Commander Jennifer may be trying to cover up a bad mistake by saying it was a simple oversight but Gargantua you are being a dick about it.

This game could have been an interesting insight into how Russian can stand up to a properly coordinated Axis attack from all sides however now its just an ego game. This could have been informative but now it not only wont be, but it will be completely useless to the Alpha 3 playtesting process.

In the current Alpha +3 scenario I think the best way for the Axis to still go Sealion is if Japan hits SFE and Hawaii hard. You need to divert at least some of the American and Soviet attention towards yourself or the Euro-Axis is doomed. Now this will make things hard for Japan, intentionally putting more pressure on themselves but with UK London not producing more units it won’t be long before we see Italian units moving towards Italy to help Japan along with a Germany collecting tons from UK and an Italy gobbling up many of the UK’s African territories. In the event of Sealion as Italy I always push all the way to South Africa since it cannot be reinforced and taking while UK is still out of commission denies it to UK if/when they are liberated.

I was once on Axis as Italy with my good friend as Germany and it worked exactly as the previous poster described. By using subs/air power to neutralize UK the Axis was able to build up significant land forces instead of feinting Sea Lion with a transport purchase. With these extra land forces we went for a neutral crush. We hit Turkey, Sweden, and Spain on the same turn which was turn 2. From there we had instant access to Gibraltar, we sealed it off and were then able to reinforce the defenses by land instead of vulnerable transports. Sweden overall weakened our strategic position in the North but we needed to retain the NO bonus. Turkey allowed Italy to bust through into the Middle East flanking UK forces there. In the long run the game was decided with the Axis winning. The U.S. tried to land in Spain was bogged down by a counter attack by the Gibraltar, Normandy and Southern France troops. Russia had some success in the North with Germany and Russia trading Scandinavian territories but was losing in the main battle. Italy was able to capture Egypt and the Middle Eastern territories fairly quickly giving it lots of NO cash. When the game ended Italy was just about to take the Caucuses and make a move on India. It was also slowly progressing south towards South Africa. While Britain was somewhat able to recover the continued convoy raiding and air attacks it was never able to make any significant moves against the Euro Axis and with the United State’s first major offensive in Spain losing its steam very quickly we called the game.

I have a few objectives that I like to go for with Italy

Main objectives:

Achieve NOs as soon as possible which means clearing out North Africa then the middle east

Stacking the hell out of Gibraltar. The allies can only get to your home territories and your NO territories by getting into the Med and its gonna be a hell of a lot harder for them to fight in North Africa if they cant bring ships in to help. Im fine with them landing in Morocco

Secondary objectives:

Push south into Africa depriving UK of precious IPCs hopefully reaching as far as south africa. With a small mechanized force and some air power you can make quick work of the UK african troops

Branching out from the Middle East I like to both harass India and provide support to Germany in Southern Russia.

Tertiary objectives:

Once Gibraltar has a fairly big stack I like to branch out and land troops in Brazil, Panama, Mexico or the West indies. Just by forcing the US player to divert resources to this area gives me more time to stack Gibraltar and prepare for defense. This is coupled with helping Germany in the Battle for the Atlantic

My Italy is usually all over the place so the way I achieve this explosive growth is typically by having German planes back up newly taken italian territories with german planes similar to how italy can openers for Germany on the Eastern front

If your  goal in the game is just to get an Axis win overall you can essentially sacrifice Japan to get an Axis win in Europe. There are several ways to do this like going hard into Russia or blitzing the U.S. and taking all their perimeter territories opening up the Panama Canal for Japanese actions in the Atlantic.

I am very excited to playtest this kind of system. I feel that even if did turn out to be unbalanced with the Alpha Setup that it would still have some truly epic combat moves. Good idea on the Italians assisting Sealion. You may be right about Italy rushing to India with Japan but what if some of the Luftwaffe came along for the ride? That would be a crazy India Crush strategy. All three axis nations…

Lets imagine this scenario. Axis turn 1 joint combat group of German/Italian land units take Paris. Luftwaffe is entirely free. Luftwaffe and Italian airforce on Axis 1 destroys British Navy in and around the English Channel. Axis 2 joint land armies of Italy and Germany help Italy take the southern European countries with less casualties for Italy. Also during Axis 2 combined Axis airforce destroys the Med fleet. Axis 3 Germans go forward with Sealion bolstered by both the Luftwaffe and the Italian Airforce. At this point I think you’d be sitting pretty as the Axis with relatively few casualties to your key units.

Also, I’m assuming this kind of joint-attack setup would change the rules regarding friendly usage of transports. If thats the case then there is a much larger incentive for Germany to be active in the Med. Not only can they attack with the Italians to help them take Egypt in this kind of situation but they can also use Italian transports to get there without having to wait 2 turns.

Oh no doubt it favors the Allies. Im just suggesting that it can be easy to overlook potential joint attack based Axis strategies. You can make them work. Italy and Japan could theoretically meet at India by turn 3. A combined German-Italian attack into Russia could provide lots of bonuses. For example, wealthy Germany could purchase lots of Tacs while Italy focuses on tanks boosting the attack values without each nation having to buy both types of units. Not saying these strategies are the end all be all for this type of play but when no one has even attempted to play with this style I dont think you can really discount new types of successful strategies that could be made

What about joint attacks with the Italians? Both the Germans and to some extent the Japanese (In the area around India) would have the potential to attack with the Italians. Lets also not forget that a joint attack system would allow the airforce of any Axis nation to assist its partners. Allowing the Germans to help the Italians in the Med, the Italians and Japanese to joint attack India, and for the Germans and Italians to be able to attack both France and Russia together provide benefits for the Axis that I don’t think are really being explored. For example in the very first turn allowing a modest Italian force to attack France along with Germany would free up even more of the Luftwaffe for other missions.

I agree with mantlefan. A united Euro-Axis as one country would be very unbalancing. I dont want Germany to be able to drop 10 fighters on West Germany in one turn…

You know I think it could go both ways. For example if the Axis went first whats to stop the Italian navy and the entirety or a large portion of the German air force from completely wiping the Med of any Allied vessels? Germany could just have a portion of its Luftwaffe in the Med the entire game to support the Italian stacks in their conquest. On the other hand I think this could potentially make things much more difficult for Japan or for Germany defending in the West (as it should be, defending the coastlines of 5 nations should not be easy). All in all though I don’t think it would be that unbalancing to the point where it breaks the game. Then again I have not tested it, thats just merely my opinion. I do however also think it would model the real war much more accurately. Both the Axis and the Allies did attack together, all the time. Some of the most crucial battles of the war were joint attacks.