Axis Advice

ATTACK !

I know this is a bit late, but I can give you a general overview of what to do. I’ll go into nitty gritty details if you want but you seem like a newer player so I’ll only do that if you want me to.

Anyway, general strategies (and I mean “general”):

Germany:
1. HINT: You can easily overpower and capture Egypt on turn 1. Doing this helps immensely by hurting UK’s income and boosting your own (until the Allies invade Africa later, anyway). From Egypt you can easily capture the rest of Africa to boost Germany’s income even further, or opt to march your troops through the Middle East with the ultimate objective of either capturing Caucasus or helping Japan seize India from the UK.

2. Play defensively (Buy mostly INF, like 10/turn at minimum). Yes, defensively. More often than not all three Allies are going to be spending the majority of their money against Germany, so buying lots of Tanks/Bombers/etc. is a bad idea. Your goal is mostly to hold out until Japan wins the game for you, only attacking if the Allies focus on the Pacific or if the Soviets make a serious over-extension.

3. If you want to ignore point #2 and attack Russia, try buying an Aircraft Carrier turn 1 and landing two of your Fighters on it. An Aircraft Carrier Turn 1 will bolster the Baltic Fleet, which will help you hold off the UK/US for a good while, giving you more time to do what you have to do on the Ost Front.

4. Watch out for UK. If the UK Player is smart their transports can start tearing your economy apart once they get into the Baltic Sea. From there, they can attack Norway (3 IPC), Karelia (2 IPC), East Europe (3 IPC), West Europe (6 IPC) and, most importantly, Berlin (your capital). Defending all of these points simultaneously is impossible, so don’t try. Just focus on keeping Germany, West Europe and East Europe in German hands.

Japan:
1. Don’t attack the Americans at Pearl Harbor. They can just replace their losses with their massive economy, while any expensive naval units/planes you lose are basically gone forever (or until very late in the game, if the Axis are winning).

2. Instead, assume a defensive position with your Navy. The Philippines SZ is perfect for this, because it can reach all of the Money Islands, Australia, India, the Solomon Islands (where the Americans will likely base their fleet) and even retreat to Japan if needed.

3. If the Americans attempt to move out with their weak starting fleet and don’t have a second fleet in-position to counterattack, feel free to destroy them.

4. Since the navy won’t be your main focus, spend most of your attention on mainland Asia. Your real objectives are:
  a. Capture India to cripple India’s economy.
  b. Capture Siberia to cripple the USSR’s economy.
  c. Capture China to annoy the US.
  d. Aggressively attack the USSR from the East, while attempting to link up with the Germans at Caucasus.

If you do these 4 things, Japan will be making a monstrous 42+ IPC/turn, and you’ll start breaking into the 50s if your fight against the Soviets goes well for you. Once this happens, the game will basically be over for the Allies, if Moscow doesn’t outright fall.

5. To focus on the mainland, build an IC turn 1 and put it in French Indo-China. From that Factory, build 3 Tanks every turn. This, paired with your airforce, starting units, and navy, will let you steamroll the Allies’ starting units, and out-produce them if the Allies try building factories in China/India to stop you.

6. You may want to build a second IC later in the game, so that you can produce 6 Tanks every turn instead of 3. Do this once you’ve established yourself on the mainland.

7. Only build additional ships in two cases:
  a. You need more transports.
  b. The Americans are building a fleet and you need to keep up with them.

Hope this helps and I’m not too late.

@DouchemanMacgee I know it is a quite old post, but here my experience:
I tried it out yesterday, playing germany real defensive. Just attacked the eastern front to alert the soviets a bit and landed some ground troops in Africa to support the italians a bit (playing the latest anniversary edition). I was also lucky in first round, opening the sea at Gibraltar. Really lucky dice rolling…germany did not loose even 1 unit in the whole round. Japan followed your advice, pushing to asia. After building a fleet the americans chose to attack, but the fleet was totally slaughtered by the Japanese player, leaving him with 3 Air carriers in advance of the americans After that it was a homerun, germany able to build up a good airpowe and a small fleet, capable of holding back the british attack.
Sure, lucky rolling for the axis, especially in turn 1, but playing germany defensively in the beginning seems a good advice to hold out longer. Good advice!

@Seadog Not a problem! Glad to hear you found the advice helpful.

I don’t want to go into too much detail on what you did for AA50, as that game has its own sub-forum, but I’m glad you were able to find my advice generic enough to apply to multiple A&A titles.

However, for the Anniversary game, playing a more aggressive Germany is usually favored in the 1941 Scenario (due to how weak the Soviets are at the start of the game), and even somewhat in the 1942 Scenario (If Germany can make a foothold in Eastern Ukraine early, Japan can reach the territory with almost its entire airforce on J2, there is a thread on this strategy I’ve posted in quite a bit called “Unstoppable Axis Strategy”, if you’re interested).