Update
we played today and axis won despite the strategic bombing.
here’s how it went down, from turn 4 on for germany I only bought infantry with a couple art after a few turns. I continued to trade karelia and ukraine for 3 more turns but I mostly stacked men in W.E. and germany. also I kept my fighters in W.E.
what really made this possible was that japan sent his entire fleet to S.E. (germany kept control of suez long enough), so i didnt need to protect it from invasion. japan also landed 4 fighters in W.E.
US and UK still took over W.E. by turn 7 and S.E. by turn 9 but germany was too heavily fortified and i was able to trade S.E. until turn 11 when japan took russia. then with the help of japan, we took back S.E. and W.E. and then proceeded to destroy the allied fleet with japan’s fleet and fighters.
from there it was only a matter of time before UK fell and the US forfeit.
Victory!
so I guess it is possible to overcome heavy strategic bombing strategy, but it means playing really boring germany and japan needs to be really aggressive.
