Let's talk the Taranto raid.

@ShadowHAwk Those units are essential to defend your capital, as well as France’s capital. There is no way around having a substantial defensive force if you want to win the game as the axis. Ideally all of those units could attack Moscow, but that is literally not an option. Germany can lose its capital turn 4 if you don’t have enough units to defend, and Paris can be lost to the allies turn 5 if you aren’t deploying enough units to prevent that.

@simon33:

DOW G1 is not normally advised. Those 3 tanks in Gr Sth Germany are better used assisting in France.

Getting Russia down is the one and only objective Germany has in that game. So DOW1 on Russia is a but risky but a valid strategy because it take several Russian units out.
In order to compensate the missing tanks Germany should definitely let 111 or 110 go or even both seazones to get firepower at France with the Luftwaffe.

Exposing air to the French AA is a calculated risk Germans can definitely take.

It is a general mistake that beginners stretch the German forces too much at G1 (often attacking Normandy and SF that turn). Diluting the France attack to 90-95% odds not yet understanding that 95% and 99% makes a HUGE differences. You could describe it in other words: 95% is failing 5 times as often as 99% and even more important: winning is not everything. Germany taking France with 1 tank remaining is a pyrrhic victory and Germany is almost lost when losing almost all ground units in France G1.

Thanks for the clarification everyone.  Glad to be here with you all.

Nice work Chriss179.

All the rule changes were done to benefit the allies. If you are playing OOB the allies are garbage.
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taking calcutta is much easier. How is it even possible to defend India?

Even if you are not calcutta oriented and you are just a crazy guy who does whatever, on round 1 you can take anzac if you win a 1 infantry vs 1 infantry battle.

even if you are none of the above drop minors round 2 or 3 and wam bam shazam you have the ground forces necessary to secure all of asia.

J3 anzac is 100% as well. TO do this you have to DoW J1 take west australia. Then J2 fly 13 air units on it. Then J3 bam anzac dead, thanks for playing. (you can get the rest of your air if you feel like dropping an airbase on kwangsi instead of doing the caroline thing).

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As far as Europe goes. Look at how empty london is. So you defend london. Say bye to Egypt, just give Italy a few rounds.

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Round 1 hit sz 110, sz 111, sz 112. 1 sub vs 1 destroyer in sz 109. buy dd sub carrier.

You sink a bunch of naval and place sz 112. He can only hit with 6 units, 3 fighter tactical carrier and dd vs sub dd cruiser bship carrier 2 fighter. You are 1 up. Can UK defend itself? Not with Naval.

So he buys 9 infantry.  Flies his stuff in gets the canada dudes in and yet Germany still has 50-61% to defend UK. OK ignore it and go for Russia. Simple.

So what stops Italy from taking Egypt? Unless you pull India air to somaliland and then fly it to Egypt (or pull it to transjordan) you don’t stand a chance. Even if you do, you got like a 1/3 chance of holding.
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Sure USA makes 30 when at war (25 in 2nd edition), but the only other allied power making NO money is ANZAC.

**Point is OOB can get super stupid super fast or end up being super boring super stalemate. Generally speaking yeah I J1 DOW and yeah I J3 ANZAC or I wait and take calcutta. I prefer ANZAC, easy to defend and it is easier to work to India than to push out later. At first global was super boring and I generally played three rounds (sea lion / calcutta and was done) then when I developed other strategies it was fun for the first couple games, but then I realized OOB pacific was just stupid.

OOB had few strategies and you were almost always better off just going gun ho for the quick win.**

I will also add that if you do not do some sort of all in play as the axis you will lose the game in the long run.

@innocentbystander:

Question for the newbie.  The UK’s one and only national objective, hold on to all their territories in their European economy (and West India has been traded for British Columbia.)  What if (by chance) Italy captures Gibraltar?  That isn’t worth anything (economically) in the European theater.  But if valueless territory (and that one alone) is in the hands of Italy, that voids the UK’s one and only national objective, correct?

Yes, UK must hold all its Europe territories, including ones without income.

@Young:

Take and hold half of China
Take and hold Calcutta
Take, hold and liberate Dutch Islands
…… That should make Japan successful enough.

Japan in a nutshell. Perfect summary.

LOL buy 6 SBmrs and 1 Fig a round as the US…  Atlantic secured!