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Well i've had WaW for about a year but couldn't play until recently due to a computer purchase, pity I didn't grab 1GB RAM but thats a story for another day.
Also as a side note this post goes on for a while because I'm really frustrated but could somebody please make a point to tell me how to get Japan to attack USSR...because people talk about it but I don't know how its done.

Anyways the game so far is disturbingly addictive [&o]
However I am having inclinations of losing patience with the game insofar as all my (8 or so) game so far follow a very familiar pattern that doesn't deviate very much.

I start well up until about 1943-44 then it all goes downhill slowly. At first i started to invade Africa which does nicely, but come closer to 1943 and the Allies always land in morocco and later West France.
Coupled with the inevitable Ruskie invasion in W1943 and I've got 3 theatres of combat and a Production Point/Resource Point deficit thats always around 50 to the allies combined 180 or so.

So in the last game which I just finished as of about 20 minutes ago I did much better this time. I completely ignored the defence of North Africa, focused all my building energies and research on fighter, heavy bomber and Panzer pretty. Massed ALL the forces I could build and move to the Easter Front and hit Soviet Russia I think around 1942 Spring(ish). Got Leningrad and the usual stuff Kiev etc, made it to the boarder of Moscow but by this time I couldn't go any further.
I had the Panzers so jumped up on research they were literally unbeatable, but I never had enough men to go around to reasonably occupy all territories and the Russians refused to mass their forces in a single location...(obviously) so I could never really deal a knockoutblow.

However what ultimately lost it was by around this time the russians would have eventually been beaten for sure...but then the Allies invaded West France and I had to divert around 4 Panzers and 3 Fighters to beat them back to the sea.
This seasaw action in West France lasted uncomfortably long (5-7 odd turns) where I'd liberate but they'd liberate back etc. In the end I had a combined committment of 12 Panzers, 6 heavy bombers, 3 or 4 odd Fighters committed to the West to keep them the f*ck out for good.
Also I'd managed to take Gibraltar because they left it undefended for some odd reason. Consequently I combined Baltic and Med German fleets into one big fleet in the pacific and proceeded to cut their supply lines which would have worked...if I had the supplies and the time myself.

By this time Russia in the East has taken back everything I took from them and they are literally producing say 6 fighters and 2-3 odd tanks per turn which is disturbing to say the least.
Ultimately I had that feeling wqhich I'd had for many turns where its obvious the russians could be held back due to my superior tanks but in the end they'd slowly just roll over you like what happen in real history.

I guess I'm really stumped. Because from how I see things I don't see how its even remotely possible to commit forces to North Africa, East Russian Front and (think) about trying to invade or at least neutralise England.
I don't see how its possible to spread forces so thin and triumph significantly in any area.
Especially considering as when the Allies invade Morocco their force is usually about 3 times the size of my North Africa one and England always has damn AA guns which prevents me from dominating English skies.

In short I know that in order to win you need to amass resources and factories as quickly as possible to make up ground on the allies.
But I don't see how that task is compatible when it takes say 2 turns or so to build a panzer and when you factor in the other things you need to build ultimately across 3 theaters your forces are spread ice thin and especially the russians can break you easily.

Which is why in this game I sent all my forces and all my efforts to the East and ignored all other theatres under the idea that if I could knock Russia out by say 1945 then I would win ultimately.

So honestly i've got the game set on Easy at the moment but jesus its hard.
Also could somebody please tell me how to get Japan to attack the USSR??? I heard people speak about it but nobody says how. If i could get Japan to attack the USSR or at least divert their attention a bit that would be so much better.
And if the Allies conquer Japan I could care less (correct me if i'm wrong here) because I figure if i dominate all europe and the vast majority of USSR territories then the allies ultimately have no chance because their ground forces SUCK.
As a final note in this game I speak about I lasted until 1948 but I could have gone until 1950 probably but I packed it in because the result was inevitable.

