I got the game last month and am playing my first game slowly with my GF. We are really enjoying the battle between Germany and Russia. I landed jet power on my first turn with Germany and so I have abandoned building any navy and have focused on using fighters to stop and naval presence in the Atlantic. Forcing the US or UK to have carriers or lots of warships to escort transports across. Also I have found the game to be quite balanced….our match is really up in the air right now. I had my first Barbarossa push and Russia was able to hold me off because I tried to push too far too fast, and they now pushed me out and I’m having to rebuild my eastern European front to push again. Japan is having a field day but my GF built an Indian factory and is churning out three UK tanks/infantry every turn which is slowing me down.
I really feel that the game is 50/50 at this point, because Japan is almost able to start pushing into Russia from the East, Germany is now having to deal with UK/US incursions from the West and Italy is still trying to push the UK out of Africa and take that money from them.
Really exciting for us both right now!
But to answer your questions, the dynamics do feel slanted to a KGF, it only takes a turn to transport units from US to Africa, while it is at least two turns to get troops into the fight from the US on the pacific coast. Plus Germany is a total of 13 spaces from all three allies capitals while Japan is wayyyy farther. It is just less time consuming to take Germany first…which allows less time for buildup for defense by the Germans.
