The game is already over (only took 5 rounds)…and you’re both right.
America and Britain were able to hem in the Japanese navy fairly effectively…this was largely due to an utterly horrid roll for the Japanese in China. By turn 3 Japan had lost Manchuria to the Russians and FIC to the Brits. Japan never collected more than $31 IPCs.
On turn 3, with the entire Atlantic cleared of allied ships (killed or moved to Pacific)…Germany built 6 Transports, and pulled back fully on the Russian front, giving him the troops he needed. Britain built 8 INF, but the three fighters on Britain only killed ONE unit in four rounds of combat ( :x ), and Britain was conquered on G4. There was no hope of liberating it without utterly abandoning our still effective isolation of the Japanese fleet.
We played through till the end of round 5. Russia was holding, but Japan was making excellent use of suicide units to target transports and carriers. Without the ability to build, Britain had only 6 ground units by the time the allies conceeded.
Germany could have attacked DC on G5 with 1 Art, 2 inf and a BB shot against 1 fig, 2 arm and 2 inf…pretty long odds…so he took Greenland and Brazil instead. Then he built 5 subs, putting him at 7 total for the U-Boat interdiction. When Japan killed the remnants of the British Pac fleet with cheap suicide subs, America conceeded rather than waste his time…of course, I had no objections.
Russia did well, but had no ability to counter Germany after his invasion of Britain due to German screening forces. Russia was at one point up to $38, but did little other than harass Germany and buy infantry.
Tech dice, while only $1 IPC, weren’t too overriding…it was the Japanese suicide advantages, and revised German Luftwaffe NA that gave them the ability to guard their flanks while making the gains they needed.
We’ve set up a new one, same crazy rules…now I’m Germany.
I might go for Rockets. :-D