Japan doesn’t matter if Germany loses both EE and WE in rd 3.
Again, I’ll gladly sacrifice 3 UK ftrs (or US planes) for 3 German trans (if they bought 1-2)
Tactical Retreat (in the East)
R1 fortify Yak (7 inf) and Kar (19, 3, 2)
UK1 - Move Ind and Egy troops to Per. (4 inf, 1 arm) planes to Cauc
US1 - ftrs to UK sz, bom to Cauc (or Kar/UK/Mos)
Round 2 - Germany’s fleet is toast. They have no move left - either UK or US will take them out.
Now UK can hold its forces in Per, or move to Ind, or move to Cauc.
US and R can retreat to Novo
US/UK land in Afr (or wait)
Round 3
Russia Strafe EE (or take)
UK/US go to Afr (or WE)
Japan will be no where near Moscow or even have the ability to take Novo.
Also Russia (if strafing EE) can retreat from Novo to Mos and with a placement of 6 inf on Moscow, Japan will be looking at a counter of 13 inf, 7 arm, 2 ftrs by Russia. Meaning Japan is going to need like 15 inf to hold.
They simply can’t get that many troops to Novo in rd 3 or 4 (with no bid).
Japan isn’t scary if Germany has no ships and has lost EE (or getting pummeled there) and can’t hold WE (or is getting booted out of Afr).
In RR
Germany would be much better off buying all inf (no ships) and simply waiting till rd 4 or so for Japan to get going strong as you suggest.
Because you don’t need lots of troops to dance around Afr. You just enough to take Egy. Once you do that 1 tank and 1-2 inf are all you need to blitz around which can be accomplished by your original tran.
What I like doing in RR is killing the UK/Rus fleet in UK sz and killing the UK Med BB as well. Then using the Baltic tran to transport some troops from Fin to Afr. It depends but I like getting the Arm out of Fin but I will do 2 inf sometimes as well.
Then with 2 inf from SE you have a pretty solid Afr force. If you’re willing to sacrifice an extra plane you can still have your BB and tran in Central Med with your other tran off the coast of Sp. You’ll still lose your ships on UK/US2 but you get the extra 2 inf (or arm) from Fin.
