G1 Taking all of France

shove a carrier in 109

I voted no because I don’t think a carrier is a must buy.  All depends on how you like to play.  I prefer 2 bombers and a sub.  Sometimes I buy 1 AC 1 Bomber.  Having a carrier with the German navy keeps it alive longer and keeps UK always worrying about it.  Also depends on my UK opponent and how well I know their play style.

Well, stacking in Yunnan proved to be a bad plan.  Japan hit it with everything and with a 55% win chance, took it with a tank and lost 5 Fighters.  However, with India’s fighters gone now (died in Yunnan), and China’s stack gone- nothing will stop Japan from Calcutta and taking all of China.  Combine this with the Luftwaffe crushing the combined British/American fleet off of Gibraltar (made possible by Italian landing in Gibraltar), this game is over.  Russia was doing fairly well after taking Norway, Finland, and Iraq, but it was the only position that was doing ok.  (This with the German stack in East Poland on Turn 2).

So, with the writing on the wall at the end of Turn 2 (!!) I conceded.

What to do better against the G1:J1 onslought? 
#1 Be more conservative with India and China - stacking Yunnan Turn 1 proved to be fatal- in one fell swoop, Japan crushed the mainland asian allies’ main forces.  Sacrificing all Indian ships to slow the Japanese was not effective.  I just traded a DD and CA for a Transport and 2 DD.  Didn’t phase Japan at all- and India has no ships.  A “fleet-in-being” in the Indian ocean forces the Japanese to split up their fleet a little. 
#2 Even with a G1, Russia has time- especially if it is taking Iraq and tactically retreating, avoiding the big stack battle.  The bigger threat in the early rounds is Pacific victory, so the USA should spend 75-80% of its $$ in the Pacific. 
#3 Don’t stack Gibraltar SZ until you can hold it and land troops in Gibraltar if Italy looks like it can take it.  As the UK, concentrate on holding Africa after a sealion looks unlikely.
#4 As UK, slowly build up a fleet at Canada- Thos Gerrman Subs laround the UK are annoying, but its more annoying to lose your fleet piecemeal.

As you say, in OOB 2nd edition, West India is Pacific (but not OOB 1st edition).  But more than likely all answers at this point will be addressed as a 2nd edition question, unless someone specifically says OOB rules for first edition.

If you try it out, you’ll see that the U.K. can’t sufficiently reinforce France, even with the additional 6 French troops, from having Germany crush it on round 2.  Even if every available plane is landed there, and the strafe leaves 2 tanks plus the fighter, it’s impossible to hold.  So all that landing planes accomplishes is wiping out the British airforce (and keeping France from falling to Italy).  The payoff isn’t worth it.

The biggest downsides I can imagine are that (1) it is much more difficult to hold off serious landings at Normandy by the US and/or UK.  Italy then has to protect Western Europe and the Med–although with Germany taking S France, they can dump ships in the Med as well if it comes to that (subs backed up by planes would be cheap).  And (2) delaying the war on the Pacific side until round 3 (which would make this work much better at times, depending on the US builds) means that UK Pacific can shuttle some troops over.

The really nice thing about this strategy is that it’s more efficient to have Italy be the 1 force in the Med, and not have to worry about building enough ships off the S France factory right away to protect them from UK planes.

I think it’s going to be the standard opening in our play group for the foreseeable future.

The counter someone mentioned above about making sure to buy troops in S Africa–either mechs, or infantry/artillery to go with transports, in combination with some shuttling from India, is probably the safe response.

Grover and I just started another game, with me being the Axis, and I’ve got to say I’m enjoying the big Italian boost.

winrar.exe it’s free

buy trannies g1, invade finland, and g2 kill novgorod and surrounders

To put it another way, once the battle is over, you no longer have the option of retreating.