The key to keeping the WA allies off your back is the Med.\Middle east, and if your still working them over down there in 1943 or worse let them have there way there, your looking at a 3-front war-not good. The Americans will land in Morroco, yes so the trick is to beat them there first. Does not take a large force to deter them from invadeing NA from that route. 2 reg inf units-maybe an art or fighter-tops. Cant let them remain in Suez either or they just funnel forces up from around africa or the Far east -have to close that down. If the med is secure you can leave it practically un-garrisoned and send Italian-built subs to battle the WA in the Atlantic. If your getting 3-wayed from Italy and France with Russia building up there insane forace levels, your doomed Im a little curious you spend valuable points in bombers tho, and to a lessor extent, fighters. You cant win vs allied air theres just too damn many of them no matter what your tech is. What I do, is crank up the U-boat factor, AI has a hard time dealing with 10-4-4 or 10-5-5 U-boats, there killer. With these you can effectively blockade England and then aside from small anoyance air attacks, you can forget them. Bombers cant do that for you and allied air is just too numerous to counter Ive found no matter what the tech level. I can put thro a lot more inf\armor builds if im not trying to compete with allied air too much. Fighters I tech enough to keep them more or less current, but thats about it, theres more important things to think about early on that trying to compete in a hopless air war with the allies-imo. 
 
Here is a timetable\OOB for what you need to be doing.
 
1) After France Falls, your next priority is too head south towards Africa, with stops in Yugoslavia and Historic Greece. The Agean is a good stageing area for the Fall of Suez.
2) Take Suez, preserve the Italian navy, youll need them later, Build subs subs subs and extra transport capacity out of north Italy.
3) Eliminate the rest of alllied forces as in the med\Middle east far west as you can. If you can take Gibralter-DO IT-its a key objective. Keep some forces there for allied action later on, but the idea is too boot them completely out, actually you can do this a lot easier by going through Spain but a lot of the guys here have absolute fits when they hear of someone doing that. It takes very little force to deter allies from attempting to land if morroco if you can garrison it.
3) Build up for Russia and..have at it
4) Have your super subs slowly build up to total blockade strength(England) and harrass\kill allied ships and transports at every chance. Once acheived-Ignore England, aside from harrasing air attacks they wont do squat.-Total control of Atlantic waters and eventual blockade of Eastern Seaboard of North America by 44-45 easily -Final object should be 10-5-5 uboats-hard to kill
5) Now you can throw some real weight at Russia without haveing to worry about getting 3-wayed from the west-south AND east. Takes a real load off.
 
 
As for the Japan question, I assume you mean compel the AI Japan to attack Russia. Dont know if its possible, most people play both powers and tag-team Russia for an easy win. AI Japan cant handle the WA\China let alone Russia. And even if they could you really wouldnt want it too, Japan AI plays so badly theyd probably bungle that too, leading to a very.....fast and early defeat for japan, something that is not in your best interests. One time Japan had all of india before it virtually defenceless and what did it do?......Nothing...just sat there till the allies attritioned em out of SE Asia...frustrateing.
 
-Side note-Imo this might have been better off in the war-room, the coversation there is very adult[&o]

[font="times new roman"]Cheers for that Heinz.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]Yeah I played another game and I altered my strategy this time just to see what would happen plus I remember somebody talking about U-Boats being sweet if you upgrade them in an earlier thread. Up until now i'd ignored U-Boat upgrades just because they seemed so small and weak to begin with...well....am I very much mistaken lol.[/font]
[font="times new roman"][/font] 
[font="times new roman"]I upgraded the U-Boats, I've smashed the WA out of the Atlantic and the Meditteranean (sic), I've conquered England and all of the Middle East and I'm taking India apart with just 1 Panzer because India is totally defenceless because the Allies can't funnell troops around the map anymore thanks to the U-Boats hehe...i've even found time to send some U-Boats to the pacific to help Japan.[/font]
[font="times new roman"][/font] 
[font="times new roman"]Russia during this has declared war on me, they've pushed me back to the boarders of Berlin but I'm not hugely concerned. Taking a glance at the military sheet shows Russia caught me at just the right moment but ultimately my forces and wahts being built in the next few turns are significantly starting to outnumber them so its only a turn or so away before they start getting pushed back hehe.[/font]
[font="times new roman"][/font] 
[font="times new roman"]I do have one ULTRA IMPORTANT QUESTION however. I have conquered MANY resources in NA and South Africa and mid east etc etc. But on many turns when I go to the Production Phase I notice I have amble resources available in the 'pool' or so it seems to my eyes. But most countries have their factory outputs at say[/font]
[font="times new roman"]4/0 like Western France is 4/0 a lot of the time.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]I'm a shade confused I figured if I've got all these resources then my factories should always be well supplied yes?[/font]

