Early Barbarossa

You may see equal success with either plan, such is the weakness of Russia against Germany.   However, since you can smash them early or later, you should do it early before they have any chance to consolidate and grow–you have no way to reach threshold income (60+) without Russian territory, and if you take it, you take it away from them and for yourself, a double whammy.    Once you have control of 2 of his factories you are flooding tanks into this front, that moment should be as early as possible rather than building your own fleets or factories in order to do it later.

If you can’t find anyone to play with, then go to triplea and start playing online with other folks. Some of the commenters here are on there, but others are only playing triplea through the forum (not live). Not live triplea is more of analysis type play where they have the time to really study their purchase and moves.

Regardless, (not disparaging you), but I think that you’ll find that the purchase order you suggest in your thread won’t get you Moscow. Really, the only to get better is to just play the game. It’s fun for me to play completely new players too as they actually do come up with different ideas that add to my “kit bag.”

Only on triplea have I had the pleasure of successfully pulling off Sea Lion. I’d love to do it on a table top game. The most recent time I had I think 8 tanks standing. No loss of aircraft as hits (2 fighters due to an AAA gun hit). I left the tanks there to really make it costly for the US to liberate London. My team won the game…London didn’t get liberated until like round 11. It was a very long game.

I prefer Barbarossa, but if the UK hands London a silver platter because it got too aggressive…then it needs to get punished. I don’t care what anyone says, no allies player like the advantage of London being knocked out for several turns. I’m not going to G2 purchase of a Sea Lion if several factors occur of course. But if Sea Lion is done right, the US has to respond and Japan has the chance to rage. Also, if Germany DOWs at the right moment, Russia can be pushed away from E. Poland (which I think is the critical position to keep Russia from getting to). They will come back, but then Germany might have the chance to get in position to start pushing Russia back from the border territories. Scandinavia might fall for a time being. Private Panic mentions losing a battle with favorable odds. That’s not going to occur on a regular basis.

If the UK gets really aggressive in it’s spending in the middle east UK1 and Sea Lion doesn’t occur, then in those situations I have a very difficult time overcoming a substantially large stack of UK fighters.

Yes, you’re right. It would use up 8 transports. Maybe just shuffle 1 tank 1 inf per turn and only use 4 trn.

What did india/anzac do against that J1?  The 2 minor buy does slow you down at taking the islands and rushing india fast.    When did Calcutta fall?

ah screw more units, just turn a couple russian inf into armor units, should be fine.

I like to take the money won from the fall of France and invest in a major complex for the eastern front.  Build a large infantry force that will march north towards Lgrad once Barbarossa begins.  Force Russian player to decide between defending Lgrad or Moscow with infantry.  If I can get the Russian to split off some infantry it helps.  Concentrate all German forces into one attack.  Sometimes the Russian doesn’t split and I’ll take Lenningrad.  I send a smaller force south towards Stalingrad, but they veer north after the marshes to merge with main force right before the attack on Moscow.  I try and push a lot of infantry forward knowing that I can get armor and fighters forward later just prior to an attack.  I keep a lot of my aircraft in Germany to ward off allied invasion in the west and slowly build up a defense force there until I withdraw the Luftwaffe.  Has anyone else invested in a major IC for eastern front with success?

@Gargantua:

Why Romania?  Why not just spend the 30 on extra ground units?  Or make up for it by buying extra armor in later rounds?

Like the concept though… the invincible army :D

building the forward factory does a couple of things. One it allows for Germany to build those cheap infantry and artillery combos that give maximum offense and defense. It also allows you to push into the south very easily once Leningrad has been secured. Lastly it allows for (against the less experienced British generals) a false sense of security for the British, if they go heavy in Africa or Canada and do not base their strategy on heavily defending London for the first 1-2 turns (one being the most important) then you can take London from them with ease and lose no steam against the Soviets. This however leads to a whole other strategy that I use against such an unsuspecting UK player.