also threaten to hit the Middle East, where defenses will be light. Russia soon ends up with very low production and defending it can consume all of UK’s attention, making things easier elsewhere around the board.
The Allies won’t be idle while this happens. They will inevitably build an Atlantic “hammer” with the US - just enough fleet plus a big stack of transports that can move 20+ units around the perimeter of Europe very quickly, looking for a soft spot. The way to defend this is to build lots and lots of cheap inf in Western Germany and France supplemented by a few artillery and remaining air forces to punish landings.
Allies tend to first go for Rome, so plan for this with Italy - I’ll often start building a stack of inf on Rome as early as I3, so by the time the hammer is a real threat it’s already covered. Germany can counterbuild against it faster than Italy so it can wait to build its own infantry defenses until a round or two later. Defending against landings takes priority over finishing off Russia - the only threat Russia can provide is to attack your stack, he cannot invade from the east any faster than you can spam more inf in defense so you don’t need to keep his stack in front of yours. Then trade, trade, trade - Russian units can’t be replaced due to production, UK units traded are units not building in the Middle East and India, and US units take 3 turns to rebuild and ship over and cost extra in transports as well.
Meanwhile, who is stopping Japan? The US is the only one who can do it, but it requires ALL his production against your 70 income Japan, and that really gets him only a stalemate. And if he does that then Germany has no need to build inf at home and can build more fast units to finish off Russia instead. It becomes a no-win situation for Allies.
If he builds Atlantic instead, once he lands those units and has to defend something instead of having the Sword of Damocles hanging over Europe, you can now lock it down with inf/art spam. This usually forces a landing in Norway, the only place Allies are reasonably safe from the German counter. Once that happens, the threat to Rome is gone, freeing up Italy’s units and production, and he’s got a three-turn march merely to hit Novogrod - during which time, if you care to, you can outbuild him and reach Novograd in time to kill off his stack.
Note that I’ve all but completely ignored Africa. That’s deliberate - Africa and North America are basically the only parts of the map where Allies have an easier time than Axis does. Fight where it’s easier for you. Once you beat down Russia and India you can march through to Africa if you please, but it would take a truly masochistic Allies player not to concede well before you reach Egypt.
The best part about this method/strategy is that it is highly tolerant of mistakes for the Axis player, as long as you don’t make any huge ones, giving up favorable attacks on: 1) Germany’s offensive stack; 2) Western Germany, or allowing the 1-2 punch through Denmark to Germany proper; 3) Rome; 4) Japan’s defensive fleet; or 5) SZ6 and Japan proper. Five or six points on the whole map are all you really need to defend and you have the advantage in every one of them. Make small investments in other threats as opportunities arise if and only if it’s more expensive for Allies to defend against them than it is for you to create the threat.
I realize there’s a big wall of text and a lot of analysis in this summary, but in practice it’s actually quite easy. By round 4 or 5, German turns take 5 minutes to play out, Italian turns two minutes, and Japan maybe 7 or 8 minutes, and it’s all pick target, focus forces, kill, rinse & repeat.
There you have it… that’s my script for an old school, Classic-style Axis win against Allies on the G40 map. As a side note, I’m now won over on the Balance Mod since it’s actually a bit challenging to pull this off with that mod while it is a slam-dunk boring-easy win with the standard layout even at high bids. Looking for feedback, primarily on what kinds of strategies Allies might use to try to counter this.