My advice: DON’T play with 8 victory cities……
But if you do, the best way to defend goes as follows…
1. Don’t focus on Karelia…you’re NOT going to take it from the germans as Russia…maybe the UK could help out by sending all their reinforcements there…but it is 2spaces away from Germany…so if you are playing with 8 victory cities, Germany will build 8 tanks G1 and blitz them all to Karelia…you won’t stand a chance…
2. You’re best bet is to defend India…This is extremely easy if the Germans make a fatal mistake…If the Germans don’t take out your Med destroyer and land troops from southern Europe along with Libya and bomber support in Egypt, as UK…you can transport the tank in Egypt and the inf in trans-jordan…and fly the egypt fighter over to India…you can also move 1 inf from persia to India…Use your destroyer to take out the Trannie by Kwangtung…move all the rest of your fleet(carrier w/ fighter(India Sea Zone) and Transport w/ 2inf + Sub from Austrailia to Sea zone 30(if the Japanese decide to attack with the BB and 2ftrs, they will have to land the 2 fighters on the AC which gives them minimal defense in FIC that they will need…if they don’t attack…you have a fighter that can fly to where support is needed…plus 2inf to transport to India,Africa, or Trans-Jordan…plus a sizeable fleet…)
-You then build an IC in India(which has 5inf, 1tnk, 1ftr,AA)…India WILL hold and reinforcements will come next turn(3tanks)…If Japan is worried about a counter attack they will have to stack in FIC…meaning they won’t attack china…then US builds IC in Sinkiang…If this Wall can be created…Japan will completly lose its effectiveness in Asia…
-Another great thing you can do with this"hold off Japan" strategy is take the fighters from Hawaii and Western US and send them to Buryatia US 1(The Russians would stack their infantry there but leave 1 inf Soviet Far East) the US can build 1 to 2 fighters a turn in Western US and send them to Buryatia next turn…this gives the Russian Front great defense and poses a great threat to Japanese Transports…
All this can be done by spending 15 bucks a turn with UK(on tanks) and 20 bucks a turn with US(2 tanks+fighter)…I’ve done it before, and it makes any Japanese attack a joke for at least 4 turns…But remember…this can be done ONLY if Germany doesn’t attack and take Egypt first turn….so I’d say the tide of the game rests on Germany’s first turn…
Whew, that was long…but you’ve gotta try that…it’s fun