What's your favorite nation and WHY?

@ckladman Yes, the game tends to favor the allies without objectives, and the axis with. To balance, you could trying giving a bid (additional starting units) to the side that is at a disadvantage, or play with objectives but reduce the payout. (3 ipcs vs 5.)

Thanks gents. I’m currently editing my video for upload to YouTube and my argument sounds nearly exactly identical to @Cernel .

I appreciate all the feedback.

The rules as you state them are correct.  The only way you wouldn’t be able to load and then unload a transport on the same turn is when you load your units on to one of your allies transports then you must wait until the next turn to unload them.  I think if transports worked the way you wanted them to industrial complexes would become very popular in this game.

I play without national objectives regularly.  IMHO, the key for the Axis is killing Russia. I have found that the best way to kill Russia is to do a combined Germany/Japan land assault.  However, this cannot be done if USA and GB are offloading on France/NWE-  Germany cannot guard the Atlantic borders and keep pressure on Russia.  My solution was simple.  Establish a chain supply of Japanese fighters to France for defense (2 per turn as of turn 3)  This accomplishes two things: one, defends France effectively and,two, forces the Allies to build navy to avoid losing their transports.  This allows Germany to send roughly half of their land forces to the Russia front. ( build only infantry and artillery since IPC’s are scarce from turn 3 forward)  This slows Japan down but is well worth it to keep pressure on Russia from Germany.  Also,  move the Japanese fleet to protect Italy from invasion.  Allies can’t amphibious assault Italy with a massive combined Italian/Japanese fleet in sea zone 14.

I build a German bomber on turns 1 & 2 to keep Britain off shores till turn 3, then the bombers become useful in swapping territories with Russia.

@U-505:

Second, the logical progression after attacking Phil is to go to Australia(J2) and then to India(J3) and then to Africa(J4). It’s hard for me to wrap my head around what happens if you don’t attack Phil on J1, but you still go for India and Phil on J2. Australia is still in UK hands at the end of J2 so in order to take it you’re either going backwards from India or if you push on to Africa from India then you’re looking at buying a lot more TP’s than just the 1 or 2 I usually buy with Japan because most of your initial TP’s will be too far away to come back and start landing units from Japan. And that seems costly considering you earned 7 IPC’s less than you would if you had taken Phil on J1.

If I don’t attack Philipines J1, I buy 2 tpts.  Those Tpts can take on Philipines J2, leaving all the other tpts freedom to do whatever they want.  By stationing in sz37, taking Burma, Japan will have 4 transports, loaded carrier, BB, CA in range of Australia J2 (Unless UK blocks).  Ground unit wise, at least 3 inf + whatever is left in Burma to australia J2.  The threat to hit India with the same units and 3 ftrs in FIC makes the UK units run for the hills, so you pretty much walk into India J2 AND take australia without being blocked from Australia by one silly UK DD (if you go to Philipines).

By being in SZ37, you threaten so many spots, the allies really can’t afford to try and hold anything very strongly and their best/safest course of action is to withdraw safely, most likely to persia.  Even there, JApan can hit with east indies and burma units + 2 ftrs or maybe another 2 ftrs if italy/germany take TRJ.

It’s not a pretty scenario for the allies.  Of course, the allies can get lucky and hurt Japan by doing well in Burma (3 inf, art vs UK inf), but the same can be said of the US inf hurting that same force J1.

Okay, tin.  I can buy turn four given the plan goes without hitch and the dice land in Germany’s favor in most of the battles.

Just glad you agree that turn 3 was a little exaggerated. :)

Anyway, turn 4 is pushing the envelope, it could theoretically happen, but realistically speaking, even with building as many tanks as possible with Germany (I say as possible since it’s safe to assume Germany is losing 10-20 IPC a round to SBRs thus reducing Germany’s available income to 30ish IPC) you might be able to break Russia’s back.

I am not saying Germany will lose.  I am saying it would be more realistic for Germany and Japan to plan a tank dash to Moscow with the goal of taking Moscow on Round 6.  This would account for some bad dice and the loss of income to Germany.