Strict Barbarossa viable?

Another Axis Victory….this time in 6 rounds(took 9 last time), Germany attacked Russia turn 3, Japan attacked turn Russia 1. Victory in Europe. 6 victory cities for Germany, 2 for Italy. Allies couldn’t respond fast enough or well enough to make any difference. It came down to Germany and Japan pounding the crap out of Russia. Japan didn’t declare war on the UK or the USA. USA entered war end of turn 3 and the UK declared war on Japan the next turn. Two major navel battles were fought in Hawaii and both were won by the USA. Japan wiped out the rest of the allied fleets with their super sub tech. Japan took all of China but lost part of it by the end of Round 6. The land battle was turning against Japan in China.  The USA had a fleet sitting two spaces from Japan.  USA had a round 6 invasion of Norway.  I believe that is about it in terms of things of note.

FM7 - to answer your question - Italy opens Barbarossa on I3, and Germany follows on G4.

To both FM7 and Spend - too much for my poor brain to handle tonight - I like the discussions - it gets molecules moving. I’ll try to take it all in and answer within the next couple days -

the thing is, not everyone has their sea lion strategy down yet as some people still defend UK/try to maintain a naval instead of taking UK then abandoning it to race Moscow, before UK is liberated and USA becomes a threat to europe.

When I play it is easy to crush UK then turn around drive the russians out of the balkans back to moscow before france/italy/germany is seriously threatened. Once Russia is done, the game is super over.

There are two problems about sea lion.

I don’t mind UK getting conquered. Just if UK gets liberated… it should recover faster. The complex being nerfed to 3 combined with the crappy income generated… is really rough. I find that you can pack UK men on USA boats and drop them off the next turn is better than UK buying their own naval… you actually get more boots on the ground per turn much quicker. Or you can use UK’s 3 production a turn to buy naval pieces for USA or if germany is buying lots of air perhaps UK will buy naval pieces to protect USA naval (so usa can focus on dropping big payloads instead of carriers) and place a few men in africa to ship around (assuming you still have the transport down there).

So with both allied and axis strategies not being fully developed by a majority of the community… the game balance itself is skewed.

Allies have always been harder to play as they require more planning in order to maximize the amount of men you drop per turn into europe or plan ahead and move pieces to wise places in the pacific.
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Also countering barborossa has a few school of thoughts. 1) archangel shuffle defense 2) france first 3) shutting down italy.

I do feel that cutting the germans out of Norway/Sweden/Finland is good start for UK. no point trading men with germany before taking that out that production.

I like the airbase + transports in sz100 idea, can’t wait to see your game going.

What about conquering PANAMA with the Japanese navy and bring both the Italian navy and then the germany nave on the other side of panama?
Of course the Japaneses must leave a blocker to counter a counter attack there.
Will you have a decent position there to treat W, E and C america with all three forces?
What are the IFs?

@TheDefinitiveS:

Now with the Alpha +2 rules i think it is theatre specific but im not sure hopefully someone can confirm/deny this.

Nope.  Not as of Alpha +.2

It’s something many people are petitioning for, but I doubt it will be made official.  There’s a lot of ways to do it, but not many are truly balanced.

Yes.

@Flashman:

If both sides are all killed in the battle, you have to improvise some sort of “pro-Axis” marker for Sweden until it is occupied.

No, you don’t, because all strict neutrals are now pro-Axis.  However, until a power claims the territory, you do need to indicate somehow that the Swedish army has been used up.  An upside down control marker works well.