Longer Games

Strategies to win with the Allies: Kill Germany First (KGF).
Bomb the Germans with USA, UK invasion force (with some USA support)
Russia holds, expands as western allies open new front.

Japan can help Germany hold on by back door pressure on Africa (take UK money) Japanese ftrs landing in Europe to help defend key territories.

Summarizing… if playing to win, games will go mostly along these lines. Of course, the allies can always TRY to get cute and go after Japan, but that is VERY HARD, especially against a good Jap player, mainly because there is no true monetary reward for USA when confronting the IJN.

Amen Brother…  Axis need to be offensive, axis have shorter supply lines and can take losses a little bit better then the allies.

@ww2freak:

I don’t quite follow why Persia is so strategic…does no one build a facility in India for UK anymore?  just have the Russkies (with support) defend Persia??

Allot depends on what Germany has done on G1.

Did they buy all tanks?  Did they attack Egypt?  Are any UK units left alive there?

If Germany gives the allies some time by buying inf, and/or not attacking Egypt, then the allies might consider an IC for UK in India.  USA would most likely need to come hard after Japan then to keep Japan from being able to focus all her might on taking the UK Indian IC.

This can be a very fine balance for the allies to employ.  but if you can pull it off, it does seem to be a pretty strong game plan.  Hope the russians defend well enough, they need to hold out until UK/USA assistance arrives

I have played both the 41 and 42 set-ups and found that the 42 is a little more balanced and the Allies usually win, but the Axis can win if well played.
The 41 set-up does favor the Axis but we have won as the Allies in a long and hard battle that takes a long time but eventually turned around. In that game UK bought a factory on India T1 and diverted resources that way to slow down Japan, and USA and Russia (a little) went after Japan right away aiding UK as best they can. Germany, Italy and Japan were making way too much money by T3, but smart decisions allowed the Allies to slowly climb back and turn things around by T7, so it can be done. China was no help at all so they are week. Victory cities is the key. Do not worry about crushing the Axis completely just getting the VC you need.
I agree that China does not start with enough and/or is not getting enough men per turn. That part alone would slow Japan down enough to make it that much more balanced. :-)
We play with the rules as is. :-D

I rolled 3 1’s on Germany’s fighters in the G1 Karelia attack once.  Nobody’s dared try it since.

Have fun!!! :-D

Just had an 8 hour game with the 1941 setup. We played with NOs and techs enabled and I was Allies.
G starts by buying 7 inf and 2 researchers. It then attacks the CA and DD, the single DD and the 3 russian territories. G attacks Egypt with the BMR but it fails.
Russia counterattacks and retakes Baltic and Ukr. It moves 4 inf into China and masses all the inf on Bur.
J attacks EE, Borneo, Philippines, US BB and DD/TRN plus 3 chinese territories. It leaves the DD/TRN off India alone.
UK buys 1 IC for India and builds a carrier. The BB land units on Algeria.
Italy buys 1 DD and counterattacks on Algeria.
US starts building a fleet on the Pacific and gets 2 researchers.

From that moment on, the game went like this:

G and R were trading territories. G managed to conquer Karelia once but couldn’t keep it. Besides fighting G, R managed to sent some 9 tanks to help in China. J tried to attack India on J3 but failed due to the AA shooting 3 planes out of 5. Meanwhile it built some ships to counter the US buildup and had to deal with the Chinese and the Russians on China. After defending China, the UK moved to Burma and kept attack FIC. This, and conquering both Norway and Finland, securing Africa and liberating EE and Borneo (the Indian TRN went back to Australia and a US TRN moved from the Solomon) gave the UK a massive income (+50). Italy tried to attack the UK fleet off Algeria and lost big time. The US fleet eventually grew to 3 ACs, 1 CA, 2 DDs, 4 SUB. When we decided to end the game it had attacked and sunk the J fleet off Japan with the help of 8 jet fighters and 1 BMR (against 2 AC, 1 BB, 2 DD, 2 SUB and 4 FTR).

The game wasn’t really decided at the end, we stopped because of getting really tired but it was really interesting, although the Axis made some bad mistakes.

Played this out this weekend

Result: Turn 7 ended the game as Axis had more production +50% and more units on board…

Allied Strategy was a KGF + a token resistance in the Pacific…

What shall I say - Italy Killed a S and UK fleet twice in the Atlantic (turn 3+4 after securing the Med including Gebel al Tarik…

Germany was constantly harrassed by the Soviet and lost Scandinavia early to the Brits…
(Turn 7 all western russian territories were in Russian hands, (Stalingrad was held by
Germany)

Territories east of Moscow were almost all in Japanese hands.

japan ignored SU and China for 3 turns (mostly only put enough Inf to discourage an attack)

Japan spread into the Pacific (I must admit a little gamble- it put 9 ships 3CVs+5ftrs vs 7 ships 2Cvs+4Ftrs and won because of some real great rolls (IIRC it lost the fighters, but nothing else - maybe a DD).

BTW crusiers seem to be better than we first thought - if DDs absorb damage they are excellent units)

Italy once captured Canada! (shortly after thrown out by the US, but this and constant invasions to Alska prevented the US to build up a naval fore after the Pac and AT fleets were sunk)

Uk quickly lost all Pac+Asian posessions and Africa was slowly eaten by Italy (which really shone this game - a few early fleet builds (CA+Tr + a few dds) while ignoring the SU.

Both sides made some serious blunders (Japan only seized an empty borneo at turn 5, Russia maybe waited to long to attack German tank forces - maybe an attack a turn earlier and hoping for a few 1s would have turned the tide)

US should have built up MORE pacificx sea units and waited a few turns (1-2) before it attacked IT/GE…

UK - NO more ICs in the Pacific/India - Japan can muster enough force to capture them even if it holds it with ONLY 1 unit - UK can’t get it back…

UK did bomb GE, but repairs were quick to follow…

In the End JP had 3 Fleets - a large off Alaska

A small DD fleet in JP proper to defend against possible bomber threats. and a medium south pacific fleet (AU was conquered on turn 6 - with an IC UK could hold it and even pose an potential threat with a small DD+TRP fleet)

Germany focused on Stalingrand and never came to attack to Leningrad as UK went to Scandinavia (I will do it again) and so Russia could build up before Germany could strike - UK even amph landed at the baltic states…

An observation - If any nation went after lone Transports (it sunk them) - the Ftrs would have probably decided another battle in this nations favor - so my advice - use a few subs for thios duty…

So my solution - KGF is dead - Japan grows too fast - Japan soon had no markers left for occupied territories…

NO favor the winning side ;)