Have you got the resource regions linked to the regions where the factories are? If not you have the raw materials but not in the right place, that is in your factories. Try placing a chain of transports and link africa to Italy remember there is a dessert strip that separates north Africa from the rest of the continent.

Also against the AI taking care of its airforce is not so hard, just build a combination of flak and fighters so you secure your industries and resources, then increase gradually the number of your fighters and bombers as to attack the enemy airforce in England, upgrading technologicaly is also recomended. Of course this depends that you have an all over good situation, from my experience I can tell that the AI is not very agressive, but I have not played against it with the latest version maybe t has improved.

HG is right the best way to isolate GB is to build up a considerable amount of high tech subs, but never foreget their airforce might op-fire at you if properly placed, and the AI usually techs up LF, HB and CAGs ASW capabilities, not to mention a human player.

When you get the hang of the game try playing against a human opponent, there you will see the difference and the real fun of this game, there are people out there that will surprise you with their strategy, for example take good care of N Italy or an allied invasion might happen in 1941 or even earlier, it did happened to me.


Greetings

Cheers. Yeah all resources are linked correctly I understand a proper link to be friendly unbroken chain of territory or in lieu of that transports between land(s) hence I have transports in the med only on the tile between Italy and Tripoli mind you because I don't need them in every square obviously.
A transport between Berlin and Finland for free trade and the rest is all land linked to either Europe or Africa in some way.
So I'm failing to see whats up with that.
Like later in the game say past around about 1944-1945 I spend maybe 50% of turns where my factories in a lot of countries aren't usable which is...weird.
And as for the further clarification of whether i've got resources linked from memory its easy to tell if you look at that Resource Icon in the Production Summary report or wherever it is. If you see a resource icon within a broken circle and it says say 12 then you have 12 unconnected resources/points.
But my unlinked never goes above around 6 and the linked is usually about 60.
 
Anywho just won my first game. U-Boats kick ass.
Why is Japan so dumb? They never seem to go beyond their original blitz posession grab even when i've cleared the pacific for them with U-Boats....

Yesss Super-U Boats  >Amerikkaners 
Uber-Bombers           =[8|]
 
Subs totally dominate past 10-4-4 Op-fire\surface fleets cant even touch them, its a non-issue. Hint: Try droping 2 transports in the red-sea permanently if you have not already.
 
 
There are many paths to victory, is good to see you know can appreciate what Uber U-Boats are capable off. I havent fround investing in air\flak to give anywhere near the return on tech investment as subs do. One small note, once I blockade England I usually dont concern myself with them until *after* Russia falls. In regular un-modded WaW you can get away with this because Russian AI is so indecsive. They often halt there advance even when it has a clear advantage. If your playing say Franco's Mod, you wont get away with that. Russia will attack and keep attacking till it wins if you let them gain a clear advantage. England can whither on the vine behind a wall of Type XXI boats for all they matter, there turn will come....
 
Japan AI, yes....very weak, if you want it improved, can try Lebo's Franco's Alliance Mod, he tweaked the AI so both Russia and Japan play somewhat better. In his mod Japan can least into 1947 easily. Why most players run both since Japan AI is litterally all over the map strategically speaking. At least us Gray I's will run a focused effort. Might want to ask in the war room for some standard Japan strats.